by Claudia Gray
The only other “crew member” on the bridge at the moment was their astromech droid, a JJH2 model in purple and black. Thane was grateful that nobody else would see his discomfort at the thought of landing on a world with an Imperial presence. Lohgarra had to remain the only one who really understood what was going on.
Concerned, she leaned forward to peer at Thane, squinting her blue eyes, then said he’d become too thin and asked if he was getting enough food.
He managed not to roll his eyes. “Yes, I’m eating.”
But Lohgarra knew it could be difficult, finding rations that would provide adequate nutrition for all the different species aboard—
“I promise I’m fine. Don’t worry, all right?” Thane turned to go.
As the bridge door slid open again, Lohgarra whined on a low, scolding note.
He laughed in exasperation as he walked out. “My coat is plenty shiny!”
As he walked down the corridor, he thought, I just called my hair “my coat.” Before too long I ought to spend some time with other humans again.
Even then, he didn’t consider returning to Jelucan. He had no reason. Every once in a while he’d watch news holos from home, but never out of a sense of nostalgia, only to make himself even happier he’d never have to go back. His family was no doubt glad to be rid of him, and Ciena—he had to close his eyes for a moment when he thought of her—she wouldn’t be there, either. Not given the intensifying war between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. He doubted Ciena had gotten more than three days’ leave in a row since they’d said good-bye.
If Thane ever went back to Jelucan, he would imagine Ciena as a little girl in any of the small fliers darting through the skies. The mountain trails would remind him of how they had explored together as children and had found the cave that became the Fortress. And Valentia would never be only a city to him; it would always be the place where they’d come together for one night—and where they had parted forever.
It’s been a while now, he told himself. You ought to be over it.
That was a lie. You didn’t get over losing your first love, your best friend. But Thane had thought it wouldn’t always hurt as badly as it had that last terrible morning in Valentia.
So far he had been wrong.
Zeitooine was a cold world—not one of the ones trapped in perpetual winter but chilly enough that Thane and his crewmates stepped out into a hard frost. The spaceport stood at the edge of the city, so in the distance he could see tall deciduous trees, all bare of their leaves. His breath made clouds in the air.
“Times like this, it’s good to have fur,” said Brill, their Tarsunt engineer, who had dyed her long-haired pelt shocking pink. “Don’t know how you humans do it.”
“Sometimes I wonder myself.” Thane turned up the collar of his coat. “Let’s just get this job done, okay?”
That was met with a thumping purr of agreement from Methwat Tann, the Ithorian maintenance officer. His enormous curved head and neck were wrapped in a scarf specially knitted for him by Lohgarra, but he, too, was shivering.
Their job on Zeitooine was simple enough: delivery of several constructor droids. Thane helped Methwat and Brill unload, then hurried deeper into the spaceport to locate a vendor of secondhand parts. Usually you could find one or two hanging around. After a few minutes without any luck, he finally dared to ask someone, who told him the nearest place was ten minutes’ walk away. He frowned, checked his chrono, and decided to go for it. Better to run a little late and get chewed out for it than to work with that damned antiquated power cell any longer.
So he cut through the town, going as quickly as he could, until he came to a crowded town square—and stopped. Nobody was walking, or even moving, and then he saw why.
“You’re under arrest,” a stormtrooper captain said in a bored voice as at least a dozen of his men stood around, using their blasters to keep everyone back from the scene as people were dragged out of a nearby house. A family, Thane realized with a jolt. The daughter couldn’t have been more than thirteen, and she wept as a stormtrooper pulled her after him so fast she could barely walk; his fist was clenched in her hair.
“Please,” the mother said, on her knees in front of the captain. “Please. We’ll pay the fines—you can sell our house, all our possessions—”
The stormtrooper captain sounded bored. “Repeated violations of the prohibition against independent publications are punished with imprisonment without term.”
Another stormtrooper brought out an even younger girl, perhaps only five, small enough to be tucked under his arm. This girl didn’t cry; she was too terrified for that. Instead her wide eyes stared into the crowd, as if looking for someone to help them.
Nobody made a move. The stormtroopers’ blasters saw to that.
Less than a year ago, I stood by while slaves were beaten, Thane realized. Once again he remembered prowling the sky in his TIE fighter, all so the people of Kerev Doi would be afraid.
The mother continued begging. “Not the children. My husband and I, we did this. The children are innocent. Why should they—”
Her words choked off as the captain smashed the butt of his rifle into her face. She fell to the ground, crying, as another stormtrooper bent down to cuff her.
Do something! But Thane was powerless. He couldn’t act against that many armed men. He couldn’t even speak up. By deserting the Imperial Starfleet, he had put himself in a position where he could never draw attention to himself or step out of line again. The invisible cage around him was of his own making.
Sickened, he turned away and headed back to the spaceport. As he walked toward the Moa, Brill caught sight of him. “Hey! Where’s that new power cell?”
Thane snapped, “They didn’t have anything in our price range. Okay?”
Behind him he could hear her mutter, “Sorry I asked.”
That wasn’t how you made friends with your new shipmates. But Thane didn’t want to make friends. He wanted to lock himself in his bunk, turn off the lights, and try to forget everything he’d seen, or been.
Ciena stared at the scene before her on the planet Ivarujar and thought that this could only be hell.
In the distance, the volcano continued to spew ash into the air, so far up that no one on this world would be able to see the sky for years. Lava glowed orange and ominous on the horizon; already the capital city had been completely overrun. When Ciena looked through her quadnoculars, she could see yet more buildings blackening as they crumbled to ash from the heat alone.
As the closest ship in the sector, the Devastator had dispatched several troop transports to evacuate the Imperial garrisons on Ivarujar. Their own ships had been badly damaged in the original eruption, so they were trapped—and, if she didn’t reach them soon, doomed. Ciena had been put in charge of the transport flying closest to the volcano itself. Hazardous duty, but she found herself energized by the experience. It wasn’t that she didn’t like working on the bridge of a Star Destroyer…but she’d been overdue to get her boots on the ground.
“Lieutenant Commander Ree, we have visual,” said the stormtrooper pilot. She turned back from the transport window to see the screen image of stormtroopers atop a building. They stood in formation, rigid and motionless as they awaited rescue, though by then the heat had to have been unbearable.
“Good work,” she said. “Bring us in.”
The pilot hesitated, then double-checked his instruments. Ciena understood why he was uncertain; the intense heat was starting fires, creating backdrafts, and whipping up winds that could destabilize a larger craft than their transport.
You got strange winds up in the mountains, sometimes.
“Here. I’ll take the helm.” Ciena motioned him out of the chair.
“Ma’am—I’m capable of the flight—”
“I know you are. But you have the strength to carry any injured men onto the craft and I don’t.” Well, not more than one or two.
Assured he wouldn’t be reported for cowardice, the pilot joi
ned the other stormtroopers in the back. Ciena took the transport in low, through urban canyons where lava ran over what had recently been streets. The hellish red light from below contrasted with the black sky. Although it was a bumpy ride, she could stabilize them well enough.
Clunky thing, she thought, wishing briefly for a ship with some agility to it. Still, the transport could endure the heat, and nothing else mattered.
She set the transport down on the roof of the garrison building, and as soon as they’d opened the doors, the troops began crowding in. Their armor had gone gray from volcanic ash, and several of them coughed and stumbled. Within another half hour or so, they would have passed out, or died. Ciena remembered them standing in formation—holding true to discipline to the last—and felt such pride her heart could have burst.
“All right,” she said, and she was about to utter the words Moving out when she saw another building farther away. People had huddled on that roof, too—Ivarujarian citizens who must have failed to make it to the civilian transports in time. Or maybe there hadn’t been enough room for everyone.…
“Lieutenant Commander?” The pilot had returned to the cockpit. “Are we ready for takeoff?”
“Yes,” she said. “We’re going to make one stop before returning to the Devastator.”
“A…stop?”
No orders had told her she could rescue civilians, but no orders had told her she couldn’t. “Make as much room back there as you can. We’re picking up more passengers.”
When Ciena took off again, she could feel the unsteadiness of the air currents around her. Biting her lower lip, she took the transport higher up so they’d have to dive into the worst of it only at the very end. The volcano rumbled again so loudly that the sound vibrated through the entire ship; they’d been given warnings about a potential secondary eruption, which seemed as if it could happen at any minute.
You don’t have the right to risk the lives you’re responsible for to save those you aren’t, she thought, her old academy training kicking in. After a moment, though, Ciena shook it off. Lives were lives—and besides, she could do this.
Once again she alighted on the corner of a building, and then she left the cockpit to help civilians on board. They were coughing even harder than the stormtroopers, since they hadn’t been wearing helmets with ventilation masks; a few of them were only semiconscious. Ciena held her arms out for a small child, lifted him into the ship, then put her hand out to help the father in, too. Around her, the stormtroopers did the same, following their commanding officer’s lead as always.
By the time the last person had been pulled on board, the ship was filled to capacity and then some. Ciena had to push her way back through to the cockpit, where the pilot was no longer even attempting to fly. He stood aside, saying, “At this weight, I don’t know if we can—”
“We can and we will,” Ciena said, with more confidence than she felt. The transport was capable of carrying that much weight, but its maneuverability would be compromised—a serious risk when dealing with superheated gale-force winds.
She took the engines to full power and soared into the air. At first the transport rocked beneath her, so violently that she nearly fell from her chair; she could hear the rescued Ivarujarians crying out in fear from the hold. By then buildings were flaring into flame like struck matches. In another moment, it would become a true firestorm—and her ship could be caught in the middle of it.
Ciena pointed the nose straight up. They were ascending more slowly than they should, but they were moving.…
On the horizon she saw flames whip up higher, then higher, then begin to swirl in a cyclonic current. If the transport got caught in one of those, they were dead.
But she remained steady, fighting the terrible winds every centimeter of the way, until at last they were out of danger. Ciena breathed out with relief, and from the back of the transport she heard cheers.
If she couldn’t resist a smile—who could blame her?
The answer turned out to be “Captain Ronnadam.”
“You were tasked with retrieving the soldiers in that garrison,” he said, pacing the length of his office while she stood at attention, still in her soot-grimed uniform. “Not with a civilian rescue.”
“My orders did not forbid me from doing so, sir.”
Ronnadam’s eyes narrowed. “Looking for loopholes, Ree? A dangerous trait.”
“No, sir! I mean—I reacted instinctively and saw no obstacle to doing so.”
“You reacted instinctively,” he sneered. “In other words, you failed to clear your plans through your superior officers!”
We had no time, she wanted to protest, but she knew better. “I’m sorry, sir. I should have cleared my mission before undertaking it. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“See that you don’t.” Ronnadam stared her up and down before adding stiffly, “You have no other demerits on your record, so your punishment will be lenient—only five weeks of double-duty shifts. Next time, however, we will not be so merciful.”
“There won’t be a next time, sir.” And five weeks of extra duty was a small price for forty lives.
As she walked out of his office, Ciena breathed out in relief. At first she’d been angry that they planned to reprimand her for saving lives—but now she understood that they were displeased only because she’d subverted the chain of command. It wasn’t as if she had actually done something wrong, rescuing those people. The Empire would never object to that.
Besides, that was some of the best flying she’d done in her life. If only she could talk to Thane about it. In Ciena’s mind she could see his face as she told him about the cyclonic fire. He would have been so jealous he didn’t get to fly in that himself.
Even the things she was proudest of felt hollow without Thane to tell them to.
Eighteen Months After the Battle of Yavin
THE MOA’S CARGO holds were filled with medical supplies for the far southern peninsula of Oulanne’s single megacontinent. A month before, a massive earthquake had struck, devastating virtually every structure over a vast radius. However, the Empire had sent no medical aid—an economically unimportant planet didn’t merit such attention. A few wealthier Oulannists who lived on other worlds had offered what they had. The medical supplies the freighter carried were only a fraction of what was needed, but they would help. Thane strongly suspected Lohgarra had agreed to do the run for free.
As they came in through the very highest levels of the atmosphere, Thane checked the climatological sensors and whistled. “Not good.”
Lohgarra wanted to know what they were in for.
“We’re looking at a massive storm. A megahurricane, covering a good quarter of the land area.”
JJH2 confirmed this, beeping in alarm. Methwat made a vibrato sound of dismay.
“Like these people haven’t got enough trouble already,” Brill said, shaking her furry pink head.
Thane added, “And now we’ve got trouble, too.” Normally storms weren’t an issue for spacecraft; anything that could take the ravages of space could handle a little rain and lightning. However, a cargo ship as overladen as the Moa currently was could become unwieldy in the atmosphere, and winds this extreme would have the power to overwhelm their stabilizers. (Only for a few minutes—but that was more than long enough to plow a ship into the dirt.)
They could simply have headed to the nearest safe port. In this case, though, that meant being thousands of kilometers away from the disaster. The medical supplies were probably needed now more than ever.
So when Lohgarra asked Thane if he could land in those conditions, he said, “Damn right I can.”
Methwat turned toward Thane with a worried look on his face; he was too polite to question anyone outright, but it was clear he didn’t like the look of this.
“Trust me,” Thane said. With that he strapped into his chair and took the ship in.
The blackness of space brightened into sky—still blue but not for much longer.
Beneath them swirled the storm, the ominous spiral cloud sprawled out like the tentacles of some vast ocean creature. As the winds began buffeting the ship, the hull shuddered around them.
Lohgarra growled for all crew members to brace themselves. JJH2 swiftly fed Thane’s station all the atmospheric data it could handle.
Brill muttered, “Hope you know what you’re doing, Kyrell.”
“That makes two of us.”
He dived into the eye of the storm—the calm patch at the center of any cyclone. As the broad white wings of the Moa stretched over the churning sea, the viewscreen displayed the surreal image: sunlight on the water as they sped toward black clouds and sheets of rain so thick they blinded Thane to the world beyond.
The sensors would tell him all he needed to know. He aligned the ship, decreased speed, and took them so low they could make out the whitecaps on the restless waves—and then the debris strewn on the rocky shore below.
The entire ship tilted hard, as if it had been punched by a giant fist. Damn! The wind shear was even worse than Thane had thought. “Come on,” he whispered as he steered them into the angle where that current could work for them instead of sinking them. “We can do this.”
“Are you talking to the ship or to me?” Brill said.
Instead of answering, Thane asked, “Did you lock the system on to the hangar coordinates?”
Brill’s pink hair stood on end. “You want to take this in on autonav?” From her captain’s chair, Lohgarra growled her disbelief, and JJH2 whistled the high note of droid panic.
“Not just autonav!” By then the Moa was shuddering so strongly that Thane had to shout to be heard above the rattling and groaning of the hull. “This boat’s so old we’ve cribbed its systems from a dozen different spacecraft. So turning on the autonav doesn’t deactivate the manual navigation. We’re going to use them both at the same time.”
Brill’s fingers tapped on the controls, doing what Thane asked. “You realize if you can’t sync your movements with the autonav, you’ll rip us in two.”
“I’ve got it.”
