by Claudia Gray
Right now, he had to be displeased in the extreme.
How could so many rebel transports have gotten away? Even coming out of hyperspace too early shouldn’t have undermined their entire attack. The Imperial Starfleet had sent down a strike force that should have been able to paralyze the enemy’s defenses. But instead of victory, they had three demolished AT-ATs, one badly damaged one, several dozen destroyed TIE fighters, and several hundred dead snowtroopers. The high number of rebel casualties they’d inflicted was small consolation.
Later, Ciena resolved, she would watch the recordings of the Battle of Hoth and study the rebels’ tactics in detail. The Empire possessed every advantage in terms of manpower and firepower. Today ought to have been the day they dealt the Rebellion a final, fatal blow. Instead, their victory was incomplete. If the rebels could avoid being completely crushed by an Imperial strike force led by six Star Destroyers, then superior or at least surprising tactical moves had to be the reason. Analyzing those in greater depth might give the Imperials the information they needed to finally end this gruesome war.
For now, though, Ciena and everyone else on the Executor had another, far more vital priority: capture the Millennium Falcon.
If anyone on the bridge understood why it was so important to catch that antique piece of junk, nobody said so. Lord Vader wanted the ship towed aboard and its passengers taken alive. So instead of simply blowing up the Millennium Falcon—something they could have done in an instant—they had to try to pluck it from the sky.
Unfortunately, whoever was steering the Falcon was one hell of a pilot. He’d gone into an asteroid field, apparently choosing suicide over capture. No small ship could hope to emerge from an asteroid field intact. The rebel ship at least had shields; TIE fighters didn’t even have that much protection.
Yet four of them had been sent in. While Ciena sat there trying to fathom the purpose of that suicide mission, Captain Piett said, “Ree, provide auxiliary navigational assistance.”
Her heart sank even as she said, “Yes, sir.”
She went to the aux-nav post in the data pit and looked down at the four screens that showed her the TIE fighters’ designations and coordinates. Any assistance she could provide would be minimal—but if she could give those pilots a chance, she would. Her fingers flew as she set the triangulations between their ships and the Millennium Falcon, and then she yanked on the headset that would let her talk to the pilots directly. “O-L-Seven-Zero-One, adjust thirty-seven degrees starboard and down—N-A-Eight-One-One, follow but go up—”
NA811 was a guy called Penrie, whom she talked to once in a while, a graduate of the academy on Lothal. When he laughed, no one could help laughing with him, and since he seemed to find everybody’s jokes hilarious, the laughter was constant. Although Penrie was a couple of years her senior, he sounded younger as he said, “Affirmative.”
“C-R-Nine-Seven-Eight, pull up—pull up!” But Ciena’s order had come too late; one of the TIE fighters vanished from the grid.
That was one dead man on her watch. Please, no more.
“O-L-Seven-Zero-One, new trajectory linking to your nav computer now—”
“Got it.”
“J-A-One-Eight-Nine, your computer isn’t linking up—”
“I can’t—” Then a burst of static accompanied the wild spinning of another TIE on her screen grid. “Clipped one of my engines! Can’t steer—need a tractor—”
Louder static was followed by silence as the image of JA189’s TIE fighter faded away for good.
Sweat made Ciena’s gray jumpsuit stick to her skin. She kept her eyes locked on the grid and her voice as even as she could manage. “O-L-Seven-Zero-One, N-A-Eight-One-One, you’re getting in really close to one of the larger asteroids—”
“Target seems to be looking for cover. We’re on him.” That was OL701. Through the NA811 uplink, Ciena heard only breathing that was too shallow, too quick. Penrie had just seen two other pilots explode in front of his eyes.
To Captain Piett, she said, “Sir, if the Millennium Falcon lands on a larger asteroid, we could focus our laser cannons on that and blow it away. We’d take the Falcon out in the process. Can I order the TIE fighters back?”
Piett stood very still, obviously waiting for Lord Vader to countermand the order. Vader said nothing. He didn’t even turn around. Finally, Piett said, “Very well, Ree.”
Hope rushed through her. At least she could save two of the pilots. “N-A-Eight-One-One, O-L-Seven-Zero-One, abort pursuit. Chart your safest course back and—”
“He’s in one of the canyons,” OL701 replied. “We’ve almost got him—”
Ciena waited to hear from Penrie. Instead he screamed—a terrible short sound cut off too soon. In that instant, both of the remaining TIE fighters disappeared from her viewscreen, leaving it dark.
Four pilots dead, and it was partly her responsibility. Would Piett reprimand her? Worse, would Vader?
What if those rumors were true, about how Vader treated those who displeased him?
But nobody paid any attention to her. Piett and Vader acted as if she hadn’t let anyone down, as if four loyal officers hadn’t just died for no reason. There was nothing for Ciena to do but return to her usual station and go back to monitoring the situation.
To the commander who sat beside her in the data pit, she whispered, “Why aren’t we at least firing on the asteroid?”
“No clear shot. The target could just as easily have changed course. We no longer have it on visuals or sensors.”
A wave of nausea swept through her. Those four TIE fighter pilots had died for nothing. No one would ever hear Penrie’s laugh again. In command-track courses at the academy, the teachers had counseled them that they couldn’t think of their troops as individuals; to do so would lead only to hesitation and thus defeat. They protected their people by forgetting they were people, instead viewing them as pieces in a vast, elaborate game. It was the only element of command-track training that had ever given Ciena pause. She knew now that she would never be able to do that, not the way Piett and Vader did.
Yet Vader could not have been totally devoid of emotion, because he then—unbelievably—ordered the Executor into the asteroid field, too.
Impacts began to send shudders throughout the ship. Ciena winced as if the damages were actual injuries to her body. What Star Destroyers had in sheer power, they lacked in maneuverability; they would take countless hits today. What registered as minor damage on a Super Star Destroyer could mean the demolition of two entire decks down for a few thousand meters—and all the people stationed on those decks. More officers and stormtroopers would die needlessly, all because Lord Vader couldn’t let one ratty old ship go—
No, Ciena reminded herself sternly. The deaths she’d seen that day, the useless risk and damage—that was all because the Rebel Alliance had started a war.
When her shift ended, Ciena stood to go and winced. Every muscle in her body had tensed so badly during the TIE fighter flights through the asteroid field that she felt as sore as if she’d run thirty kilometers. The doors slid open to let her walk out—or, as it turned out, to let Piett return. Immediately, she stood at attention, awaiting the reprimand she no doubt deserved.
Piett said only, “Well done today, Lieutenant Commander.”
“But—” Was he thinking of someone else? “I lost all four pilots, sir.”
“They had no chance, really. You kept them alive longer than they could have made it on their own.”
He was telling her she’d done a good job. On one level she understood why he said so, but it didn’t change how wretched she felt. There was nothing else for her to say, though, except—“Thank you, Captain.”
“Oh. Yes. You weren’t on the bridge yet for—when—” Piett drew himself up. “I have been promoted to admiral, effective immediately, assuming Admiral Ozzel’s command.”
What happened to Admiral Ozzel? The question died on her lips. In the Imperial Starfleet, sometimes it wa
s better to be able to believe you didn’t know the answer. “Yes, Admiral. Congratulations.”
Piett’s expression looked bleak. “That will be all, Ree.” With that he returned to the bridge, the black doors sliding shut behind him.
Ciena felt too exhausted to move, much less put in extra hours. Yet instead of returning to her bunk, she went to a spare analysis booth and pulled up all the footage from the Battle of Hoth available to someone at her clearance level. She intended to go over every single second of it, until she figured out how a bunch of poorly armed, ragtag rebels were outwitting the greatest military force the galaxy had ever seen.
Was it arrogance to think she could come up with an answer that had eluded the admiralty’s finest tactical minds? No, she realized. It was desperation. She wanted this war to end—needed it to end—so that the bloody, merciless methods of war would end, too. Strong as she was, determined as she was to see this through, Ciena knew she couldn’t endure years more of sending people to futile, meaningless deaths.
It’s not like Penrie and I were friends, but he was more than a call number. I remember his laugh, his birthmark. So I can’t forget that he was human, that somewhere out there he has a mother and father who want him home. When they hear the truth, it will destroy them, as surely as it will destroy Mumma and Pappa if I die during my service. That’s just one little tragedy. Multiply that anguish and loss by the billions of people already dead in this war and it’s unbearable.
Whenever Ciena spoke in her head like that, she always envisioned the same listener. If only she could talk to Thane for real—he would know how to advise her, how to comfort her. Even if he could do nothing else, he would’ve taken her in his arms and let her hold on tightly until the worst of the pain had ebbed away. Sometimes she couldn’t fall asleep without imagining the one night she and Thane had spent together—not the sex (well, not only the sex) but the afterglow, the way he had tenderly kissed her hair and curled his body against hers. She couldn’t remember any other time she had felt so safe and warm.
Ciena bit her lower lip; the pain brought her back to the here and now. Every few months she resolved not to think about Thane ever again. He had chosen his path. Wherever he was in the galaxy, she hoped he was well, and happy. She would never know for sure, and she needed to make her peace with that.
So concentrate on what you’re doing, she told herself. Ciena began playing back the Hoth footage, taking notes on her datapad the whole time. Abandoned snowspeeders—means they lost ships and valuable material when we ran them off—possible to simply chase them until resources run out? War of attrition? And the next footage showed the rebel laser cannons. The armaments themselves were a match for Imperial standard, or very nearly, but—Inadequate body armor for soldiers appears to be standard throughout the rebel forces. Look at weapons that expel shrapnel, possibly razor-edged microdroids?
Next was footage of the destruction of the Imperial walkers. Ciena could’ve groaned when she saw how easily the harpoons and towlines took the first AT-AT down. Surely there had to be some kind of defense they could install for that. The second one seemed to explode from inside, so that was probably the Imperials’ fault rather than the rebels’. Mechanical malfunction? A possible saboteur? she jotted. And then another walker fell prey to a rebel pilot who somehow knew one of the only vulnerable spots in the armor—
Her mind went blank. The beeping and buzzing of the computers around her turned into so much white noise. Astonishment and betrayal rippled through her like an earthquake and its aftershocks. But Ciena shook her head. I imagined it. Must have. Because there’s no way.
Quickly, she put the footage back in and watched again. She hadn’t imagined it. The rebel snowspeeder kept firing at the ideal targets on the lowest joints of the walker’s legs as it zoomed forward at suicidal speed—then, at the very last moment, it spun sideways through the narrow gap that led to safety.
Just like flying through the stalactites back home.
Any number of pilots in the galaxy must have learned that move. Ciena knew that. But it didn’t change what she was absolutely sure she’d just seen:
Thane Kyrell had joined the Rebellion.
THANE WENT THROUGH the motions as blankly and automatically as his astromech droid: reach rendezvous point, input codes to receive location of the next rendezvous point, leap into hyperspace again, and finally connect with their new base ship, the Mon Calamari cruiser Liberty.
The Liberty was far larger and more sophisticated than most of the vessels in the motley rebel fleet. However, it was designed for the comfort of the Mon Calamari, not humans. Temperatures were higher, and the humidity in the air was so intense Thane’s skin grew damp within minutes.
He needed some distraction from the discomfort, Thane decided. Better not to be alone with his thoughts anyway. He kept seeing that TIE fighter tumble down, kept imagining Ciena dying in the heart of it—and he had to stop that somehow.
First he sought out friends. Wedge clapped Thane on the back, and Thane managed to smile as they congratulated each other on the walkers they’d taken down. But Wedge’s face fell when Thane asked about Dak Ralter. “Dak died during the battle. Their snowspeeder was hit; only Skywalker made it out.”
Only half a day before, Thane had been teasing Dak about hero-worshiping Luke Skywalker. Now Dak lay dead and abandoned on Hoth, his body crushed by an AT-AT.
The kid hadn’t even been nineteen years old.
“If it’s any consolation,” Wedge said, studying Thane’s expression, “Luke said Dak died from the blast. Instantly.”
“Consolation,” Thane repeated. “Right.”
Wedge looked like he might say more, but Thane didn’t want to hear it. He turned and walked through the launching bay, watching the activity around him as if he’d never seen any of it before. Pilots laughed and joked, because that was how you dealt with unending mortal danger: you pretended it didn’t exist. Only a handful of the rebels standing around showed any evidence of grief or shock.
They were probably imagining scenes as terrible as the one playing over and over in Thane’s mind—Ciena and Dak, both dead, their bodies broken as they lay on the surface of Hoth. Soon they would be covered by the snow, never to be seen again.
“Hey, are you all right?” Yendor fell in step beside him, his blue lekku hanging down his back.
“I’m fine.”
“If this is what ‘fine’ looks like for you, I really don’t want to see your version of ‘bad.’”
“Dak Ralter bought it.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Yendor said. “He was a good kid.”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t think you guys were that close, though.”
“We weren’t.” It’s not just Dak. I might have killed Ciena today—and I realize it almost certainly wasn’t her, but it could’ve been her and I’ll never know—“Skip it, all right?”
Yendor was smart enough to move on. “Consider it skipped. Come help me get the new recruits set up with some gear, why don’t you? A couple dozen of them were on their way to Hoth when the alert went out.”
“Sure,” Thane said. It was something to do.
He even had one pleasant surprise as he handed out helmets, blasters, and communicators to the rookies—a familiar face. “Look what the gundark dragged in,” said Kendy Idele, a broad smile spreading across her face. Her dark green hair hung in a long braid down the back of her white coveralls, a few damp strands clinging to her forehead. “Thane Kyrell. Never thought I’d see you here.”
“Kendy. I thought you were in the Imperial Starfleet for life.”
“Shows how much you know.” Kendy laughed out loud. She seemed a little happier to see him than he was to see her. It was good to find Kendy again, in some ways; they hadn’t been good friends at the academy, but he’d always admired her. In particular he remembered how deadly she’d been on the practice range, how she could take down three target fliers per second with her blaster. The Rebellion needed peo
ple who could shoot like that.
But she had been one of Ciena’s bunkmates and best friends. Thane couldn’t even look at Kendy without expecting to see Ciena at her side.
Nothing much would get done that day except taking names, taking stock, and sweating. Echo Base command center had been hit, which meant disorganization and uncertainty had taken over. Several vital personnel were missing, apparently. Not only had Luke Skywalker failed to show at the rendezvous point, but the Millennium Falcon had gone missing also, with Princess Leia Organa aboard. General Rieekan had called an emergency conference of the senior officers attached to this portion of the fleet, which Wedge got pulled into. That left the rest of them to fix damage to their starfighters, haul equipment into something vaguely resembling regulation, and wait for new orders and their next destination.
So it wasn’t that surprising when one of the transport pilots mentioned that they’d brewed a little engine-room hooch.
Making jet juice was one of those things the brass officially banned but in fact turned a blind eye to as long as neither the manufacture nor consumption interfered with duty. For the next day or two, before they migrated to their next location, they were as free from danger as it was possible for a rebel army to be: if the Imperial Starfleet had any idea where the rebels’ rendezvous points were, it would have immediately followed them in force. Any good officer knew soldiers needed a chance to blow off steam, particularly after a big battle—so nobody said a word when the cups started being passed around.
Thane gulped down his first so quickly his eyes watered. Whatever else engine-room jet juice might be, it wasn’t “mellow.” But as soon as he’d finished coughing, he held out his cup for a refill.
“Hitting it hard tonight,” Yendor observed, one lek quirking inquisitively.
“Why not?” Thane said. He didn’t meet Yendor’s eyes.
It wasn’t as if Thane never drank. He’d had a couple of cups of hooch on occasion, and he didn’t mind an ale or two. Over time he’d even developed a taste for Andoan wine. But heavy drinking had never interested him, not even when he was a kid on Jelucan and the other boys in his school would get completely wasted on festival nights.
