by Claudia Gray
The rebels were trapped and they knew it, but obviously they intended to kill as many Imperials as possible before they fell. Already space was littered with the debris of the enemy star cruisers targeted by the Death Star’s laser. Ciena felt the same rush of futile anger at the waste of pilots’ lives by callous commanders, but now her fury was directed at whatever rebel leader had dragged Thane back into this war.
But she was angriest with herself. Thane was only one of the rebels who would die because of a trap she had unwittingly helped set. Both she and Thane had been victims of the Emperor’s malignant scheming and the terrible slaughter it had begun.
Ciena took her TIE Interceptor up over the main bridge area of the Annihilator, just in case some rebel pilot decided to fly directly into it and go out in a blaze of glory. The other TIEs stuck rigidly to established attack patterns, but her rank gave her the freedom and responsibility to judge the battle for herself and go wherever she was needed most. As she cleared the top of the Star Destroyer, she wheeled her ship around, checking sensors to establish which targets would come next—then stopped cold.
Their garrison on Endor’s moon had failed. The shield generator had come down.
Her sensors showed the rebel fleet becoming aware of their change in luck. Flight vectors instantly shifted, and the cloud of starfighters around her turned into darts headed straight for the most vulnerable part of the gaping, unfinished Death Star—the large shaft that led straight to the main reactor.
But what did they expect to accomplish? Yes, they could do some damage on their way in, but the maze of beams and cables would surely wreck any invading ships; even now Ciena saw TIE fighters closer to the space station zooming toward the same area to follow behind and finish the rebels off. It was all such a useless, meaningless waste.
She turned her attention to the next nearest Star Destroyer, her own Executor. It was only now beginning to engage the rebel ships directly; all the admirals had waited for the Death Star to strike first, another display of Palpatine’s favoring theater over sound tactics.
Then she saw a damaged rebel starfighter spinning out of control, straight for the bridge deflector shields of the Executor. Cursing, she tried to get it in her target sights, but the starfighter was too distant and moving too fast—
An orange flare marked its impact, and in horror Ciena realized the extent of the damage. Neither that hit nor the earlier damage to the ship’s engines could’ve crippled a Star Destroyer on its own, but the combination proved fatal. Jaw agape, she watched the Executor lose main power and begin to drift toward the nearest object with major gravitational pull—namely, the Death Star.
Even a Star Destroyer can’t wreck the Death Star on its own, she reminded herself. Stay on target.
But the Executor’s destruction meant Berisse’s death….
Stay on target!
Ciena’s breaths were coming so quick and hard that the inner visor of her black helmet had begun to fog slightly. She attempted to calm herself by focusing on the flight. If she thought of her attacks as piloting challenges—as an escape into the air—she could do this.
She set coordinates for a massive Mon Calamari star cruiser. If she could take out its bridge deflectors, she could even the score.
And I could fly into it just like that rebel starfighter did—but on purpose—to end this battle. Maybe I could even end the war.
That thought was…tempting.
Yet even as Ciena input her coordinates, the order came over comms. “All vessels, regroup at pre-battle coordinates. Regroup immediately.”
“What the hell?” She couldn’t understand why anyone would give such an order. The pre-battle coordinates stood too far away from the rebels and the Death Star to be effective. Her fingers flew over the sensors, widening her view so she could get an idea of what was going on.
And what she saw was the rebel fleet pulling away from the Death Star. Either they were retreating, or—
Ciena didn’t finish that thought. Nothing mattered now but following orders. She had to empty herself out. Refuse to think. Only react.
As she swooped away from the Annihilator, she saw a couple of TIE fighters moving more slowly than the rest; they’d taken damage but could still fly. In training, TIE pilots were told that aiding fellow fliers was their lowest priority, a task only to be undertaken if nothing else needed to be done. Ciena decided to ignore the training. She took position behind them, covering them from any rebel fire as they headed toward the Imperial fleet and safety.
But as the moments went on, they fell farther behind. By now she’d realized the rebels were retreating in another direction; facing off had become less important than staying alive.
“Come on,” she whispered to the limping TIEs ahead of her. They needed to go so much faster—
Thane’s engine whined with strain as he pushed it to the limit. He and the rest of Corona Squadron had flown into the cloud of vessels following the Millennium Falcon away from the Death Star at top speed. If only they could get on the far side of Endor, to shield themselves from that thing—
Over comms he heard the Contessa call out, “Brace for impact!”
Here it comes. Despite the almost irresistible urge to look back, Thane refused to turn his head. If that thing blew, the light would be blinding. He’d be damned if the last thing he ever saw was the Death Star. Instead he gripped his controls and stared at the ships in front of him. The curved rear light of the Millennium Falcon arced just above the placid green surface of Endor’s moon. Did they save us? Have we saved them?
“We made it!” Kendy called jubilantly. “We’re out of the danger zone.”
Made it? Thane had given his life up for lost. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the words. We made it?
Then space itself lit up as if it were a sky. For the first instant Thane could only think it was beautiful. But the shock wave was coming.
The shock of the Death Star’s explosion felt like crashing into solid stone. Ciena’s TIE fighter spun out of control, all stabilizers gone. Desperately, she tried to aim for the nearest ship’s docking bay—if she could land in one piece, she stood a chance.
The Death Star was gone. Had the Empire itself fallen with it? But there was no time to guess, even to think. Her sensors and the world beyond were both incomprehensible blurs. Nausea swept through her as she tumbled over and over toward the rectangle of light that represented her only safety.
The second impact was worse. Ciena knew her ship was skidding against solid metal, smashing into steel, and then the whole world vanished as pain cut her in two.
From the surface of Endor’s moon, the wreck of the Death Star glowed like a golden supernova in the night sky. All around Thane, drums and pipes played victory songs; people laughed, drank engine-room jet juice, and embraced the friends they’d thought they would never see again. In the distance, by one of the bonfires, he could see Kendy dancing with someone who might have been General Calrissian. Yendor and Brill were doing a little patchwork on JJH2, who had come through with only a few scratches. Lohgarra seemed to be outdrinking an entire squadron. To judge by the hand gestures Methwat was making, he was telling Wedge Antilles about some tricky maneuver.
Thane sat at the very edge of the gathering, his back to a tree, mostly in the dark.
Many ships of the Imperial Starfleet had escaped the Battle of Endor—and many had not. The Executor, Lord Vader’s own ship, had been destroyed. He knew now it was the Star Destroyer they’d seen crashing into the Death Star. Ciena might not have been aboard, he told himself—but she was a senior officer. She would have been needed. Ciena would never have run from a fight, so she’d probably been on the Executor at its fiery end.
If so, then the golden light slowly fading in the night sky was the only gravestone Ciena would ever have.
He was consoled only by knowing how Ciena would have reacted when she learned of the existence of a second Death Star. If anything ever had the power to break her loyalty and her st
eadfast oath, that would be it. When Thane imagined how she must have felt the moment she realized the Emperor planned to destroy yet more worlds—that the obliteration of Alderaan had not been to end a war but to make Imperial power absolute—she would have felt so deeply betrayed.
The Empire was never worthy of you, he thought.
Thane saw another spray of shooting stars, evidence of yet more battle debris burning as it entered the atmosphere. When they’d spotted shooting stars as children, Ciena had always said they should make a wish. He never had; he wasn’t the type to believe in wishes.
Tonight, though, he did.
Thane didn’t wish for Ciena to be alive—that was already determined, set, beyond anyone’s reach or knowledge. Instead he wished for the New Republic to be at least half as righteous as the rebels claimed it would be. If he had helped destroy the Empire’s power so it could be replaced with something better, Thane could believe the whole war had been worthwhile. Even if it had cost Ciena’s life.
Ciena would have wished for that, too. Somehow that was the saddest part.
Ciena remembered virtually nothing of her removal from the wreckage of the TIE fighter—only vague impressions of the screech of torn metal and the horrible wash of light as they pulled off her helmet.
All she knew was the pain cleaving her in half.
At one point, as droids pushed her hover-stretcher toward the medical bay, Ciena strained to see her abdomen. One droid said, in a flat electronic voice, “It is inadvisable to visually inspect your wound at this time. Psychological indications are that a patient would find it distressing.”
Ciena looked down. A plate of metal jutted from her abdomen; it had shredded her flight suit and sunk in just under her rib cage, deep. The image was so gruesome as to be surreal. Dully she thought that no one could be injured like that and survive.
The surgical droids were working at full capacity, handling the injured in order of rank. Lower ranks had to wait. As Ciena lay there, panting through the delay for the painkiller injection to take effect, a figure appeared by her side, still half-garbed in TIE pilot armor.
“Ciena,” Nash breathed. He took her hand; she was grateful for the gloves they wore, because it meant he couldn’t actually touch her. “Hold on. You’ll be in soon.”
“Admirals—captains and generals—they go first.” Her voice cracked on the words.
“Of course, but relatively few of them get seriously injured. You’re one of the most gravely injured commanders, so you’ll enter the operating bay any moment now.”
A rush of dizziness swept through Ciena. Either the painkiller was taking effect, or her blood loss had taken her to the brink of death. She forced herself to look into Nash’s eyes. “I need—my father—you’ll tell my father—”
Nash shook his head as he cradled her hand against his chest. “No last words. Do you hear me? You’re not going to give up.”
But Ciena persisted. This was too important. “Tell Pappa—I love him and—and—I should have stood by the one—who stood by us.”
Her father would know to find Thane and tell him, too. At least Thane would understand that she’d finally seen the truth of the Empire and that she’d been thinking of him at the end.
Nash said something to her in response, but she couldn’t hear it. Dizziness washed over her again, stealing sound and light.
Maybe she would be reunited with Wynnet soon.
“Ciena?”
Why did someone want to talk to her? She didn’t want to talk. All she wanted to do was sleep.
“Ciena, can you open your eyes? Please try.”
She obeyed, blinking against the light. As her vision cleared, she saw Nash by her bedside—now in off-shift coveralls, with a small bandage on his forehead. Circled around the foot of her bed were three medical droids, all of which beeped and hummed as they took readings.
“Good.” Nash smiled the way people did when they were trying not to cry. “You’re back with us.”
“Why am I—” Ciena tried to prop herself up enough to see her midsection, but the movement sent terrible pain rippling through her. Breathing through her teeth, she sank back onto her medical bed.
Nash spoke in low, soothing tones, like a trainer calming a wounded animal. “You came through surgery, though they said it was a near thing. But they had to remove your liver. It was damaged beyond repair.”
Most limbs or organs could be replaced by top-level robotics; the liver was one of the only exceptions, its functions too delicate to be easily replicated.
“For now they’ve hooked you to a life-support belt, rather like Lord Vader’s suit, though you need only wear it around your midsection. You’ll have to undergo intensive bacta therapy. It can take months to regrow a liver—the better part of a year—but it can be done.” He tried to smile for her. “Leave it to you to find a way to take months of leave time without a reprimand.”
Ciena swallowed, though her mouth and throat were too dry. “What’s happening with the fleet?”
Nash’s smile vanished in an instant. “The Death Star was destroyed. Emperor Palpatine, Lord Vader, and Moff Jerjerrod all perished—as did Berisse.” He stumbled over the name of their friend. “The Rebellion is sending out mass communications claiming to be the new power in the galaxy. The Imperial Starfleet is regrouping to plan the next assault and name the next emperor.”
“Another emperor?”
“You can imagine the power grabs we’re seeing. Civil unrest across the galaxy, even on Coruscant. But the strongest will prevail, and we’ll have the leader we need for these difficult times.”
The most vicious and ruthless of the Moffs or admirals will take power. We won’t have a better emperor who might be able to right our course. Instead we’ll sink further into the mire.
“Don’t cry,” Nash said. “You’re tired. I shouldn’t exhaust you by forcing you to talk. Go back to sleep. You need your rest.”
Ciena turned her head into the pillow instead of saying good-bye.
She didn’t realize she’d slipped back into unconsciousness until she awoke again. To judge by the low lighting and lack of human personnel around, it was the medical bay’s version of night. The life-support belt around her waist felt heavy and stiff, and the connector shunts jabbed into her flesh like needles in her belly; probably they would continue to hurt as long as she had to wear the thing. Ciena lifted one hand, and a droid rolled promptly to her side with some water.
After she’d sipped from the tube, she said, “When my armor was removed—I had a small pouch—a leather bracelet inside, braided—”
“The items were destroyed,” the droid said. It was one of the models without eyes. “Nonregulation.”
It’s not against regulation to carry something in your pocket! she wanted to protest. But she remained silent. Only now did she realize her bracelet had been her lone, wordless defiance of the Empire—the one way in which she had refused to become entirely their creation. Now they had snatched that away from her. More than that, they had taken away Wynnet’s window on the universe. Ciena lived her life for her sister no longer; Wynnet had fallen into darkness forever.
Ciena had no faith in the Empire, no loyalty, no friends, and not one possession to tie her to her homeworld. The galaxy was again slipping into chaos and anarchy. And she would never see Thane again. All she could do was lie there, helpless, as machines spent torturous months making her ready to serve again in a military force she now wanted no part of.
She closed her eyes and slipped into the strange space between imagination and dream. In her mind she took her TIE fighter in again, but this time she aimed for the deck. If she could slam into the deck hard enough, her ship would explode and she could stop worrying, stop hurting. She could just stop.
MEDICAL LEAVE demanded absolutely nothing of Imperial officers—primarily because officers who could not make quick recoveries were most often declared unfit for service. Rumors said the medical droids also treated those with severe injuries
that involved long recovery times last, to better dedicate their resources to those who could serve the Empire again sooner.
Now Ciena was in the almost unique position of spending several months on medical leave, with no responsibilities. She was assigned to the space station Wrath mostly because it had room for a completely extraneous person. Nash had teased her about the golden opportunity to read holonovels or watch old spice-world dramas, but Ciena didn’t want that much free time. It would only force her to think.
At least she got to undergo bacta therapy. They submerged her in the gooey stuff for at least a couple of hours every day, sometimes longer. Sedatives were always administered first, the better to ward off the severe claustrophobia that sometimes led bacta patients to panic and reinjure themselves. Ciena welcomed the moment the wretched life-support belt was taken off her body; she liked it even more when the needle slid into her arm, and the resulting darkness from the sedatives. Sometimes the stupor afterward lasted for hours.
During the brief periods when she was awake and cogent, however, she insisted on working.
Bridge duty was beyond her; piloting was impossible. So Ciena volunteered for one of the messiest, most complicated tasks facing the Imperial Starfleet in the wake of Endor—and one of the only jobs she didn’t mind doing. Her mission was to confirm which Imperial officers were alive or dead, learn the definite locations of all survivors, and inform family members of the deaths.
(Supposedly, the death notices were her lowest priority. But Ciena spent far more time reaching out to those families than she ever did looking for a missing survivor who might have deserted. Through a little tricky record keeping and an excess of caution, she was able to avoid tracking down even one of those.)
In the wake of the Emperor’s demise, the galaxy endured even greater chaos than Ciena had believed possible. Coruscant remained in turmoil; Grand Vizier Mas Amedda tried to keep the Empire together even as other forces threatened to tear it apart. Consolidating and confirming personnel information was hardly a top priority. So the Star Destroyers had only their own records to draw from, and even when that information was synthesized, the picture remained spotty at best.
