Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lost Stars

by Claudia Gray

  Being with Thane. Making love with him. Flying with him.

  “Good-bye,” she repeated softly, saying farewell to it all.

  Thane froze in place the moment he heard the announcement. As the voice echoed through the corridors of the Inflictor, telling all hands to abandon ship, he tried to convince himself that it couldn’t be her—

  —but he could never mistake Ciena’s voice.

  “We just took out the self-destruct!” Kendy shouted. She didn’t seem to have recognized the voice over the speakers. “How are they going to blow this thing?”

  He knew what Ciena would do as surely as if he’d come up with the plan himself. “She’s going to crash it.” Quickly he grabbed the comm link that connected him to Rieekan. “We need to get everyone the hell out of here, now. If they can’t reach our troop transports, they should go for the Imperial escape pods. Lights will mark the way.”

  Kendy, like everyone else on the blast-charred auxiliary bridge, began running for the pods even before Rieekan gave the orders Thane had suggested. Yet just as she cleared the final step down and got to the doors, she realized Thane wasn’t following suit. “What are you doing? Didn’t you hear? We’ve got less than ten minutes.”

  “I’ll catch up,” he lied. “Go.” Kendy gave him a look, but she obeyed Rieekan’s orders and ran to safety, leaving Thane alone.

  Ciena was alive. She was alive, she was there, and he had to get to her before she killed them both.

  Thane dashed for the farthest corner of the auxiliary bridge, where his dusty memories of Large Vessel Design told him he’d find a repair shaft. Sure enough, one of the metal mesh panels pulled away, revealing a plain, cold tunnel leading upward. He slammed his hand against the switch by the door, summoning the antigrav platform that could take him to any deck he wanted within moments.

  When it appeared, he jumped on—then reeled as he grabbed for its safety handle. Thane had never actually ridden one of those things. They were more unstable than his classes had made them sound. A few more centimeters and he would have slipped from the platform and plummeted several kilometers to his death.

  One deep breath and then he punched in the code that would take him to the deck where he could reach the main bridge.

  As he flew upward at top speed, the gusts of air yanked at his helmet until he pulled it off and let it fall. Thane tried to get a sense of how much time had elapsed. Three minutes? Four? By now the Inflictor’s engines didn’t have to do any more work; Jakku’s gravity would take care of the rest. Even now the planet was pulling the Star Destroyer down toward its doom.

  Come on, he thought, gripping the safety handle even more tightly. Come on!

  Finally he reached the right deck, kicked in the security plate there, and emerged into a corridor. After a moment’s disorientation, he could have smacked himself for his idiocy; of course the main bridge wouldn’t be so easily accessible. Thane ran for the doors, then skidded to a stop as they failed to open for him.

  “Ciena!” he shouted, banging his fist against the metal. That was only to take out his frustration, because he knew she couldn’t hear him through the blast doors to the main bridge. Not only were they too thick for sound to carry, but they also couldn’t be destroyed by blasters or lasers, not even by a thermal detonator. She had sealed out every possible invader, including him.

  But there were only so many ways for a captain to seal the blast doors.

  Thane realized he knew which way Ciena would choose; he’d heard her explain, once. She would use the captain’s-word method. Now the blast doors were permanently shut to anyone who didn’t know the word or phrase she had chosen to lock herself in.

  He leaned his forehead against the metal and put his hand to the manual entry panel. An automated voice said, “State the password.”

  Leaning down to the speaker, Thane whispered, “Look through my eyes.”

  CIENA BENT OVER the navigation station, one hand splayed across her aching abdomen, the other resting on the controls. The autonav system had repeatedly attempted to override her commands, but she’d finally managed to shut it down. Now all she had to do was wait.

  She stepped back and sank into her chair. On the viewscreen ahead, the stars had been erased; nothing remained but the sandy surface of Jakku. With every second, the view of the world below became clearer. Ciena watched shadows expand into deserts and mountains. Sensors began to flare red, warning her of atmosphere breach. She ignored them.

  At one point her vision blurred. When she lifted her hand to her face, her fingers came away wet. Ciena blinked quickly to clear her eyes. When her end came, she would not flinch. She wouldn’t turn away. It was the last experience she would ever have, and she intended to be fully present for every single moment, even the pain.

  To die with honor—no one could ask for more—

  The bridge’s blast doors slid open.

  Ciena jumped to her feet. By instinct she reached for her blaster, but no Star Destroyer captain carried one on the bridge. How could anyone have gotten in?

  Then she saw Thane.

  The one person in the Rebellion—in the entire galaxy—who could have guessed the right words to say, Ciena thought in a daze, and of course he’s here.

  Maybe she was dreaming, or hallucinating. Her brain had conjured up an image of Thane so she wouldn’t believe she had to die alone. He even wore a mourning band around one bicep, grieving like one of the kindred for a tragedy that had yet to come.

  But then he breathed out in relief, a sound so subtle and yet familiar that it erased all doubt. This was real. This was happening.

  “Ciena.” Thane began toward her, then stopped when she took a step back. He paused and lifted his hands as if to show he held no weapon…but she could see the blaster strapped to his side. “It’s okay. I’m going to get you out of here.”

  “I’m not leaving.” The words seemed to come from a very great distance, as if she were hearing them instead of speaking them. “I’ll stay with my ship.”

  “You know, we can have a long talk about honor and duty later. Right now, we need to get the hell off this thing before we’re in full-on atmospheric entry.”

  Escape pods could handle planetary landings, but launching within the atmosphere was hazardous. Already the temperature readings outside the hull were climbing dramatically. Ciena felt her pulse quicken with fear—not for herself. “Thane, go to the nearest escape pod.”

  He lifted his chin, like the stubborn, prideful boy he’d been so long ago. “Not without you.”

  Anger flared in her. “You realize I ought to arrest you right now? Or shoot you?”

  “We’re kind of outside the regulations here already.” Thane held out his hand to her, but she took another step away from him. Less than two meters separated them now. To either side of them, on the countless viewscreens and sensors, alarm lights flashed and scenes of battle and bloodshed flickered.

  “You have to go! Don’t you understand I’m trying to save your life?”

  “I’m trying to save yours!” He had looked at her that pleadingly, that desperately, when he had first tried to talk her into deserting the Empire with him. For Thane, perhaps, nothing had changed in the five years since. She felt so much older. So much sadder. Hollowed out. But he kept standing there, his hand outstretched, believing he could rescue them both. “Come on, Ciena. We don’t have much time.”

  Thane didn’t see that there was no time left for her, none at all.

  What have they done to her?

  Ciena stood before him, so thin that she looked as if she could be crushed in a man’s fist. Her uniform hung on her, and that combined with the frantically blinking warning lights going off all around them made the scene seem more like some ugly parody of an Imperial bridge than the real thing. What scared Thane most, though, was the blankness in her eyes. Nothing of Ciena’s spirit shone through; he saw only anger and despair.

  But his Ciena was still in there. He knew that only because she wanted to
die rather than keep serving the Empire.

  “Listen to me,” Thane said, trying hard to sound calm even as the Inflictor shuddered with its first real brush with Jakku’s atmosphere. The ride would only get rougher. “You don’t owe the Empire a damned thing. They don’t deserve your loyalty, and they definitely don’t deserve your life.”

  “You don’t even know what loyalty means.”

  “The hell I don’t! Ciena, if I weren’t loyal to you, would I be here?”

  The ship shuddered again. Thane stumbled slightly to one side, and Ciena had to grab her chair to remain upright. She shouted, “Thane, you have to go! You have to get in an escape pod now!”

  “I won’t leave you here.” He realized it could come to that—dying by Ciena’s side, here, today, rather than escaping with his own life.

  Thane wanted to survive. As much as he loved Ciena, he knew from the past year that he was capable of going on after her death, even healing and finding peace.

  But he didn’t want to live as the man who had left her behind to die.

  He repeated, “I won’t leave you.”

  “Please!” Ciena had begun to shake. “Please don’t make me responsible for your death. All I ever asked, in all those battles, was not to be the one who killed you.”

  “I asked for it to be you. Because we’re bound, always, you and I—in life or in death. You know it as well as I do. That’s why we have to get off this ship together.”

  Ciena remained silent for a long moment. The ship tilted to one side, artificial gravity warring with the real thing tugging them toward Jakku. On the viewscreen, the image of the planet’s surface slowly swirled; the ship had begun spiraling down.

  Then she took one step toward him, and another. Thane could have wept with relief. “Good. That’s right. Come with me.”

  She stood before him at last. Their eyes met. And Ciena punched him in the gut, hard.

  As Thane sprawled on the floor, Ciena grabbed his blaster from its holster. She stood above him and he stared at her, trying to catch the breath she’d knocked out of him. “Is that it?” he said. “You’re going to shoot me?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “I’m going to stun you and drag you to an escape pod myself. But—before that—you know I’m only doing this to save you, don’t—?”

  Thane kicked her in the leg so firmly that she stumbled back more than a meter before falling on her back. The blaster skidded across the tilted floor, sliding far away from them both, and Ciena had to struggle to get back to her feet.

  He was up, too, in fighting stance, blue eyes blazing. “You want to play this rough? Fine. We’ll play rough.”

  One memory flashed in her mind, of how they’d met back when they were children—fighting for each other.

  It looked like they were going to die the same way.

  Ciena ran at him, and he couldn’t dodge her well enough to keep her from tackling him. As she slammed his head back onto the mesh floor, she shouted, “Get your rebel ass off my bridge!”

  Thane threw her off, pushing her sideways. Even as she rolled against the wall, he said, “I’m going to rescue you whether you like it or not.”

  Didn’t he understand? Didn’t he see? Why was he trying to steal her one chance to escape this hell and die with her honor? It was as if Thane had never known her at all.

  She kicked savagely at him; the heel of her boot caught his jaw and sent him reeling. Ciena scrambled to her feet, which was when she caught a glimpse of the viewscreen—the image of Jakku was terrifyingly close, but it began to blur and blacken. The outside sensors were burning off from the heat of atmospheric entry. The windows were now brilliant orange, cutting off their view as the ship was sealed in flame. The warring factions in the atmosphere and on the ground would be able to see the Inflictor gashing a streak of fire across the sky like a meteor.

  Thane grabbed Ciena’s leg and pulled her to the floor; the impact of her fall sent new pain stabbing into her gut wound. Even as Ciena gasped for breath, Thane seized the advantage, pinning both her wrists with his own. “Just come with me,” he said, panting. “You have to come with me now.”

  She brought her leg up to knee him in the side and freed her hands. Ciena wanted to tell him to stop being an idiot, to run for a pod now, because it would be too late soon, if it wasn’t already—but all she could say was, “Let me go.”

  Then she brought her fists together and swung them upward into his jaw. If she had to knock him out the hard way, so be it.

  Even as pain splintered through his face, Thane saw the viewscreen blur and go black. They were out of time.

  So he did something he would never, ever have believed he could do. He hit Ciena back.

  But Ciena was a small woman, and he was a large man. The same blow to the jaw that had made him stagger sideways laid her flat. Guilt lashed him, but he couldn’t stop, not now—

  She shoved herself upward; her shoulder hit his midsection under his ribs and stole his breath. As they both crashed into a control panel, he thought, Anyone watching would think we’re trying to kill each other, not save each other.

  Power began to blink off and on as more components caught fire on entry. He heard a deep, terrible groan—the massive metal framework of the Star Destroyer shifting as the heat hit the melting point. Through the few small windows he could see nothing of Jakku or the sky, only flame.

  Ciena pushed him away from her just as the floor tilted again. Now they were both sprawling, unable to stay upright. Thane scrambled to get a handhold on one of the chairs, a strut, anything that would help him up—

  —when he saw a flash of black metal sliding along the wall.

  He threw himself at it. Even as he rolled, he heard Ciena’s boots on the deck as she somehow got back on her feet. She ran toward him, the thumping of her steps faster, just as Thane got the blaster in his hands.

  One flick of the thumb, set to stun and—now!

  He glimpsed one second of horror on Ciena’s face before the blue bolt hit her. She collapsed to the floor so heavily that for an instant Thane feared he’d accidentally set the blaster to kill. But when he crawled across the tilting floor to reach her, he saw her chest rise and fall.

  “I’ll ask forgiveness later,” he whispered. On his knees, Thane managed to roll Ciena over and pull her body over his shoulders. He tasted blood as he staggered to his feet and headed for the nearest escape pod.

  His breakneck ride through the service tunnels had refreshed Thane’s memory of Large Vessel Design class, so he was pretty sure he knew where the pods were. What he didn’t know was whether or not he could even get one to launch. If the metal clamps had melted in the heat of atmospheric entry, the escape pod would be useless except as a place to die.

  And of course the fleeing Imperials and escaping New Republic soldiers might have launched all the pods already—

  Go, go, go, go, go, he chanted inside his head as he stumble-ran through the corridors of the Star Destroyer. The first pod location he reached showed empty; that one had been shot into space long ago. But just as Thane felt panic clutching at his mind, he got to a second location and saw an escape pod still there, waiting.

  He hit the control panel with his knee, and the doors spiraled open. It was one of the smaller pods, but two people would fit. Thane dumped Ciena inside; as he crawled through the entry tube to join her, the lights suddenly went out. He was in pitch blackness, save for the scarlet firelight from the small porthole in the escape pod, which flickered across Ciena’s fallen body.

  The power was gone. Would the doors close? Would the pod launch? If the explosive latches had melted instead of blowing, they were sunk.

  Thane slammed his hand against the launch switch. He’d never seen anything more beautiful than the doors spiraling shut. As they locked, a terrible deep groan shuddered through the ship, like the dying roar of some massive beast.

  Then the pod launched, shooting them away from the Inflictor.

  The jolt knocked him aga
inst the pod’s curved wall, and Ciena rolled to the side. Thane crawled down beside her so he could brace her body against his. The limited repulsorlifts and acceleration compensators in an escape pod meant they had a rough ride ahead; he wasn’t sure the thing’s landing capacities would even work that close to the ground. Through the tiny porthole, he saw only brief flashes of blue, then gold, then blue, then gold—sky and sand tumbling over and over. Impact could be only seconds away.

  He curled around Ciena, buried his face in the curve of her neck, and held on for the crash.

  The pod hit the ground with a severe jolt—then again—and again. It was skipping across the sand, Thane realized. He and Ciena were jostled against the wall, never hard enough to kill them but always hard enough to hurt. Finally, one impact stuck, slowing them down bit by bit as they tunneled through Jakku’s desert and very gradually came to a stop.

  Are we safe? I think we’re—

  The pod jarred forward, into the air, so hard that Thane first believed another explosive charge had been set off. But the deep roar he heard told him the truth. The Inflictor had just crashed into the planet, and their escape pod was being thrown forward along with a tsunami of dust and sand.

  He wrapped his arms more tightly around Ciena as the pod tumbled over and over; the small window showed nothing but red-orange sand. What if they were buried? What if the already-battered pod could take no more and burst open? He didn’t want them to smother down here, buried alive—

  But slowly, the pod rolled to a stop again, this time apparently for good.

  After a long second, Thane allowed himself to believe they’d survived the landing. But what if they were deep underground? Would his sensor beacon even be able to signal a New Republic rescue?