by Kathy Tyers
Almost before he finished that thought, another string of alien fighters winked out behind Gold Leader. This time, he deliberately opened himself. The cascading spiral of twisted misery was as faint as a whimper … but human.
Luke couldn’t imagine human pilots on alien fighter ships of that size. Particularly not in pairs.
The BAC bleeped. Blinking away disquiet, Luke stared at the alien cruiser’s red circle. It flashed: vulnerable.
“Flurry to Rogue One. Go for that cruiser. Now.”
“I’m on it,” Wedge crowed, barely audible over a weird two-tone whistle. X-wings soared past Luke’s viewscreen.
Abruptly several more squadrons of tiny sparkling pyramids swarmed out of one end of the alien cruiser. “Abort, Wedge,” Luke cried. “They’ve launched another wave.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” The whistle grew louder: jamming. Wedge didn’t sound concerned. “BAC can’t make up its mind, huh?” X-wings scattered in pairs, drawing out pyramidal ships to engage them.
He belonged out there. His best skills were useless on a bridge deck.
The BAC bleeped again, calling Luke’s attention to a string of symbols. It had counted and plotted ships’ positions, evaluating known and observed firepower, shield strength, speed, and other factors. The Imperials’ retreat was transforming into a counterattack on the far underflank of the aliens’ front. Pter Thanas was evidently a first-class strategist. Luke turned to his communications officer. A vaguely ominous stirring in the Force raised prickles at the back of his neck.
He bent closer to the BAC. Wedge was leading a sweep out and back toward that light cruiser. That looked good. The Imperials’ position had just strengthened by fifteen percentage points. That looked excellent.
No, wait.
An alien gunship, far smaller than the cruiser but no doubt heavily armed, had left the main battle. It was closing on Wedge’s squadron from six o’clock low, behind the light cruiser’s cover, an angle and a proximity Wedge couldn’t hope to see and evade. He guessed the gunship’s captain had been waiting for Wedge and his boys to turn their backs. “Rogue One,” snapped Luke, “Wedge, watch behind you. Big guns below.” As an afterthought, he added, “Red Five and your group. Get out there and shoot those fighters off Wedge’s tail.”
“What was that?” He could barely hear Wedge for the jamming. X-wings scattered. Two vectored right into the picket ship’s range. Luke’s viewscreen flashed.
Two blasts of painfully familiar human anguish wrenched Luke’s spine and stomach as Alliance pilots died. Not Wedge, he confirmed hastily, but they’d been people. Someone else’s friends. They’ll be missed. Mourned.
He regathered his wits and tried to shield himself better. He couldn’t grieve yet. Flashing red on the BAC screen, the picket ship was still tailing Wedge’s X-wing tightly.
Behind Luke, Captain Manchisco cleared her throat. “ ’Scuse me, Commander, but you’re leaving the Flurry wide open to—”
He was turning his head when the BAC board framed a crimson full alert: The Flurry itself was about to come under attack. Alien fighters whizzed past the viewscreen, reflecting crazy flashes of light. “Sure enough,” Luke said. “They saw it too. Crew’s yours.”
Manchisco’s black eyes brightened. She spun away and barked out a string of orders to her shipmates. The Duro gargled a question, waving long, knobby hands over his nav controls. Manchisco gargled back. The Flurry carried everything from gunners to shield operators. Luke concentrated on Wedge’s danger and closed out his own.
Miniature alien fighters had almost surrounded Wedge and his squadron, trapping them inside an escape-proof globe of energy shields and firepower. Luke fought down panic and funneled his emotional energy into the Force around and inside him.
He stretched out his own point of presence toward the tiny alien ship dead ahead of Wedge’s X-wing. Touching it, he clearly sensed two almost-human presences on board the small fighter. Shutting out the nauseating sense of twistedness, Luke brushed each presence. One controlled shields; the other, all remaining shipboard functions. Luke focused on the second, driving Force energy into its center. Though weak and faint, it resisted with tortured strength. Its misery goaded him toward despair: No one deserved to live free, its whole being declared. By its reckoning, Luke could do nothing for Wedge—and nothing to save himself—and nothing to save either human aboard the alien fighter. All were doomed.
Luke struggled to see through the stranger’s vision. The entire sphere of space opened around him. It overloaded his senses. He had to narrow his field of view to find Wedge’s X-wing. On either side of his projected presence, another pyramid hovered apparently motionless, flying in formation. From the center of each triangular face, a scanner/sensor cluster peered back like a compound eye. Laser cannon bristled at each corner.
Fear, anger, aggression: the dark side are they. Yoda had taught him that his methods were as critical as his motives. If he used dark power, even in self-defense, the cost to his soul might be disastrous.
He relaxed into the Force. Clinging to control for the sake of his soul and his sanity, he amplified the pitiful will. Its sense of humanity peaked, hopeless victory for a tortured spirit. It had lived, once—free. With all the intensity of the doomed, it longed to go on living.
Luke planted a suggestion in reply. But a good death is better than life enslaved to hatred, and peace is better than anguish.
With suddenness that startled him, the alien ship altered course directly for one of its squadron mates. It accelerated to ram. Luke wrenched free of the other human’s will and sat gasping and swallowing. He wiped drenched hair off his face.
A whoop in Luke’s headphones pierced his brain. It took him a second to refocus his mind on the carrier’s battle bridge, another second to refocus his eyes and steady his stomach.
Wedge’s X-wing shot out of danger through the gap created by two alien ships’ destruction.
“Sir,” clipped Captain Manchisco. Luke shook himself back to a localized awareness. “Are you all right?”
“I will be. Give me a minute.”
“We may not have a minute, sir.” The BAC still blinked red. The Flurry rocked under heavy bombardment. Manchisco’s gunners had picked off a swarm of tiny fighters, but behind them came more—and three more alien picket ships. At one corner of the board, six red triangles flashed a shield erosion warning. He had the aliens’ attention, all right. Despair melted out of him.
“Engineering can’t give us any more power,” she said. “Got any more tricks up your sleeve … sir?”
In other words, could the famous Jedi help them out of this pickle? Her sense was still cocky, but she, too, was peaking on adrenaline.
Her navigator gargled at her. “No,” she ordered, sounding alarmed. “Stay on your station.” He ran a long hand over his leathery gray head.
“All squadrons,” Luke called. “Flurry needs reinforcements.”
The ship rocked again. Bridge lights blinked. “That’s it,” announced a crewer from his sideboard. “Shields are gone. Now we’ll see how strong the hull is.”
Two-meter pyramids swirled past the viewscreen. Luke clenched a fist. He whirled with ideas, every one useless.
Something shimmered midbattle, the asymmetrical dish of a freighter dropping out of hyperspace amid the swarm of alien fighters. A picket ship strayed into its line of fire. No more picket ship.
“Figured you needed some help,” said a familiar voice in his ears.
“Thanks, Han,” he murmured. “Nice of you to drop by.”
Fighter after enemy fighter fled past the Flurry for open space. Red warning lights turned amber. “How many d’you owe me now, Junior?”
“Several,” he answered. Maybe he owed Leia. She might be learning to sense Force leadings too.
The swirl of battle gradually slowed. Numbers and figures shifted on the BAC, but Luke ignored them. Later, he might use that information to brief his pilots on alien ship capabilities. But for now, he stare
d out the light-splashed viewscreen and considered the situation. Surrender to the Force was reflective but not mindless.
“Red Squadron,” ordered Luke, “ease into position beneath that cruiser. Come across its bow. Turn it insystem.”
He rubbed a fingernail with his thumb and waited for the huge ship to turn, caught himself, and gripped his thigh with that hand. Slowly, the red enemy pip began to rotate on his board. It eased forward, as blind as he’d guessed to Red Squadron’s presence. Just a little farther, and Red Squadron could …
“Red Leader?” Luke transmitted.
“Going in now,” squeaked a young voice.
Luke had to clench his other hand against the edge of the board. Next time he’d let Ackbar send someone else to command. This was ridiculous. He hated command. First chance he got, he’d resign his commission.
Through the Force, he felt the cruiser’s destruction. Milliseconds later brilliance lit his viewscreen. “Yes!” crowed Wedge’s voice. “Good job, Red Leader!”
Luke imagined his youngest squadron leader grinning behind a blast-darkened canopy. “Well done,” Luke echoed. “But don’t close your eyes yet. There’s still plenty out there.”
“Right, Flurry.” The cluster of blue X-wing pips did a four-way split swing, gathering data through each ship’s scanners to add to the fleet’s battle boards. Nice try, Dodonna, he thought at the BAC’s inventor. Its sophisticated circuitry was as useful—and as limited—as the fighters’ targeting computers.
“Sir,” came Lieutenant Delckis’s soft voice beside him. “Drink of water?”
“Thanks.” Luke grasped a flat-bottomed drink bulb. A new pattern on the BAC intrigued him. Somebody on the other side had just given an important order, because red pips were disengaging all across the screen. “Squad leaders, they’re getting ready to jump. Stay out of their way, but pick off any that attack you.” He had grown in the Force: Already his first choice was to intimidate, not to kill, particularly a battle group that might be turned against the crumbling Empire. He switched channels. “Do you see that, Commander Thanas?”
No answer, but Imperial Commander Thanas was busy too. Luke watched with relief as cluster after cluster vanished. “That’s it,” he said softly. “We’re done, for now. Get the outer-system scanners up, Delckis. It’s my guess they’re not going far.”
“Yes, sir.”
Luke sipped bland, recycled water down his parched throat. He’d been breathing hard. Better control next time, he promised himself.
“Sir,” said Delckis, “you were right. They’re already coming up, barely outsystem.”
“Mm-hmm.” He liked being right, but he did wish they’d simply gone home.
He stretched. What next? He set the drink bulb on the BAC. It made a better table than strategy counselor. “Code a message to Admiral Ackbar, Delckis. We need more ships. Include BAC recordings for that battle. They’ll show him what we’re up against. Can you have it off in half an hour?”
“Easily, sir.”
Thank the Force for contraband Imperial transceivers. “Do it.” Next: refuel and rest. “Squad Leaders, this is Flurry. Good work. Come on home.”
Manchisco exhaled, shook her braids, and whacked the Duro’s shoulder.
Blue Alliance glitter-dots converged on the Flurry. Luke’s radio crackled. “Alliance Commander, this is Commander Thanas. Do you have holonet capability?”
“Yes, but it’s slow. Give us five minutes.”
Lieutenant Delckis was already twisting levers and diverting power into recently patched-in components. Luke slid his chair into pick-up range. “Tell me when you’re ready.”
“Ready,” Delckis said at last. “Two-way.”
Over an instrument panel appeared the image of a man who looked about fifty, narrow faced with thinning brown hair cut almost short enough to hide its curl. “Thanks,” said Commander Thanas, “and congratulations.”
“They haven’t gone far.”
“I see that. We’ll be on watch. You, ah, might want to move out of the battle zone. Those alien ships leave very hot debris.”
“Hot?” Luke eyed a hull temp readout.
“Ssi-ruuvi drones burn heavy fusionables.”
New term: Ssi-ruuvi. More important, if the aliens meant to invade Bakura, why scatter the system with radioactive cinders?
And why did Thanas go to all the trouble of using holonet for this minor exchange? Luke wondered as Thanas’s image faded. Either Commander Thanas wanted to see his counterpart or—knowing the Rebels had holonet—Thanas might suspect they’d stolen other Imperial equipment.
Luke stared at the yellow-gold “allies” dots. “Analyze that,” he directed the BAC. The reading came up quickly, and he moved his drink bulb to see it all. The Imperial cruiser drifted, manifestly crippled. Thanas’s remaining forces had withdrawn from battle and established a defense web around that ship … and Bakura.
He guessed he wouldn’t trust Imperials who claimed to want to help him, either. Making people trust each other would be Leia’s job.
“Thanks again, Falcon,” he said on their private channel. “Didn’t things work out, at the sixth planet?”
“We’ll tell you about it sometime,” Leia’s voice answered out of the speaker at his elbow.
CHAPTER
5
Imperial Bakuran Senator Gaeriel Captison sat wiggling her toes and making patterns out of keys on her inset touchboard. Under a tiled ceiling that rose to a point above its center, the chamber of the Imperial Bakuran Senate lay silent—except for a soft trickle from four two-story, translucent rain pillars at its corners. Roof gutters channeled rain water into the pillars. Lit from below, they shimmered with the liquid pulse of Bakura’s biosphere.
Gaeriel had stood in the rain this morning to watch it drum on dancing pokkta leaves, letting it soak her skin, hair, and clothing. She took a deep breath of damp, soothing Bakuran air and folded her hands on the table. Imperial Center was now the only world where a student could do postgraduate work in government—one of the Emperor’s ways of ensuring that his philosophy trickled down to subject worlds. After a required year of indoctrination on Center, she’d returned last month. Confirmed now to the senatorial post she’d won as a youngster, she was here for her first emergency evening call.
Atop the stairs to Gaeriel’s left, Governor Nereus’s massive, purple-cushioned repulsor chair sat empty. The Senate, declining in power every year, awaited Nereus’s convenience.
Down the steps from Governor Nereus’s chair, a pair of tables lay on Gaeriel’s long middle level; on a third, lowest level, two inner tables framed an open space. Orn Belden, senior senator, shook his finger across the low central table. “Don’t you see?” Belden creaked at Senator Govia. “Compared to systems the Emperor truly wants to control, our ships and facilities are … well, the ships are older than I am, and the facilities are undermanned. As for staff, we’re a dumping ground—”
“All rise,” barked a voice near the chamber’s door. A warden in ancient-style violet doublet and hose thumped a spear’s butt on carpeted flooring. Gaeri slipped her shoes back on and stood with thirty-nine other senators. Only the Imperial Guards saluted. She hoped this session didn’t mean more taxes. Not now, with the Ssi-ruuk threatening.
Imperial Governor Wilek Nereus strode in, flanked by four black-helmeted naval troopers. They reminded her of leggy beetles. Governor Nereus wore a specially designed uniform, heavy on braid and gold piping, its short coat cut to create an illusion of taper from his shoulders to his waist—and skintight black gloves that had given him a reputation for being fastidious. His features were heavy except for prissy lips, and he had the Imperial swagger down to a science. “Sit,” he said.
Gaeri smoothed her long blue skirt and sat down. Governor Nereus remained standing near the entry. Taller than any of them, he used his height to intimidate. She’d always disliked him, but her year on Imperial Center had made him slightly more tolerable—by comparison.
“I won’t keep you,” he said, looking down his long nose. “I realize you are busy keeping your sectors pacified. Some of you are doing well. Some aren’t.”
Gaeri frowned. Her district’s residents were abandoning their jobs to dig shelters, but at least bunker-blasting was productive. She glanced at her uncle, Prime Minister Yeorg Captison. Here in Salis D’aar, Captison had been quelling riots, using Bakuran police to keep Nereus from sending out stormtroopers from the garrison.
Nereus raised a gloved hand to silence murmurers. Once he had their attention, he slowly turned his head and cleared his throat. “Rebel Alliance ships have arrived in the Bakura system.”
That gave her a rain-cold shock. Rebels? The Empire allowed no dissent. After Bakura entered the Empire three years ago, two minor rebellions had been efficiently quashed. Gaeri remembered too much of that period. Both of her parents had died, caught in the wrong place during a running battle between insurgents and Imperial troops. That was when she’d gone to live with her uncle and aunt. She didn’t hope to live to see another uprising, or any more of the bloody purges that followed.
Perhaps these troublemakers wanted the repulsorlift component factory in Belden’s district. Could Nereus’s forces protect Bakura from Rebel raiders and the Ssi-ruuk?
Nereus cleared his throat. “The Dominant, our only remaining cruiser, sustained heavy damages. On the advice of my staff, I have ordered our forces to withdraw from the main battle and protect Bakura itself. I request your confirmation of that order.”
Belden straightened his back and fiddled with a voice amplifier on his chest. “Covering your tracks, Governor? So if anything else goes wrong, you can finger us? Who’s keeping the Ssi-ruuk off, I wonder?”
It wasn’t wise to attract an Imperial Governor’s attention, but Belden seemed fearless. Maybe if Gaeri were 164, with a second prosthetic heart and one foot in the grave, she’d learn his kind of courage.
Abruptly distracted, she checked the time. She had promised Senator Belden that she’d visit his elderly wife this evening. Madam Belden’s caregiver Clis left for the night at 2030, and Gaeri had offered to sit with her until Senator Belden finished a committee meeting. Fiery little Eppie’s mind was eroding, at only 132. (Eroding? It had washed out to sea three years ago.) Orn Belden’s devotion, and the genuine affection of a few lifelong family friends such as Gaeriel, sustained her. Eppie had been Gaeriel’s first real “grown-up” friend.
