Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury

by Aaron Allston

  But the cockpit door was closed, and there was no one in sight. “Hello?”

  The boarding ramp rose, locking into place. Suspicious, she put her hand against the small of her back, where her hold-out blaster was holstered under her tunic. Pilots were not supposed to go armed in secure areas aboard ship, but her mother had taught her that, at times, obedience to the letter of the law was an invitation to assassination.

  The cockpit door swung open. In the doorway stood a man of average height. In the dress uniform of Galactic Alliance Starfighter Command, he was middle-aged, lean, with hair that had changed over the years from pale blond to white and features that were aristocratic but sympathetic. His eyes were a startling blue.

  He offered her a smile. “Welcome back, Syal.”

  “Uncle Tycho!” She ran to him, wrapped her arms around him, and held him close for a moment. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You act as though I were the one in danger.” He led her back into the main compartment, sat her down in one of the overstuffed chairs, and took a seat in the one opposite. “Captain Antilles. I thought that was a glitch when I saw it on the rescuee roster.”

  Syal shook her head. “A field promotion. I shot at Luke Skywalker and they decided I warranted a raise in grade.” Though she tried, she couldn’t keep the pain, the bitterness out of her voice. “A consolation prize for losing my entire command. My fiancé.”

  “Fiancé?” Tycho registered shock. “I knew you were seeing someone—”

  “Tiom Rordan. Fighter pilot off the frigate Mawrunner.” Unable to stand the sight of the sympathy on Tycho’s face, she looked down at her boots. “It wasn’t official. We weren’t even going to think about getting married until the war was done.” Syal felt tears begin to well up. Tears again, for the thousandth time. She dashed them away and stared at Tycho, daring him to notice them.

  He just shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah.” She fidgeted. Her left knee began vibrating, early warning that nervous energy was going to cause it to start bouncing up and down soon. She pressed down on her knee with her palm. “Is Winter all right?”

  Tycho nodded. “She’s fine. Syal, as good as it is to see you, I actually sent for you in an official capacity.”

  “Ah.” Syal straightened. “What can I do for you, General?”

  For a moment, Tycho looked a touch sadder, as though her sudden reversion to officer’s manners was as unwelcome as it was appropriate. “You know that these days I’m serving as an analyst for Admiral Niathal.”

  Syal nodded. “I wish you were training pilots again. The rookies could really use your experience.”

  “Thanks. What I need from you is, well, the truth. The truth with no protective coloration, no filtering.”

  She considered. “Off the record? And have you swept this shuttle for listening devices?”

  “Yes, and yes. Remember, like you, I live in a mixed household. Pilots and spies.”

  That almost fetched a smile from her. But she didn’t have any smiles left. “Fire away, General.”

  “I need intelligent observations from a field officer’s perspective. About morale. The course of the war. About Colonel Solo.”

  She had to think about it. “I’m not sure what to say. I don’t have a context. Maybe that’s the problem. How can you have a perspective if you have nothing to compare things with? I don’t. My squadmates don’t. I mean, didn’t.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I remember the Yuuzhan Vong War. I was only a kid, but it’s all still so vivid. Everyone I knew was fighting for the same thing. Survival. It was simple. If we lost, we died, and we died out. If we won, we didn’t. This war, though…Those of us who were in uniform when it started trusted that they’d tell us what it meant, and that it would make sense. But they told us, and it didn’t.”

  She took a long, shuddery breath. “It’s getting crazier and crazier out there. It’s like both sides are starting to see each other as nothing but droids. I keep hearing stories about infantry units who report that they found enemy towns and compounds blown up, part of some Confederation scorch-and-thwart policy. But scuttlebutt has it that their ground forces are reporting the same thing about our towns and compounds, and I know we don’t have a policy like that. And someone at Centerpoint Station pressed a button to wipe out our entire task force the other day. Pressed a button. I’m scared to death that they’ll do it again…but I’m even more scared that next time, I’d be willing to push that button.” Finally the tears came and she put her head down into her hand. “Since this started, I’ve shot at one of my heroes, Luke Skywalker, and at my own father. The Alliance and the Confederation both say awful things about both of them. Neither one of them deserves it. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Tycho’s tone was kind, but his words pressed her on implacably. “And Colonel Solo?”

  “Everyone’s afraid of him. Everyone. Nobody talks about him. Have you ever heard of that? Someone whose own people never talk about him?”

  “Once or twice. A long time ago.” Tycho sighed. “Syal, do you want out?”

  Jolted and angered by his words, she sat upright and glared at him. “I don’t want to run. I just want it to make sense.”

  “I’m not asking you to run, or to dishonor your uniform. I’m asking, all else being equal, do you want out?”

  “No. I want to be doing something I think will help bring the war to an end. My captain’s insignia…it’s not worth the metal it’s stamped from without that. I’m not going to dishonor my uniform…but the way things are going, I can’t seem to bring honor to it. Do you know what I mean?”

  “You’re talking to a man who used to fly for Emperor Palpatine. Palpatine, whose subordinates never talked about him.”

  She wiped at her tears. “I’m sorry, Tycho. I forgot.”

  “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to apologize for.” He studied her. “You’ll get new orders in a day or two. They’ll look awful. They’ll look like something no commander with any sense would do to an ace like you. Don’t protest, don’t make waves. Just go where they tell you. I’ll be there.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “Can you get in touch with your father?”

  She nodded. “I haven’t. Technically, it would be treason. But I can.”

  “It’s not treason if a commanding officer orders you to do so.”

  “True.”

  “I so order.”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t know how much time it will take.”

  “My means of reaching him are bound to be just as slow and uncertain. That’s why I’m doubling my chances by asking for your help.” He gave her his gentle smile again, his Uncle Tycho smile. “So. Official talk is over. Is there anywhere around here to get a good cup of caf? Not the paint remover they serve around the hangar?”

  “My gunner, Zueb Zan, brews up a good one.”

  “Lead the way.”

  CORELLIA, CORONET, COMMAND BUNKER

  The hologram at the center of the darkened chamber showed a lean man in a dark officer’s uniform, that of a Confederation general. His face was scarred, his body rigid.

  And he was only a double hand span over a meter tall, as Prime Minister Koyan had instructed his technical team to keep the hologram to a “manageable size.”

  The reduction in stature did not affect the general’s voice, however. Rich with anger, it resonated, vibrating Koyan’s sternum, echoing off the chamber walls. “Centerpoint Station is a Confederation resource. Utilizing it without coordinating with my office constitutes dereliction of duty—and more important, gross incompetence.”

  “It’s a Corellian resource, General Phennir. We chose to use it in an effort to end the war precipitously.” Koyan shrugged. “And we don’t know that it hasn’t had that effect. Jacen Solo, one of their two Chiefs of State, is dead. His partner, Admiral Niathal, is more reasonable than he was.”

  “Our stealth craft in the Coruscant system report the An
akin Solo reaching planetary orbit. How do you conclude that Solo is dead?”

  Koyan felt his stomach sink, as though he’d unwittingly stepped onto a turbolift and it had suddenly plummeted forty stories. He tried to keep his dismay from his face. “Our starfighters reported all Alliance capital ships in the engagement zone destroyed.”

  “The Anakin Solo had apparently withdrawn from the engagement zone by the time the weapon was fired. So in your effort to eliminate the forces besieging Corellia, and one, only one, of the Alliance’s important strategists, you’ve given away the secret of the station’s functionality, tipped the balance of power by a few percentage points, and otherwise accomplished nothing. Whereas if you’d worked with me and my office, we could have put together a much more telling stroke. One that genuinely would have turned the tide of the war.”

  Koyan shook his head. “We were lucky to have rooted out all spies who might have gotten the information about the station’s repairs to the GA. Add your people to the mix…it becomes too complex to keep secrets.”

  “I don’t say this often, Koyan, but I’ll say it now. You’re an idiot.”

  “Which makes you an even more exceptional idiot, for saying it to the man with the most destructive weapon ever created.”

  “As you have the most destructive weapon ever created, you are clearly capable of defending the Corellian system without aid from the rest of the Confederation. No need for synchronized fleet movements. For sharing intelligence with the other worlds. For food, medicines, supplies.”

  That brought Koyan up short. Until the station was operational again, those resources were incalculably valuable.

  Common sense dictated that he take a step back, offer some appeasement, play nice. As an experienced politician, he knew this.

  But his next words surprised even him. “Don’t threaten me, General. You wouldn’t like the results.” He gestured to his technicians, invisible outside the glow of the hologram, and the image of Phennir disappeared, plunging the chamber into blackness.

  Gulping, Koyan turned toward the chamber exit. He probably shouldn’t have done that. On the other hand, it was important to show the Confederation which world held the controls, and which ruler was boss.

  The answers were Corellia, and Sadras Koyan.

  chapter twenty-two

  KASHYYYK, MAITELL BASE, HANGAR HOUSING THE MILLENNIUM FALCON

  Jaina trotted into the hangar office—a set of improvised rooms, set off from the rest of the building by sheets of corrugated durasteel, that now served as headquarters and workshop for the Alema hunters—and paused just inside the door. The main office was dark. “Jag?”

  His voice floated through the curtain separating this chamber from the next. “Workshop.”

  She moved to and through the curtain. “We have some preliminary results from Talon Karrde on the data from Jacen’s shuttle—” Seeing what stood in the center of the workshop, she stopped short, staring.

  Surrounded by tables and shelves piled high with metal parts and electronic components was a man—probably a man, though he could have been some new variety of battle droid. Most of him was covered in a jumpsuit of crinkled, reflective silver-gray material. Over this were attached a helmet, metal gauntlets, boots, a mechanical rig held against his back by two straps crossing in an X-pattern across his chest, and a broad belt holding pouches and a holster carrying an oversized blaster pistol. All these accoutrements had similar metallic surfaces resembling brushed silver.

  The helmet was the one Jag had worn aboard Love Commander during the last engagement with Alema Rar, and the gauntlets were the crushgaunts sent by Boba Fett.

  Jaina scowled. “Why is it I always catch you playing dress-up?”

  “Just assembling my gear—my current kit.” Jag pushed up the visor of his helmet, revealing his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

  Jaina approached and rapped her knuckles against his chest. It rang, the noise dulled by the cloth covering it. “And the breastplate, too.”

  “Not exactly the height of fashion, is it?”

  “Well, I’ll forgive you for wearing too much shiny stuff if it’s useful.”

  “Oh, it’s all useful.” Jag tapped each item in turn as he explained. “You’re familiar with the helmet, the breastplate, and the crushgaunts.”

  Jaina nodded.

  “The backpack is a thruster. It’s not much use in Coruscant-level gravity, but in low-grav conditions it will me get around, help make up for the fact that I can’t do Jedi leaps. The blaster pistol I designed from the ground up.” He drew it and managed a creditable Han Solo spin around his trigger finger, despite the presence of his crushgaunts. “It’s oversized, so I can draw and fire it while wearing the gauntlets; it’s engineered to function in the temperatures and vacuum of deep space—I can fire it while extravehicular.” He holstered it again. “Plus, it has a feature I don’t think any blaster has ever had.”

  “What’s that?”

  He shook his head and the bridge of his nose crinkled.

  Jaina guessed that he was grinning at her. She felt a flash of annoyance but let it pass. “All right, keep your little boy’s secret.”

  He gestured at the material of his flight suit. “Laced with cortosis alloy. Not much—with the Temple and the academy at Ossus both abandoned, Master Luke could supply me with only a little. But a little still means that a graze from a lightsaber could result in minor or no damage instead of an amputation. The belt pouches, full of surprises for Alema. The boots…” His voice trailed off.

  “Yes?”

  “Keep me from stubbing my toes.”

  She sighed. “Funny. Or not.” She looked over his battle array. “How long have you been working on this?”

  “I’ve been carrying pieces of it for years, gradually adding items as I learned more about our quarry.” He shrugged; his entire torso rose as one piece. “It doesn’t make me a Jedi…but we don’t need another Jedi. We need something she can’t predict. Also, if I take the crushgaunts off, I can pilot a starfighter in this. The suit offers all the usual virtues of a flight suit.”

  “Well, I have something your suit doesn’t have.” From her belt, she extracted a piece of flimsi and held it up before Jag’s eyes.

  He focused on the astronomical coordinates written on it. “Is that what I hope it is?”

  “Probable coordinates for Brisha Syo’s habitat. Care to go there and have a picnic?”

  “Definitely. You tell the tall fellow with half a name. Should I invite your parents?”

  Jaina nodded. “I think they have a right to be there.”

  ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO

  Allana’s breath came in gasps and she rolled over in her bed, her eyes closed, her face flushed.

  In his chair beside her, Caedus winced. The nightmares had come again for her. It had been two days since her collapse, and she’d alternated between deep sleep and troubled dreams. The medical droid had said it was a not-unusual reaction to emotional trauma, but those dispassionate words did nothing to ease the pain Caedus felt.

  Then Allana’s eyes opened. She looked around, confused, trying to make sense of her surroundings, and caught sight of Caedus.

  She drew away from him, huddling against the wall. She reached for her thigh, her hand coming up with the injector pen her mother had given her long ago, the self-defense weapon with which she had once subdued a dangerous assassin.

  She was brandishing it against him, her own father, and Caedus felt a pain as sharp as if she had plunged it straight into his heart.

  Emotion made his voice hoarse. “Good morning, Allana. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  She lowered the injector but did not return it to its hideaway sheath. “I want to go home.”

  “This has to be your home for the time being. You’re safer here than anywhere.”

  She shook her head. “I’m safest with Mommy.”

  “Bad people keep coming for you when you’re with your mother. You need to be here.”
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  “They all died, didn’t they?”

  Caedus nodded. “Many people died. And though I tried to get you far away from them, I couldn’t get far enough away.”

  “You were…” Allana struggled for the words. “You were bad. I hate you.”

  Another stab to his heart. “No, you don’t. You can’t hate someone who loves you. I love you, Allana.”

  “No, you don’t! You took me away from Mommy. You said you had permission and you lied. You’re the same as anyone else who wants to hurt me. I hate you.” She raised the injector again.

  “No. Allana, you can’t. It’s not possible, and I’ll tell you why.” Caedus remained in his chair by force of will. Every instinct made him want to hold the little girl, to comfort her…every instinct but the one that told him she needed to be free to decide, free to act. “You’re right that I took you without permission. But I don’t need permission.”

  “Yes, you do!”

  “No, I don’t. I’ll tell you why. And you’ll believe me, because I can’t lie to you about this. You’d know it if I lied. All you have to do is open up your heart and you’ll know how I feel. You’ll know the truth.”

  Defiant, she kept her injector at the ready. Her expression dared him to reach for her.

  “Allana, Tenel Ka has the right to decide where you go, and what you learn, and how you are to be protected, and she has that right because she’s your mommy. She has had that right for all your life so far.

  “I have the same right…because I’m your daddy.”

  Allana froze, her expression transforming from defiant to unbelieving. She shook her head.

  Caedus waited, pouring his love for her into the Force, trying to send it through his eyes into hers. He nodded. “You always knew you had a daddy. Your mommy had to keep who it was a secret. But now you’re old enough to understand it. I’m your daddy.”

  He felt the fear within her, the lingering pain from the events of two days earlier, begin to erode. Allana lowered her injector. Through the Force, he offered her nothing but the truth—for the first time in months, perhaps years, there was nothing of Sith training to his thoughts, nothing of the Jedi, no strategy, no planning. There was only what he felt.