by James Luceno
“You act like this is a personal vendetta,” the human was saying. “Smuggler or a freedom fighter, which is it?”
Better to ask: pushover or nobody’s fool, thought Has, but kept that to himself. “Started out one, became the other,” he said without bothering to specify which came first.
Watching him from a distance, Saw nodded, then turned to the human soldier. “Either way, you have my word I’ll be here till it ends.”
A SECRET SEPARATIST DROID FACTORY founded by Techno Union honcho Wat Tambor had become a secret Imperial research station. Less than a hundred kilometers east was a narrow strait of such high salinity that a human could practically walk on the water, but here, more than sixty meters below Hypori’s median sea level, the world had been painted fluorescent yellow and orange by the intrusion of magma into a vast lake of salt deposits. Sulfurous outcroppings, subaerial lava vents, and milky-green pools of brine and corrosive acids dotted the hellish hydrothermal landscape, all of it encircled by the jagged black walls of an ancient explosion crater. The hulk of a crashed Acclamator-class cruiser stood as a grim memorial to a pitched battle in which a group of Jedi Knights had been taken by surprise. Krennic, who had been privy to much eyes-only intelligence during the past standard decade, had wondered why the Baktoid Armor Workshop factory hadn’t been reduced to rubble long before the end of the Clone Wars, or how Mas Amedda or the Emperor had learned of it since. But then each day brought instances of redacted information. It was on Hypori, in any case, that Krennic’s engineering team was based; having been assimilated into Project Celestial Power, the focus of their work shifted from shield generation to weapons design and production.
It was also on Hypori that the prototype lasers had been assembled for test-firing, and in the wake of that event Krennic had asked the specialists to design a weapon fifty times the size of the ones they had discharged into the black hole binary known as The Hero Twins. The request had baffled all of them, but each had set him- or herself to the task and all were assembled now to present their findings in a building far from the actual droid factory that overlooked the largest of the putrid pools.
The room itself was not unlike the amphitheater on Coruscant where the Strategic Advisory Cell had met to plan the mobile battle station, except that there was no raised dais on which Krennic could pontificate as Mas Amedda had in those war years, imposing and high-handed, although a holoprojector occupied the center of the chamber, around which everyone stood. All save for Krennic, who had learned from the best—from the grand vizier and the Emperor—that when one was among underlings or those of lesser rank, it was best to sit. Even Tarkin knew as much. Aboard a ship under his command, Tarkin liked to remain on his feet, but anywhere else he would sit. And so Krennic—attired to suit his new rank of full commander in a white tunic with a white capelet, the outfit he would wear on his next visit to the Emperor’s court—sat while one after another researcher weighed in on the proposed project. Krennic had yet to hear from Galen regarding further kyber breakthroughs, other than to relay his relief that his calculations had been substantiated and to request additional details about the energy generated by the faceted crystals. Regardless, Krennic had decided that the engineering team had enough data to move forward without Galen’s direct input.
He sat with fingertips steepled and one leg crossed over the other while the first specialist spoke to budget; the next addressed the time constraints for completion; and the third dissected the materials that would be needed to produce energy inducers and focusing coils of suitable size. Another took up the thread to analyze what might be needed to fabricate adequate flux dampers, and stressed the importance of doubling the ratio of electrochemical cells that had been engineered into the prototypes.
Krennic’s thoughts drifted.
How far he had come from those initial briefings—from sitting in the cheap seats to being close to center stage, the one in charge! All as he anticipated would happen. Now with Galen contributing unknowingly to the successful test-firing, there was just no telling how far he would go once the battle station superlaser was actually assembled. Certainly he would become a staple of the Emperor’s court, and in command of a weapon that would give even Darth Vader pause and Tarkin a case of permanent envy.
Rear Admiral Krennic.
It was fated.
Throughout the summaries, he sat still and said very little, until Reeva Demesne took her place in front of the holoprojector to provide a breakdown of the laser weapon itself, concluding her summary with a request to pose an off-topic question.
“Go right ahead,” Krennic said, leaning forward in interest.
“Does Kuat Drive Yards or Corellian Engineering have a new vessel under construction—something to succeed the Star Destroyer?”
“That is somewhat off topic, Doctor. Why do you ask?”
The Mirialan glanced at her colleagues as if for emotional support, all but Sahali and a few highly cleared others nodding in encouragement.
“It’s obvious to all of us that a superlaser of the sort we’re postulating would dwarf any present ship of the line, even the largest of the dreadnoughts. For a weapon fifty times the size of our prototype, the collimator shaft alone would have to be on the order of eight thousand meters in length.” She laughed in nervous incredulity. “And that doesn’t factor in the dissipaters, capacitors, or even the amplification crystal housing itself.”
Krennic shrugged. “We’re speculating, after all. But yes. Think of it as a new and improved capital ship.”
Demesne’s tattooed face furrowed in concern as her mind constructed such a vessel. “Then there is the matter of the crystal itself.”
“What about it?” Krennic pressed.
“It would have to be enormous—the size of a small building.”
Krennic feigned indifference. “The size is less important than the way the crystal is romanced and faceted.”
“Is that Dr. Erso’s thinking, Commander?”
Krennic fell silent.
“This is his research, isn’t it?” Demesne went on. Again she glanced at her colleagues for support. “No one else could be responsible for this.”
Krennic sat straighter in the chair. “Well, now we are wildly off topic, aren’t we? Dr. Demesne, you’d do better to bear in mind that we—the entire engineering team—are only a single cog in a very, very large wheel. Dr. Erso can perhaps be thought of as an adjacent cog, but he is merely a theoretician. Of course our separate provinces of research and development occasionally engage, but he is not part of this evaluation.”
Demesne started to speak, then paused and began again. “Which brings me to my final question?”
“Question or concern, Doctor?”
“Some of both—but on point rather than off topic, I think.” She conjured a schematic of the proposed weapon from the holoprojector. “Given this facility’s limitations, we’re scarcely equipped to construct anything remotely this size. Are we to continue on here, or are we being transferred to somewhere adequate to execute the actual work?”
“In fact, you will all be moving on,” Krennic said, abruptly jovial. “I’m not at liberty to reveal the destination just yet, but I think that it will come as a surprise to all of you. Consider it your just deserts, as it were, for the wonderful work you’ve done here.”
The engineers exchanged looks, some excited, some clearly apprehensive.
“Speaking for everyone, we look forward to it,” the chief of the engineering group said. “It can’t be less hospitable than Hypori.”
Krennic grinned at him. “One person’s pleasure is another’s displeasure. You’ll need to decide for yourselves.”
He got to his feet to signal that the meeting was concluded. “Major Weng will be arriving shortly to brief you on the next phase, as well as on the schedule for the coming weeks. If you will all kindly remain here while he makes his way over from the administrative building.”
Outside the room waited two of his personal guard, who f
ollowed him as he hurried down the corridor.
“Your ship is standing by,” the shorter one said when the door to the briefing room had sealed behind them. “Do you want us to accompany you up the well, Commander?”
Krennic waved in dismissal. “I’ll go on ahead.”
“And the others, sir?” the stormtrooper asked, with an over-the-shoulder motion of his helmeted head toward the briefing room.
Krennic kept walking. “See to it that they’re permanently relocated.”
—
How did people convince themselves to act against their nature; to do something entirely out of keeping with who they imagined themselves to be? How did they rationalize lying, betrayal? By claiming situational ethics, or in the belief that they were protecting someone they loved from pain, from hurt? Opening someone’s eyes to what wasn’t being seen or recognized? If she was trying to explain her actions to Jyn, where would she begin? Where did she need to look to find the words that would make her actions seem at least sensible, if not righteous?
She needed to remove Galen from the equation; erase him as she had so often seen him do to free-floating calculations with a swipe of his hand. What she was doing, she was doing for her own sake, though also for his and for Jyn’s. But the need to know, the need to get to the bottom of her concerns was hers alone, and she would be fully accountable for her actions.
She had gone from distrusting Orson to fearing him; from merely disliking him to possibly hating him. He might have succeeded in getting her to stay out of Galen’s affairs by simply expressing concern for Galen’s work, but the implied threat to her and Jyn had brought everything crashing down. Now she was up on her hind legs, in combat mode.
She had been trying to outrun her disquiet for more than an hour, to sweat it out of herself, lap after lap around the grounds of the darkened facility, but to no avail. Each loop had only firmed her resolve to take action. For weeks she had been walking on eggshells around Galen, hoping that he would pick up on her estrangement and confront her. Instead he had withdrawn an equal distance, maybe thinking that she was angry at him for not having told her sooner about the visit to Malpaz. Or disappointed. Or simply bored. Since her return from the Outer Rim, the months with Nari and Has, he had grown more absent and preoccupied than ever, putting his work above their marriage, even above bonding with Jyn.
She had no recourse. She wasn’t built to hold things in; to be complacent or compliant. To anyone, let alone someone like Orson Krennic.
Committed to learning the truth, she broke out of her lap and jogged into the facility, gradually slowing to a fast walk, panting, sweating copiously, her hands akimbo on her aching sides. The building was quiet except for its ubiquitous, almost preternatural hum, its own rhythmic breathing. Jyn was at last asleep; Galen, who knew where. No one would wonder about her going to the communications suite, since she had made it her habit to do so, to establish a routine. To anyone watching it was nothing more than personal correspondence. Some of Orson’s remarks had made her wonder whether she and Galen were under surveillance, or even whether her personal comlink might be bugged. But she didn’t care either way. Orson may have drawn the line in the sand, but she would be the one to step over it.
Even so, she hoped that her suspicions proved false; that her concerns were exaggerated. More, that her need for dramatic weather and seismic shifts wasn’t brewing a natural catastrophe. Should that end up being the case, then shame on her for being blinded by misgiving.
At the console, she logged in and accessed the facility’s database for facilities aligned with Project Celestial Power. The list was thousands of names long, so she tasked the system to find Hypori, which popped on screen, along with a comlink connection. But when she tried to connect to the facility, there was no response, not even an occupied ping. A comp-voiced message stated that the connection was no longer viable or active. Had the facility been closed? First Malpaz, now Hypori? Had Reeva been relocated? She had promised to check in if that happened, but Lyra hadn’t heard a word. So she ordered the database to find Reeva.
And it failed.
Reeva was no longer in the system.
Her heart pounding, she thought back to Reeva’s concerns about the whereabouts of Dagio Belcoze. And now here was Lyra wondering about the whereabouts of Reeva. Had both of them quit the program?
Or had they been retired, and warned to cease all contact with Celestial Power employees?
She sat back in the swivel chair, chilled to the bone, to think through everything one last time. Then she reached for her personal comlink and entered a call. She didn’t like drawing Nari into this, but the two of them were built the same and Nari would understand.
When a small-scale holoimage of her resolved above the link, Nari smiled.
“Hey, I was just thinking of you.”
Nari asked about Galen, Jyn, even if Lyra had had any further contact with Has Obitt.
Forcing herself to speak as calmly as she could, Lyra responded succinctly, then came to the point. “Something’s come up that I need your help with. Do you still have access to the survey company ship?”
“I’m aboard now,” Nari told her. “Does this have something to do with our scouting mission?”
She hadn’t told Nari about the conversation with Galen or his secret trip with Krennic, much less about Krennic’s threat. “Indirectly. Could you possibly arrange jumps to Malpaz and Hypori?”
Nari frowned. “Possibly. But first you’ll have to tell me where Hypori is. I’ve never even heard of it.”
Lyra bent over the console’s keypad. “I’m sending the coordinates now.”
Nari’s gaze moved to something out of cam range, then she spent a moment trying to make sense of what she had received. “Wow. I’ve never been anywhere near that sector.”
“Do you think you can manage it?” Lyra said.
“It could be tricky. There are multiple travel advisories for those hyperlanes. I’ll need to come up with an ingenious excuse.” She paused, then said: “I can’t promise you when I’ll be able to make it happen.”
“I’m sorry to have to ask.”
“Don’t be. But can I ask why you need a look at those worlds? Have they been appropriated like Samovar and Wadi Raffa?”
“It might be better if I don’t explain.”
Nari nodded, serious now. “Then I’ll take the necessary safeguards.”
ON THE BRIDGE OF THE Executrix, Tarkin paced while Salient II burned. With the Star Destroyer parked a hundred thousand kilometers out, the planet turned slowly below, rashed with ruin. Each rotation revealed new areas of fiery devastation, expanding explosions dissipating in the upper atmosphere, the starlit horizon gray and black with cycloning smoke. Tarkin’s adjutant updated him from nearby.
“Most of the infrastructure is in ruins: dams destroyed, fusion and fission facilities smoldering, reservoirs poisoned, cities ransacked and on fire.”
“I’m surprised they haven’t attempted to melt the polar ice caps.”
“They may yet. Many even took to smashing everything in their households before fleeing in response to the government’s call for a frenzy of annihilation.”
Still in motion, Tarkin grunted. “I hope they took their pets.”
“Apparently they did, along with herds of animals.”
Tarkin came to a halt and laughed. “Indeed? What a wonderful myth it will make for the generations to come. The time Tarkin came to Salient!”
“Your legend grows, sir.”
Tarkin sniffed. “And just where are the post-apocalyptic masses bound for?”
“Deeper in-sector. Farther from Imperial systems. Their exodus would be easy to hinder.”
Tarkin walked to the forward viewports to gaze at the fleeing convoys of aged transports, yachts, and barely spaceworthy junkers of every variety. “Let them go,” he said after a moment. “The smaller the population, the fewer troops we’ll need to deploy to enforce an occupation.” He swung back to his aide. “And
at Epiphany?”
“The situation continues to deteriorate, sir.”
The adjutant called up holos of the moon, which showed its surface to be pocked with bombardment craters and many of its life-support domes cracked open like eggs. Raked and ravaged by fire from Imperial capital ships and stung by starfighters, buildings had caved in, and debris clouds were forming in local space.
“Militia sappers managed to infiltrate Zerpen’s complex and blow it to pieces,” the adjutant added. “The consortium is said to be bringing suit against the Empire.”
What price glory? Tarkin asked himself. “Stow that,” he said, gesturing to the holo. “What else?”
“On the good-news front, the assault on Salient One has begun.”
Tarkin compressed his lips, then flung his words with abandon. “I don’t want Utu’s forces wasting their time softening things up. Order the commanders to initiate a ground assault before the locals commence their own frenzy of annihilation.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tarkin began to pace once more. “Are the militias still being replenished?”
The adjutant nodded. “The smugglers are supported by groups of Hiitians, Tynnans, Koboks, and others from elsewhere in the sector.”
Tarkin arched a brow and tugged at his chin. “Throwing in with the losers, are they?”
“Apparently so.”
“Well, then, let’s accommodate them. Do we have intel on any of the resupply points?”
The adjutant consulted his datapad and summoned a holo of a broad, steep-walled valley dotted with small lakes and parcels of forest. Reconnaissance video taken by Imperial scout ships showed a pair of smuggler craft disappearing beneath a massive overhang of rock.
“So they’ve found respite under the mountain wall,” Tarkin said.
The aide consulted his datapad again. “We have squadrons of starfighters in the vicinity. We could divert one.”
