Shadow Fall (Star Wars)

by Alexander Freed

  Adan tapped a key, summoning an array of images in orbit around the central holoprojector: the faces of men and women Quell knew as Shadow Wing’s squadron commanders; an Imperial Star Destroyer; a pair of cruiser-carriers. Quell forced herself not to look away, instead staring past the azure light. “We have several theories,” Adan said. “We don’t think the unit’s been absorbed into a larger armada, which means we can assume that they’re rebuilding. Leadership would be easier to determine if we knew who survived Pandem Nai, but you’ve already seen Quell’s roster of likely candidates.”

  “Until we have a better sense of their activities, my best guess is Major Rassus.” Quell reached out to touch one of the holographic images and a middle-aged man with a sour expression bloomed. “Competent, obedient, and never extraordinary enough to draw attention or threaten anyone’s sense of ambition. Most likely he’s following Grandmother’s last orders and keeping the squadron leaders pointed in one direction.”

  General Syndulla leaned against the table one-handed, studying the images and expelling a sigh. “Regardless of who’s in charge, the threat remains. The last time the 204th followed the orders of a dead leader, millions died on Nacronis.”

  Again, Quell saw Adan glance her way. She expected him to twist the knife, to mock her with a comment about Operation Cinder only she would understand. Instead he looked back to the pilots and said, “Quell and I have proposed a plan to General Syndulla that addresses both problems—the situation on Troithe and the threat of the 204th. General, we don’t mean to waste your time but if you could sum up the strategic situation?”

  Syndulla swept away the holograms and turned to the screens. “Governor Hastemoor remains secure in his residence, with surviving infantry, cavalry, and air force close at hand throughout the capital and neighboring sectors. The system’s space force has been virtually eliminated, but otherwise significant military assets remain to our foe. Meanwhile, the shield generators protecting the region are fully operational. Even if there weren’t millions of civilians still living in the area, a bombing campaign wouldn’t do much good.

  “Ordinarily, then, we would take the enemy sectors surrounding the capital one by one, closing the noose over a period of months. By the end, only the capital sector itself would remain unsecured and the governor would find himself under siege. We might not be able to starve him out, but we could come blasted close.” She scrolled through maps as she spoke, and Quell watched countless skyscrapers, skyways, gardens, and industrial districts blur together—thousands of kilometers reduced to the stroke of a finger. “This strategy would minimize allied casualties. It would give the enemy nowhere to run. It would mean that once we took the capital, Troithe would be won.”

  It wasn’t truly that simple, even in the best-case scenario. Troithe wasn’t Ryloth or Abednedo—it wasn’t a world that had been straining under the Imperial yoke long before Endor. Quell had seen Adan’s New Republic Intelligence analysts discussing the likelihood of loyalist guerrillas holding out for years, no matter what the outcome of the war.

  General Syndulla knew it, too. One battle at a time, Quell thought.

  The general continued. “Instead, we’re going to move on the capital directly.” She swept a finger over one screen, drawing a line from the New Republic territories near the spaceport into Imperial sectors of the city. “We’ll need to move rapidly or else be surrounded and cut off. Both ground and air units will be at considerable risk. But the tactical droids agree that our goals are achievable. When the job is done—when we take down the governor and occupy the capital ourselves—the enemy will still control considerable portions of the continent. The planet will be in our hands, but anyone hoping to retake it would see an opportunity.”

  Tensent was the first to comprehend the implications. “Hell of a plan,” he said. “You think the 204th would come all the way to the Core to retake Cerberon?”

  Adan looked to Syndulla. Syndulla nodded to Adan. “I’m handling that side of things,” he said. “I’ll make sure they learn what’s going on. They’ll know Cerberon is valuable enough to fight for and they’ll know precisely how to take it.”

  Syndulla picked up the thread. “We’ve got an idea of how to tempt them into action. We’ll leave a back door open in the planet’s defenses—something they won’t realize we know about, that looks like the perfect way for a fighter wing to recapture Troithe single-handedly.”

  “Back door have something to do with that last mission, running down the cargo shuttle in the debris field?” Chass na Chadic asked. She was slouched forward, elbows on the tabletop and chin on her folded hands.

  “Right now the details are need-to-know,” Adan told Chadic. “But you’ll be briefed when the time approaches. Suffice it to say that we’ll be able to predict exactly when and where Shadow Wing will appear. I wouldn’t worry about the final battle.”

  Tensent grinned broadly and nudged Chadic with his elbow. “Because whoever heard of a trap going wrong?”

  Adan shot him a furious glance that Quell almost admired for its laser focus. Chadic cackled and Tensent waved it all off as he said, “I like it, though, I do. If we’re taking down the 204th for good, I’d rather do it on our terms.”

  “What about reinforcements?” Chadic asked. “For us, I mean.”

  “Also need-to-know,” Adan said. “But Lieutenant Quell has put her expertise to good use, and General Syndulla has vetted the plan.”

  “No one’s going on any suicide mission,” Quell said. She was surprised by Adan’s graciousness, though she assumed it was for Syndulla’s benefit. “We can defeat Shadow Wing. We’ve proven it before. We’re just here to finish the job.”

  Chass na Chadic looked more bored than reassured. Quell couldn’t guess why. Wyl Lark’s fingers were locked together, and he stroked the tabletop as he asked, “Couldn’t it go wrong, though?”

  Adan began to answer but Syndulla held up a hand and waited for Lark to continue. After a pause, he did so.

  “You said this was the riskier path. We almost lost Pandem Nai because we misjudged the situation. What if we endanger civilians again?”

  Syndulla nodded in acknowledgment. “It’s a fair point. But this isn’t Pandem Nai, and we can learn from our mistakes while still judging every situation on its merits. I’m confident the civilian risk, while significant, isn’t meaningfully higher than it would be using another approach. Frankly, it’s our casualties I’m more worried about.” Wyl began to interrupt but Syndulla silenced him. “Taking the capital this way…people will die. The ground troops will take hits they wouldn’t absorb otherwise, no matter how hard we try to prevent it.

  “But it’s a good plan, and in war any action—inaction included—could lead to losses. We have to decide what stopping Shadow Wing is worth.”

  She didn’t have to repeat herself. Quell heard Syndulla’s words echo in her mind: The last time the 204th followed the orders of a dead leader, millions of people died on Nacronis.

  Yet Syndulla wasn’t finished. She shook her head gently and amended, “I have to decide what it’s worth. That’s my responsibility as a general, and I promise you I will do the very best I can.”

  The tactical center fell silent. Lark still looked troubled but he nodded to the general. Chadic shrugged, shoulders rising and falling with an exaggerated breath even as her eyes were on Lark. Tensent’s gaze held on Quell, and she had to suppress a flinch—he was studying her, watching her as if he heard the same unspoken words she did.

  Kairos stood staring at one of the tactical screens. She turned her body slowly—so slowly, like a tree imperceptibly rotating to bring its branches into sunlight—toward General Syndulla.

  It was Adan who broke the stillness. “Besides,” he said, “this whole system’s a war zone. We can’t make these people’s lives much worse.”

  * * *

  —


  “I thought she’d call our bluff about the sightings,” Adan said afterward at a narrow desk surrounded by printouts in his small office. He grasped the sleeve of the coat slung over the back of his seat and rubbed the cloth over a smudge on the datapad occupying his attention. “But you were right. It looks like the general is on our side.”

  “It wasn’t a bluff,” Quell said. She stared past him, through the semitransparent walls that looked out onto what had once been the tram tower’s control center. Half a dozen beings reviewed data at workstations or murmured to one another in hushed discussion. Most were un-uniformed and unarmed, but though New Republic Intelligence wasn’t part of the military hierarchy, it was surely part of the war. “We have data—”

  “We have speculation.” Adan shrugged. “Which apparently is enough.”

  He met her gaze as he darkened the walls to opacity.

  Adan had been insufferable enough alone aboard the Lodestar, operating his working group with minimal support from the battle group and the general. Since Pandem Nai, however, Adan had become respected by both the military and New Republic Intelligence. It had masked his most vile traits—she hadn’t seen him shout or curse for a while—but she couldn’t help but read his easy confidence as smug arrogance.

  Yet he also appeared more competent than she’d given him credit for. The assignments he doled out to Alphabet Squadron were sensible and consistent with the overall strategy they’d agreed to. His team of analysts regularly revealed paths to military victory that would’ve otherwise remained invisible. If he hadn’t held Quell’s life in his hands, she might have respected what he was accomplishing.

  “I received word from my superiors about the reconnaissance question,” he was saying, and Quell forced herself to watch his lips and listen to the words. “It’s about what we expected—polite praise for our work and an emphasis that we’re in no way to blame for the fact that virtually no New Republic battle group has captured an enemy system in weeks. But there’s no extra resources to go around.”

  “Well,” she said, “I’m glad the war didn’t grind to a halt because of us.”

  “Reassuring, isn’t it? But it means the working group is stuck here even if there’s a lead to follow.”

  Adan was the only person Quell knew who still referred to Alphabet Squadron as part of the “New Republic Intelligence working group on the 204th Imperial Fighter Wing.” She supposed he had the right; he had founded the thing.

  “What about Vanguard Squadron?” she asked. “Any chance we can borrow them for a scouting op?”

  “Possibly.” Adan shifted aside a datapad blocking a holoprojector built into the desk. He tapped several keys and a series of images coalesced out of glittering blue dust—a star system, a shipyard, a technical schematic—along with lines of text that Quell couldn’t read from her angle. “But Vanguard’s on a mission to try to ameliorate the shortage of starships going around. Special mission, from Syndulla’s special consultant Lindon Javes.”

  “Professional rivalry, or personal?” Quell asked.

  It was a stupid thing to say, but Adan smirked. “The man likes to second-guess the rest of us, even when he’s not invited.”

  “Frustrating trait in someone who’s not always right.” She decided she’d tested her leash more than was wise and quickly pressed on. “So we can’t be sure the message will reach Shadow Wing. We’re building a trap we can’t bait with any confidence.”

  “We’ve got time, and I’ve got options. All I need from you is a list of possible sectors.”

  They turned to the real work of the day. Adan pulled up incidents that had been flagged—by his own analysts, by New Republic Intelligence HQ, by military droids—as fitting parameters indicative of Shadow Wing activity. One by one, Quell and Adan reviewed them together. They dismissed an ambush over Skako as too sloppy to qualify (“Even without Grandmother,” Quell announced, “they wouldn’t be stupid enough to get caught in the gravity well”) and the disappearance of the Bantha’s Charge on the Rimma Trade Route as too unremarkable (“If we start tracking down every lost shipment some merchant blames on TIE attacks, we deserve to fail,” Adan grumbled).

  Other sightings showed more promise. A mole inside the Pyke Syndicate reported that a badly damaged Quasar Fire-class cruiser-carrier had arrived at the Gyndine shipyards seeking assistance. The source was reliable but the information scant; Quell added Gyndine to the sightings map and tagged it with a medium-confidence indicator. New Republic agents at Jarbanov, by contrast, could offer numerous descriptions of the TIE fighters that had attacked that planet, but the strike lacked the typical signatures of a Shadow Wing attack.

  “Whoever did it was good,” Quell said as Adan pulled up images of burning disassembly plants and rescue workers in radiation suits crawling over downed patrol craft like maggots on a corpse. She was surprised to find her mind at ease, conjuring no images of carnage from her tenure with the 204th. “But there’s no precision to the targeting. Poor pilot discipline, if you watch their formation. Nothing we’d normally associate with the unit, even if Grandmother is no longer enforcing standards.”

  “Possible they’re changing tack?” Adan asked.

  “Possible,” Quell said. “But without a reason to think so, I wouldn’t build a plan around it.”

  “I’ll spare you the gruesome images of the radiation burns, then. I’m not concerned about their flying habits, in any event.”

  They marked the map, agreed to a low-confidence indicator, and proceeded to review a massacre at Anx Minor (thorough and bloody and entirely in line with what Shadow Wing had done at Beauchen, albeit distant from all other sightings on the map), and rumors of a repainted “Ghost TIE” along the Koda Spur. After looking at the details of the latter, Quell asked to see a list of known surviving Imperial aces to cross-check. “Not today,” Adan replied, and that was the abrupt end of the topic.

  When they’d finished marking the map, Adan wrinkled his nose and nodded. “We’ll pass it to the droids, see if anything comes of it.” He tapped a key, causing the holo to vanish with a flash that filled Quell’s vision with spots. “We’ve got weeks before our deadline passes—that’s a long time for a message to wind its way through the galaxy.”

  Quell nodded. “Anything else?”

  “How’s your squadron faring?”

  She straightened her back and squinted at him. “Pardon?”

  Adan stood from his seat and stepped to a cabinet at one end of the office. He opened the metal door, stared at the liquor bottles inside, frowned, and closed the door again. “Ito mentioned wanting to check in on the others. I don’t want to waste their time unless it’s necessary, so—as squadron leader, how are your people?”

  “They’re fine. Performing better than ever. Lark and Chadic are getting along. Tensent’s no trouble. Frankly, I expect they’re under less stress than they’ve been in years.”

  Adan snorted and leaned against the cabinet as if putting on a show of nonchalance. “Is that right?”

  Quell tapped a finger against her shirt, feeling the bulge where a memory chip hung from a chain around her neck—the last scrap of D6-L, the droid that had been destroyed at Pandem Nai after dedicating its existence to Quell and her mission. “We’re winning,” she said. “They’re used to being outnumbered and on the run. Now they’re making bombing runs and returning home to a hot meal.”

  There was a knock against one of the walls. Quell could see a silhouette through the opaque surface.

  Adan ignored it. “And Kairos?”

  Quell tried to discern what, exactly, Adan was asking. Kairos had been the man’s first recruit; she didn’t know how long they’d worked together, though he clearly knew some of her secrets.

  “Kairos is Kairos.”

  “Fair enough,” Adan said, and opened a door in the opaque wall.


  Nasha Gravas was waiting, staring into the office with gunmetal eyes. Her slight frame and smooth, fair skin gave an almost childlike impression, though Quell couldn’t guess at the woman’s real age. Certainly she had the jaded edge of a veteran. “Formal complaint just came in,” she said. “The Children of the Empty Sun are feeling neglected.”

  “The cultists on Catadra? If we bombed one of their compounds, tell them to take it to General Syndulla,” Adan said.

  “Apparently, the same smugglers who were moving supplies to the Empire—the ones we just captured—were also assisting the cult.” Gravas spoke without sympathy or judgment. “There’s not many of the Children on Troithe, but they’re enough to carry some weight with the civilians.”

  “Fine,” Adan said. “See if you can smooth things over with the discretionary funds. You’re in charge of the project.”

  Gravas nodded, flashed Quell a look like a sniper preparing for murder, and stepped out.

  Adan shook his head in apparent disdain. “Religious types are springing up all over the galaxy. This lot says they’re a religious fellowship, but ‘cult’ will do. Word from command is try to avoid interference.”

  “Lucky Gravas, getting the job to deal with them,” Quell said.

  “Considering where she transferred from, I’d say so.”

  Quell understood Adan well enough to know exactly what this meant: Not “let’s talk about Nasha Gravas,” but “I have secrets you don’t.”

  “Does she know?” Quell asked.

  “Does she know what?”

  “Does she know about Nacronis? Does anyone on your team?”

  There were many possible reasons for Gravas to disdain her, but the truth was the best reason of all.

  “That’s really not what you should be worrying about,” Adan said, and when he smiled it wasn’t half as oily as it should have been. “I’ll make sure no one knows who doesn’t need to.”