Shadow Fall (Star Wars)

by Alexander Freed

  Quell nodded. She thought she nodded, anyway.

  Syndulla slid across the blanket, almost serpentine, and Quell found the woman’s strong arms wrapped around her. The general held the embrace until Quell’s own hands limply touched the woman’s back; then the two parted. “You’ve done more with your squadron than anyone could have hoped,” Syndulla said.

  “Good luck,” Quell said, feeling utterly alone.

  * * *

  —

  The torture droid didn’t judge her. The torture droid was programmed not to judge, she assumed, or at least to keep its judgments to itself. Yet as she sat in the tram car she perceived a change in its demeanor—some invisible alteration to the way it hovered and stared with its red photoreceptor. “I should’ve stepped in earlier,” she told it. “I should’ve known something was wrong.”

  “What sort of something?” the droid asked.

  “She was—” Quell looked away from the red dot, out of the cab window and onto the tracks that went nowhere. “Something that showed she wasn’t right.”

  “Some might say she acted heroically. Her actions gave the infantry time to scatter the Imperial forces and secure victory.”

  “We should’ve known it was something she’d try. I could’ve taken her off duty. I could’ve posted a gunner aboard her ship…”

  The droid waited for her to trail off. “I’ve known Kairos for some years. I hold responsibility as well.”

  “So I should’ve consulted with you sooner?” She stood suddenly, took three strides to the window, and leaned back against the glass. Someone had spray-painted a cross inside a circle in the lower left corner; the symbol of the local cultists, the Children of the Empty Sun. “That makes me feel so much better.”

  “It was an observation, not an accusation. Nor are these sessions necessarily intended to make you ‘feel better’ immediately, as we have discussed in the past.”

  Because you’re a torture droid? she wanted to say, but IT-O kept speaking.

  “However, I would ask you this: If there was no sign that Kairos was in distress, and her sacrifice was in the service of a cause that you and your squadron had taken on, is it not possible that her injury—grievous though it may be—is most directly attributed to her participation in a war? Not the personal failings of anyone involved?”

  The droid’s simulated voice remained steady and stern. But it rarely spoke at such length. It was angry, Quell thought. The torture droid was angry, and she grew angry in return.

  “She spoke to me,” she said. “That’s how I knew something was wrong.”

  She hadn’t intended to admit it.

  The droid’s photoreceptor dilated. Its manipulator arm rotated in its socket, the servos whirring and the empty syringe turning in place. Clockwise, then counterclockwise, then clockwise again.

  “It’s possible,” the droid said, “that I am incapable of providing care in my role as your therapist at the present time. This is not an indictment of your actions.”

  Quell stared. Her shoulders tightened. She searched for a response and was relieved of the obligation when the sound of a fist rapping on the tram car door rang through the cabin. “It’s Gravas,” a voice called. “We’re ready for you.”

  She pushed off the window, ready to walk away. The droid’s voice hitched with urgency. “You have a lead?”

  “Probably not. I guess we’ll find out.”

  She was nearly out the door before the droid said: “When you locate Caern Adan, I intend to be with you.”

  III

  Wyl Lark had missed the tranquility and awesome scope of space, and despite the horizon line of asteroid CER952B bisecting the endless blackness, he felt aloft in a way he hadn’t in the infinite city of Troithe. He watched mountains in the distance resolve into watchtowers and balustrades and castle walls that bled rivers of dust. He tried to recall what little he knew of Cerberon, and recalled the legend of a moon—the Fortress Moon—shattered centuries ago, its remnants left to their decaying orbits and eventual demise in the heart of the black hole.

  He pitched toward the asteroid’s surface, skimming fifteen meters above the rock and pulling up in time to leap above a barbican. He let his eyes slip to his scanners, watching not just for movement but for energy readings, life-forms, heat signatures. He saw nothing, and was satisfied.

  Three passes later he allowed the thin atmosphere to slow his vessel and stopped above a crater the size of his birthplace of Cliff. He switched to repulsors and landed gently, attempting (for his own amusement as much as for the mission) to leave no mark in the dust. By the time he strapped on his rebreather and climbed out, his ship was surrounded.

  The newcomers were dressed in patchwork combat gear marked haphazardly with the starbird insignia of the Rebel Alliance or the sunrise symbol of the Sixty-First Mobile Infantry. No one wore the symbol of the New Republic. A young man, bronze-skinned and hard-eyed, stepped forward. Wyl recalled that he’d been introduced as the Captain.

  “You see anything out there?” the man asked, in a colonial accent almost too thick for Wyl to understand—the antithesis of the clipped, enunciated Coruscanti privileged by the Empire.

  “Nothing,” Wyl said. “Nothing on scanners, nothing on visuals. You should be safe.”

  The Captain let out a huff of a breath that might have been a laugh. Wyl nearly apologized, instead giving a look of chagrin and bringing up his comlink. “Chass?” he said. “Anything on your end?”

  The twang of electronic music crackled through the link before Chass replied: “Wrapping up now. Checked the orbits, we’re all clear. Shot down a few rocks just to open the way.”

  “Understood. Rendezvous at the site.” Wyl waited for her acknowledgment then deactivated the comlink and looked back at the Captain. “She says there’s nothing that should throw off the orbital path—”

  “We heard,” the Captain said. “All right. We’ll go dark in five hours—need to set some equipment in place, but after that we’ll shut down all transmitters, all scanners. We’ve got scouts watching over the probable landing sites but we won’t be looking skyward. If there’s any final information you want to deliver, now’s a very good time to do it.”

  “Nothing on our side.” Wyl looked at the squads in front of him—twenty soldiers, perhaps, out of the hundred or more who were hidden away among the rocks of CER952B. They stood at ease, unafraid. Most of them were older than the infantry he’d spent time with on Troithe, and they wore the scars and cybernetics that old soldiers earned. “These people you’re going against—” he began, hesitated, then forced himself to continue. “—Shadow Wing is dangerous. You know that, but you haven’t fought them.”

  I had to say it aloud.

  The Captain grinned. “In the air? I’m sure they’re death on wings. Down here, parked and hiding and waiting for their ride to Troithe? If they step out of their TIEs, we’ll slit their throats in their sleep. If not, we’ll clip their feathers and offer them a fair fight.” Despite the words, there was neither pride nor malice in his tone. “Keep the rest of my company safe on Troithe, and I promise we’ll do our part.”

  Wyl inhaled deeply and felt condensation build in his rebreather. A woman beside the Captain in a retractable armored mask nodded to Wyl as if reaffirming the promise.

  “I’ll do my very best,” Wyl said.

  Without a word of farewell, the Captain turned to leave.

  * * *

  —

  This was the final stage of Adan’s plan. Troithe was now a prime target for Shadow Wing to retake. The intelligence section of the working group had arranged for word of the planet’s plight and details of asteroid CER952B to reach the 204th. Within a matter of days the enemy was expected to slip into the Cerberon system and encamp on the asteroid, believing its orbital path would bring it within striki
ng distance of Troithe.

  Instead of preparing the perfect ambush, however, the fighter wing would find itself hiding among New Republic soldiers handpicked for sabotage and assassination. It was a good plan, Wyl thought—Adan had told them, “Shadow Wing is strongest in the air. Why make things difficult?” and he understood the logic. It felt strange to end their units’ rivalry without a single shot from Alphabet Squadron, but Quell had approved and General Syndulla had signed off. It would save lives in the end; prevent another Nacronis.

  He wondered if he’d ever hear Blink’s voice again. He hoped the troops on CER952B somehow allowed the enemy a chance to surrender; yet they didn’t seem the sort to risk themselves for the foe.

  Wyl couldn’t judge them. He couldn’t imagine killing face-to-face for as long as they had.

  Chass flew on his wing, the asteroid barely a glimmer behind him now and the burning eye of Cerberon staring through the spiraling debris field. He thought about all Adan had done with the working group, everything the man had accomplished bringing them together to stop the threat of the 204th, and he felt a surge of guilt at not having attempted to know Adan better. He’d never especially liked Caern Adan; but then, Wyl had never really given him a chance.

  The thought of Kairos intruded into his mind next—Kairos, whom he’d had every chance to know better. It was far too easy to forget what had happened to her. The silence of her absence was little different from the silence of her presence.

  “Sending course adjustment,” he said as he plotted a path through the debris. The computer could’ve transmitted the signal to Chass’s B-wing automatically, but he wanted to hear a voice, if only his own.

  “Acknowledged,” Chass said. She was silent a moment, then asked: “Any word from Quell?”

  “Still aiding the analysts, so far as I know.” She’d told him little more than that.

  “Any word when she’ll be back?” Chass asked. Wyl heard a twist in the taut cord of her voice that he was surprised to identify as concern. He hadn’t realized how attached Chass had grown to Quell, though he’d seen it happening slowly over the past weeks. He smiled sadly to himself as an old, forgotten pang struck his chest.

  “No word,” he said. “I’m sure she’ll be all right.”

  “Screw that,” Chass said.

  Her B-wing was too far out for Wyl to see but he noticed the change in vector on his scanners. “Chass? What are—”

  She didn’t let him finish. “If Quell isn’t going back to the Lodestar, I don’t see why I should. Meet you there sometime.”

  Wyl considered chasing her. He could’ve caught up easily; stayed on her wing, shot out her engines if he had to. But there was no mission waiting for them, and he recalled all the conversations he’d had with Chass about taking away her choices.

  He stroked the console of his ship, hoping it would give him comfort as he maintained his course for Troithe. But the ship was just a ship, not one of the sur-avkas of his homeworld, and it lacked the power to soothe him.

  IV

  “So why the hell did you bring me?” Nath Tensent asked, leaning back into torn synthleather upholstery as the freighter—an old exhaust-belching Kuati model likely dredged from a junkyard, the sort he’d have pegged as easy prey in his days running protection rackets in a TIE fighter—kicked its way across the void.

  “The droid suggested it,” Yrica Quell said. Given the deathly disinterest in her voice he was surprised she cast him a look as she answered. Then she looked back to the stars.

  Nath tightened his harness and pressed one foot against the maintenance panel under the console, attempting to silence its rattling. “So how about it, droid?” he called over his shoulder. “Why the hell’d you bring me?”

  The voice of the torture droid emerged from the cabin, almost lost in the rumble of the engines. “You are a capable and adaptable individual,” it said. “Adaptability is a talent all the more valuable for its rarity.”

  Nath smirked and translated: You and Quell don’t have a clue how to run a mission like this. But it would be rude to say so, so instead he replied, “Remember the first time we met, and you stuck a needle in my throat?”

  “Yes,” the torture droid said, and Nath laughed loud and freely.

  He didn’t imagine adaptability was the full reason he was there, but while he’d never been fond of Caern Adan he’d never been afraid of hard work, either. Others—mostly superior officers and educators—had occasionally called Nath slothful; in truth, Nath simply knew what was worth his time and what wasn’t. Rescuing Adan was a gamble with little risk—there were a dozen ways for Nath to come out ahead, and only one possible outcome that was truly unacceptable.

  “Check the atmospheric controls,” Quell said, and Nath brought his hands to the console. “I don’t trust this thing to hold together on entry.”

  “Just what I like to hear from my pilot.” He brought up heat dispersal reports and transferred power into the gravity buffers. “You want me to confirm our landing pad?”

  Quell didn’t look over this time. “I didn’t arrange one.”

  They were both jolted as the freighter ripped through Catadra’s atmosphere. The vast immobility of space, where stars and moons and asteroids appeared locked in place across vast distances, gave way to the tidal rush of clouds. Then the mountains came into view: the uncarved stone peaks, jade-flecked and gray, with crags too narrow to build upon; then the brittle upper reaches, cushioned by pale fungi that lived on the heat of the solar projectors; and finally the slopes, intricately chipped into a band of streets and temples and palaces. Nath couldn’t see the craters of the war, but she could picture it. Catadra had been their second target in the Cerberon system, and they had been intimately involved with its ruination.

  “You have any plan at all?” he asked. “Any reason to think Adan was taken out here?”

  “Two reasons.” Quell’s voice held steady as the ship rocked. Nath had to strain to hear her. “The analysts dug into the sensor records from Troithe’s satellite defense network. The network’s patchy but they found indications that a ship slipped through one of the holes two days ago. Unregistered, non-lightspeed-capable.”

  “Could be anything or anywhere by now. Could be another smuggler.”

  “That’s our second reason. Gravas says there was chatter about an auction happening on Catadra. If it was a gangster who took Adan instead of the Imps, he’d be looking for a way to profit.”

  Nath thought this over. If he’d been a gangster stuck in Cerberon with a New Republic Intelligence officer in his cargo hold, he might’ve done the same. “Minimal military presence on Catadra, so it’s safer. Who do you sell to here, though? The cults and the war orphans aren’t exactly drowning in cash.”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

  “And why you need adaptability?”

  Turbulence snapped Nath forward in his seat hard enough that the breath was forced from his lungs. Quell barely shifted in her seat.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  Catadra was a maze of a world, still stinking of ash and melted plastoid from the bombing campaign. Throngs of civilians packed stairs and throughways, creeping through bottlenecks to circumvent shattered bridges on their way to—well, wherever it was the Catadran masses went. On Troithe, the spaceport refugee camp had been pitiful but well managed. On Catadra there was anarchy allayed only by (if Nath understood correctly) gangs, cults, and a paltry selection of New Republic emissaries.

  Then again, Catadra housed maybe one one-hundredth the population of Troithe’s endless city. The locals were lucky they got as much attention as they did.

  They left the freighter guarded by the torture droid and a cybered-up Weequay that Nath paid with stim-shots from the freighter’s medical supplies. (“We may
need those if Adan is wounded,” the torture droid had warned, and Nath had rolled his eyes and left a single dose behind.) From there, they made their way to the auction site: a cantina by the name of Father Ambrosia’s Glorious Revelation or, as the locals called it, “the Rev.”

  The Rev was built into the upper levels of a tower constructed of turquoise stone, with ladders against the interior walls and wooden platforms crossing the central gap to provide space for tables. Nath led the way, wondering how many drunks had toppled off the higher platforms as he called, “Catadra’s saviors are here! Bring us some swill, quick as you can.” He made sure his sidearm was visible and gestured to Quell’s exposed squadron tattoo.

  He saw Quell suppress a flinch of irritation, but she understood. Her posture was straight-backed and haughty as she surveyed the room, and she made no effort to avoid the thin packs of midafternoon patrons (sad-looking middle-aged males, mostly, from a diverse array of species) as she marched toward a table. The customers parted for her and she and Nath took their seats.

  “You do more policing planetside than you let on, back in the day?” he asked.

  Quell shrugged stiffly. “They taught us to be careful on leave. Sometimes we docked at planets that weren’t fond of the Empire; it was better not to show weakness.”

  “I hear that,” Nath said, and waved at a serving droid.

  He’d taught his squadron much the same—outside the Core systems, people feared the Empire or hated it. If you were strutting around a strange city, you wanted fear to win out. Today the point wasn’t to intimidate the people of Catadra so much as to get their attention, but the old tricks still worked.

  Without saying a word, they both adjusted their wire-frame chairs so that they had a complete view of the room. Nath caught several of the patrons looking their way before feigning a glower to discourage them. He wanted them watching, but he had to keep up the show.