Victory's Price (Star Wars) Read online

  “It was intense, and pretty late in the night Skitcher and Sonogari both needed some space to process it all. I’d been with them so I figured I’d take a walk, and just…see it all. Take it in and remember it. I didn’t know anyone besides Riot Squadron, but watching everyone else—”

  “Right, you’re a wuss,” Chass said. “I got that part.”

  Wyl caught her gaze and looked abashed. He resumed as if he hadn’t been interrupted: “I went for a walk. People were still eating and cheering but I ended up out on the edge of the village. There was a bonfire, and I saw someone standing alone in front of it.

  “He was a man. I thought he looked familiar so I got a little closer. When I got a better angle and the fire lit his face, I realized it was Skywalker. I’d never met him; I just recognized him from images.”

  Chass shifted forward. Luke Skywalker, the Jedi hero, savior of the Rebellion. If anyone else had told the story, she’d have called it braggadocio; but Wyl sounded almost contrite.

  “I didn’t want to interrupt him. He looked sad and thoughtful, like he was mourning and maybe also relieved. Like he’d unburdened himself. I should’ve turned away, but then I saw—I realized what the fire was. It was a funeral pyre. I didn’t see the body, but I saw the armor.”

  Chass frowned. “The armor?”

  “It was black, a little bit like a stormtrooper’s but ornate and…old, like something from the early days of the Republic. It looked familiar the way Skywalker did, and I knew: It was Darth Vader.”

  “Okay…?” Chass said. She parted her lips, closed them again. Vader had been a story to her—the Emperor’s nightmarish enforcer, rebel-hunter, and genocidal freak; one of the worst monsters in the whole cabal of criminals who’d run the galaxy. But she had no connection to the man, felt nothing but confusion and a dull horror. “Was he part of the fighting on Endor? I don’t remember hearing—”

  “No. I don’t think so. Rumor was that Skywalker was aboard the Death Star, so he must’ve found Vader there. He must’ve brought him back. Brought the body back to cremate it.”

  “Maybe he brought it back for a bioscan?” She spoke without conviction, trying to make sense of the story. “Making sure it wasn’t a body double?”

  “Maybe. I don’t think so.” Wyl drew a long breath. “It was that look that he had—like he was remembering Vader’s life. Like he felt grief. I don’t doubt that Skywalker did all the good they say, but it felt wrong to have Vader there, when we’d just lost so many people fighting everything Vader represented…”

  Wyl was shaking.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  He finally held her gaze. “I don’t know what Vader meant to him. I believe in grace and compassion, and that no one deserves to die in war. Even so, I watched Skywalker and Vader and I can’t shake the thought that maybe there are some crimes that shouldn’t be forgiven. That there must be some line we shouldn’t cross.”

  Wyl dropped his chin as if a spirit had left his body. His breath came heavily and he touched his forehead, half hiding his face behind his hand.

  He didn’t say Quell’s name, and he didn’t have to.

  Chass could’ve gone to Wyl. The man was suffering and he’d made a sacrifice, an offering for the both of them, but there was nothing Chass knew how to give in return.

  His sacrifice hadn’t been in vain, though. Chass understood her role in the coming battle.

  “You’re probably right,” she said. “That really what you need to be worrying about?”

  “Maybe not. Hard to stop, though.”

  “Yeah.”

  She thought about saying: I’ll take care of it, but she didn’t trust him not to ask questions. If she needed help, she would find someone who’d already made their priorities clear.

  They spoke together for another few minutes, leaving difficult topics behind and making forced conversation about the hydroponics lab and the sweaty dampness in the air. Then Chass left, not bothering with an excuse, and wondered where she might find Kairos.

  IV

  Yrica Quell had first arrived aboard the Yadeez purged of guilt and possessed of certainty, wholly attuned to her mission with the conviction of a zealot. Now she was unsure her actions contributed to that mission; circumstances had become too complex, and her lies too intertwined.

  She had accepted Keize’s assignment because she required his trust. But to what end? If she saw the assignment through, was it to earn a weapon against him? Was it simply to avoid another confrontation with Syndulla and Alphabet Squadron?

  Or was it because she was tempted by what he promised—a way to save the soldiers of the 204th regardless of the outcome of the war? She’d been seduced by Keize’s sense of duty before, after all.

  Maybe it was just a need to understand what the Messenger truly was. Keize had hinted at his suspicions, given her explicit instructions, but he’d made little clear about what he was truly looking for.

  What does it matter? Refuse him and he’ll find out the truth about you. You’ll be dead. Someone else will take the assignment, so you may as well cooperate now and act later.

  That morbid thought—the notion that truly, she had no choice—reassured her as she paged through the entries on her datapad in the dim light of the bunk room. Keize had given her access to the 204th’s complete personnel records—complete as any of their records were anymore, anyway—and she studied her selections, searching for evidence that she’d made a critical error.

  She found no evidence and she was out of time.

  Her broken nose and the scar of her tattoo pulsed as she headed for the hangar. She had to make sure her transportation was ready.

  In the sunless realm of Cerberon, she’d been trapped on a planetoid that had meant something to the dead Galactic Emperor. She’d found suffering there, and two friends had lost their lives. But she had also found a vessel—silver and fluid like poured mercury, its interior lit like the chambers of a human heart, built with technology more sophisticated than anything the Empire fielded for ordinary military operations. She’d managed to activate it and had flown it to the Yadeez.

  It was a beautiful creation, and in the bulk freighter’s hangar, concealed beneath a black tarp to protect its delicate, scanner-resistant skin from soot and sparks and fuel particles, it was waiting for her. It would take her away from the Yadeez while Chadawa came under assault and General Syndulla attempted to save the planet from Shadow Wing; and she found herself hoping that Shadow Wing would lose the battle even as Keize survived.

  Maybe it was selfish. But there was little more she could do aboard the bulk freighter; little she could do to alter the outcome at Chadawa after leading the New Republic to Shadow Wing every step of the way. Averting a massacre had to be Syndulla’s responsibility now.

  And she did want answers about Keize and the Messenger. She could follow Keize’s orders a little longer.

  For the second time in barely a day, Quell prepared to fly.

  V

  Hera Syndulla wasn’t thinking about Quell, but only because she’d gotten very good at not thinking about certain subjects: absent friends; her faraway son; her difficult father; the toll of her choices on the people under her command. Compared with those, what did Quell matter to her? Hera had tried to be kind, tried to be a mentor, but she couldn’t be responsible for the woman’s choices or her past.

  She couldn’t afford to think about Quell. Not yet.

  The nav officer was counting down until the Deliverance emerged from hyperspace. Captain Arvad stood at the center of the bridge, her hands flexing behind her back where the crew couldn’t see. Hera gave her a nod of reassurance, but the captain didn’t seem to notice.

  “I doubt we’ll have more than a few seconds before the fighting starts,” Hera said. “If you get the chance, though? Enjoy the view.”
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br />   “That seems like terrible advice,” Arvad said, before remembering to add: “General.”

  “It might be. Don’t get distracted. But sometimes it’s good to remind yourself what you’re fighting for, and I hear Chadawa is quite a sight.”

  Arvad didn’t have a chance to reply. The Deliverance surged forward, and the darkness of realspace washed over the viewports. Screens flickered as officers recalibrated sensors and the marks of New Republic starfighters appeared on tactical displays in twos and threes. Hera heard reports come in deck by deck, confirming the battleship’s readiness.

  She stepped forward, past Arvad, and looked to the distant blue-and-white dot in the depths of space. She could barely make out the silvery rings surrounding the planet, each canted at a different angle so that they caged the ocean world. If she’d been closer, she might’ve seen the churning of clouds or the rough brown streaks of great archipelagoes; or the individual satellites composing the rings, millions of technological constructs embedded in crystalline housings.

  “Scanners are full of static,” someone called. “Comms are down, too.”

  Hera nodded carefully. “Go to visual sensors and reset the comm arrays, as we discussed. Three hundred percent normal power, no encryption. The enemy will hear everything we say, but it’s better than being deaf and mute.”

  Another cry came from the Cathar girl at the comscan station. “Enemy sighted! Shadow Wing vessels approaching the rings. Planetary defenders moving to intercept.”

  Hera swung away from the viewport, hurrying to the stations. “What do the Chadawans have to work with?”

  Stornvein, her aide, was leaning over a tactical display and called, “Maybe half a dozen ships in orbit. Biggest one could be a Star Destroyer. Can’t tell how many fighters or what they have on the ground.”

  “That’s enough to slow the 204th,” Hera said. “Get a signal to the planet as soon as you can—I don’t care if the 204th overhears. Let them know the New Republic is here to help.”

  Arvad gestured to another officer, then asked more quietly: “The Chadawans are still Imperial. There any chance they’ll believe us?”

  Hera shrugged. “Given everything Colonel Keize has done? There’s a chance. Even if they won’t coordinate with us, we might be able to outflank the 204th.”

  It was an optimistic analysis, and Hera knew it. Arvad called orders to swing the Deliverance toward the planet while Hera checked on the squadrons. Hail, Wild, and Flare were in motion; Alphabet’s pilots were spread among the three units, ready to adapt to whatever Shadow Wing had planned.

  Wyl Lark’s voice came through the comm, distorted to a squeal by the overpowered transmission. “All fighters ready. Final instructions, General?”

  She gave it a moment’s consideration. Most of the pilots would be thinking about vengeance—about the injuries and insults Shadow Wing had inflicted since the sabotage droid attack, or about the destruction of the Lodestar and the deaths of friends at Cerberon.

  “We’re told Chadawa was built by an unknown species eons ago,” Hera said. “No one knows why or how. But since then billions of people have called it home. They were born, they grew old, and they died here, and their history is part of the galaxy’s history.

  “Shadow Wing wants to render Chadawa uninhabitable. They want to make it part of the Empire’s story. I say we make sure it sees another eon or two. May the Force be with us all.”

  She severed the transmission. Not her best speech, but it would suffice. Particularly since the 204th was listening, too.

  She looked to Arvad. “Do we have a particle count?”

  Arvad grimaced. “Hard to know—sensors really aren’t calibrated for this. It looks like the tide’s coming in soon.”

  Perfect, Hera thought, and tried not to scowl in front of the crew.

  Chadawa hadn’t just been constructed—it had been built to a machine’s exacting specifications. The engines powering its rotation and heating its oceans vented massive quantities of radioactive particles—particles siphoned off by the planet’s satellite rings and periodically expelled into the surrounding volume of space.

  At “high tide,” immediately after the particles’ expulsion, the radioactive flood was enough to disrupt the systems of any vessel unprotected by the cage of rings. Navigation would be dicey; combat, likely impossible. Even at low tide, the ambient particle count was enough to scramble scanners and comm systems. The only saving grace was that the 204th was just as disadvantaged as the New Republic—they, too, would need to rely on visuals to identify and track foes. They, too, would need to maintain comm silence or be overheard by the Deliverance and its fighters.

  Hera was confident the Chadawan locals would start with the upper hand. They’d keep their ships inside the rings, where the radiation wouldn’t hamper them. But if Shadow Wing broke through? The worst possible outcome was the 204th embedding in Chadawan orbit, able to repel a New Republic siege from the outside while laying waste to the planet and its population.

  Since the Deliverance’s arrival, sightings from scope operators had been relayed to the bridge and added manually to the tactical maps. Now the maps showed Shadow Wing engaging the Chadawans, pushing hard against the planet’s defensive blockade—harder than would’ve been wise in other circumstances. Bursts of light among the rings suggested more Shadow Wing TIEs destroyed than Hera had seen lost in all their skirmishes with the Deliverance; the enemy knew how vital it was to defeat the Chadawan forces quickly.

  Then the New Republic fighters were in position to strike. According to the maps the Deliverance was a minute behind the squadrons, but Hera didn’t dare delay; she called for the attack to begin. There was little to hear on the comm—with all channels combined into one, only the occasional order from a squadron commander was vital enough to broadcast—so she watched through the viewport, counting the flashes that meant death.

  Soon death came through the comm, too. “Flare Five is down!” “Wild Four gone!” As the Deliverance drew nearer, it began to pick up the 204th’s calls as well—but these were fewer and briefer. Keize had his people prepared and well disciplined.

  Then an unexpected voice declared: “Hey! Hey! I know you’re out there, Lieutenant Yrica Quell. Are you listening?”

  Chass na Chadic.

  Hera stiffened, started to call for the broadcast to be shut down—but what could the Deliverance do? She could interrupt the Theelin, try to talk over her, but that would only become an embarrassing distraction for everyone. She could jam the transmission, but she wasn’t ready to give up their only channel.

  Arvad looked at Hera, and Hera shrugged. Let’s see where this goes.

  Chass kept talking. “You know who I am. You know who all of us here are, because you’re a damn traitor.”

  Hera almost laughed as she began to understand. Chass wasn’t just taunting Quell—she was baiting her, testing to see how much the 204th knew about Quell’s time with Alphabet. It was dangerous but it was also clever.

  “We’re coming for you,” Chass said. “Alphabet is—”

  Her voice was drowned in a ripple of static that didn’t fade. Hera looked toward the comscan officer, who shook her head. “It’s not the particle count,” she called. “Jamming signal—a good one, too, based on the interlacing. Don’t think we can cut through.”

  The tactical officer shot up from her seat. “Unidentified ship slipping away from the bulk freighter. It’s moving fast—scopes can’t get a visual lock. Could be the source of the jamming field.”

  The tactical map had become a mess of outdated symbols and vectors as the officers tried and failed to keep pace with the battle. Hera stepped closer to the viewport, where the combatants were now large enough to clearly discern—the fighters glinting specks, the large ships burning sparks. Behind them the sphere of Chadawa dominated space.
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br />   She mentally overlaid the tactical map on the viewport, breaking down the sight grid by grid until she found the meteor streaking away from the boxy sliver of the Yadeez. Two other lights—brighter, closer—left the New Republic squadrons, following the meteor’s trail as it broke off from the battle altogether.

  Hera’s breathing had accelerated. She knew what was happening, if not all the reasons. One of the lights had to be Chass, and the other—who else had she roped into this?

  “Our B-wing and U-wing—” the tactical officer began.

  “Try to contact them! Yes, I realize between the jamming and the radiation—just try, please.”

  She shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d seen the intensity in Chass and Kairos in the hangar. At least it’s not the whole squadron, she thought. But she couldn’t spare even two ships to chase Yrica Quell (assuming it was Quell), not when Shadow Wing was on the verge of breaking through to Chadawa; not when the tide was coming in.

  Quell’s fleeing vessel accelerated, flashed bright enough to make Hera flinch, then disappeared. Quell had gone to hyperspace. Hera was almost relieved, and expected the B-wing and U-wing to return to the battle; instead they matched the first vessel’s final vector.

  “They can’t,” Hera murmured. “They can’t.”

  Each blinked away in a flash of its own.

  “What are they doing?” Arvad asked. “Do they know where that ship’s going?”

  “They don’t have a clue,” Hera snapped. “They’re jumping blind, and they’ll be lucky not to fly straight into a black hole.” She didn’t bother hiding her frustration, but she did her best not to direct it at the comscan officer as she said, “Jamming field’s gone, correct? I want to talk to Wyl Lark—”

  Even as she spoke she saw another flare, this one tinged with emerald; one of the Chadawan defenders was burning. The tactical map blinked and updated as Shadow Wing closed around the planet, passing through the outermost satellite rings. “They’re through!” Wyl’s voice cried, and there was exhaustion and despair in his tone. “Chadawan ships are retreating deep into atmosphere. What are your orders, General?”