BY CHUCK WENDIG 16 страница

She tackles the droid. Unprepared, it scrambles to stay clinging to the pod, but it’s off balance—and its arms catch only open air as the two of them fall.

Norra winces, the air rushing up around her. She pivots so the droid is beneath her—and just in time, too, as it slams into the railing on one of the staircases. The droid’s back snaps with the sound of a tree breaking in half, and next thing she knows, she and the shattered droid are tumbling down the steps, end-over-end-over-end until—

Wham. They hit the bottom floor. The air blasts out of her lungs, leaving her gulping for breath. The droid beneath her hitches and twitches, its head bent at a ninety-degree angle. Norra tries to stand—

Pain lances through her side and she collapses.

She lies there on her back, clutching her middle. The world blooms around her in light and dull sounds. She hears her son yelling—and then blasterfire and booming slugs tear apart the air over her. A droid descends upon her, its whipcord arms slashing at the air—and it’s suddenly knocked aside by Bones. Bones, whose one arm is gone and whose leg is bent at a funny angle. Bones, whose own side is cratered in, dented like a kicked can. The B1 droid tries to say something but the sound only comes out as a garbled scream. Above them all, SOL-GDA narrates a constant warning for them to stop, lest they be destroyed.

Next comes a flare of light—and a crackle of little lightning filling the air above her. Norra rests her head, and once more, all goes dark. And yet—

She’s awake.

She didn’t go dark. The ship did—

The power has gone out.

Temmin grabs her hand. “I’m here, Mom. I’m here. ”

And with that, Ashmead’s Lock goes dead and SOL-GDA goes silent.

The jagged campanile towers of the Ubdurian homes lie shattered. Bodies lie underneath, crushed, shot, lanced. Dozens of them. The stink in the air is strong. Rot-wings form blurry clouds above the corpses—the insects buzzing with endless hunger.

Tracene Kane pulls the white cloth over her mouth. Her nostrils are rimed with salt-dust; Commander Norwich said it would help prevent the smell from reaching her, and though it has diminished it considerably, still she smells the pickled, rotten stench of the dead.

She lifts a finger and waves Lug toward her. The Trandoshan stomps over. None of this seems to bother him. He’s fond of telling her about life among his people: hunting and killing and reveling in death. He’s not like that, not like the other reptilians, but it was still part of his childhood. “You want the shot set up, boss? ”

“Right here, ” she says, holding the cloth over her face. “Get that collapsed wall in the frame. ” It has a dynamic shape—the tower broken, the wall shattered in just the right spot, and one body slumped over it.

Lug grunts a command to the cam droid—it’s an upgraded model, ruggedized and battle-hardy. The little floating droid with one telescoping eye hums along, pulsing flashes as it takes a series of still shots to frame out the hologram. Foomp, foomp, foomp. It burbles and bleeps.

“I’ll get Norwich, ” Lug says.

“No, ” Tracene says, shaking her head. “Go get someone…more common. We need to sell this to the common citizen, and that means putting the common citizen on cam. Get me a soldier, a private, a trencher. ” As the big reptilian grunts and starts to walk off, she catches him by the arm. “How’s my hair? ”

“I don’t know. It’s hairy? ”

“I’m going for battle-frizzled, but still…well kept, you know? An order to the chaos. A well-designed non-design. ”

“Sure? ”

She rolls her eyes. “Thanks, Lug. ”

“You got it, Trace. ” He winks one of his eyes—an unnerving gesture, as a nictitating membrane slides sideways over the eyeball. It’s meant to be playful, but it only comes across as monstrous. He saunters off.

Things have changed for her in the last months. She’s gone from the cushy platform of safe worlds and out into the galaxy—the war between the Republic and the Empire has gone hot. The New Republic keeps pushing the Empire back, and the Empire grows more and more desperate, like a cornered feral. Plus, the HoloNet’s mandate has changed—with the Imperial controls on what can be broadcast broken, the network is free to show the real story, free to get into the middle of the fight and reveal the truth.

Tracene said she needed to be on the front lines.

So, by all the gods of all the stars, they put her on the front lines. Now it’s her and Lug out here in the thicket of war.

Nag Ubdur in the Outer Rim—home to the native Ubdurians plus the transplanted Keldar and Artiodac refugees—has seen a brutal pushback by the Empire. That, most likely because the bedrock of Nag Ubdur is flecked with zersium, an ore essential to the making of durasteel. The Empire has strip-mined this world down to its nub, and still it keeps finding ore. As such, they’re not keen to give it up—so they’ve bitten down hard and won’t unclench.

Norwich said he suspects that the forces here aren’t really under anyone’s command beyond what exists in the Ubdur system: meaning, they’re cut off from the Empire proper. Making this yet another rogue Imperial remnant hunkering down, taking control, and either waiting for backup or carving out their own mad little fiefdoms.

As such, the Imperials here have grown more and more brazen—driven, it seems, by desperation and fear. The massacre here in Binjai-Tin is just one such example. They came in, swept through like unholy fire, killing everything in their path. That is unlike the Empire. The Empire has always been known to keep its populace in check—punish 10 percent to keep the 90 in line. This is not that. This is a whole other level: murderous and foul.

Right now, she knows that only ten klicks away, over the tussock and past the sedge, the Imperials have dug in. They’ve excavated trenches. They’ve got walkers, TIEs, a new garrison. A fight is coming. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon. And Tracene will be along for the ride. Her and Lug, filming it all so the galaxy can see the valiant Republic against the venomous Empire.

Speaking of her Trandoshan cam operator, Lug returns, hauling a New Republic soldier by the arm. It’s some young, wide-eyed Kupohan—his face pelt hangs bound up in a series of braids, helmet askew and pushing forward his eyestalks. He looks lost. Shell-shocked, even.

“What’s your name? ” she asks. He blinks at the camera, then at Lug, then at her. The Kupohan has the look of a lost child. She pats his arm. “It’s okay. We’re not on cam yet. Can you tell me your name? ”

He says, “Rorith Khadur. Private in the NR. ” His voice is a tremulous growl. He’s not comfortable. But he’ll have to do—the rest of the soldiers are counting the dead, setting up triage, building a camp. More women and men of the Republic keep trickling in, and will over the next several hours, given the long line of them outside the city’s shield-gate.

Without warning, she holds up three fingers, then counts down—Lug raps a knuckle against the cam droid, and its eye-lens goes from red to green. “And we’re on, ” she says.

The soldier looks flummoxed, but then he nods.

“Tell me about yesterday, Private Khadur, ” she says.

“Yesterday. ” He blinks. “Right. We encountered Imperial forces on the Govneh Ridge—it’s a, like a plate shift where the ground bulges, and these tall crystals grow alongside it, and the Imperials were…they were waiting for us. They came out of nowhere. It was intense. My squad leader, Hachinka, she got it in the neck—a blaster shot hit her and the spray caught me in the face and—” He has to take a second. She lets him. It’s good drama. The cam droid has a high enough resolution, too, that it’ll capture and confirm what Khadur said: In his face she sees the flecks of dry blood that belonged to his leader. “We got her out of there and she’s still holding on. We lost a lot of good men and women, but we did it. We took the ridge. ”

She holds up a finger and as the cam droid pivots toward her she instructs it: “Mark it. Run segment: ‘Govneh Ridge footage. ’ ” She already edited together a package of clips from last night—the cam droid will auto-splice it into this interview and send when they uplink to the HoloNet servers. Khadur seems confused as to what’s happening, but she just smiles as reassuringly as she can. Tracene gives the droid a second as it runs through a catalog of beeps, then continues. “Private Khadur, can you tell me where we are and what you believe happened here? ”

His tongue licks his lips—it makes a raspy sound—and he says, “This is an Ubdurian city. A merchant city. Binjai-Tin. A mostly Ubdurian population. The Empire, they came in here and—” His voice cracks. “They slaughtered everybody. These people weren’t soldiers. They were already…under the boot, you know? Weren’t allowed to carry blasters. Had to give a percentage of all earnings to the Empire. And what did it get them? This. A massacre. ” The Kupohan soldier flares his many nostrils.

Tracene sees that he’s at the edge of breaking. It’s not his fault. She decides that this is good enough—the footage will speak for itself and anything else he has to say won’t come close to the impact in the way he said that last word. Massacre. She tells him he can go, and thanks him.

As he starts to walk away, Lug steps in front of the Kupohan and gives him an awkward hug. The Trandoshan isn’t good at affection, really—the “hug” is stiff and uncomfortable and has all the warmth of a protocol droid romancing a tree stump, but she supposes it’s the thought that counts. Then Lug hands the man a small token: a tooth broken off a zlagfiend, which she understands is some kind of…many-mouthed, dagger-fanged hell-predator? Lug killed one when he was a boy, still hunting for his pack. He kept the teeth, of which there were many. Lug says to Khadur, as he says to all the soldiers with whom they speak, “It’s good luck. Take it. I tied it to a length of gut-cord so you can wear it around your neck or wrist or…Just take it. ”

Khadur nods, then clasps Lug’s hand before walking off.

“You’re nice the way you do that, ” she says, a wry smile on her face.

Lug shrugs and offers a growl-hiss. “Mnuh. They have it hard enough. ” He almost looks sheepish about it.

She laughs. “All right. We need to get an uplink on the highest point. ” She gestures toward a guild tower—it’s half collapsed, but even broken it’s still pretty tall. “Get the beam-com set up there. ”

“That’s high. ”

“And you can climb. ”

Another disappointed hiss. “Fine, fine, yeah, yeah. ”

He turns, starts walking—no spring in his step, of course, because Lug has two speeds: slow, and slower—and she turns to look back at the gathering soldiers coming into the city square. Setting up tents and generators. A gonk droid meanders about. Two soldiers splice a pair of cables together with a shower of blue electricity.

Then their eyes turn heavenward. Panic registers on their faces.

Before she can turn, Tracene hears the sudden sound—

TIE fighters. Twin engines shrieking.

She turns to look—and sure enough, a dozen of them framed against the purple sky. Coming in, and coming in fast. Tracene expects the obvious: lasers cutting across the city, digging furrows in the cobble-rock, tearing through soldiers and maybe even her if she’s not lucky.

But no lasers.

And yet, the TIEs keep coming.

She turns, screams for everyone to get back—they’re setting up weapons and turrets but it won’t matter. Tracene grabs the cam droid and tucks it under her arm, running like hell toward Lug. Yelling for him to run, too, now, fast, go, go, go—

Wham. The first TIE fighter hits the ground about 150 meters away. It plows into the wall surrounding the Binjai-Tin city square, and a massive fireball belches into the air—stone and scrap rain down around her and the ground shakes like it’s throttled by a quake.

It’s the first, but it’s not the last. The Imperial starfighters punch into the city, one after the next. Suiciders. Wham. Wham. Wham. The ground shakes so hard she loses her footing—the cam droid tumbles away, its lens cracking. She hears screams and sees the space above smear behind a gauzy haze of superheated air. And then she closes her eyes, her ears ringing.

It keeps going—until it goes no more.

In the darkness behind her eyes all she can do is think: How desperate they must be to send these pilots on a suicide mission. Because that’s what this is. TIE fighters flung to the surface? Each a weapon unto itself?

Those bastards.

She tastes dirt and blood. Tracene has no idea how many TIE fighters hit or how long it took. With a groan she lifts herself up on wobbly arms. Where the soldiers were entering the square is now a TIE interceptor, smashed into the ground, fire crackling and circuits popping. Bodies lie around. Others are alive, running for cover, weeping, or mobilizing in case it means incoming troops. She sees Khadur not far away, standing in the middle of it all. Dizzy and bewildered. One of his arms is missing. Sheared off, it seems, from a piece of fighter debris stuck in the ground nearby.

He waves at her. Such a strange gesture.

But in her short time out here, she knows that trauma will do that to you. It’ll leave you spinning like a top.

In that waving hand of Khadur’s is a fang dangling on a leathery cord.

Lug.

She turns toward her cam operator—

No.

No.

Where he stood is a wing panel from one of the TIEs. Bent up and smashed into the ground. Tracene cries out and runs toward it—if anyone can survive something like that, it’ll be Lug. Trandoshans are built like steel rebar swaddled in scale armor. She once watched him head-butt a jukebox in half because it wouldn’t play his song. Didn’t make a mark on him.

But there, she sees an arm—his arm—splayed out across the broken stone. She sees his face, too, Lug’s head half crushed underneath the metal. Tracene hurries over on her hands and knees, calling his name, that name dissolving on her lips into a blubbering gush. His eyes are open but empty. Blood runs from his mouth. He’s gone.

She weeps for a time. How long, she doesn’t know. Long enough that night starts to creep in, like a thief. Someone comes over, checks on her, and she shoos them away with a swipe of her nails.

Eventually, she stands and feels the cold reality settle into her veins. Then she does what she does best: She goes, picks up the cam droid, hits it a few times until it’s working, then she brings it back to Lug’s body.

She crouches down, turns on the cam, and speaks into it, trying very hard not to cry:

“This is Tracene Kane, HoloNet news reporter embedded with the New Republic Thirty-First. And I’d like to tell you about a friend of mine. A friend the Empire just stole from me. ”

Ashmead’s Lock goes dead.

All his cams, all his connections, they go dark in perfect simultaneity. The feed is gone. The prison is liberated.

Admiral Rax smiles.

It is time.

—

“Your ribs, ” Jas tells Norra. “They’re broken. ”

Norra struggles to breathe. “Am I going to be all right? ”

“Eventually. Doesn’t feel like they punctured the lung—though I’m betting it feels that way to you. ” Jas manifests a rare smile. “I’ve been there, Wexley, more times than I can count. You’ll make it through. ”

All around them, pocket lights spear through the darkness of the now derelict Ashmead’s Lock. One by one, her crew rescues the prisoners from their docks. It’s literally dozens. Maybe even a hundred or more. Many of them are dressed in the uniforms of the Rebel Alliance—officers and pilots and doctors from the days before the second Death Star fell. Some even before the first one blew thanks to the farm boy from Tatooine.

Bodies shuffle past. Weak and confused. They all get the same instructions—head outside and wait. Oh, and don’t stray. Because who knows what waits out there in the dread Kashyyyk forest?

Norra grunts, winces, and tries to stand.

“Sit down, ” Jas says.

“You’re not a doctor. I want to help. ”

“You can help by sitting down. ”

“Would you stay seated? ”

In the half darkness, she sees Jas’s shoulders shrug. “No. ”

“And neither will I. So help me up already. ”

The bounty hunter does as asked.

All around, the shadows of droid carcasses surround them. Once the power cut out, they all slumped and fell like okari junk-puppets with their dancing wires cut. Clatter and collapse.

“We find Sinjir and Jom yet? ” Norra asks.

“Jom’s outside, helping keep people together. Sinjir, we haven’t—”

From somewhere in the darkness, an all-too-familiar voice reaches their ears. The voice is hoarse but clear. “Everything tastes like licking a blasted battery. Someone please come get me. ”

Sinjir.

Jas retreats into the darkness, then returns with the ex-Imperial. In the glow of Jas’s pocket light, Sinjir looks like he just woke up from a weeklong bender: hair amuss, the whites of his eyes red, the skin around gone bruise-dark. He is licking his lips and making a wrung-washrag face.

He nods. “Norra. Been a while. You end up in one of those…pods? ”

“Yes. Well. Almost? ”

“Not restful at all. Would not recommend. ” He leans in between both Jas and Norra and in a low voice asks: “Either of you fine upstanding New Republic citizens happen to bring a jorum of skee with you? A nip of korva? I’m feeling a bit dry over here. ”

“Anyone ever tell you you have a drinking problem? ” Jas asks.

“My only problem is I’m not drinking. ”

She shakes her head. “Go help Temmin and Solo get more of the prisoners free. I’ll go with you. ” Jas turns to her. “Norra, you take it easy—”

“I’ll go help the prisoners outside. Make sure they stay close. ” Jas starts to protest, but she cuts her off: “I need to stay busy. Need to keep focused. ” The way her mind was going in that dock, it feels like she’s on stable ground but too close to a rain-slick edge—it wouldn’t take much to tumble down again into the darkness of those terrible thoughts. “Okay? ”

Jas sighs and nods.

Norra grabs the light off her belt and makes her way outside.

Out there, the dead forest is filled with life. Prisoners. Rebels. A Rodian in a flight suit stands staring off at nothing. A woman ties the sleeves of a cold-weather coat around her middle. A Sullustan in blue Dantooinian robes leans for support against a pudgy old Corellian in a tattered rebel army jumpsuit. Norra limps along, shaking hands and clasping arms, offering words of wheezy encouragement—all the while trying not to cough, because coughing just feels like she’s being punched with pistoning fists. She tries to share the good news with them that they’re free, that they can go home soon, that the Rebel Alliance has become the New Republic—

“Is he out here? ”

Solo comes out of the prison ship with the fury of a storm. He steps into the middle of the crowd, not far from Norra. “Yeah, yeah, hi, yeah, ” he says to those gathered. “I’m looking for a big guy. Hairy as anything. Wookiee. Name of Chewbacca. ” Desperation shines on his face like a beacon. He spies Norra. “Norra. Where is he? He’s…he’s not in there—”

“Han, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t say sorry, just find him! ”

The panic on his face is clear. And she feels it, too. Rescuing all these prisoners is a victory for the New Republic—but it’s an accidental one. For Solo, the only thing that matters is paying what he owes.

And that means finding his friend.

Just then—

A gurgling roar cuts the air.

Solo spins around. There, coming out of the ship—alongside her son—is the massive walking fur-beast. The Wookiee, Chewbacca.

“Chewie! ” Solo calls, and laughs as he breaks into a run. The Wookiee looks bedraggled and beaten down, but that doesn’t diminish Chewbacca’s enthusiasm. The Wookiee tilts his head back and ululates a loud, joyful growl, then wraps his impossible arms around the smuggler. Solo looks like a child snatched up by an eager parent—for a moment his whole body lifts up off the ground, his legs kicking as the Wookiee purrs and barks.

“I messed up, pal, ” Solo gasps as the Wookiee sets him back down. The Wookiee yips and barks. “No, no, I gotta own this one, big guy. I shoulda been there with you. But we’ll make it right. I promise. ” Then, a moment as the Wookiee looks around. His body goes slack like he’s taking it all in. Everyone goes silent.

The Falcon’s copilot utters a low growl.

Solo nods. “Yeah. You’re home, Chewie. ”

The Wookiee stands there, stock-still and dead silent as he stares up at the trees. As if he’s just realizing where he is. He makes no movement and utters no sound, as if nothing could convey what he’s really feeling. Everyone waits to see what he’ll do, but Chewbacca does nothing.

More Wookiees emerge behind Temmin. “Found another chamber of prisoners in the back. I think they’re with you, Solo. ”

“Thanks, kid. Thanks. ”

Those Wookiees join with Chewie and together they stand with one another, staring up into the darkness of their damaged world.

Norra watches it all. The tears that warm the corners of her eyes are ones she tells herself belong to the pain in her side and not the one in her heart. She steps forward, intending to go to her son, hug him, ask him about Bones—but then behind her, someone says her name.

“Norra? Is that…is that you? ”

Her knees go weak. She almost falls. Temmin rushes to her, helps her before she falls. That voice…

She turns to see if it really could be him.

It couldn’t be—after all this time—

“Brentin, ” she says.

He’s standing right there. Surely just a phantom. He’s thinner, older, his skin pallid and his eyes bloodshot. But it’s still him. Temmin’s voice is small at first when he says: “Dad? ”

Which means Temmin sees him, too.

He’s not a phantom at all.

Brentin is real. Her husband is alive. And he’s standing right there.

On the bridge of Home One, the Mon Calamari cheer. Out there in the expanse of space, the wreckage of ships floats above Kuat—Imperial ships, mostly, though the Republic lost some of its own over the last several weeks.

The bombing campaign against the shipyards and supply bases of Kuat is complete. The sector governor—Moff Pollus Maksim—and the guild head of the Kuat Drive Yards have surrendered. The scopes are clear with no further intrusions expected by the Empire.

It has been a long, protracted fight.

And now it’s over.

“Congratulations, Admiral, ” Leia says to Ackbar—she is not physically present, but she stands there as a holographic communication: an avatar summoned by the Mon Calamari. “You and Commodore Agate have won the day for the New Republic. ” With a plucky smile she adds: “Again. ”

Ackbar, though, is not one to cheer. Leia knows that he shares in the optimism of his fellow officers, nodding and smiling along. He wouldn’t dare darken their light with the shadow of cynicism and worry. Just the same, he remains steadfast in reminding everyone that every battle has its costs. The battle for Kuat Drive Yards is no different.

Next to Leia, the other hologram—this one of Commodore Kyrsta Agate—nods and smiles stiffly. “I’m glad we accomplished something today, ” the commodore says. “Taking weapons out of the Empire’s hands was a worthy goal and one I’m glad the Senate supported. ”

Battles with the Senate, Leia thinks. She knows that this is the nature of democracy and she welcomes that struggle. Just the same, this will be a chaotic time, and though it is the soldiers who experience the true trauma, the galaxy’s citizens are war-weary. Theirs is a deeper, more sustained trauma—a fear and suspicion embedded like a splinter under the skin. This time with the Senate will be a tumult of indecision. They’re understandably gun-shy. And, Leia knows, this is why Kashyyyk remains enslaved.

Through the viewscreen the front, hatchet end of the Starhawk battleship cleaves its way through the open space above Kuat. A considerable ship, the Starhawk, and one that belongs exclusively to the New Republic forces. Getting the vote from the Senate to approve the scrapping of Imperial craft in order to build new ships, droids, and weapons was its own battle that may have been harder fought than the orbit-to-ground battle here at Kuat. A not-inconsiderable number of the current senators still remember when Palpatine formed the Empire out of the ashes of a Republic they didn’t even know was burning. He quickly commissioned ships, too, to serve his new military order. Their fear is born of good reason.

It is a credit to Mon Mothma that she was able to marshal the votes—despite her own doubts about creating new weapons of war.

Kyrsta Agate, for her part, has mitigated her accomplishment today with a heavy brow. It’s one of the reasons both Leia and Ackbar like her so much: Agate understands that the costs of war are heavy even in victory. The balance on that bill is not easily paid off—and it shows in the suffering of soldiers decades after fighting ends. It manifests as political fear. It is demonstrated by criminals, terrorists, and other sympathizers. Only peace—protracted peace, true peace! —balances those books.

Just the same, Leia wants both the admiral and the commodore to feel proud.

“The shipyards at Kuat were a vital resource for the Galactic Empire, and their loss will be keenly felt, ” Leia says. “We have hamstrung the production of new fighters and capital ships. Further, we can turn these resources around and use them as our own. ”

Agate smirks. “I know all this, Princess Leia. But I appreciate what you’re trying to do. ”

“Take the victory and enjoy it, Commodore. You too, Admiral. ”

Ackbar harrumphs. “I will. But I want to keep my eye on what matters most: ending this conflict. Nobody wins a war, Leia. Best we can do is find a way to stop fighting. ”

“In that, Admiral, we are agreed. ”

Just then, a new communiqué incoming—Ackbar nods to Comm Officer Toktar, and she puts the visual through.

Another hologram appears: Chancellor Mon Mothma.

“Chancellor, ” Ackbar says, giving a deferential nod. “I did not expect to hear from you so soon. Is today not the Senate budgetary proceeding? ”

“It is. ” Even in hologram, the chancellor looks weary. This is taking a lot out of her. It’s taking a lot out of them all. Leia notices a moment when Mon Mothma’s gaze flicks toward her. What is that there? What forms the backbone of that hesitation? Suspicion? Irritation? As fast it came, it’s gone again, and Leia wonders if she’s just imagining things. Mon Mothma, anxious, says: “There is another matter. Something pressing. We have received a communication request from the Operator. ”

The Operator—the shadowy operative from deep within the Empire who has periodically appeared in order to direct the New Republic to Imperial vulnerabilities. Leia has never properly trusted that source. After all, the destruction of the second Death Star was born of a ruse concocted by Palpatine—one that perhaps should have been more easily seen. This, though, feels different. It has gone on too long. The Operator’s intel has afforded them a dozen victories already, and it’s hard to imagine exactly how this could be a deception—it would have to be a very long confidence game. And even then, to what end? Why would the Empire hobble itself?

They have all come, however reluctantly, to trust the source.

But it’s been some time since the Operator has revealed himself. Since Akiva, as a matter of fact. Mumblings inside the New Republic have pondered at the fate of that mysterious agent. Was he caught? Killed? Did he flee?