BY CHUCK WENDIG 18 страница

He shrugs. “I’m a thug who’s here. I’m a thug who can fight. Don’t question my motivations. ”

She stomps off. “Fine. Do what you want, Barell. ”

“Fun’s over, I guess! ” he calls after her.

The commando lingers behind, fuming.

She is a brat.

What’s worse, she’s not wrong. He did follow her to Irudiru because damnit, he likes her. And that makes him feel exactly like the lost puppy she thinks he is. Imagining her taking the Halo and getting chewed apart by those turbolasers…

He shakes it off.

Time to rejoin the others. Time to do the work. Time to fight.

It has been a month.

Nothing has changed.

Everything has changed.

—

Wedge Antilles crosses the white macadam of the spaceport, walking toward a fat-bellied shuttle at the far end. Ahead of him, the wind carries sachi blossoms—petals caught on the breeze, looking like canary moths flitting about the air. His leg is getting better. He no longer needs the cane. The limp is still there, haunting him like a spirit who refuses the exorcism from his bones, but slowly, surely, he’s getting up to speed.

Ahead, a Pantoran man with bristle-brush muttonchops polishes the flat chrome plating on the shuttle’s fore.

As Wedge approaches, the man turns, then offers a hasty salute.

“Captain, ” the Pantoran says.

“At ease, pilot, ” Wedge says.

“Technician, actually. Name’s Shilmar Iggson, ” the Pantoran says. “Help you with something? ”

“I’m looking for—”

From behind the shuttle’s folded wing pokes a face—one smudged with streaks of dark grease. Wedge almost doesn’t recognize her.

“Captain, ” Norra says. She slides under the wing, her knees on a repulsor creeper. She kicks the platform and it floats away. As Norra stands, she wipes her hands with a rag.

“Captain? ” Wedge asks. “Norra, come on, we’re friends. ”

“Oh. Yeah, no, of course, I just—” She offers an awkward smile. “Hey, Wedge. It’s good to see you again. ”

She moves to shake his hand and he moves in for a hug and neither actually happens. There’s that awkward moment where his arms are open and her hand is hanging out in midair. They laugh nervously and retreat.

“So, ” he says, admiring the shuttle. “You’re a pilot again? ”

“I am. I work for the Senate. Sometimes they, well. They need rides. Later today I’m taking the, let’s see if I get this right, the ‘Special Senator Council on Galactic De-Escalation Strategies. ’ Or is it the ‘Senate Special Council? ’ I can’t remember. Either way, they’re heading out to Lake Andrasha to convene another meeting. ”

“The peace talks are coming up in a few days. ”

“And the big celebration. ”

“Right, right. ” Wedge has been on special security detail for that event. The liberation of the captives of Kashyyyk was a boost in the arm when it came to morale. Some of those prisoners were high-ranking folks from the Rebel Alliance. Many were heroes and liberators in their own right, and freeing them—well, it was decided that such an event demanded a proper celebration.

Liberation Day, the Senate voted to call it. The chancellor’s idea.

And the peace talks will dovetail with that event. Wedge isn’t much of a politician, but even he can see the play there—peace talks with the Empire are viewed with a great deal of suspicion. He feels it, too. Imperial oppression has fomented a great deal of bad blood over the many years, and those in the New Republic aren’t necessarily keen to give the enemy room to move. Having Grand Admiral Sloane here only stirs up that blood—hell, just thinking of her name makes Wedge’s body ache with the memory of what they did to him there in the satrap’s palace on Akiva. That woman deserves no measure of compassion—no moment of kindness. Give her that moment and he believes she’ll use it to flash a knife and cut their throats.

Then again, he might be just a little bit prejudiced. Which is why he’s staying out of it. Either way, a big celebration like Liberation Day will go a long way to cool the hot blood over the peace talks.

“It’s been a while, ” Norra says.

“Yeah. It has. Sorry about that. It’s just been—well, you know. ”

“Everything’s hectic. ”

“Everything’s moving fast right now. Lightspeed fast. ”

Human emotions are basically a pack of tooka-cats chasing shadows, Wedge decides. He is happy that Norra has her husband. And yet…

And yet.

“So, ” Norra asks. “What’s up? Everything okay? ”

He dithers a bit before saying: “I don’t think it is. ”

“What? What’s wrong? ”

“It’s about Temmin, Norra. ”

—

Clang, clang, clang.

Temmin knocks the last spring-bolt into place with the handle of the coil-driver, then flips it around and gives the skull one…last…twist.

It buzzes and clicks into place.

The red eyes flicker, then strobe, then stay lit.

Bones’s narrow, vulpine head looks left, looks right, then finally his eyes telescope and focus on Temmin.

“HELLO, MASTER TEMMIN. ”

“Bones! ” He grabs the droid and presses his forehead against the flat of the droid’s cold metal head. “Glad you’re back, buddy. ”

“I AM GLAD TO HAVE NO ASTROMECH PARTS. ”

“I know. ”

“ASTROMECHS ARE MEDDLING, WEAK THINGS THAT REMIND ME OF TRASH RECEPTACLES OR REPOSITORIES FOR HUMAN WASTE FLUIDS. THEY ARE NEARLY AS USELESS AS PROTOCOL DROIDS, WHO SERVE NO FUNCTION AT ALL EXCEPT TO TALK, TALK, TALK, TALK, TALK, TALK—”

“Okay, okay. ” Temmin laughs. “I get it, pull back on the flight stick, killer. ” He makes a mental note: Tweak Bones’s personality matrix. Something must’ve gotten knocked around in there—the B1’s not usually this chatty. “How are you feeling? ”

“I APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN MODIFIED AGAIN. ”

“Yeah. Mostly just cosmetic. ” The B1’s torso got dented in and torn up enough by those drones back on Kashyyyk that Temmin decided to lean into the skeletal look and just cut out those dents entirely. Now Bones’s torso looks more like a human rib cage. Albeit with more…spiky bits.

He thought about putting one of those droid arms onto Bones—those whipcord limbs were pretty primo. Sophisticated stuff.

His father said he could maybe help, but then…

“YOU SEEM STRUCK WITH A MOMENT OF GRIEF, MASTER TEMMIN. PLEASE IDENTIFY THE SOURCE OF THIS GRIEF AND I WILL TEAR IT APART AS IF IT WERE AN UNSUSPECTING BUG. ”

“I’m good, Bones, I’m fine. Happy to have Dad home. ”

“THAT’S NICE. BUT IT DOES NOT EXPLAIN THE UPSET YOU ARE DEMONSTRATING ON YOUR FACE. YOUR GRIEF AND WORRY HAVE BEEN ONGOING. EXPLAIN, PLEASE. ”

What can he say?

Things were good. Brentin came home. Mom seemed happy. Temmin was happy. They did things together. They went to the zoo out on Sarini Island, watched the pangorins in their grottoes and the scuttling caw-crabs splashing about their enclosures and Dad laughed at the ooking uralangs. They ate dinner every night. Dad even cooked, trying to navigate his way through the strange Chandrilan herbs and spices. Mom and he stayed up late for the first several nights, laughing long into morning.

But then something changed…

Somewhere in the apartment, Temmin hears the sound—the clatter of utensils on a dish, the hum of the protein cycler, the splash of the spigots.

“Stay here, Bones, ” Temmin says, then heads into the kitchen.

It’s his father.

That still amazes him. His father. Ripped from his life years ago—dragged out of the house in the middle of the night by Imperial forces. It should be amazing. And Temmin combats that thought by telling himself, It is amazing, you’re just too selfish to realize it.

But after those first couple of weeks, Dad hasn’t been the same. It’s like he’s not all there. He’s still Brentin Wexley. Still sometimes wears that winning smile. Still is good with tools. Still snaps his fingers like Temmin does when he’s thinking, and he’s fast with a joke now and again. But…

He usually walks with an easy, effortless lean. Like he doesn’t have a care in the world. And music—Dad always loved music. Temmin even went out to a junk shop (which are few and far between here on Chandrila, as the people view junk as junk and not as the treasure Temmin sees it can be) and brought home a small valachord. Dad poked the keys a few times.

Hasn’t touched it since.

The doctors and therapists said this was all normal. Nobody really knows what his mind went through. Far as Brentin Wexley recalls, it seems like he was in stasis for most of those years—held fast in those cradles and used to power the rest of the prison ship’s security protocols. Mom said that the chems they pumped into her made her feel anxious and afraid—and that was just after a few minutes.

Who knows what Dad went through having that cocktail churning through him for years? Might’ve been an endless nightmare.

Still. Dad’s back but he’s not…back.

And that sucks.

“Tem, ” Dad says. “Hey, kiddo. ”

“Dad. Hey. ”

“You okay? ”

“Fine. I just…I thought you were supposed to help me today. ”

“Help you? I…” Then his face twists up like a wrung rag. “With the droid. Your B1. Right, yeah. I’m sorry, Tem. I’ve just been distracted. ”

“Where were you? ”

“I took a walk. ”

He does that, now. He takes walks. Lots of them. Morning, midday, even in the middle of the night. The one therapist, Doctor Chavani, said that was normal, too. Said a lot of stuff might’ve built up in his mind over the years and this might be his way of shaking it out. Everyone assumed he was dead and now he’s not—he’s risen, effectively, from the grave like a glow-wight from the old Meteor Horror serials.

“I can take a walk with you sometime. ”

“No, ” Brentin says. “I think I like to be alone on those walks. ”

“You think? ”

“Everything’s not real clear right now, kiddo. ”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah. You and Mom all right? ”

“Sure. ” But the way he says it, he knows they’re not. Temmin’s seen that for himself. There’s a distance there. And it’s growing wider.

And, he decides, it’s all Norra’s fault.

—

“He’s mad at me, ” Norra says. She takes out her thermal carafe and pops the two disks out of the lid—disks that with a flick of her finger become two small telescoping cups. She and Wedge retired to a small table around the back of the shuttle hangar—a place where some of the pilots, techs, and mechs eat meals on the job. She pours him a cup of chava chava: a hot brew from the root of the same name. It’s no jaqhad leaf-chew, but it’ll do.

Wedge sighs. “I got that feeling. ”

“We’re not really talking much now. ”

“Why? Is it you and Brentin? ”

“Me and Brentin are fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine. ” She hears the stiffness in her voice. It’s like she’s got this cough in her chest and she’s trying not to let it out but it tickles and scratches and hurts and—“Oh, damnit, it’s not fine! It’s not fine at all. Temmin’s right to be mad at me. His father comes home and he’s not present, like, in his eyes? He’s not there with us all the time. He’s somewhere else even when he’s sitting right across from me. ”

“Most of the captives are like that a little bit. I heard they were anesthetized, but…they had nightmares. ”

“That’s right. Brentin probably underwent years of nightmares. And so the way he’s acting is normal. It’s more than normal. I…I…it’s not his fault, and yet I can’t get close. It’s like he’s just not Brentin anymore. ” And you’re just not Norra anymore, either. “I blame myself. He’ll get there. I have to be patient. I have to be nice and smile and just shut my fool mouth because he’ll get there. ”

Wedge’s hand finds her own. Their fingers enmesh.

It’s warm and it’s comforting and—

She yanks it away.

“I’m married. ”

“I know. I know! I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t, I just mean—”

“Of course. ”

“Yeah. ”

“Sorry. ”

“Don’t apologize, ” she says. It felt good and I want you to take my hand again and she grits her teeth while working to banish that thought. “Just—tell me what’s wrong with my son. ”

“Nothing’s wrong. He’s actually scheduled to be on reserve for Liberation Day…”

“But? ”

“But he’s missed too much training. ”

She pinches her brow. “Which means he can’t actually be on deck. ”

“Right. ”

“He’s having a hard go of it right now. His father coming home has been all he’s ever wanted, but the reality of that is far less than the magic we all expected. ” She takes a long pull of the chava. “I’ll tell him. About Liberation Day. ”

“You’re sure? I can tell him. ”

“He’s already mad at me. I might as well. ”

“Thanks. ”

They sit there for a while, each wreathed in steam from the cups. She says, finally, “Any word from Kashyyyk? ”

“None. ”

“It’s been a month, Wedge. ”

“I know. ”

“Leia must be losing her mind. ”

“She is. Trust me, she is. ”

—

The Eleutherian Plaza outside the Senate Building is abuzz with activity—all of it conducted by the masterful hand of Chancellor Mon Mothma and her advisers. She wields people like instruments, creating harmony and rhythm out of sheer noise. It is a thing to watch.

Unless, of course, you are one of her discarded instruments.

That is how Leia feels. But even if she is no longer contributing to the song…she can still bring noise, can’t she?

She strides up through the center of the plaza. She’s showing now. No way to hide it. No way to avoid the whispers, either—rumors of the child born of a smuggler and a princess, a smuggler who fled, a princess who stayed. Leia does not care about those whispers. She cannot.

As Mon directs Senate Guards, telling them where to stand—simultaneously fielding questions about the illuminations display that will fill the night sky after Liberation Day with an unparalleled show of lights and fire—Leia walks right up to stand in front of her. Forget protocol. Decorum is a thing of the past, a thing that Leia has buried deeply. Besides: Mon is a friend. Isn’t she?

“Leia, ” Mon says. In that voice, Leia detects the competing emotions of warmth and irritation. The chancellor is pleased to see her while annoyed by her interruption. “As you can see, I’m a bit busy—”

“Yes, I’m busy, too. Busy worrying about my husband and his team and the entire world of Wookiees slowly being ground to dust in the crushing fist of the still-existent Empire. Mon, please. ”

Leia has been driven ceaselessly to find a solution to this crisis ever since that day the Millennium Falcon landed here in Chandrila—and her husband failed to meet her. Norra and the others rescued prisoners, but Han stayed behind. Something he had to do, Norra said.

Her jaw clenches at that.

Leia tried marshaling the votes needed to send aid and troops to Kashyyyk, but of course the Senate is full of representatives whose own worlds need that aid and, sometimes, the military presence, too. The vote was close, but not close enough—the measure will not return until the next cycle, and by then it will be far too late.

After that, she tried interfacing with Admiral Ackbar directly—Ackbar agreed that it was time to do something about Kashyyyk, and together they pondered the options. He considered sending a small SpecForces team to the surface in order to help locate and assist Han’s team…

Mon Mothma blocked that effort. Like slamming down a giant wall of ice between Leia and her goal.

At the time, Mon said it would be “inexcusable” to stir mud into the water after Sloane came to them with the offer of peace talks. The galaxy, she said, was momentarily at peace—a tense, unpleasant peace, perhaps, but one where all was quiet on the galactic front. It was a much-needed respite from the weariness of war, and to make any formal, official incursion against Kashyyyk at this point could reawaken those troubles.

That, the chancellor made clear, was not an option.

And the Senate backed her up.

“Leia, please. If you give me a few hours—”

“Mon. Stop. Listen to me. I won’t negotiate on this. ”

Mon leans in and whispers: “I understand you’re upset—”

“Understand this, ” Leia says, her voice louder than a whisper. “You need me. I’m still the face of this Republic. Don’t make me walk away from that. ”

Mon stiffens. “You’d really do that? You’d injure the New Republic over this? ”

“I would burn down the whole galaxy if I thought it was right. ”

Mon sighs and forces a smile. “I do know that. ” The chancellor nods to everyone gathered. “Take a short break. I’ll be back. ”

The chancellor secures Leia’s elbow and the two of them walk to the far side of the plaza. Nearby, a trio of whiskered vole-kites scurry about, searching for crumbs with scrabbling paws. Startled, the little animals take flight in a flurry of furry feathers.

“You have my attention, ” Mon says. “I wish you’d found a nicer way to secure it, but here we are. ”

“We are friends. Aren’t we? ”

“I expect and hope we still are. I know this is about Kashyyyk and—believe me when I tell you, my hands here are tied. Things are different now. In the days of the Alliance, we did what we could—and sometimes that meant individuals making snap decisions for the whole. But this is no longer an insurgency. We aren’t in hiding. We don’t operate in cells or in ragtag bases strewn across the galaxy. All eyes are on us, all hands are joined. We are united, and in that unity we are beholden to the whole, to the machine of government, which is slow, yes, but effective—”

“Effective at what, exactly? Indolence? Concession? ”

“Compromise. ”

“Such cold logic and all while worlds die. What is our compromise on Kashyyyk? Because it seems to me there that no such compromise has manifested, not a compromise that the Wookiees would understand—”

Mon takes her hand and clasps it tight. “Kashyyyk is one world among the thousands we are trying to reach—and thousands more beyond that to come. Please see beyond your entanglements with Han and see that this is more than just one man. ”

“Yes, you’re right. It is! It is about millions of Wookiees—many of whom are already dead because nobody came to help them. Chewbacca is a friend and a protector. He is family. And I owe him just as Han owes him. ” Awareness blooms inside her, fierce as a plume of fire. She understands why Han is out there. He’s not running away from her or from the child. He’s running toward something. That’s what Norra meant—he has something left to do. Something that can’t remain undone before he starts his own family.

“I’ve been thinking, ” Mon says, “and what Han is doing may be the right way to go about it. On worlds where the Empire still holds sway—or where criminal syndicates fill that void—individual resistance movements may rise up and serve as small rebellions all their own. Just like what happened on Akiva. We cannot officially support them but we may be able to find ways through back channels to offer aid. ”

Leia scoffs. “Back channels? That’s what we’ve earned? ”

“As I told you before, I will also put this on the table with Admiral Sloane during our peace talks. I will ask that the liberation of Kashyyyk be a condition of peace—”

“You want to negotiate something that is non-negotiable, ” Leia hisses. She holds up two hands, palms flat up. “Over here is the right thing, the good thing. On the other side is the wrong path. The evil path. We have long fought to be good. To be heroes! But now? You want to negotiate in this middle space. You want to dither about in the gray. ”

“It’s not as simple as good and evil, Leia. ”

“It is to me! —” Leia turns toward the door. “I’m not getting anywhere. I…have to go, Mon. I thought I could try, but I can see it’s futile. ”

“Wait. Liberation Day is almost here. I need you by my side—the face of solidarity. Unity, as I said. ”

“We have no unity on this. You will go at this alone. ”

“It’s not me who’s alone, Leia. ”

A twist of the blade. Leia attacks right back:

“I’d rather be alone than with you, Chancellor. ”

With that, she storms off, certain now what she must do.

—

Norra finds her son standing alone in the kitchen. He’s eating a pakarna bowl—a kind of noodle concoction. A Chandrilan dish. Herbaceous and spicy. He twirls noodles onto a fork and shoves them unceremoniously into his mouth, sauce dribbling on his chin as Bones stares, rapt.

The boy barely acknowledges her as she comes in the door.

“Hi, ” she says.

He doesn’t respond. Just a mopey nod is all she gets.

“Where’s your father? ”

“What do you care? ”

“Okay. I probably deserve that. ”

Temmin shrugs. “Yeah. Well. He’s out. Again. On one of his walks. ”

“He just needs to clear his head, honey. ”

“What he needs is to get away from you. ”

That raises her hackles. She doesn’t want it to. Norra wants to lean into this, to take her licks if they’re earned—but fast, too fast, she’s biting back at him: “Watch the attitude, Tem. We’re all going through something. This is going to get tougher before it gets easier. Your father has been away a long time—”

“Because he was captured. What was your excuse? ”

“I was—”

“Trying to find him? How’d that work out for you? ”

She ignores that. Or tries to. “Your father’s been a little strange because of what they did to him on that ship. ”

“He’s been strange because you’ve been strange with him. ”

He’s right. She has. They eat dinner mostly in silence. The first week they slept in the same bed, but since then he’s been falling asleep on the settee in the family room. They barely talk now. What should they talk about? The state of the galaxy? The upcoming peace talks with the people who put him in prison, the ones he fought against for years? Would they speak of his nightmares? Her time with the Alliance? She’s tried, in private moments, to probe at the edges of that, to tease out what he thinks of her following in his footsteps, but mostly he just seems distracted. It’s something she’s seen with other pilots and soldiers in the war—they’ve been trauma-blasted to oblivion. Ripped asunder, until they’re just tattered scraps of who they once were.

Is that Brentin, now? Just tattered scraps?

Can he be stitched back together? Can their marriage?

Temmin flings his noodle bowl into the sink, half eaten. Bones cranes his neck and looks down at it.

“I WILL CLEAN THAT UP, ” the droid chimes.

“No, ” Temmin says, hooking a finger around one of the robot’s newly forged ribs. “Let’s go somewhere else. ”

She catches his arm. “Wedge spoke to me. You’ve been missing training. ”

“So? ”

“So, it means you can’t participate in Liberation Day patrols. ”

He shrugs like it doesn’t matter, even though the shrug is so aggressive, it has to matter. “Whatever. Great. Liberation Day is dumb anyway. Peace talks with that monster, Sloane? We freed some prisoners. Whoopee. They’re not even giving us medals. ”

“Temmin—”

“No, you know what? It’s fine. It’s great. I’m gonna follow Dad’s lead and go for a long walk. Alone. Come on, Bones. ”

“IF I GO, THEN YOU WON’T BE ALONE. ”

“I said, come on. ”

“ROGER-ROGER. ”

Norra is left by herself. Her eyes burning with tears. Her mind suddenly flies not to her husband, not to her son or Wedge, but to the team she left behind on Kashyyyk. She hopes they’re okay.

Lozen Tolruck, Grand Moff of Kashyyyk, is hunting.

A visor sits strapped to his round face, and on each side small electro-stim pads are affixed to his temples. Through the visor, he sees—and controls—a small assassin probe. The probe was a droid, once, though one of his techs removed the thing’s personality matrix and turned it into something that Tolruck could control from afar. It’s a mean little thing, that probe. Small enough to be tucked under one’s arm. Fast as an arrow. Nimble, too, with perfect movement in every direction. It possesses a chroma-coat of shimmer-paint, allowing it to appear as if it blends in with the rest of its environment—providing it with powerful camouflage.

It is a wonderful device. In theory.

Lozen Tolruck despises it.

Through the visor he sees his prey—one of the Wookiees they’ve been training. This one is Subject 478-98, though Tolruck likes to give them nicknames. Makes it more personal. This one he calls Blackstripe, because of the single black stripe that bisects the center of the beast’s face.

Blackstripe runs and Blackstripe climbs, but it matters little. The assassin probe is fast. It has thermal imaging and motion detection. It sees all and can pursue with swift efficacy. The beast scrambles up one of the massive wroshyr trees in the Garden Preserve, and it ducks through branches and swings under spongy zha-raratha vines and scrambles around clusters of blood-red needle blossoms. Blackstripe climbs and climbs.

And soon, the beast sees its hunter.

It roars. Tolruck flinches as the beast’s paw swipes across his vision. The probe flinches, too, darting backward; the clumsy swat fails to connect.

Tolruck merely thinks about what he wants to do and the assassin probe does it. It barely needs to be a conscious thought. He blinks and the probe extends a telescoping barrel and then—

Kiff, kiff.

Two toxo-darts stick in the beast’s chest. The poison is fast acting, and the Wookiee should fall, but he doesn’t. He is robust. They trained him too well, it seems. Clumsily, the creature continues his ascent of the tree, moaning and gurgling as he leaps inelegantly from branch to branch…

Fine. Anger seizes Tolruck. He roars the way the Wookiees roar—even though the beast will never hear that sound, given that the damn thing is over sixty kilometers away—and then he launches the assassin probe right at the wretched monster. Soon as it hits, he signals the elimination code—

And the probe self-destructs.

That will kill the awful thing. Blackstripe will be dead—a hole blown in the beast’s back. Maybe it would even have split the monster in half.

The visor goes dark. Tolruck rips it off his face with a growl. He dashes it to the ground and steps on it as if it is an offensive pest.

There, in front of him, stands his attaché: Odair Bel-Opis. A capable man, Odair. Organized. Merciless. Corellian. He is a brutal killer, yes, but also trustworthy—he has no designs on Tolruck’s position. Odair is as necessary and as simple as a club held firm in one’s hand.

“This thing, ” Tolruck growls, toeing the broken control visor, “is worthless to me. This isn’t hunting, Odair. It’s voyeuristic. I want to be there. I want to smell those ragged beasts. I want to hear their growls and their rasping breath. I want to chase them and be chased. That is the hunt. Not…whatever this is. ”

He paces around the room like the whirling winds of one of Kashyyyk’s dreadful mrawzim storms—he runs his hands along the gnarled, knotted logs that make up the walls of his circular chamber. His thumb tracks across a line of sticky sap and he brings it to his lips. He sucks that thumb the way a baby would. It gives him chills and he shudders. A wave of pleasure washes over him. The sap—hragathir, the Wookiees call it—becomes narcotic over time, after the wood is culled from the tree.