Aftermath: Star Wars (35 page)

Rae straps in.

The Star Destroyer looms closer and closer. Bay G2D1 awaits covered with the faint blue shimmer of the shields. Shields that she believes are failing, which means soon, the
Vigilance
will be no more.

To Morna, she says: “I trust you not to kill us.”

The pilot nods. “That’s the plan.”

She winces as she brings the yacht in through the front of the bay. Rae feels the speed now, sees everything zooming up to them fast, too fast, and the deck rushes up—

The yacht hits it hard. Pain goes through her—an ache through her wrists and neck as the g-forces threaten to rip her asunder. The yacht lands hard, and as the lights again go out all she hears is the grinding of metal on metal as the whole thing shifts sideways, skidding fast and loose across the Imperial Star Destroyer’s bay.

Fzzt. Fzzt.

Sparks in the dark. Circuits pop and fizzle. Panels swing, hanging by loose wires. A haze of smoke fills the air. Smells duel for supremacy: the stink of hot metal, the odor of melting plastic. A third stench: electric ozone.

Light comes in from outside. Garish, bright, artificial light.

Norra groans and lifts her chest off the uneven ground. She tries to figure out what happened, but it doesn’t take her long to realize, because she’s been in this situation too many times before:

We crash-landed.

Underneath her, Temmin lies unmoving.

Oh, no.

“Temmin. Temmin!” She pulls him up and he suddenly draws a sharp breath, his eyes fluttering open. She laughs and pulls him close.

“Ow,” he says.

“Sorry.”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Not now,” she says. “Later. Now we have to—”

Someone moves through the space. Norra’s eyes adjust and she sees Jas stalking through the ruined room, emerging from a whorl of black smoke. She stands over a body, points the blaster down, and fires.

The blue pulse from a stun charge warbles in the air.

Whoever is lying there shudders and goes slack.

Jas looks over. Sees Norra—she reaches out a hand and helps her up, then Temmin. To the boy, the bounty hunter says: “You’re late.”

“Jas, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Stop there. We’re fine.”

From behind them, a cough and sputter before Sinjir says: “Yes, please. I’m not dead but I may yet choke on your rank sentimentality. I cannot say for sure
exactly
what happened, but I’d put considerable credits down on a bet that says we should not dally.”

“You talk a lot for not dallying,” Jas says.

“And you certainly do love an unnecessary retort—”

Norra interrupts: “Focus up, crew. What’s our status?”

“We crashed,” Jas says. “Obviously.” She gestures with her foot by way of a gentle kick. “That body belongs to Adviser Yupe Tashu. Now stunned. I also secured Jylia Shale, the general.” She points, and Norra can make out a crumpled shape. “Beyond her is Crassus. He didn’t make it. Along with most of these stormtroopers.”

One starts to stir, and she fires a stun blast at him. He thumps back down to the ground with a gurgled groan.

“And Pandion?”

“Gone.”

Norra nods. “Come on.”

They step toward the back of the room, and together they push on a scrap of metal—that’s where the light’s coming in, and collectively they peel back part of the hull. Enough for them to slip through.

Out there, the bay entrance—a rectangle looking out into space. And onto a space battle: New Republic ships launch a fusillade from their cannons. The darkness is lit up with the vigor of war.

In here: an Imperial Star Destroyer bay. Alarms go off.

The entire ship rumbles and vibrates.

A TIE interceptor screams past the bay entrance, chased by a pair of arrowhead-shaped A-wings. Norra thinks:
I want to be out there.
An odd feeling. A scared feeling. But eager and hungry for it just the same.

“Look,” Temmin says. She follows him pointing—

At the other end of the bay, a line of
Lambda
-class shuttles and a pair of TIE fighters. One of the shuttles lifts up off the ground.

“You.” Norra points to Jas. “Take the others. Get your bounties and haul them on board one of those shuttles. You can fly it, right?”

Jas nods. “Not as well as you, I wager, but yes. I’m capable.”

“Capable,” Sinjir says. “There’s that word again.”

“You help her, Sinjir. Temmin, I need you to do something real important. Are you listening?”

“O…okay. Say the word.”

“Go back inside that yacht. Find Captain Wedge Antilles. You hear me? Find him and get him out.”
Please let him be okay. After all this…

Temmin asks: “Mom, what are
you
doing?”

“I’m going to take one of those TIE fighters and I’m going after whoever
that
is.” She points to the shuttle as it roars toward them, its cannons firing—she pulls the others down behind the wreckage of the yacht as the laser blasts stitch a line of craters along the docking bay floor before the shuttle races toward the exit and off into space.

Norra wastes no time because there is no time to waste.

She’s up on her feet, hard-charging toward the TIE fighters. She hears her son calling for her—asking her not to leave, asking her not to die, telling her to let it go. But she knows she can’t. She knows who she is and what she does. And this is it. It is time to fly once more.

Once again, the almost lunatic freedom of the TIE fighter. Norra plunges the small Imperial ship into the maelstrom of battle. Cannon fire is tearing past her in both directions, laser blasts crisscrossing the void in front of her. She hunts the stars for her prey, and just as she sees the
Lambda
-class signal out there in the dark, an X-wing comes diving from above her like a raptor bird and she realizes:
I’m in an Imperial ship.

The Jedi are known for having the Force—she doesn’t know what that is or if it’s even a real thing (though Skywalker certainly makes it look like it’s no myth), but she knows she doesn’t have it. Just the same, she has what she has, which is an uncanny ability to just
turn her brain off.
Stop her mind from chattering. Stop thinking about details.

Stop thinking and just
feel.

The X-wing comes down on her and she reacts without thinking, bringing the TIE fighter up where the X-wing goes in the opposite direction. Then a Y-wing is in her sights, and she has to juke the TIE back and forth, starboard to port and back again, in order to avoid the incoming blasts.

She quickly fumbles with the communicator and signals to rebel comms: “This is Norra Wexley, call sign Gold Nine. I have taken command of this TIE. Repeat: I have taken command of this TIE.”

Inside her head she adds:
Please don’t kill me.

Commander Agate stands on the bridge of the old Alderaanian frigate, the
Sunspire.
Out there, she watches the battle unfold. It’s easy to stare at it and be lost—not lost because you don’t know what’s happening, but sucked into it, drawn to it like a winged thing toward a plasma torch. Hypnotized, in a way. Idly, she realizes:
We’re winning this battle.

Which means they’re winning this war.

There, though, a new question haunts Agate in the back of her mind:

What then?

Behind her, Ensign Uray stands. The blue-skinned Pantoran says: “We are winning this engagement, Commander.”

“Winning does not mean won. Keep up the pressure.”

“Yes, Commander. There’s something else.” A pause, then: “There’s a pilot out there in a TIE fighter. Claiming to be…well, one of ours. From Gold Squadron.”

“That seems unlikely.”

“And yet it’s what she claims.”

She ponders. Could be a trap. But to what end? A single TIE fighter could do what? They are suicide machines, but why this ruse?

Her gut twinges, tells her which way to go.

“Give her support. Get her on the comm. Let’s see what’s going on.”

Plugging in hyperspace coordinates is no easy feat during a space battle. Get it wrong and put the ship in the wrong space and the only place you’ll end up with great speed is the grave. (Though here Rae admits: If ever she is to die, it should be out here, in space. Born from stardust, returned to stardust. She cares little for such poetry, but this appeals to her, somehow.)

“Almost there,” Rae says. “Keep us flying, Morna.”

Her pilot nods.

Inside her heart, Rae regrets the loss of those they left behind. Adea in particular. Whether the woman is alive or dead, she cannot say. Adea certainly deserves life, but if death is her end, then it was a noble one in service to the great Galactic Empire.

The door to the cockpit hisses open.

Which is curious, because she and Morna Kee are the only two on this shuttle—or so she had thought.

She wheels around, knowing already who she’ll see.

Pandion.

He’s got a blaster in his hand. A line of blood is drying upon a long cut crossing his brow. His nose appears broken. His mouth, bloody, and the rest of his uniform looks dirty, dusty, in tatters.

“You survived,” she says.

“I did,” he says with a curious smile. A smile that quickly dies on his face. “Let me tell you how this will go. You’re going to the
Ravager.
You will take me to that Star Destroyer, and then I will take control of it in return. It is mine, now, Admiral. Not yours. The last great weapon of the Empire is in my control because you are incapable of wielding it.”

The shuttle quickly ducks a hail of incoming blasts. Rae steadies herself on her chair. Pandion remains standing, leering, scowling.

“You fool,” she says. “You eager, egotistical fool. Grand Moff.
Pfah.
You have so much, so wrong. The
Ravager
is not the last weapon. Nor do I even control it. There is…another.”

His face twitches. “You don’t mean…”

“I do mean. He’s not dead.”

“But you said he
was.
”

“I lied.” She shrugs.

“This was…all his plan. Wasn’t it? I should’ve seen it. I fell for a trap. We
all
fell for your trap. You betrayer. You foul, wretched betrayer.”

Panic seizes her. She thinks:
No, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
But then the more terrible realization hits her:
But what if it was?

What if this was the plan all along?

Suddenly the ship shudders. Morna, without taking her eyes off the console, says: “We have company. It’s a lone TIE fighter. It’s firing at us! And rebel ships, too. Incoming.”

Rae scowls. “New plan, then. You might want to buckle in, Valco. This is going to be a bumpy ride.”

It feels good to be up here again. The TIE fighter makes Norra feel like she could thread a needle. And there, ahead: the shuttle. She takes a few shots, though the shuttle’s deflector shields hold. But they won’t for long. Especially with the squadron of Y-wings coming in behind her for support. But then, just as she’s got the shuttle in her sights—

TIEs. Swarming like wasps. They’re on to her. She no longer flags as Imperial to them and they’re taking their shots. She pulls away, leads three of them off—they’re on her like magnets, following her every swoop and turn, her every roll and lurch, so she draws them back toward the Y-wings.

The rebel fighters, dead ahead.

Into the comm she says: “Stay on target.”

It looks like a suicide mission. A game of chicken with her own people, her own ships. But they know what she’s doing. This is a practiced move. One the Imperials never expect.

At the last minute, she pulls up, and the Y-wings open fire.

The TIEs, dispatched in gassy plumes of quick-burn fire.

Now back to that shuttle.

It takes her a moment—the shuttle has deviated from its course.

There.
There.
Heading toward another of the Star Destroyers. The shuttle swerves toward the massive Imperial ship. Norra lines up her weapons. And she starts to fire.

Pandion has chosen to remain standing.

Which is as expected. He won’t sit. He won’t risk looking weak.

Rae thinks:
It will be his downfall.
“That’s your Destroyer. The
Vanquish.
I’m going to take it.”

He laughs. “I think you overestimate your—”

Rae moves fast, grabbing the flight stick out of Morna’s grip. She pushes it hard to the right and the ship goes into a quick spin.

Pandion loses his footing. Morna quickly rights the ship, and when the moff reclaims his balance, Rae is up out of her seat. She pistons a fist into his middle, then wrestles the blaster out of his hand.

She fires a shot into his belly, then kicks him out of the cockpit.

The door seals behind, and her fingers dance on the keypad next to it to ensure the seal holds. He wails on the other side. Pounding.

The ship shudders with blasts from that TIE fighter.

“Let’s give them what they want,” Rae says. “Let’s give them this ship. Let’s give them Pandion. Let’s give them a show.”

Morna nods.

She begins the detachment sequence while Rae punches the self-destruct codes into the hyperdrive matrix.

It all happens so slow, and yet so fast. Norra fires the TIE’s cannons at the engines of the shuttle. She wears the shields down like a kid scratching the paint off one of his toys—and then she scores a direct hit. The engines flare bright blue and she expects them to go dark.

But they don’t. They do the opposite.

They erupt in crepuscular rays and Norra has to shield her eyes. The shuttle suddenly lists left, drifting not like a ship but rather like a piece of space debris—and she realizes late, too late,
It’s going to blow.

And blow, it does. The entire shuttle shudders and detonates. Fire blossoms into open space. Norra tries to move the TIE out of the way, jerking on the controls to maneuver hard and fast to starboard—but fire fills her window and everything shakes. Sparks hiss up out of the console and down on her head and she thinks,
This is it, it’s over—

At least I went doing what I wanted to do.

At least I went down fighting.

At least Temmin knows I love him.

I love you, Temmin—

And then she’s gone.