Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lost Stars (13 page)

More than anything, though,
he wanted to talk with Ciena alone.

When the ball finally ended, Thane pushed through the crowds, looking for Ciena’s dark cloud of hair or the unique blue-violet shade of her dress. It was hard to see through all the
fawning diplomats, laughing courtiers, and black-garbed military officers—and why was it so strange to remember that he was one of them?

He saw Jude first. She was a head
taller than most people in the room, and her vibrant orange gown stood out. As Thane walked closer, he could hear Jude saying, “As we have no curfew
tonight or assigned duty tomorrow, this is an ideal occasion to explore the famous nightlife in this area of Coruscant. I’ve always been quite interested in the clubs here, especially the
Crescent Star.…”

Only Jude Edivon could make a night
of partying sound like a science experiment.
Thane had to smile at the thought—but then he saw Ciena and everything else in his mind faded.
“Actually, Jude,” he said, seizing his chance, “I was hoping Ciena and I might, ah, spend some time catching up.”

Jude looked back and forth between the two of them, one eyebrow raised.

Ciena took a deep breath. “Thane and I should talk. If you don’t
mind, Jude.”

“Not at all. I’ll be with the others.” Jude gestured toward a group of younger officers, several guys and a few girls, who seemed to be waiting on her.

After Jude was out of earshot, Thane said, “Which one of them is she leaving with?”

“Possibly all of them.” Ciena turned to face him, her hands clasped in front of her in a gesture Thane recognized from the valleys; he
wasn’t sure of its significance, but he
knew it was formal, and important. “Thane, I didn’t believe the academy to be responsible and argued with you about it and in effect challenged your honor. Such a
transgression—”

“No. You don’t get to do that. This isn’t on you, Ciena, at least not any more than it’s on me. I guess we were both idiots together. But the real blame belongs to
whatever
monster at Student Outcomes did this to us.”

She blinked, as if in shock. “They didn’t intend for it to get this bad between us. We did that to ourselves.”

Galling as it was to admit, Ciena was right.

“Besides, think about it, Thane,” she continued. “General Foslo probably bribed someone to do it and Ved’s lying to cover for his father.”

That…seemed possible, though Thane wasn’t
convinced. At the moment it was irrelevant. “Either way, you were right about confronting the academy instructors.” It stung to
confess how wrong he’d been, but this knowledge had crept up on Thane over the past few years, and it was past time for him to admit it both to Ciena and to himself. “We would’ve
been expelled for sure. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you about it.”

“I should have
understood you were upset.”

Ciena was so determined to apologize. Thane didn’t want to hear it. “My point is, neither of us did anything wrong. I’m so tired of being angry with you. Can’t we finally
let it go?”

She stood up, straight and formal again. “I’m willing to restore our friendship.”

That statement sounded like it should be followed by some elaborate valley ritual of reconciliation,
but Thane neither knew nor cared what that might be. “Can’t we just—talk?
Come on, Ciena. I don’t care who should’ve known better or why the academy did it or any of that. I just want my friend back. The rest doesn’t matter.”

It wasn’t as easy for her to let it go, he knew, but he also saw the shadow of her smile when he talked about having her back. “Where do we start?”

“We start with
tonight.”

Going out to nightclubs would mean shouting over dance music, not to mention shaking off the countless guys who seemed likely to approach Ciena while she was in that dress. Returning to the
academy was no way to spend a free night. Neither Thane nor Ciena had any other ideas about what was available in the area, and rather than search, they wound up sitting on the terrace nearest
the
ballroom, on a low stone bench by the fountain, talking for hours as the cleaning droids whirred and buzzed around them.

They did in fact start by talking about the ball itself, who and what they’d seen. Thane got to brag, “I even danced with the princess from Alderaan. Nash is going to
choke
when he hears that. He’s had a crush on her since he was nine.”

“Princess Leia? What was
she like?”

“Even shorter than you,” Thane replied, which got him a not-very-hard kick to the shin. He mimed pain even as he continued, more seriously: “I don’t know. It was only a
dance, and she wasn’t even paying that much attention. She wasn’t being rude; it was more like she was distracted. I guess someone like her must have a lot on her mind.”

Ciena opened up more when they talked
about their future assignments. “Command track is an honor. Sometimes I think about having a ship of my own someday, and I just—” She
shivered, and not only for show; Thane noticed the goose pimples on her arms. “But that means I’m not going to spend much time in single-pilot fighters, not after the first few years,
anyway.”

“Which is criminal,” Thane said. Nearby, a golden server droid
used its five arms to vacuum the broken shards of a dropped glass. “You’re a phenomenal pilot, Ciena. You
should always be in the sky.”

He’d forgotten how sly her smile could be. “I will be. Only in a bigger ship.”

By the time it was nearly dawn, they were confiding in each other completely again. Ciena showed him how she kept, in a small pouch, the leather bracelet that still bound
her to her sister.
“I always wondered,” he said quietly, looking at the soft worn braid. “It wasn’t regulation, and you’d never break regulation—but I knew you’d never get
rid of it, either.”

“No.” Ciena’s fingers closed softly around the small pouch; its rough-woven fabric made Thane believe she might have fashioned it from a scrap of cloth taken from home.
“Never.”

By then the
sky had begun to turn pink. The rush of sky traffic had never ceased throughout the night, but the ships came thicker and faster. Ciena’s bare feet rested on the stone bench;
her sparkly shoes lay empty on the terrace tiles. The server droids had given them final glasses of wine before settling into their night recharging stations, and as Thane drank the last swallow of
his, he watched Ciena yawn.
As late as it was—as exhausted as they both were—she still looked beautiful.

He wasn’t going to act on that now. Maybe he wasn’t going to act on it ever, given that they might be assigned to opposite sides of the galaxy within a couple of months. Besides,
their reunion was too new to ask for anything more. Later, Thane decided. Later he’d think about Ciena and their futures. That night was
enough on its own.

“We should go to the transport,” he said, getting to his feet. “Come on.”

Once Ciena had stepped back into her shoes, Thane offered her his arm. She took it as she rose to her feet. Weary as they were, he expected nothing but small talk about how much sleep they
would, or wouldn’t, be able to get. Instead, Ciena said, very softly, “I’m so glad to have you back.”

Later,
he reminded himself, more forcefully. “Me too.”

“T
ODAY MARKS NOT an ending but a beginning. Everything you have done during your three years at the academy—and in some ways,
everything you have done throughout
your life until this moment—was all for one single purpose: preparing you to become the best Imperial officers you can be. You have always been citizens of
the Empire, but today you become a
part
of the Empire in ways no civilians can ever fully understand. The uniforms you now wear serve as a symbol of the Empire’s power, and your
service makes that power ever greater.”

Ciena’s heart
sang with pride as she stood there amid the ranks of cadets—no, new officers. She wore a command-track lieutenant’s uniform in gray and black, new insignia
gleaming in bright squares just below her collarbone. Her new assignment had been given to her that morning, only moments before the ceremony began. The sun shone bright in the pale Coruscant sky,
enormous red banners waved gently in the breeze,
and she felt as if the future had been laid out before her like a velvet carpet, soft and plush, defining her path.

Several rows back, the elite flight graduates wore black TIE fighter pilot gear. Thane found that kind of ridiculous. The armor was heavy and hot, too; it was designed to be worn in the upper
atmosphere or outer space, not on the surface on a sunny day. And the same helmet
that felt so necessary—and so badass—while he was flying? On the ground, it looked ridiculous. Still,
his irritation with the armor didn’t come close to his annoyance with the speaker’s address.
He talks like the Empire just swallowed us whole. Plus, he keeps talking. Could he please
shut up so I can go change into something else?

The best part of the ceremony, in his opinion, was the
end, when he was able to find Ciena in the crowd. Once he’d pulled off his helmet, she threw her arms around him in a hug; Thane
could hardly feel it, thanks to the chest plate, but he grinned anyway. “So where are you posted?”

“A Star Destroyer. The
Devastator
.”

“Whoa. That’s one of the top ships in the fleet.” Thane was pleased for her but not surprised. He’d never doubted that she’d
go far.

Ciena’s eyes shone with delight—and hope. “And you? What’s your posting?”

“I’m assigned to the defense fleet for a space station.”

“Which one?”

“That’s the weird part—I don’t know. Apparently, this station is brand-new and still ‘classified.’”

“Exciting,” she said. “And I bet there’s a good chance the
Devastator
will visit this new station.”

“Yeah. Sounds like it.”
Thane couldn’t help hoping. If they’d each been assigned to opposite sides of the Outer Rim, he would’ve had to accept that his path might
not ever cross hers, at least in the line of duty. But she’d be on one of the most important ships in the fleet—and he’d already gathered that this new station was
top-of-the-line, the kind of place important ships would be docked—which meant he might see
her again before long. And when they were together again, not as playmates or cadets but as fellow
officers and adults—then what?

Thane wasn’t sure, but he thought he’d like to find out. “Keep me posted, all right?”

“You’d better send messages and holos. All the time.” Ciena tried to make it sound as if she were teasing, but he could hear the real hope in her voice. “And maybe
I’ll
even get to see you back home.”

“Definitely.” Then, quickly, he bent and kissed her on the cheek. Ciena’s full lips parted slightly in surprise—and pleasure. Thane realized he should’ve done that
a long time before. He wanted to say something to her, but the right words wouldn’t come. So he stuck to the basics: “Congratulations, Lieutenant Ree.”

“Congratulations to you, too, Lieutenant
Kyrell.” She held up one hand as she turned to go but gave him a lingering look over her shoulder before she walked into the crowd.

Thane watched her go. Even amid a throng of hundreds of students wearing variations on the same uniform, Ciena remained separate and unmistakable to him. Only when she’d passed out of
sight did he turn away.

Back home,
he thought. Although he hoped to see
Ciena before their next furlough, he liked the idea of being with her back on Jelucan. He’d planned to put off any postgraduate visit
to his family as long as possible and hopefully forever; now, however, he found himself willing to return at least once. It would be different if he and Ciena took the journey together. Maybe they
could even see the Fortress. Dust would have blown into their cave
hideaway, but it wouldn’t take much effort to make it nice again. Or they could travel down to Valentia together, as
they’d always promised to do but never had.…

Three weeks into her service aboard the
Devastator
, Ciena finally stopped feeling like a cadet impostor and started feeling like a true Imperial officer. The change came
the first day she was finally thrown into action against
the rebels.

They’re firing back?
She could hardly believe it. A tiny blockade runner trying to take on a Star Destroyer. It was beyond impossible—it was
insane.

Then again, weren’t all the rebels insane?

“Close in,” the bridge commander said. “Their power reserves must be nearly depleted by now. Let’s pull them into the docking bay and end this.”

Ciena activated the tractor beam,
then looked up from the gleaming black console to witness the scene for herself. The small white form of the ship ahead was hardly more than a speck in the
starscape, dwarfed by the desert planet beneath. Viewscreens provided far more detail, but there was something fulfilling about watching the rebel ship’s defeat with her own eyes.

Once she would’ve taken that defeat for granted. The rebels
were a ragtag bunch of malcontents reduced to terrorist acts because they lacked either popular support or military
might—or so they had all believed until recently, when the rebels had struck at them from a hidden base. To the undying shame of whatever complacent Imperial officials were responsible, the
rebels had actually won the engagement. Not only did the Empire have to bear that incomprehensible
defeat, but it also had lost vital intelligence information. Although the specifics were not
widely discussed, Ciena had gathered that the intel had to do with the plans for a new, secret Imperial space station.