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Chapter Text

  Above Scarif, Thane felt a different kind of weightless than usual, as his squadron followed the reverberations of the Death Star's onslaught. 

  Scarif's sea was convulsing, a tidal wave rippling out from the impact zone. Thane's TIE Fighter wasn't straining to keep pace, but it was staggering to see that volume of water moving at… he checked his instruments. 698 kilometres per hour. Void's teeth.

  The wings aboard the Death Star had been too late to take any part in the battle, and had been handed other duties, finding themselves surplus to even the mopping-up. There were some evacuations taking place, and the last of the garrison fighters were being shepherded aboard the battle station, but Thane had been assigned a higher-priority task. That priority was assessing the impact of the strike. Command had been very clear on that.

  Besides, it wasn't like anyone at the top wanted civilian survivors to have seen the Death Star. It sounded like some pains were being taken to ensure they didn’t catch a glimpse. As for those who had… well, he was trying hard not to think about those eventualities.

  What had the people back on Jedha been told? Had any explanation been given for the inexplicable eclipse, before the mantle of the moon was ripped open and it began to rain mountains? Perhaps those who remained could be written off. Jedha had, after all, been a world of superstition for centuries at least. No one would be surprised at superstitious weirdos inflating a mining disaster into something more fantastical.

  Scarif, with a solidly rational, Imperial population, was trickier. There was no mining industry to blame, and you couldn’t really hide the fact that a battle had taken place here. Thane wasn't sure how the brass would spin this to the outside world, whether they'd want to give the Rebels credit for something this devastating. Then again, he doubted that the Empire would want it known that they'd do something like this to their own people. At least on Jedha, they'd managed to pull out all personnel before the blast.

  That was a sour thought, and it unfurled in Thane's head with a sing-song cadence. At least on Jedha they had only killed their own civilians, along with the Partisans.

  Appropriately for his mood, the daylight behind him was dying, throttled by the plume of vapour and dust which had been an archipelago, an Imperial installation and its garrison.

  Terrorists too, he chided himself. It was a sacrifice in the name of peace and order. He had to repeat that a few times. Even then, it was hard to look at that spreading dark mantle, stitched with lightning, and believe it signified any kind of good.

  Someone would be collating data on that effect of the blast too, he was sure. In the long run, someone would be appointed to assess the lingering effects; the sunlight and warmth which all that dust would intercept, the plankton and plants it would starve. The famine that would ripple up the food chain.

  It nagged at Thane, all this effort being made so soon, the focus on just what a strike could do to a planet. It seemed almost routine, and it sparked grim suspicions in his mind over the true purpose of the Death Star. 

  He'd imagined that the turbolaser cannon was for cracking ships, like the Mon Calamari behemoth ahead of them. These strikes had used only one of the battle station's four reactors, but he had already rationalised that as a question of efficiency. They needed to be able to cycle the reactors, just as Thane would reload missile launcher from its racks. Otherwise you'd be faced with unwieldy times to recharge and fire again.

  Even then… stars, all his thoughts were even then and on the other hand right now. Even then, he couldn't help but think that Vader’s ship, the Devastator, had dealt with the enemy ship handily, without any need for intervention by the station. And besides, word was that the Empire was building star dreadnoughts that could overpower any big ship.

  OK, he tried, not just one ship then. At the Battle of Mon Cala, a formation of vessels like Raddus’ had endured fire from Star Destroyers for hours, by linking their shields. He remembered how his cadre had studied that strategy at the Academy. Renegades could be inventive.

  Surely that kind of threat was what the designers of the Death Star had anticipated. Had the Clone Wars not ended so miraculously, with the Grand Army killing Count Dooku and General Grievous to force a sweeping surrender, the Separatists would have built still more terrible war machines. Minds far greater than Thane's must have compassed far greater monstrosities than the one just past Scarif's tortured horizon.

  They must have…

  But as he flew on, his worries curdled. The Rebel Alliance, even in the classified files, were plainly nothing like as strong as the Separatists. Even if they had been, the asymmetry would be quite unlike the Clone Wars; both the Republic and Separatist industrial bases now belonged to the Empire. It was hard to imagine anyone threatening the Imperial fleet, let alone warranting… this.

  So he tried another angle. Maybe there were threats outside the Empire, something that the expeditionary forces had encountered. There were stories about alien hordes which had brought down the first, ancient empires of the Core and plunged the Galaxy into anarchy.

  It smacked of superstition, the kind of thing his father and brother derided as a first-wave way of thinking. But that didn't make it impossible. Something could have endured out there, incubating while the Republic turned inward and neglected the fringes. 

  But none of that could answer the fact that this weapon had been turned on two Imperial worlds now. 

  Ciena found herself frustrated at the meagre contribution she had made in the battle. This was the most severe damage the Rebellion had inflicted in some time, and she had only taken two fighters and a single transport, which had launched from the Mon Cal and tried in vain to reach hyperspace.

  Then again, the defenders had done fine work already, whittling down the enemy fleet. And then the Devastator’s own guns had accounted for almost all the enemy ships which didn't escape, directed by Darth Vader's unflinching hand. 

  At least she could admire his brilliance. His tactical sense was incredible, that much was clear to Ciena even over the commnet as she sat at readiness in her fighter. It was enough to make her wonder if the stories about Vader having clairvoyance or foresight were true.

  Either way, when she launched, there was very little killing to do. It wasn't her fault, but she thought of all the dutiful Imperials who had held their ground against an aggressor, only for the Empire to be forced to sacrifice them. At least, she had thought, when she and Nash were called back to escort Vader's shuttle to the Rebel flagship Profundity, this particular infection would be cut out now. Cut quite literally, in this case, with Vader's blazing lightsaber.

  It reminded her of what Jhared Montferrat had told her in the first weeks of her tenure on the ship. The admiral had looked over her grades and told her they were impressive, but to “resist sentimentality around fighter craft. They have some uses and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone the enjoyment of flying, but they should be regarded merely as scalpels. The Empire performs some surgery with them, true, but the great work… well, that is why this is an age of giants. And it will only become more so. That, Lieutenant Ree, is where you should aim. The bridge of a future Star Dreadnought.”

  He hadn’t intimated any knowledge of this even greater leviathan, the one which Ciena still struggled to comprehend when she looked at it, but it only reinforced his argument.

  Her crew seemed to be having similar thoughts. “Imagine taking that thing into Wild Space or the Unknowns,” one of the pilots said. “Hey, dusty yokels, still wanna stay out of the Empire? Take a look at this thing and then tell me you feel brave.” Then he remembered where his superior had come from. “Sorry, Lieutant.”

  “Just keep it stowed, pilot,” she responded, not bothering to put any warmth into the words. She could’ve issued a proper reprimand. It was unbecoming to talk like that. It mischaracterised the Empire’s goals and methods. They’d been taught better than that at the Academy. This, the devastation still unfolding down on Scarif, was born only of the most urgent need. It showed how vicious their enemies were, and how vital it was to confront and stop them.

  They circuited the Profundity again, monitoring for more attempted takeoffs. Again, Ciena  found something disconcerting in the look of the Mon Calamari ship. Its lines suggested a peaceful ocean creature, or the mythical Purgill, drifting without ever bothering them. Then the corrupting hand of rebellion had encumbered this docile beast of the void with heavy armour and weaponry it had never been meant to bear. It offended some core part of Ciena, even more than the insurgents who appropriated weapons and machines from the Clone Wars. 

  She chided herself a little for such a poetic, indulgent thought. The two ruined Star Destroyers were a much better example of Rebel barbarity, one drifting in orbit and the other somewhere beneath the turbulent ocean, perhaps still enmeshed with the planetary shield-gate. Admiral Raddus had killed hundreds of thousands with those ships. Ciena had no idea how many had served on the gate, but it must have been a great number. And then you had everyone below, whom the Empire had been forced to sacrifice. 

  At least, with Lord Vader on the Profundity, the objective would soon be secured, and justice served. Ciena didn't doubt that. The Emperor's enforcer, chosen by Palpatine himself to serve justice to the direst threats, did not err.

  It was quite a shock for her, then, to see the belly of the ship blow out. She recovered a moment later - it must have been some internal damage escalating - only to see something emerge from the dust, something with rugged Corellian lines and thrusters already burning hard.

  She gave a cry and launched her fighter forward, charging up her cannons. The corvette was already speeding among, however, twisting up to fully clear the gravity well and putting the battleship's mass between itself and the Devastator's guns.

  Ciena barked an order and her squadron swung in behind her, Nash almost catching her as she swung up over the cracked and gouged spine of the Profundity - just in time to see the corvette make the jump.

  She remembered that among the files stored in the data-spire on the world below, which had been on the world below, there was said to be a project to track ships through hyperspace. She would have given much to have that at her fingertips now.

  "There was nothing you could've done," Nash's voice broke in. "Looks like they had some kind of cloaking device down there. A coward's fallback." He was echoing Tarkin's scorn there. The Grand Moff liked to talk about committing to the hunt, about how refusing to back down was what marked a human out from an animal slaved to instinct.

  That way, win or lose, you rose to the challenge and were tested properly. That way, the Rebels proved that even if their loyalties were otherwise, they'd never be worthy like true Imperials were.

  Ciena briefly wondered whether an acid reply would be proper. She had just decided that it would risk implying too much respect for a craven enemy, and was on the verge of requesting new orders from her wing commander, when the link was overridden.

  The voice that spilled into her helmet was ice-cold and hard as phrik. The anger in it brought on a feeling of vertigo, a sense of unfathomable depths. "All officers," Lord Vader commanded. "regroup your units and return to the ship."

Chapter Text

  “Thane.”

  The words didn’t quite reach him until Jude put a little more weight behind them.

  “Thane.”

  He looked up from his meal. She was watching him with concern, mingling with her habitual look of curiosity which made him feel like he was under a microscope.

  Thane had continued to stew after Scarif and he knew it, but he still put on a bit of a front out of instinct. “What?”

  “Oh, don’t try and dissemble," she said with her customary briskness. "You’re not taking in enough nourishment and if a loyalty officer takes notice, that could mean trouble. Not to mention impeding your performance in discharging your duties.”

  Thane did his best at a smile. “Those loyalty officers will have their work cut out, being more meticulous than you.”

  “Then listen to me. You need to be at your best, and that means eating properly. Just because what happened on Scarif was unpleasant doesn’t mean we can stop. It shows what we have to do, for the good of the Galaxy. The Emperor himself entrusts us all with hard decisions. That’s how we restore order, and how we keep it. And the Emperor will need us.”

 “You’re sure?” Thane asked, drily. “The instructors used to talk about the day of the fighter being over, and what with this-” he stamped pointedly “-I’m feeling distinctly obsolete.”

  “Listen,” she said. “I’ve been thinking. The Rebels got something out of the Citadel on Scarif, and managed to flee the system with it.”

  “Vader will get it back,” Thane countered. Then he thought about the enforcer’s reputation, and reached for something to leaven the moment. “Ciena’s flying for him, right? Nothing will stop them.”

  She laughed, as he’d hoped, and he joined in, but it only lasted a moment. Jude was like that with her focus – unrelenting. Nash had joked during the academy’s laser cannon test that if the weapons failed, they could just have Jude stare hard at the enemy. She’ll put holes in a battlecruiser, he’d laughed, much harder than Thane and Jude had managed just then.

  “The thing is,” Jude resumed, “the Rebels were after something from the Citadel, and they got them. We know they were tipped off to the Death Star existing in the first place, and they haven’t folded despite knowing about it.”

  “So whatever they have is something really dangerous,” Thane murmured, as if the Death Star obliterating the Citadel hadn't confirmed it already. “So it’s not just wounded pride that’s got Vader leading the chase.”

  “Added to that…” she leaned closer, and there was an unexpected fear in her eyes. “They’re saying none of the scientists were left alive after the enemy raided Eadu. That’s where they designed this thing, so everyone involved in the actual technicalities is dead. And certainly, they keep saying this station is invincible, but even if the higher-ups believe that, I think the Rebels have found something, and I need to identify-”

  Another of the regular rotation chimes sounded. Jude deflated slightly, without the tension ebbing away entirely.

  “You’ll find it,” Thane said. He hoped the words sounded more encouraging to her than they did to him, and launched a fresh attack on his food. That would do more to comfort Jude, who always cared more about verifiable actions than verbal assurances.

  His mood didn't take long to be noticed by someone else, though. Barely a minute after Jude left, a shadow fell across him.

  "Lieutenant Kyrell, isn't it?" A male voice, aristocratic accent. Almost certainly Core and undoubtedly an officer who ranked above him.

  Thane looked up, camouflaging his reluctance as best he could, and found something in the other man's face which made the concealment harder. He was in his early thirties, possessed of a certain hauteur which couldn't help but remind Thane of his own male relatives. Easily recognised even on a station this massive.

  Aptly named too, he thought, as he recalled the officer's surname. "Captain Pryde." He dipped his chin.

  Station scuttlebutt had it that Pryde was on a fast track to high command, even a Moff's posting in time. He had merely been on rotation to lighter duties at Scarif, aboard one of the now wrecked Star Destroyers. He and his fellows would be allocated to a new ship tomorrow, when the Death Star jumped to a new destination away from prying eyes.

  To Thane's mind he was certainly the type for a rapid ascent, the kind of thoroughbred Core-aristo bastard he remembered from the heads of the Academy staff. The actions which people mentioned in connection with Pryde - he had distinguished himself on Mimban as a lieutenant in grisly circumstances - completed the picture. The man was a zealot.

  Which meant Thane would have to treat him with the utmost caution. “I didn’t think I would merit your notice, sir.”

  “I thought it best to step in before someone less forgiving had to take a hand. It doesn’t do to have Imperial officers moping over the decisions of their superiors.”

  Thane bit back his instinctive reply. “But we have lost Imperial troops. Many of them, and by our own hands. That deserves recognition.”

  “Oh, so that’s your trouble?” Pryde smiled coldly, and leaned back in his seat. “Then consider it an execution. Ramda and his men were guilty of incompetence, and they paid for it.” He said it with perfect complacency. “Had they not let those plans get offworld, none of that would have been necessary. But as the Emperor understands, such frailties exist – even among the Empire’s own forces, for now.”

  “But to scourge a world…”

  "Is a world really so much larger than one ship?" Pryde’s expression twisted into something actively disdainful. "The Emperor has bigger things to consider than that. Rebellion is a disease. If we must cut it out, we do not hesitate, and we scour away the ideas which cause that disease."

  "I suppose the Emperor must know more about what the Rebels are capable of," Thane murmured. "If they're really bent on terrorism right across the Galaxy, they must be stopped."

  Pryde gave him an almost pitying look, then spoke with a surprisingly scornful tone. "Sometimes I think that Mar-Mas Voor in the Ministry of Propaganda has hurt the Empire more than any one insurgent, with all that rot about protecting the Galaxy. Get this through your head - it doesn't matter what the enemy’s methods are. They would deserve to die even if they were just giving out pamphlets.” A finger stabbed at Thane so hard that despite his training and discipline, he almost flinched. “They are rebels. That is what incurs the death sentence. Anything else just helps us make the point to the masses." He leaned forward, and now there was no ignoring the blaze in his eyes. “Again, the ideas must be scoured away. The taint of the Republic, with the Jedi dripping poison into the Galaxy’s ear, making us weak, making us dependent on them.”

  Thane didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t help it. Most people who talked about the Jedi were dismissive – some peculiar mystics who were wiped out after an inept attempt at a coup. But when Pryde said the name, there was fervour in his voice. More than that, there was pure loathing. “The Rebel Alliance exists, in part, because we haven’t yet eradicated their influence. Do you know how many times Mon Mothma or Bail Organa took the stand and pleaded for this or that cause?”

  Thane had a fleeting vision of Princess Leia Organa at the Imperial Palace. Someone had said she made a career of pleading sympathetic causes to the great and good of the Galaxy, same as her father.

  Pryde was still in full flow. “For the weak and needy, as if such a state made them worthy of special notice, instead of a weak link.” Then he smiled, and Thane felt it like icy water poured down the back of his neck. “Well, no longer. I hear from Grand Moff Tarkin himself that the Senate will be discarded. With the Death Star unveiled, it is obsolete.”

  That was startling in itself. Only a week ago Tarkin had issued a briefing that Jedha’s destruction was officially the result of a mining disaster. Everyone on the Death Star must adhere to that narrative.

  It wouldn't have been too hard to believe. Mining accidents on that scale weren't exactly unknown. There were worlds which could only be toiled over by droids and penal labourers in survival gear, because the climate was unbalanced, often by the mining itself. More pertinently, there were wide expanses of moon or even worlds which had collapsed from overzealous extraction efforts. A celestial body might collapse into an asteroid belt, and the Empire would just change its extraction methods. It occurred to Thane that the mere fact of that said something rather grisly about the Empire.

  The fact that they would announce it now seemed even grimmer, even if, Thane supposed, they had to steal a march on the Rebellion. It wouldn’t do to have the public’s first inkling of the battle station come laced with enemy propaganda.

  Thane made his mind whir in his efforts to rationalise it, and still, Pryde’s relish for the end of the Senate brought him up short. “And that is… better?”

  He met with a scornful curling of Pryde’s lip. “We can put aside the pretence that civilian leaders deserve a voice. The Death Star is more than a practical necessity, Kyrell. It embodies the principles which we will come to live by. Division and the elevation of the weak are heresies. So, we will drive them out, with this battle station at the fore. I understand that Grand Moff Tarkin is determining the first target to face the full power of the Death Star. We haven’t seen anything yet, Kyrell, and nor have the insurgents.”

  Thane frowned more deeply. “So we’ll set our example by destroying the Rebel fleet?”

  His words, it seemed, had been quaintly amusing to Pryde. “If that’s what you’ll believe, Kyrell, yes. Destroying the Rebel fleet.” He stood and moved away. Evidently Thane didn’t merit a farewell in his eyes.

  Was this what Thane had signed up to the Empire for? He remembered seeing a little girl surrounded by boys twice her size, all of them eager to pick on a soft target. He’d always thought that idealism was what Tarkin had seen in him that day, not just bravery. Now, though, looking at a protégé of Tarkin’s, he’d had to reconsider.

  The food was cold now, but Thane swallowed it with grim determination. If someone like Pryde was watching, he didn’t want to look irresolute.

Chapter Text

  Ciena had scarcely had time to adjust to destruction of Alderaan. Nor had she had time to truly process the loss of the Death Star, the loss of Jude and so many others, before the Ravager was hurled into battle again. And again. And again.

  Things were upside down. Vader came and went, having been placed under the authority of General Cassio Tagge. There was no real explanation, but it seemed quite clear he was out of favour after the Death Star’s destruction. But that didn't make anyone feel safer. For those aboard his flagship, things seemed rather more precarious than before – they no longer felt quite so immune to the whims of others in the Imperial hierarchy.

  But they had much bigger problems than internal politics. The Rebels were suddenly everywhere on the Outer Rim, swarming out of the cracks even on the Mid Rim, here and there. They’d won victories, and with each of those, obedient Imperial subjects were tempted into rebellion.

  Worse, Imperial attempts to restore order were used in Rebel propaganda to incite further acts of disobedience. It wasn’t catastrophic, but there was an unmistakable sense of danger. The only way to mend the damage would be to go after the Alliance leadership, and bring them all to justice, showing them for the cynics and opportunists they truly were.

  So Ciena fought. She threw herself into combat, flying sortie after sortie. She now struggled to keep track of the number of craft she’d destroyed. If her promotion to Lieutenant Commander had felt tenuous at first, her standing was now quite secure. She liked to think Grand Moff Tarkin would have been proud.

  Her elevation had come with heightened responsibilities. She was just back on the Ravager after a three-day reconnaissance in force, in which her squadron had left the relative safety of the flagship for a cruiser squadron, liaising with their captains. They’d taken out two Rebel patrols and disrupted a planned incursion into a key shipping lane. Another commendation. More pertinently, another step closer to the restoration of order – and, though she didn’t like to admit it, a small act of revenge for those she’d lost to the insurgents.

  As satisfactory as that work might be, it had kept her away from her friends among the officers. On the one thing, it hopefully meant that Ronnadam and his ISB underlings would forget about Thane. More concerningly, she had been away from Nash Windrider, and with his mood showing no sign of brightening after Yavin, her fear for her friend gnawed at her. When he wasn’t on duty, he was in the simulator, driving himself and his pilots ever harder. After Thane’s desertion, it was all too easy to imagine him breaking down, and Ciena had already lost too many of her former fellow cadets.

  She went looking for him as soon as her debriefing was over, only to find he was occupied with one task or another. She only caught him a day after her return, and even then she almost had to drag him away from the simulator with the help of Berisse Sai. Nash had finally accepted an invitation to dine with her.

  “The ISB men have been missing you,” he joked dourly, as he sawed through a bantha steak with his knife. “They’ve been badgering me about you and Thane. That, and they wanted to tell me about an Obliteration Edict that’s been issued against surviving Alderaanians.”

  Ciena almost spat out her food at that, feeling her pulse spiking. "But how can they- you're an officer-"

  "Oh, I'm safe. My combat record has seen to that now." Nash was smiling grimly. “While you were away, Lord Vader put me in charge of a chastisement operation. Seems he liked what he saw. And besides, someone else has just shown the higher-ups what a real traitor looks like.” He came close, voice low. “Helix Squadron had their captain turn. Javes, his name was.”

  Ciena blinked – she recognised the name, as it came with a distinguished service record attached. "Lindon Javes? What did he do?"

  "He threw off an escapee interception at Fostar Haven. He actually helped Rebel starfighters shoot down Imperial pilots. A whole convoy of Alderaanian fugitives got away because of him." His jaw was working. "You know, I had a knock on the door from Captain Ronnadam himself last night, despite Vader’s commendation?" Ciena blinked - the Devastator's senior ISB officer taking an interest in her friend was like a cold dagger against her ribcage. Nash saw her posture stiffen, and gave a little shrug. "He said he was attending personally as a courtesy, and wanted to verify my loyalties more fully. I told him that all I wanted was to be pointed at the next convoy with all the missiles my TIE could carry."

  Ciena felt a chill, not least because Nash sounded like he really meant it. "Was that enough? I mean-" because he had seemed to bristle, just a little, at the suggestion that he might not have been sincere. “I mean, did Ronnadam believe you?”

  A shrug. "He said he's happy to let my next combat performance be the test." Nash cracked a grim smile. “Bail Organa and his kind made me a suspect. Me, when I was killing Rebels just weeks before over Scarif. Believe me, if I get a shipload of fugitives in my sights, I’ll unload with everything I’ve got. The Emperor’s passed sentence, and we have to see it carried out.”

  Ciena spoke hesitantly, glancing around to make sure no one else was listening. "Is it… wise policy, though? To-"

  "Listen." His voice was horribly taut now, and again Ciena had to reassure herself that no one was eavesdropping. Even if Nash hadn’t raised his voice, that tone could draw attention. "That was a world of billions. Billions of people, any of whom could have turned in a Rebel. So many of them must have known, or at least suspected. Organa always skirted treason, hiding behind his war record. How many of his people could really say they were surprised, if the truth came out?” Now he was tearing at the meat, not cutting. “Yet none of them did anything to blot out the stain of disloyalty, whether they were complacent or whether they believed." He stared out through the viewport at the stars. "All I can do is to make sure that the last Alderaanian is a loyal one. If I have the trust of Lord Vader himself, I have to keep proving myself worthy."

  Ciena scarcely knew what to say. He wasn’t frightened, and he didn’t seem to be grieving, but this was worse. There were stories told about how the Jedi would flagellate themselves, using electrowhips to scourge their flesh in the belief that it purified their spirits or focused their sinister powers, depending on who told the story. In Nash’s case, Ciena felt like it was both, even if he didn’t have any magic around him.

  She had no idea how to help, and hesitated to go to anyone else about the matter. Any talk could easily make the situation worse. So she nodded along, and echoed Nash's praise for the Emperor's wisdom, because of course the Emperor was wise. Certainly, he was too wise to destroy his trusted servants, as at Scarif, unless the direst circumstances demanded it. But a guilty thought twisted in the depths of her mind like an ocean predator. But how can it be just to destroy a whole people? Can they really not be reformed?

  And what danger can they pose except in propaganda?

  There had to be a reason. And if the extermination risked alienating fainthearted officers, that only highlighted the urgency of that. The Emperor would not proclaim such a course otherwise. It was just that she, a lowly TIE officer, could not see the whole picture as he and his Moffs did.

  "You can see how far the rot went," Nash said later, "that the princess was involved in it. Organa radicalised his own child and sent her out to serve his sedition. The depravity of it…"

  Ciena reached for some way of countering, something that could pass for optimism. "It speaks to their desperation. They're scrounging for support because they can't hope to get the numbers they need. And the Galaxy will see that, even without the Death Star." 

  She had to believe that. More than that, she didn't want to believe what some people said, about how the Death Star was the true face of the Empire - and how that was a thing to be celebrated. 

  "Tell that to the enemy. They've made it a rallying cry." Nash's face was sour. "It's disgusting. The Empire sacrificed so much, and so many lives, to defend the Galaxy from this scum. And now the Rebels turn around and say this loss is why they fought in the first place? Barefaced lies, and now we even have Imperial officers believing them."

  Ciena nodded, rehearsing the lines to herself. Alderaan died because the Rebels hid there. The people died because they were used as shields by enemies too dangerous to live. In cases of the direst infection, you cut out everything it touches. The Emperor understands and teaches us this.

  Even so, it was hard to stomach.

  "Wasn't Javes at Mandalore?" she asked, hoping for some sort of diversion and grasping the first thought which came to mind.

  Even amid a devastating war, the Great Purge of Mandalore had been all anyone could talk about for a full month. Shortly before the Battle of Yavin, the Emperor’s loyal and steadfast viceroy on Mandalore had been overthrown by fanatics in cahoots with the Rebel Alliance. Such a notorious warrior culture, loose on the Outer Rim and aligned with savage anarchists, was a threat which could not be tolerated. Galactic history showed as much.

  The Empire had put aside the misguided notion that they could just appoint a local leader, and moved to bring the upstart world to heel. The Mandalorians, duped by the Rebels, held out despite their fractious state. Their continued resistance had pushed the Empire to extreme measures, and on the advice of ISB Officer Gideon, Moff Jerjerrod had authorised his forces to burn Mandalore from pole to pole.

  Ciena had felt ill when she heard about it, and confided in Berisse – she hadn't felt able to decently mention the operation to Nash back then. Now she’d brought it up reflexively, and looked at her friend nervously.

  Yet his expression was impassive. "I thought that was a rumour." They emerged into the hangar, where crew menials showed them to their designated craft. Nash gave Ciena a long look, his face hard. "If he had been, I'm sure he'd have lost his stomach then." Nash's tone turned wistful. "Imagine if we'd had the Death Star back then. One shot, and that would've ended the Mandalorian warriors forever."

  That was the most disquieting thing of all to Ciena. Even when the next assignment was given out – a raid on the Rebel-occupied world of Valo which would pave the way for a full invasion- she brooded on it. So quickly, the Death Star had gone from being a bewildering horror to a tool which people were nostalgic for. Berisse, when Ciena spoke with her about it, had put it more gently. The Death Star could have served as a deterrent, a threat which would have cowed the Mandalorian people and had them handing over Bo-Katan Kryze and all her lackeys in chains.

  And the example of the proud Mandalorians, defeated at a single stroke, might have fixed everything. Lothal, still in open revolt now, might have come to heel.

  At the very least, had the Empire been driven to drastic measures, it would’ve been quick. Nash was right about that. How much less pain and terror would have filled Mandalore’s last day, had the execution been carried out with a single beam of emerald light?

  Instead, the Rebels had forced the Imperials to grind through the task with bombs, lasers and plasma. Despite Nash’s confident assertion about Javes having never been Mandalore, Ciena couldn’t help but wonder if actions like the Great Purge might weaken the resolve of a soldier, however idealistic. Hairline cracks could deepen over time.

  No doubt the capricious minds who had manipulated millions into becoming Rebels were aware of this. While they made virtuous speeches about the cruelty of the Death Star, they would be rubbing their hands at the thought of the methods which the Emperor must resort to now. Berisse was more right than she’d realised before. And yet, months after Alderaan, Ciena couldn’t let go of the horror she had felt when the Death Star’s full power had been unleashed.

  Nash was energised as they headed to the hangar, their pilots marching in lockstep behind them. “It’s not just the enemy on Valo we’ll catch,” he told her. “Berisse says that intel’s picked up Alderaanian ships moving towards Valo, escorted by Rebel corvettes. If we hit Valo, they’ll be driven into the Meleg Nebula.”

  “Easy pickings for whoever is assigned to go after them,” Ciena murmured. Evidently that wouldn’t be them, but she could see the grim fervour in Nash’s face. She could only hope this would help him. And with luck, it would do as Berisse said, and bring home to more people the consequences of defying the Emperor. In the long run, it might actually save lives.

  Some flicker of superstition caused her to look over to Berisse, who was on station in the hangar’s control room, but the other woman’s gaze was elsewhere, directing preparations for the squadrons to depart.

  “Erm, ma’am,” one of her command squadron said, and motioned to Nash’s pilots. They were already climbing up to their fighters.

  Kriff. She was getting shaky. “With me,” Ciena said, forcing solidity into her voice, and seized the first rung. Up she went, each step bringing the true end of Alderaan closer.

Chapter Text

  Months later, Thane found himself in the Shoso Belt, fighting to thwart that attempt. His boots drummed on the hangar floor as he moved towards his X-Wing.

  “Sure doesn’t look like you lost a step while you were smuggling,” Yendor told him. “You walk like a man on parade.”

  “Judge my flying, not my marching,” Thane replied, not entirely sure whether it was praise or a barb.

  The Contessa, his new squadron leader, regarded him over her shoulder, never breaking stride. “You can count on that, Corona Four. But still, try and take a compliment.”

  Corona Four. That was still new, the little crew of five, despite the two combat actions and numerous patrols and reconnaissance missions they’d flown. As the Contessa said, he was new enough to still be getting scrutinised.

  Likewise, he was still getting used to the prevalence of strong personalities around him. The Rebels were much more willing to allow that stuff, even if they wanted more professionalism than he’d expected. That had made him reexamine his expectations. Imperial prejudice had clung to them, and he was unhappy admitting that, even to himself. He had to do better than that.

  So Thane had to watch his fellows rather than taking them for granted. Besides the squadron leader and Yendor, there were the sardonic Smikes and an eager Mikkian called Zitan Raka, who alone seemed too preoccupied with the job to scrutinise Thane.

  This was his little corner of the Rebellion, one tight unit. For all the unfamiliarity, he found he liked it. His squadron on the Death Star hadn’t even had a name, formal or otherwise. Numbers only, except for the elite, and a flat refusal to let pilots get attached to a given craft. Even if the irregularity of the Rebel forces could jar with his training, there was something good about having this starfighter for his own, and knowing that these four pilots would have his back.

  Equally, he really didn’t miss the brutal uniformity of the Empire, which was only highlighted by the range of squadron colours around the hangar. Not to mention the range of people around him – Yendor and Zitan would never have been permitted to fly for the Empire. The Contessa was the only officer who sounded anything like his old superiors.

  Her clipped voice rang out now, and it did so with a very un-Imperial battle cry. “Today we fly for Alderaan!”

  “ALDERAAN!” came the response, deck hands as well as pilots. Thane could’ve sworn that the astromechs raised their twittering electronic voices in answer as well. Thane understood their vehemence. The campaign to wipe out the remaining people of Alderaan was the epitome of Imperial cruelty.

  It still made his head spin. How far did the kill-order go? The world’s Senatorial staff on Coruscant had vanished right after Scarif, and rumour had it that even Alderaanians in the Imperial armed forces were being screened. The hunt, meanwhile, had continued for a year and a half.

  The only upside was that it had helped to push many people into open defiance. It's netted us a glut of new recruits, the Contessa had told him, whole units in some places, on top of support staff. I just wish it was for any other reason.

  Thane wondered if they'd have tried, had the Death Star not been destroyed. Yavin IV wouldn't have been its final target, no way. What would've been next? Mandalore or Lothal, he guessed, then some minor Twi'lek world to bring Ryloth to heel. 

  Once more, it stirred up a strong urge to kick himself. He should have understood sooner that this was about as clear-cut as conflicts could ever get.

  One of the Alliance higher-ups had even broken it to him that the Death Star had been in the works from the beginning. We dug up some secret project files after Scarif, he had told Thane. Clone Wars era, kept from the Jedi by Palpatine's government. So before the Empire even drew breath, that was the plan for it. They wanted a Galaxy where they were the only peacekeepers, and the means of keeping that peace was mass-murder. From the start.

  Thane had marked the undercurrent of superstition around the fate of the Jedi. He tried not to engage with it himself, because that road led to Luke Skywalker and he wasn't going there. It wasn't that other Rebels thought it seditious when someone praised the lucky shot boy and he made a face, but they all seemed to think it was poor form.

  Of course, had he understood what was what in time, he wouldn't have a reason for resenting Skywalker. He would've brought his friends with him. Jude would be working on the Alliance's ships. She'd be alive. He would've found some way to get Ciena and Nash out. He and Ciena would've bunked up as the Rebels permitted couples within their ranks, as the Damerons did and Connix dreamed of doing with Sara, one of the clerks.

  Thane realised, with a new twist of guilt's knife, that he dreamed about that more than he did about Jude and Nash surviving. That was the same selfish impulse that had sent him fleeing, rather than doing anything constructive. Or doing something destructive to the right people.

  At least there was today. Today was very much about doing something destructive to the right people: pilots who had accepted an order to murder civilians.

  He wasn’t the only ex-Imperial flying on that mission today. In fact, the operation’s flight commander was one of them: Lindon Javes, once Helix Leader and a model Imperial officer. Right up until he got the order to kill refugees, that was.

  Javes had gone much further in the service than Thane had, and yet he had turned too. He’d done it without pivoting to full true believer, which made it a little easier to talk to him. That was just as well, because Thane had felt compelled to seek him out as soon as he learned he was in command. He’d gone so far as to request transport across to the cruiser, which had caused some consternation until Javes himself got wind of it and gave his approvable.

  “So what was your breaking point?” the older man had asked.

  Thane hadn’t quite been able to say at first. The Bo’dachi, he guessed, but then double-guessed himself. “I had a couple,” he told Javes, settling on full honesty. “I didn’t flip straight to rebelling like you did.”

  Javes nodded, stroking his short beard thoughtfully. “It’s not easy to switch, especially when you’re not caught between just those two options. It’s easier to step away than to put yourself in the crosshairs.”

  “Especially when you’ve been inside the machine.” Thane looked at him. “Did you ever board the Death Star?”

  “Never saw it.”

  “Even after the Alliance destroyed it, I couldn’t understand how anyone could imagine the Empire could fall. They’d torn up worlds to make it, and no one had been able to stop them. I thought, how can anyone ever endure, against resources and ruthlessness like that?”

  Javes nodded, and Thane was abruptly struck by the informality. Somehow, he and a senior officer had ended up as just two men, conversing. “It’s quite a deterrent, which is exactly what Palpatine intended of course. So what got you past that?”

  “Idealism, I guess.” Thane felt his cheeks colour a little. “I met Wedge and saw how he was willing to share, even if he was on the run from the Empire. Plus, after Alderaan, there were so many little acts of cruelty that I saw the Empire indulging. I think I wanted an excuse to pick a side.”

  “Even if you didn’t think the fight could be won?”

  Thane frowned. “I guess. Is that a problem?”

  But Javes was smiling. “It takes a certain disregard for the odds, to get into this fight. Just so long as you can be smart in combat, of course.”

  Thane saluted. “I’ll be sure to prove that, sir.”

  He’d meant every word, and gone fussily over his X-Wing to make sure everything was set, so he could fly and fight at his very best.

  Now, drawing close, he called out to the deck crew around his fighter. "Did you manage to get me those ion torpedoes?"

  The logistics officer, a sandy-haired man named Dannil Connix, made an apologetic face. "Just the one. We couldn't pull up more in time for deployment, though otherwise you’ve got a full loadout."

  Thane nodded, realising that Connix was right. Considering the Rebels' straitened resources and the life-and-death timeframe for this operation, the man had worked miracles. “I appreciate it, Dannil. I’ll try and use my ion shot smartly.”

  He didn't have time for more than quick thanks. The stoic drone of the intercom ordered all pilots to fighters and bombers, and he hurried up the ladder to his cockpit.

  "Flown with any of this lot before?" he asked the Contessa, eyeing the other squadrons on deck.

  "Typhoon and Hail yes, Meteor and Silver no." 

  "Are Typhoon the all-Mon Cal and Quarren squadron?" asked Smikes. 

  "Yes, and tough as hell. They were part of Admiral Raddus' escapee fleet, more than a decade ago."

  Smikes’ whistle carried tinnily across the comm. “Hell of a thing to survive, Mon Cala. And Scariff, for that matter.”

  Meanwhile, Thane shuffled guiltily, remembering the sight of Raddus' flagship as it burned above Scarif, criss-crossed by TIE squadrons. Squadrons like Ciena's.

  Ciena. Was she mixed up in this campaign of Imperial vengeance? He couldn't picture it. Ciena was an idealist, even if those ideals tied her to the Empire. You didn’t send idealists to carry out this sort of work, especially when the Rebel Alliance remained at large.

  No, the extermination task would go other kinds of Imperials: the fanatics like Pryde, the careerists who'd do anything for advancement, and the thugs who liked nothing better than being given a blaster and told to make holes in someone.

  He believed that. At this point, he rather needed to.

  The Contessa was talking about Silver Squadron now; apparently they were veterans too, and had defected so long ago that they'd trained in V-Wings at Carrida. These days they used A-Wings, the Alliance's interceptor craft.

  Thane did his best to listen, and let his hands move in what was becoming a practiced dance over the X-Wing's systems. It was still a little odd not to have to wait on the clamps that held a TIE until an officer released it, though he was coming to appreciate that. At the Contessa’s word, he lifted off and together Corona Squadron shot out into space.

  Straight away, he took in the tactical picture ahead of him. They were at the edge of a massive wreckage field at the Shoso Belt's edge. This looked like a leftover battlespace from the Clone Wars, one that had been too far out to attract salvagers. Somewhere in that, the Contessa said, were three refugee transports, threading their way through with a handful of fighters, desperately seeking a safe point to make a jump.

  The Imperials had deployed a Star Destroyer and two Gozanti-class cruisers to hunt here, launching TIEs into the debris field before moving to cover its edges and try and intercept the escapees. Even with the demands of the war, Javes' defection had clearly prompted extreme measures.

  It occurred to Thane that when the Empire took a hand against pirates, they would typically send a cruiser. Perhaps a carrier, if trade was threatened. But for a Star Destroyer, you'd need those corsairs to have stumbled onto something of real strategic value. The peace and prosperity of the Outer Rim just couldn't command that kind of price on its own.

  A pogrom against desperate civilians whose only crime was to be from the wrong planet, however…

  Imperial priorities. It made him sick.

  The Contessa’s words broke in on his thoughts. “Lock S-foils in attack position, ready thrusters to accelerate,” she said. “Let’s teach these bastards the real meaning of justice.”

  The Rebel fighters leapt, Hail Squadron’s Y-Wings aiming for a cruiser with the Meteor A-Wings guarding them. Everyone else set a course for the debris field or the TIEs ahead, some of which were now coming about to attack them.

  "Let's make them hurt." It took a moment for Thane to realise he'd actually said it, low and vehement. But to his own surprise, it was what he felt. What the Empire had done demanded punishment. He heard what sounded like an approving noise from Yendor.

  Holding tightly to his place in formation, he raked the approaching TIEs with torrents of plasma. The first explosion briefly, then a second. He found himself baring his teeth.

  He was glad to be doing this. Someone high up - maybe Vader, Tagge or even Palpatine himself - had looked upon the same spectacle which haunted Thane's nights for over a year. They had seen a planet snuffed out in an instant, billions paying for the acts of a few, thousands of years of history brought to an end in seconds. And they had decided that it still wasn't enough.

  For several minutes, all his conscious thought was given to the needs of the fighting around him, going where the Contessa ordered, responding to threats to his wingmen. The myriad of little engagements added up to a ruthless team race to reach the convoy. Almost the kind of thing that the Academy instructors would come up with.

  Javes and his command squadron led the way, and soon enough the first Rebels had caught up to the Alderaanian ships. Now they’d be able to guard them much more closely.

  But just as they started to feel like they would make it, something came hurtling into contact and blasted apart a Silver Squadron fighter, then darted in close to the rear refugee ship and unleashed a series of torpedo strikes. Two of its defence cannons gave out.

  “Holy-” Yendor began, but was interrupted as another TIE swooped for him. Thane barely intercepted – the solo fighter’s entrance had shaken them all.

  Then it came for them, and he had to tilt his X-Wing just to keep his s-foils, then launch recklessly ahead. He could see its profile now – curved wings, the distinctive silhouette of a TIE Advanced starfighter. Now he felt a real chill of fear.

  The Advanced was rare, very rare. You reserved a starfighter like that for the very best pilots, which of course the instructors at Royal Imperial had loved to repeat. Even they, who were already receiving some of the very best training the Empire could provide, would have to push themselves to the limit to earn an Advanced.

  This enemy pilot was making full use of his superlative craft, driving Corona towards the curving hull of something which looked Separatist, and they barely cleared it. Even before Thane let out the breath he’d been holding in, their attacker came back and Zitan’s fighter was torn open all along its length, spinning away and disintegrating. Explosive decompression.

  “Varp!” Yendor explained, barely escaping destruction himself with a jink and another burst of acceleration.

  Thane felt like there was ice in his throat. Zitan’s protracted death had been deliberate.The enemy pilot could’ve hit anything critical and taken him out immediately, but instead opted to open his hull up so the atmosphere surged out of the craft and Zitan himself.

  That was breathtaking, cruel precision. And now Thane thought he understood how it had happened. "Gimm," he breathed.

  "Say again, Corona Four?"

  Thane frowned at his failure of self-control for a moment, before focusing on what really mattered. "Captain, I know who that bastard is. He's an enemy ace."

  "So I gather." The Contessa's voice was clipped with anger as the Advanced killed a pair of Hail Squadron Y-Wings in a single twirling pass. "What's your point, Four?"

  "Let me go after him," Thane said. "I'm ex-Academy like him, and I know his reputation. Maybe I can surprise him."

  Gimm was an undoubted ace, a callous killer and a proud embodiment of Imperial prejudice, according to those Rebels who'd met him in their old lives. If he knew I was ex-Imperial Royal, it would probably just make him all the more eager to beat me.

  In any case, Thane knew the best way to draw him out. He knew this sort of man; kriff, he'd lived with two all through his youth. "Contessa, at the very least I can keep him off the squadrons for a bit." A very Rebel thing to say.

  "You're authorised," she said. "May the Force be with you."

  Thane didn't reply to that. He didn't quite know how, but in any case, Gimm needed his full attention. He threw his fighter into a backloop, grimacing through self-inflicted vertigo, and brought his thrusters to full, vengeful burn. 

  The X-Wing stooped in an evasive spiral, racing just ahead of the green storm unleashed by the TIEs. Even then, Thane felt impacts against his shield. He opened up with his own cannons, and hurled torpedoes straight into the enemy mass. Explosions flared. 

  Thane couldn't see it all, because once the projectiles were away he snapped out of his spiral. Using the brief respite to get a status report form his astromech - engines being cooled rapidly, shields strained but intact and recharging - he scanned the enemy formation. Yes, that was a healthy scattering of debris above him. The TIEs all appeared to have resumed their pursuit of the main Rebel group, but… ah.

  Either Gimm was intent on a threat display, or Thane had wounded his pride more deeply than expected. The TIE Advanced dived, cannons blazing, burning its way through wreckage to close with him.

  There could be survivors in that. The thought almost held Thane still with shock for a moment, but this sort of act was why Gimm had to be stopped. He leapt away, boosting for the ancient wrecks. Rash unorthodoxy, followed by apparent flight from a single superior foe. A quick recipe for maximum offence, if Thane knew his enemy's sort.

  Success was confirmed when Gimm's lasers cut the void just off his starboard side to bright ribbons. If Thane's gambit failed, at least Rebel High Command should have a pretty good demonstration of what the elite enemy craft could do, because the enraged officer appeared to be driving it hard but within its limits, all the while pouring out cannon fire.

  But could Gimm handle tight spaces as well as a pilot who’d honed his skills in Jelucan’s gorges and mountain passes? Thane found himself banking on that, shrugging off his droid’s objections. This was his one real advantage.

  So far, it was working; he was ahead of his enemy’s barrage and even managing to dodge the torpedoes launched at him. But evading was only part of the challenge, as the astromech behind him pointed out.

  Thane gritted his teeth. “I know, buddy. We just need the right… there!” He’d seen a hangar ahead – the hangar of an old Mercator-class carrier, the sort that would extend all the way from port to starboard. He rolled, fighting to arrest the movement at just the right angle while also hammering the acceleration. Then he fired his retros to full acceleration, pummelled back into his seat as the X-Wing plunged through the narrow space.

  The Advanced was right on his heels, cornering more tightly than his X-Wing could. Kriff, Gimm was skilled. His cannon fire was immediately shrieking past Thane.

  Sweat was pouring from every pore Thane had as he dipped and jinked and tried, somehow, to set up the gambit he needed. With one eye on the way ahead he activated his targeting computer, found his mark at just the spot which the TIE would pass to cut him off.

  “Told you I’d use it wisely, Connix,” he breathed, and let the ion torpedo go, aimed at the ceiling just to the left of his own exit point. With any luck, Gimm wouldn’t see it. Thane himself, dredging up even more acceleration from his thrusters and now just blasting anything in his way, certainly couldn’t. Not until he shot out into the void again and hurled the nose of his fighter down, arcing back around. As he looped, he saw it burst at the very edge of his vision. His astromech trilled with astonishment and delight – Gimm’s fighter was caught in the crackling wave of energy, coasting on momentum as its thrusters seized up.

  Thane poured on the acceleration. He came up behind Gimm, and for a second he felt like he was looking into some dark alternate future, where the Empire had moulded him into someone like this, flying this fighter and killing for Palpatine’s insane vendettas. The thought almost paralysed him, but in such a state he was running half on instinct and his fingers were so tight on the triggers that he thought he'd find indents afterwards.

  Gimm had recovered somewhat and was already moving to evade, so it wasn't a perfect hit. Instead, Thane's volley ripped the Advanced apart in three or four eruptions of fire and debris.

  Thane wanted to stay and… not relish the kill, but let it sink in. But he had a job to do, so he turned the X-Wing towards the fighting that still flickered in the distance. “Corona Leader, this is Corona Four, returning to the engagement.”

  He thought he caught a slight, relieved outward breath. “Corona Four, you’re just in time. We’re almost to the jump point, clear of hostiles which can pursue. All three ships intact.” A pause. “I take it you won your fight, then?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Thane replied, letting himself feel some elation at last as Yendor and Smikes cheered. “Gimm’s hunted his last quarry.” And with any luck, he’d proved himself fully to the Alliance now.

Chapter Text

  A lot had changed for Ciena Ree. For one thing, there would be no more just belonging to a number. She and Nash were now a part of Death Squadron, Vader's own elite flotilla. Cassian Tagge was dead. With him gone, the new supreme commander was stamping his mark on the military, even more than he had before. The 501st Legion, everyone knew, were Vader's Fist. Death Squadron were, perhaps, the equivalent of his antique lightsaber: a weapon to cut out threats with perfect precision.

  A small voice in Ciena’s head spoke in disquieted tones about how easily the Empire could turn having a name into a privilege. She hushed it, however. After all, she had earned other privileges, such as being back on Coruscant, representing her unit.

  The hubbub in the grand hall of Royal Imperial Academy was considerable, but the shout broke through the noise to find Ciena.

  “Well, if it isn’t Ciena Ree! Back from Shu-Torun to rejoin the real war,” Ulm Liskarok grinned, when she turned to face him.

  Ciena regarded the man carefully, trying to judge the sincerity of his just-kidding smile. Rather trying to judge the insincerity of the jibe. The usual game of Imperial aristocrats, and Ulm Liskarok was certainly one of those. He’d been one of her cadre, not especially distinguished as far as she’d been aware. He hadn’t been overtly unkind to her, so she hadn’t paid him any real attention. Still, he’d made his way into the 204th “Shadow Wing”, so he was clearly doing something right. Much as Death Squadron liked to dismiss them as also-rans, the unit was famously deadly.

  “The real war would have suffered if we hadn’t made sure that Shu-Torun remained compliant,” she said. “Darth Vader thought it was worth his time, and we’d bloodied the Rebels at Vrogas Vas.” Shu-Torun’s mineral output was famous, even before you considered the colossal feats of extraction its labour-armies and mining machines performed. There were whispers among the officers in Death Squadron that, with the world firmly loyal to the Imperial now, the new queen’s forces would be entrusted with combing Jedha’s broken husk for all the Kyber crystals which remained. That made Ciena feel queasy, but she buried the discomfort deep and held her head high in front of her comrades.

  Liskarok never saw it. Instead he tilted his head fractionally in response to her retort, conceding the point. “To be honest, I’d have liked to fly there myself. It’d be nice to fight some enemies with a degree of actual class.” Either he’d forgotten Ciena’s humble roots, never cared enough to learn about them in the first place, or considered that graduating made her part of the elite, wholesale.

  Which it should, shouldn’t it? The Empire had promised as much. Given time, they’d all be part of the new nobility if they served, just like Queen Trios. Conversely, those who abused their power, like her father and then the renegade nobles, would be cast down.

  This was the power of the Empire. A world which stood proudly for over twenty thousand years had been humbled. Its rulers, puffed up with all the arrogance of people who had made a hellish world their home, had been made to understand that there were forces in this universe which they could neither resist nor subvert. Imperial power, and Lord Vader’s military brilliance, had seen to all that. The Republic could never have achieved anything like this.

  It ought to be inspiring, especially for Ciena Ree. But she had to concentrate to find it so, and for all the talk of killing off bloated sybarites, she couldn’t help but reflect that most of those who’d died in the fighting had been menials.

  The truth was that Ciena had found the Shu-Torun War a rather desultory affair. Sure, the world’s gaping, magma-lit caverns and spired fortresses had been impressive, and flying them made for interesting challenges. The combat itself, however, felt insubstantial, unblooded enemies grown soft while she’d been tempered by nearly two years of war. Ciena had come to understand the value of proper experience, and while the enemies she fought against on Shu-Torun had been respectably well-trained, they lacked the sharpness which only war could provide.

  As far as she was concerned the nobles of Shu-Torun, with all their class, were lucky that the Rebels hadn't come near them. They had only been able to stage their little pantomime of defiance because the Empire kept them safe from their true enemies. Oh, the troops could fight, but there was nothing inventive about it, nothing clever. Had the Alliance targeted them and done so in earnest, it could well have gone against the ducal armies.

  It had felt perverse that the Rebels were still running free, spreading lawlessness, especially in the wake of the Imperial attack on Vrogas Vas; another fight where it had seemed like the Alliance’s “heroes” might be destroyed. But Vader wouldn’t be gainsaid. There he’d been by the Emperor’s own decree, away from Cassian Tagge's grand defensive initiative, and he’d taken a legion of the Emperor’s finest with him as well as Death Squadron. 

  Rumour had it that something had happened on Vrogas Vas besides the battle and Vader's earlier killing spree. Ciena seemed to be at least two ranks too low to be told, but the scuttlebutt was that another Imperial commander, one of Tagge's protégés, had died on the surface of the Rebel world. More than that, he'd died by Vader's hand. Even if the rumour was false, Ciena still hated the stench of court politics. The whole point of the Empire was unity. That was what she believed in. She dreamed of Jelucan with its divisions erased, and that unity then gifted to the Galaxy at large. But if the rumour was true, the commanding heights of the Empire were just as riven as the Republic had been-

  No. In her mind, a heavy blast door slammed down, cordoning off the possibility. Like any good Imperial, she reasoned through the confusion. Vader had identified some treachery, perhaps even insurgency, and cut it out. That had to be the answer.

  Just as treason had brought them here. Another campaign which shouldn't be necessary. 

  More than that, subduing a world of surly nobles felt beneath her and the talents of Darth Vader’s personal forces. It was the kind of pacification campaign she had imagined carrying out as a cadet. She had yearned to get back to the real fight, to undo the hurt that the Rebel Alliance was causing. 

  She would even rather be picking over the bones of the Rebel base uncovered on Vrogas Vas, yet by the time the Devastator arrived, Vader had already ordered a return to Coruscant.

  One consolation had presented itself, however: Shu-Torun was an extraordinary world, and the kingdom built amid those hellish environs even more so. When was the last time she'd beseeched Wynnet to look through her eyes with such fervour? Perhaps only the Death Star itself.

  Yet so soon after Shu-Torun, she’d found herself doing so again as the Devastator slipped into the shadow of something ten times its own size.

  What is this? she’d asked.

  Captain Ronnadam had answered without taking his eyes off the behemoth. “The Executor. First of its class of star dreadnoughts, though it seems that people prefer Super Star Destroyers.” He had glanced at Nash, smirking. “I’ve been promised mine. The Arbitrator.” Ciena had seen the man’s fingers flex as he eyed the ship ahead, as if he might grasp the unutterable power caged within that monstrous vessel. “Feeling obsolete yet, Windrider?”

  Nash had assumed a nonchalant expression. “I'm sure there will still be tidying-up to do after you’re done slagging ships and worlds, and more surgical work besides. The Emperor won’t want every problem solved with a hammer.” He couldn't quite shake an awed tone from his voice, however.

  Ronnadam had turned to Ciena. “And how about you, Ree?”

  She had been more honest than Nash. “It’s astonishing, but the atrocity against the Death Star taught us that something massive can still be vulnerable. After all,” she gestured, “I can see the hangars from here. Whoever built that ship thinks it’ll need TIE Fighters.”

  Her frankness had amused Ronnadam. “True enough. Lord Vader says your unit will be reassigned to that ship.”

  So they had arrived over Coruscant in Lord Vader’s new leviathan, heralded with great fanfare, and naturally putting every other unit in the shade. Literally so, because Vader had seen to it that the Executor briefly blotted out the sun above Royal Imperial. Every cadet would want to serve on this ship, one whose size and evident power saw to it that, for the first time since Yavin, the Empire felt truly invincible again.

  It was been strange to return to the capital world, stranger to visit the Academy and feel covetous eyes on her insignia. The new cadets were different in manner to her cadre. They weren't just eager to serve, they were hungry for a fight, vowing to crush the Rebels. A few approached Ciena and Nash, asking what it had been like to see the Emperor's judgement visited upon Alderaan and Scarif. Others mistakenly thought she’d been at Jedha, and asked about that too – evidently the old lie about a mining accident had been dispensed with. Ciena tried not to show how disconcerting she found their eagerness.

  Nash, for his part, approved. "We'll have a good intake from these batches. Even Shadow Wing will be fighting for every recruit they can get from here. You know that was Captain Soran Keize back there, with the beard?"

  “Yes. I saw Ulm Liskarok too.”

  “I guess he came out alright, then. Still, they’ll be recruiting aggressively here, even if Shakara Nuress doesn’t appear to be around.” He shrugged, still letting a little bit of smugness show. “They fight hard for their reputation, especially when we make them look so small.”

  “I only hope they'll be fighting for the Empire,” Ciena muttered, “rather than this distracting power play.” She didn't have time for inter-service rivalries, let alone intra-service. In her eyes, it slighted the Empire’s ideals of cohesion and duty, and brought back all the discomfort she had felt around Vrogas Vas and Shu-Torun.

  It would rankle even more when she had to contend with the strutting and sniping between recruits from different academies. Royal Imperial vied with Skystrike for superiority, Carrida graduates preened nearly as much, and then there were Vardos, Myomar and all the rest, which sent pilots keenly aware of the need to prove themselves against the products of more illustrious establishments. That was mostly a benefit, spurring each pilot on to greater deeds, but it also meant the officers had to watch for incipient rivalries and ensure they didn't impede unit effectiveness.

  It was enough to have the various squadrons and wings competing for prime position, which Ciena wouldn’t mind if it was confined to pilots striving to outdo their peers. Unfortunately, just like at Royal Imperial, lots of people preferred to focus their efforts on pulling others down, not rising higher.

  In contrast to the bellicose thrum which filled the Academy, the abandoned Senate's surroundings were defined by an eerie hush. No one seemed sure what to do with it, beyond packing it with cheering officers for an address by Palpatine or one of the Moffs. Ciena and her fellows in Death Squadron had attended a series of those during their time here, the first by Lozen Tolruck. The planetary governor of Kashyyk had given a speech about the thwarting of Rebel activities around his fiefdom, promising that it exposed the limits of their abilities.

  Of course, that thwarting had been in defence of mass enslavement and the despoiling of Kashyyk and other worlds by Imperial industry. But between that, Jerjerrod's hellfire hailing of the Purge of Mandalore, and Horzvel's account of his subjugation measures on and around Valo, it seemed like the Imperial leadership were saying the quiet part out loud these days.

  Ciena supposed that they had to. The Senate, everyone said, had been hopelessly mired in bureaucracy and prone to political grandstanding, even after the seditionist elements had fled Palpatine’s justice. The Rebels had so successfully poisoned discourse that, in spite of all Palpatine had done to rebuild after the Clone Wars and elevate worlds like Jelucan, he was forced to use the stick rather than positive incentives. Slavery and other coercive measures were unpleasant, but faced with a return to the carnage of the Clone Wars, surely they were warranted. The Rebel Alliance were simply too naïve to see it, or worse, they were cynical enough to exploit the hardship and violence for their own ends.

  How much could have been done for Jelucan already, which hadn't, because the Empire had been forced to allocate more spending to defence? Luke Skywalker hadn't just murdered Jude and everyone else on the Death Star, he'd deprived untold billions of critical infrastructure. How many poor Outer Rim youths like him - and like Ciena and Thane - would suffer indirectly because of that brash, unthinking zeal?

  Some of that suffering was even going on beneath her feet, here on the capital world itself. Not literally, of course; the Coruscant Guard and a succession of Stormtrooper legions stood guard on every level around the Senate to this day, just as they ringed the Imperial Palace and kept perfect order across its outer limits. But nonetheless, in the lower levels of the city-world, squalor abounded and bred disorder which even the peerless security services were hard-pressed to subdue.

  It was enough to make you wonder what might happen if the Empire suffered some great catastrophe, if – stars forfend – the Emperor should just be lost one day. Perhaps the capital itself might descend into anarchy and bloodshed. And all because of the criminals at the edge of the Galaxy, whose malign reach seemed to stretch everywhere.

  Thane should've seen all this before he deserted, she thought. Maybe he should have been shown it, all the suffering which the Rebels perpetuated. He would've understood, if he had allowed himself the time. They would've been together.

  She had to just hope that wherever he was, he was keeping his hands as clean as he hoped to. That he was flying as an honest hauler, or at least as honest as an assumed name and any other small deceptions would allow, so he stayed outside the Empire's sight. That Rebel activities hadn't impacted him, and that their underhand ways of acquiring resources hadn't tainted him by association. So many dangers, which just seemed to multiply the longer the insurgency went on.

  Vader would fix it. Everyone said that now. Vader was back in his rightful place, with the first of the Super Star Destroyers at his disposal. The Rebels had nothing like that, and if it lacked the sheer power of a Death Star, it was just the first of its kind and far more versatile. The Emperor had entrusted his foremost commander and enforced with this vital duty, and given him the finest ships, weapons and personnel to do the job.

  Which included Ciena. Ulm Liskarok was right; she too was a small part of that elite, and the same trust flowed down to her in some small measure, from Emperor Palpatine himself. She could never permit herself to forget that.

  After all, her superiors would not.

Chapter Text

  “How goes the required reading?”
  Thane looked up from the datapad to the Contessa. “I’m making progress, ma’am.”

  The answer didn’t fully suffice, as she folded her arms and eyed him sternly. “Is any of it going in?”

  “A fair amount. The novelty helps.” Thane saw her frown and hastened to explain. “My history lessons didn’t really go beyond either Jelucan or the Clone Wars, until Coruscant.”

  The Contessa smiled. “I’m well aware. Why else do you think I got you these books?” A mildly accusatory finger was levelled at Thane. “I’ve seen the approved curriculum, and it’s got gaps you could fly one of the Empire’s new Super Destroyers through. Especially those little passages about the Nihil.” She shook her head. “I’m amazed those even made it in, because the censors had to turn the real events inside-out to avoid talking about the Jedi’s heroism. It’d be easier to exclude them too, but then again, the Empire wants plenty of bogeymen.”

  “The Nihil do also crop up in recent history,” Thane pointed out. “Just look at Burnium Ro out on the Mid Rim.” There had been something pointed in the Contessa’s remark, and ever the good student, he’d felt an urge to try and get ahead. Beyond that, however, he wasn’t sure what she was driving at. “Do you want me to direct my studies somewhere specific, Ma’m?”

  She flashed him a small smile before business mode reasserted itself. “Contemporary or recent dissident groups not affiliated with the Alliance, if you please. Something’s in the wind, and it smells of High Command wanting to build new bridges. Not that General Draven will give me any real information before the briefing. That’s at eleven hundred. Make sure the others know if you see them before I do.”

  Davits Draven was a hard bastard. Everyone knew it. It was the first thing anyone said when describing him, so long as they were sure neither he nor his people were within earshot. He’d been a part of Republic Military Intelligence during the Clone Wars, and harboured considerable bitterness about what had become of the government he’d served. The heavy lines in his face suggested that they’d been carved by years of scowling and frowning. Anyone under his command would find themselves driven hard.

  That being said, everyone also knew that he got things done. Whatever his miscalculations in relation to the Death Star and the Rogue One mission, his direction had seen to it that the Rebels became aware of the danger in the first place. 

  Today, whatever it was he wanted done, he had requisitioned Corona Squadron, and so here they were, arriving well ahead of the appointed hour and with uniforms as neat as could be managed. Whatever goodwill it bought them with the general, however, was imperceptible. 

  There was another man there, a Balosar with dark hair and skin, seated in a corner. Draven didn’t move to introduce him and the Balosar seemed content to observe the newcomers for now. Thane contented himself with noting that he didn’t appear military, in dress or stature.

  Draven’s focus was entirely on the Corona pilots, particularly their leader. “Contessa.”

  “General.” The woman's face showed a miniscule smile. “We weren't your first choice for this mission, were we?”

  The Balosar man spoke. “General Draven has an aversion to personnel who don't even go by a name.”

  Draven’s mouth didn’t twitch, but there was the sense in his face of something being suppressed. “This is Caern Adan, Rebel Intelligence.”

  Frankly, Thane suspected that Adan himself triggered a certain amount of aversion in the senior intelligence man. He didn’t look remotely military, but he had a certain coiled-spring anger about him. Thane had seen that look in the mirror.

  A wave of Draven’s hand did away with any further comment from Adan. “As a member of the Rebel Alliance, I should hardly need to remind any of you of the old ‘the army you have’ adage. I would not have preferred a relatively new unit with at least one ex-Imperial-” his eyes rested momentarily on Thane, and it was a weighty gaze, before they flicked back to the Contessa “-and with a commander who insists on an ironic moniker instead of a name, but in straightened times we must all make do.”

  Thane guessed Blue Squadron would've been Draven’s optimal pick; well-established and as regular as any Rebel unit could claim to be. Less inclined toward unorthodox stunts than Red or Phoenix too. The only problem was that Darth Vader had just shredded the best part of their strength at Vrogas Vas.

 Meanwhile, other units just weren't available. Luke Skywalker’s lot were off doing something secret, but which someone higher up the chain had assured the Contessa was “classic Skywalker stuff”. Draven probably would’ve tried to get them first. Then again that unit, which was increasingly being dubbed “Rogue Squadron”, probably wasn't to Draven’s taste at all. Everyone knew where the inspiration for that name came from. 

  “I would've liked Phoenix or Shepherd Squadron for this,” Draven murmured, “or maybe Violet. Unfortunately, General Syndulla is otherwise engaged in making up for the losses among our pilots, and those three are all busy supporting her efforts.” He managed something of a sympathetic glance toward the Contessa. “Yes, I'm well aware of the toll taken on squadrons like yours.”

  “Thank you.” The Contessa had an appraising look on her face. “So, General Syndulla would've been useful for a small-unit tasking. That says to me that you're not banking on a fight, and it would've related to her connections.”

  “Jedi?” Yendor offered.

  Thane shook his head. “If we found a new Jedi, I don't think we'd need to negotiate, and we'd send the first available unit anyway, not an Intelligence man.” He turned back to Draven, who was frowning more deeply than before. “And if this is to do with General Syndulla's contacts, well, there was another stray she took in besides Bridger. Sabine Wren." He took a certain satisfaction in seeing Yendor and Smikes' eyes widen as he turned back to Draven. "This is about Mandalorians, isn't it?”

  The reply didn't come. Instead, Draven turned to the Contessa and muttered "You certainly favour autonomy for your people.”

  “Well, this is a rebellion, sir.”

  Draven’s scowl deepened, turning weary. “You won't budge on this, will you?” 

  The Contessa folded her arms. “If I'm asked to fly into unknown and potentially unfriendly territory then no, I will not be budged. My pilots need to know just what they might be shooting at. Not to mention, what they mustn’t shoot.”

  At least Draven had the sense to see that she wouldn't back down. “Very well.”

  Adan finally came to his feet, smiling wryly at the suspense he must have seen in the pilots’ faces. “Kyrell is right. We’re seeking Mandalorians.”

  Unlike the Jedi, Mandalorians got plenty of focus in Royal Imperial’s history courses. Their campaigns against the Old Republic were regular sources for analysis and sim scenarios. The instructors had generally given the sense of the Beskar-clad warriors being a menacing bunch, freebooting gleefully and fetishising their wargear, but that there was something about them which could be respected. Certainly, they were nothing like the treacherous Jedi. With responsible Imperial governance, they might well become a valued pillar in maintaining order across the Galaxy.

  Well, that had been up until they’d revolted against the Empire, throwing them off Mandalore and then out of almost the entire sector. A useful asset had become a potential threat, especially as the Rebel Alliance built its strength. Hence the Great Purge, which had begun just after Thane defected.

  He thought back to his conversation with Enric Pryde, two years ago. He had no doubt that the Empire would’ve used the Death Star against Duchess Bo-Katan and her followers, had they succeeded in destroying Yavin IV. In its absence, they’d taken a year to draw up a retribution fleet, and struck for Mandalore itself. Now, nothing lived on that world. Very little seemed to have survived across the whole sector.

  Our potential contacts might’ve seen the glassing happen, he thought. What would that do to you? He wondered if they’d be shell-shocked like Nash Windrider after Alderaan.

  Smikes was unhappy about the situation, particularly Adan’s close-lipped demeanour around exactly which Mandalorians they were looking for. Thane couldn’t blame him; Adan was inscrutable even by spy standards. He reminded himself that it was for good reason. They were potentially combustible allies, and were being hunted by the Empire.

  Corona Squadron were all on edge. If things went sour, fighting their way free in their X-Wings would be a challenge. The reports on clashes around Ord Mantell had made that clear. If things went to hell and they were on the ground, however, it was unlikely that they’d even reach their fighters. Thane and the others had all had combat training, as a matter of course, but that hardly put them on a level footing with jetpacking Mandalorian Supercommandoes. Thane’s lecturers had described them vividly. Very soon, Thane might get to see if they lived up to their reputation.

  The Mandalorians met them on a chilly, rocky moon at the edge of an uninhabited system. The Rebels landed in the open, facing a range of low mountains, and trudged for about a kilometre, all of them clutching their blasters tightly. As they crossed the last hundred metres, they found themselves surrounded. Armoured figures appeared on the ridges to either side of them. None were actively aiming their blasters, but then they didn’t really need to. They gave the impression of being supremely quick on the draw.

  “Green armour,” Yendor murmured to Thane. “Red and yellow trim. What does that make these guys?”

  “Clan Shysa, I think. I see some of the old Protector marks too.”

  “Ah. So they were on the Republic side during the Clone Wars. More than that, they fought with the Hera Syndulla’s people before Lothal and Yavin. Ever hear the name Fenn Shysa?”

  “A few – kriff, that’s him, isn’t it?” he muttered. And I thought Draven was a hard man.

  Fenn Shysa looked almost as unyielding as the armour he wore. Most of the older men and women around him had a similar granite-like appearance to them, and a generous pattern of old scars across their faces. There were younger Mandalorians too – Thane believe he saw two sons of Fenn Shysa and a daughter as well – and while they were nothing like as weathered, there was the same flinty aspect in their eyes. The scars they bore, on their cheeks and foreheads, were still stark.

  But Fenn Shysa had the hardest face of all, bronze hammered into a sharp-lined and spare visage. For the leader of a noble house, he appeared lean, and Thane wondered if that was the privations of a life in exile, or whether he’d always been like this.

  Thane sensed Yendor looking at the young Shysa woman. The level of appraisal was less wary and clinical than was wise. Thane breathed in through his nose, and elbowed his wingman as discreetly as he could.  

  Adan came forward, introducing himself and offering passphrases which Thane didn’t recognise, but which evidently worked. The armoured warriors stood down, gestured for the pilots to follow, and a hidden blast door in a rockface ground open.

  Adan was ushered deeper into the little fortress, after some words about what he was after. Draven, it seemed, hoped for active allies, but he’d be willing to settle for intelligence-sharing. “Confidence and supply,” Adan had called it.

  Fenn Shysa’s scarred, severe face hadn’t shown any expression, but after a moment he’d turned and gestured for the Intelligence man to follow, not waiting to see if he did or didn’t. Adan didn’t delay.

  His escort were left to cool their heels. At least, until one of the younger Mandalorians had approached Thane.

  “Wesk Shysa, son of Fenn.”

  It wasn't often that Thane felt a sense of danger to a handshake, but the gauntlet he grasped could easily crush his hand, and he suspected there was a blade in that vambrace, so very close to the blood vessels in his wrist. Still, he kept his composure. “Thane Kyrell. Son of no one you’d know.”

  “Thane?” Amusement played over the other man's face. “An aristocratic name, despite what you say.”

  “Could be,” Thane allowed. “Or maybe my parents were just aspirational.”

  “I don't think so. You wear it so easily. There's academy training in the mix, but no, you're from a fine household, same as me.” He smirked, fleetingly. “So, here we are. Two scions of proud old families, squatting in a backwater.”

  “My family were only aristocrats by the standards of my home backwater. Ever hear of Jelucan?”

  “No, so I take your point. Even so, it sounds we’ve both fallen on hard times, both our proud houses.” There was a chuckle, but it was a hollow sound. “Because if you’re looking for help here, then wayii, you’re in a thorny place.”

  Thane looked at him levelly, and decided to trust in the saying that warriors respected boldness. “We’ve got that in common, as you say, though the Alliance are working on solutions. Give it a few more months, and we’ll be able to hit back properly.”

  No one could tell him what the plan was, right now, but he’d seen the stockpiling going on across the various bases where he’d been billeted lately.

  “I wonder how much you can tell me about that, but it figures, if you’re here wanting intel. Any good news is welcome. Don't suppose Ezra Bridger's come back, all top-secret?” There was a surprising wistfulness in his eyes.

  “No. We’ve just one alleged Jedi, and I…” Best not get into everything about Skywalker now. “I don't know that man.”

  “Ah.” Wesk looked genuinely deflated. “A pity. Bridger was good. I fought alongside him on Dxun and a couple of other worlds, before and after Mandalore was retaken.”

  Thane eyed him with some surprise. “As I understood, the Mandalorians never had much good to say about the Jedi.”

  The other man shrugged. “I think the rise of the Empire put things in perspective for most of us. It made us face some truths which stung and seared us. Which shamed us.”

  “You were up against overwhelming odds-” Thane tried, summoning up what he’d memorised about the Purge, but Wesk cut across him.

  “It was a shameful defeat, not for those who stood and died, or fought until they were forced to flee, but for those who weren't there at all.” Eyes hard as armourglass bored into Thane’s. “Whole Clans refused to send their warriors. Bo-Katan hadn't followed the Way properly, they said. The Children of the Watch sat tight on Concordia and mouthed pieties about how the Darksaber must never merely be given.” His hands twitched, a throttling gesture. “What would it have proven for Lady Bo-Katan to pick a fight with a teenager, that leading the battle against the Imperial Vizier didn't?”

  Thane found he'd shrunk, ever so slightly, into a defensive posture. Honesty looked like the best policy. “I don't know Mandalore well enough to judge that, Wesk.”

  It seemed that Wesk had only wanted him to speak for rhythm's sake, so it wasn't all a monologue. The train of furious thought ploughed on.

  “Our society broke… over a sword, Thane. A weapon that isn't even truly ours. Dank ferrik, it’s a stolen kriffing Jedi lightsaber!” The angry bark brought him to his feet, and he set off into a gloomy corner. Thane followed, and Wesk started walking in rapid, angry circles. “It's not a Beskar blade. Nothing of Mandalore in the hilt either, that anyone knows of.” The man's hands were clenching and unclenching, and Thane guessed that Wesk must be thinking of crushing the Darksaber as he spoke. “The idea that it's special, that it should be special, is all one self-serving lie that Clan Viszla used to lord it over the rest of us. And we kept believing them, poisoning ourselves…”

  Thane didn't say anything. He sensed that Wesk wasn't finished yet.

  “That's the reason I most wish I could see Bridger again. Hand him the saber and tell him, do what you like with it. Use it if you want. Stick it in a Jedi armoury somewhere, just how its maker left it. Junk the hilt and just keep the crystal, if you like. Throw the damned thing into a sun. Just keep it away from us.”

  “Truly?”

  Wesk nodded. He seemed to have run out of words, and to have shrunken slightly with the end of his tirade. Thane glanced back, catching startled looks on his wingmates’ faces even as they averted their eyes. The other Mandalorians, meanwhile, looked wounded, but none appeared to dispute Wesk’s claims.

  “Listen, I just…” The man's brow creased as he rummaged among the various little compartments on his belt. “Whatever your man and my father agree, I'd like to help hurt the enemy.” He took out a little device and held it out. “So you'll take this commlink, keep it safe, and if something comes up that we or you need to know about-”

  Thane nodded, and took the profferred device. “I get it. Confidence and supply.”

Chapter Text

  Part of Ciena, which she was trying hard to suppress, wondered if she was being punished by the Force for her actions in the Ivarujar evacuation. Having acted overzealously on that rescue mission months earlier, now she would be part of an extermination.

  The Executor had been alive with whispers, and not just because of recent Rebel outrages. Those on their own would’ve caused ample chatter, but there was more. Leave was suspended, as was communication with the wider Galaxy. People high up the chain of command had been plotting something, perhaps even before Rebel operations on the ravaged Jedha and at Mon Cala.

  The seniors themselves had clamped down on any whispering – which naturally fed curiosity, though the political officers had stepped in to ensure compliance. The result was pent-up silence all across the fleet, punctuated by muttered mantras about how the Alliance would pay for transgressions on this or that world. Implicit in those words was the promise that the Empire would exact retribution in full, soon.

  Ciena didn’t doubt her superiors, and she could read the signs as well as anyone else. Despite that, she was taken aback when the Executor led Death Squadron from resupplying at Druckenwell to an isolated system, and found a flotilla waiting for them.

  She and the other captains on the flagship had been ordered to its main briefing room, along with their lieutenants. That had meant travelling along the horizontal turbolifts which ran the ship’s length and breadth – stars, it was gargantuan, dwarfing any settlement on Jelucan. Ciena was still getting her head around its maddening scale. The journey was long enough to remind her of maglev trains on Coruscant.

  Still, soon they were out of that lift and into another, travelling vertically to the briefing room, partway up the bridge tower, where Berisse was waiting for them. From there, they could look out at the assembled fleet, take in its vastness and identify individual ships.

  “That’s the Pursuer,” she murmured to Nash and Berisse. “Lord Vader’s summoned Shadow Wing.” Ulm Liskarok would be over there, with the rest of Colonel Nuress’ pilots.

  “And many more,” Berisse said, nodding to some of the carrier vessels. “They’ve been arriving all morning. Onyx Squadron turned up just an hour ago, and that hauler?” She pointed. “Helix Squadron are aboard.”

  Mention of Helix Squadron had Ciena shooting a cautious look at Nash. Terisa Kerrill’s squadron had a dark, complicated reputation. They’d been assigned to the eradication of Alderaanian refugee fleets, though the first such mission had been sabotaged by their own squadron leader at Fostar Haven. Kerrill had worked tirelessly to redeem her unit after Lindon Javes’ betrayal, no assignment too bloody for Helix. They’d gone after other Alderaanian, fleets, and those they pursued after Fostar Haven had been less lucky. Probably best Helix were several kilometres away in the void, given Nash’s presence.

  He looked displeased anyway. “We’ve already got Saber Squadron and the Hundred and Eighty-First swanning around the fleet. Does Lord Vader really think we need them competing with us?”

  A cold voice came from behind them. “Lord Vader’s reasons are not for you to question.” All three whipped around to find Colonel Shunro Kondar eyeing them grimly. He was the overall commander of the various TIE units berthed on the Executor. The officers turned and saluted sharply. They knew Kondar would be watching for any sign of laxity. He was a narrow blade of a man, and had survived a decade of service under Darth Vader by keeping his people rigidly focused on the matter at hand. “I understand that you’re curious, but you have an example to set in front of your squadrons, and everyone else on this ship.” His flinty eyes flicked to Nash. “Rather than be offended by the presence of other units, consider that this task might be bigger than us. You will understand more shortly.”

  “Is this to do with the revolt on Mon Cala?” asked one of the other squadron leaders. That was Nas Ghent, one of the more tenured captains assigned to the Executor. Vader had taken all the Devastator’s pilots with him when he assumed control of the dreadnought, and then appropriated a selection of other elite units to fill his new, more capacious flagship. Ghent was one of the latter, taken from the Remorseless. That distinction didn’t matter; like all of them, he was a model officer. Hearing about Ciena’s misstep on Iruvajar, he’d pronounced it “part of the learning curve”, but warned her that Lord Vader would need resolute officers. No one wants to be the next Helix Squadron, he’d said.

  “I can’t imagine what else would warrant this,” said the oldest of the pilots, Trel Skutu. He had a heavy, brutal face, the kind Ciena was more used to seeing among the veteran Stormtroopers. “Though even as I say that, this doesn’t look like a force to destroy a fleet like the one that the Mon Cala gave the Rebels. This looks like deliberate overkill.” He glanced at Kondar. “Not to doubt the wisdom of High Command, but we’re using a lot of resources to make our example here, Colonel.”

  Kondar sneered dismissively. “It’ll be worth it to make them suffer. Not just to make the point to the rest of the Galaxy, but to punish them. Especially the squids.” His eyes flashed with anger. “Can you believe the ingratitude? The Emperor saved Mon Cala from the Separatists in the Clone Wars, sent clone and auxiliary forces to achieve it, and what have they done since then? Revolted twice now.”

  “If only we still had the Death Star,” Ciena dutifully replied. Dutifully and sincerely – right? Logically Mon Cala could never have withstood the Ultimate Weapon, not least in the hands of Tarkin, who’d chastised the world back in the Empire’s early years. The mere fact that the massed, prolonged bombardment, leaving millions dead, had only kept Mon Cal in check for a generation, showed the need for the Death Star. Ciena knew all that, like any astute Imperial officer ought to.

  She still couldn’t escape the feeling that she was working too hard to find justifications. She was failing to just know that the Empire was right, and that one planet was a paltry price for an orderly Galaxy. Worse, she might be failing conceal those doubts.

  Luckily for her, Nash had everyone’s attention, with his grim certainty. “At least this way, we can prove that we didn’t need the Death Star to control this Galaxy. Soon everyone will see the inevitability of Imperial victory. Even if,” he added, “too many fools can’t see it, and keep getting sucked in by rebel lies.”

  Kondar shrugged. “It’s worked in our favour. The Mon Calamari have walked into a trap and taken the main strength of the Rebels with them.”

  “Fish in a barrel?” Ciena tried. The epithet was sour on her tongue, but she was trying to match the senior officer’s tone.

  Kondar’s grin was barbed and cold. “You’ve no idea.”

  Ciena brooded silently on that, as did everyone around her. More senior people had filed in, expressions steely. Kondar had moved off to speak with Ronnadam and the other seniors, leaving his underlings in uneasy silence. It only intensified ten minutes later, when Darth Vader entered, Ozzel and Piett trailing him. As soon as the supreme commander was in the room, holos flashed into life on the conference table. A great many officers.

  Vader was concise. He’d placed a spy among the Rebel Alliance, and not only was their hiding place known, but their new fleet would be sabotaged before the Imperials arrived. They would be eradicated.

 They might finally have their chance to break the Alliance decisively. A shot at vengeance for the Death Star atrocity, or a way of making the atrocities committed with the Death Star worthwhile. Maybe both.

  Still, the prospect of massacring a helpless foe troubled Ciena. She told herself she wasn't qualified to make those judgements. She shouldn't still be thinking like this, not when the Rebels had inflicted such violence on the Empire's soldiers. One million, two hundred thousand dead, by one pitiless shot. 

  And he would be out there, somewhere in the target system of Mako-Ta. Luke Skywalker, the boy who Ciena felt she understood on some deep level without ever having got near him. Not a boy, rather, no more than she was still a girl. Not after the Rebels had got to him.

  Still, he must have been like her once, stuck on a backwater world, eager to help people. And how much good he could have done, had he made it to an academy. His talents were undeniable. But instead, he had been lured in and ensnared by the Rebel Alliance. They’d turned an unassuming, good-hearted son of Tatooine into a mass-murderer. Ciena could imagine the cynical, grasping politicians who controlled the Alliance – she always pictured them as twisted beings, wreathed in shadow – congratulating themselves, smirking over that bitter irony.

  That tragedy of misused promise would end today, along with all the others which represented the Rebel cannon fodder. Ciena went to her task with a sense of grim determination; at least after today, those stories would be over.

  Mako-Ta reminded her of Ivarujar despite lacking a planet. It was a binary star system, and everywhere she looked space was stained with the orange suns’ furnace glow. Against that, the Rebel space station was a dark sliver of metal, looking surprisingly fragile.

  At first, it seemed that everything really would go as Lord Vader had ordained. Emerging from hyperspace they found the Alliance fleet stationary, whether they hung at anchor from the Mako-Ta station itself or out in space. Mute too; the Imperial sensors detected no transmissions between ships. Queen Trios of Shu-Torun, now revealed as Vader’s spy, had handed Vader the means to freeze every vessel in its tracks. That had provoked no small amount of gloating, even a measure of backslapping – albeit carefully gauged to fall within Lord Vader’s tolerance.

  “Look at them,” Kondar breathed. “All those fancy Shu-Torun systems they believed would make them so deadly, and the only thing they’ll kill is Rebels. Beautiful.”

  Nash glared out with bleak vehemence. “Only fitting. In their last moments, the Rebels will understand that they were undone by people who put down the insurgents in their own midst.

  Lord Vader had them wait before commencing. Ciena had learned by now that the supreme commander had a holofilm editor's understanding of how a pause could build anticipation or dread. She mentally amended that metaphor to a composer – the first thing that a properly cultured officer would think of, and more accurate to Vader’s part here. Palpatine's enforcer had orchestrated the death of the Rebels’ hope. In mere hours, he would add to that the death of the Alliance itself.

  The Imperials then started a bombardment targeting every Rebel ship. The enemy’s shields were impressively robust, but it would only prolong their torment, turning quick executions into fatal beatings. Despite the historic significance of this moment, despite the glory of being here when peace was finally assured again for the Galaxy, Ciena found it difficult to watch. She welcomed the order which sent the pilots to their cockpits.

  It helped, somewhat, when the Rebels began to resist. Mako-Ta Base, lacking the Shu-Torun technology which booby-trapped the Rebel vessels, was not paralysed in the same way, and they sent a shuttle out. That at least changed the dynamic from a cull to a hunt, briefly. Ghent’s squadron deployed, watched by the rest on holo, and swiftly ran the shuttle down and dispatched it.

  “A pity they couldn’t have kept some X-Wings on that station,” Ghent drawled over the officers’ comm channel. “It would be nice to get a last bit of sport out of them.” No doubt he’d been dreaming of duelling Skywalker, Antilles and the rest. All the pilots had. Not to mention Solo, despised all the more as an Imperial deserter turned traitor. And speaking of the double-offender…

  Kondar took over the comm. “We have a hyperspace wake, corresponding to a freighter or large shuttle.” He rattled off a series of squadrons to be deployed, Ciena’s among them. As they deployed, they got the confirmation – the Millennium Falcon – and to their shock, saw Vader’s starfighter arcing down from its berth, racing ahead of them all.

  Solo evaded or destroyed most of Ghent’s fighters just in time for Vader to reach him. Though Ciena flew in their wake, she could scarcely keep track of what followed, let alone believe the skill she was seeing. Both wheeled through insane manoeuvres, Solo unbelievably staying alive despite Vader’s onslaught.

  It actually distracted Ciena from the Rebels’ torment until the next ship died. This one got escape pods away before it came apart, though it appeared little reprieve to Ciena. None of the other ships could make any move to rescue the escapees. At least, however, they’d given the Empire the option of taking captives.

  Ciena waited for Ozzel's next command, and found their assessments matched. “Their escape pods can easily be captured later. They're going nowhere.” Still that pause, however. Vader seemed to have him nervous - no wonder, given Tagge’s fate. Then the question: “Shall we ignore them?”

  Vader didn’t share Ciena’s opinion. “They are leaving for a reason. Make purging them a priority.”

  Ciena swallowed, grateful she wasn’t on the bridge. 

  Ozzel took the order in stride, tasking the Executor's turbolasers with the job, plus multiple TIE squadrons, Ciena’s included. Shadow Wing deployed too, and she spotted Liskarok’s ident on her HUD.

  She felt her stomach sink. She’d have preferred pursuing the Millennium Falcon. It might cost her more pilots, but it would net them an enemy who was actually causing trouble, it would actually be fighting…

  She gritted her teeth. This was duty. It was a chance to send a message which should've been understood when Alderaan was destroyed. Kill the hope. Kill the lie.

  But quite suddenly, even as her fighters closed in on the unfolding massacre, Berice opened a commline to her. Something had happened on one of the Rebel cruisers, some breakthrough by an engineer perhaps. Ciena didn't quite understand what Berice was speculating on – the technobabble was coming too thick and fast. All she knew for sure was that a squadron of X-Wings had deployed.

  “Now, battle,” Nash breathed.

  “Pity,” said Liskarok over the captains’ channel. “I'd have liked to have them all die cowering.”

  “It’d be better for our pilots,” Ciena allowed. Her conscience prickled uneasily at the cruelty in his voice. It was more common among Death Squadron's leaders than she liked, but she couldn't push too hard against it without the loyalty officers getting interested. 

  True to form, Liskarok was already making a scoffing sound, but Nash cut across him. “This suits me better. Clever tricks are all well and good, but let the Galaxy see that we can slaughter them in open combat.”

  Let the people see that their protectors are up to the job, Ciena added silently.

  Liskarok was smirking. It seeped into his voice. “Well, I suppose gets us a better chance of medals. I'll overlook your breach of etiquette, Lieutenant Windrider.”

  Frankly, Ciena doubted that Vader would see it that way. She understood her fellow captain’s reasoning, but she suspected that Vader might focus instead on their failure to keep the trap closed. Han Solo had eluded even him, so he might be forgiving, but there was no certainty.

  Ciena scowled to herself. Any thought of accolades was premature while the greatest threat to peace in the Galaxy were still alive. More than that, the same mass-murderers who'd destroyed the Death Star - killing the best hope for peace, to say nothing of Jude and so many others - were now loose. What should have been a killing field was now a true battlespace.

  Why won't they admit when they're done? she silently snarled. Why do they always have to try and take others with them?

  But the greater part of her preferred this, partly for the reasons of honour Nash had cited, partly because, even with these monsters, she struggled with the idea of a straight massacre. The Alliance’s destruction deserved to be an act of Imperial heroism.

  The TIEs leapt to engage, only to find the X-Wings scattering. Fighting became chasing, then fighting again as more cruisers launched their squadrons. Vader ordered every remaining TIE released in response, sending a handful to escort Queen Trios’ ship back to the Executor.

  Ciena fought on, raking X-Wings with laser fire. This is how it should have been from the start, she thought, though she wrestled the insubordinate thought down.

  The enemy numbers had already thinned greatly. Quite suddenly she’d flown through them. She found herself out of the true battlespace, instead surrounded by cold and cooling debris. A severed TIE wing drifted off to her left, the most intact component of a craft she could see for either side. Beyond, the far larger fragments of destroyed Rebel ships rolled slowly. Those were the bones of cruisers and corvettes, however, much harder to identify than a starfighter’s wing. Between them all, however, was a swirling mess of broken metal.

  Sudden silence pressed in heavily, as she absorbed the sheer scale and thoroughness of the destruction. She had the sense of being a very small part of a vast and merciless machine, grinding out lives. The fiery light of the twin suns reminded her still more of Ivarujar, and her error. This was the lesson any good Imperial officer had to learn; the need to expend lives as needed. She understood it, but still the necessity lodged like a pin in her throat.

  The reverie wasn’t permitted to last long, though. Not with Nash on her wing. “Captain,” he commed, sounding as if he was holding in a breath with difficulty, “we have to get back in the fight.”

  She hesitated, not from apprehension at the thought of more combat, but at his tone. Then she shook it off – it was understandable. If they got this right, if they fought hard enough now, Nash might be able to start putting his torment behind him.

  But even as they darted back into the fray, things went wrong. There was a Rebel boarding party aboard the flagship, a stolen TIE blasting another TIE to dust before being conveyed aboard an enemy cruiser. Mere moments later, that ship vanished into hyperspace. A blotch on the otherwise total elimination, which worsened when, inexplicably, the cruiser reverted to realspace right above the Executor, cannons ripping into the Super Star Destroyer’s back.

  Such daring was admirable – surely futile, as the Imperials converged on the offender, but the cruiser never stopped hurling out volleys. It was so arresting that Ciena, and everyone else, missed what happened elsewhere. All they knew was that the rest of the enemy ships were no longer inert. The exchange of fire was cutting both ways across the battlespace, and then, equally abruptly, the surviving enemy were leaping to hyperspace. The Imperials scrambled for their remaining prey, Ciena leading the attack on an old Imperial carrier in Rebel colours, but to no avail. Its jump sent all her squadron spinning in disarray – momentary, but still galling. Now the Empire was left with nothing but the empty space station, and the slowly-spreading expanse of cooling wreckage. Victory, but not the victory.

  Partial triumph was still a triumph, of course, and the Empire celebrated it. Commendations were given out once the mop-up was complete, Ciena and Nash among those selected to receive them. So now she was back in the main hangar in dress uniform, ranks of pilots and Stormtroopers stretching off to either side of her.

  Several of Shadow Wing were present, trading fierce glances with her unit and everyone else. More measuring of rivals, more preening. Ciena found it an affront to the unity of purpose they'd just demonstrated against the enemy.

  It also smacked of displacement activity. Consciously or not, to Ciena all this strutting and swaggering signified an effort to ignore the fact that they hadn’t actually achieved their objectives. The Alliance had been devastated, and most of its new ships destroyed – which would end their advance into the Mid Rim – but the chance to destroy the leadership had slipped away. The war would go on.

  Ozzel gave a pompous and windy speech, hailing their bravery and skill, while Vader lurked behind him. All as expected, until he said the word decisive.

  Ciena had felt the heat drain out of the hangar, and almost expected to see frost forming on the deck. Vader came forward and loomed over Ozzel, staring the man into worried silence before he turned to face the newly decorated pilots.

  “Syndulla escaped. Organa escaped. Ackbar escaped. To name just a few.” The obsidian lenses bored into them, and then switched to Ozzel, with a redoubled intensity. “Not one of you can be allowed to lose sight of that.”

  Ozzel cleared his throat, and tried to speak urbanely. “Recognition for a major achievement is still worthwhile, my lord.”

  Vader's voice remained cold and adamant. “Nevertheless.” He looked out at the assembled officers and pilots. "You are being commended for exemplary service, but make no mistake. More will be required of you all.”

  There were a handful of decorations and promotions, the latter mostly to cover the vacancies which had “opened up due to unexpectedly heavy resistance”, as Kondar drily phrased it. Mercifully, Vader seemed disinclined to create further vacancies. It looked like he was willing to attribute the Rebel's escape to the enemy’s capabilities, rather than deficiencies among his subordinates’. 

  Instead, it was all fairly prosaic. Nash got his captaincy at last, though it would see him transferred to another ship in the fleet. Ciena felt a pang at that. Her superiors had cautioned her to expect to find herself more alone, the higher she climbed, but Nash was the only constant companion she had left from the Royal Imperial days, besides Berice.

  She herself accepted a promotion to Lieutenant Commander with only a deep nod and a murmur of gratitude. Everyone was quiet. If her peers had felt any temptation to boast and bray, Vader had throttled it. They were lucky that he hadn’t done so literally.

  Then she was headed out on patrol, roving the perimeter of the battlespace as salvage crews went about their work. All the while, she knew, Vader and his officers would be planning the next move. Now the next battle would have to be the decisive one – or the one after that.

Chapter Text

  There was no evading Shara Bey’s question, however hard Thane tried to focus on his rations. It didn’t help that after a few weeks, Hoth’s rations had become profoundly monotonous, and while a given vista glimpsed whilst flying a patrol might be impressive, they had all tended to blur together.

  It also meant that everyone else around him was quite happy to join in with Shara’s teasing.

  “So how is it that Toryn Farr threw herself at Thane, and instead ended up in Yendor's bunk? No offense, Yendor,” she added.

  Yendor's lekku bounced lightly when he shrugged, brushing off any implied slight with a mild gesture. "A Twi’lek takes pride in overcoming adversity," he grinned. "I may not be as handsome as Thane here, but I have my charms."

  “He makes them laugh,” Thane told Shara. 

  “An underrated strategy.” Yendor preened a little as he said it, leaning back from the table. Then he caught himself and raised a sly finger to the others, sensing a joke which he had to pre-empt. "So long as no one laughs when your pants come off."

  Echo Base was busy in a way no other Rebel bolthole had even come close to. Thane wondered how much it was the cold, and how much it was the sense of living on the edge of a vibroblade. The Alliance was stretched thin, with Darth Vader hunting remorselessly for High Command. Face with such a grim situation, many of the Rebels around Thane seemed intent on living as hard as they could.

  “Anything happen with the new Phoenix Squadron pilot?” Smikes asked. “You two got talking when they were here. I figured something must’ve happened, and if not… well, she seems pretty special.” He was trying rather too hard to sound casual.

  “What, Omega?” Thane grinned at Smikes and shook his head. “Nope. She's got a few years on most of us - we're kids to her. And besides, she's already seeing Miara Larte.”

  Yendor’s eyebrows rose and a murmuring arose around the table. “She’s in bed with Rogue Six? Smikes, you really were dreaming too big this time.”

  Smikes shrugged it off as he turned back to the others and jerked a thumb at Thane. “He doesn't generate much gossip, but he sure picks up on it.”

  If only you knew the truth, Thane thought.

  Shara took another stab when the laughter had died down. "OK, but really, Thane, you shrugged Toryn Farr off?"

  Apparently it had been decided unanimously that Thane was an ideal Rebel ladykiller. His friends reeled off a list of virtues that made him blush furiously, before they even got to the so. The so being how, with his looks, wits, kindness, flying skills, record of valour and aristocratic bearing tempered by a merciful lack of ego, was he neither shacked up nor blazing a trail through Echo Base's single population?

  This time Thane started an attempt at a witty riposte; his neighbours had the newly married Connixes on their other side, which was surely already hard enough to sleep through.

  But he'd only got as far as "next door" when Grace Sienar leaned in and said, with absolute confidence: “He’s already spoken for.”

  That brought him properly on guard. "Where are you getting that from?"

  Gracalia Vatara Sienar, to use her full name, had been born into the same industrial dynasty which had designed and created the TIE Fighter and its various siblings. She'd turned away from them and the Empire, but Thane was pretty sure she'd had her first flying lessons inside the regime. Might've even been in a cadre below him at Imperial Royal; the Sienars could easily secure a spot for one of their own.

  She could know about Ciena. With all the doubts that might cast on his loyalty.

  Thane forced himself to breathe normally, and not to show any relief when Grace said, "He's got that dreamer look about him.” She leaned back, little finger extended as she sipped at her drink and smiled knowingly. “There's someone on Jelucan who by rights should really be a prince or princess on a pretty Core or Mid Rim world, but grew up poor in the outback. They’re kind, even if the world wasn’t kind to them, and that lined up the arrow as neatly as Thane picks his targets."

  Yendor was chuckling now. “Ah, wingman, she’s got you bang to rights.”

  “Sounds an awful lot like Commander Sk- oww.” That came from a Pantoran called Sho'lan Volo, one of the hangar engineers. The oww came from a judicious boot.

  Shol’an liked to hang out with the pilots, who were happy to have him around because he was funny, and did fine work on both their fighters and the new Snowspeeders. Thane suspected he was mostly here because of Dazeri Volo, the new Corona Five. She was another Pantoran, strikingly pretty too. In Shol’an’s case, her magnetism was even more powerful than Skywalker's. Mostly it was cute to watch, but infatuation had a way of making mouths run ahead of brains.

  Thane wasn't sure whether it was Yendor or Cossan who'd trodden, lightly but pointedly, on the unwitting sparky’s foot. He was quietly grateful either way. Shol’an didn’t pick up the subject of Commander Skywalker again.

  Luke Skywalker was still a sore spot for Thane. All the more so for being on the same base. While proximity hadn’t forced them together, it had turned a steady trickle of admiration from other Rebels into a veritable torrent. Thane had pre-emptively torpedoed more than one friendship when someone came bounding up to him to say something like “You’ll never believe what Skywalker pulled on the Harbinger mission!”

  “Nonetheless,” Thane would sigh, “you’re bursting to tell me.” That would bring the offender up short, and he would walk away. As a result, his relations with Rogue Squadron and several others were strictly professional.

  Idly, Thane wondered what Ciena would make of Luke. If she were here, that was – he knew the kind of vitriolic propaganda that the Empire spat out. But if she were with him, as a Rebel, she might feel the same ambivalence. And if she thought he was wrong and that Skywalker did actually live up to the hype, well, at least then she would be saying that. It might be enough to make him cross the room and shake the other young man's hand.

  At least Skywalker seemed to be OK with it. The young commander mixed with practically everyone, but left Thane alone. Thane couldn’t decide from this distance if that was a sign of a thick skin or a prickly ego. He didn’t plan to find out what it looked like close-up.

  He’d even gently rebuffed Wedge Antilles. The man had helped pull him into the Alliance, but he couldn’t tug Thane into the boy wonder’s orbit. Boy wonder, like we’re not the same age. Like we don’t have rookies like Dak Ralter around, who really do look like kids.

  Still, curiosity persisted. He voiced it now to Yendor, though his eyes remained on the Rogues over in their corner. “What do you think he’s like?”

  Yendor shot him a look. “You know, there’s an easy way to find out. He is billeted here too.” Thane returned the look, this one more of a sustained barrage of weary annoyance. “Ah yes, you want to know what kind of man Skywalker is without ever having to really get to know him directly.”

  Thane didn’t look away. “Well, have you considered that death and destruction seem to follow the guy?”

  That was an unworthy thought and he knew it. It was his guilt speaking, regret about Corana Squadron not being at Mako-Ta when the Alliance’s high command was threatened with total destruction. Where Skywalker had helped to avert that cataclysm, and created Rogue Squadron mid-battle for good measure. Perhaps, if Thane had been there, he’d think differently about Skywalker now. Despite the base never being warm, he felt a threat of shame beginning to warm his cheeks.

  Mercifully, his friend laughed it off. Yendor had come to terms with missing the battle more readily than Thane, refusing to dwell on it. Just as importantly, he had a deep laugh, bolstered by his strong Rylothian accent, and the mere sound allayed most of Thane’s worries for the moment. “That’s a morbid way of looking at it, wouldn’t you say? Your typical Rebel would say that he’s just a very good pilot, and so he gets sent where the action’s thickest.”

  Thane raised an eyebrow. “Your typical Rebel says he’s more than just a good pilot. They say he’s another Hera Syndulla and the second coming of Kanan Jarrus, in one package.”

  That prompted a double take from Yendor. “You’re talking about Jarrus like someone got you to believe in a Jedi? I thought you’d be one of those who’d forever be going round, denying that the Force could even exist.”

  “Don’t give me too much credit. He just came to mind because everyone talks about him and Hera Syndulla together.” He scanned the room warily. Doubtless there was someone here who’d gladly talk his ear off about just how great Jarrus had been. And then, inevitably as gravity, they’d turn to talking about Skywalker.

  Thane was surrounded by a full spectrum of Rebels, idealists to cynics. There were kitchen assistants who burned with fervour – “Don't knock that,” Yendor said, and pointed out that if the cooks downed tools they were all stuffed - and then there was a grim sergeant who'd nearly got in a brawl with a spec-ops unit because their starry-eyed ways offended him. Cue gentle joshing to the effect that Thane and the other man must never meet, for fear of the mutiny that must surely follow.

  Whoever that man was, Thane hadn't had the same treatment. The true believers - that is, those who believed in a version of what came after the Empire fell - treated him with a sort of wary tolerance. At least they couldn't question his loyalty, a year and a half on from the Shoso Belt.

  In return, he watched them and felt a mixture of amusement which didn't quite cross over into derision, and envy. In particular, he envied those who’d been part of the really important battles, the definitive battles. When you added Rogue Squadron, flocking around Skywalker and treating him like a Jedi hero of myth despite his modesty, an unutterable strangeness seeped in. It didn't make it bitter or sour, but it certainly tasted a bit off to Thane. Still, he’d have liked to believe.

  It wasn’t as if having been in an academy stopped others from believing. Wedge Antilles had been in one, after all. Perhaps graduating made the difference, graduating and serving within the Empire, so you learned it was like the ice on Hoth. A forbidding and impressive surface, but one which concealed depths so vast they challenged your very mind. Wedge had got out before he even scratched the surface.

  That gulf yawned even wider a few days later, when Skywalker vanished on patrol, and Solo in pursuit. The boys and girls of Rogue Squadron – besides Wedge and Hobbie, they all seemed frighteningly young to Thane despite being pretty much his age – clustered together, placing bets that their leader would make it back. Thane saw them drawing strength from that, but couldn't help but wonder what would happen if Skywalker didn't return.

  The Contessa snapped him back to the here and now. “Update from the top. If that Destroyer incursion is the start of something, Blue and Green Squadrons are assigned to escort detail, for the evacuation. That means we and Rogue Squadron are going to take point in the speeders.”

  “And the dubious honour of the rearguard into the bargain,” Thane observed. They’d gone over simulations often enough to know how this would work, and to know that after fighting in the air here, Corona Squadron and the Rogues would have to leap into their starfighters and get up into orbit, by which time the full might of any Imperial attack would be arrayed around the planet. Then he refocused, frowning. “They named Rogue Squadron for the job, when Skywalker could be dead?”

  “He'll be back.” She said it with such confidence that he stared at her. “The Force is with him, and besides, I've heard the stories about Solo.”

  “You know only a quarter of those are true, at best.”

 “A quarter of them still adds up to one hell of a survivor.” Clapping him on the shoulder, she said “Mark my words. Solo will bring Skywalker back tomorrow, maybe even before you’re out of bed.”

  Not before he woke up, it turned out. Rogue Squadron, along with a bunch of pilots and soldiers, endured a sleepless night, and the restlessness even extended to Thane himself. He was up well before sunrise, and couldn’t force himself to lie in bed and read this time.

  The Rogues were at the middle of the pilot barracks when he grabbed his breakfast. Zev Senesca had started them placing bets, wagers that somehow they’d get their leader back. At least it made a difference from the gossipy bets that normally got placed. Yendor had been especially smug when Dannil Connix and Sara didn’t just get together, but got married on base. That bet had doubled the Twi’lek pilot’s salary for the month.

  It was curious to see the pilots using the same board now for reassurance. They were also telling stories, everyone seeking to reassure themselves with precedents. “And Skywalker had the idea to throw off the hunter-killers with, get this, a boarding action,” Zev was saying. “We had three U-Wings along with our fighters, plus had Kes Dameron’s Pathfinders and a company of marines. General Syndulla liked the idea, so we went in as escort. The boarders took this Gozanti at the tip of the enemy formation, then turned its guns on the ships to either side. Opened up a gap for the refugee ships to run through, and we got another ship into the bargain. The enemy never saw it coming!”

  It was odd to sit outside that group, that camaraderie, and Thane was grateful when his wingmen and the Contessa appeared. Yendor made quiet conversation with those around them, drawing Thane in when he could.

  Thane did his best to join in, and make his friend’s efforts worthwhile. But again and again, his gaze returned to Rogue Squadron. Somehow they never stopped marvelling at Skywalker’s unbelievable good fortune. Nor did they ever get resentful. No one wanted to spike Rogue Leader’s guns, like some of Thane’s fellow cadets had at Imperial Royal – like Student Outcomes had done to him and Ciena. No, the Rogues loved their commander, and clearly believed that their talents and skills were amplified by his brilliance.

  Then Princess Leia was there, readying the tired Rogues to commence a search as dawn broke, rallying them and stoking the fires of their faith. Corona would remain on station, along with Vanguard and the others. There was a speech, a good one, about the bets and faith in each other’s comrades. Rogue Squadron moved out, all weariness forgotten.

  Though Wedge and Skywalker’s other wingmen had gone, the cluster remained, placing fresh wagers, telling stories. Soldiers pitched in too. Everyone bet on Skywalker and Solo, no one against.

  They kept at it until shouts sounded outside, and Sho’lan came running in. His grin told them everything, but he yelled it out anyway. “They’re back! They’re alive!”

  The place erupted, people leaping, hugging, even dancing so that Thane found himself buffeted around. He cheered, and did his best to mean it. He did mean it, right? Two comrades were back, alive, even if one was now in the infirmary. Of course he was glad about that.

  Still, after the first couple of minutes, it began to feel overbearing again, and as the great mass of Rebels celebrated, he slipped away to the edge of the room. He watched the rest of Rogue Squadron come in to receive rounds of thudding embraces and vigorous handshakes, and felt that distance reassert itself.

  A finger prodded his arm. Yendor had evidently spied a chance to distract him, cheer him up, needle him a little or do some mixture of the three. "Now tell me true, brother, could you see this scene happening in an Imperial base? Would a lost Stormtrooper captain get a rescue like that, and would his friends celebrate it like this?"

  Well, the Imperials could afford better heating than this, but Thane bit that back. "They have probe droids for that sort of thing."

  That met with a derisive snort. “Like that’d stop them sending some unlucky trooper on patrol if it was easier.”

  “Wouldn't stop them sending some unlucky Army grunts,” Thane corrected. “That’s an easy trade for an officer, in their book. But you're right. The Empire would only send those it didn’t value, doors would close and lock straight away, and only the man at the centre could open them. And he wouldn't do that, because no one breaks the rules for a mere soldier sent out scouting. Whoever didn’t make it back in time would be an icicle.”

  “Impcicle,” Yendor grinned at him, and clapped Thane on the shoulder. “So there you are! However cold it gets, you're in much warmer company than those bastards.”

  "Hmm." That was as much as he dared say, because his mind had abruptly filled itself with Ciena, and kinds of warmth that were quite different to what Yendor meant. Her skin, her breath, the heat that had bloomed between them…

  It was distinctly less than helpful. Apart from anything else, it leant an even sharper edge to the cold he could never quite escape. Equally, he couldn't really help it, not when the Connixes and Damerons were reminding him quite loudly of what he was missing.

  It would be easy enough to find some company for himself, in a place like this and with the mood being was it was. But Grace had got him bang to rights; his heart belonged to Ciena. Somehow, despite a Galaxy-dividing war, he couldn't let that go. Couldn’t let her go.

  “Echo Base to Corona Four.” Yendor's blue hand waved in front of his face. “Relight your thrusters, you've drifted into orbit. Still awake? Corona Four?” Studying Thane’s face, he grinned. "I thought Grace might be wrong, but you really are pining. You also need some sleep, in case there is indeed an Imperial crapstorm heading our way."

  Thane rose, and accepted an arm around his shoulders.

  Yendor steered himself and Thane toward the quarters. “I hope you'll let me meet her one day, when you're ready to tell us who your wondergirl is.”

  “Why, Yendor?”

  “Well, she must be very pretty, if you’re holding out for her in a place this cold. I should like to see her.” As they walked, he leaned in and gently elbowed Thane. “And anyhow, your future best man must be confident that the groom is choosing wisely…”