Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company (32 page)

Again, the delay.

“Not that I’m aware of,” the boy finally said. “I’m sorry,
Thunderstrike.
Good luck.”

The hologram blinked out. Von Geiz spoke softly, watching the air above the projector as if he expected the call to resume. “As we surmised, we’re on our own.”

Namir leaned against the wall in the cramped room and folded his arms across his chest. “Howl trusted you,” he said. “What would he do now?”

Von Geiz laughed. “Something only Howl could do, I’m sure,” he said. “Better to ask ourselves this: What can we do
without
him?”

Namir steeled himself before the door to Howl’s quarters. He knew what he would find inside and he knew he needed to stay calm. But when he tried to picture the exchanges and arguments that might ensue, tried to ready himself for unpleasantness, his mind found no purchase and slid into the gray void that had haunted him since Hoth. He was too exhausted to predict anything.

To hell with preparation and speeches.
He tapped the keypad and stepped through the doorway.

The room wasn’t luxurious, even by Twilight standards. It was barely larger than the captain’s office, with a bunk spanning its length and a trunk and a small desk dominating two walls. The private, closet-sized bathroom was its only concession to the privileges of rank. Its decorations were spartan; Namir suspected Hober had cleared out Howl’s belongings before the funeral.

Seated on the bunk was Everi Chalis. She looked small, huddled over a datapad with her head bowed low and her knees together. Her finger rapidly danced across the pad’s screen. When Namir stepped forward, he caught a glimpse of a face taking shape under her hand.

“New art project?” he asked.

Chalis tapped the screen again and erased the sketch. As she looked up, Namir saw that the bruise on her neck had nearly vanished.

“Just an exercise,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, but not unnatural.

Namir wondered if that was as close as she would come to healing. Then he banished the question from his mind. It didn’t matter.

“I need your advice,” he said.

Chalis looked back down at the blank screen and began sketching again.

“You told me,” Namir said, “that all you really wanted was comfort, respect, and a place to sculpt. You said you’d overthrow the Empire to get your life back.” He felt an urge to snatch the datapad from her hands, but he suppressed it. “I don’t see how any of that has changed. You’re still stuck with Twilight Company. Even if you were free, my guess is the people of Ankhural would sell you to the Empire in an eyeblink.”

Chalis said nothing. Her body was too low over the datapad for Namir to observe her linework.

“You know the Empire better than anyone here,” he said, forcing his voice not to shake with irritation. “High Command is out of the picture. Without a plan, we’re all dead.”

“Are you a true believer now, too?” Chalis asked. Namir had to strain to hear her.

“No,” Namir said. “But I’m not abandoning Twilight, either.”

Chalis made a soft, noncommittal sound.

Namir waited. He studied the woman before him, tried to remember if she had always been so gaunt: if her shoulder blades and cheekbones had always been so prominent; if the white streaks in her hair had stood out so brightly on Haidoral Prime. He watched the muscles in her arm twitch like those of a dying animal as she moved her fingers over the pad. He tried not to wonder what was happening in her mind.

He knew her too well to believe he could sway her.

As he turned to leave, however, she spoke again.

“I grew up like you did,” Chalis said, though she didn’t look up. “Not on your particular colonial disaster, but close enough.”

“Crucival,” Namir said. “It was called Crucival.”

Chalis didn’t seem to hear him. “We had
nothing
,” she said. “My mother tried to sell me to a Trade Federation exploratory vessel when I was six. I was too small. Out of pity, the captain gave me a packet of nectrose crystals.

“Imagine this little girl who sleeps on her mother’s stained mattress in the ruins of a bombed-out paper mill. Nectrose—you’re supposed to sprinkle it in water—it makes things sweet and fruity, but I didn’t know that.

“I didn’t have fresh water. I’d stick my fingers in the crystals and lick them off. I rationed them, gave myself a treat once a week for
months.
I broke out in hives every time. It was the most wonderful thing I’d ever encountered.

“That was how I knew I had to leave my world. It was how I realized I was living in filth, eating garbage and drinking poison, when off-worlders were so rich they could throw nectrose packets to children.”

Something had changed in Chalis’s voice. It took Namir time to recognize it beneath the rasp, but her accent had changed. Once again, the strange overenunciation was gone, and the way she spoke was suddenly familiar.

She almost sounded like she was from Crucival.

“I got into the Colonial Academy.
How
isn’t important. I trained as an artist. I made it offworld and found I was still the lowest of the low, a pretty savage rich sponsors put to work as a novelty. Under the Republic, I had nowhere to go. I could scrabble and claw against the sides of the pit until my hands bled and never climb out.

“When the Empire rose, it wasn’t kind to me. But it rewarded success. Count Vidian saw some … quality in my sculpture. An ability to visualize concepts in a way he couldn’t. He offered me an apprenticeship and my art fell to the wayside.

“I did horrible things, Sergeant. I proposed mining the atmosphere of an inhabited planet, leaving its people wheezing the rest of their lives. I found ways to make slavery efficient again. I told a moff I loved him and slit his throat as a favor to another.

“But I thought it was
worth
it. I climbed to the top of the hierarchy by being a damn good adviser. I earned the respect of men who thought generations of ‘good breeding’ was the key to success.”

Her tone had become bitter, and specks of spittle dotted the front of her datapad. Her shoulders rose and fell even before she began coughing. What started as a dry rasp became wet and mucosal, like the heaves of a woman rotting on the inside.

Namir merely watched, waited. He felt neither sympathy nor pity.

Finally the coughing subsided. A few moments later, Chalis resumed. “Now I know the truth,” she said. For the second time since he’d entered the room, she looked up at Namir.

“The truth?” he asked.

“I never had respect,” Chalis said. “The moffs never considered me an equal. Darth Vader never considered me a threat. The Emperor sent
Prelate Verge
—a brainless sycophant—after me while Vader was …” She waved a hand dismissively. “… chasing rebels.

“The Ruling Council never saw me as anything but a runt of a sculptor from a backwater planet. I gave up everything to defect and they barely even cared.”

Namir felt heat prickle beneath the skin of his forehead. The words drew forth something he’d thought he had left behind on the journey to Hoth: a frustrated, fitful anger at Chalis for the curse she’d brought onto Twilight Company. The curse
he
had brought onto Twilight Company by not killing her on Haidoral Prime.

“Lieutenant Sairgon and the others,” he said, voice low and steady, “are dead because of how
little
the Empire cared about you. So are Fektrin and Ajax—but you don’t know their names, do you?”

She was still looking at him. Namir stepped forward and knelt in front of the governor, placing himself level with her. Her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils dilated.

“You owe this company,” he said, “and you owe me. Stop pitying yourself and help me save these people.”

“I gave the Rebellion everything I had on Hoth,” Chalis said. She looked back at her screen. Squatting so close to her, Namir could see the rough image of a wide-eyed, bearded man who might have been Howl. “My debts are paid.”

When she said nothing else, Namir stood and exited the room. His mouth was suddenly dry and his heart was beating rapidly.

Now he had nothing left to hope for.

The fight was over by the time Namir got word. Twitch was covered in other people’s blood, while Jinsol had a broken nose and Maediyu had come back to the podracing track holding the skin of her cheek in place with one hand.

“It could have been random,” Brand said. “One of the lower-level gangs looking to score cheap blasters, maybe hold our people for ransom.”

Namir had found her standing on the top tier of the amphitheater, looking out into the city. “But you don’t believe it.”

Brand shrugged. “I think it’s a message,” she said. “I think the real powers in Ankhural want us out.”

“And who are those
real
powers?”

“Does it matter?” Brand asked.

“Probably not,” Namir said. “Besides, the ship’s about ready for takeoff. There’s still work that has to happen, but we can handle it during flight.”

“Assuming we have somewhere to go.”

Namir flinched at the statement, though Brand’s tone was unassuming.

“Tomorrow morning,” Namir said. “Senior staff meeting. We’ll figure something out.”

Brand’s head tilted slightly as she tracked some distant movement in the streets. Whatever she was watching, Namir couldn’t see it. Maybe she just didn’t want to show her skepticism.

“No one would object if you showed up,” he went on. “You’ve earned a lot of leeway—”

“No,” Brand said.

“No?”

“I’m not a captain,” Brand said. She was absolutely still, like a gargoyle atop the amphitheater. Then she broke the spell and faced Namir. “I’m not even a soldier.”

“Meaning?” He heard the irritation in his voice, tried too late to conceal it.

“Meaning if there’s a better way to fight the Empire, I’ll take it.”

Namir swore and kicked at one of the steps. “You really need to say that out loud? I know what happens to this company if we don’t come up with a plan—I don’t need you threatening to walk, too.”

Brand’s fists flexed, her fingers curling in and out. Finally she nodded. “Sorry,” she said, and began to descend.

Namir grunted and followed along. “We’ll figure something out,” he repeated softly.

When they reached the podracing track, Brand turned toward the gates first, then back to touch Namir’s shoulder. “I’m glad you found us,” she said. “We all are. Most of the fresh meat would be rotten by now without you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Namir shook his head and smiled tightly. “You heading into the city?”

“Hunting,” Brand said. “Don’t tell Twitch I finished a fight for her.”

Namir spent the night cursing everything he didn’t know.

On Crucival, he’d known the factions, known the landscape, known that defending a hill was easier than defending a cornfield. He’d been able to recognize when a battle became hopeless and known how to run or surrender to keep his unit alive.

What did he know about fighting a galactic war? The Rebellion’s strategy had always been a mystery to him, and that hadn’t mattered. His job was to win planets on the ground, to slog through mud and creep through the night and terrorize the enemy.

There was no rebel territory to hold. Those few planets that had fully committed to the Alliance were cordoned behind Imperial blockades, inaccessible to the
Thunderstrike.
Hitting soft targets—lightly guarded Imperial worlds that Twilight could descend upon, devastate, and flee—was almost viable; but without a strategic goal, the company would hemorrhage deserters. Not to mention the actual casualties.

Even a lie seemed impossible. Namir imagined choosing a planet—any planet—and committing to its conquest. But Twilight Company was mobile for a reason; if it ever lingered, ever became a permanent threat, the Empire could bring massive firepower to bear and annihilate the unit.

Every goal he concocted was a phantom, fading at a touch.

He ate breakfast—rehydrated powdered eggs imported to Ankhural and purchased in bulk by one of Hober’s assistants—an hour before sunup after a sleepless night. As he walked the perimeter of the
Thunderstrike
, it occurred to him he had forgotten to shave—but he saw no use in hiding his exhaustion. He surveyed the strange tent city and waved to the sentries. He thought he saw Brand trekking in from the gates and wondered if she’d found her prey.

He sat in the amphitheater seats watching the dawn of a foreign sun. He wondered if he could convince Brand to take him along, if she left.

Not that he would go. He
couldn’t
go. Not when the company needed him so badly. His promise—
if you can’t get behind what they believe in, maybe it’s time to walk away
—still held, and he’d chosen to back his friends.

However disastrously it turned out.

He was already late for the senior staff meeting by the time he reboarded the
Thunderstrike.
He resigned himself to a morning of bitter debate and pointless arguments, and hoped that another mind would prevail where his had so badly let him down.

When he arrived in the conference room, what he saw made him freeze in the doorway.

The senior officers of the company sat around the table or stood along the walls, as usual. But while they spoke to one another in low tones, all of them were oriented toward the far end of the table—toward Howl’s place.

There, Everi Chalis stood with a datapad, keying instructions into a floating holo-droid that hovered over the table. She looked entirely unlike the woman Namir had seen the previous day. She was straight-backed and certain, the bruise on her throat totally invisible—cosmetically concealed, he presumed. Even her hair was different, cropped close around her head in a fashion the Imperial military might have approved of. Only her exhaustion remained unchanged—the gauntness of her cheeks and the redness in her eyes.

She looked away from the ’pad and the droid, across the room to Namir, and she smiled.

“We’re all here,” she said. “We may as well start.”

Chalis’s voice was rough, and she paused often as she spoke. Sometimes she turned away from the table entirely, and her shoulders shook and heaved. But except for those brief signs of infirmity, she seemed utterly in control of herself and the room. She never stumbled. She locked gazes with any officer who seemed ready to turn away, smiled with the self-effacing certainty of a rebel determined to overthrow a mighty empire.