Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company (39 page)

Brand nodded and wrinkled her nose. Namir wanted to laugh at her suppressed, too-dignified reaction to the odor.

“Anyone you knew well?” she asked.

“Not too well,” Namir said. Names and faces he recognized. Men and women and aliens he’d sat with in the mess or trained as fresh meat. They were all Twilight, all family, but none like Maediyu or Charmer or Roja or Beak or even Ajax; or the comm tech he’d pledged to forget on Asyrphus. Today’s losses were ones he could pretend didn’t matter, people whose ghosts wouldn’t haunt him aboard the
Thunderstrike.
He drifted to the railing of the walkway, tried to stare down into the magma, and failed to look long at the flow’s bright surface.

Brand followed him. “Yeah,” she said. He couldn’t tell what she was agreeing with.

They stood together that way awhile. Namir thought of all the hours he’d spent silent and alone with Chalis—on Mardona III, on the shuttle from Hoth—and was quietly amazed that two people, both utterly motionless, could be
present
in such different ways. Brand became one with her surroundings, like a boulder on a mountainside. Chalis was like a nail in a pane of cracked glass; solid as steel, but in fundamental tension with the world around her.

“Why are we doing this?” Brand asked.

Namir frowned. “Chalis says—”

“Not Sullust. The whole campaign. Kuat.”

Right.
This.

“I made a promise,” he said, “to support Twilight Company and the Rebellion. Everyone here—”
Everyone but me and Chalis.
“—joined to strike back at the Empire. I’m giving them the best way I know to do it.”

“Huh,” Brand said.

In an instant, Brand’s reserve seemed to turn aggressive. The silence that had been comforting now irked Namir. “What?” he asked. “Say it.”

She shrugged. “I’m just thinking. You ever ask Howl why he did something?”

“I really don’t need you comparing me to Howl right now—”

She kept speaking as if he hadn’t replied. “He never gave you one answer. That’s because he never did
anything
for one reason. Never did anything that wouldn’t count as a victory, even in a military defeat.”

“Not to his mind, anyway. Maybe.”

She shrugged again. “The point is, if all we’re doing is spitting in the face of evil? Hitting back just to
hit back
? Maybe Gadren and Roach see some proud warrior sacrifice garbage in that, but you and me are too old for it.”

He straightened up, stared at her. She met his gaze, face unreadable as ever, and all he could think was
How dare you?
How dare she question him now, weeks after Ankhural instead of earlier, when it would have
mattered
? He wanted to say something that would sting, something that would hurt her. It would be only just.

He knew her secrets. But when he found his ammunition he let it sink back into the ocean of his mind. Instead, he said, “Do you have anything useful for me? Or are you just questioning my ability to command?”

“Neither,” Brand said, and walked away.

Namir swore silently into the fire.

The
Thunderstrike
was scheduled to arrive around midday. By early morning, Twilight soldiers had packed any gear worth salvaging from the facility. The engineers had programmed the extractors to flood the compound with magma at the flip of a switch. Namir had sent alternative drop ship assignments and locations to the squads in case the Empire’s air support made pickup at the facility impossible.

Namir was squatting just outside the main entrance, watching the skies through macrobinoculars and wondering about Twilight’s next mission—the strike on Malastare, the
last
strike before Kuat—when he received a signal from
Thunderstrike
indicating it had arrived in orbit. “We’ve got heavy TIE presence,” Commander Tohna said. “We’re going to come in low, use our own firepower to cover the drop ships while the
Promise
and her X-wings watch our flank. Should be a good show.”

Namir waved at a sentry, and a slow stream of Twilight squads began hustling out of the facility. An engineer cast him a questioning glance, but he shook his head. “Not yet,” he called. “Wait for the drop ships.” No point in being hasty.

He waited for the shadow of the
Thunderstrike
to cross the clouds and listened to Tohna’s updates. A dozen TIE fighters destroyed, a dozen more incoming. Three minutes until he released the drop ships. Two minutes. A dark shape took form high above, and the macrobinoculars enhanced its edges until it looked like a starship. “One minute,” Tohna said. “Get ready to board—we’re cutting it close!”

Then a dozen new specks flitted into Namir’s view and Tohna began cursing. Far above came a sound like thunder.

Namir couldn’t see what was happening at first. He demanded an update from Tohna, but the commander either wasn’t listening or could no longer hear him. Yet the form of the
Thunderstrike
among the clouds continued to grow, continued to descend, now sporting a red-and-green halo as blaster cannons and turbolasers ignited the air.

The soldiers nearby watched uneasily, murmured questions that Namir couldn’t answer.

He winced as a burst of static pierced his ear, started to adjust his link before a new voice cut in. “Twilight? This is the
Promise
,” a woman’s voice said. “We’ve been ambushed—whole blasted swarm came in from behind the moon. They were waiting for the
Thunderstrike
to hit atmo …”

Namir swore too loudly. A dozen heads turned to look at him. The
Thunderstrike
seemed to be descending faster. “Pull back,” he said into his link. He sounded calmer than he felt. “We can hold out here. Pull back
now
!”

But the order came too late. The
Thunderstrike
was no longer lowering itself by thrusters and repulsors. Its prow had tipped forward and it trailed black fog. Fire swallowed its hull, brighter than the gleam of blasters.

Every soldier in Twilight Company stood at the entrance to the facility and turned to watch the troop transport spiral through the air. It leveled itself briefly then dipped again until its roar was constant, like the crash of ocean waves. Then it passed out of sight around the curve of the mountain and the ground rumbled.

The word
retreat
came in over the comm, the woman’s voice repeating over and over until a burst of static ended the transmission.

The
Thunderstrike
was down. The
Promise
and her starfighters were gone, if not destroyed.

Twilight Company was trapped on Sullust.

PLANET SULLUST

Thirty-One Days into Operation Ringbreaker

Stormtroopers must remain in uniform at all times while in view of the public.

It was a simple rule, a basic rule, drilled into every cadet’s brain until it became instinct. Thara Nyende believed in it, knew it was integral to maintaining the public trust. A stormtrooper without a helmet was an individual with her own name and needs and goals. You couldn’t trust individuals.

A stormtrooper in uniform represented the Empire. That
meant
something.

None of which explained why she’d removed her helmet in the security office of Pinyumb Transport Station Four. It was unlikely she’d been seen, but it was still possible. The black visor stared up at her from the console while she chewed on her ration bar. When her armor’s memory was downloaded, she’d probably be caught, her indiscretion flagged and automatically appended to her record.

She was just so tired.

Was a five-minute break and an early lunch too much to ask?

For the past three weeks, she’d worked ten-hour shifts daily. She’d received no further treatment nor counseling after the horrors she’d experienced aboard the rebel terrorist vessel. Her hearing still came and went in her right ear. She knew other troopers on other worlds had been through far worse, and she didn’t complain. Still, she flinched whenever she opened the door to an apartment pod to search for rebel supporters.

But if the hunt for the rebels had been the only burden, she could have suffered through it. Since the raid on the warehouse world, the Empire had been demanding longer shifts from the civilian workers as well. This, in turn, meant more overseers and security teams to enforce standards. New transports arrived almost daily from offworld, while other enforcers were hired locally and rapidly trained. The entire city was tired, and Thara had nowhere to turn for respite. The Rebellion was to blame for this, as well—the raids were continuing across nearby sectors, and Sullust had to make up the difference where it could.

She’d visited her uncle’s cantina one night. She’d been discreet. She only wanted to see how it was functioning in his absence, while he was still awaiting trial or release from the holding pens.

“If Cobalt Front hadn’t decided to bomb factories instead of write letters to the governor,” one of the old men had said, “maybe we’d have someone to speak up.”

“Cobalt Front
never
cared about workers’ rights,” another had argued. “The Rebellion was behind it from the start.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” said a third—a man with bandages wrapped around his steam-burnt eyes. “Blame doesn’t matter. Pray the storm passes, and that the harvest is richer after the rain.”

But the storm hadn’t passed.

Instead the Rebellion had sent an army to Sullust.

Thara hadn’t fought during the invasion. She hadn’t been at the processing facility or the surface garrisons, and when they’d sent her on patrol at night—assigned to a stormtrooper squad full of offworld veterans who could recognize a blaster’s specifications by the sound of its trigger—she’d trembled every time she saw a distant figure on the mountain. She’d nearly shot at a speeder bike piloted by an allied scout; only her sergeant’s angry, snapped order had stopped her.

She was
willing
to fight. She’d go to the facility if she was ordered, shoot at rebels and avenge the colleagues she’d already lost. And she was willing to follow the protocols delivered to her at the morning briefing: instructions for a crackdown in the city, should the citizens of Pinyumb or rebel infiltrators take the opportunity to strike. Door-to-door searches, roundups of subversives and suspected subversives, lockdowns of all housing blocks and workplaces … she knew her duty. She hoped drastic measures wouldn’t be necessary, and she was prepared to enact them if they were.

But after so many weeks of hunting and seeking and waiting for the next bomb to go off, so many ten-hour shifts that ended with her face-down in a coarse pillow and crying, she needed a moment—just a
moment
—for herself.

So she chewed her ration bar slowly and tried not to meet the gaze of the helmet balanced on the security console before her.

She hadn’t quite finished eating when her comlink blared an emergency signal.

She threw the bar and wrapper to the floor, scooped her helmet up and donned it as data cascaded onto the display. There was an emergency on the surface. Stormtrooper teams were being deployed to the streets of Pinyumb and the upper garrisons. All units were expected to be combat-ready.

She felt a wave of guilt for neglecting her duty and pushed it aside. She was SP-475 of the Imperial Ninety-Seventh Stormtrooper Legion and she’d been ordered to report to the transport station’s upper levels.
Were the rebels coming down from the mountain?
she wondered.
Was the city going to be attacked?

Twenty other troopers crowded into the cargo lift as it rose to the surface. When she stepped off metal and onto rock, her display flickered as it updated to accommodate the outdoor lighting. She heard wind, and behind the wind a shrieking, rumbling sound. Behind the rumbling was the sound of blasters, distant and tinny.

Her fellow soldiers were looking up, pointing at something in the sky. As she scrambled to her post, she saw a ship plummeting toward the mountain, wrapped in black smoke and fire. It was enormous. It was a rebel vessel. It had to be.

When it struck the side of the mountain, the crash sounded like the explosion she’d survived in the spaceport.

This time, she was sure all of Pinyumb would suffer.