Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company (45 page)

“I appreciate it,” Namir said. He drew in a long breath, tried to focus on his surroundings. Four rebel fighters, a handful of weapons, and whatever was in the vehicle hangar. “What about you? What’s the plan here?”

This time, there was no consultation among the rebels; they just looked at one another as if confirming something they’d agreed to long ago.

“We’ll rally anyone left from the Cobalt Front,” Corjentain said. “Try to fight back one last time, protect Pinyumb from what’s coming. Can’t let them round up all our friends and neighbors.” She smiled a bleak smile. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

“No,” Namir agreed. He drank the astringent mush from the bottom of his cup and stood up, legs aching at the effort. “But if we’re stuck until dawn, you may as well show me what you’ve got. I can look at your plans, give you a fresh perspective. Maybe drag out your war a little longer.”

The green sludge, whatever it was, quelled the swimming in Namir’s head and warmed his insides. His muscles still ached, but it was more bearable somehow: He was able to
think
as he studied the rebels’ maps of the city and debated with Corjentain over where to deploy snipers, listened to the chalk-faced boy’s fantasies of breaching the Imperial jail. Namir knew the rebels wouldn’t survive, and it was evident they knew as well; still, there was something comforting about their shared choice to pretend otherwise.

Despite Namir’s clarity, old memories still leapt to his mind like the random sparking of a wet battery. He thought about all the planets Twilight Company had left behind: Haidoral Prime, Phorsa Gedd, Coyerti, and Vir Aphshire under Howl; Mardona III, Nakadia, Obumubo, and now Sullust under Namir’s own leadership. The differences between them seemed stark.

Those memories led him to think about the planets to come. The march to the Core Worlds wasn’t over, and Chalis had promised that the campaign would grow more punishing. Namir tried to picture Twilight Company fleeing Sullust; the subsequent battles on Malastare; living through Malastare and at last reaching the rings of Kuat. There, among the skeletons of Star Destroyers, they would fight day after day, block by block through the orbital city, working to obliterate the ground they stood upon.

Like the Sullustan rebels, Twilight faced an impossible battle, if not a hopeless one. The Kuat shipyards truly might be destroyed. A scattered few squads might remain intact. But Twilight Company, as a unit, would be broken. Namir saw no other possible end anymore.

Maybe he never had. He’d never given much thought to what came after Kuat.

Nien Nunb watched and listened as Namir and the others plotted. Namir wondered if the Sullustan stayed silent for his sake. He suspected not. Maybe Nien had other things on his mind.

More memories sparked. Memories of Howl and of what Namir had been
told
of Howl.

Gadren said the captain believed sacrifice was the strength of Twilight. Brand claimed that Howl had never done anything for a single reason. Howl had been a madman, but he’d understood the needs of his troops better than they did—the moment he’d died, all purpose and hope in the company had gone with him.

Our goal isn’t conquest, but alchemy. Where Rebellion comes into contact with Empire, change must occur. The substance of oppression becomes the substance of freedom.

When our objectives become purely military, we’ve already lost the larger fight.

Namir had emulated the form of Howl’s purpose without the substance, the drive to stop the Empire without the foundation that drive was built upon or the methods Howl prized. The company had been fooled; the company was willing to die to reach Kuat.

You don’t understand the
scale
of the enemy.

Chalis said the Kuat shipyards were worth it.

All of this danced through his concussed, green-sludge-addled brain in the hours before morning. Corjentain left to make preparations for Namir’s return to the processing facility. Namir walked among the great mining vehicles in the hangar—grim-looking blocks of metal affixed with monstrous drills—and gave up on sleeping.

He understood what Howl wanted to achieve with Twilight. He still didn’t understand how the captain’s calculus had worked—how it had resulted in anything but the company’s annihilation.

Then again, he didn’t understand how a blaster worked, either. He just knew how to fire one.

When Corjentain returned, Namir called Nien Nunb’s tattered rebel cell together and carefully, deliberately extinguished the sparking in his brain until what remained was certainty.

“I have a plan,” he said.

Shortly before dawn, the ash angels woke in the upper reaches of Pinyumb’s cavern and fluttered through crevices in the rock wall, navigating the labyrinthine path to the surface on talons and wings. Namir crawled behind them on hands and knees with only a night-vision visor to guide the way. “Follow the birds,” Corjentain had said. “You’ve got about an hour before they finish migrating to the surface.”

“And if I’m not out by then?” Namir had asked.

“Then you can wait until dusk to find your way back.”

Namir had never been claustrophobic, and though the crevices narrowed until rock pressed against both his stomach and his spine, he found the constant scrabbling of the ash angels above and below to be a strange comfort. He was never alone in his journey.

He was surprised how high he’d climbed when he emerged onto the mountainside. The Empire’s blockade had crept up the slope since nightfall, but he’d still managed to bypass the perimeter. That only left the half-day-long trek to the peak, avoiding the attention of airspeeders and Imperial scouts while the enemy masses followed him upward. They appeared to be in the final stages of preparation for an all-out assault, methodically bringing the last of their weapons and troops into position. Yet when Namir neared the processing facility, buoyed by his newfound resolve, he felt almost refreshed. He smiled broadly when he recognized the Twilight sniper targeting him fifty meters up the slope.

The sniper met him halfway, her mask in place and her rifle gripped loosely in one hand. “Chalis made it in last night,” Brand said. “So did Roach. No word from Twitch and the others. Thought you went down together.”

“Missed you, too,” Namir said, and clapped the older woman on the shoulder in a half embrace. She neither returned it nor pulled away, and Namir soon released her.

“Not long until the attack starts.” Brand turned and began climbing the slope. Namir followed. “Empire’s been testing us all day, sending bigger and bigger sorties. Chalis says she’s got a way offworld, though. Something about the spaceport.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Namir said. “Either part, really. I need a favor from you.”

Brand said nothing. Namir wished he could read the woman better. The last time they’d talked had been in the bowels of the facility, above seething magma. That conversation hadn’t ended well.

Was she still feeling bitter? Had she ever been bitter, or had he misread her then?
You’ve always been impossible
, he wanted to say.

“I’m not ready to talk to Chalis,” he told her instead. Second-guessing Brand would get him nowhere. “I want the old squad together: you, me, Gadren, Roach.”
Pretend we’ve all forgotten Charmer.
“Can you fetch everyone, find us somewhere private?”

Brand didn’t stop walking or turn her head. But she nodded briskly mid-stride and increased her pace.

That would have to be enough.

Gadren sat in the shadows of the small piston control chamber, green and red lights winking on a panel above his head and reflecting off his crest. He’d greeted Namir warmly but briefly, as if reluctant to approve of the gathering without first understanding its purpose. Roach, legs splayed on the floor and back to the wall, watched Namir with confusion. A thin crimson scrape ran over her nose—an almost laughably minor scratch, given what she must have gone through to return to the surface. Brand stood in the corner, a small frown on her face. At least, Namir thought, she wasn’t in her mask.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Namir said, pacing before the doorway, “and we have a lot to discuss. But first of all—”

He thought of Gadren gently dragging him out of the cantina on Heap Nine. He thought of his last meeting with Brand, just days prior. He thought of how much Roach had changed since his departure for Hoth, and how he’d missed it all.

I’m sorry I disappointed you.

“—I know things have been rough lately. I know I’ve made mistakes. I wish I could have done better by you. At the very least, I should’ve given Charmer a better sendoff.”

Roach studied the floor between her knees. Brand didn’t react. Gadren said, “No one expects a captain to live among his men. We feel your absence, but we know it is required.”

Namir smiled bitterly. Gadren was correct, in a way—but the alien was envisioning Twilight Company as it had been, when Howl had surrounded himself with Sairgon and Von Geiz and the others. Namir had removed himself, too, but he’d listened only to Chalis.

“Thank you,” he said. “Right now, though, I need your support. I need the company’s support. New orders from the top aren’t going to cut it today.”

Gadren spread two hands, waiting for Namir to continue.

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Namir said, “but there’s a pretty big city not far beneath our feet. The people there are terrified. The resistance is weak. Like it or not, we’ve made their lives hell and it’s about to get worse.

“Now, we can pull up stakes and leave, keep moving forward and try to throw a spanner into the Imperial machine. But even if we do make it to Kuat, if this whole campaign succeeds, we all know it won’t win the war. Take away the Empire’s Star Destroyers and they’ve still got more people and weapons and resources than a hundred rebellions.

“So I’ve been asking myself two questions: What are we doing this for?” He kept his eyes off Brand. It had been her question first. “And what does it take to keep Twilight alive?”

“And what answers have you come to?” Gadren asked. He spoke delicately, deliberately. Howl would have been proud.

“I don’t
have
any answers,” Namir said. “I’m not sure I’m capable of finding them. Maybe that makes me unfit for command—maybe it means I shouldn’t be a part of this rebellion—but we’re way beyond that point now. It doesn’t matter.

“What does matter …” He was fumbling, and he feared he would lose his audience. This was why he’d come to them instead of the company at large: in the hope that they would forgive his awkwardness and understand his intent. “I got us here by finding a goal that seemed worthy of Twilight Company. I think that was my mistake. I should have focused more on finding a way to fight worthy of all of you. If we’d done that, maybe the goal would have appeared without trying. Maybe the answers would seem obvious.”

Maybe Howl’s invisible calculus would keep us alive.
But he couldn’t promise that.

“That’s all background now. The point is: I think it’s time to forget Kuat. I think if we’re going to die, we should do it here, helping the people of Sullust, instead of marching to the Core Worlds and spitting in the face of evil. That’s the best way to do right by the company and everyone in it.”

No one spoke for a while. They might have been waiting to see if Namir was finished. Gadren and Brand watched him. Roach pulled her feet in toward her hips and looked up.

“Howl would’ve approved,” Brand said at last. “I’m in.”

Roach smiled limply and shrugged. “This a vote?” she asked.

“I’m not doing this if the company isn’t with me,” Namir answered. “However it comes out, I’m okay dying. It’s the rest of you I’m worried about.”

Roach’s limp smile became a smirk, as if she was laughing at a private joke. “You’re cute when you’re awkward,” she said. “Sure. I’m in. Bet the rest of the fresh meat will be, too.”

Namir wanted to question her, root out the source of her soft-spoken confidence. But she’d given him what he needed, and he wasn’t done yet. “Gadren?” he asked.

Gadren folded first one, then another set of arms across his chest. His voice sounded abnormally low, entirely free of his usual joy. “I’ve thought a great deal about the peoples and species we leave in our wake,” he said. “This will come as no surprise to you. My heart aches for the Sullustans, and I nearly wept when I saw the faces of the men and women we forced from this facility.

“And yet I am reluctant to turn away from our path. Not because of the blood we spilled to come here, but because—” As the passion in his voice rose, the alien templed both sets of fingers. When he resumed, he spoke softly again. “If there is any chance of our mission to Kuat succeeding, any hope that it might change the course of this war for the better, surely we owe it to the galaxy to see it through?”

The words struck Namir like a blow, reminded him of his exhaustion. He had expected someone to make that argument—possibly Brand, maybe Roach. But he’d also thought that if anyone would back him, it would be Gadren.

Yet the alien wasn’t finished.

“You claim that the ultimate outcome of Kuat’s destruction would be insignificant in this battle. If we knew that to be true, I would not hesitate a moment to give you my support. As it stands, it is your word against the word of Governor Chalis.”

“Shouldn’t be a hard choice,” Brand said.

“Has she not sacrificed enough?” Gadren asked. “Proven her dedication to the company?” He shrugged. “Even if not, you must still grant that she is best suited to judge the true harm we do to the Empire.

“I will prepare the others as you recommend. But we will not act unless she gives the order.”

“Fair enough,” Namir said. “Let’s go.”

“You’re back,” Chalis said. “Good. Check the squad assignments and make whatever changes you need to; I want to start in five minutes.”

She didn’t look up from her desk as she pushed a datapad in Namir’s direction. Her voice was more brittle than it had been in weeks, as rough and cracked as it had been on Ankhural.

Roach, Brand, and Gadren had gone to spread word of Namir’s plan. Namir and Chalis were alone in the administrative office. “Start what?” he asked.