Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lost Stars (14 page)

That had to be the base Thane was assigned to. If these rebels had gotten away, would they have attacked that station, putting Thane’s life at risk?

Ciena’s eyes narrowed as
she stared at the rebel ship and thought,
You actually believed you could attack us and get away with it. You know better now, don’t you?

The blockade runner continued to broadcast its protests about being on a “diplomatic mission,” but Ciena ignored that, as did everyone else on the bridge. With satisfaction she saw
the ship disappear from the windows, becoming only a green blip on her
readouts.

An officer nearby said, “Lord Vader has given the order to board the
Tantive IV
, sir.”

The captain nodded. “Excellent. They’ll take the princess into custody in no time. Stand down on main laser cannons.”

Ciena nodded, swiftly inputting the commander’s orders. She had to disguise her shock at the thought of Princess Leia of Alderaan as a rebel, a terrorist and a traitor.
But her father had
long been a troublemaker in the Imperial Senate, mistaking his planet’s importance for his own. Too bad his daughter had inherited his arrogance.

Today, they’d shown her and every other rebel that they couldn’t go up against the Empire without paying the price.

One of the
Tantive IV
escape pods launched; readouts showed four life-forms attempting to escape to the desert
planet below. The pod was shot down easily.

What could they have been thinking?
Ciena wondered as she quickly routed the reports from the boarding parties.
How could they ever expect to get away from a Star Destroyer when they
were already trapped inside the docking bay?

I guess they were too scared to think straight. They deserve everything that’s coming to them, but I can’t blame them
for being scared.…

Another escape pod launched, rousing her from her thoughts. The officer next to Ciena muttered, “There goes another one.”

The captain seemed bored. “Hold your fire. There’s no life-forms. They must’ve short-circuited.” Within moments, the escape pod was invisible against the yellow sands of
the planet below.

Shortly afterward, Ciena manually delivered copies of
the auxiliary bridge’s hard data files to the ISB internal affairs officer on board; the Imperial Security Bureau liked to monitor all
interactions with suspected rebel targets to ensure no one betrayed any lack of loyalty to the Empire through word or deed. On her way, she ran into Nash Windrider at the doorway to the main bridge
lift. He was one of the few alumni of her class assigned to the
Devastator
—and while they hadn’t been close there, due to that stupid rift between her and Thane, they knew each
other well enough to count as friends now. Nash still wore his hair long, though tightly braided in the back per regulations. “Don’t tell me,” he stage-whispered to her as the
lift doors slid open and they walked inside. “You’re running an errand to make sure you don’t get sent
to that broiling lump of sand down there.”

“Tatooine,”
she pretended to correct him. The lift began its swift ascent, the glass panels in its doors showing them layer after flickering layer of the vast Star Destroyer.
“I take it that’s where you’re headed?”

“No, and thank goodness. Going down there in stormtrooper armor’s as good as being baked alive.”

The lift would reach the main
bridge within a few moments, so Ciena took that chance to say something that needed to be said to Nash in private. Gently, she began, “I wanted to say,
I’m sorry about your princess. You must feel so…betrayed.”

Nash’s grin faded. He drew himself up to his full lanky height and clasped his hands behind his back. “Princess Leia can only have been misled by her courtiers. I feel sure that a
thorough investigation will clear her of any real wrongdoing.”

“Of course. I should have thought of that.” Ciena didn’t know if she believed such an easy explanation was plausible, but Nash knew more about the princess than she did. Maybe
he was right.

The lift doors slid open, and Nash stepped out. “Until later,” he said, turning away from her to return to his duty station. Ciena
wished she hadn’t said anything about the
princess. It wasn’t Nash’s fault if one of his planet’s senators had turned out to be a traitor. She hoped the internal affairs officer would feel the same way.

Ciena had only been to the main bridge once before, on a brief orientation tour of the ship the day she’d arrived. So the sight still awed her: the impossibly long corridor, the enormous
viewscreen, the countless monitors all whirring and blinking on the lower level as senior staffers worked furiously in the data pits. It was the heart of the
Devastator
, the soul of the
machine.

Quickly, she turned her attention to Captain Ronnadam, who was sitting at his station in the unique white-jacketed uniform of the ISB. “Sir. The data packets, as requested.”

Ronnadam took the
packets without even glancing back at her; his focus was only for whatever long lines of text were scrolling down his monitor. Ciena could not leave the main bridge without
being dismissed, so she stood at attention, waiting.

“You’re being lax in your protocols, Ronnadam,” said a dry, crisp voice behind her. “Fortunately, the young lieutenant here follows procedure—and has better
manners.”

Ciena lit up as she turned and recognized Grand Moff Tarkin himself—in the form of a hologram, flickering in gray-green light. He looked at Ciena with some interest. “You seem to
know me, Lieutenant. But I doubt we’ve served together before. Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Ciena Ree, L-P-eight-eight-eight, graduate of the most recent class of the Royal Academy and native of Jelucan, sir.”
Wait until I tell Thane I saw Tarkin
again!

The Grand Moff nodded politely. “Jelucan. On the Outer Rim, yes? I was there for its annexation into the Empire.”

A response was not required—but it wasn’t forbidden, either, and Ciena couldn’t resist. “You were, sir. I met you that day, right after the ceremony, when I was just a
little girl.”

Tarkin’s angular face studied her for a long
moment, and then, to her astonishment, he said, “The two children sneaking around the shuttle grounds. Were you one of those?”

She had heard tales of Tarkin’s sharp memory—that he never forgot a favor or a slight—but the proof made her smile. “Yes, sir. You asked me that day if I’d like to
serve the Empire when I grew up, and here I am.”

“Well, well.” Tarkin put his hands behind his
back, clearly pleased with himself and with her. “The power of diplomacy in action.”

“The boy with me that day just graduated from the academy, too, at the top of the elite flight track. Now he’s Lieutenant Thane Kyrell.”

Tarkin’s smile was thin but unmistakable. “Apparently I should recruit on Jelucan more often. I shall make a point of keeping up with you both.”

Ciena struggled to
maintain correct military composure, but she felt sure her delight showed on her face. Grand Moff Tarkin didn’t seem to mind, however. As the hologram faded out, he
nodded at her—as close to friendliness as any superior officer would ever show toward a mere lieutenant. If he’d remembered that incident with the
Lambda
-class shuttle all those
years later, he’d definitely remember to look up
her records, and Thane’s. Maybe Tarkin would be more than their inspiration for joining the Imperial Starfleet; maybe he’d even
turn into a mentor.

Capturing a rebel ship and winning praise from a Grand Moff before lunchtime? Ciena grinned. This day was turning out to be spectacular.

Thane hadn’t realized exactly how enormous the Death Star was until the first time he had flown his TIE
fighter on patrol. Immediately, he had had to adjust the thrusters
for the kind of takeoff more common within a planetary atmosphere than on a space station—because the Death Star’s enormity gave it heavy gravitational pull.

Just the thought of that made Thane grin. He’d never imagined building something that colossal was even possible. Now the space station had become his home, and already
he dreaded the day
he’d be assigned somewhere else. The Death Star was meant to function as a world of its own, which meant it had creature comforts most other military postings didn’t: decent food, rec
areas, cantinas with latest-model bartender droids, commissaries with selections of treats and luxuries, albeit at a stiff price. Although Thane lived in a communal barracks, apparently there
were
enough private bunks that most people could expect to receive one within three to six months. Usually you had to make lieutenant commander to live in that kind of luxury. To be able to enjoy such a
comfortable posting and have the thrill of deep-space flight every day—that went beyond Thane’s wildest dreams.

So did the message he received that morning.

“You’re coming here
today
,” he repeated as he looked down at Ciena’s face on the small screen. “As in, now.”

“See how we’re communicating without a delay? The
Devastator
should dock within the hour.” Her eagerness shone through the screen; Thane imagined his did, too.
“Will you have any free time?”

“Yeah. Definitely. I already finished my patrol for the day.” As for the next day—well, trading duty shifts wasn’t
against rules if you got approval first. He’d fly
any shift for anyone if it meant he could spend the whole day with Ciena. “We could go to one of the cantinas. Catch up.”

“Nash can’t wait to see you, either,” Ciena said.

“Right. Definitely. Of course.” Nash might have been one of his best friends, but Thane had never been less interested in hanging out with him. Fortunately, Nash was
savvy enough to
know when to excuse himself—Thane hoped.

“And I want to see Jude,” Ciena continued. “She’s on board, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, Jude Edivon’s assigned to the Death Star, but I haven’t run into her once. This place is the size of a moon—it’s like she’s halfway across the planet
from me.” When Ciena’s face fell, Thane hastily added, “But when you tell her you’re coming, she’ll
find her way to you. Count on it.”

“You will, too, right?”

“You’d better believe it,” he said, smiling like an idiot.

Maybe I didn’t look like a
total
idiot,
Thane thought several hours later, as he went through his secondary duty shift as a maintenance mechanic. Every pilot had to be able
to maintain and repair all single- and dual-pilot craft, and by then twin ion engines were
as familiar to Thane as his own hands. So he was able to go through his checklist, hitting every point,
while still allowing his mind to race.
She was smiling, too. So that’s a good sign, right?

He didn’t ask himself what it was a good sign of. The excitement he felt at the thought of seeing Ciena again remained something he preferred not to examine or name. All he knew was that
he hadn’t
dreamed of seeing her again so soon, and yet now even another day seemed like too long to wait.

The
Devastator
’s already here. Ciena’s on the Death Star right now. Why did I have to pull this stupid shift? I traded so I’d have tomorrow free, but what if Ciena
can’t get time off then?

Thane told himself to stop worrying about it. He took a deep breath and got back to work on the TIE fighter
in front of him. The control panel actually needed some new wiring, a task detailed
enough to keep him occupied for a while. Just as he put the panel plate back in place, however, he heard the announcement: “All hands in sector four-seventeen to the auxiliary docking
doors.”

That was his sector. Luckily, Thane already stood nearby, so he was able to get into formation first, right in the
front line. His mechanic’s jumpsuit bore a few grease stains, but that
wasn’t inappropriate for the middle of a work shift. Nonetheless, he felt shabby compared with the many officers around him in either officer’s uniforms or gleaming stormtrooper
armor.

Probably the commander wouldn’t notice, though. He strutted in front of them as he announced, “As of today, the Death Star is fully
operational—and it is the will of the
Emperor that we demonstrate its power to the entire galaxy!”

A few cheers went up from the group. Thane clapped a couple of times. He guessed they were going to bring the station close enough to planetary orbit for the populace to see it; that would wow
anyone. He’d felt the main engines at work, so obviously the station had traveled somewhere important,
maybe Coruscant.…

The docking bay doors slid open. Although Thane fully understood the force fields that kept atmosphere in and the hostile chill of space out, he still felt a moment’s awe when he looked
out on the vast darkness beyond. Slowly, as the door opened, a world appeared. The soft blue sphere seemed to shine with its own light, and as always Thane thought about how beautiful and
yet
fragile planets looked from that distance.

“Behold the planet Alderaan,” the commander said.

Nash’s home! Thane couldn’t help grinning. What luck to be near that world while the
Devastator
was visiting the station. How many times had Nash promised to show Thane all
the sights? It had seemed like no more than a dream, but now Thane might actually get to take a look at Alderaan for
himself if he could wrangle the free time. He found himself remembering every
story Nash had told him about the best places to go, the incredible natural beauty his world was said to contain.
Where should we go first? Cloudshape Falls? The Isatabith rain forest?

“As some of you will know,” the commander said, “Alderaan is represented in the Imperial Senate by a member of the Organa ruling
family. However, it has been discovered that
the senator, her father—and, we believe, the entirety of the upper echelons of Alderaanian government—have been secretly financing and supporting the Rebel Alliance.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Thane couldn’t be sure he’d heard correctly. How could the royal family of Alderaan be mixed up in terrorism? His cynical nature told him
nobody was too pure or noble to be corrupted—but it also told him people who benefited from the status quo rarely tried to change it.