Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lost Stars (25 page)

After a long moment, Lohgarra quietly said that her own people had been
enslaved by the Empire. Kashyyyk had been such a beautiful place when she was young. Now it had been turned into a hell.
She found it difficult to speak of her homeworld’s tragedy, but she never forgot it.

Thane thought about the sheer level of brutality necessary to conquer a species as powerful as the Wookiees. “Is this your way of telling me you’re joining the Rebellion,
too?”

She shook her head. The
Moa
was hardly in shape to haul cargo, much less go into battle—and for Brill and Methwat, it was not only a ship but also their home. A decision to join the
Rebellion would have to be unanimous, and Lohgarra felt Thane knew as well as she did that they weren’t there yet.

That was true. But—“We could put in somewhere, refurbish the ship. Talk to the others. Nobody
here has any love for the Empire. In a month or two, I bet we could bring them
around.”

Probably, Lohgarra admitted. After a pause she asked if he wanted to wait to join the Rebellion, if he wasn’t ready right away.

Thane flushed. “I’m not a
coward
.”

Her massive hand petted his head. Lohgarra knew he was brave. Yet she also suspected Thane had other reasons to hesitate.

All those
months Thane had tried so hard to keep his past, and his feelings, to himself. He should’ve known his captain was too perceptive not to guess at some of the truth.
“It’s just that I used to serve in the Imperial Starfleet. A lot of my friends and classmates are still with the Empire, including someone who I…who means a lot to me. On some
level, attacking the Empire feels like attacking them.”

Lohgarra pointed out that he had accepted the risks of combat when he joined the Imperial fleet, and so had everyone else.

“Yeah, I know.” He leaned back in the creaky seat and took a deep breath. “But joining the Rebellion—leaving the Empire is one thing, but taking up arms against it is
another. The friends I served with before would never forgive that. Especially the woman I was telling
you about, Ciena. She’d never speak to me again if she knew. Not that she’s likely
to anyway, I guess.”

With a soft whine, Lohgarra told him the Force had a way of bringing people together when the time was right.

Oh, great, the Force. My best bet is this crazy magic old valley kindred still believe in.
But Thane said nothing, knowing Lohgarra’s beliefs were important to her. Instead
he
asked, “Is this your way of saying it’s all right for me to go? Since ‘the Force’ will make sure we meet again?”

His answer came in the form of a big hug that enveloped him in white fur. As he hugged Lohgarra back, she told him to promise her he would eat well.

He had to laugh. “I promise.”

I’m really doing it,
he thought. It still seemed unreal.
I’m going to war against the Empire.
I’m joining the Rebel Alliance.

“Y
OUR SERVICE THESE past two years has been exemplary, Lieutenant Commander Ree.”

Ciena stood at attention in front of Admiral Ozzel, hands held firmly
at her sides. Junior officers did not make eye contact with superiors during evaluations, so she stared fixedly at the
metal-tiled wall behind him.

“You frequently volunteer for extra shifts or to help train newer officers on Star Destroyer protocols. Aside from the unfortunate incident on Ivarujar, you have received no punishments or
reprimands—and it does not escape my notice that your
offense then has never been repeated. You’ve never even been admonished about your uniform.”

The leather bracelet she carried for Wynnet remained in its cloth pouch in her pocket. No regulation said she couldn’t keep something in her pocket.

“You were transferred to the
Executor
from the
Devastator
at the request of Lord Vader himself. A high honor indeed.”

Ciena did not respond. Privately,
she thought Vader’s request had been more threat than reward. She had seen him adrift in space, nearly helpless. He would not want anyone to think of him
as vulnerable in any way. So he had to remind Ciena that she remained forever vulnerable to
him
.

Ozzel continued: “Although you are far too senior for TIE fighter duty, you put in the simulator time to make sure your piloting instincts
stay sharp.”

Ciena decided she could speak. “We never know what a crisis may demand of us, sir.”

She also loved flying for its own sake and sometimes dreamed all night of swooping through the canyons of Jelucan with Thane by her side. But it wasn’t against regulations to love what she
did—or to remember what she had lost.

“Very well said.” Admiral Ozzel came as close to smiling as
she’d ever seen from him. “In short, Lieutenant Commander Ree, your performance aboard the
Executor
exceeds expectations on every point. Keep this up and you’ll make commander before long.”

Commander.
Ciena wasn’t as wrapped up in the idea of advancement as she had been three years ago, but she could take satisfaction in having done her duty so well. Even with the
unnaturally fast rate
of promotion following the Death Star’s destruction, making commander less than five years out of the academy was a major achievement. “Yes, sir. Thank you,
sir.”

Afterward, as she walked through the dark metal corridors of the
Executor
, she mulled over her likely promotion. It ought to have been cause for celebration; she should’ve messaged
Nash and Berisse immediately, telling them to
meet her later for a cup or two of ale. Instead, the praise from her superior officer only reminded her of how she had failed the Empire
once—when she had lied to protect a friend.

Worst of all, Ciena knew if she had to make the same choice again, she would still pick Thane.

As she walked past one of the observation decks, she looked out at the stars and wondered where he might be. Surely
he’d left Jelucan as she’d told him to do. Their world was
dangerous for him; those snakes he called family would turn him in for a two-credit piece. Yet Ciena remained haunted by the vision of Thane trapped where she’d seen him last—broke,
stuck in a tiny room above a seedy Valentia bar, with that lost look in his blue eyes.

Stop it,
she told herself.
Thane’s smart. He’s a talented pilot.
By now, surely, he’s found work and a good place to live. Probably he’s happy.

You’re not small enough to begrudge Thane a happy life without you. Right?

Ciena straightened up and smoothed her hands down the front of her uniform jacket. The shadowy reflection she saw silhouetted against the stars in the window was once again that of the perfect
Imperial officer. The excellence of her
service had long since ceased to be only a matter of honoring her oath. She also thought of it as the price she paid for giving Thane his freedom. No one
would ever be able to say she hadn’t paid in full.

I know; I’ll tell Mumma and Pappa I might be promoted.
Most Imperial officers limited their messages to and from home as a symbol of their commitment, but Ciena figured that was
easier
for people from Core Worlds, who could expect to see their families in person more than once every five years. She still communicated with her family at least once a tenday, telling them
about everything from grav-ball tournaments to Berisse’s jokes—well, the jokes that were repeatable.

The only subject her family never discussed was Thane Kyrell. Ciena didn’t want to lie to her parents
about him; also, she knew they’d realize she was lying right away. The fewer
people who suspected the truth about Thane, the better.

Her parents always seemed happy to receive her messages, especially Mumma. But lately, Ciena had begun to notice that their replies were almost entirely about her life, not theirs. They no
longer knew all the valley gossip, or no longer cared to share it.
Mumma would sometimes speak about her supervisory job at the mine, but over the years, her tone had shifted from pride to a
matter-of-fact weariness. Maybe that was only natural, but Ciena couldn’t help noticing it—as well as the fact that her father rarely mentioned anything about his own life or the
greater valley at all.…

“There you are,” said a pleasant, cultured male voice. Ciena
turned to see Lieutenant Nash Windrider walking toward her with a slight smile on his face. During the three years since
Alderaan’s destruction, he had gradually recovered some of his old wit and dash. No, he would never be the same again—but she no longer saw the terrible shadows under his eyes that had
scared her so in the beginning. Both he and her friend Berisse Sai had been transferred from
the
Devastator
to the
Executor
when Darth Vader chose it as his new flagship; they were
also posted to the same quadrant within the vessel, so she saw them often. “I’ve been looking for you, Ciena.”

“Why? Is this about Berisse’s birthday?” Ciena folded her arms and glared at him. “You ruined the surprise, didn’t you?”

“You don’t give me nearly enough credit—either for my expertise with
surprise parties, which is considerable, or for knowing what’s important enough to merit pulling you
back onto the bridge when you’re off duty.”

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled with a sense of both danger and excitement. “What?”

“One of the probe droids picked up a very interesting signal on the ice world of Hoth,” Nash said with relish. “We may have finally located the rebel
base.”

Ciena sucked in a sharp breath. “And we’re going in?”

Nash’s grin widened. “With five
Imperial
-class Star Destroyers by our side.”

The image of Jude’s smile flashed through Ciena’s mind. At last they had a chance to avenge themselves on the people who had destroyed the Death Star and murdered her best
friend—and to stamp out the Rebellion once and for all.

Thane groaned
as they opened the bay doors again and a blast of frigid air swept past them. “I’m going to freeze my choobies off.”

The guy showing him around—Dak Ralter—laughed as he unsaddled another of the tauntauns. “There are easier ways to switch genders, you know.”

“I didn’t mean I
wanted
to freeze ’em off. I just meant—it’s
so cold
.” After a childhood spent in the high mountains of Jelucan, Thane
had
thought he knew how to handle being cold—but Hoth was on another scale together.

“Don’t talk about it. Don’t even think about it,” Dak said earnestly. “Just keep your pants on and focus on the big picture.”

“I know, I know. We made our base on this frozen hunk of rock because the Empire would never think to look here. Because who in their right mind would subject themselves to this?”
Thane’s gesture took in the ice walls of their base, the bitter chill that pierced to the bone, and the pungent odor of the tauntauns they were currently freeing. “Nobody could ever say
we joined the Rebellion for the fun of it.”

“Nobody
would
say that!” Dak Ralter’s face fell as if somebody really had accused them of fighting a war just for kicks. “Or they’d better not. Anybody who
doesn’t think we need to stand up to the Empire—”

“Take it easy. I was just joking.”

Dak shot Thane a reproving look, as if to say this war was far too serious for anything as lowbrow as humor. Some of the new recruits were like that at first—so idealistic that spending
time with them felt like biting into pure sugar.

Or so the long-timers said. Thane outranked Dak by a grand total
of three weeks. But he felt like he was two decades older than Dak, rather than two years. Thane had never been one of the
idealists; he’d accepted Wedge Antilles’s invitation not because he believed the Rebellion was pure good but because he’d learned the Empire was pure evil. Even for him, though,
the adjustment felt strange. Small as the
Moa
was, every crew member lived in a private cabin
of his or her very own; even in Imperial service, he’d never had to bunk with more than
seven other guys. In the Rebellion, Thane slept in an enormous bunker with a couple hundred other people, the majority of whom seemed to snore. Rations were scanty, the odds terrible, and the risks
even greater than Thane would have imagined—and so far he’d been in none of the epic battles he’d been anticipating.
Instead, he had made a few supply runs while avoiding Imperial
border controls. He’d helped set up the Hoth base. And now here he was taking it down again: setting their pack creatures loose so they’d be long gone by the time the Empire arrived,
because apparently a probe droid had found them already

They’d just gotten set up on Hoth, too. He half wanted to ask Rebel Command how they were
supposed to win a war when the Empire could find the rebel bases within a month.

He looked over the back of the grunting tauntaun nearest him to take in the entire base around him. Mechanics worked feverishly on fighters, their bluish-white welding torches lighting the murky
repair bay. Princess Leia spoke intently to General Rieekan, her intensity obvious even at that distance, Thane thought.
(They’d passed each other in corridors twice without her recognizing
him from that long-ago dance.) Droids whirred through the fray as noncombat personnel ran for the first transports; boarding had begun already. Thane knew only that his group—Corona
Squadron—wasn’t up yet. For now, he just had to keep freeing smelly tauntauns.