Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lost Stars (42 page)

During the brief periods when
she was awake and cogent, however, she insisted on working.

Bridge duty was beyond her; piloting was impossible. So Ciena volunteered for one of the messiest, most complicated tasks facing the Imperial Starfleet in the wake of Endor—and one of the
only jobs she didn’t mind doing. Her mission was to confirm which Imperial officers were alive or dead, learn the definite locations of all survivors,
and inform family members of the
deaths.

(Supposedly, the death notices were her lowest priority. But Ciena spent far more time reaching out to those families than she ever did looking for a missing survivor who might have deserted.
Through a little tricky record keeping and an excess of caution, she was able to avoid tracking down even one of those.)

In the wake of the Emperor’s demise,
the galaxy endured even greater chaos than Ciena had believed possible. Coruscant remained in turmoil; Grand Vizier Mas Amedda tried to keep the Empire
together even as other forces threatened to tear it apart. Consolidating and confirming personnel information was hardly a top priority. So the Star Destroyers had only their own records to draw
from, and even when that information was synthesized,
the picture remained spotty at best.

To further complicate the situation, neither Ciena nor any other Imperial officer could be certain exactly which person they served. Declarations of a new emperor were so frequent as to be
meaningless. No one figure seemed able to consolidate power. Already the propaganda holos spoke of “skirmishes” or “mutinies.” The truth: would-be emperors forced Imperial
soldiers to fight one another, spilling their blood in the service not of law and order but of one man’s naked ambition. They seemed willing to tear the Empire to shreds rather than give up
their own standing, Ciena thought with contempt. Already the Anoat sector had been cut off completely. What planets might fall next?

As for the rebels—they’d established their authority on worlds of
their own. The only reports that emerged sounded so sunny Ciena believed they were propaganda, too, simply coming
from the other side.

At least now there are entire systems safe for Thane,
she sometimes thought.
He’s no longer a hunted man.
Would he still be with the rebel armada? Ciena wasn’t sure. It
depended on whether he’d decided to trust this “New Republic” as much as he’d trusted
the Rebellion.

Or whether he’d died in the Battle of Endor.

The rebels might have won the day, but they’d taken terrible losses, too. Ciena believed—illogically but unshakably—that she would have recognized Thane amid the melee.
Didn’t she know exactly how he flew? Wasn’t that as unique to him as a fingerprint or a genetic code?

Even if that were so, it meant only that she hadn’t
killed Thane herself.

Any number of other TIE pilots could have killed him. Or he could have been flying too close to one of the star cruisers when the Death Star’s laser struck. Maybe he had been among the
pilots who flew into the station and smashed against the metal framework inside.

Don’t think about that,
she would tell herself as she sat at her portable data terminal, propped on
a med-chaise. Lying down helped her bear the pincer grip of the life support belt
doing the work of her still-healing liver.
You have to believe he’s alive somewhere. If you can’t have faith in anything else, you can still believe in Thane.

And yet sometimes Ciena felt that he must be dead. The galaxy could only feel that empty, meaningless, if he were no longer in it.

So she buried
herself in her work, patiently untangling every bureaucratic knot, locating and rescuing marooned ships and garrisons, and helping families mourn their dead. In that small way she
could uphold some measure of law and order amid the chaos; nothing else seemed worth doing. Her only comforts were the sedation of the bacta tank and sleep. Ciena could ignore everything else for
days at a time.

Then weeks.

Then months.

Thane hadn’t expected the Empire to collapse overnight. Some of the cockeyed optimists around him had woken up the morning after the Death Star’s destruction
talking about how they finally lived in a liberated galaxy, breathed free air, and other nonsense. He had patched up his X-wing and awaited the inevitable call to the next battle.

But he’d never expected
to still be fighting a full-out war almost a year after the Battle of Endor.

“Incoming!” Yendor shouted through the comms. Thane whipped his X-wing around to see another phalanx of TIE fighters zooming toward them over the crest of the cliffs on Naboo. These
must have been the very last stragglers of the attack force that had descended on the planet the day before. Luckily, the New Republic’s
fleet had received a tip from defectors; when the
Imperial ships came out of hyperspace, Thane’s squadron and several dozen other starfighters had been waiting. Since then, he’d been finishing them off, one by one, just like he was
doing right now. He fired even as his ship sliced through the air sideways, and he took grim satisfaction in watching three of the TIEs explode.

The others
in Corona Squadron took care of the rest. The planet was clear now, or close to it. Kendy took a hit to her starboard wing but still managed to land her starfighter smoothly alongside
the others on the broad pavilion outside the Theed Royal Palace. Kendy burst out of her cockpit swearing, which made the others laugh. “Come on,” Thane called. “You’ve taken
worse than that.”

“Yeah, and I’m
sick and tired of it!” She grabbed her tool kit and got to work.

The rest of them had a moment to breathe. Corona Squadron was different now; the Contessa had left, returning to her homeworld to stand for the presidency. (The others had all promised to show
up for her inauguration if she won.) Yendor had taken over as Corona Leader, and two new pilots had joined them—one a rookie from Nea
Dajanam, the other an exile from Coruscant. But Thane
liked them both and felt good about how the team had come together. He leaned against the side of his ship, relishing the warmth of the sun on his face. Moments of peace like this came too
rarely.

Naboo had been Palpatine’s homeworld. As such, it had become a rallying point for Imperial sympathizers. Besides its symbolic importance,
Naboo was a prosperous Mid Rim world, its economy
and environment far healthier than those of most planets that had been under Imperial rule. As such, it was one of the most contested spots in the entire galaxy.

Three times now, the Empire had sent troops to invade; three times they’d been beaten back. Thane wondered how long it would take them to come back for number four.

“Hey,” Yendor
said as he helped JJH2 from his ship. “Some of us were going into Otoh Gunga tonight—if we don’t get any more alerts, that is. Apparently
there’s this dessert they make there that takes at least four hominids to eat. They say it melts in your mouth and delivers you straight into a glorious sugar coma. You know you want a
piece.”

“No, thanks,” Thane answered, but with a smile. His friends
tried hard to look after him, but some things you had to go through on your own. “You guys have fun. I’ll take
night watch at the hangar.”

Yendor shook his head, his long blue lekku swaying with the movement, but wandered off without further argument.

Jelucan had very specific mourning rituals. At least, the valley kindred did. Thane had learned about them from Ciena—and wasn’t sure
he remembered all the details
correctly—but he was doing his best. (Jelucan remained under Imperial control, so Thane couldn’t ask Paron Ree for advice or even give his condolences.) Thane wanted to weave and wear a
bracelet so Ciena could see through his eyes, but she’d told him that honor was reserved for family. As dimly as he recalled the customary rituals for friends, they seemed elaborate
enough
and lasted for a full year after a person’s death. He wore a cloth tied around his upper arm and would not remove it until the entire year was up. At the six-month mark, he’d prepared
the customary meal of wine and bread to be left out at night for the spirits. He hoped it didn’t have to be special bread, or some particular wine; he’d done the best he could with what
he had. As Thane
understood it, he didn’t have to refrain from
all
leisure activity, but the ritual required him to spend several hours a week in meditation.

Okay, he wasn’t exactly
good
at the meditation thing, but he tried.

Big symbolic gestures usually weren’t Thane’s style—but after Endor, he had needed to ground himself in some way and had no idea where to begin. In his desperation, he had
sought
Ciena in the rituals of her people. To his surprise he found the experience healing.

He mourned for everyone who had been lost: Smikes, Dak Ralter, the kindly Mon Calamari of the
Liberty
, countless other pilots he’d known…and for Jude Edivon and other cadets
he’d known at the academy who had died on one of the Death Stars or in other battles. The Empire might have demanded that they sacrifice
their souls, but at one point, the majority of those
people had been no worse than any others. All that was good in them had been lost to the Empire and to the war; surely that was worth grieving for.

His meditations had led him to another unexpected place, a viewpoint he’d never expected to have—the New Republic truly had been worth the fight.

Sure, the transition had been uneven. With
the war still ongoing, Mon Mothma, Princess Leia Organa, Sondiv Sella, and other top officials could not establish total stability. Yet the provisional
Galactic Senate contained only representatives chosen by the will of the people, and the first laws they’d passed had righted the worst wrongs of the Empire. Even the bickering on news holos
about the merits of each proposal was wonderful,
because it meant people were free to express their opinions without fear of Imperial reprisal. Resources weren’t directed only toward the
military; mass cleanups of polluted worlds had already begun, as had reparations for the species enslaved during Imperial rule. (Lohgarra said she was going to spend her share on new engines for
the
Mighty Oak Apocalypse
.) However imperfectly, the course
of the galaxy had turned toward justice and maybe, someday, peace.

Thane had never tried being an idealist before, but he thought he was starting to get the hang of it.

As he settled in for a long evening at the hangar, Kendy strolled over from her X-wing. He said, “Got it fixed?”

“Pretty much. I need a Louar clamp to finish up, but I can borrow one from Yendor tomorrow morning.” She
leaned against the wall, arms crossed in front of her. Her dark green hair
flowed freely down her shoulders. “So. You’re staying in tonight?”

“As usual.”

“You’re going to be here by yourself for
hours
.”

“Yeah, I am. I’m going to sit on this comfortable chair with a good holonovel, underneath one of the most beautiful skies I’ve ever seen, on a world where the air’s still
clean
and the birds still sing. Nobody’s going to fire a blaster at me even once. After years of war, a peaceful night like that is my definition of a good time.”

“Happy eightieth birthday, by the way.”

“Come on.” Thane had to grin. “You have to admit I have a point.”

Kendy laughed. “I know. It’s just—weird, you going all mystical and spiritual and stuff.”

“I’m not.” So many of the rituals
had felt strange and false to him; yet Thane believed he’d gotten something out of the mere attempt. “This is just a thing I have
to do.”

“I get that. But will you answer one question for me?” Thane nodded, and she asked, “How long are you going to wear that?”

She pointed toward the strip of slate blue cloth still tied around his right upper arm. That was the Jelucani color of mourning—the
shade of the sky in which they buried their dead.

“Once I’ve worn it for one year,” Thane said, “I’ll take it off.”

“We’re only a few weeks from the anniversary of the Battle of Endor. Is that when you’ll finally be over Ciena’s death?”

She hadn’t understood anything. “No. It’s the day I’ll stop following mourning practices. But I’m not over Ciena’s death. I never will be.”

“That
is…more melodramatic than I expected from you, Thane Kyrell.”

He shrugged. “It’s not melodrama. It’s the truth.” How could he get through to her? Slowly Thane said, “What we were to each other—when I lost Ciena, I lost a
piece of myself. You don’t get over that. You always feel the empty place where they used to be.”

Ciena winced, holding her hand to her midsection. The medical droids
had finally cleared her for active duty, but the pain lingered. Maybe it always would.

She straightened herself up and smoothed her jacket. When she’d put in her requisition order for new uniforms, she’d ordered them in the same size she’d always worn. Now,
however, the clothes hung slightly big on her frame. She’d lost too much weight this past year. At least the cap fit.

According
to her duty roster, her first task was to meet with Grand Moff Randd on the main bridge of the Wrath. Ciena could only assume that he would brief her on her new duties—though
most commanders didn’t receive their orders from anyone who ranked as high as Grand Moff.

Then again, those days all the old protocols had broken down. She could take nothing for granted.

Ciena walked to the bridge,
waited until two minutes before her scheduled arrival, and then entered. Top officers liked it when you were early but not
too
early. The Wrath’s bridge
differed from that of a Star Destroyer; instead of data pits, more junior officers were located on long banks of stations that lined the vast octagonal room. No windows revealed Ponemah, the world
that they orbited; after almost a year on
the station, Ciena still knew nothing of that planet, not even what it looked like from space. The only view came from the enormous transparent dome
overhead, which showed the endless field of stars. Yet a few elements remained familiar, such as the dull reddish glow of the lights at floor level, the mesh metal floors, and the sense of
tension—even fear. She could take no comfort in any of that.