Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company (19 page)

Yet Verge’s idiosyncrasies counterbalanced the boy’s finer nature. Tabor had learned as much during his sixth night aboard the
Herald
, at the prelate’s impromptu gala.

The event had discomfited Tabor from the start. The prelate had ordered a docking bay converted into a concert hall, where holographic musicians played neoclassical paeans to the New Order and astromech droids served hors d’oeuvres from the officers’ galley. The invitees—a mix of crew members determined, so far as Tabor could decipher, by random lot—seemed enthused enough, willing to feast and dance at the prelate’s urging.

An hour into the evening, Verge stepped forth to proclaim the purpose of the gala. Earlier that day, he explained, he’d learned of an officer’s failure to report vital information in a timely fashion. “He feared to wake me during the night,” Verge said, “doubting that the information—a sighting of Governor Chalis’s rebels over the planet Coyerti—was accurate.”

Verge continued speaking as a pair of stormtroopers ushered the officer in question into the center of the docking bay. Tabor was surprised to see a look not of panic but of despair on the officer’s face.

“His mistrust of the information was understandable,” Verge said, “but by failing to bring it to me, he placed faith in
his
judgment over that of his superiors. That cannot be accepted, and it cannot be forgiven.”

One of the stormtroopers produced a thin metal cylinder. Verge nodded, and the cylinder mechanically extended into a baton, one end dancing and crackling with electricity.

“I have decided to grant you all the privilege of administering punishment,” Verge said. “If he lives, he will return to duty a chastened man. A better man.”

Then Verge had left the gala. The attendees had done what was expected of them. And Tabor had slept poorly that night.

Tabor’s constitution had suffered with age. Even as he adjusted to the Star Destroyer’s gravity, he still woke each morning sore and cramped. He missed the selection of tea provided by the Carida Academy and he found himself increasing the size of text on the datapads handed to him by younger officers.

But his mental fortitude was as it had always been. He’d seen far worse things than the prelate’s torments; inflicted worse himself, more than once. But how could a crew function when its commander acted unpredictably? One moment, Verge was quoting the Emperor to an enchanted audience aboard the bridge; the next, he was ordering an engineer stripped of his rank for the failures of a malfunctioning droid.

Each night following the gala, Tabor’s desire to return home grew stronger. And so each day, he attempted to build his rapport with the troops and better equip them for their hunt for Governor Chalis. The sooner the mission was complete, the sooner he could resume his familiar routine.

Verge lent Tabor the support he required: When Tabor asked for permission to assign half a dozen officers to liaise with Imperial vessels in the Metatessu sector, Verge authorized it. When they learned that Chalis’s ship was leaving behind a subtle particle trail, Verge encouraged Tabor to oversee the science team dedicated to the trail’s analysis.

In the days that followed, Tabor became convinced that success was near. Few Imperial ships were poised to intercept Chalis in short order, but so long as she left a path there was no chance of her escaping. With a few days, the
Herald
itself could be in place.

And then came the news of the raid.

“One of our freighters! It was an obvious target—we should have been prepared!”

Tabor winced at the sound of his own voice. He clenched the report in one hand, glowered at the liaison officers on the bridge. But there were dozens of allied ships in the sector, and predicting which Chalis would strike at—had they even known with certainty that she’d attempt to hide her trail so—would have been nearly impossible.

One of the liaison officers was stammering an apology. Tabor waved it off, tried to show by his expression that he was venting frustration, not placing blame. This crew had seen too much blame.

The prelate stood at the bridge viewport, staring into the stars. Tabor strode past the duty stations, wondering how the boy would react. Yet Verge was smiling when he turned around. He looked almost amused, as if enjoying a twist of fate that affected him not at all.

“We were lucky,” the boy said. “That trail was a stroke of fortune, but surely wars are not won through luck?”

Tabor found his ire melting away. “True enough,” he said. He was too eager to get the job done and return home, as if merely
wanting
it was enough. It was a mistake children made. Once again, he’d misjudged Verge.

“What now, then?” Verge asked. “Chalis will take advantage of this, surely.”

Focus, Tabor.

“The rebel ship,” Tabor said. “It’s taken considerable damage in the last week. They’ll be looking to put in for repairs.”

“Agreed,” Verge said. “That will mean a base of some sort, or at the very least a flotilla equipped for the job.”

The conversation soon moved from the bridge to the tactical center. An assortment of Tabor’s favored officers joined him, calling up data and reports from other ships in the sector while Tabor stared at charts with Verge and racked his brain for anything useful on Chalis. Over the course of an hour, they narrowed down the area the governor could reach but not the particulars of any port; it was progress in only the most technical sense.

“We’re approaching this wrong,” Tabor finally declared. “If there’s a base to be found through pure military theory, someone in Intelligence would’ve already found it.”

Verge’s eyes were closed as he leaned back against a console. “We already discounted finding the ship. Where does that leave us?”

“We can’t find
her
ship, and we can’t locate the base directly,” Tabor said. “But our forces just chased half the Alliance out of the Mid Rim. How many other rebel ships managed to escape an engagement in this sector after sustaining damage—in the past week, say? How many others need repairs, as well?”

The officers began murmuring into their links and tapping at their consoles. A list flashed onto the main display. It scrolled rapidly through official designations of rebel ships—easily several dozen.

Tabor smiled with grim satisfaction and gestured toward Verge. “It’s your hunt.”

Verge pushed forward off the console and clapped Tabor on the shoulder. “It’s
our
hunt.” He turned and spread his arms, encompassing the rest of the officers. “All of ours!” he called, and laughed. Evidently, he understood Tabor’s intent.

The men laughed with Verge. Some were transparently nervous; others apparently sincere, proud to share the moment with their commander. Tabor watched them and wondered:

What happens to them when the hunt is over?

PLANET HOTH

Eleven Days Before Plan Kay One Zero

Namir hadn’t dressed for the cold, and he regretted his choice of apparel the moment the ramp dropped down and a frigid tide surged into the shuttle. Specks of frost danced around the ramp’s far end, melting slowly upon contact with the metal, and snow—true, white snow, the kind Namir had only seen twice in his life—paved the runway into the hangar.

“I take back my defection. Darth Vader can have me,” Chalis murmured. Namir cast a glance at her, saw her dark hair dappled with pale flakes. Her hands were behind her back, where Namir had bound them in stun cuffs—a condition of Alliance High Command.

Together with the captain, Roja, and Beak, they descended the ramp into Echo Base.

The journey had been painfully long but uneventful. Howl himself hadn’t known the rebel base’s secret location—instead, he’d programmed the shuttle to follow routes provided, one after the next, via coded messages from the Alliance. Those routes had taken the shuttle far into the wastes of the Outer Rim and spiraling into the Anoat sector; when Howl had plotted a course to the Hoth system, the travelers hadn’t known whether they’d find their goal or just another message there.

Chalis had passed the time reading classical fiction from Howl’s data library or further refining her holographic schematic. Howl had found a holo-chess partner in Beak, and Namir had, by the second day, demanded they mute their battling game pieces. Roja had been the eager conversationalist of the group, ready to share anecdotes from his time as a dockworker with the unwary. Namir had tried to occupy himself by turning the engineering pit into an exercise room and working himself into exhaustion.

By the end, he’d been more than ready to leave the shuttle. He hadn’t expected the vessel to be more comfortable than the Rebellion’s hidden base, but now he was beginning to wonder.

Beyond the ramp, half a dozen meters down the hangar runway, a small group of rebels stood awaiting the shuttle passengers. They were all dressed for the weather, their matching jackets hooded and heavily padded. Three of them carried blaster rifles at the ready.
Good
, Namir thought.
At least they’re not complacent.

One of the group stepped forward—a pale man with a thick mustache and graying hair who wore the insignia of a rebel general. Proper insignia, like snow, were something Namir had rarely seen before.

The man introduced himself as Philap Bygar, and shook the hand of each of the Twilight emissaries as Howl introduced them by name and position. When Chalis—shivering in the chill—stepped up, Howl smiled tightly. “Governor Everi Chalis,” he said. “An extraordinary artist and gracious guest of the Sixty-First Mobile Infantry. Former emissary to the Imperial Ruling Council.”

“I’d shake your hand,” Chalis said, “but I wouldn’t want to make things awkward.” She shrugged, lifting her cuffed wrists behind her back.

General Bygar nodded slowly and raised his hand in a salute. “The Rebel Alliance believes in redemption, Governor,” he said. “Don’t let our caution convince you otherwise.”

“There’s no shame in being wary,” Chalis said.

Bygar stepped back and looked over the group. Namir felt his fingers numbing as the man spoke. “If I could thank everyone from the Sixty-First, I would,” Bygar said. “You’ve had some hellish assignments these past few years, and you’ve survived things few other companies could.

“That’s a reputation to be proud of, but not a pleasant one to earn—particularly when the reward is even worse assignments down the line. You’re not wrong to think High Command sees what you’ve been through and sends you back for more. No one
deserved
to be sent to Praktin or Blacktar Cyst.”

Bygar’s praise surprised Namir. Under the circumstances, it was hardly necessary—the general didn’t need to win over Howl, so Namir was forced to conclude that it was, in part, sincere. He felt a discomfiting mix of appreciation and resentment churn in his stomach.

The general continued. “What I can tell you is that we
know
what we’re asking of you and the price you pay every day.
I
know it. And I’m grateful you’re out there fighting for our cause.”

Roja and Beak stood with their arms pressed to their sides, holding in their body heat. But their chins were up, their eyes focused on the general. Howl’s expression was somber, and he nodded stiffly as Bygar concluded his speech. Chalis caught Namir’s glance as he surveyed his colleagues and smirked. It might as well have been a wink.

“Now let’s get you warmer and then to work,” the general said, and the formality dropped from his tone. “It never gets comfortable here, and you don’t quite get used to it, but there are ways to make it livable.”

That, Namir thought, was the most he could hope for; along with as short a stay as possible. He already missed the shuttle, but he ached for the
Thunderstrike.

Not comfortable, but livable
was a phrase that stayed with Namir over the following days. Howl and Chalis were whisked away almost immediately to a grand strategy conference with Alliance High Command; Namir saw them in passing in the base’s corridors and otherwise not at all. Roja and Beak were, with Namir’s approval, split and assigned to teams appropriate to their skills under Echo Base commanders. Namir, too, accepted reassignment to keep himself busy.

The base was hewn out of the ice of a massive glacier, with natural caverns augmented by structural supports and linked by artificial corridors. Power cables and lighting rigs were strewn haphazardly about, and Namir was assured by a maintenance droid that one faulty element could deny heat to half the base. In its construction, then, Echo Base was almost comfortingly ramshackle. It reflected the abilities of the Rebellion that Namir knew.

The men and women posted at the base were less familiar. Their clothes and combat gear were a grade above anything Twilight had ever possessed, both in quality and uniformity: When the quartermaster handed Namir an A280 combat rifle before a patrol, Namir stroked the heavy barrel with something close to awe. Bundled in a thermal protective jacket and polarized goggles, Namir was nearly as faceless and unrecognizable as a stormtrooper. With that uniformity and orderliness came an emphasis on the importance of rank and hierarchy; it reminded him of stories Charmer had told about the Imperial Academy, and on his second day he learned why.