Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company (2 page)

“My father,” Donin said. “He used to fight them.” He gestured with his head toward the sky, toward the stars hidden behind yellow-gray clouds. “There was a war.”

“Well,
you’re
not fighting clones,” the man said. “You’re fighting the lowlifes who took the quarry last week and want our territory. That exciting enough for you?”

Donin scowled and stared. “I’m here to serve the clan,” he said, and pivoted back to face the wall. One hand still clasping his blaster, he reached with the other to jerk down the collar of his jacket, displaying his brands to the man behind him.

Donin heard the man laugh, felt a slap on his spine that rocked him forward.

“I guess you are,” the man said. “Just don’t get your hopes up. Take it one fight at a time.”

Donin nodded, shrugged his jacket higher on his back, and gripped his blaster tighter. He wasn’t sure what the man meant. The clan was hope for them all.

It wasn’t long before someone yelled that the enemy was approaching. The front line pressed against the wall and peered over. Donin saw specks against the brittle yellow grass in the valley below the hill, and soon those specks resolved into the shapes of dozens of men and women. Most held spears above their heads like pennants. Only a few carried offworld weapons—but those weapons were the size of tree branches, cradled by their owners in both arms.

The first of those weapons ignited with reverberating screams. Streaks of green fire spewed over the wall. The warlord’s army became a mass of shouts Donin didn’t understand. He steadied his blaster, reminded himself not to waste shots.

“All praise to the warlord!” someone called, and the shouting became a cheer. A rush of warmth filled the boy as he grinned and added his voice to the hurrah.

His name was Donin now. He was defending his new home. These were his brothers and sisters, their path was righteous, and he’d be part of their clan forever.

PLANET HAIDORAL PRIME

Day Eighty-Four of the Mid Rim Retreat

Nine Years Later

The rain on Haidoral Prime dropped in warm sheets from a shining sky. It smelled like vinegar, clung to the molded curves of modular industrial buildings and to litter-strewn streets, and coated skin like a sheen of acrid sweat.

After thirty standard hours, it was losing its novelty for the soldiers of Twilight Company.

Three figures crept along a deserted avenue under a torn and dripping canopy. The lean, compact man in the lead was dressed in faded gray fatigues and a hodgepodge of armor pads crudely stenciled with the starbird symbol of the Rebel Alliance. Matted dark hair dripped beneath his visored helmet, sending crawling trails of rainwater down his bronze face.

His name was Hazram Namir, though he’d gone by others. He silently cursed urban warfare and Haidoral Prime and whichever laws of atmospheric science made it rain. The thought of sleep flashed into his mind and broke against a wall of stubbornness. He gestured with a rifle thicker than his arm toward the nearest intersection, then quickened his pace.

Somewhere in the distance a swift series of blaster shots resounded, followed by shouts and silence.

The figure closest behind Namir—a tall man with graying hair and a face puckered with scar tissue—bounded across the street to take up a position opposite. The third figure, a massive form huddled in a tarp like a hooded cloak, remained behind.

The scarred man flashed a hand signal. Namir turned the corner onto the intersecting street. A dozen meters away, the sodden lumps of human bodies lay in the road. They wore tattered rain gear—sleek, lightweight wraps and sandals—and carried no weapons. Noncombatants.

It’s a shame
, Namir thought,
but not a bad sign.
The Empire didn’t shoot civilians when everything was under control.

“Charmer—take a look?” Namir indicated the bodies. The scarred man strode over as Namir tapped his comlink. “Sector secure,” he said. “What’s on tap next?”

The response came in a hiss of static through Namir’s earpiece—something about mop-up operations. Namir missed having a communications specialist on staff. Twilight Company’s last comm tech had been a drunk and a misanthrope, but she’d been magic with a transmitter and she’d written obscene poetry with Namir on late, dull nights. She and her idiot droid had died in the bombardment on Asyrphus.

“Say again,” Namir tried. “Are we ready to load?”

This time the answer came through clearly. “Support teams are crating up food and equipment,” the voice said. “If you’ve got a lead on medical supplies, we’d love more for the
Thunderstrike.
Otherwise, get to the rendezvous—we only have a few hours before reinforcements show.”

“Tell support to grab hygiene items this time,” Namir said. “Anyone who says they’re luxuries needs to smell the barracks.”

There was another burst of static, and maybe a laugh. “I’ll let them know. Stay safe.”

Charmer was finishing his study of the bodies, checking each for a heartbeat and identification. He shook his head, silent, as he straightened.

“Atrocity.” The hulking figure wrapped in the tarp had finally approached. His voice was deep and resonant. Two meaty, four-fingered hands kept the tarp clasped at his shoulders, while a second pair of hands loosely carried a massive blaster cannon at waist level. “How can anyone born of flesh do this?”

Charmer bit his lip. Namir shrugged. “Could’ve been combat droids, for all we know.”

“Unlikely,” the hulking figure said. “But if so, responsibility belongs to the governor.” He knelt beside one of the corpses and reached out to lid its eyes. Each of his hands was as large as the dead man’s head.

“Come on, Gadren,” Namir said. “Someone will find them.”

Gadren stayed kneeling. Charmer opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. Namir wondered whether to push the point and, if so, how hard.

Then the wall next to him exploded and he stopped worrying about Gadren.

Fire and metal shards and grease and insulation pelted his spine. He couldn’t hear and couldn’t guess how he ended up in the middle of the road among the bodies, one leg bent beneath him. Something tacky was stuck to his chin and his helmet’s visor was cracked; he had enough presence of mind to feel lucky he hadn’t lost an eye.

Suddenly he was moving again. He was upright, and hands—Charmer’s hands—were dragging him backward, clasping him below the shoulders. He snarled the native curses of his homeworld as a red storm of particle bolts flashed among the fire and debris. By the time he’d pushed Charmer away and wobbled onto his feet, he’d traced the bolts to their source.

Four Imperial stormtroopers stood at the mouth of an alley up the street. Their deathly pale armor gleamed in the rain, and the black eyepieces of their helmets gaped like pits. Their weapons shone with oil and machined care, as if the squad had stepped fully formed out of a mold.

Namir tore his gaze from the enemy long enough to see that his back was to a storefront window filled with video screens. He raised his blaster rifle, fired at the display, then climbed in among the shards. Charmer followed. The storefront wouldn’t give them cover for long—certainly not if the stormtroopers fired another rocket—but it would have to be enough.

“Check for a way up top,” Namir yelled, and his voice sounded faint and tinny. He couldn’t hear the storm of blaster bolts at all. “We need covering fire!” Not looking to see if Charmer obeyed, he dropped to the floor as the stormtroopers adjusted their aim to the store.

He couldn’t spot Gadren, either. He ordered the alien into position anyway, hoping he was alive and that the comlinks still worked. He lined his rifle under his chin, fired twice in the direction of the stormtroopers, and was rewarded with a moment of peace.

“I need you on target, Brand,” he growled into his link. “I need you here
now.
”

If anyone answered, he couldn’t hear it.

Now he glimpsed the stormtrooper carrying the missile launcher. The trooper was still reloading, which meant Namir had half a minute at most before the storefront came tumbling down on top of him. He took a few quick shots and saw one of the other troopers fall, though he doubted he’d hit his target. He guessed Charmer had found a vantage point after all.

Three stormtroopers remaining. One was moving away from the alley while the other stayed to protect the artilleryman. Namir shot wildly at the one moving into the street, watched him skid and fall to a knee, and smiled grimly. There was something satisfying about seeing a trained stormtrooper humiliate himself. Namir’s own side did it often enough.

Jerky movements drew Namir’s attention back to the artilleryman. Behind the stormtrooper stood Gadren, both sets of arms gripping and lifting his foe. Human limbs flailed, and the missile launcher fell to the ground. White armor seemed to crumple in the alien’s hands. Gadren’s makeshift hood blew back, exposing his head: a brown, bulbous, widemouthed mass topped with a darker crest of bone, like some amphibian’s nightmare idol. The second trooper in the alley turned to face Gadren and was promptly slammed to the ground with his comrade’s body before Gadren crushed them both, howling in rage or grief.

Namir trusted Gadren as much as he trusted anyone, but there were times when the alien terrified him.

The last stormtrooper was still down in the street. Namir fired until flames licked a burnt and melted hole in the man’s armor. Namir, Charmer, and Gadren gathered back around the bodies and assessed their own injuries.

Namir’s hearing was coming back. The damage to his helmet extended far beyond the visor—a crack ran along its length—and he found a shallow cut across his forehead when he tossed the helmet to the street. Charmer was picking shards of shrapnel from his vest but made no complaints. Gadren was shivering in the warm rain.

“No Brand?” Gadren asked.

Namir only grunted.

Charmer laughed his weird, hiccuping laugh and spoke. He swallowed the words twice, three, four times as he went, half stuttering as he had ever since the fight on Blacktar Cyst. “Keep piling bodies like this,” he said, “we’ll have the best vantage point in the city.”

He gestured at Namir’s last target, who had fallen directly onto one of the civilian corpses.

“You’re a sick man, Charmer,” Namir said, and swung an arm roughly around his comrade’s shoulders. “I’ll miss you when they boot you out.”

Gadren grunted and sniffed behind them. It might have been dismay, but Namir chose to take it as mirth.

Officially, the city was Haidoral Administrative Center One, but locals called it Glitter after the crystalline mountains that limned the horizon. In Namir’s experience, what the Galactic Empire didn’t name to inspire terror—its stormtrooper legions, its Star Destroyer battleships—it tried to render as drab as possible. This didn’t bother Namir, but he wasn’t among the residents of the planets and cities being labeled.

Half a dozen rebel squads had already arrived at the central plaza when Namir’s team marched in. The rain had condensed into mist, and the plaza’s tents and canopies offered little shelter; nonetheless, men and women in ragged armor squeezed into the driest corners they could find, grumbling to one another or tending to minor wounds and damaged equipment. As victory celebrations went, it was subdued. It had been a long fight for little more than the promise of a few fresh meals.

“Stop admiring yourselves and do something
useful
,” Namir barked, barely breaking stride. “Support teams can use a hand if you’re too good to play
greeter.
”

He barely noticed the squads stir in response. Instead, his attention shifted to a woman emerging from the shadows of a speeder stand. She was tall and thickly built, dressed in rugged pants and a bulky maroon jacket. A scoped rifle was slung over her shoulder, and the armor mesh of a retracted face mask covered her neck and chin. Her skin was gently creased with age and as dark as a human’s could be, her hair cropped close to her scalp, and she didn’t so much as glance at Namir as she arrived at his side and matched his pace through the plaza.

“You want to tell me where you were?” Namir asked.

“You missed the second fire team. I took care of it,” Brand said.

Namir kept his voice cool. “Drop me a hint next time?”

“You didn’t need the distraction.”

Namir laughed. “Love you, too.”

Brand cocked her head. If she got the joke—and Namir expected she did—she wasn’t amused. “So what now?” she asked.

“We’ve got eight hours before we leave the system,” Namir said, and stopped with his back to an overturned kiosk. He leaned against the metal frame and stared into the mist. “Less if Imperial ships come before then, or if the governor’s forces regroup. After that, we’ll divvy up the supplies with the rest of the battle group. Probably keep an escort ship or two for the
Thunderstrike
before the others split off.”

“And we abandon this sector to the Empire,” Brand said.

By this time, Charmer had wandered off and Gadren had joined Namir and Brand. “We will return,” he said gravely.

“Right,” Namir said, smirking. “Something to look forward to.”