Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company (40 page)

BREMA SECTOR OUTSKIRTS

Two Days Before the Siege of Inyusu Tor

Captain Tabor Seitaron was pleased.

He’d forgotten the difference having a plan made. Intellectually, of course, he’d always understood the value, had lectured to his students about the importance of
purpose
to a ship’s morale. Yet in his weeks aboard the
Herald
he’d discounted the fact that he, too, was part of the Star Destroyer’s crew. When his men looked at Prelate Verge askance and feared for their future, Tabor shared in the toll.

And when Tabor had seen the common thread between Governor Chalis’s targets—not in a revelatory flash, but in the gradual, almost unnoticed dawning of an inevitable idea—when he’d shared that knowledge with the prelate and they’d strode confidently out of the tactical center … well, the mood aboard the
Herald
had changed, and Tabor’s had changed with it.

He felt almost young as he paced the bridge and nodded approval to the men at the duty stations. The facts seemed straightforward now, and the solution similarly so.

Fact: Governor Chalis and her infantry company were striking soft targets along the Rimma Trade Route.

Fact: Governor Chalis’s expertise was in the logistical machinery of the Empire.

Extrapolation: Her goal was not military. Rather, she sought to deliver a crippling blow to the Empire’s infrastructure.

By what exact means, Tabor neither knew nor needed to know. His only concern was to discern the existing pattern and analyze Chalis’s next step. Stop her midway down the path, and who cared about her final destination?

He had worked with Prelate Verge to whittle their list of Chalis’s potential targets down from hundreds to dozens. Of the targets that remained—manufacturing facilities, spacedocks, shipping lanes—they’d separated out any that failed to match Chalis’s secret pattern, any that lacked the thread that bound them inexorably to the governor. They had been too late to stop her at Nakadia and Kuliquo, but both proved that Tabor could predict her actions.

That left only a handful of possibilities. Sullust. Malastare. Tshindral. They set to preparing each for an attack. “She’ll flee if she sees a foe prepared,” he’d told Verge. “She’s too much of a coward to do otherwise. We must keep our distance until she steps into the trap. When the time comes, the kill is yours.”

That time was fast approaching. He was sure of it.

The communications officer rose from his duty station, stood stiff as he signaled for Tabor’s attention. “Captain!” he said. His voice trembled slightly, but his lips crept into a smile. “We have a signal coming from Sullust!”

“And?” Tabor asked.

“The
Thunderstrike
and her escorts are in-system. You were right.”

The duty officers began to applaud. It was a breach of protocol Tabor could forgive—this was their triumph as much as his, and they deserved to linger on it. They deserved a reminder that they had earned their positions aboard a Star Destroyer, earned the power to ruin planets and battle fleets.

Yet he did not smile. “Bring the prelate to the bridge and get me a tactical feed,” he said gruffly. “I’ll need a channel to Vixus Squadron, as well.”

The bridge crew set to work. Tabor withdrew to the tactical center to consider his options. Sullust would not, in all likelihood, repel the
Thunderstrike.
That was for the best; Verge had insisted on leaving the regional governors uninformed of their systems’ target status for that very reason. But Verge had also divvied up his forces well, secreting squadrons of TIE interceptors near Chalis’s most likely victims.

“Well done!” the prelate’s voice declared. Tabor felt the boy’s hand squeeze his shoulder. “Are they following standard procedure?”

“Delivering drop ships to the planet surface? Yes, Prelate.” Tabor swept his hand over the tactical hologram, switching from a view of the star cluster to the feed direct from Sullust. “Vixus is ready to move, but I expect the rebel troop transport will flee as soon as insertion is complete …”

Verge shook his head briskly, dismissively. “There’s no hurry,” he said. “Our quarry is Chalis, not a gaggle of rebel soldiers. Unless we’re absolutely
certain
she’s with the ground forces?”

“No evidence of it either way,” Tabor said.

“Then her ship remains the priority. And her ship will be back once the ground mission is complete.”

Tabor smiled grimly. “Agreed. I’ll have Vixus move to Sullust and prepare for the
Thunderstrike
’s return. It might also be wise to contact Sullust ground forces and ensure the rebel company isn’t entirely obliterated. Unlikely, but if they get lucky …” He shrugged. “We need to be sure the
Thunderstrike
has a reason to come back.”

Verge laughed, throwing his head back unashamed. The sound was exuberant and joyous, full of life and passion. It buoyed Tabor’s own spirits further—but only for an instant, before he recalled where the boy’s delight came from: his mad obsession with extravagance, his half-concealed terror, and his messianic belief that he was the forerunner of a new Imperial way of life.

Suddenly Tabor felt old again. His muscles seemed too atrophied to hold his body straight. But he smiled again and went about his tasks. Perhaps victory and Tabor’s example would mellow the boy. Refine his genius into something more mature.

Within the hour, Vixus Squadron was on its way to Sullust. The
Herald
had set course as well, though its arrival would come later. It was a pity, Tabor thought, that the crew wouldn’t witness the fall of the
Thunderstrike
in person after all that they’d done … yet he was sure the aftermath would prove satisfying.

“When this is over,” Verge said as they stood together at the bridge viewport, watching the azure vortex of hyperspace ripple about the ship, “you will be rewarded, you know. You and I will go before the Emperor together. Your role in this endeavor has been essential.”

Tabor wished only to return to his home: to his classes and his tea set and the natural aroma and sky and gravity of Carida. He knew the prelate better than to say as much.

“Thank you, Prelate.”

Verge chuckled and touched a fingertip to the viewport, sliding it down the pane as if he could feel the pulse of hyperspace. “Nor, I think, will the crew of this ship forget you. I do not know what our future will entail, but I look forward to seeing their next performance.”

Tabor turned his head and brought the duty stations into his peripheral vision. He studied the men who’d applauded him, whose fears he’d tamped and whose purpose he’d delicately nourished since coming aboard. He tried to imagine what they might want as a reward.

“I’m sure you’ll do right by them,” Tabor said. “And they will do right by you.”

PLANET SULLUST

Day One of the Siege of Inyusu Tor

Namir had half a dozen search-and-rescue squads ready to go. It wasn’t the mix he might have wanted—too few medics and engineers, too many demolitions specialists—but all were combat-ready and they could travel fast. The rest of the company would stay behind at the processing facility and fortify for an attack.

Because an attack had to be coming, and Twilight Company had nowhere to run.

He signaled the first wave to head out. Scouts riding speeder bikes pillaged from the facility hangar shot down the mountain slope, angling toward the plume of black smoke rising into the sky. The rest of the squads would need to reach the
Thunderstrike
—whatever was
left
of the
Thunderstrike
—on foot. He gave the nod to Carver, who began speaking into his link. Boots struck obsidian and stone and team leaders shouted marching orders.

Namir adjusted his helmet and breath mask, cinched his rifle strap, and started to follow when a voice cut in over the comm.

“They’re dead, and we need you here. Stop this,” Chalis said.

Namir didn’t answer. Instead he joined the soldiers scrabbling down the rock toward their lost ship. He tried to remember how many people had been aboard the
Thunderstrike
—more than thirty permanent crew members, any company members not cleared for ground combat …

… and injured soldiers unfit for duty.

How many were they? Von Geiz would know, but he’d stayed aboard the
Thunderstrike
, too.

Damn it all.

The trek to the transport was brutal. An early fall scraped Namir’s hands raw as he slid down a bank of gravel. Reports from the scouts urged him forward, kept him moving despite the rough terrain. The ship was still partly intact, the scouts said; the reactor hadn’t detonated on impact. There might still be survivors.

When the vessel came into view, however, it was hard to maintain hope. The
Thunderstrike
was only intact in that it hadn’t shattered altogether. Even from far up the mountain, even through the smoke, Namir could see a massive breach through the center of the vessel. If it had tried to rise into the air, it would have fallen in two.

Shortly thereafter, the scouts reported Imperial airspeeders en route. If there was any chance of rescuing the living, it had to be done before bombing runs reduced the wreckage to a crater full of scorched metal.

Onward. Namir listened to the first wave of search-and-rescue teams call out every victory and loss. They tore aside doors and found members of the bridge crew trapped under consoles, hurt but alive. They found the broken parts of M2-M5 scattered across the medbay; the sardonic droid’s final act had been to try to protect the wounded. By the time Namir arrived on the scene, Von Geiz—his face stained with blood as red as a warning light—had begun triage: counting the dead, sending the worst casualties toward the processing facility on speeder bikes, ordering the rest to rejoin Twilight on foot.

Namir was glad to defer to the old medic’s expertise. He kept the conversation brief as they sheltered beneath a hull fragment and listened to blaster cannons pelt the stone around them. “How many unaccounted for?” Namir asked.

“Another twenty, perhaps,” Von Geiz said. “We can’t reach the lower decks.”

“Keep trying,” Namir said. “But if we start losing our line of retreat, we all pull out together.”

Von Geiz nodded. He’d been with Twilight a long time, and he knew when a patient was too far gone to save.

As the afternoon wore on, the squads formed a chain between the shipwreck and the processing facility. Namir would escort a handful of limping and bruised crew members a hundred meters up the mountain slope and hand them over to the next squad, assuring them that shelter wasn’t far. Zab’s team built a makeshift sniper’s nest above the wreckage to provide cover while others salvaged canisters of liquid bacta and medical devices. As night fell, Namir bent his knees as Commander Tohna leaned heavily on his shoulders, clasped the tatters of his glove to the larger man’s breath mask as the
Thunderstrike
’s skipper tried to howl in pain. “Too many enemies, too close,” Namir told him. “We can’t give away our position.”

Heavier bombers finally arrived shortly after dark, smashing fresh holes in the
Thunderstrike
and sending shards of metal and bone flying. Fewer casualties emerged from hiding even as Imperial ground troops appeared on the horizon and their scouting parties delivered constant volleys of blaster bolts. Namir didn’t remember sending the order to withdraw, though he knew he must have done so. His mouth tasted like ash and his lips were cracked as he began his final march back. He’d stopped sweating hours before, and his legs ached with every step up the slope. He wondered for only an instant about the situation back at the processing facility, then forced that question from his mind.
Survive first
, he told himself.
Then find a way to save Twilight.

Of the soldiers who’d joined the rescue parties, five were unaccounted for when Namir stumbled back into the processing facility, winding his way through a maze of barricades improvised from industrial equipment. “If they’re not back in an hour, assume they’re dead,” he told Twitch, who stood guard at the innermost sentry post. “If they come in later, we can believe in miracles.”