TIE Fighter: Command Decisions

By: Jennifer Quail

 

 

 

WARNING! WARNING! If you have not read TIE Fighter: Prime Wing, please go back and do that now, or this story will make no sense whatsoever.

 

DISCLAIMER that has to go on fan fic: Based on characters and situations created by George Lucas, Timothy Zahn, and Michael Stackpole. I borrowed this universe without permission or knowledge of any of the above. This story is not for profit and is created solely for my amusement and for distribution on the Internet. Don’t sue. I have no money. All characters not created by above are © to me, Jennifer Quail, and please don’t distribute this story or borrow them without my permission. However, I’m very agreeable about loans, so all you have to do is ask.

 

Questions/Comments/Queries/Cries of joy or pain? E-mail [email protected]

 

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Chapter One

 

 

“Alpha Two, watch that weather turret! You’ve got plenty of room below,” Commander Mrith’hele’arana, better known to her wingmates and the rest of the Empire as Thelea, swung the standard TIE she was flying around the metal struts and vanes beneath the Bespin mining colony, trying to gain a target lock on the escaping YT-1300 freighter that had, for whatever reason, dove beneath the floating city.

Her errant wingmate, Lieutenant Rurik Caelin, muttered something mercifully unintelligible into his link. “What was that, Two? I didn’t quite copy.”

“Nothing, Lead,” Rurik focused on his flying. “Where in blazes did they disappear to?”

“They must have gone down here,” Alpha Three, Lieutenant Giriad Quoris, had an annoying habit of answering rhetorical questions. “They probably are going to circle up over the city.”

“That would take too long. They’ll never chance…” Thelea broke off as her targeting computer chirped. “Lock established! There they are!” she snapped as the distinctive saucer shape of the smuggling ship suddenly burst into view from around a weather pylon. Her red eyes glittered in a rare, satisfied smile.

“Using your target for attack,” Rurik responded, switching his own computer.

Thelea pushed as much power as she could to the little fighter’s engines. Fervently and futilely she wished the craft had the speed and maneuverability of an Interceptor. If the blasted techs had worked faster, if they hadn’t been pushed so fast after the Hoth battle…she forced the thoughts from her mind. Pointless now to wish for Interceptors. She might as well wish for the Rebels to turn around and surrender while she was at it.

“They’re running for open space. Remember, either disable them or get them close enough to the Executor for a tractor beam lock.”

“Thanks, Commander, I’d forgotten that.” Thelea bit back the urge to rebuke Rurik for his sarcasm. She only hoped no one on the Imperial flagship Executor had heard.

In front of the three TIEs, the YT-1300 accelerated, trying to get out of the gas giant’s gravity well and make the jump into hyperspace before the TIEs could disable the sublight engines. Thelea grinned behind her breathing mask. They were in for a nasty surprise. She targeted the freighter’s rear shields and fired off several blasts. Rurik and Giriad followed close behind.

“Lead, why haven’t they jumped to hyperspace?” It was Giriad’s voice.

“I’m supposed to be a mind-reader?” Thelea snapped back. She tried not to think about the fact that she was, by the strictest definition, exactly that. Not even Rurik, who was, after three years, the closest thing to a best friend she had, knew about her unusual and sporadic forays into the supernatural. In any case, there was nothing she could do about it now…the ability was too erratic, and had never worked when she wasn’t in direct visual contact with her intended target. Except…she tried not to think about the one time when Rurik’s life had been endangered and she had taken control of his will. Never before or since had she managed such a feat. She didn’t like to dwell on that event’s significance.

Giriad was right, though, about one thing: the freighter was at a point where they should have been able to make a clean getaway to hyperspace. They hadn’t. They were still trying to outrun the TIEs at sublight speed. While the TIE fighters couldn’t overtake them (again, silently, Thelea cursed the ancient fighter and wished for her Interceptor) they could get well within firing range. Even as she loosed another salvo at the freighter’s dramatically weakened real section, she asked its pilot silently: What are you waiting for?

The sleek, dark silhouette of the Super Star Destroyer Executor was looming ever larger in their view ports. The freighter must have seen, must have known the TIEs were trying to drive them into tractor beam range. And still they tried to outmaneuver them rather than outrun them. The Empire had control of the city so there was no doubling back. Perhaps they’d damaged the ship, disabled the hyperdrive. Thelea frowned. She hated fixed games.

The freighter made a steep, hooking turn, staying just outside of tractor beam range, and the TIEs followed, the tiny and more maneuverable fighters cutting the distance even closer. Giriad loosed a barrage of laser fire that raked the ship’s starboard shields and rocked it. The target status numbers on Thelea’s computer registered a huge drop in the ship’s systems. “Good shooting, Three.”

“Thanks, Lead.” No trace of the cocky, arrogant ex-noble who’d joined the wing almost three years ago, she noted. “They’re headed out.”

“Do you think you can outrun Executor at sublight?” she wondered under her breath. “What are you doing?”

Edging her speed up a notch at the expense of her lasers, she got into what was for a TIE fighter point-blank range. A few more bolts and the shields would go, then their engines. Then the Lord Vader would have his prize, which for his own, ever-mysterious reasons he seemed to want very badly. She took careful aim…

And lost her targeting lock as the YT-1300 accelerated out of firing range and, in a flash of pseudomotion, vanished into hyperspace. Thelea stared in numb disbelief at her fighter’s blank screen, willing it to be a trick, a hallucination, anything but what is was. Failure. Black, heavy dread settled deep inside her, and although her instruments assured her everything was normal, the temperature in the little fighter seemed to drop.

Rurik voiced what all three, in one form or another, were thinking. “Somebody is going to be in serious bantha dung about this.” No one even considered arguing the point.

 

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Commander Varkris of the Executor stared bleakly at the turbolaser battery before him, wondering exactly where he’d gone wrong. No, he didn’t need to wonder. He’d gone wrong when he’d let that alien freak and her accomplices escape alive.

He should be grateful that he was still alive after failing his superiors. Demotion from first officer of a Victory-class Star Destroyer to one gunnery commander among dozens aboard a Super-class vessel was, in a sense, mild punishment. It did give him one advantage-one day, a single “misdirected” turbolaser blast and that would be the end of Thelea and her miscreants. In the heat of battle, the loss of a few TIEs from friendly fire…

He shook off that thought. Too many people would see. At the least, he’d be demoted for incompetence. He’d had enough of that already. No one would believe he’d killed her accidentally. That damned alien admiral might be off who-knew-where in the Unknown Regions, but there were others in the fleet, others who’d made their presence felt in the last three years, who were just as interested in keeping their wing intact.

Every time he tried to arrange for an accident, be it shipboard or in a firefight, something happened to prevent it…the device failed to go off or his agent disappeared, never to be seen again. Someone was helping Thelea, whether that was an agent of Admiral Thrawn, or someone deeper inside the Empire, and they did not want her dead.

The fighters were returning to the hangar bay. He sighed. Another lost opportunity. Turning away from the view ports, he called up a duty roster on his data screen. At the moment, the Executor was not scheduled for anything major. They rarely were, of course, being as they were under the direct control of Lord Vader. This bizarre jaunt to a minor world a backwater system was an example of Vader’s capricious direction of the fleet, but no one Varkris knew was going to question the Dark Lord. Who knew what he’d come up with next? They’d been chasing this damned freighter…

Freighter! That was what he’d been thinking of. He keyed for a list of the squadrons’ assignments, and then cross-checked it with away missions. There! Freighter Aris Val bound for the supply dump at Narven, a somewhat insignificant world whose only claim to importance was as one of the few way stations en route to the Unknown Regions. The ship was carrying various repair components for the ships based in or near the Unknown systems.

At the moment, the 437th Interceptor squadron was assigned to the escort duty. Varkris’ thin face split in a skeletal grin. Fortunately, his masters hadn’t left him completely at a loss.

Keying in the password/override with which they’d provided him, he altered the as-yet unposted duty roster. The new escort for the Aris Val would be the 207^th Interceptor squadron. The leader of Gamma wing of the 207^th was, of course, Lieutenant Commander Thelea. She’d be well out of his way, and out of reach of the powers in the Fleet that seemed to have an interest in protecting her. The Aris Val was going to have a long trek in realspace, thanks to the unusual amount of debris floating around the system from some ancient collision of worlds. The debris also provided some useful cover for a few “Rebel” ships lying in ambush.

“Thelea, you may be out of my hair at last,” he sighed. That was a truly reassuring thought.

 

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Rurik Caelin grimaced, surveying the unappetizing tray before him. “I’m glad to know that the Empire spares no expense when it comes to our meals.”

“Be glad they feed you at all,” Thelea said shortly. “Shut up and eat.”

“Still mad about losing that freighter?” Rurik was, even after three years, the only person he knew of in the fleet who dared to backtalk the alien pilot. Giriad was getting braver, but he still didn’t like to chance her wrath if he didn’t have to.

“I’m more upset about not being told why we were chasing them in the first place. Alpha Wing of the 112th got obliterated in that asteroid field. I admit, that was partially their own incompetence. Trying to fly side-by-side in a canyon…” She said it so nonchalantly that Rurik shivered. “But still, only a fool or a desperate man would order the fleet into the asteroid field in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t suggest calling a Dark Lord of the Sith, if that’s what he really is, a fool, and I doubt he’s desperate,” Rurik admonished, looking nervously at the ceiling and walls. Who knew where the Dark Lord had his eyes?

“I’m not. I am not, contrary to popular belief, utterly without sense.” Idly she twirled her fork on her plate, ignoring the meat. It was purported to be ralkiri, but one never knew, even in the officer’s mess. The thought of eating with the enlisted personnel was enough to put one’s appetite off entirely. “We chased that ship across half the Outer Rim, and now we’re just letting them go. If I ever understand Lord Vader…” Wisely, perhaps, she didn’t finish that thought, at least, not aloud.

“It’s not our job to question orders,” Giriad said, just a trace of the academy-trained innocent creeping into his voice. “Especially not on this ship.”

“I’m not questioning orders,” Thelea sighed for what was probably the hundred millionth time in three years. Giriad had matured…a little. Sometimes, though, he could still drive her halfway up a bulkhead with his naivete. “I’m wondering about them.” The glowing red eyes drifted to the serving line. “Look out, gentlemen. Here comes the Boss.”

The “Boss,” as they called him behind his back, was Commander Lige Aldacci, leader of the 207th Interceptor Squadron, of which Thelea's Gamma Wing was one-quarter. If Thelea had her choice, they would have been somewhere else. Even being on a Victory-class was preferable…there they would have been their own unit. Here, they were under Aldacci’s direct control. Listening to him give orders always reminded her of her cadet company commander at the Academy…he felt the need to speak slowly, as if she didn’t understand Basic, and, though she was only one grade beneath him in rank, he never acknowledged the fact. Why would today be any different?

“Thelea, Rurik, Giriad.” He deposited his tray beside Thelea and across from Giriad and sat without any further acknowledgment.

“Commander Aldacci,” Thelea said on all their behaves. Rurik and Giriad were pretending to be absorbed by their meal. Thelea eyed the sharp-featured pilot carefully. As usual the gray-green eyes were focused on anything but his misbegotten wing members. He attacked the ralkiri the way he flew…directly and viciously, quick sharp stabs of the fork into the meat. He did not make use of the knife.

“Nice handling of that freighter,” He said it nonchalantly, but she could feel the smug condescension radiating from him. A glance at Giriad and Rurik’s disgusted expressions told her it didn’t take any special skills to sense that.

“If we’d had our Interceptors, we might have had a better chance,” she replied evenly, glittering eyes fixed on the food in front of her to hide the burning behind them. “I was also rather curious why we were scrambled. We weren’t on alert status. Delta wing was.”

“Delta wing was needed to escort Lord Vader’s shuttle,” Aldacci said in that too-polite tone.

“For which they also needed our only functioning Interceptor?” Rurik muttered sourly, shoving black bangs out of his eyes. “A little speed might’ve helped.”

“We’re Imperial officers,” the squadron leader said amiably. “Our standard equipment is more than enough against whatever the Rebel scum might have. If the officers are good enough.”

Giriad was halfway out of his seat before Rurik could shove him back. Thelea shot him a burning glare and jerked her chin sharply toward his seat. Stay down! She gritted her teeth. Tact had never been any Core worlder’s strength, at least not in her experience. “I do not think the pilots were at fault. We did what we could, not having the speed to close on them or ion beams to disable them.” Thelea forcibly kept her tone mild.

“Did it occur to you to use a Kral Avror intercept maneuver? I believe they covered that at Carida, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“To do a Kral Avror, you need a ship that’s faster than the one you’re chasing, for starters,” Rurik said before Thelea could even open her mouth. “Not to mention that to properly execute that maneuver, you need to be split up with at least one ship in front of and above your target for a straight attack on their upper shields. I admit, that might have driven them closer to the Executor’s tractor beams. But if we’d gotten in front of a modified YT-1300, they would have rolled to evade. Do you know what happens when that ship rolls?” Aldacci didn’t answer. “The fighter that had been in front is now nicely sighted by the belly guns. That strategy works great when you’re chasing a Lambda-class shuttle, but a smuggling ship is a little harder. Sir.”

To his credit, Aldacci did not seem embarrassed being corrected by a junior officer. Instead, he calmly speared one of the thin strips of ralkiri and said, “I’d expect you to be familiar with pirate vessels and smuggler ships, being from the Rim as you are, Caelin.”

Thelea could almost see the anger radiating from Rurik, even as he visibly struggled to keep his temper in check.

“No more than the average Rimworld scum, Commander,” His voice was taut and pained.

Aldacci, wisely perhaps, did not rise to the bait. Instead, he said, so offhandedly she almost did not catch the  meaning, “By the way, congratulations on your new assignment.”

“Our what?” If Thelea hated anything, it was being out of the loop.

“What new assignment?” Rurik asked, almost in the same breath.

“Oh, hadn’t you heard?” Aldacci was positively smirking. “You’ve been assigned to freighter escort. I’m sure you’ll like it. You get your Interceptors.”

Thelea rose abruptly and started for the nearest computer terminal. When she returned, her expression was visibly more tense. “It’s true. We’re escorting the freighter Aris Val to the supply dump at Narven.”

“Since when?” Giriad demanded. “We weren’t scheduled for this kind of duty. Who changed our rotation?”

“The order came down from above.” Aldacci had a remarkably smug expression on his womp-rat’s features.

“We’ll be flying with you as far as Rohdesh III. From there on out, it’s your show.”

“How high above did these orders come from?” Thelea demanded.

His smile narrowed. “High,” He pushed his tray back. “We’re heading out at 1500. Be in your ships and ready to fly.” Without waiting for their response, he stood up and exited, without taking the tray to the recycler, of course.

Thelea’s teeth were grinding. Rurik stabbed at some of the unidentifiable meat. Giriad grimaced. “Do you think we can actually handle a week at least in deep space with Aldacci and the rest of his toadies?”

“A better question would be whether they’ll survive a week alone with us.” Thelea shoved her chair back and stalked off, scattering several ensigns in her wake.

 

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Thelea waited by the message terminal in her quarters, her flight suit half-on and her helmet resting on the bunk beside her. She was supposed to report to the Aris Val in less than fifteen minutes, but she couldn’t leave yet. Sometimes they didn’t give her a message, but, this time, things just felt wrong. They had to know something.

The wall-mounted comm unit blipped once, and the screen displayed a printed message. Thelea read it slowly, then re-read it to make sure she had not been mistaken. Slowly, like a sleepwalker, she keyed for message deletion and sat back in her chair. The room was dark now without the glow of the comm screen gone, but Thelea’s eyes did not use light the way a human’s did, which was just as well. She didn’t feel like turning on any lights, or even moving at all.

The message had indeed been from the Inner Circle. It had been brief and succinct and devastatingly clear.

“Important things are happening,” it had read. “You are on your own.”

Chapter Two

 

 

Thelea shifted in the cramped cockpit and tried to stretch her legs. As if flying escort runs to the Rim wasn’t bad enough, Aldacci the sadist had decreed that they would spend the next hyperspace jump launch-ready. That meant sitting in the cockpit of an Interceptor staring at a face shield for hours on end. Worse, it meant having to listen to Rurik and Giriad try to come up with ways to break the monotony.

“I spy something…gray.”

“Bulkhead,” Giriad said immediately.

“Blast. Your turn.”

“I spy something…red.”

“Fire control switch.”

“How did you know that?”

Thelea couldn’t contain herself any longer and thumbed her comm on. “Gentlemen, I’m only going to say this once. Stop. Or else.”

“Or else what?” Rurik couldn’t help himself, either.

“Or else I’m going to blast this open to hyperspace and put us all out of our misery.” She resisted the urge to add “so there.”

“Fine, be a spoil-sport.” For a moment, there was silence on the comm channel. Then, Rurik’s voice came through again. “Hey, Giriad.”

“What?”

“This protocol droid walks into a bar…”

“RURIK!”

“Some…whatever-you-ares…can be so sensitive.”

“I’m your commanding officer, and, if you keep it up, I’ll show you sensitive.” She twisted in her seat again winced, this time from a cramp that was not in her leg. “If they don’t let us out of here soon, I may go stir-crazy, too.”

“Whaddya mean, too?”

Before Rurik received an answer, they jolted slightly in their harnesses and the targeting computers, slaved to the Aris Val’s sensors, flared to life ringed in red. “That wasn’t right,” Thelea muttered as the grid resolved itself. “We’re not anywhere near Rhodesh III.”

“We’re not anywhere much of anything,” Rurik noted, keying up a map of the area.

“We didn’t come out of hyperspace on our own. Something pulled us.” Without thinking, Thelea pulled the air mask of her highly modified TIE helmet over her mouth. “But what? There’s no planet or star, or even any debris that could create a gravity well.”

“No sign of an Interdictor or anything like one, either,” Giriad added.

“Let’s take a look. Captain Keivel, this is Gamma Leader. Request permission to launch fighters.”

“Permission granted.” The Aris Val’s captain sounded tense. “Our hyperdrive is still resetting itself after that shutdown. Try and see what happened.”

“Gamma wing, stand by to launch.” Thelea flipped the engine switch on her control panel and the fighter’s twin ion engines flared to life. There was the normal neck-snapping jolt as the ship’s computer spun the fighter 180 degrees and released it into the vacuum.

The instant her fighter was free of the docking harness, Thelea pushed the engines to two-thirds power and began warming up the Interceptor’s quad lasers. “Stay sharp,” she ordered as Rurik and Giriad pulled in at her flank. “Something’s not right here.”

“Where’re the escort ships?” Giriad asked. “They were following the same hyperspace vector as we were. Whatever grabbed us should have gotten them.”

“Unless they weren’t following us.” Rurik’s voice was very quiet.

Thelea shivered, despite her temperature-controlled flight suit. A strange twisting feeling had begun in the pit of her stomach. “I have a very bad feeling about this.”

“I was hoping you weren’t going to say that,” Rurik muttered. “I’m not reading anything out here.”

“Aris Val, are your sensors picking up anything?” Thelea asked.

“Negative, Gamma Leader. There’s no sign of anything out there.” The controller’s voice was taut.

“How long until the hyperdrive is back on line?”

There was a brief pause. “We’re resetting the coordinates now. It should only take a moment for the computer to calcula…” The voice dissolved into a high-pitched shriek of static.

“Someone’s jamming us!” Giriad snapped.

“But not the squadron frequency. Why…?” Rurik’s question trailed off as their computer displays flickered, dissolved into static, then cleared. “What in the worlds…”

Thelea’s bad feeling resolved itself into grim certainty. “That would be our problem.”

There was a crackling like an electrical storm in a planet’s atmosphere, twisting and writhing in deep space. The tendrils of light abruptly coalesced and then flared, and from the center of the burst appeared a ship.

From its size and bearing it appeared to be a large warship, but it was neither Imperial nor any sort of Rebel ship they had ever seen. Long and black, instead of having one obvious command deck there were several turrets, all bristling with turbolaser batteries and clusters of smaller objects that looked suspiciously like weapons systems of some kind. The stern where the glowing engine cluster projected behind the ship was defended by what looked like some kind of torpedo cannon.

“What in all the systems is that?” Giriad breathed.

Thelea found that her throat was strangely dry. “I don’t know.”

Rurik seemed to have better control of his vocal chords, but not by much. “Whoever they are, I’ll bet my next month’s pay that they’re not friendly.”

“I’m not touching that, if only because we may not be around to collect our next month’s pay,” Thelea said. “Aris Val, do you read us?”

There was a brief burst of the static jamming, and then a voice. “…read you, Gamma Leader.”

“Get out of here!” Thelea swung her ship in a tight arc. “We’re no match for that thing. We’ll distract them while you run for hyperspace.”

Rurik’s blood turned to ice water. “Commander, you realize that if the Aris Val leaves…”

“Our mission is to protect the freighter,” Thelea interrupted. “We can’t do that sitting in the hold. Aris Val, run for it while you can. We’ll catch up.” Even in her own ears the words rang hollow. “Gamma wing, we’re going in. Hit what you can and watch out for those projections near the lasers…they could be cluster traps.”

“Copy that, Lead.” Rurik swung his fighter out from hers, and opposite him Giriad mirrored the maneuver. “Weapons charged and ready.”

“Accelerate to attack speed. This is going to be strictly hit-and-run.” Thelea held her breath a moment, calming the pounding of her heart. Panic would serve no purpose. If they were going to die, and all the odds seemed to point to that, they might as well go out quickly, fighting. The black ship was growing in their viewports, blending eerily with the starscape around it. Some part of Thelea’s mind not occupied with flight wondered if that broken outline was intentional camouflage. As they drew closer she could see the short, stubby tubes of the turbolasers turning to track them.

“Why aren’t they firing?” Giriad probably hadn’t expected an answer, but Thelea provided one anyway.

“Either they haven’t seen us coming, don’t consider us a threat, or…”

“Or they’re after something else,” Rurik interrupted.

“I think you’re right. Aris Val, the destroyer is…”

Before Thelea could finish, Giriad overrode the comm circuit. “Lead, watch out!” A nanosecond too late, Thelea twisted the yoke of her fighter and tried to turn. A blast of blue-white energy exploded from what she’d thought were cluster traps on the destroyer’s side and slammed into her fighter. Inertia slammed her back into her seat as the Interceptor abruptly ceased its forward motion and knocked the breath from her lungs. The force of the explosion blew the fighter back, and the electromagnetic energy had fried her instrumentation, leaving her without fire control, a targeting computer, or any navigational abilities.

“Gamma Two, do you copy?” The silence on the comlink was more unnerving than the jamming had been.

Thelea sighed and settled back in her seat. At least the destroyer seemed to have lost interest in her, and the momentum from the blow was carrying her crippled fighter away from the alien ship. Through the cockpit screen she could see Rurik and Giriad evade and regroup, diving after her fighter. Not me, she thought, willing them to hear her, not me, get to the freighter! As her ship rotated she could see the Aris Val flashing in and out of her line vision. The freighter was turning slowly, painfully slowly, to get out of the destroyer’s path. Rurik and Giriad, slowing to flanking speed, had taken up defensive positions along side her, matching the slow tumble of her fighter away from the larger ships.

She realized why they were attending to her. The Aris Val, limping towards the edge of the gravity well, was not going to be any match for the alien warship. Already, she could see that the destroyer’s forward gun batteries were coming to bear on the freighter. Thelea fought the urge to close her eyes…

And in a brilliant flash of the blue-white lasers, the freighter was reduced to so much space dust. Thelea felt a wrenching in her chest, a gripping, vise-like pain that surged and then abated as the remains of the Aris Val drifted apart, expanding into a gaseous cloud. Before the particles had even fully dispersed, the destroyer began to turn, and she braced for the explosion she knew was coming.

It didn’t. Instead, the ship vanished in the same cloud of energy through which it had arrived, and they were alone. Totally alone, with no hyperdrive, no nav computer, and one of starfighters badly crippled, at the edge of the Outer Rim. For all they knew, they were in what the Empire called the Unknown Regions. Thelea sighed…that would be all she needed, a patrol fleet from homeworld stumbling across them. Rurik and Giriad might make it, but they’d vape her in a standard second.

A faint buzzing in her ear and a flicker of light on the dark control panel alerted her that some systems were coming back on-line. Tentatively, she keyed for the comlink. Almost immediately she was rewarded with the voice of Rurik Caelin shouting in her ear.

“Lead, do you copy? Thelea, are you all right?”

“Rurik, shut up! If her comm’s not working, shouting won’t help.”

“Both of you, settle down.” There was a lot of background static, but at least things seemed to be working. “I think the computer’s starting to repair itself.”

“Thelea, thank the stars! I thought…”

She interrupted Rurik quickly, and she wasn’t sure why. “I’m fine. That energy pulse shorted the ship’s systems, but I think everything should work. I’m going to have to drain the lasers, though, to conserve power.”

She matched action to words and then asked, “I don’t know if I really want an answer, but does anyone know where we are?”

Rurik knew what she meant…was there an inhabited system within sublight distance, or were they going to die slowly as their life support systems were drained? “From what the Aris Val’s computer could determine before…well, before, we’re in the Dhregan system. It’s right on the edge of known space. There’re no planets, just a gas giant, but there seems to be some kind of settlement on the outermost moon. That’s all the computer gave me, so I don’t know if it’s friendly or not.”

“At best, we could land and wait until someone comes looking for us.” Assuming anyone will come looking for us. Thelea kept that part of the thought to herself.

Giriad’s voice sounded hollow, although that might have been the damaged comm. “Did you see what happened? Who was that ship?”

Thelea didn’t know any more than he did, but she had a few more suspicions. “Whoever they were, they were waiting for us. Right now I’d rather worry about living to report back about it.”

“They must have thought we were as good as dead,” Rurik thought aloud. “Why else would they leave us alive?”

“Let’s just do our best to disappoint them, all right?” Thelea said. “Rurik, give our computers the coordinates for that moon and let’s see about getting out of here.”

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The yellow-green gas giant Dhregan was not as large or impressive as the red gas giant Yavin, but it’s moons easily outshone that Rimworld’s in color and beauty. The two nearest the planet glinted with red and gold hues from minerals on the barren surfaces. The next two moons were as pale as the inner satellites were brilliant, sparkling with the ice and snow of frozen oceans. The fifth and outermost moon looked closer to a habitable world, showing a pale green and blue surface through a thin layer of gray clouds.

“Atmosphere seems breathable,” Giriad commented quietly. He hadn’t spoken much on the long flight into the system.

“I’m more worried about that satellite there. It looks like a security beacon.” Thelea couldn’t help the strangely exposed feeling. Without its laser cannons, the Interceptor was little more than a flying shell, its only defense was speed and maneuverability, both of which had suffered with the battle damage. “I hope they don’t mind visitors.”

“I hope they don’t mind Imperial visitors,” Rurik said, and that was closer to the point. “Some Rim worlds aren’t friendly to us.”

“Some Rim worlds aren’t friendly to anyone,” Thelea noted, “and I don’t relish the thought of being blown out of the sky after making it this far.” On her scanners, she noted a small satellite in a geostationary orbit above the lights of a city. “That must be the spaceport. That looks like a tracking satellite. Shall we ask to land?”

“Take it away, Commander.” Rurik’s usual flippant tone couldn’t hide the undertone of tension.

“Dhregash control, this is…” and then Thelea paused. She’d been about to give her Imperial rank and designation. Instead, she switched to a more casual tone of voice. “This is Commander Thelea tal Kyrn, leader of Renegade Squadron Alpha. We hear this is a good place not to be found.”

There was a squeak on the squadron frequency, probably Giriad bursting a blood vessel. “Um, Commander,” Rurik began. “What are you…”

“Rurik, do us all a favor and shut up.” Thelea waited for a reply from the port authority. “Control, are you…”

“Imperial fighters, this is Dhregash control,” said a strangely lilting alien voice. “You will deviate from your approach and withdraw from Dhregash space. This is your only warning.”

“Control, maybe I didn’t make myself clear. We’re looking for someplace to lie low for a while. We don’t want to cause you any problems.” Thelea kept her voice modulated and cool, perhaps too cool.

“Thelea, maybe you’d better let me do the talking,” Rurik suggested.

“You think we do not know that Interceptors cannot travel alone,” the alien voice said. “You must leave this system. Now.”

With that, the “tracking station” opened fire.

“Sithspawn!” The curse was out before Rurik could think and he was spiraling his fighter into an evasive maneuver. Giriad matched him turn for turn, but Thelea’s crippled craft was too damaged to attempted any complex evasions. “Thelea, break right on my mark and head planet side. We’ll cover you.”

“Who died and left you in charge?” Even as she snapped at him she was turning her fighter to obey.

“You will, if you don’t get out of here!” Rurik snapped, firing a quick burst as the tracking station as Giriad flew a decoy pattern above him.

Thelea didn’t need to be told twice. “Stay right behind me,” she ordered, “we don’t want to get split up.” Then, draining what remaining computer power she could spare to the engines, she dove for the planet’s atmosphere. This wasn’t going to be easy…Interceptors could, when necessary, fly in atmosphere, but they really weren’t intended for crash-landings while battle-damaged. Worse, atmospheric insertions weren’t easy when both ion engines were functioning at capacity. If she was extremely lucky, she wouldn’t bounce off into space, but in all likelihood, she’d be burned to a crisp before she hit the ground.

A too-close bolt from the defense satellite rocked her Interceptor and the computer screen flickered ominously. Thelea drew in a slow, steadying breath and pointed the fighter down at one of the greener sections of the continent. Reflected glare off the atmosphere lit the cockpit as the planet’s surface grew ever larger, filling her field of view. As the tiny fighter entered the air, the force of the impact made the craft shudder and rock. A shooting pain burned up Thelea’s arms as the vibrations of the control yoke made every bone rattle. A dull red glow was beginning around the tips of the Interceptor’s wings, and she prayed silently to whatever powers might care that none of the damage had been to the craft’s heat paneling. She had to pull out of the dive, but the angle of fall was so steep that the ship wouldn’t respond. She didn’t even know if Rurik and Giriad were behind her…reentry was scrambling their comm frequency.

The view ahead was turning from a green blur into distinct features; low, rolling hills, scattered forests, rivers that appeared from within rock, ran a crooked course and then vanished again, narrow gorges, and in the distance the rounded peaks of ancient mountains. Thelea took this in at a glance and then settled on a relatively flat space near the edge of one of the woods. She drew back on the control yoke, hoping the thickness of the air near the ground had slowed her descent, but the fighter still screamed towards the planet’s surface. Fear began to creep up from somewhere within her, and for a moment she surrendered to it, bracing for impact…

And then anger replaced the fear. If I die now, whoever set up the Aris Val wins. Whoever ambushed us wins. Drawing on reserves she didn’t know she possessed, she leaned back against the weight of the fighter, eyes shut, visualizing the repulsors, useless in space, that had to function now. Her arms ached with the effort, her teeth ground together, and slowly, the Interceptor’s nose came up and the angle eased.

“Nice flying, Lead. Didn’t think you were going to make it.”

Thelea opened her eyes slowly, in time to see Rurik and Giriad race past above her. “Neither did I.” They’d come out of the superheated air of reentry, and the comm seemed to be working again. “That hilltop over there…”

“We see it. Following you in, Lead,” Rurik said.

For the first time in quite a while, Giriad spoke. “Hey, Caelin!”

“What?” Thelea cocked a blue-black eyebrow behind her face shield.

“What do you mean, if Thelea dies, you’re in charge?” Giriad sounded almost convincingly belligerent, but more miffed than anything else. “We’re both Lieutenants. I could just as easily be in charge as you.”

Rurik snorted. “I’m Gamma Two. That means that if anything happens to Lead, I’m next in line.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. That just means you fly to her right in formations!”

“It is standard procedure that the next lowest number is the next to take command,” Thelea offered, hoping they couldn’t hear the laugh threatening to break through.

“Besides, Giriad, I could just see you in charge,” Rurik added. “ ‘Wait a sec while I consult my Academy handbook!’” He actually managed a convincing imitation of Giriad’s Core world accent.

“Better than, ‘Gee, that looks interesting, let’s shoot it,’ like you, Rimworlder!”

“Boys, boys,” Thelea sighed, now biting her lip to keep from laughing. “Let’s get these ships on the ground. We can worry about who my hypothetical replacement is later.”

“Aye-aye, sir!” Rurik said, and she saw his fighter’s solar panels waggle in the pilot’s equivalent of a smart-aleck salute. She was very glad he couldn’t see the smile behind her mask.

Chapter Three

 

 

Thelea struggled out of the heavy life-support harness and stretched her arms out above her head. Free of the extra weight, her back straightened and grateful muscles relaxed in relief. “At least the air’s breathable.”

Rurik, poised atop his fighter and scanning their surroundings, said, “So far, that’s about all this place has going for it.”

Giriad, sitting atop the rounded cockpit of his Interceptor, sneered, “I would think you’d be right at home, Rurik.”

“Drop dead.” Rurik jumped down from the wing strut he’d been using as a vantage point. “There’s nothing around for a good ways. Looks like they figure we’re as good as dead.”

“Let’s keep it that way for a while, all right?” Thelea suggested. She looked at her fighter and grimaced. “I don’t think we’re going anywhere any time soon.” She tugged open the survival kit she’d retrieved from beneath her seat. “I wonder what they put in these things.”

“Given that most TIEs don’t survive crashes, probably not much.” Rurik had already started investigating his. “Let’s see…a couple flash-starters. At least those might come in handy for a fire tonight.”

“I have those, plus a survival cape. Three emergency ration packs, probably expired. Oh, and an emergency glow rod.”

“Same here, minus the cape,” Giriad said. “Someone ought to start checking these more often.”

“I wonder what would kill us faster,” Rurik mused, “starvation or what’s in these ration packs.”

“We ought to see about some kind of shelter, a little removed from these fighters,” Thelea said, ignoring the gripes. She studied the three Interceptors, awkwardly perched on their solar panels like unstable insects. “If someone’s looking for us, they’ll spot these first.”

“Too bad the kits don’t have camo nets.” Rurik repacked the kit and slung it over his shoulder. “Should we ditch the flight suits, too?”

“So long as you’re wearing something underneath them.” There were always jokes, rumors and simple crude stories around the fighter wings about what went under the flight suits the pilots wore. Thelea had never put much stock in them, but faced with the prospect of finding out, she sincerely hoped they were only stories. “I’m getting rid of mine, anyway.” She proceeded to match actions to words, conscious of Rurik’s comical attempt at a lewd grin and Giriad’s deliberately averted eyes. “I’m wearing off-duty gear underneath, gentlemen. Please control yourselves.”

Rurik chuckled. “It’s taking a lot of willpower, Commander.” Following her lead, he shed his own heavy flight gear, revealing a utilitarian khaki shirt and trousers underneath. “I think we ought to take the utility belts from the flight suits.”

“Probably a good idea. You both have blasters?” They nodded, and Thelea scrambled up the side of her fighter's cockpit. “Won’t be a moment.” Her black shift, belted at the waist, and the black trousers were much easier for climbing than the heavy suit had been. She found the little niche where she’d secured her personal weapon and retrieved it, clipping the silver handle to her belt.

“What’s that?” Rurik pointed to her new accessory.

Thelea hesitated. She’d never shown anyone the gift Mith’raw’nuruodo had sent her before he left for the Unknown Regions, the gift he’d sent on behalf of her mother, or so he claimed. She wasn’t sure how to use it, or whether she even could. A few hours of clandestine examination, here and there, when she could get away, did not qualify her as an expert. Still, if she needed it, better to explain it now…

“It was a gift…a legacy, really, from someone I never knew. You have to swear you’ll never tell anyone about this, though. I could be in serious trouble.” I could get killed.

“We promise,” Rurik said quickly, trying not to think exactly how illegal that might be. “Right, Giriad?”

“Right,” But their wingmate sounded less certain.

“Fine.” Thelea unhooked the handle from her belt. Hoping she didn’t push the wrong button and accidentally blow them up, or whatever this was capable of, she touched the smooth black button that sat just above her thumb when she held it in a comfortable grip. Rurik leapt backwards from her as the pale gold, incandescent blade appeared between them. The low hum rose and fell from the Doppler effect as she turned the weapon for their examination.

Giriad’s eyes went wide. “Is that what I think it is?”

Rurik drew in a slow, long, breath. “I didn’t think I’d ever see one.”

“It’s a lightsaber.” They had already figured that out, but she needed to say it out loud, more to convince herself.

“Where did you get that?” Rurik breathed, still transfixed by the glowing blade.

Thelea shrugged uneasily. “As I said, it was a legacy.”

“Your mother was a…” Giriad couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“A Jedi?” Again she shrugged. “I said a long time ago, I never knew my parents. I don’t even know their names.”

“Isn’t knowing your own name a start?” Rurik asked. When he had first met Thelea three years ago, she had gone by the surname tal Kyrn, which was apparently the equivalent of having no name at all. Her race seemed to set great store by their families, and she had been very happy when Vice Admiral Thrawn had told her that her name was…Rurik still stumbled mentally over the rolling alien syllables.

Thelea shrugged. “I know who my mother’s family must have been. That doesn’t help a lot.” She touched the button again and the lightsaber’s blade vanished. “In any case, none of that is relevant at the moment. We have to figure out how to get off this planet without getting killed in the process.”

“Announcing that we’re Imperial officers and demanding aid doesn’t seem like the best idea, does it?” Rurik asked, leaning against the solar panel of his fighter.

“Not given our reception, no. And I think it’s obvious that my fighter, at least, isn’t going anywhere any time soon.” Thelea settled down to a crouching position, supporting herself on her fighter. “We’re going to have to find another way off-planet.”

“There’s no way we have enough money to buy passage, even if there were someone who’d fly us to Imperial space.” Giriad sighed, looking almost comically dolefully at the thought of money. “I’d bet they wouldn’t take Imperial credits, anyway.”

“Out here, you need hard currency…real metal, or goods, to trade,” Rurik said with confidence born of a Rim upbringing. “I don’t think we’re in a very good bargaining position.”

“What do we have that we could trade?” Giriad asked.

Thelea’s glowing eyes looked upwards. “Much as I hate to say it, what about our fighters?”

Giriad turned white. “We can’t sell them! That’s theft of Imperial property!”

“And the Empire will be any better off if we die on this rock and they’re left to scavengers? Be serious, Giriad,” Thelea snapped. “We have to survive and report back. Otherwise who will know what happened to the Aris Val?”

“Thelea's right.” Rurik put in his two credit’s worth. “Besides, if we don’t sell them or their parts and we never get off this rock, the fleet loses the fighters anyway. See?”

“I guess.” Giriad sounded less than certain.

Thelea sighed audibly. “That solves our first and smallest problem. The next is how do we find a buyer without attracting too much attention? If we fly into the spaceport we’re liable to get blasted to pieces. If we leave the fighters here, someone might find them.”

“I could stay here and keep guard,” Giriad volunteered immediately, sounding a little too enthusiastic.

“That scares me even more.” Much as it irked her, he did have a point. Leaving the fighters unattended was asking for trouble. Leaving Giriad alone seemed much the same thing, but on the other hand she and Rurik were far less likely to be noticed in a Rimworld spaceport, and someone had to guard the fighters. “However, it just might be the best plan.”

“Huh?” Rurik couldn’t help the surprised exclamation.

“He has a point,” Thelea said. “Someone has to guard the fighters. You and I will stand the best chance of not being noticed. We can bargain for the fighters and then come back for him.” She frowned at the sky, which was turning a deep indigo on the horizon. “We will, however, have to do that tomorrow. We’d best get a camp set up. I, for one, am not sleeping in my fighter.”

Thelea used the lightsaber to cut some of the branches from the woods for a fire. In the back of her mind she wondered if it was respectful to use a lightsaber to chop wood. She decided that the saber’s old owner probably wouldn’t care anymore, so she shouldn’t worry about it, either. Rurik then used one of the flash-starters to get the branches burning, and Giriad demonstrated a surprising knack for warming the ration packs over the fire and making them if not palatable, at least edible. He snorted derisively at their surprise: “What, you don’t think we have camping on Ashera?”

Thelea didn’t argue with him. She broke off a piece of the bar and nibbled at the corner. At least heating it seemed to dissipate the flavor. “How are we going to get to a settlement tomorrow?”

Rurik shrugged. “We can always try to fit two of us into a fighter.”

“No thanks. That’s a little too tight.” There was no way they’d fit, not without being more than too close for Thelea’s comfort. “Do either of you have a pair of macrobinoculars?”

Rurik went prowling in his fighter’s emergency kit again. “I don’t know how old these are or how well they’ll work, but here they are.”

The pair was small and hopelessly outdated, but they did work. Thelea scanned the rolling horizon, and sure enough, the macrobinoc’s sensors picked up heat blooms large enough to be settlements. A few were even visible through the woods. “The largest city seems to be that way, about…” She squinted to read the painfully small readout. “Ten klicks. It’ll take us most of the day on foot.”

Giriad smirked. “Have fun.”

Thelea turned a frighteningly unreadable stare on him. “While we’re gone, Lieutenant Quoris, you can see what can be done to repair the fighters. All three of them.” His face fell, and she turned back to Rurik. “We’ll need to keep a low profile.”

“With all due respect, Commander,” Rurik said in that irritating mock-respectful voice, “that isn’t going to be easy. You don’t exactly blend in well with the crowd.”

Thelea lifted an eyebrow and fixed the glittering red gaze on him. “We are near what you call the Unknown Regions, Rurik. You may find that you’re the one who does not blend in.” She shook out the survival cape from her fighter’s kit and wrapped it around her shoulders. “I can use this tomorrow, too. It should obscure my face enough that I won’t attract too much attention. Chiss females don’t travel off-world often, but when we do we usually cover our faces.”

“Chiss?” That was when she noticed she’d slipped. Rurik's attention was fully on her now. “Is that what your…people…call themselves?”

Thelea muttered a thousand curses to whatever gods might be paying attention, and sighed. “It’s who we are, yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Rurik couldn’t help the hurt tone and tried to cover with indignity. “I’ve known you three years. Don’t you trust me?” He didn’t notice his slip from the plural to the singular, but Thelea did. “I’d think that you’d at least tell me that much.”

“We don’t like to talk about ourselves to offworlders.” She pulled the cloak tighter about herself. “We’re a very private race.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Rurik countered.

“I’m hiding out, if you must know,” she snapped, losing her composure as much as she ever did. “Our world is not an easy place to be an orphan. If you don’t mind, let’s change the topic, all right? We have more important things to do than discuss xenoanthropology.”

Rurik would have disagreed with her, but he knew her too well. She might get out the lightsaber and use him for practice, and she might not. With Thelea one could never tell. “Anyway, we have to have something to use for walking-around money. Do you have anything small we could sell?”

“Nothing.” Casually, their eyes turned to Giriad.

He squirmed uneasily. “Why are you looking at me?”

“You are the wealthy son of a disenfranchised computer magnate. You must have something valuable that we could sell.” Rurik eyed Giriad speculatively. The other was wearing khaki fatigues similar to what Rurik had on, and the pockets did look empty. “Come on, nothing?”

“Well…” He shifted edgily. “I kind of have this.” Digging into his pocket, he produced a flat credit chit. Rurik had lunged for it faster than even Thelea could have moved.

“This is for a thousand credits! Why didn’t you tell us you had this?”

“It never came up!” Giriad protested. “It was supposed to be for emergencies. I guess this qualifies.”

“You can say that again.” Rurik turned the silver card over in his hands. “This should do fine for walking around.”

“You’re assuming they’ll take more kindly to Imperial credits than they did to Imperial fighters,” Thelea pointed out quietly. “You did say they’d like hard currency.” That cast a damper on the conversation for a few minutes.

“Maybe we could trade it for local currency.” Rurik didn’t sound quite as confident as he had.

“Someone will likely want it,” Thelea agreed, “although whether they’ll trade or simply take it remains to be seen.” The light was fading, and the aquamarine sky was darkening to violet. “I suggest we take turns getting some sleep. Who wants to take first watch?” The only sound was the crackling from the dwindling fire. “Don’t all volunteer at once. I’ll do it, and I’ll wake one of you in a few hours.”

“Which one?” Giriad asked suspiciously, undoubtedly sensing unfairness and seeking to head it off, as always.

“Whichever I’m feeling more annoyed with. It’s my prerogative as your commanding officer.” Thelea pulled her cloak tight. “Now get some sleep, both of you. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

It didn’t take Giriad long to obey, but she could see across the dwindling fire that Rurik's eyes remained open long after she’d ended the conversation. Neither spoke quite some time. Thelea let her gaze rest on the sparking red-gold embers of the fire, so close in glowing color to her eyes. In the trees beyond the edge of their little encampment, she could hear branches and leaves rustling, and the eerie wails and whistles of night creatures on the prowl. She tossed another log onto the dying fire and the sparks shot upward.

“Thelea?”

She looked across the fire to Rurik. His dark eyes were still wide open and he showed no signs of falling asleep. “What is it, Rurik?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

She resisted the urge to correct his grammar and said, “What?”

“Your eyes. Do you see things the way we do? Humans, I mean.”

It wasn’t the worst question he could have asked. At the Academy, she’d heard far worse from her instructors and cadre commanders every day. “I don’t know how you see. I’ve never seen out of a human’s eyes.”

He propped himself up on an elbow. “Well, the fire. What color are the coals to you?”

“Red.”

“Then you do see the same way.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. I see what I call red. My concept of red and your concept of red may not be the same. Also, I may just be using the closest Basic word I can find for a concept that doesn’t translate well. You would have to literally look through my eyes to know whether I see things the way you do.”

Rurik frowned. “But if I call it red, and you call it red, then wouldn’t you say that we see the same thing, at least close enough that it doesn’t matter?”

“Even if red looks the same to us, maybe red doesn’t mean the same thing to both of us.” What was it about fires that brought out the philosopher in people? Whether she saw the same as a human or not, she certainly was getting the same kind of headache. “What brought that on, anyway?”

He shrugged. “I’ve just wondered about that, but I never really had a chance to ask before. Back on the ship…well, it would be out of line.”

“I am still your commanding officer, you know,” she said mildly. “Even out of uniform, on planets that are stars-only-know-where in the Rim.”

“I know.” Picking up a long twig, he poked at the embers and watched the sparks fly upward. “Maybe I was hoping after you go to sleep, you’d forget I asked. But then you don’t sleep, do you?”

She’d had enough comparative biology for one night. “Not exactly. You do. Go to sleep, Caelin. We have a very long walk tomorrow.”

He rolled over so his back was to her, and for a few minutes she thought he had gone to sleep. Then, faintly, a voice asked, “Thelea?”

Valiantly resisting the urge to shoot him where he lay, she asked, “Yes, Rurik?”

“About your skin…”

“Good night, Rurik. Say another word and I’ll make you and Giriad go into the city and I’ll stay here.”

For the rest of the night, their camp was blissfully silent.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The walking was not that difficult…the hills were rolling, but not too steep if you watched where you stepped and avoided the sinkholes. The spacious grassland was a little too open for Thelea’s taste, though. The azure sky stretched out forever, meeting the horizon in every direction. The hilly terrain prevented her from seeing too far ahead, but provided an illusion of openness that could be dangerous. An opponent could sneak up on them too easily. Her holdout blaster was back at her side, her lightsaber hidden under her tunic. Even here, walking around with a weapon from an outlawed religion might not be the most prudent course of action.

Thelea was leading the way, her brown cloak fluttering behind her in the breeze, while Rurik brought up the rear. Where Thelea opted for subtle weaponry, Rurik had a Rimworld sensibility. His DL-44 was questionably legal by Imperial standards, but it worked. The credit chit was tucked securely in his breast pocket, less a testament to her trust in him than to the fact that her tunic didn’t have pockets. Rurik couldn’t actually complain about Thelea…she had certainly been more talkative in the past twenty-four standard hours than she’d been in almost the past three years.

Not today, or so it seemed. Twice he’d tried to engage her in the most inane of conversations, once about the weather and once about the open spaces around them. She hadn’t responded to his first attempt, and to his second, she’d snapped, “Save your breath for walking, Caelin,” and then followed her own advice. If human females were a mystery to him, so much more of an enigma was Thelea, and she wasn’t helping him at all to figure her out.

Then, in the distance, he caught the glitter of metal reflecting the sun. “Does that look like what I think it looks like?”

Thelea raised the macrobinocs and focused on the source of the reflected light. “That looks like buildings, all right. Not much, but it is something.”

“I just hope they have food. Another one of these ration bars and I’m going to choke.”

“No one’s forcing you to eat them.”

Rurik ground his teeth…audibly, he was sure, but he was past caring by this point. “Well, I do prefer them to starvation. Some of us have to eat, you know. Some of us aren’t carved out of duracrete. Some of us are human.”

That stung, maybe a little more than he’d intended. She started walking faster. Technically, since he was a head taller, he should have been able to overtake her easily. Instead he was taking two steps to her one and still not keeping up. “Thelea, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m tired. Damn it, we’ve walked almost ten klicks, all day, and you only stopped twice. How can I help being angry?”

“It’s not much farther now.” She didn’t look back. Her voice sounded very alien, very cold. “I’m sure someone will have something you can eat.”

“Thelea, I didn’t mean it!”

She stopped dead in her tracks and he nearly collided with her. “I’m not angry, Rurik. Why would I be? You are absolutely right. I am not human. You are. Perhaps I’ve more stamina than you. I’ve never stopped to wonder. Would you like to sit down? Perhaps you do need to rest.”

“Thelea, I’m fine. I didn’t mean any of that. I’m just tired. I’ll be fine when we get indoors.” He drew in a long, steadying breath and willed his cramping legs to stop their protest. Thelea didn’t reply. Great. Just great. Just when she starts to open up, you go and stick your foot all the way down your throat, never mind your mouth. He grimaced and followed her over the next hill.

The town was a collection of small buildings made from red clay earth and baked in the sun. There was, much to their surprise, a spaceport…a small one, to be sure, with only a few, short-range shuttles, but it was a start. “We could at least get an airspeeder to the main spaceport and get transport there.”

Rurik couldn’t help a longing look at what was unmistakably a tavern near the spaceport. “Thelea…”

She might have rolled her eyes. With her it was difficult to tell. “All right. I did say we could get food.” Pulling the cowl of her cloak tight about her face, she turned in the tavern’s direction.

The dark, smoky room was not crowded…given the size of the settlement, that wasn’t surprising. What did surprise Rurik was the range of alien life. Besides himself there were perhaps two humans in the tavern, one at the bar and the other in a corner booth. Among the alien races, he recognized a feline Togorian and one of the cream-furred Bothans, looking considerably less elegant than those to be found in Imperial Center’s trade exchanges. The other aliens were a mystery to him, ranging from a serpentine creature with metallic green scales who seemed to breathe through a filter mask to a pale-skinned, wispy white-haired creature who studied him with pearlescent white eyes before returning to his…her…drink.

Thelea seemed nonplused, but he couldn’t see her face so he wasn’t sure. She strode to bar confidently enough, anyway. “Excuse me.” Her voice was lower than usual and her accent strange.

The bartender, a short, gray-skinned alien with slitted greenish eyes set into a bulbous head, turned slowly to face her. “Yesss?” it lisped through a lip-less mouth. “How can I serve?” He had the same accent as the Dhageshi controller had.

“We’re looking for transport off-world,” Thelea said quietly. “Do you know where we can find it?”

The green eyes narrowed even further, if that was possible. “Chiss, are you? The flight into Chiss space is dangerous, very dangerous. Not many pilots would risk that, not without much money.”

Rurik thought he saw Thelea cringe, but he couldn’t be sure. “We want to go the other direction, actually. We need transport to an Imperial world.”

The creature’s eyes darkened. “Imperial, you say? Very dangerous, very dangerous. No one here would take you, I tell you that right now. Perhaps you reconsider your destination, yes?”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that. Are there any pilots here? Perhaps they would consider our offer.”

“Perhapsss. But I doubt it.” He gestured with a thin, tentacle-like appendage. “Some of those are pilots. You would like something to drink?”

She glanced at Rurik, and he nodded. “Whatever’s good and safe for humans,” she told the bartender. “We have only Imperial credits, though.”

“Creditsss?” The bartender seemed to be considering this. “We don’t see many of those here. Something to trade, perhaps?”

“Nothing that would interest you.” Not in this lifetime are we losing a weapon here.

The bartender’s eyes widened, and the tentacle wavered slightly. “Well…credits can be traded. Others would not be so generous. But you are new to our world. I will give you a deal…two Imperials to one local.”

Thelea frowned. “Even trade.”

“That isss not the exchange.” The eyes narrowed. Rurik began to shift uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“I’m afraid we cannot afford a two-one exchange. Two to one and a half.” Her voice was level.

So was the bartender’s. “Two to one or we have no deal.”

A new voice suddenly broke into the conversation. “One to one will be fine.” The voice was soft and female, and it came from the hooded figure who had been seated in the far corner. Somehow she had approached them without making a sound. The bar was not so loud that they would have missed her approach.

Her appearance had an odd effect on the bartender to say the least. “One to one will be fine,” he echoed, his eyes widening blankly.

“Give them their money now.”

“I will give you your money now.” He took the credit chit and went to make the exchange.

Rurik and Thelea stared at their benefactor. She wore a dark brown robe with a cowled hood that concealed her features. Her hands were folded back into her sleeves, resting in front of her. “Thank you,” Thelea managed to say. “May I ask…”

The woman reached up and pushed back the cowl of her hood. “My name is Aleishia,” she said. Her motion revealed the face of a human woman, lined more by stress than by age. Her dark eyes cut piercingly into Rurik’s, and he would swear he was being somehow measured. Her hair was dark brown, save a lock starting above her left brow that was silver-white.

Thelea shivered. “My name is Thelea. This is Rurik.” Her voice was oddly constrained. She was obviously shaken as well by this strange woman.

“Please, excuse Soldas’ tight-fisted behavior. He’s not really a bad sort, but out here it’s a stretch to make ends meet. Not like it is on Coruscant.”

Rurik blinked. He knew the old name of Imperial Center, of course, people on the Rim still tossed it about occasionally, but he’d never heard anyone just say it before, as if that was its name and always would be. “Yeah, well, it’s not always easy to get along there, either.”

“You talk like a Rimworlder,” Aleishia noted, but her odd dark eyes had never left Thelea. Rurik felt a surge of…envy? Jealousy? It had taken him months, years even, to be able to look Thelea in her glowing eyes without flinching. This strange woman met Thelea’s gaze straight on after only minutes, looking confident enough to stare down Grand Admiral Thrawn himself.

“Thank you for your help,” Thelea said. Between the manners of her so-called “guardians” on homeworld and the discipline of the Academy, the manners superceded even her surprise. “I do not wish to seem ungrateful, but what do you want?”

For some reason, Aleishia seemed to find that highly amusing. “What makes you think I want anything? Maybe I just felt like helping two off-worlders out of a jam.”

“You live here, then?” Rurik asked.

She shrugged a little. “Now and then. I’ve lived a lot of places. Enough to know when someone is out of their depth.”

Thelea bristled. “We appreciate your help, but not the insults.” The bartender returned then, and placed a stack of silver square-shaped coins on the bar in front of them. Thelea scooped them up and made a pretense of counting them. “As I said before…two drinks, whatever won’t kill humans.”

“Try the jhalrhi,” Aleishia suggested, and the bartender went to get the drinks. “It’s something like a dry kaeral wine, but a little sweeter.”

Thelea made a slight grimace. “Hopefully you mean a good year, not…” Then she remembered. “How did you ever happen to have kaeral wine? As far as I know, we’ve never traded that off-world. No human’s ever…” She stopped; she was starting to babble. “How did you…”

Aleishia smiled serenely. “I’m very well-traveled.” The drinks arrived and Rurik took a tentative swallow from his.

“This isn’t bad,” he commented. “Better than the officers' mess.”

“That’s not very difficult.” The drink did in fact taste something like a young, sweet kaeral wine, a taste that brought back memories, not entirely pleasant.

Rurik forced his attention back to their benefactor. “So, how did you end up here? I mean, we crashed. Are you actually here of your own free will?”

Aleishia smiled thinly. “Not entirely.” Her gaze rested a moment on her folded hands. “I’m not entirely welcome where I come from.”

Thelea was watching her surreptitiously. There was something very unusual about this Aleishia, something oddly familiar about her. The feeling was not unlike that which had overcome her when Thrawn had confronted her with the hologram of the medallion aboard his old flagship. Then she’d caught a glimpse of herself, being carried by a woman wearing the gem. Now, another memory was surfacing dimly, even more clouded…She was very, very, cold and afraid, and she knew that something was terribly wrong. She was crying, not like humans did, with tears, but sobbing nonetheless. No one was coming…why weren’t they coming? Someone always came when she cried…Then there was a face, a woman’s, framed by brown, always brown she was, and her presence was always sad. The woman picked her up, crooning to her in that strange, alien tongue and whispering how she had to be brave, how very brave she would have to be…

Thelea blinked; Aleishia was speaking again. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

Aleishia smiled patiently. “I was asking how you came to be here. What are Imperial starfighter pilots doing so far from their own territory?”

“As I said, we crashed…”

Aleishia cut her off. “I meant so far from the Empire.”

“We are, I might remind you, still within the Empire’s jurisdiction,” Rurik said.

Aleishia flung back her head and laughed, revealing pearlescent, somewhat crooked teeth. “Really, Lieutenant? I find that quite hard to believe. If you’re so confident of the Empire’s supremacy here, why are you both out of uniform and inquiring in cantinas for pilots?”

Thelea shot Rurik a glare. “To tell the truth, we weren’t supposed to be here at all. We were part of a convoy and the freighter we were escorting was destroyed. We have our fighters, but we’d never make it back to Imperial space with them.” She realized that she had no business telling a civilian, any civilian, about their problem. They were Imperial officers. Strangely, that didn’t seem to matter.

“How was the freighter destroyed?” Aleishia interrupted. Her dark eyes were suddenly intense.

Rurik spoke before Thelea could frame a reply. “I’ve never seen a ship like it. They yanked us out of hyperspace and disabled the fighters before they killed the freighter…and even the Death Star couldn’t have done that! It just fired one blast.” He shuddered, remembering the sparkling dust of the Aris Val spreading across the starscape.

Aleishia leaned forward intently. “What did the ship look like?” Thelea found herself flinching from those seemingly ordinary human eyes. “A dark ship, with no real shape?”

Thelea shook her head. “No, no, this ship had a shape…there were spines. It reminded me of an insect.”

Aleishia nodded slowly, her gaze fixed on the bar’s grimy surface. “Yes, that would be right.”

“You know who these…people…are?” Another Imperial might have automatically said “these aliens.” Technically that would be correct. After three years with Thelea, Rurik had learned to be careful.

Suddenly the older woman was evasive, her face becoming a stern, smooth mask. “I’ve heard traders tell stories about such ships preying on those who venture too far from the trading lanes. I’ve never heard of Imperials encountering them before.”

“But you have?” Rurik asked. There was something he distinctly disliked about this strange woman. Her face was serene to the point of being carved in marble. Her dark eyes, on first assessment calm and steady, seemed suddenly veiled to him. “Who are they?”

There was a long pause. “They have no name.” Her voice was barely a whisper. Then, abruptly, she drew herself up to her full height-not considerable, although she was perhaps half an inch taller than Thelea. “Do you have a place to stay the night?”

The change of subject threw them for only an instant. “We hadn’t planned on staying here the night,” Thelea began. “We hoped…”

“To get to the spaceport?” Aleishia laughed. “No one will be leaving until tomorrow. It’s late, and besides, you must both be tired.” She set her glass down with a firm crack. “Come along. I’ve plenty of room for you both. Tomorrow we can worry about finding you transport, and about retrieving your companion. I’m sure he can’t be enjoying himself out on the plains. Now come with me. You’ve had a long day, and you need your rest.”

Rurik was quite tired, he realized…the sweet wine was numbing the ache in his legs, but not dispelling it. His eyes had been wide open, but now the lids felt as though they were three times their normal weight. A look at Thelea revealed, much to his surprise, that she, too, seemed to be drooping, her shoulders slumped and her red eyes perhaps a bit dull of their usual glow. “She has a point, Thelea.”

“Yes,” and there was no mistaking the drowsy tone in her voice, “she may have at that. Aleishia, if you would extend your hospitality to us, you would have our and the Empire’s gratitude.”

Aleishia’s lip twisted. “Spare me the Empire’s thanks,” she said. “But I’ll accept yours. Come along, children.” With a gesture, she guided them toward the door. As they stumbled out, neither thought to wonder at the sudden offer of shelter from this near-stranger, and neither remembered that never once in their conversation had they  mentioned Giriad, waiting alone on the plain.

Chapter Four

 

 

Aleishia’s house, if one could call it that, was little more than a small room off of a seldom-traveled alley, with an alcove for sleeping and a small oven for warmth. The chunks of carbonized wood had dwindled down to faintly glowing coals and she stirred them idly with a long metal poker, watching the sparks race each other up the chimney pipe.

There was a rustling from the alcove, but she didn’t look up. Caelin, the human pilot, was still asleep, his thoughts drifting in that strange suspended state between dreams and full consciousness. Her dark eyes slowly turned to the figure seated beside the fire, slumped in her chair, the glowing eyes mere slits in the pale face. Aleishia smiled to herself. The Chiss might like to pretend that they didn’t need to sleep, but she knew from experience that was simple showmanship. Like almost every humanoid creature, they needed to rest-they simply did not need as much as humans. Mith’ele’arana, on the other hand, needed as much sleep as she could get at the moment, the older woman thought, and she poked the fire again.

Caelin stirred again, and she sent a silent suggestion his way, urging him back to deeper rest. She needed to think, and the young man did need to sleep as well. She wondered exactly how far they’d walked, but it would take more effort than she was willing to expend to lift the information from his mind. She didn’t dare try scanning Thelea. The girl was not trained, but she had potential, a great deal of potential. All that remained was someone to mold that potential.

Not while Palpatine lives.

Aleishia smiled and settled onto the low ottoman beside the stove. “Back again, are you?”

The voice was reproachful. Come now. You’re the one who always says we never really leave. I’m simply the most vocal.

“True enough.” There were others, one at least, Aleishia would dearly have loved to speak to, but they seemed to have completed their work and moved farther on. Still, company was company. “She’s come at last.”

Yes, I noticed that, the other said dryly. Are you going to tell her?

Aleishia ignored the question. “She carries the lightsaber. He kept at least one promise.”

There was a long silence, and, for a moment, she thought the other had gone. Finally, she said quietly, That is not fair and you know it. He did his best.

“Perhaps.” Aleishia let it go at that for a moment. It was sometimes nice to simply sit and enjoy the presence of a friend, insubstantial as that presence might be. If only Mihall…She shook her head firmly and pushed the thought from her mind. If he could, he would. Since he hadn’t, he couldn’t. That was that. There is no death, there is the Force.

You’re thinking about them again.

“Yes.’ Aleishia smiled wistfully. Mihall, dead more than forty years, Lissa taken nearly that long ago, poor brave Morgan and dear Milaeta, all the others, uncountable numbers, all like…

Like me? The voice was bemused.

“I suppose that’s true. And both our children lost to us.” Again her eyes drifted to Thelea’s form, slumped in the chair. “Shall I tell her?”

Oh, come now. Her voice was now derisive. You’re not going to, so why bother asking?

“It was only polite.” She smiled amiably. “She’s very much like you.”

With more sense, one might hope.

“If there’s any there, it must have come from her father.” There was a soft laugh, like the tinkle of crystal in the still air. “What?”

You, giving him credit? Aleishia could almost see the bemused smile. How remarkable.

“Force’s sake, child, I have nothing against his capabilities or intelligence,” she laughed. “It’s his personality I can’t stand.”

She sighed. I wish you had gotten along better. There was a wistful note to her voice. I wish…

“I know.” She cut the other off. “I understand. But did you come here to discuss old times or did you have something important to say? We’re starting to get maudlin.”

It’s about the freighter. You know who was responsible?

“They described it fairly well. There’s no doubt. They’re coming back, and they have their little henchmen playing around for them. Did you want I should tell them and have the Empire come rushing out here? All we need is Vader toying around with his fleet.”

Vader never toys around with anything. You should know that. There was a pause, and a shifting, as though the other were looking away for a moment. He won’t come.

“Too busy chasing rebels?”

Too busy chasing his son.

“Son?” Somewhere in the back of her mind, Aleishia knew that Anakin Skywalker had fathered children, but she had assumed that they, too, had been victims of the purges so many years ago. “Then the time is coming, isn’t it?”

That hasn’t been determined. Even if I knew, I couldn’t say. They never talk to me.

“Yes, that’s right, isn’t it.” Aleishia’s eyes fixed on the fire. “Do you suppose it will be this son who will stop them? Or are we still waiting?”

I don’t know. The sense of her location shifted away from the hearth towards the chair where Thelea sat, still fitfully napping. Look after her, Master.

“I will do what I can, of course,” Aleishia tried to sound nonchalant, but, to hear herself so addressed after decades was more painful than she cared to admit. “I can’t make any promises. Things are happening fast. You have my word, though, that if she needs me, I’ll be there.”

She felt the presence shift, drawing away. So will I, Master. So will I. For a moment, Aleishia could almost see the other’s fingers brush Thelea’s black hair, and then she did something unusual. For an instant, she seemed to hover, her presence a gentle benediction, over the alcove where Rurik slept. Then, like a candle being snuffed out, her sense was gone, and they were only three again.

Aleishia looked to the dying fire for another stretch of uncounted minutes, and then closed her eyes. She could rest a little now. Outside, the sky was passing from violet to lavender as the planet turned toward the sun. Morning would be soon enough to find them a way home.

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Giriad looked uneasily at the lightening sky. When all three had been there, the night noises didn’t seem so close or so frightening. Last night had been another story entirely. It was hard to sleep when you knew no one was keeping watch. Every time the grass rustled in a breeze, he’d bolt upright, clawing for his blaster. The sound of an animal crashing somewhere in the brush had put him into a fit of nerves that hadn’t abated for more than an hour. This was not what he’d signed on for at the Academy.

He squinted at his chrono in the dim light. Thelea and Rurik had been gone more than a day now…they’d set out almost before first light the previous day. Hopefully, they’d return by sundown tonight. Another night on the plains would be too much. Futilely, he thumbed his comlink and listened to the static. Out here in the wilderness, even empty noise was a comfort. Small, perhaps, but still a comfort.

 

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“What do you mean, the Aris Val never arrived?” Varkris was trying very hard to keep his voice low. The hooded figure on the hologram flickered silently. “I had an ambush arranged in the asteroid field.”

“You planned improperly. Your pirate allies would only have lead them to you, and then to us.” The figure shifted a little and Varkris cringed, but the anticipated punishment did not come. “They are lost.”

“But not dead?”

“No.” It was almost a sigh. “They live.”

“That can be fixed.” Varkris clenched his teeth. “Just tell me where they are.”

“We will deal with this. You have failed in this matter.” There was a long silence. Then, the hooded one spoke again, his voice a harsh whisper. “We have a more important task for you.”

“What are your orders?”

What came next stunned him. “There is a great battle coming,” his master said. “You will be there, and you must make sure of one thing.”

“Anything,” he agreed. Too quickly.

“This ship,” the master said, his holographic arm gesturing to encompass the Executor. “Your fleet’s finest battleship.”

“She’s the pride of the fleet.” Varkris still could not read the emotions in the other’s voice. “Without her, we’d be lost.”

“Yes,” and the word trailed off into a hiss. “This ship. Your ship. This battle will be fierce, and many will be lost. And this ship…” Again, he seemed to look around. “You must make absolutely sure that this ship does not survive.”

 

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Thelea’s eyelashes flickered and she shifted in the chair, stiff muscles protesting vociferously. The smell of something cooking, something sweet, reminded her that she hadn’t really eaten in longer than she cared to remember. Then she remembered where she was, at the home of a stranger who’d somehow talked her and Rurik into coming here…

Rurik. Her eyes snapped open, but she didn’t move in the chair. Where was he? She remembered them both walking in…

“Good morning.”

Thelea jumped, her hand automatically darting for her blaster. She was halfway out of the chair before she spotted the speaker, that same woman who had lead them from the bar the night before. She was ladling something onto a flat iron over the little fire.

“Did you sleep well?”

Thelea took a moment before answering. “I think so.” Tentatively she stretched stiff arms and legs, and she put the blaster back in its holster. Surreptitiously, she reached under her cape and felt for the handle of the lightsaber. Still there.

“Good. You both were very tired.” Aleishia. That was her name. She was making a small pile of the little cakes on a platter. “I thought it best you sleep. Are you hungry?”

Thelea’s stomach twisted at the mention of food, reminding her just how long it had been since they’d had anything but ration bars. “A bit, yes.” She rose stiffly. “How long were we asleep?”

“Oh, a good ten standard hours, give or take. You were very tired.” Carefully she slid four of the flat cakes onto a plate. “Here. Eat up. You had a hard walk.”

Thelea promptly burned her fingers. Trying a more delicate tack, she carefully pulled off a piece of what turned out to be sweet-meal bread. In spite of herself, she took several more quick bites. It was good, and she was hungrier than she’d thought. “Rurik?”

“There’s plenty to go round. Let him sleep a while longer.” Aleishia smiled, and there was a sardonic edge to the expression. “Humans are, after all, so much weaker than the Chiss.”

There it was again. “How do you know about us? Humans have never reached homeworld. Ever. So how…”

“So many questions.” Aleishia kept her back turned. “And not the right ones.” When did I start to sound like Master Yoda? I’m not that old, yet. “I have visited homeworld,” and she used the Chiss word, “but it was a very long time ago. You would have been very young.”

“Maybe not. But then I suppose you know about our life span, too.” Thelea delicately brushed the crumbs into a neat pile. In the alcove, Rurik shifted and muttered something. “Should I wake him up?”

Aleishia smiled, as if suddenly understanding a private joke. “Yes, why don’t you? I’m sure he’ll be starving…men always are.”

Thelea let that comment slide. “Rurik.” She pushed at his shoulder and he rolled over, burrowing under the covers a little farther. “Rurik, this is an order. Get up. Do you want to miss breakfast?”

“All right, all right. You may be my CO, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a nag.” Blinking blearily, he sat up. “I hate to ask, but where are we?”

“At my home.” He turned sleep-heavy eyes to Aleishia. “And if you sleep much longer, you will miss getting fed. Hungry?”

He swung his feet to the floor and rose, bumping his head on the edge of the alcove. “That does smell good.”

“Never fails,” Aleishia said, smiling serenely. “Men always think with their stomachs.” She piled several of the still-warm cakes on a plate and handed it to Rurik.

“Human males, at any rate,” Thelea felt obliged to add. Aleishia laughed quietly.

Rurik felt it necessary to make a pretense of offense. “Not all of us. If we did, none of us would last in the Navy.”

“It’s amazing any of us do, with what they expect us to eat.” Thelea took another of the cakes and sat down on the ottoman. “You never did mention why you’re being so helpful.”

Aleishia placed the empty bowl under a water spigot in another alcove. “Perhaps I’m just a good neighbor, and wanted to help a fellow human, or perhaps I have a soft spot for the Chiss.”

“That would make you unique among the races of the galaxy,” Thelea said dryly.

“Perhaps,” Aleishia chuckled. “You’ll have a better chance finding a pilot to take you there than to the Empire.”

“I wanted to ask about that,” Rurik interrupted. “Was the bartender right? No one will take us even to a refueling station in Imperial space?”

Aleishia was already shaking her head before he finished. “That’s one thing about living out here. We’re well out of the Empire’s grasp, but almost no one tries to go there. So, it’ll certainly cost you to get any of the pilots to even consider it.”

“And we have Imperial credits, and not many of those,” Thelea murmured. “Do you know anyone who might take us?”

The older woman sighed and sank into the chair where Thelea had been sleeping. “No, I’m afraid not. If they know you’re Imperials, they won’t help you anyway. And I would offer to help with the money, but I’m afraid my own finances are rather limited.”

“So we’re stuck here.” Rurik stared at his hands. “Unless someone comes looking for us, and they won’t.”

“No one even knows the Aris Val is gone,” Thelea said. “They will figure it out, I’m sure, but by then…”

Rurik sighed and looked around the cramped dwelling. “Well, at least this isn’t too bad a planet, and the Empire will have to reach here eventually.”

“Maybe our grandchildren will be rescued, but even I will be dead by then,” Thelea commented, without carefully considering the vagaries of galactic Basic.

Rurik raised an eyebrow. “Thelea, I had no idea that you were even interested, much less reproductively compatible.” Aleishia concealed a smile behind her hand.

“I meant that in a figurative sense, Commander,” Thelea said archly, but she mentally replayed the sentence just in case. “The Empire’s not coming to rescue us, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone who’ll take us off-planet. Can we buy a ship? We have the money, and the three fighters to trade.”

Aleishia considered that. “There are dealers, certainly. What you’d be able to afford, now, I can’t say. Whatever they have will be small, and possibly very alien. I don’t know how far you’ll be able to go.”

“We don’t need to get to Imperial Center,” Thelea said. “We just need to reach the nearest Imperial base so we can get a message back to the Executor.” She looked around the room. “I don’t suppose you have any sort of database access?”

Aleishia rose, a bit stiffly, and began rooting in a wooden box shoved unobtrusively against the wall. “I have something similar, although I’m sure it’s quite out of date.” She produced a silver object vaguely reminiscent of a datapad. “The boundaries may have changed, but the names are the same. We should be able to figure out where you are in relation to Imperial space.”

“Let me see.” Thelea studied the object for a moment. It was small, with a hopelessly outdated data screen and tiny data entry keys. She squinted at the printout. “How old is this thing, anyway?”

“Old enough,” Aleishia said, and there was just enough tone of admonishment that Thelea did not question further. “I’m sorry it’s not more sophisticated, but I don’t spend much on modern comforts.”

“Here’s Dhregan,” Rurik said, leaning over her shoulder. “There isn’t much around us.”

“What about this?” Thelea paged over a few screens. “Telamara system…isn’t there an Imperial outpost there?”

“There’s a base on Telamara itself,” Rurik said. “It’s not much, but Governor Rothan’s not a bad sort. He’ll be willing to help us, and he won’t ask too many questions.” He reached over her arm and tapped a few keys. “It’s about two days in hyperspace, but if we find the right ship, we could make it.”

“You sound like you know him personally,” Thelea said.

“I ought to. I grew up on Telamara. Went to primary school with his daughter, Gena…nice girl. A little wild, maybe, but can you blame her? Being a governor’s daughter wasn’t easy. I mean, my parents were tough, but they couldn’t send out a squad of Stormtroopers to come and find me if I stayed out past bedtime.”

“You never mentioned where you came from,” Thelea mused, studying him through glowing slits.

“It was in my file. You could have looked. Besides,” he pointed out, “you never told me where you were from.”

“That was different. In any case, Telamara seems to be the closest Imperial world. We have to get there and contact the fleet.” Thelea looked up at Aleishia. “Where can we find these ship dealers?”

By morning light, the city proved to be larger than Thelea had originally thought. The range of life forms on the streets indicated that Aleishia had been right…this was a way station world. Thelea recognized a Togorian, a Bothan, several disreputable-looking Quarren, and species that she knew but was equally sure Rurik had never seen before. Fellow denizens of the Unknown Regions, many of whom saw the red eyes and blue skin and automatically shied away. She pulled the cowl of her survival cape closer about her face.

Aleishia moved comfortably through the streets, her stride confident and unencumbered by the long robes she was wearing. She had shed the dark brown she had worn the day before in favor of a rich dark blue cloak with a tunic and trousers made of the same material. Her dark hair hung down her back, and the shorter strands that framed her face were pulled back with a plain leather tie. The white streak above her right temple was almost iridescent against the darker tresses. She wore no weapon that Thelea could see, but she moved as easily as if she had a squad of Stormtroopers behind her and no one would dare approach. Thelea and Rurik trailed along like twin shadows, taking two steps to her every one, though she was shorter than either of the pilots.

They wended their way down the narrow, dusty allies, taking so many hairpin turns and switchback paths that Thelea soon lost her bearings entirely. They were headed somewhere near the city center, she could tell that much. Aleishia finally lead them to the door of a shop, recessed in the wall of a dingy gray building. Thelea could see the folded wings of a Lambda-class shuttle peeking over the rooftop. That, she thought glumly, was almost certainly going to be out of their price range.

Aleishia rapped on the door and gestured for Thelea and Rurik to hang back. “Seln,” she called softly, “kare v’la’a?”

Thelea frowned. “How does she know that?”

“What?” Rurik asked.

“That’s the language of the lower caste,” Thelea replied, not taking her eyes from Aleishia. “I learned it from the servants who took care of me, almost everyone does.”

“But it’s not something a human traveler would be likely to pick up,” he surmised.

The door slid aside and a stooped figure peered out. “Aleishia?” the voice croaked, in the distinctive harsh accent of a worker caste. “What do you want?” Thelea shivered at the familiar language.

“Seln, I have visitors from off-world,” Aleishia said, switching to Basic. “They need to purchase a ship that can carry three people. Nothing fancy, just enough to get them to Imperial territory. They don’t have much money, but they are my friends. If you can help them, I will consider it a personal favor.”

Thelea smiled a little. “That was a neat trick,” she murmured to Rurik. “Making the request a personal favor means if he helps us, she’ll owe him an equal debt.”

Aleishia turned and beckoned to them. “It’s all right. Seln deals in used ships, and I’m sure he’ll have something that will suit.”

“All right, all right,” the Chiss said, in Basic laced with a rich, liquid accent. “You had better come in.” He stepped back, gesturing with a downward flick of a wrist for them to follow.

The room was a jumble of spare bits from ships, speeders, and technology Thelea could only guess at. Seln was a man a human might judge to be past a hundred, and in human years, he was probably much older. His hair had probably once been as blue-black as Thelea’s own, but it was speckled with white, and the red eyes glowed a little dimmer than hers. Another difference, one that she didn’t notice but Rurik did, was in their faces. Thelea, and Admiral Thrawn, once Rurik thought about it, had finer features, and aristocratic bearings. It might have been their military backgrounds, or the obvious age difference, but there was something more there, he thought.

Seln turned to face them, hands folded before him. “What sort of ship are you interested in, friends?”

Thelea pushed back her hood, and his eyes widened. “Anything that will get us safely to Imperial territory and not cost more than we can afford.”

Seln had forgotten about the deal, however. “Val’an’lora,” he said, bowing low at the waist, “you do my humble house honor.”

“I am not a lady of high degree, Bav’i,” she said, returning his greeting with a smaller bow and using the gentle ‘grandfather’ as a title. “I am an orphan girl, in need of your help.”

“Surely one of your bearing is no peasant such as I,” he said, continuing the ritualized greeting despite her unorthodox reply. “Please, we cannot conduct business here in public. Come and we can discuss things properly over chai.” He turned and vanished behind a ratty cloth curtain. They could hear the clattering of metal on metal and the sound of water running.

Rurik reached out and tapped Thelea on the shoulder. “What in the worlds was that about?”

Thelea sighed, and he could have sworn she looked a little sheepish. “Seln feels it necessary to conduct this business as though I were the lady of a noble house.” She sighed and settled herself on a rickety metal chair. “I think we’d better play along.”

“So are you?” Rurik cleared off a stool and dropped inelegantly onto it.

“Am I what?” Thelea asked. Aleishia, standing quietly by, smiled.

“Are you a noble lady?” he asked, with a decidedly impish grin.

“I’m an Imperial officer, which is more than you’ll be if you ever mention this to anyone,” she snapped, a bit petulantly, he thought. “If it gets us a ship out of here, I’ll act like the Queen of Naboo.” She frowned suddenly. “That is an awfully silly name.”

“Where is Naboo, anyway?” Rurik asked. “I’ve heard that expression before. Did they just make it up?”

Aleishia spoke, very softly. “It’s a place that doesn’t exist anymore.” Her voice was suddenly very, very old. Rurik was about to ask what she meant when he caught the sharp look Thelea was giving him. He knew that glare too well to open his mouth.

Seln reappeared, carrying a tray with a steaming pot at the center and four small silver-metal cups. “I have little to offer, Val’an’lora,” he said. “If you would accept my humble hospitality it would do great honor to my house.”

“You do me honor with your hospitality,” Thelea replied, taking one of the silver cups in both hands and raising it with a gracefulness Rurik had never noticed in her before. Even her posture was different…not stiff and militarily precise, but relaxed and elegant, her expression distant.

Rurik took one of the cups as the tray passed his way and Aleishia took the third. Seln put the tray down and bowed slightly. “Is the chai to your taste?”

Thelea nodded, taking a small sip of the hot liquid. There was the familiar blend of spices and sweet, a taste she hadn’t realized she missed. There was a faint bitter aftertaste that suggested the leaves had been kept in a warm, damp environment too long. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rurik flinch and cover a grimace. Aleishia was calming drinking hers. If she had any opinion, she was keeping it well to herself. “It is excellent. I do not wish to offend, but if we might discuss business while we drink? My…associates and I require transport off-world, a small ship capable of carrying three people long enough to reach the Telamara system.”

“If I might ask, what business brings you to such a remote world?” Seln asked, taking a seat; lower, Rurik noticed, than that Thelea occupied. “And to travel to an Imperial stronghold…”

Aleishia spoke up before Thelea could reply. “They are in the service of the Syndic Mith’raw’nuruodo,” she said, her tone silencing the objection already forming on Thelea’s lips. “Would you question his will?”

Rurik thought the name she had just spoken was Admiral Thrawn’s full name, but he still wasn’t sure of it; or why, for that matter, an Imperial Admiral’s name should produce such an awed reaction from a person Thelea seemed to think was, essentially, a peasant.

“My apologies,” Seln said, bowing again. “I did not mean to question the orders of a Syndic. Now, a ship for three people, medium-range…I assume you are accustomed to fighter craft. Kavrick-class, perhaps?”

“I myself fly an Imperial TIE Interceptor most of the time,” Thelea said. “In fact, part of our…assets for the purchase of this ship are three Interceptor-class fighters, two in good condition and one…battle-damaged. We also have some nine hundred-odd of this world’s currency. I’m afraid that’s all.”

Seln’s eyes narrowed. “The Syndic has not allowed for your expenses?”

Aleishia cut in again, and her voice carried the same strange authority it had possessed in the cantina. “They are traveling on an undercover operation and encountered some difficulty. The nature of the mission prevents their contacting their commanders.”

“In such a situation, how can I refuse you help?” Seln’s response was as dazed as the barkeeper's had been. “Or ask for reimbursement?”

Rurik shot Thelea a pointed look. She had already noticed the destitute condition of the rooms. “We have to pay you something, of course. Appearances. You understand.”

“Of course.” He did, Rurik thought, look a bit relieved. “Perhaps, two of the Interceptors, and the currency, when you see what I have. Will you come back to my yard, Val’an’lora?”

Thelea rose gracefully, her chin tilted proudly up. “Please, show us.”

The shipyard seemed to hold more spare parts than actual functioning vessels. There was, as she’d noticed before, a Lambda-class shuttle that looked from the paint on the gray bulkhead to have gone through several changes of ownership. She recognized few of the other ships and parts lying around in the cluttered yard. A clattering of metal somewhere ahead of them suggested that the sensors mounted on the yard walls were more form than function.

“I have acquired a small ship that I think would suit your purposes nicely. I would not dream of taking more than your three fighters for it…though currency, is, of course, very useful,” he added, a little sheepishly. He guided them around the shuttle. “Now, it’s quite old, but it is in excellent condition and certainly capable of reaching the Telamara system carrying two comfortably and three, well, in close quarters.”

“If there’s only two seats, one of you can ride standing,” Thelea whispered before Rurik could even think of an appropriate risqué remark.

“I would have thought that since you’re so superior to humans, you’d be able to stand for two days,” he muttered.

Seln stopped before a small, pointy-nosed craft and gestured grandly. “Sienar Fleet System’s Infiltrator.”

Thelea blinked. The ship looked like the illegitimate offspring of a TIE fighter and an X-wing, with the same pointed fuselage of the Rebel fighter and the paneled wings and round cockpit of the Imperial ship. “How old is this?”

Aleishia’s face was oddly drawn, pinched and pale. “SFS hasn’t made them in almost thirty years. There were only a few, and I saw one only once.”

“You’re shaking.” Rurik put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

She reached up and patted his hand in a very motherly fashion. “I’m all right, child. Don’t mind a silly old woman.”

Thelea, meanwhile, was walking around the ship slowly, tracing her fingers across the folded wings. There were numerous dents, scrapes and scars on the black surface, but nothing seemed damaged beyond repair. “A navicomputer?”

“Fully up-to-date,” Seln assured her. “Long-range, too. I would ordinarily never let it go for such a sum, but for you, Val’an’lora, I can make the sacrifice.”

Rurik noticed the flicker of reluctance that crossed her features. “I would not want to cause you further hardship, Master Trader,” she said.

“Hardship? Pah! It is an old ship, and I could not hope for much. Now, two modern Imperial fighters will bring me enough money to last me out another season. As for the other, well, parts are always in demand.”

“Could we look inside?” Thelea asked, and the old trader tapped in the security code for the hatch.

The cockpit was indeed cramped, with a single seat for the pilot. Behind the old-style pilot’s chair there was more than enough room for Rurik and Giriad to sit. She realized she was already thinking of herself as the pilot, which was, she admitted, a good sign. Stepping around the chair, she ran her fingers over the smooth, old-style control yoke. The console was dark, but she could see that there was no heads-up display, and though the SFS layout was much the same, the shape and contouring of the switches, screens and levers was so old it was almost quaint.

“Something was kept here.” She turned around to see what Rurik was talking about. He pointed to the skid marks on the deck plates. “It looks like there used to be something bolted to the metal.”

“The ship is as it was when I acquired it,” Seln offered. “There have been some modifications made, it seems, but as I have none of the original specification, I can’t tell you what is missing. Only what’s here. There is a hyperdrive, and a navicomputer.”

“The shields and the lasers?” Thelea went back to studying the controls. The panels were labeled with the old Basic script, legible but outdated. “Not that I hope we’ll need them.”

“Working, I assure you. Quad lasers, and the ship is fitted for torpedoes, though there were none with it when I came by it.”

“Hopefully this trip will be a little less exciting than the one that got us here,” Rurik muttered.

“We can leave the ship at the garrison on Telamara.” Thelea was thinking out loud. “They’ll find some way to dispose of it. Seln,” and the old man bowed as she turned to him, “the ship will suit us perfectly. We need only agree on the price.”

His face creased in a million wrinkles. “As you said, the Interceptors. As for currency…”

“Would five hundred of this world’s credits be sufficient?” Thelea offered.

“More than enough, my lady.” He bowed again. “Where are your Interceptors located?”

“About ten kilometers planetary west from the city,” she said. “Would it be possible for you to provide us transport out there, perhaps to inspect the fighters yourself? Then we could fly the two working fighters and haul the damaged ship back here.”

“I have an airspeeder that should suffice. If you’ll follow me. Aleishia,” and he turned to the hooded figure at the base of the ship’s ramp. “You will accompany us, of course?”

“Of course,” she said, and her voice was distinctly strained. “If you please, can we continue this discussion in the speeder? This ship…” She shivered. “Please, let’s go.”

Thelea frowned. Aleishia’s face was drawn tight, pinched and pale. Her hands were folded inside her robes and pulled tight against her body. As they came down the ramp she backed away as though they carried an unpleasant odor with them. Thelea looked from the human woman to the ship, which seemed perfectly all right to her. Perhaps she was losing her touch with judging human body language. She shrugged, and followed the old man towards an airspeeder that looked as old as the Infiltrator.

Omi-tanaga huddled in the doorway, watching the rickety speeder make its way towards the outskirts. Shifting his breathing filter away from his mouth, he thumbed the switch of his comlink.

“The Imps are leaving with the old man,” he hissed, “and you were right, Hura. The Jedi witch-woman is with them. If we are patient, they will lead us to their fighters. They are only four. It will be an easy and honorable kill.” He switched off the comlink and started up the dusty street to where his own swoop was waiting.

Chapter Five

 

 

“I hate this planet. How many sinkholes can there be?” Rurik carped, squinting into the bright sunlight. “Can’t this thing go any faster?” That earned him the point of Thelea’s elbow to his rib cage. “Ow!”

“Not everyone can afford the latest model speeder, Rurik,” she hissed, then went back to looking over the rear spoiler.

“What’s gotten into you? You weren’t in this foul a mood when we left.” She didn’t reply and he tugged at her sleeve. “Thelea?”

“Something’s not right.” The nervous feeling was the same as she got before a particularly nasty firefight…a sense of impending doom that she usually wrote off to battle jitters or a pilot’s adrenaline from flying. Out here she didn’t have that excuse.

“You sense it, don’t you.” It was not a question. Aleishia had the hood of her robes pulled low over her face, but Thelea could just see the faint smile.

“Sense what?”

“The danger.” Aleishia turned to face her, the hood throwing her face into deep shadow. “The sense of something coming. You know it's out there.”

“I don't know what you’re talking about.” Her eyes wandered back to the empty plains and the city, now in the distance.

“Yes, you do.” Suddenly she turned as well. “Someone’s behind us. Several people.”

“Seln, stop for a moment. I want to listen.”

“Are you sure that's wise?” Aleishia demanded, but Thelea was already jumping to the ground and straining to hear.

“Thelea, come on. Commander…” Rurik leaned out of the speeder. “We’re wasting time.”

“Shh!” A raised hand silenced them. “That sounds like repulsor drives.”

Rurik listened. There was, in fact, a faint buzzing that sounded like engines of some kind, but they seemed far off, echoes from the city. “They don’t sound too close.”

“Thelea, get back in the speeder.” Aleishia’s voice was flat.

“I think they’re closer…”

Aleishia switched from Basic to the Chiss language. “Mith’ele’arana! Now!”

The tone left no room for argument and Thelea found herself obeying automatically, her full name not even registering with her. She was turning and jumping for the speeder when the three swoops came roaring out of a sinkhole.

They were following the terrain, keeping low, relying on the terrain to hide them from our scanners, Aleishia realized, and she cursed herself for not noticing sooner. “Thelea, watch out!” The girl was already pulling out her blaster, and Caelin was firing too, but the weapons were not going to do much against the faster, better-armed vehicles. “Seln, go!” The little speeder would not outrun the swoops, but at least they’d be a moving target. A blast from the lead swoop’s cannon shook the speeder. Thelea fired off a shot that glanced off the armor plating, barely scratching it. They were badly outgunned and outclassed. Aleishia ducked as one of the raiders passed overhead. She was unarmed and useless…best to keep out of the way.

Never unarmed. Never alone. Mihall’s voice was as clear as if he were there and speaking the words now. I will always be with you…

Master Yoda’s voice, too, played back yet again. Use for knowledge and defense, you must, never attack. This was certainly defense.

One of the swoops, a sleek, venomous-looking craft, raced ahead and turned back for a strafing run. A bolt of energy found its mark, shattering the cockpit glass and much of the engine cover, showering them with razor-sharp plasteel shards. Rurik ducked, but not in time to avoid getting cut in the face. Thelea, in spite of herself, shrieked and Aleishia heard her old friend again, Master! Protect her! You promised!

She had a weapon. She simply had to use it.

If this brings Vader, or worse, down on my head, at least I know I was keeping a vow. Remember that, Council, if you are still judging me…Drawing in a long, slow, breath, she cleared her mind of all the blocks and distractions she had worked so hard to create. Finding the same little thread of light that had warned her of the impending attack she seized upon it and, fighting against all instincts that had protected her for decades, she opened her mind.

The rush of sensations was like being plunged into the midst of a marketplace, full of sights and sounds and smells and brilliant, vibrant colors. Her eyes watered at the sensations, all thought forgotten and now here again, blinding and beautiful and terrible. Rurik and Thelea and Seln and even their attackers were suddenly more than simple beings, they were foci of the energy that fluxed and flowed between all beings and she could see that now, sense it. She felt as though she had been starving and was suddenly presented with more nourishment than she could ever need or want.

After more than twenty years, the Force was fully with her again.

“Thelea, stay down. I’m going to try something.” Her voice sounded different, even in her own ears. Reaching under her robe, she found the handle of the blade without thinking, the instinct still there. Now, if only the reflexes are, she thought dryly, rising carefully and bracing herself on the side of the craft. Thelea’s fear would not have registered with anyone else, but she could feel it now, hidden but there, and the girl was feeding off of it, using it to fuel anger and through the anger, her determination to survive. More powerful than I thought…

The swoop leader was turning back towards them and she waited, counting. Caelin fired off a few shots and she snapped, “Wait!” The swoop was almost on them…

Thelea heard a sound that was familiar, a snap-hiss that she knew from her own hidden weapon. Risking a glance up she saw a blur of silver motion. “By the first families…” she breathed, without noticing she spoke in her own language. “A Jedi.”

Aleishia brought the silver blade down in a sweeping arc as the swoop raced past. He saw her and tried to evade at the last minute, but the point of her saber bit into the aft repulsor drive, sending the vehicle careening away into the hillside. One down, two to go.

Rurik was angling for a better shot. The two remaining swoops had pulled back a little at the loss of their leader, but now they were regrouping. His blaster wasn’t really strong enough to take out one of the vehicles, but a lucky shot might hit the pilot. Thelea was ducking lower on the floor of the speeder. She had a holdout blaster, he remembered, and as such had only five shots. He shifted a bit so he was between her and the oncoming swoops. She glared, but he didn’t move.

Aleishia steadied herself and watched the two attackers. She no longer had the advantage of surprise, so it was time to think of something else. The two opened fire and she blocked the bolts, surprised at how the skill had not abandoned her completely. They fired again and she angled the deflection back onto them. The pilot of the swoop tried to evade only succeeded in taking the bolt to the chest, knocking him clear.

“Look out!” Rurik lunged for the controls as Seln tried to evade the out-of-control swoop. He succeeded, partially. The speeder dodged and the swoop struck the airfoil, denting it. They were thrown sideways as the entire ship spun violently left.

Aleishia staggered and fell sideways, almost over the side. Thelea lunged from her position on the floor and grabbed the older woman by the arm. “Hang on!” Aleishia’s grip was surprisingly tight, and yet it didn’t seem to require much effort for Thelea to pull her back in. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, fine.” Aleishia sounded oddly distracted for someone who’d almost fallen out of an airspeeder. “The last one seems to have given up.” The remaining swoop was racing away from them, back in the direction of the town.

“That, or gone back for reinforcements,” Thelea said ominously. “We’d better get to the fighters. With two Interceptors we should be able to keep them at bay.” Her impenetrable red gaze shifted to Aleishia. “And in the meantime, you have a great deal of explaining to do.”

Aleishia nodded slowly, turning the handle of her lightsaber over in her hands. “Yes,” she said softly, “I suppose I do.”

 

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Giriad ducked under the wing strut when he heard the repulsors in the distance, fumbling for his blaster. Then he heard a voice on his comlink: “Giriad, we’re back. We have a way out of here.”

Giriad had never thought he’d be so relieved to hear Rurik Caelin’s voice. “Just where in blazes have you been?” he demanded. “I was starting to think you weren’t coming back.”

“Don’t be paranoid,” Thelea cut in. “Can you imagine the paperwork if we came back without you?”

“Rurik, am I hearing things, or did the Commander just make a joke?”

He heard Rurik laughing, and Thelea said, “Who says I was joking?” Rurik glared, but a smile slipped through. “You two…see about getting your fighters flight-ready. Rurik, if you could check mine, too? I need to talk with our friend.” They were jumping out of the airspeeder, and Giriad ran to join them.

“Sure, they just amended my job description to include servant.” She glared, and he raised his hands in surrender.

Thelea turned to look for Aleishia. The Jedi was standing beside the airspeeder, looking at the TIEs sitting on the ground. In the bright daylight her features seemed worn and lined, and the white strands in her dark hair stood out in stark relief. The lightsaber was hanging from her belt conspicuously now, and her shoulders seemed straighter.

Thelea approached her from behind, but the other woman spoke first. “I suppose you’re wondering who I really am.”

“Actually, I was considering whether or not I should report you. You are aware that having a lightsaber is against the law. Using it is even more so.”

Aleishia smiled. “As I’ve pointed out, we’re well at the edge of the Imperial jurisdiction here. Unless, of course, you plan on arresting me yourself. Do you?”

Thelea sighed. “No. Not after all the help you’ve given us.”

“That’s good. They might question where yours came from.”

Thelea bit down on her anger. “How did you know about that? Did you go through our things while we were asleep, Jedi?”

Aleishia spun around, much faster than a woman her age should have been able to move. “Mith’ele’arana,” she snapped, “don’t you know who you are?”

 

She was shaking with fear, but she knew not to cry. She knew that the male in the room was her friend, he meant her no harm, but behind his cool sense she felt the bitter hostility radiating towards the woman behind her. The brown woman with the funny blank skin, the woman with the strange eyes, the one who has held her and cared for her and comforted her through this feeling of incomprehensible loss. There is grief, too, old from her and fresh and bitter from him, but that is buried.

He looks above her head…not hard, she is a child, so small. “You know it has to be done.”

“Without her mother, she isn’t safe here.”

“No.”

“It’s the only way…”

“Perhaps on your world, human.”

The woman sighs. “You aren’t going to be much help to her, either.”

“I know that.” He makes a sharp gesture and she steps towards him. He tilts her chin up. “So like her mother.” There is pain bordering on agony in his voice.

“In every way.” Firm, uncompromising. “She won’t forget. You can hope, you can have them lie to her, but she is her mother’s daughter, and someday she will remember!”

 

 

“You.” Thelea stared at the face, suddenly knowing where she had seen it before. “You were on homeworld. You took care of me. You, and…” The face was formless…she’d been a child, she couldn’t recall the details of the male’s, or the woman she knew to be her mother. “When my mother…you came, and you told me I had to be brave. Then you argued with someone, and they took me away.”

Aleishia nodded. “When your mother…when she died, I begged them to let me take you as my apprentice. Your father refused. I suppose, after his own fashion, he was doing what he thought was best.”

“My father? My mother?” Thelea stared. “You know them?”

“I did know them. You mother, as you know, is dead.” Aleishia sighed and closed her eyes. The pain never seemed to lessen, she thought bitterly, not even after the decades. “I came to your world having lost my husband, my only child…your mother was the only one to speak for me. I think it was because she sensed in me the power she had within herself. I don’t know if any other of your people have ever had the gift she did. No other I met radiated in the Force quite as she did. I told her I could train her, and I did…she could have been a very great Jedi, had I only the Council’s blessing.”

“The Council?” Thelea found herself drawn into the story, in spite of herself.

“Of course, you’ve never heard of the Jedi Council. There was a time when I would have had nothing but scorn for them. That was before the dark times, the purges…the Emperor.”

“The Emperor brought order to the Galaxy,” Thelea said automatically. “He wished only to overthrow the old, corrupt, ways.”

Aleishia smiled thinly. “I would be the first to agree, the Jedi Order needed restructuring. Perhaps if they had, all this…never mind. Your mother…she was a member of the Council of Families when I knew her, and she was brilliant. Her marriage, too, was a match well-made, though surprising, I think.” Thelea started to open her mouth. “Before you ask…your father still lives, and I must abide by my promise to him not to tell you his identity. I don’t agree, but I gave him my word and I'll honor it. At any rate, they were well-matched, better than most marriages on your world, I believe. And you…quite the surprise.” She laughed. “Your mother was almost annoyed, I think, at the inconvenience of pregnancy. But when you were named, she said she saw a vision of your future, and though she would never tell me exactly what she saw, she said it was only appropriate that I was there, for our destinies were intertwined.”

Thelea sat down on the side of the speeder. Her knees didn’t seem to want to hold her anymore. Her mind, also, seemed none too steady. “What was my mother’s name?”

Aleishia smiled. “So like the Chiss, to think of such things last. Her full name was Reli’set’harana. She was called Lisetha.”

“Lisetha.” She tried the name in her mouth. “How did she die?”

Aleishia frowned. “That story really should be told by your father. Before he…left, we discussed what you should be said should this conversation ever occur, and that is one thing he made me promise he should tell you. I suppose he simply wants to put his own spin on the story.”

Thelea knew she wanted to ask questions, but strangely, none seemed to come to her. It was strange, really…having the all the answers here, and not being able to think of a single question. “Why didn’t my father take me with him? Or did he make you promise not to say that, too?”

“Where he was going was no place for a little child,” Aleishia said. “Besides, it was your mother’s family’s duty to care for you.” And mine. Forgive me, Lisetha, for delaying so long. “As I said, I would have taken you as my apprentice, but your father forbade it. Perhaps he knew, somehow, what was coming. He always had a gift for foresight.”

“Your apprentice?”

Aleishia laughed at Thelea’s puzzled expression. “Why do you think your mother left that lightsaber for you? You have the same powers she did, or I should say, the same capabilities.”

“Me, a Jedi? Don’t be ridiculous.” Thelea snorted. “Besides, the Jedi are extinct. Well, except for you, maybe.”

“You would be right, almost.” Did any of you escape? Has Skywalker’s son truly risen to avenge us? Am I really the last? “Except that, by our laws, I was no longer truly a Jedi. I haven’t been for a very long time.”

“You can stop being a Jedi?”

She laughed. “Not entirely, but I was no longer officially a member of the Jedi Order. And I’ve found my ways to…” She closed her eyes a moment. “That’s as may be. Are you ready to begin your training?”

Thelea stared at her for a long moment, silent. Then, she did something which Chiss did not do very often, and a well-raised one wouldn’t have done at all. She laughed out loud. “Me, a Jedi? Now I know you’re mad.”

Aleishia opened her eyes, and the disgustingly smug look had not faded in the least. “Perhaps you think you’re not ready?”

“It’s not a question of ready. I’m not Jedi material. I do not care whether my mother was or not, I’m an Imperial officer.” She looked over her shoulder to where Giriad was bringing his fighter on-line, and Rurik was climbing down from her Interceptor and starting for his own. “I have responsibilities.”

“You have responsibilities to your mother, too. Not to mention to yourself.” Aleishia sounded disturbingly fixed on the idea. “You carry a lightsaber, but do you know how to use it? You use the Force every time you fly, but can you control it?” She closed her eyes. “You’re hovering close to the Dark Side, but you’re not deep into it yet. There’s still time.”

Thelea gritted her teeth. “Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate your help. If you want, we can take you as far as Telamara. I’m sure you could find transport there to your home, wherever that is, or back to the Unknown Regions, for all I care. But I am not going to throw away everything I’ve worked for my entire life on some insane crusade for a dead religion I don’t even believe in.”

Aleishia listed patiently. “You sound far more like your father than your mother.” She remembered having the opposite argument with Lisetha, so powerful and eager to learn, but far to old to safely undergo Jedi training, at least, too old by the Council’s reckoning. Mihall would have turned her down flat, and even now she could see her husband shaking his head at the daughter…much too old to begin training. “Very well, then. I’ll go with you as far as Telamara. It’s been quite some time since I’ve visited another world. And of course, if you change your mind along the way…”

“I won’t.”

She smiled. “You’re a very great deal like him, Mith’ele’arana.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” During the battle, it hadn’t registered. But this was at least the third time.

“You answered to it once. You’ve only forgotten.”

Thelea shook her head. “That isn’t possible. If that were true, then my father’s family would be…” And then she paused. “No.”

Aleishia shrugged, and then looked at the position of the sun. “We’d best hurry. See to your wing, Commander.” She turned and went back to the airspeeder.

Thelea walked slowly over to her fighter. Rurik pulled himself up out of his own cockpit and balanced on the hatch. “Thelea, yours is fit to fly, if you want to. You’ll need all the power for the engines, but it should get off the ground.”

She nodded, tracing her finger along the solar panel, noting the charred patches where it had burned on entry. “All right. You two can fly cover for the speeder and me.”

Rurik dropped to the ground beside her. “Thelea, what’s the matter?”

She looked at him a moment, and despite her unusual eyes he could tell she wasn’t really seeing him. “Nothing.”

“If something’s wrong, maybe you ought to tell me.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” She braced herself on the wing strut and climbed up into the fighter. “Get to your fighter. We need to get moving in case those idiots come back.”

Rurik watched her vanish into the cockpit, not even bothering to get back into her flight suit. Not that it would matter…her fighter wouldn’t survive an attempt at space anyway. “All right.” He glanced over at the speeder, when their benefactor, the Jedi, was watching them both with a faint, bemused smile. “But we’ve got a seven-hour jump to Telamara, and you can’t hide from me in that Infiltrator.” He went back to his own ship and got ready to fly.

Chapter Six

 

 

Thelea was surprised her fighter had actually taken off, and even now she was sure she was about to fall from the sky. The Interceptor was shaking violently, apparently ready to come apart at the seams, but with all power available drained to the engines, it was staying aloft. A quick glance up and to her right brought the comforting sight of Rurik’s Interceptor, and to the left, the not-quite-as-comforting but still reassuring glimpse of Giriad’s. Since they were in atmosphere they were flying without the uncomfortable helmets, and she caught sight of Rurik looking down at her. He grinned and gave her a thumbs-up, a silly human gesture she returned awkwardly. At least it was easier than looking down at the airspeeder.

If she looked down, she’d have to look at her.

As if she knew what Thelea was thinking (Who knows? The Jedi witch probably does!) Aleishia turned and looked up at her from beneath the cowl of her hood. Thelea couldn’t see her clearly, but she knew the older woman was smiling. That irritated her. Actually, a lot of things about Aleishia irritated her. None the least of which was the name thing…Thrawn had said her name was Mith’ele’arana…but Aleishia had seemed so sure…

She shook off the feeling. Jedi or not, the old woman had to be mad. She’d been living alone for years, and it must have affected her mind. But if that were the case, how did she know Thelea, and the lightsaber…My mother got hers somewhere…the Republic and the Jedi never reached homeworld, so how else would she have known? She sighed, slumping a little in the seat. There was such a thing as an information overload, and the last few hours more than constituted one. Aleishia seemed to know something about her mother. She had been more forthcoming than the Admiral had, and she was certainly helping to get them off this gods-forsaken world. Thelea would deal with what she’d said later.

They were coming back up on the city now, and so far, no sign of their earlier pursuers. Maybe losing four swoops had convinced them the little convoy wasn’t worthwhile prey. The nervous feeling hadn’t gone away, though…Aleishia would insist it was some sort of warning from the Force. Against her will she looked down at the speeder. Aleishia was watching her, the enigmatic smile still firmly in place. Thelea kicked in as much power as the engines could manage and shot ahead of the speeder, the other two fighters hurrying to pace her.

 

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The rest of the trip to Seln’s lot was disturbingly uneventful. Rurik was starting to wish for someone to take a shot at them. While Interceptors weren’t designed to fight in atmosphere, it was still a formidably armed ship, and, as Thelea’s demonstrated, much more durable than most gave them credit. He winced as he heard a crunch beneath the wing strut as the little fighter settled to the ground. At least they hadn’t promised the ships would be in assembly-line condition.

He popped the hatch and climbed out, this time taking the flight suit and helmet with him. Most TIE pilot's didn’t keep much in their ships, anyway. By the time he hit the ground, Thelea was already out and headed for the Infiltrator without looking at either the old man or at Aleishia. Rurik debated following her, then decided to let her stew a little longer. She’d snap out of it eventually…she always did.

“Well, we made it back, safe and sound. And there are three TIE Interceptors, as promised, though I get the feeling that one will only be good for scrap.” He grinned at the two. Seln didn’t smile, but of course he was Chiss…Rurik didn’t like the name, it seemed odd, but at least he knew it now. Aleishia, on the other had, still had that thin, smug little smile she seemed to wear much of the time.

“Excellent.” Seln clasped his hands. “Then I suppose you’ll wish to leave immediately. The ship is fully prepared, and the navicomp’s been updated.”

“We probably will. I think Thelea’s about ready to go. No offense intended, ma’am, but I don’t think she likes you very much.”

Aleishia smiled, an expression that for some reason brought to mind his mother. “Thelea will grow accustomed to me, in time.”

Rurik blinked. “You’re coming with us?” He hadn’t meant to sound as annoyed as he did.

“You sound surprised. Hadn’t you realized by now I was waiting for you? More specifically, for Thelea.” She smiled, the laugh showing in her eyes.

“Waiting? How did you know we were coming?”

The smile narrowed. “Don’t you know anything about Jedi, Lieutenant Caelin? Even your own Emperor can see the future…sometimes its foggy, but he does see it.”

Inwardly Rurik shuddered at her casual disrespect for the ruler of the galaxy, but then, weren’t the Jedi enemies of the Empire? “You know we’re going back to Imperial space, don’t you? You’ll be arrested.”

“Possibly.” Then her eyes grew distant for a moment. “We’d best be on our way. I don’t think our pirate friends have given up on us.” She turned to the old Chiss. “Seln, forgive us for rushing away.”

“I understand.” The Chiss looked towards the Infiltrator. “If you would, please, tell the Val’an’lora that I am honored to have been of some small service.”

“She will know. Our thanks, old friend.” She reached out and took both hands in his. Then, abruptly, she turned and stared in the direction of the street. “Seln, go inside. Quickly.”

“What is it?” Rurik asked, but she was already pushing him towards the Infiltrator.

“Get aboard!” He stumbled into Giriad, who had wandered over to listen in. “Hurry!”

He started to run. Thelea was standing at the bottom of the ramp, hand almost absently resting on her blaster. “What’s going on?”

“You haven’t had another one of those premonitions, have you?” Rurik called on his way past her. “Because I think she has.”

“What?” Thelea started towards the Jedi woman. Seln was moving as quickly as his aged legs could carry him towards his shop.

“Thelea!” Rurik spun in mid-stride. “Where is she going? Stay here and get the ship powered up. We’ll be right back.”

“Sure,” Giriad muttered, headed for the pilot’s seat, “sure, I’m just here to serve. I don’t mind missing the excitement.”

Thelea reached Aleishia’s side as the Jedi reached the corner of the lot’s gate. “What’s going on?”

“Get back to the ship.” Her voice came out tight and clipped. “I’ll be along shortly.”

“Whatever’s out there, you ought…” A blaster bolt slamming into the duracrete wall above her cut Thelea off in mid-sentence. “What the…”

“Get back to the ship!” Aleishia’s lightsaber was already ignited. “Run! I’ll catch up!”

Thelea was already pulling her blaster free of its holster. “Not a chance.” A thud against her back announced Rurik’s arrival. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Didn’t we just leave this party?” He squeezed off a shot over her head.

“I think they’re a little angry about us blowing up three of their comrades.” Thelea shoved her blaster back into its guard and detached her lightsaber from her belt instead. Aleishia was deflecting what she could, but plenty were getting by. “If she can do it, I can do it.”

“Are you out of your mind?” She was already stepping closer to the Jedi. Rurik groaned and kept firing.

Aleishia barely glanced at Thelea. “Very foolish. Brave, but foolish. Get back behind cover, child. I can handle this.”

“I know what I’m…” A bolt caught her shoulder, sending her spinning back into the wall. Rurik grabbed her and pulled her clear. “It’s nothing,” she gasped, trying not to wince at the pain.

Aleishia looked over, stepping closer to cover. “I can keep their attention for a moment. Run. Get her back to the ship. I’ll be right behind you.”

“No, it’s all right,” Thelea protested, even as Rurik grabbed her arm and pulled her back towards the Infiltrator. Aleishia began to back up, the silver blade still deflecting the shots aimed at them. When she was almost halfway to them, the shooting abruptly stopped, and she turned to run, waving at them to get aboard, when the back door to Seln’s shop was shoved open, and the elder Chiss was forced out, with one of the swoop gang holding a blaster to his head.

“Rurik, Thelea, keep going!” Aleishia stopped and stepped towards the gang leader. “Let him go,” she ordered, her voice carrying a powerful overtone of suggestion.

The swoop rider grinned, twisting an already hideously scarred face into an even more grotesque visage. “Your mind tricks won’t work on me, Jedi. Now you and your Imperial friends can come quietly, or I can blow this guy’s head off.”

Thelea stopped, pulling Rurik to a halt with her. “Hey, weren’t you listening?” he snapped, but she started back toward the Jedi. Muttering under his breath, he followed, keeping his blaster at the ready.

The swoop leader saw her coming. “Put down your weapons and I’ll let him go.”

“Why are you doing this?” Thelea demanded, not dropping her lightsaber. “We haven’t done anything to you, and we’re not worth any money, not for a bounty or a ransom.”

He stared at her, and then broke into a harsh, grating, laugh. “You stupid female. Don't you know who you are?”

Seln, who seemed remarkably calm for a hostage, saw her coming and shouted in her language, “Go, my lady!”

“He’ll kill you!” she protested, wondering if she could get off a shot with the hold-out blaster, or get in close enough to use the blade.

Seln gave her a contented smile, and moved his hand that had been hanging at his side. She saw the glint of the short blade concealed along his arm. “Go. Save yourself, and my duty to your House is fulfilled. Run now.”

Aleishia had seen the knife, too, and began backing up. “Get to the ship.”

“We can’t just leave…” Thelea protested as Rurik grabbed her good arm and pulled her back. She could hear the whine of the engines powering up.

“We have to! Now go!” Aleishia ignited her saber again and covered their retreat.

Rurik half-dragged Thelea up the ramp, with her protesting all the way. Aleishia kept moving backwards until her foot touched the ramp, and then she turned and followed them at run. “Take off!” Rurik shouted to Giriad, hitting the controls that closed the hatch. Just before the ramp rose and cut of their view, Thelea saw Seln twist suddenly in his captor’s grip, stabbing with the short sword he’d been hiding. The swoop leader snarled in pain and grabbed at his freshly wounded face, bringing his blaster back up. Then the hatch closed and she saw nothing more.

“Are you all right?” Rurik asked. Thelea stared blankly at him, the pain in her arm finally reaching her.

“Why did they do it?” she whispered, the glow of her eyes dulled by pain. “I thought, out on the plain, they were after the ships, but they wanted us. And Seln…”

Aleishia gently took her arm, easing her down to the deck. “Seln was your mother’s most loyal retainer, child. Giving his life to save yours was an honor for him, not a sacrifice.”

“My mother?” She winced as Aleishia pulled the burned cloth of her sleeve away from the wound. “Then why was he here? How…”

“Don’t ask so many questions.” She studied the burned skin, then fumbled in a pouch tied to her belt. “I knew for a long time you would be coming here. You didn’t think this was an accident, did you?”

“You couldn’t have known. We didn’t know we were coming.” She flinched again.

“Shh.” She removed a small vial from the pouch and rubbed the salve into the burn. “Now, this isn’t bacta. You’re going to need treatment when we get to Telamara, but this should keep it from getting infected.” She then placed a hand on Thelea’s forehead. “Rest now,” she said, in the same persuasive tone she’d tried on the swoop leader. Thelea’s shoulders slumped, and her eyes closed. Aleishia straightened. “Sit with her a while,” she ordered Rurik. “She needs to rest and give that a chance to heal.”

Rurik nodded, looking down at Thelea. “Who is she? Really.” Aleishia turned away, looking towards the viewscreen, but Rurik grabbed her arm. “I heard what he said. Who is she?”

The old Jedi hesitated a moment longer. “She is the child of two very powerful people, who made very powerful enemies. That’s all you, or she, needs to know for now.”

Giriad looked back over his shoulder. “We’re coming up on that defensive platform again.”

Rurik turned and looked over Giriad's shoulder at the sensor readout. “We’d better run for it. You have the coordinates locked in?” The younger man nodded. “Then make the jump as soon as we’re out of the grav well. We don’t have time to get into another firefight.” He went back to where Thelea sat against the bulkhead, her eyes still closed. He sat beside her and she leaned against him, eyes still closed. Aleishia was watching and Rurik thought he saw a faint smile on her lips before she turned away.

“Here we go,” Giriad announced. “Let’s just hope we get a warmer welcome on Telamara than we did here.” The stars outside blurred into lines, and they were away. Giriad sighed, slumping in relief. When he looked at the others, they weren’t paying attention. Thelea was, to all appearances, asleep, her head resting on Rurik’s shoulder. Rurik was staring at the deck plates, his eyes unfocused, and Aleishia was watching them both, a faint smile on her face.

Giriad sighed and turned back to the controls. Then he smiled. “At least this time I get to fly the ship.”

Chapter Seven

 

 

Rurik paced back and forth in the wide marble hall of the Governor’s mansion on Telamara. Once he’d managed to convince the strangely paranoid planetary control that they really weren’t a threat, getting through to his old sponsor had been surprisingly easy. Governor Rothen had immediately dispatched an escort for them, and a med tech to take care of Thelea, whose arm hadn’t improved much on the trip…combination of exhaustion and lack of treatment, the tech had noted, and escorted her off to the medical quarters. Giriad, Rurik, and Aleishia had been brought to the mansion, given rooms, a change of clothes, time to freshen up, and absolutely no explanation for the heavy security obvious everywhere on the planet.

“Do we really have to get all dressed up?” Giriad tugged at the collar of the civilian jacket he’d been given. Imperial gray, of course, if not the height of fashion. “I’d rather have a uniform.”

“This from the spoiled rich kid?” Rurik was wearing a black suit of clothes, similar in cut to Giriad’s. “If it makes the governor happy, I’ll wear it. If we cooperate, maybe they’ll explain what everyone’s so nervous about.”

“I’m more concerned with who’s going to tell the Executor how we got here.” He studied the huge marble columns that lined the corridor. “We’re gonna get court-marshaled.”

“We are not. It isn’t our fault, exactly.” The sound of footsteps brought him around, reaching for a blaster he, of course, wasn’t wearing. “Oh, it’s you. See they dressed you up, too.”

Aleishia was wearing a dark blue dress, a neutral, sedate style common to the upper middle class on Telamara…Rurik’s own mother had sometimes worn dresses like it. “I don’t think my robes would really be appropriate, do you?” Her face was impassive as always, with that faint smile. “And I thank you for not…announcing my identity. I doubt the governor would be understanding.”

“Yeah.” Rurik still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the story they had given the governor about Aleishia’s presence. “Just as long as you don’t go around pulling any of those…” He wiggled his fingers.

Aleishia shrugged. “I don’t think those…” and she mimicked the gesture, “will be required here. Have you heard anything yet about Thelea’s condition?”

“I was just about to ask you.” That took care of Rurik’s attitude problem. “They haven’t said anything. I figure that must be good.”

“As far as I can tell, she’s fine. I’d know if she were in a great deal of pain. Hopefully they’ll let her join us for dinner.”

“I’ve just spoken with the doctors, and he assured me that the Commander will be able to join us.” The speaker was a tall, whip-thin man with patrician features, wearing the formal dress uniform of an Imperial Governor. “Rurik…I’m sorry about all the confusion. How are you, boy?”

“I’ve been better, Governor Rothan,” Rurik admitted. “We’re kind of in a jam here.”

“That might describe our situation here,” the Governor admitted. Then, always conscious of the formalities, he turned to Giriad. “Lieutenant Quoris, a pleasure to meet you. I’m Governor Aaren Rothan. Rurik doesn’t write his old sponsor much, but he has mentioned you and Commander Thelea, both very favorably.”

“Thank you, sir.” Giriad was trying his best to look properly Imperial, not helped by the discomfort of the clothes.

“Don’t be too grateful. I wasn’t that generous.” Rurik might be on his better behavior, but at the moment he didn’t quite feel like being at his best. “May I present Aleishia, a…friend who helped us out while we were stranded. There was some unpleasantness getting here, and she decided to join us.”

Aleishia gave an elegant half-bow, her hands folded serenely before her. Rurik had a brief image of how the gesture might look were she wearing the cowled robes, and a shiver ran down his spine. There was something far more serene and courtly about her than anyone he’d ever seen here at the palace or even from Coruscant, and it chilled him. “Governor, your hospitality is most generous.”

The Governor returned the bow before he even seemed to realize it. “Madam. Welcome to Telamara.” He glanced briefly over the three of them. “From what I was told, my daughter took your Commander to get cleaned up, and they’ll be joining us in the dining room. If you’ll follow me?”

Rurik fell in just a step behind the Governor, close enough to talk but far enough for a little respect. “Is it just me, or are things a little more tense than usual?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Governor Rothan was making a pretense at levity, but it wasn’t working.

“The third degree we got the minute we came in-system. Not that a flock of old TIE/Ins really scared us all that much, but we’ve never had that kind of patrol here before. Something has to be going on.”

The Governor’s thin face twisted. “You picked a rather bad time to visit home, Rurik. We’ve been having problems and, with the Core so busy fighting the Rebellion, we’re on our own.”

“Problems with who?”

“You’re a very persistent young man, Rurik. I always liked that about you.”

“Then humor me and tell me what’s going on.” He gave Rothan his best disarming grin, one he’d have never dared with his superiors aboard ship.

Rothan sighed. “All right. We’ve been attacked, repeatedly, by ships no one’s seen before, who then disappear before we can respond. They’ve hit our supply ships from the Core when they drop out of hyperspace, they’ve disabled the one orbital defense station we had, ships attempting to leave are fallen on…we’re lucky we still have communications. You were rather fortunate they didn’t spot you coming in.”

Rurik looked at Giriad and knew the other pilot was thinking the same thing. “They don’t use some kind of pulse energy weapon, do they?” Rurik asked carefully.

“Big black ships, weird configuration?” Giriad added.

Rothan stared. “Not very big, but yes, some sort of pulse-phase, we think…at least, we assume. No one who’s gotten close enough to analyze has lasted long enough to do any detailed research.”

Aleishia’s impassive eyes seem to flicker, darkening briefly. “Sounds vaguely familiar,” she noted quietly.

Rurik explained, “We got stranded when the freighter we were escorting was yanked out of hyperspace by some sort of capital ship near Dhregan. Not as big as an ImpStar Deuce, but big enough. It vaped the transport and took off. We managed to limp to one of the moons, but we still haven’t been able to get word to the fleet.”

“You’re stationed aboard Executor, aren’t you?” Rothan asked, and there was a faint note of pride audible even under the tension. “No one’s been able to find the Outer Rim fleet. We certainly haven’t, at any rate.”

“We’ve been chasing the Rebels since the assault on Hoth. The ones that got away scattered and it’s turned into this huge mopping-up operation,” Giriad explained. “Most of the time we don’t even know what system we’re in ourselves.”

Rothan nodded soberly. “We’ve heard that the kill at Hoth wasn’t as clean as it might have been.”

“Admiral Ozzel made a mistake,” Rurik snapped a bit defensively. He was getting a little sick of the mop-up trips, too, but he was also getting tired of hearing how they should have managed to wipe out one pathetic group of Rebels. If the Rebels were that pathetic, they’d have been dead by now. “We’ve been the ones paying for it. At least until we got shunted off on an escort mission out of a nightmare.”

They were approaching the ornate carved doors of the dining room, which, like most of the other doors in the palace, were made of the local trees and were a deep black with a bluish tinge. The two Stormtroopers to either side straightened to attention, not that it was far off from how they’d been standing already, and the doors swung open. “Aaren, there you are,” said a woman’s voice. “I thought you had gotten our guests lost.”

“Merely catching up with Rurik, Caia,” Rothan said, going to greet the tall, slender woman who had probably, when she was younger, been considered pretty and now had a refined, dignified sort of beauty. Her hair, like her husband’s, was marked with gray, but had at one point certainly been a brilliant red.

“Rurik, how are you?” Caia Rothan extended both hands to him. “We never hear from you and I worry.”

“I’m fine, ma’am,” he said, feeling very much the child again. He’d been one of the “bad influences” on their daughter, but Caia Rothan had never held it against him…she’d always seemed on a mission to straighten out her wild daughter and her daughter’s friends, and she considered Rurik one of her success stories. He suspected, however, she still regarded him as a little boy who needed watching. She and Thelea, he reflected, would probably get along just fine.

The table was set for eight, but so far they were the only ones in the room. “Where’s Thelea and the others?”

“Gena was finding something appropriate for Commander Thelea to wear to dinner.” Caia’s face creased a bit. “I understand there was a bit of a problem.”

Giriad laughed. “I can just imagine.” Rurik shot him a look. “Well, think about it. Have you ever seen her wear anything that wasn’t standard-issue?”

“Besides that jumpsuit? No,” he admitted. There was a sound of footsteps and voices from the hall, including one rather familiar one raised in protest. “From the sound of it we’re not going to.” But Aleishia was smiling faintly, and her eyes had the distant, knowing expression that had gotten progressively more irritating over the past few days.

“I told you, I’m not going in there!” That was definitely Thelea’s voice coming from the hall. One of the huge oak doors cracked open and a woman with bright auburn hair and a marked resemblance to Caia Rothen popped her head in.

“Won’t be a moment!” the governor’s daughter said cheerfully. “Just a bit of problem here. Hello, Rurik. Nice to see you again!” Then she vanished, pulling the door shut behind her.

“Hello, Gena,” Rurik said to the door. Then he looked at the governor. “Married life hasn’t mellowed her any, has it?” Rothan shook his head silently.

The door opened again, and this time Gena stepped all the way through. “Sorry about that. Commander Thelea just had a few concerns about the clothing I found for her.”

From outside, Thelea’s voice carried clearly. “I am not coming in. I’d rather have a uniform, any uniform.”

Rurik looked over at Giriad, eyebrows raised, and saw the same curiosity he was feeling on his wingman's face. “Thelea, I’m sure it can’t be that bad. Come on, show us. You can laugh at what we look like in our civvies, too.”

“I’d do that anyway,” she snapped, but she pushed the door open and stepped through. “All right, you have permission to laugh at a superior officer. I am certainly out of uniform.”

Laughing was actually not the first thing that came to Rurik's mind. Picking up his jaw from where it had dropped off completely and rolled into the corner was a priority, that and finding an appropriate place to direct his eyes. To say Thelea was out of uniform was an understatement. The dress, probably borrowed from Gena, fit her rather well. Bare at the shoulders save for narrow straps, the neckline curved gracefully down, drawing the eye to a place he suspected she wouldn’t appreciate him looking. A light, warm-weather material, the dark silver fabric fell loose from the waist down, and it made a rustling whisper as she moved. Her cobalt hair was the only familiar aspect, still in its utilitarian braid down her back. All in all, she had everything that was appealing about a human female, with the added exotic touches of her skin and hair. The burning red eyes dared him or anyone to comment.

Governor Rothan was the first to recover. “Please, join us, Commander.” He gestured to a chair to his right, across from Rurik.

“Only if you promise to serve answers along with dinner.” She took the proffered seat. “Not that I mind the hospitality, especially the medical treatment, but Governor, there’s something going on around here, and I’d very much like to know what. We have to get back to our ship, and if something’s preventing that, I feel we should know.”

The serving droids placed the first course, a sliver of a rich pate made from the herd animals that ranged in the hills outside the city. The governor poked at his for a moment before replying. “As I explained to Rurik, it’s something of a local problem. Unfortunately, with the war, there isn’t much the Empire can do to help us.”

Thelea tasted the food briefly and set down her fork. “What, exactly, is the problem?”

Rurik answered before Governor Rothan could speak. “It sounds like the same…whatever-they-ares who attacked the Aris Val. Know any other races that use weapons like they had?”

For some reason, Thelea found her eyes drawn to the Jedi woman. “No,” she said quietly, “not in this sector, at any rate.”

“Whoever they are, they’re getting bolder,” Gena said. “Dallen’s told me that even the security forces are worried. If it’s enough to scare Stormtroopers…”

“Your husband is well-intentioned and very devoted to his duty, Gena, but he and his troops are worrying needlessly.” Rothan’s tone left little room for argument. “We won’t have to evacuate.”

“Even if you did, how could you get everyone off-world?” Rurik asked. He meant the question as rhetorical, but the uneasy glances between the governor and his wife and daughter made him wonder. “I mean, you couldn’t just leave everyone outside the capital, and it would take much a long time to find everyone out in the hills.”

Rothan sighed. “That’s true. Though it is what Dallen’s been suggesting. At least sending Gena and Caia to Coruscant, where they’d be safe.”

“He means well, Father,” Gena sighed.

They won’t be safe there, either, Aleishia murmured. Thelea looked sharply at her, but the others didn’t seem to have heard. They didn’t even seem to notice she’d spoken at all.

“We didn’t see any signs of them when we arrived,” Rurik said. “Maybe we can just slip out the same way.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. You can’t just arrive aboard the Executor in an antique like you flew here, and we can’t simply give you a shuttle. That means being part of a convoy to the nearest supply area.” The governor shook his head. “Every convoy we’ve tried to send out has been wiped out before they could jump to light speed, or they’ve had to retreat.”

“It’s almost as if they can sense which ships are people trying to escape,” Gena added. “A few of the local traders have tried running their blockade. Their ships were destroyed even faster than our transports.”

The droids cleared away the plates and brought the second course, some sort of fish…the capital had, centuries ago, been primarily a seaport and the harvest was still a part of the economy. Thelea picked at hers as she’d done the first dish, eating just enough to appear polite. “What about your fighters?”

“What you saw coming in was more or less it,” Rothan admitted. “We’re not well-armed.”

“Do you have anything hyperspace-capable? If we could fly escort, we might have a better chance, but I don’t want to get left behind again.”

“A few Lambda-class shuttles and the larger supply transports, but nothing fighter-sized,” the governor said. “The only fighters we have are the TIE/lns you saw.”

Thelea nodded slowly. “Great. So we either run for it and get blasted to bits, or we sit here and wait for the fleet to arrive, which won’t be any time soon.”

“Aren’t we the optimist,” Rurik commented. “Not that I’m in favor of taking on a ship like the one we ran into with TIE/lns, but it’s better than sitting here. What if they decide to come after the planet?”

“Then we’ll have no choice but to evacuate as many as we can, and hope that some transports escape.” Gena smiled weakly. “Sounds a little like those Rebels you’re always chasing.”

Rurik chose not to grace that with a reply, and he noticed Giriad and Thelea didn’t, either. “There’s got to be some way for us to run whatever blockade they’ve got. We have the ship we came in on, and your fighters and pilots. There has to be a plan in there somewhere.”

“When you find one, by all means, let me know.” Rothan dropped his fork. “Somehow I’m not hungry right now.”

Thelea stood up. “Neither am I. Governor, if you wouldn’t mind, please have a list of the defense forces you do have made available to me. A datapad readout will be fine.”

Aleishia raised an eyebrow. “Not very polite of you, Thelea. After all the trouble they’ve gone to making you presentable.” There was an amused gleam in the older woman’s eyes.

“Much as I appreciate the gesture, I’d be more useful figuring out a way off this planet, and if I can figure out how to take out those black ships in the process, so much the better. Governor, Madame, thank you for your hospitality.” She turned and headed for the door, and Rurik couldn’t help noticing that the back of the gown was as flattering as the front, if not more so.

 

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Telamara had two moons, one waxing and one a sliver in the eastern sky. Rurik leaned on railing of the balcony, wondering what else was up there tonight. When he’d been a boy, living in one of the capital’s less-affluent sections, he’d loved to look up at the stars and dream about flying. Now he just wondered where the enemy was, and how many of them there were. Being in the military sure took all the romance out of stargazing.

He didn’t turn at the sound of footsteps. He’d known Thelea long enough he could recognize her without looking. “Rurik, I’ve been looking over what the governor sent me. When he said they didn’t have much, he was being generous. That group that game after us and one other…that’s it for fighters. We might be better off making a run for it in the Infiltrator, crowded as it is…Rurik, are you listening?”

“Sometimes I wish I’d been a charter pilot like my mother said,” he murmured absently, and then turned to look at her. “I thought you didn’t like that dress.”

She glanced down at the silver fabric, red eyes unreadable as always. “My jumpsuit’s not clean, and this isn’t that uncomfortable. I do wish it had a weapons belt.”

He laughed, despite the glare it was sure to earn him. “I think it looks fine the way it is.” She ducked her chin, and he wondered if the Chiss were capable of blushing. “What were you saying about the Infiltrator?”

“I was saying, it might be best if we just made a run for it. The Infiltrator’s cloak system might be long gone, but it’s still faster than anything else they have that’s hyperspace-capable.” She rested her elbows on the balcony rail, studying the datapad she was carrying. “We might be able to get to the fleet and get help.”

“By the time we find them, it may be too late.” He turned to face her. “I know that our first priority should be getting to the Executor, filing our report and hoping that they don’t bust us all to flight officer without hearing our explanation, but this is my home. I just can’t abandon everyone here.”

“I understand.” She didn’t sound convinced. “And however we do this, we’ll have to leave Aleishia here. If she comes back to the Executor, Vader will kill her.”

“I know. Rothan doesn’t know what she is, and even if he suspects, I don’t think he’d turn her in. Not after she helped us.”

Thelea was still looking at the datapad. “I feel sorry for her, but I don’t know what else we can do.”

“I get the feeling she can take care of herself. If she couldn’t, she’d be dead already.” He paused. “Do you suppose they were all like her? The Jedi, I mean.”

“The Jedi were rabble-rousers and dangers to the stability of the galaxy.” She recited the party line, but she no longer sounded quite so convinced. “In any case, there’s nothing we can do. Either for her, or for this world. Not with what they have here.” She tapped the screen.

“I’m not going to run away. This is home. I have to protect it.” He grinned, and it was less boyish than it used to be. “That’s why I joined the Navy.”

Thelea smiled. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.” She turned to him. “Maybe Giriad and I should take the Infiltrator. You could help the governor with the planetary defense while we go for reinforcements.”

The idea made sense, but he still didn’t like it. “We’re a team, remember? Besides, aren’t you afraid of leaving me to make decisions without you there to give orders?”

“Strangely, the idea doesn’t scare me as much as it used to.” He was still in civvies, of course, and he looked more relaxed, even in the formal wear, than he ever did in the restrictive uniforms aboard ship.

“You know, you should dress up more often. I didn’t say so before, but that dress looks really…nice…on you.” He coughed a bit.

“I don’t think it’s quite regulation,” she noted dryly, looking down at herself. Then she added, “Thank you. I haven’t worn anything like this in…well, a long time.”

“You’re very pretty. For an alien, of course.” His face was red, he could feel it.

“You don’t look too bad, either. For a human.” There was something very wrong about this, she thought. For starters, they were standing much too close, and it wasn’t bothering her the way it should. Also, why was she noticing his personal appearance? He was, after all, only human.

A lock of her blue-black hair had slipped free from her braid, brushing her cheek. Rurik was fighting an unreasonable urge to push it back into place, his hand hovering near but not touching. She gave it a sidelong glance but didn’t move to stop him. Her hair was very soft, he’d noticed that on the trip here, when she’d used his shoulder as a pillow. Funny how he really wanted to touch it again…

A flicker of light in the sky drew his attention. “What was that?”

She turned, following his gaze, and trying to ignore the strange wave of relief and disappointment that washed over her. “Where?” Then she saw it…or rather, she saw the second flash, and the third, points of light that glowed white, then blue, then dimmed to yellow. “Ships coming out of hyperspace?”

“Close to the atmosphere,” he agreed. “Come on. Either the reinforcements are here, or the trouble just got a lot worse. Either way, we better find out.” For a moment, he could have sworn there had been a flicker of disappointment on her face, but it must have been a trick of the light. He headed for the doors, and Thelea, after one last glance at the increasing number of lights in the sky, followed.

Chapter Eight

 

 

Rurik knew the way to the Governor’s war room and took it at double-time pace. Thelea, hampered by the gown, had to struggle to keep up. The war room was not quite as archaic as she’d feared it would be, given how under-armed the rest of the garrison was. Rothan, several aides, and a man in a Colonel’s uniform and the icy, competent air of a professional soldier.

The Colonel looked up when they entered, one eyebrow raising slightly when he saw Thelea. “Hello, Rurik. Gena told me you were here.”

“Hello, Dallen. I presume she told you about Commander Thelea, as well?” He gestured to her, and she tried to straighten the gown and at least look a little like an officer. “Thelea, Colonel Dallen Torak, Gena’s husband.”

“Commander,” the Colonel said. He didn’t smile, but Thelea had the impression it was nothing personal. From the look of him, he never smiled much. She wondered how such an irritatingly effervescent woman like Gena had chosen a man with the personality of a Stormtrooper. “We’ve tracked eight ships new in-system, as well as we can. They have some sort of jamming system that's making it hard for our sensors to get a reading.”

“They’re setting up a blockade,” Rurik hazarded, coming to look at the display screen showing Telamara, the two moons, and several amorphous points that glowed a hostile red. “Look at the way they’re spreading out.”

“They’ve already had you blockaded,” Thelea observed. She was standing beside Rurik, and he was painfully aware of her shoulder touching his. “This looks more like they’re planning something else.”

“An invasion?” How Dallen managed to stay calm all the time was beyond Rurik’s ability to comprehend. What they taught them at that academy…

“That, or something worse.” Thelea was still studying the readouts, and he could almost see her thinking. “If their ships really are as powerful as they seem, they might be able to stage a planetary bombardment. It won’t quite do a Death Star’s job, but with your population so concentrated in a few cities, it won’t have to.”

“And unless a miracle occurs and the fleet arrives, we have no way of turning them back. If we try evacuating now, we’d be shot to pieces before we even reached escape velocity.” Dallen’s frown deepened, if that were possible. “Right now I’d be happy for just a squadron of TIE Interceptors.”

“Believe me, you’re not the only one. I wish we had just a few of them,” Rurik sighed. “Even that would be better than those decrepit TIE/lns you’re using. And decrepit pilots,” but he murmured that part low enough he didn’t think anyone heard.

“Even if we did, what would we do with them?” Thelea, always the voice of despair. “If these are the same ships that we ran into before, we know they can take Interceptors without a problem.”

“At least we could keep a few of them occupied, maybe long enough to buy a transport time to escape.” Rurik sighed through gritted teeth. “I’m starting to know what the Rebels must have felt like at Hoth.”

“We’re the Imperial Navy. This isn’t supposed to happen to us. We are not a crowd of Rebels on some backwater ball of ice. There has to be a way out of this.” Thelea turned a floor-mounted controller’s chair around to face them and slumped into it, arms draped across the sides, staring into space. “We are not going to stay trapped here. Is there anything else besides the TIEs? Anything at all?”

“In terms of fighters, no,” Dallen said, and then he corrected himself. “Well, there are those that we picked up when we shut down that illegal racing group on the southern continent.”

“I thought you said those were antiques,” Rothan protested, “barely worth keeping for scrap.”

“They are, but they do have lasers and can be loaded with concussion missiles. The shields are hardly worth mentioning, but that shouldn’t bother pilots used to flying TIEs.”

Rurik glanced at Thelea, eyebrows raised. “Just what, exactly, are we talking about?”

Dallen shrugged. “Five flight-worthy, if antiquated, Z-95s.”

“Headhunters?” Rurik didn’t know whether to laugh or not. “Are you out of your mind? These things swat Interceptors like a wherry lizard picks off birds for lunch. They’d just as soon atomize Headhunters as look at them.”

“Well, if you can make some Interceptors, or better yet the newer fighters, appear by magic, then I’m all in favor of letting the Z-95s rot, but if you can’t, then I think you should take what we’ve got.”

“I don’t see you lining up to fly with us,” Rurik snapped, a little more harshly than he’d intended.

“Enough, both of you.” Thelea steepled her fingers in front of her. “We’ll work with what we have. If that’s Z-95s, so be it. We’re Imperial pilots, remember? Are we going to let a minor technical problem stop us? Are we lesser pilots than the Rebels? Of course not. This will just require a little more thought.”

Rurik sighed. “Can we at least load them with concussion missiles?”

Dallen smiled, a little more smugly than was really decorous. “We’ve got a stockpile for you. There were three TIE Bombers, but, unfortunately, we thought they might make good escorts for the ship we tried to send out.”

“Great. So nice to know we’re not the first ones to try this.” Rurik slumped into one of the other chairs. “So, we go up with the Z-95s and your TIE group. Then what? Poke at them until they knock us down?”

“We could try to run another transport out,” Dallen offered. “With the extra fighters we could buy more time.”

“That’s suicidal.” Thelea was drumming her fingers together. “But we could run an empty transport.”

“What are you suggesting?” Rurik turned to look at her. “What good’s an empty transport?”

“It’s a decoy. Come now, I thought you were smarter than that.” Sometimes he wondered if she played up her accent and highly formal diction when she was annoyed. “Send someone, whoever you think would be the best pilot, from elsewhere in the Infiltrator.”

“What makes you think they’d have any better chance than the transport, especially without the fighters?” Rurik couldn’t help snapping; sometimes she could be so arrogant.

“The fact that they didn’t swat us down when we arrived in-system. With more of them out there in orbit, I doubt we’d be that lucky again, but if we make it look like there’s a whole group making a run for it, we could draw their attention.” She sat forward abruptly, turning her chair to face one of the computer terminals. “If whoever flies the Infiltrator can get to the nearest major base, they can call the fleet from there. If we use a priority-one distress signal, someone will have to come. Even if it’s only a Victory-class or two, that could at least buy time for an evacuation.”

“Who’s going to take the Infiltrator?” Thelea and Rurik looked to the governor, who had asked. “If the three of you are flying…”

“We could send Giriad,” Rurik offered. “We’d be all right without him. One Z-95, more or less, isn’t going to make or break us, and one of us really should make contact with the fleet. We’re probably listed as MIA at best, or deserters, by now.”

“Giriad, at least, would be the most obsequious,” Thelea sighed. “They might be less likely to shoot him on sight.”

“Getting cynical in our old age, aren’t we?” Rurik muttered, but he nodded. When Giriad wanted to, he could still play the role of perfect Imperial cadet. That tended to grate less on superior officers than his own Rimworld accent or Thelea’s alien aloofness. “All right. Though you realize, if he doesn’t make it, we’re more or less dead.”

“I’ll take less.” Thelea’s fingers went back to drumming. “They’re spaced pretty evenly around the planet, but a big enough force might draw the attention of a few. Enough for the Infiltrator to sneak by.”

“There are eight of them. If they decide to all gang up on your decoy task force, there won’t be enough of you left for spare parts.” Dallen always did have a way with words, Rurik thought grimly, but he couldn’t argue with the logic.

“That’s a risk we’ll have to take.” Thelea sighed, standing up. “I suppose we should go see about getting those fighters space-worthy.”

“In that?” Rurik raised his eyebrows at her, or more specifically, her dress.

“I’m sure I can convince Gena to find you something more suitable,” Dallen offered, masterfully keeping an amusement he felt concealed. Or maybe he just didn’t feel any.

“I’d appreciate that. Rurik, find Giriad, wherever he’s disappeared to, and have Colonel Torak show you where these fighters are. We’ll need at least one practice run for you and me, and Giriad needs to know exactly what we’re planning to do.”

“It’ll have to be atmospheric. We go up too early and the game is up.” Rurik stood and stretched. “And I was hoping to get some sleep tonight, too.”

“Humans,” Thelea sniffed, starting for the door. “Get plenty of caf, and I’ll see you on the flight line. Such as it is.” The doors hissed shut behind her.

“You fly with that?” Dallen jerked his thumb after Thelea. “My sympathies.”

Rurik bristled. “She’s the best pilot I know. Definitely the best I’ve ever flown with, and she’s a good commander, too. She cares about what we do.”

Dallen raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for you to take it personally. Jays, but you’ve gotten touchy.”

“She’s rubbing off on me.” Rurik shook his head as if to clear it. “Now, you’d better show me where you keep the antiques. I have a feeling this is going to be a long night.”

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Aleishia sat in the quarters she had been given, wrapped in the robe she’d been wearing yesterday. She could feel the presence in the sky above. Since she had opened herself to the Force again, she was noticing so many little things, the people moving anxiously around the capital, the animal life in the hills of Telamara’s green continents and teeming in the seas, and above that, the heavy, crushing sense of the aliens. She did not know what species this was, but she knew the power that controlled them, and where those strange weapons and ships had come from.

There was a brushing at the back of her mind, an impression more than actual speech, but she recognized the source and knew what they were asking. “Yes,” she said quietly, “they’re here, too.” Another touch, more insistent this time, and she shivered. “I know. I’ll try. But it’s not easy. I’m not like her, I’m so tired.”

She closed her eyes wearily. It was more true than she cared to admit; the years were wearing on her, harder after so much isolation. But at least now they had the girl…Chiss, she corrected herself, Thelea was too old to be thought of as a child, by her people’s standards at least, and woman would have such overtones of humanity to it. She was powerful, as they’d hoped, but so tainted. Who could have imagined she’d would find her way into Palpatine’s service? I should have, she admitted. I should have kept closer watch. Now everything could be…

The contact increased, and she felt a soothing surge of warmth that seemed to encompass her mind in a brilliant bath of white light. Somewhere in that light she touched a vast, incomprehensible understanding, an intelligence so alien that her own mind could not grasp it. That collective reached out and for a moment it included her, and she was caught up in the knowledge, the wonder, the sheer, painful beauty of it…abruptly the feeling was gone, replaced by a soothing, restful peace. She let herself sink into it, and through it, to sleep. For now, at least, everything was still proceeding, neat and orderly, as they had planned. Everything was still all right.

“Yes,” she murmured, before she drifted off, “yes, that’s exactly what I'll do.”

Chapter Nine

 

 

Thelea watched the surface of the planet recede beneath the Z-95, the sky darkening from cerulean to navy to cobalt to the inky black of deep space, and she wished fervently that she could have come up with another plan, any plan, that was better than this. The Headhunters handled like packing crates with wings, though to give their designer the benefit of the doubt that practice run was in atmosphere. Lack of a hyperdrive in the modified racers they were flying wasn’t something that bothered her particularly. She was used to a capital ship-dependant Interceptor, but this was not the fast, maneuverable SFS fighter. The shields it was carrying were nothing compared to those on the new TIE Defenders, or even on the Rebels most antiquated Y-wings. One or two lucky shots from a laser-or one burst from whatever energy weapon had fried her Interceptor and they’d be so much space junk. And her flight suit was far too bulky for the cockpit, though it had the small comfort of being self-contained if they did end up being vented.

“At least we have concussion missiles,” and she mimicked Dallen Torak's condescending tone.

“What was that, Lead? I didn’t copy.” She looked out her cockpit to her right, where Rurik’s Headhunter was flying in tandem to hers.

“Nothing, Two. You didn’t hear that.” They’d had to fight to rig up a “squadron frequency” for the two Headhunters that excluded the six TIE/Ins following them up. The pilots were mostly older, semi-retired types who had looked forward to an uneventful tour on Telamara followed by retirement. To them, surrender in the face of insurmountable odds had seemed like a perfectly acceptable solution, no matter what these alleged hotshots from the Executor were suggesting. A short lecture from Governor Rothan, backed up by a silent glare from Colonel Torak, had silenced any more of that talk, but Thelea knew the kind of looks they’d given her too well. They weren’t happy taking orders from an alien.

“Copy that. Or rather not. Any sign of activity from the blockade yet?” The sensors on the swing-wing fighters weren’t exactly state-of-the-art, either, but they should, at least, let them know if anything was getting too close.

“Not so far.” She checked on the position of the bulk freighter that was being sent up, slaved to ground-based computers, as their decoy. The sluggish crate was behind the TIEs, laboriously lifting itself out of the grav well. The more cynical part of Thelea’s mind, which was, she had to admit, the majority of it, was wondering if the alien ships in the blockade would be at all convinced this was really an escaping refugee ship. She understood their not wanting to waste one of the few decent transports they had, but looks were going to be important here.

For a moment, she couldn’t pick out the oddly-shaped black ships against the starfield. Then, something moved. On her sensors it read as “unidentified,” but looking out through the cockpit canopy she recognized the odd, asymmetrical shape of the ship, or one like it, that had destroyed the Aris Val. Farther off in the opposite direction was another, and even the Headhunter’s sensor package was picking up those farther off…not so much as ships, but distortions. “There they are,” she muttered, before switching to the wide-band frequency. “Gamma group, this is Alpha One.” It felt oddly comforting to be using their old designation for the two Headhunters. “Stay in formation unless fired upon. Alpha Two and I have point.”

“Thanks for reminding me, Lead.”

“Let’s try and stay focused, Two.” At least he was still in a mood to banter. When Rurik wasn’t kidding around was when it was time to worry. “I’m going to make a shallow turn towards the nearest capship. Stay on my wing, and stay sharp, but try not to look like you’re too interested in him.”

“Right. So, casual, but not too casual, and ready to fire but don’t look like I’m ready to fire. Shall I stand on my head and sing the ‘Hymn to Palpatine’ while I’m at it?”

She had to bite down on her lip to keep from laughing and she hated him for it. “Two, I’m warning you…“

“Right, right. On your wing.” His fighter banked away from hers, falling back a little to match her turn. She shook her head and forced herself to concentrate on flying.

And it was taking more concentration than usual. In vacuum, the wing design should not have made any difference, but the placement of the engines and maneuvering thrusters did. The control yoke required a great deal more pressure than that on an Interceptor, and her arc ended up being wider than she’d intended. She was still too far out for them to use that EMP that had short-circuited her Interceptor, or at least she thought she was, but she was willing to bet that wasn’t their only defense.

From the activity near the ship, she was right. A mass had detached itself from the side of the destroyer, or whatever that ship was, and was drifting towards the fighter group. Gamma Three’s voice crackled over the comm, around what sounded like the start of jamming. “What’s that, Lead?”

“We’re checking it out,” Thelea replied, kicking the thrusters up a notch. She couldn’t afford too much speed. Right now she did not want to drain the lasers unless she had to. According to her sensors and what little she could see out the cockpit, it was a single, solid, mass, but something didn’t feel right. She increased the speed of her turn and started the beginning of an evasive roll…

…as the object split into at least a dozen pieces, that immediately developed trajectories of their own, with what looked suspiciously like ion trails behind them. “Fighters coming in, break and engage!” She tried to snap the fighter into a tight roll and felt the throttle tremble in protest. Cursing the creaky maneuvering jets she jinked left, with Rurik passing beneath her. Three of the TIEs shot past, aiming to engage the little fighters, or drones, or whatever the black ships were. Circling back around for another pass, she got a better look at them. They were made of the same black stuff, it somehow didn’t look quite like metal, as the larger ships, but with a strange two-pronged front and a rounded, almost organic-looking aft end. At least, from the ion trails, she assumed that end was aft. They didn’t move like fighters, but in vacuum that was somewhat irrelevant. Unless, of course, you were trying to get a targeting lock on them.

“Three closing on us, Lead.” Rurik’s voice had lost all the easy bantering from a moment ago.

“I see them. Head straight in at them and be ready to break on my mark.” She punched up the engines as high as she could get them without draining the lasers and aimed straight for the point ship of the three incoming. They weren’t firing yet, but out of the corner of her eyes she caught flashes of white light. Not like turbolasers, then, but why should that surprise her. The proximity alert on her targeting computer warbled a collision warning. “On my mark, scissor right. I’ll take the leaders. Ready…mark!”

Rurik’s fighter spun right, out of her line of sight, while she pulled back on the yoke and pitched, shooting straight up while the three attackers tore through the space where her fighter had been nanoseconds before. Twisting back into a dive she came around and down behind them, wishing futilely for her Interceptor with its vastly superior handling. This thing had the turning radius of an intoxicated space slug by comparison. One of the black fighters swung out of their loose formation to follow Rurik while the other two turned together, trying to loop back towards her. She wondered again if they were piloted…splitting up would have made more sense, instead of giving her a neat single target.

“Thank the gods stupidity is the universal constant.” She lead them, and as they crossed in front of her she made the targeting lock. The concussion missile closed the distance rapidly and tore the closer of the two fighters apart. The white-hot debris from the first and the force of the explosion took part of the laser mount on the second, and it spun out of control, sparks dancing over the black skin. Thelea fired a couple laser blasts into it and saw more sparks. Deciding it was disabled, she starting to loop back around…this course was taking her dangerously close to the destroyer.

“Nice shooting, Lead, but you’ve picked one up. I’m on it.” She caught a flash of motion as Rurik shot by above her, and then the red threat indicator on her targeting computer indicating a pursuit vehicle vanished.

“Thanks, Two.” The other enemy fighters were engaged with the TIEs, so Thelea took a chance to see where the capships were. To her surprise, they didn’t seem interested in the fighters at all. The nearest was rotating slowly, but her sensors didn’t show any power spikes suggesting they were preparing to fire. A quick scan told her much the same was true of the other two destroyers in close range, except they had also launched those pods or whatever the fighters came out of. The single blips on her targeting computer fanned out into at least two dozen of the little fighters. Searching for the freighter she found that the fighters were ignoring it in favor of the other fighters.

“Two, I’m going to see if I can get that destroyer’s attention. Watch my back and try to pick off anyone who gets too close, all right?”

“That’s what I’m here for, Lead.” If he was being sarcastic she couldn’t tell. “Looks to me like it and the other two are closing on the freighter.”

“I know, but I want to be sure before I send the signal to Giriad.” Giriad, in the Infiltrator, was waiting, still inside the atmosphere, for the signal to make a run for it. Part of Thelea still felt a little guilty, but then she remembered that the Infiltrator, antiquated and stripped though it was, was still faster and better-armed than a Headhunter. She aimed for the destroyer, and the abruptly changed course, turning to run at the freighter. She heard Rurik curse as he adjusted course and she smiled to herself. Good to see she could still annoy him.

The freighter swept by beneath them. An optical illusion; it was their speed, not the slow-moving freighter’s. Thelea noted that when they crossed into the freighter’s range the few fighters in pursuit veered off. Abruptly, Rurik pulled up. “Four above us, tracking you, Lead. I’m on them.”

“Negative, that's too many.” She scanned the area and saw a couple more heading in to help. “Let me circle around…”

“Power surge from the destroyers,” Rurik cut her off. “Get clear, I can handle this. Lead.” He added the title as if in afterthought.

Thelea punched the transmit button and sent the signal to Giriad before spinning her fighter into a roll that carried her away from the freighter. She saw something on the front end of the destroyers flickering, and patterns of light danced across the big ship’s skins. Her targeting computer briefly registered one signal, then two, racing up out of the atmosphere towards the edge of the planet’s gravity well. Her computer blinked as the distance on the first suddenly increased and then vanished as the Infiltrator made the jump into hyperspace. The second blip was still there, however, and she sent her fighter towards the gap between the second and third destroyers towards the source of the second signal. She had just enough time for her computer to register the craft as a Lambda-class shuttle when it flickered and vanished into hyperspace. She’d worry about that later, though. “All fighters, package is away, repeat, package is away. Break off and return to base.” She got three acknowledgments from the TIEs…they’d lost a few, obviously. Then she looked for the other Headhunter.

"Lead, I’ve got a problem here.” Rurik’s voice was taut.

Thelea brought her fighter around in time to see Rurik caught in a tangle of the black fighters. Ais evasive maneuver had carried him away from the freighter but into a knot of the enemy ships. One fired, a steady stream of white light, and as he spun his fighter clear of that threat a second fired a different kind of weapon, a web of energy tendrils that collided with the wing of his Headhunter, the force of the blow knocking his fighter sideways, exposing the underbelly to a third of the enemy’s guns. “I'm on my way!”

“Negative, there’s a surge from the destroyers. I can get out of this. Don’t risk getting caught in the explosion. Shouldn’t be too hard to sneak around here.” From her vantage point she couldn’t quite see how he did it, only that he’d flipped the fighter tail-over-head and was diving between his three attackers towards the underside of the freighter.

At that moment her view was abruptly cut off by a blinding flare from the two ships to either side of her. The bleed from the energy surge overloaded her sensors and they went into emergency shutdown. At the same moment the first of the capships fired as well, and the three beams of energy struck the freighter. She sent her fighter into a dive for the atmosphere and saw similar runs from the surviving TIEs, though one looked too badly damaged to survive reentry. Then again, she’d developed new appreciation for Sienar’s quality control lately.

The freighter seemed to crack and then, as the energy bursts struck the engines, it exploded. She saw the three fighters who’d been chasing Rurik caught in the flame and incinerated, and found herself hoping, pilot to pilot, that they’d been drones. Pilot…she punched at the buttons, but her computer’s circuits were still overloaded, and as her visual scan became more desperate as she realized she didn’t see the other Headhunter.

“Two, respond. Lead, Two, please respond. Rurik?” Her voice scaled up in a way that, were she not so worried, might have bothered her. “Rurik, please respond!”

There was a flash of motion inside the debris and the second Headhunter burst out of the cloud of gas and particles. “Sorry, Lead, a bit tied up there.”

The surge of relief competed with a wave of fury, and she had to bite down an urge to scream at him. “Back to the ground, now, before they notice we’re still here.”

“Copy that, Lead,” and he sounded somewhat chagrined. “On my way down.” She kicked her throttle to full and didn’t reply, watching the skin of the Headhunter’s nose heat up as reentry cut off communications.

Rurik popped the cockpit canopy and climbed out, stretching in some relief. The Z-95 wasn’t really that much more cramped than a TIE, but he never really liked sitting in those for two long, either. Stripping off his helmet and gloves he dropped them into the cockpit and turned to where the other were landing.

He turned right into Thelea, who’d also stripped off her gloves and helmet, and he was brought up short by the fury flashing in those red eyes. “Of all the reckless, stupid, dangerous…don’t you ever do anything like that again, you hear me? What were you…oh, you make me so mad I could just …” She ground her teeth, looking for the appropriate threat and failing to find it. “If you ever come so close to getting yourself killed again, I’ll strangle you!”

He couldn’t help it…he laughed. “Why, Thelea, I didn’t know you cared!”

To his surprise, she caught him up in a fierce hug. He was almost too startled to take advantage of the situation, but not quite. Her face was pressed into his shoulder, and he almost didn’t hear what she mumbled. “We’re having far too many near-death experiences lately.”

He nodded, though the strange sensation of having Thelea pressed this close against him, even with several layers of flight suit between them, was making a reasonable response hard to formulate. “At least help is on the way. We shouldn’t have to do this again.”

“I hope.” She sighed, and her death grip on him relaxed just a bit. She made no move to step away, her arms settling around his waist and her head resting against his shoulder. “I wonder who the second ship was. I know I didn’t imagine it.”

Rurik shrugged. “I’m sure someone will tell us. What I’m curious about is what we’re going to do with the information we just got on those ships. You did have your flight recorder turned on, didn’t you?” He found he was stroking her hair absently, fingering the tendrils that had worked loose from her braid.

“Standard procedure.” She sounded offended at the suggestion, but she still didn’t pull away. “But that second shuttle …”

There was a quiet cough from the entrance to the hanger. “If you don’t mind an interruption, I can shed a little light on that.” Dallen Torak was standing at the door, an amused smirk on his face.

Thelea stepped hastily away from Rurik, fussing with her flight suit and trying desperately not to feel as if she'd been caught doing something wicked. “What was that? I thought we’d agreed only the Infiltrator would go.”

He was holding something in his hand, and as he approached Rurik could see it was a data chip. Torak held it out to Thelea, and as she took it said, “Someone apparently failed to tell your friend. They’ve no idea how she did it…no one remembers seeing her around the hangers, or has any idea how she got the codes, but she apparently snuck aboard one of the shuttles, and the data chip was all she left. I’m afraid she’s abandoned us.”

The data chip slipped from Thelea’s fingers and clattered to the deck.

Chapter Ten

 

Thelea paced the quarters she’d been given, wanting to throw something, to scream, to tear something to shreds, to do anything but be a sensible, responsible, mature adult. Instead she forced herself to sit down and take a deep, not very calming, breath. She trembled with the effort of keeping her temper in check, wrapping her arms around herself and digging her fingers into her flesh until she thought she’d draw blood. How dare she? How dare that…that Jedi offer her promises of information, drop tantalizing hints, and then at the first opportunity abandon her…again? Because try as she might she couldn’t erase that vision, or memory, or whatever it was, of that woman, that Jedi, on homeworld, with her, taking care of her, while her mother…where had her mother been? Dead? Away? Aleishia would have known. But Aleishia had left…again.

A shattering sound jarred her out of her thoughts. A little glass vase that had been the room’s only real decor had exploded into fragments, seemingly of its own accord. She stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending. The room wasn’t shaking…so far, at least, the ships above weren’t attacking. As far as she could see there was nothing to have caused it. Then she let it slip from her mind, she had too many things to think about to let a shattered vase worry her.

Stepping around the broken glass she picked up the data chip Aleishia had left for her. In her first private fit of pique she’d thrown it across the room. Hopefully, the collision with the wall hadn’t damaged it too severely. She’d already played it once, which was what had set off the temper tantrum, and it had been the first item to go flying in her rage. The casing was intact, and she put it back into the viewer, which had also demonstrated a remarkable resilience.

The one-sixteenth hologram of Aleishia appeared again, her face framed by the dark robes. “Hello, Thelea. I know you’ll be angered by my actions, and I understand.”

“The hell you do.” She glared at the holo and resisted the childish urge to strike it.

“This is the second time I’ve had to leave you behind, and it doesn’t feel any easier. At least now I know you’re on your own and not subject to your mother’s sister…well, that’s as may be.” The holo sighed. “The future might always be in motion, but there’s nothing we can do about the past. And it’s for your future’s sake I have to leave. I know, just as you do, that I can’t go back to the Empire with you. The time isn’t right, though it is coming. But before that there will be very dark times, and you will have to travel them alone. I wish that I, or your father, Force help me, could make them easier for you, but we can’t. Though he may be able to provide some escape.” The holographic image leaned forward and fiddled with something outside the sensor range. “I’ve encoded this chip with coordinates to a planet near the edge of what the Empire calls the Unknown Regions. When the darkness comes, you’ll find help, and answers, there. Keep this with you at all times. You’ll know when you need it.” Her eyes flicked away for a moment, as if looking at something. “I have to go now. Forgive me, Mith’ele’arana. Remember you are the child of two noble families, and you have the added strength of the Force. Never forget that, and you will be all right. We will meet again, I promise. Until that time, may the Force be with you.” The image flickered and vanished.

Thelea popped the chip out of the reader and clenched it in her fist, as if she could crush it by sheer will. Then she dropped it and the reader to the floor, her fists balling into hard little knots at her side. There was nothing she could do; Aleishia was gone, all the answers with her, unless the Jedi decided to reappear as suddenly as she’d disappeared. She supposed she should be grateful. There need be no explanation now, other than Rothan’s report on the theft of the shuttle and their additions to that. Still, another link with her past had just slipped through her fingertips, just as Admiral Thrawn had left, and now she was doubly sure he’d been, if not lying, at least prevaricating. Their careers were on the line, there was a chance Giriad would be ignored and they’d be trapped here, even if they did get back they could be busted down to ensigns or worse…she took a deep breath and tried not to scream.

A rap at the old-fashioned wood door brought her head up, but she found her fists didn’t want to unclench. “Come in, Rurik.”

He poked his head in the door, as if afraid something might come flying at him. “How did you know it was me?”

How had she known? “No one else would have dared.” It had been more instinctive than that, but better not to dwell on the thought. “Come in. I’m through pitching fits.”

Rurik stepped inside and closed the door behind him, surveying the broken glass and scattered objects. “I take it you’re not feeling any better.”

She shook her head. “She left. She just left. She didn’t even tell me.”

He picked his way carefully to her and, hesitantly, put a hand on her shoulder. “Well, if she’d told you, would you have let her go?” Thelea shook her head. “So it’s not like she didn’t have to sneak.”

“Why did she have to go at all?” She turned those glowing eyes towards him and he was surprised at how pale her face was, with dark, purplish circles marring the powder blue beneath her eyes. Was this how her species cried? “Damn it, Rurik, she had answers! She knew things, and she told me just enough to make me want to ask her more. She knew my mother, she knew my father…and it’s not only that, but now I know Thrawn was lying, or at least he didn’t tell me everything. And I know that she was telling the truth. I don’t know how, but I’m sure of it. And that means he…and he wouldn’t tell me, and now she’s gone, and he’s left, and my mother is dead and I can’t ask anyone why!” Abruptly she grabbed his arm. “You aren’t going to leave, are you? I don’t think I could stand to have one more person leave.”

“Hey, are you forgetting we’re still under blockade?” He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring grin. “I’m not going anywhere, especially not in a Headhunter.”

She didn’t smile. “Everyone leaves me. Promise me you won’t. Promise!”

He could feel the humor drain from him. “Thelea, I promise. I won’t leave you.” Somewhere in the back of his mind an alarm klaxon was going off, reminding him that she was still his commanding officer, that all regs and all common sense proscribed anything even close to this. He shoved the thought aside. They were not aboard Executor now.

“You promise?” He had never heard that note in her voice before. Anger, amusement, efficiency, even fear at times, but never that child-like terror of abandonment. He cupped her face in his hands.

“I promise. Besides, I know you’d hunt me down if I ever tried.” He kept the smile toned down this time. “I won’t leave you.”

He could almost feel her drawing in on herself, her strength returning, and he prepared to let her pull away. And then, to his surprise, she seemed to release all that energy and slumped against him, her body shaking with sobs. “My mother’s gone, and my father…” That word seemed to stick in her throat. “And now, Aleishia. If anyone else leaves me, I’ll go insane!” He tightened his arms across her back and let her cry, though he knew those eyes did not shed tears. They stood like that for several minutes, until Thelea finally took a deep breath and looked up.

He knew he shouldn’t. Every instinct except one was telling him this was a bad idea. But as he was probably never going to get another chance at this, he decided to hell with the regs and protocol. He bent his head to kiss her, and to his surprise and delight she didn’t resist at all. Her arms slipped up around his neck, pulling him closer. If either had any doubts about compatibility, the enthusiasm of their responses was enough to quell them. Her skin was cooler than his, and soft. He was incredibly aware of her, the feel of her hands sliding across the back of his skull, and the press of her body, so similar to a human’s, against his.

Thelea pulled away suddenly, her hand creeping up to cover her mouth. Her eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them, and she was trembling. “What in all the stars…?” As she backed up, her legs collided with the edge of the bed and she dropped gracelessly to sit on it. “What just happened?”

“I think I kissed you.” She nodded. “I think you kissed me back.” She nodded again, her fingers still covering her mouth as if she couldn’t quite believe what she had felt. “Oh, hell.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” He sat down beside her, careful to leave a good arm’s length between them.

“I definitely kissed you.” That fact was stuck in his mind. “I enjoyed it.”

“So did I.” She sounded as surprised as he did. “I didn’t want to stop.”

“Neither did I.” That was far more true than he really wanted to admit. “We’re in trouble.”

“Worlds of trouble.” They sat for a minute.

Finally Rurik sighed. “We can't let this get around.”

“Definitely not. Fraternizing is a serious offense.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “We’re in enough trouble as it is.”

“It’s not like we can’t control ourselves. It’s not like we’re the first people in the galaxy this has happened to.” He stared at the broken glass on the floor. “Did you throw something?”

She looked rather blankly at the glass. “I don’t know how that happened.”

The bed shook. So did the glass on the floor.

“What was that?” Even as Rurik said it, the shaking stopped.

“Well, it can’t be the world shifting. The kiss wasn’t that good.”

He gave her a wounded look that changed to consternation as the shaking started again. “Wait a minute. You don’t think…” He jumped up and ran for the small balcony off the bedroom. She was close on his heels and almost collided with him as he came to halt. “Oh, no.”

“I see we did get them angry.” The ground shook again, and this time they could see the source. The bolts of energy were weaker than the ship-killing laser, but they were also focused more tightly than before. As they watched a beam lanced down through the atmosphere, directed at a section of the capitol towards the sea. A plume of orange flame said that, whatever the target had been, the hit had been direct.

“We’re in trouble.” Rurik’s assessment seemed right on the mark to Thelea. He turned back to the room, the broken glass from the vase crunching under his boots. “I think we’d better…”

The next bolt was closer. A lot closer. The transparisteel in the balcony doors rattled wildly in its frames, and the floor shuddered under their feet. Thelea stumbled into Rurik but regained her footing quickly, pulling away from the offered arm. Belatedly a warning klaxon started somewhere in the palace. “Command center,” she snapped, “come on.”

They sprinted down the corridors, which were ominously deserted. The floors and walls vibrated again with the shock wave of another, more-distant blast. “I hope they’re just demonstrating their annoyance and not seriously leveling the city,” Rurik called over the rumbling.

“They haven’t hit this building yet,” Thelea snapped, skidding a bit as she rounded a corner. The lights in the corridor flickered.

“Maybe they’re just leaving us alive to do the surrendering.” Rurik halted in front of the command center door, which failed to slide open. “Damn it. Where’s the override on this thing?”

“Step back.” Thelea pulled the hold-out blaster from its sheath and fired a single shot into the door panel. There was a shower of sparks, and the door slid halfway open.

“That works, too.” Rurik shouldered his way in and Thelea had to push him when he stopped only a few steps in.

“What is it?” and then she was able to see around him. The holoprojector at the center of the room was activated, showing Telamara and the ships surrounding her. There were nearly twice as many of the capital ships, glowing a hostile red, as there had been only that morning. And more than half were concentrated over the highly populated capital city.

“Rurik, Commander, where have you been?” Dallen Torak’s uniform was singed, as if he’d been too close to an exploding control panel; which, from the glittering glass, plastiform and metal bits crunching on the floor, he probably had. “There wasn’t any warning. The new ships appeared and the bombardment started almost immediately.”

“We were…held up.” The brief hitch in Thelea’s voice made Rurik look at her, but her expression was impassive as always. “What’s happening?”

“We are, to put it bluntly, being beaten.” Dallen gestured to the holoprojector. “And badly.”

“Shields?” Rurik asked.

“They punched through them as if they weren’t there. The defense platform’s already gone, of course.” The ex-Stormtrooper’s voice was almost pedantic.

Thelea looked around the dimly lit room and spotted Gena and Caia Rothan, both huddled in controller’s chairs, blankets around their shoulders, looking shell-shocked. “Where is Governor Rothan?”

Caia looked up, hollow-eyed. “He went out…wanted to see what was going on. He took a trooper escort, but with all the shooting…”

“I told him not to go,” Dallen interrupted. “He insisted.” A slight twitch of the shoulders was the only outward sign of frustration. “They’re jamming communications, or there’s just so much static in the air, they’re being naturally blocked. But, either way, we can’t get through to them.” The building bucked beneath their feet again. “That was too close.”

“The last four or five have been too close. Have they broadcast any surrender demands yet?” Rurik asked.

“Not that we could translate. We’ve intercepted some communications, but they don’t seem directed at us.” The building shook again. “Closer together,” he noted clinically.

Thelea forced her fingers to unclench from their death grip on the back of a chair. “I don’t suppose you have any sort of shelters or something?”

“Retreat?” The amount of distaste he could put into a single word was remarkable, really.

“Well, they’re either going to blow up the whole building, or they’re going to blow up most of it. If we don’t want to be captured or crushed into very small pieces, we ought to think about leaving.” Thelea kept her tone carefully level. Sometimes ground pounders took gentle handling, not unlike a mentally deficient child. “Better to retreat and hide until the fleet gets here.” If the fleet gets here, she thought, but she didn’t say that part aloud.

“There are tunnels.” Gena’s voice sounded very young. “Beneath the palace. They’re part of a cave system under the city. I used to sneak out through them, but I know they go deeper.”

“I remember that,” and there was an oddly affectionate tone to Dallen’s voice. “But they’re just that, caves. There are no defenses…”

“But there are places to hide. If we can stay low enough, they won’t be able to find us before the fleet arrives.” Thelea slammed her fist on the panel. “I don’t plan to die here, and if I have to play tunnel snake to be sure of it, so be it. We get what weapons we can and whoever’s left and…”

“Set the ground-based defenses to self-destruct and leave them a few nice surprises,” Rurik picked up. “If the lasers aren’t any good against them in a fair fight, we might as well get some use out of them.”

Dallen considered that for a moment, and then reached for the comm switch. “There’s a weapons locker over there. Get out what you can. I’ll have the remaining techs rig the guns and lock down the computers.”

Gena stood up. “I’m going to get ration packs. There’re a few emergency lockers. They won’t have much but at least it’ll be food. Come on, Mother.” The last was delivered in a voice that must have done her ground-pounder husband proud. Caia Rothan followed here daughter, almost meekly.

“Great. More ration packs.” Rurik tossed Thelea what looked like, and on inspection was, a Stormtrooper’s blaster rifle. She grimaced at the weight of the weapon. He hefted two and pulled out a bag of recharge packs. “And I just wanted a nice visit home.”

“We should be so lucky.” Thelea checked the charge on the blaster she was holding.

Dallen switched the comm to broadcast. “All personnel, report to the command center. All personnel who are able, report to the command center.”

“Can they rig the comlinks so we can stay in touch with the computer?” Thelea asked.

“We’ll see when they get here.” Dallen looked at the two pilots. “So tell me, do you always bring death and destruction trailing in your wake, or did we just catch you on a good week?”

Thelea looked at Rurik, who shrugged. “Call it a gift.”

Dallen sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.” The building shuddered again and the lights flickered to half-power. “Rurik, not that I don’t like you, but the next time you feel an urge to visit home, do us a favor. Don’t.”

Rurik grimaced. “You’re being optimistic.” Dallen raised an eyebrow and he clarified, “You’re assuming we’re all going to live long enough to do this again.”

The ex-trooper looked over at Thelea. “Is he still this obnoxious or is he just putting on a show for the folks back home?”

“He’s toned it down,” she said dryly. “Wait’ll the fleet and some senior officers get here and you’ll see the true depth of his obnoxiousness.” The floor seemed to vibrate from a distant impact, and Thelea wondered if she was turning into an optimist, too.