Star Wars, page 11
“But I didn’t do all this,” Ram insisted. “You did!”
Zeen rolled her eyes. “Way I see it is, we did it together. You were just a few steps behind me all along. And the holoprojection idea was all you! I never would’ve thought of that, but V-18 came asking me if I knew where to find good images of Trymant IV”—Ram growled but couldn’t help laughing, too—“and then I knew what to do. I asked him to find Valo scenes; it’s so beautiful there when it’s not under attack! But he said he knew what you’d like even better. . . .”
Ram shook his head. Around him, all the most amazing people he’d ever met were dancing and having a blast as images of his workshop spun a lazy circle around the room. He would see Valo again one day, when the time was right. But for now, in this moment, what mattered most was that he was exactly where he should be, and that his heart was smiling.
ONE DAY AFTER THE FALL OF STARLIGHT
Affie Hollow was only seventeen years old, but she had known true danger. Darkness. Even desperation.
Yet she had never experienced a day as bleak as the one that followed the fall of Starlight Beacon.
She stood on the surface of the planet Eiram early that morning, a cool day on which no sun seemed to shine from the pale sky. Her damaged ship, the Vessel, remained not far from where she had originally landed after their last-minute escape from the plummeting space station. Nobody was allowed to leave yet—hyperspace lanes were being patrolled, and all of Eiram was surrounded by the thousands of ships that had come to help the dying station. All those pilots were probably still waiting for something to do. Some way to feel as though they hadn’t completely let everyone down.
Or maybe that’s just me, Affie thought.
Once again, for what felt like the hundredth time, Affie’s mind flooded with the image of her pilot and best friend, Leox Gyasi, manually prying open the station doors so the last ships trapped on board might escape—then losing his grip and flying backward into bright blinding light—
“Hey,” Leox said, startling Affie back into the present. Thanks to an old-fashioned parachute, the only sign of his brush with death was a long scrape along one cheekbone. “You heard anything about—uff.” He laughed as best he could with Affie hugging the breath out of him. “It’s okay, Little Bit. You can stop hugging me every time you see me. We’re all okay.”
Affie nodded as she reluctantly let go. “But so many people aren’t. The dead—on Starlight, on this planet, from the Nihil attacks—did we lose thousands? Tens of thousands? And there’s nothing we can do.”
At the Vessel hatch stood their navigator and comrade, Geode, whose wordless sorrow seemed more eloquent than anything Affie could say. Leox’s crooked smile faded as the three of them took in the scene of devastation that stretched out before them.
They’d landed on a small plateau, one that looked down on the coastal city and the broad stretch of ocean beyond. The waves broke around an enormous, jagged, carbon-scored metal hulk that was barely recognizable as the bottom half of Starlight Beacon. All the great meeting halls for dignitaries across the galaxy—the offices of Republic officials and the Jedi Knights—were just wreckage for sea creatures to swim through now. The breeze still carried the acrid scent of burned wire and plastics; Affie didn’t want to think of what else polluted the air.
One day earlier, Eiram’s coastline city Barraza had been a lively place, lined with pavilions to provide vacationers with food, drink, and music; just beyond it had stood several important civic buildings. The massive wave that had surged to shore upon Starlight’s fall had devastated those buildings, shattering windows and toppling columns; the pavilions had been washed out to sea entirely, leaving only a few tilted stakes and pillars jutting up awkwardly from the junk piles washed atop the sand. That space was now filled with makeshift shelters, provision depots, and mobile clinics. From this distance, Affie could just make out the tiny, zipping glimmers that revealed the paths of pill droids hurrying from doctors, toward patients. The devastation, and the places hurriedly set up to handle the aftermath, stretched out as far as her eyes could see.
It took Leox a long time to speak again, but when he did, he’d regained some fragment of his usual ease. “No, there’s nothing we can do for the dead. But there’s always something we can do for the living. So how about we go on and do it?”
They flew the Vessel down to the roof of one of the few standing structures on the coastline, a battered but stable office building that seemed to have turned into a gathering place for those seeking their missing loved ones. Communications across the planet were overwhelmed, but their ship had the capacity to send out a few signals of its own. By unanimous decision, the Vessel crew elected Geode to remain on the ship, helping those who hoped to send a quick message to others who might be worried about them, while Affie and Leox would venture out to see where assistance was needed most. Affie strode through the hatch, strengthened with new determination. . . .
Then she saw the holos.
The images shimmered from small sticky plaques, the temporary kind, rarely used for any purpose so serious. They revealed people of various species, genders, and ages. Just at first glance, Affie could make out the images of a graying Defel female and a human child who looked to be no older than three. How many of these individuals were simply lost in the confusion? Which ones would never return home? She and Leox slowed their steps, arrested by the sheer number of faces: hundreds, at least, in this area alone.
“Most of these are citizens of Eiram,” Affie said in a low voice. “But I think some of them are passengers from Starlight, too.”
Leox gestured toward one image in particular. “That guy was a tech in the cargo bay. I didn’t see him after the explosion, but I did before. Looks a little like my brother-in-law. That’s the only reason he stood out to me, but—”
He didn’t finish the statement. He didn’t have to. Affie was newly, painfully aware of the poignancy of having seen someone on what neither of you knew was that person’s last day alive. All the mute faces of the lost around her dimmed in comparison to the image in her mind of Stellan Gios—damaged but still fighting, not for himself but for everyone else on Starlight. For Geode, for Leox, for Affie herself. Some had called him the greatest of the Jedi, and he had proven it by steering the collapsing wreckage of the station into the ocean rather than onto Barraza.
She hoped his death had been quick. There was nothing else to hope for.
By now many of those gathered around were staring. Their faces were haggard with worry and grief, and for a moment Affie felt like a monster for intruding on them in this moment of pain. But she remembered what they had to offer and called out, “If anybody’s having trouble sending communications, our navigator might be able to help!” Instantly, the crowd began moving toward the Vessel, mutely forming a line that promised to be very long. Geode had his work cut out for him. Now she and Leox needed to find their own work.
It turned out to be waiting for them on the ground floor of the same building, which was set up as a provision depot. Enormous canisters of emergency ration kits were piled high in the back as one lone Jedi attempted to keep everyone in order. Most people—even Jedi—couldn’t have managed a crowd that hungry, upset, and desperate. No, this could be accomplished only by the Hero of Hetzal.
“Please keep your position in line!” Avar Kriss called out. Her long golden hair was tangled and limp; the stunning gem set into her headband was clouded with soot. Affie wondered if Kriss had even slept since Starlight’s crash. “There’s no need to fight. We have enough for everyone, and more transports are arriving from the southern continent later today.”
A wide-eyed person, clearly at the absolute end of their tether, cried back, “If there’s enough, why are you bothering to order more? Or are you lying to us?” Uncertain murmurs rippled through the crowd.
That was when Leox spoke up. “Last I heard, people eat more than once in their lifetime. More time equals more meals, right? Doesn’t mean you can’t all get what you need today.”
Leox had a certain tone of voice that was like drizzling warm syrup over a breakfast pastry, and Affie had never seen him use it better. People relaxed, nodded, shifted their weight back into a more comfortable position. A few even smiled, at least for a moment. Affie took the opportunity to step behind the table with Kriss, to take over transferring packets from barrels to table. “Is this okay?” she asked. “That way you can focus on the people more.”
Kriss nodded. Already the line had begun moving forward again. “That’s exactly what I need to be doing,” the Jedi said. “Focusing on people. No more. No less.”
That was about something besides distributing rations, but Affie didn’t need to pry.
The following hours were a grind of labor—handing over packet after packet after packet. Leox was by her side, the two of them falling into a natural rhythm honed by years piloting the Vessel together. It wasn’t exactly grueling work by most standards, but after a few hours, Affie’s back ached; probably Leox’s did, too, but neither of them would have entertained the idea of stopping. Avar Kriss did not thank them for jumping in to help, for which Affie was grateful. People should want to be there for each other. This was the least anyone could do.
Yet even as she worked, the need to do more gnawed at her, until she felt cut down to the bone. Hour after hour passed without Affie feeling the slightest relief from the terrible sense that she could do more, that she had to do more. Like somehow, maybe, something she could do—something personal, something nobody else could accomplish—would make it all right.
She was old enough to recognize that impulse for what it was: the desire to feel some measure of control. Leox had told her once that control was the ultimate illusion—“We are but fate’s playthings,” he’d said—but knowing that didn’t make the longing go away.
Only once in that long afternoon did the monotony break, when Affie looked over at the next recipients of the emergency rations and unexpectedly recognized them. “Pikka? Joss?”
“Affie!” Pikka Adren’s face lit up as she reached across the table to clutch Affie’s hand. Her husband, Joss, grinned at Affie, as well. “We weren’t sure if you’d escaped in time—communications are so jammed, nobody can find out anything—”
“We made it, safe and sound—Geode, too.” Pikka sagged with relief; Joss noticed how happy Pikka was at word of Geode’s survival, and he no longer seemed worried about the connection his wife had made with the Vessel’s navigator. (Not that he had ever needed to be: Geode was an incorrigible flirt but never followed through.) “Glad to see you did, too. Did your ship take any more damage?”
“Nothing we couldn’t get fixed in a day or two, under normal circumstances,” Joss said as Leox tactfully rerouted the line’s flow to work around the Adrens. “Here and now? We’re nowhere near the top of the priority list for the parts or the repair-droid time. They say maybe they’ll clear flights tomorrow.” The tone of his voice made it obvious that Joss didn’t consider this very likely. Affie didn’t, either.
But how unreal. How wrong. The Nihil hadn’t only destroyed Starlight, hadn’t only taken thousands upon thousands of lives. . .they had stolen the sky itself from the Adrens, and the crew of the Vessel, and countless other beings who made their livings among the stars.
As evening fell, a couple of servitor droids and another Jedi came to relieve Affie, Leox, and Avar Kriss. “Thank you both,” Kriss said as they walked away from the depot, her head bowed. “In a time of darkness, you turned toward the light.”
“We were happy to help,” Affie said. Happy wasn’t the right word at all, but she could bear any amount of hard work if she knew herself to be useful. Being no use at all, to anyone. . .at the moment, it felt as though it would’ve been better to go down with Starlight than to meet such an irrelevant fate.
She glanced upward at the roof, where she could see a large but orderly crowd waiting to use the Vessel’s comms. “Should we go help Geode out?”
“Looks like he’s got the situation under control,” Leox said. “Besides, we need a moment to breathe. You can’t take care of anybody else if you push yourself so hard that somebody has to take care of you.”
Affie nibbled on one of the flavorless protein sticks from the emergency ration kit as they walked through the ruined city. On one cracked wall remained a painted mural featuring Eiram’s queens, whose faces were now marred by a line of silt marking the highest the water had gone. It was well overhead for any human, even most Wookiees. Affie found herself thinking of the people who had been there—and more than the people, too. Pets—droids—keepsakes—all of it had been churned up into a vast wave, and most of it had been dragged back out to sea to share Starlight’s watery grave.
Leox led her to the water, where the sun was setting on a horizon made jagged by the blackened hull of the fallen space station, its erratic burned edges ringed with white foam from the breaking waves. Affie winced. “I don’t know if I can look at this any longer.”
“We can’t not look at it,” replied Leox. “Right now, the whole galaxy is rotating around this point, seems like, and when we ignore anything that important, escapism becomes folly. Doesn’t mean we’ve gotta remain in a state of despair, though. Just means we’ve gotta look at the whole scene. All of it. Starlight, and what lies beyond.”
What lay beyond was a sunset—which, now that Affie truly took it in, was in fact a spectacular one, mauve and crimson and a soft orange that seemed to be caught in the clouds. The beauty of the sunset didn’t erase the ugliness of the station’s wreck. . .but the wreck didn’t erase the sunset, either. Each was as real as the other.
She opened her mouth to thank Leox for the change in perspective, but that was when a shout came up from the shoreline, where one of the small searcher craft had just landed: “They found someone alive!”
Leox and Affie gave each other the same look of amazement before joining the crowd running toward the searcher craft. They got there in time to see one of the medics assist a tall, slender woman with silvery skin—a Soikan? Yes—as she stepped from the craft. Soot had blackened her clothing so much that it was impossible to tell what color it had been before, and her silver skin was nearly as smudged. Her white hair had been tied back into a sloppy tail at some point. Regen packs were stuck to her neck and one of her wrists, no doubt to cover wounds the medics hadn’t wanted to wait to treat.
But she was alive.
“Velko?” The cry came from the back of the crowd, where Avar Kriss was pushing her way forward. “Velko Jahen?”
The Soikan managed a crooked smile. “Reporting for duty.”
Tears welled in Affie’s eyes as cheers went up all around. Leox hugged her as she said, “I don’t even know this person—”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’re celebrating life itself.”
ONE WEEK AFTER THE FALL OF STARLIGHT
WE WILL END THE NIHIL FOREVER.
The homemade banner stretched across the alleyway, stark red on white, shivering in the cool breeze. As much as Affie loathed the Nihil—and had even before the atrocity of destroying Starlight Beacon—she wasn’t sure how she felt about the banner. In the first day or two after Starlight’s fall, people had been so open with each other, so helpful. So good. Rarely had she been as deeply aware of her connection to other living beings, even strangers, even species from planets she’d never heard of, as she had during that time.
Now, however, that gentle communion was changing shape and direction. Gaining edges. Scarring over into something even sharper than a blade.
We can join forces against the Nihil without forgetting what we owe to each other, Affie reminded herself. We can both have compassion and be mad as hell.
This alleyway reflected that duality perfectly. The banner stretched across what had, in the past few days, organized itself into a volunteer station: Republic, Jedi, and Eiram higher-ups let the station know what skills and how many helpers were needed and where, and the station directed volunteers accordingly. Two days earlier, Leox had joined up with a repair crew getting Eiram’s shore patrol craft back in working order, a crew he’d stay with for at least another week; Geode’s makeshift communications station aboard the Vessel had become quasi-official, with Queen Thandeka herself showing up to message their sister world, E’ronoh. (Really, she’d shown up to be seen waiting in line like any commoner, but Affie figured that as long as the queen really waited in the line—and she did—it counted.) Although most communications had since been restored, Geode continued to provide the service for those whose ships or homes had taken greater damage. That left Affie on her own that day, though at least she saw one friendly face.
“They say off-planet travel will be allowed in just three more days,” said Pikka Adren as they stood beneath the banner, waiting for the droids to announce the latest assignments. “Well, for a few ships, anyway. But the Vessel should enter the lottery, see if you can get going sooner rather than later. We’ve entered already.”
“We’re staying for a while yet. Leox will want to finish his repair crew’s work.”
Pikka crossed her arms in mock outrage. “Who owns the ship? Him or you?”
“Me. But I’m okay with staying put,” Affie answered. It felt, somehow, as though she ought to be raring to go—to find any corner of the galaxy less scarred, less traumatized, than Eiram’s coastal city—but instead she felt the need to remain, even more so than Leox. Why she felt that. . .well, she wasn’t really sure. Nor did it matter. The Vessel would be staying put until they’d done as much good there as they could.
And then what?
It still felt as though there ought to be something else she could do. Affie began to understand some of the anger on that banner; whoever had painted it wanted a way to fix things, just like she did. But they thought fixing had to mean fighting. She had to hope that wasn’t true, or else everyone in this part of the galaxy would soon be locked in a bloody, deadly war against an enemy that had proved itself too good at hiding, even better at killing.
