Star Wars, page 12
Murmuring among the crowd made Affie and Pikka turn to see the organizer droid in charge—JJ-5145—rolling out. “Attention!” Forfive chirped in his incongruously cheery voice. “Today’s roster of duty assignments has been successfully collated! Also, we are now issuing sensor wristbands that will auto-load future volunteer shifts, restrictions on hyperspace lanes, travel lottery results, and more. Obtaining a sensor wristband is not mandatory but is highly suggested!”
Pikka winced. “I don’t know. I mean—I trust the Republic, especially after what I’ve seen here. But I don’t like to give out my location and information to any tracking system, ever.”
“We always used to be tracked,” Affie said. “Back during our days with the Byne Guild. Not minute to minute, or room to room—just generally. I’d only recently started to feel okay not being tracked.”
At the moment, she wanted that Republic sensor wristband a lot. A whole lot. Desperately, even. But Affie didn’t understand why. How could something like that help her, when the Vessel wasn’t even in a big hurry to leave?
Amid the push of people moving forward to collect assignments and bracelets, one Kaleesh figure turned sharply toward Affie. “The Byne Guild. You’re Affie Hollow, aren’t you?”
It took Affie a moment, but then she recognized the face. “Dumas Mar’Ti? Of the Athos? I remember you—I came aboard with my mother a few times—”
“Oh, you’re still calling Scover your mother? After you got her thrown in jail, probably for the rest of her life?” Captain Mar’Ti crossed her arms as she glared down at Affie, her gaze as frosty as a night on Mygeeto.
Affie always felt sick when she thought of Scover Byne being imprisoned. Now, being slapped in the face with it, she could almost have vomited. Captain Mar’Ti probably didn’t know the full story—that the many indentured pilots who had lost their lives on hazardous Byne Guild hauls they couldn’t refuse had included Affie’s birth parents. Affie had turned Scover in because she had to, both for the parents she’d never see again and the indentured people who had still been in the Guild’s clutches at the time it dissolved. She’d done the right thing. . .so why did it still feel like the wrong thing sometimes?
But Affie didn’t crumple. Every time she got backed into a corner, she asked herself, What would Geode do? Stare this lady down, that’s what. She said only, “Mom endangered thousands of lives. There’s no knowing how many indentured workers died. And yes, she’s paying for that.”
“Why do the rest of us have to suffer for her crimes?” Captain Mar’Ti retorted. “When we were a Byne Guild ship, we belonged to something. We had each other. There was always another ship ready to back you up. Now? All of us are stuck out on our own, or working for bosses that make Scover Byne look like a Jedi mystic. And in case you hadn’t noticed, this is a bad time to be all on your own. You didn’t just ruin Scover’s life. You ruined life for all of us.” Her scales rippled ominously, as though she were about to strike.
Either Pikka Adren had known a Kaleesh before or she had good instincts, because she chose that moment to step up to Affie’s side. “Sounds to me like this Scover Byne’s the one who actually ruined a good thing by being greedy. You’re lashing out at Affie because she’s here, and because we’ve all had a rotten few days, haven’t we? How did the Athos make out?”
Captain Mar’Ti hesitated, torn between anger and the chance to vent. Finally, she slumped. “We took hits to our nav system that’ll be another two weeks to fix.”
“My husband and I are pretty handy, if I say so myself,” said Pikka. “We could take a look later, maybe?” And then all three of them were queueing up for their sensor wristbands together, as though nothing had happened.
I think Pikka Adren missed out on a career in diplomacy, Affie thought. Her muscles remained tense, her skin sweaty, every part of her anticipating a fight that now would never happen. She’d wondered before whether the other pilots of the Byne Guild hated her for what she’d done; she’d also wondered if they felt as lost and alone and afraid as she did sometimes. If so, like for Captain Mar’Ti, this past week would have been the hardest for them all.
These thoughts lay heavy on Affie as she made her way back to the Vessel, as though a cold, wet woolen blanket had been draped over her shoulders to weigh her down. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known her choices affected others—of course she’d understood that. But she’d thought primarily about the people her actions had saved, and they were many.
Just not everyone.
Did the good she’d done outweigh the harm she’d caused?
As Affie reached the high plateau where her ship rested, she looked back toward the damage along the coastline and beyond it, where the wreckage of Starlight Beacon still jutted up from the waves—stark against the choppy sea. Would they ever remove it? Such an operation would take considerable time, and any mistake would threaten the coastline with yet another damaging megawave. Maybe the people of Eiram would choose to leave it there as a kind of memorial. There was some comfort to be found in the thought of that wreckage turning into a part of the landscape, the framework becoming a home for fish and coral and Eiram’s tiny sea mammals, with their spindly rainbow fins.
Some comfort, but not much.
When she reached the Vessel, Affie was relieved to see that only a handful of people were hanging around outside, a few Togrutas and a couple of humans, all apparently waiting for replies to messages they’d already sent. So nobody else was aboard except Geode, who was in their ship’s tiny mess, no doubt enjoying the chance to relax. For a moment she tried to restrain herself—her navigator was dealing with his own pressures, as was everyone on Eiram at present—but the tears were already welling in her eyes. Sometimes you just had to let go.
“I miss the old days sometimes.” Affie sniffled as she leaned on Geode, whose cool surface felt so comforting against her hot, tear-streaked cheek. “Before I knew what the Guild was really built on. Before I knew what happened to my real parents. But it still feels like I have three real parents—Scover’s still my mom, even though I’ll probably never see her again. And it’s so stupid to be worried about this now, with the Nihil and Starlight and everything, but I can’t help it. Disasters. . .I know they change us, but they don’t erase who we already are.”
She was, by now, speaking to herself as much as to Geode. He was wise enough to know when the right thing to do was simply listen.
“We have each other, you and me and Leox—but up against something like this, it’s hard not to feel small. Powerless.” Affie would’ve felt alone, too, floating in a zero-g void, were it not for Geode’s quiet, patient presence and the knowledge that Leox would return that night, full of jokes and stories about the day. . . .
“We’re only powerless when we’re alone,” Affie murmured. “And we’re not alone.”
She leaned back to look at Geode, who knew better than to interrupt Affie when a new plan was catching fire in her brain.
“I can change this,” she said, “and I will. Nobody from the Byne Guild ever has to be alone again.”
ONE MONTH AFTER THE FALL OF STARLIGHT
“Feels strange, doesn’t it?” Leox said as the Vessel rose through Eiram’s cloud cover and the sky began to darken. “And being in space is about the last thing I ever thought would feel strange.”
Affie nodded. “I can’t remember the last time I spent a whole month on the same planet. And there are people who live their whole lives that way—can you imagine?”
Geode repressed a shudder. The three of us are vagabonds, Affie thought, and we like it that way.
Planetary gravity released its final hold on the ship, and at last the Vessel reclaimed outer space. It felt so good, being surrounded by stars—almost like the old days—until a voice came through comms: “Republic security. Please transmit transit approval codes.”
Leox sighed and flipped the toggles that would send their message through. “Who do they think is still cheating the lottery at this point?” Only three more days remained in Eiram’s security blockade; Affie hadn’t counted the ships still left from the aftermath of Starlight’s fall, but she could have. The handful that had stayed had done so mostly because they could not challenge the Nihil Stormwall—a mammoth, systems-long no-fly zone blocking off Nihil space from the rest of the galaxy; the boundary divided space more savagely and completely than any interstellar border had since the ancient Sith wars. However, a few—like the Vessel and its crew—had stayed to continue helping with the recovery efforts on Eiram. And Affie had found some work of her own to do.
The comms crackled again. “Unaffiliated vessel. . .uhh, Vessel, you’re cleared for the jump.”
“About time.” Leox readied himself at the controls. Affie—who had spent her whole life in space, who had been homesick for it in a way she could never be about any single place—tensed as though fearing a blow. They weren’t headed anywhere close to the Stormwall, and yet it loomed in her imagination, the cold hateful limit to what should be limitless. Marchion Ro’s ultimatum still echoed throughout the galaxy and, even worse, within Affie’s mind: Any ship which tries to use hyperspace to enter our territory without permission will be destroyed.
She hated that the Nihil had made her feel fear even in her only true home.
The Nihil don’t own the galaxy yet, Affie told herself, and if I can help it, they never will.
Leox pulled down, the stars stretched, and the Vessel shot into hyperspace. Electric blue swirled around them, comfortingly familiar, and some of that tension drained away from Affie. They were heading to Paucris Major first, to refuel, reprovision, and maybe even take an afternoon to enjoy those natural hot springs Geode enjoyed so much (aside, of course, from their bad jokes about “hot minerals” and whether he qualified as one). Normally, their course of action after that would be to find cargo to haul; the Vessel crew members were low on funds after a whole month out of action, and given the severe hyperspace disruption throughout this half of the galaxy, there was a lot of cargo out there that needed hauling.
Instead, they’d be heading somewhere else. Affie set to work figuring out exactly where by beginning a scan searching for Captain Mar’Ti and the Athos.
Given the enormous pent-up demand for cargo movers, Affie had little difficulty finding a shipment on the planet Kennerla, where Captain Dumas Mar’Ti was currently based. She very much wished it hadn’t been Kennerla, but apparently Captain Mar’Ti liked the place. That made her the only one.
When Affie announced their destination, Geode could do no more than stare at her. It even took Leox a few moments to come up with a response—highly unusual for a man who thoroughly enjoyed hearing himself talk.
“Far be it from me to cast aspersions upon the entirety of any planet,” Leox finally said, “as there can surely be no place so enormous that it entirely lacks beauty—at least as understood by some species or other—nor any sizable population without individuals of kindness, grace, and wit. But if I were asked to name which planet might prove me wrong by possessing absolutely no redeeming characteristics whatsoever, my money would be on Kennerla.”
Affie sighed. “I know it’s a dump—”
“The place makes Jakku look like the scintillating center of galactic glamour and sophistication.”
“And I know it doesn’t smell great—”
“Even Geode complained about the stench the last time we went there,” Leox continued. “Do you know how much a place has to stink to overpower somebody who doesn’t even have a nose?”
“Plus you have to pay bribes to get anything done there—”
“Including using the ’freshers.” Leox got properly grumpy only once or twice a year, but this was starting to look like one of those occasions. “For the first time in our careers, there’s work to be found everywhere. The Stormwall’s a hateful thing, but people are desperate for cargo runners. Rates are high, jobs are plentiful, so does necessity truly require us to subject ourselves to Kennerla?”
“You know why,” Affie insisted.
Leox held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m just saying, Mar’Ti’s hardly the only former Byne Guild captain out there. We could talk to other captains first, catch up to Mar’Ti once she’s moved someplace else. Someplace less. . .odiferous.”
That was true, and for a moment, Affie considered it. But she’d made her decision for a reason, one that still held true. “The thing is, Captain Mar’Ti’s furious with me. She’s been nursing a grudge for months. And she hit me with it hard—so bad it kept me awake the next couple of nights.” Leox nodded, his expression gentling; no doubt he’d heard her up late in the mess, drinking Chandrilan tea in hopes it might soothe her to sleep. “So now I’m terrified to talk to anyone else from the Byne Guild. But those are exactly the people I need to speak with for this to work. Fear can’t get in the way. If I talk to Captain Mar’Ti first, then I’m getting the worst over with. Besides—if I can convince her, I can convince anybody. Maybe I can even convince everybody.”
Not even Geode could argue with that. The coordinates for Kennerla locked in, and Leox shook his head ruefully. “To Kennerla we go.”
Affie wasn’t exactly sure how the atmosphere of a breathable planet managed to look viscous, but Kennerla had pulled it off. She nearly shuddered as the Vessel descended through the thick, dark, possibly oily cloud cover that denied anyone on this planet even a glimpse of sunshine, much less a rainbow. The docking hangar in the main port city seemed like the place where sand lice went to plan their eventual takeover; at any rate, that would have explained the skin-crawling sensation Affie felt as she paid the Besalisk harbormaster the requisite fee, plus a bribe so he’d prevent anyone from stealing the ship, plus another bribe to prevent him from stealing from the Vessel himself. Despite this considerable expenditure, Geode stayed behind just to make sure the harbormaster remembered his responsibilities.
“If I know Dumas Mar’Ti,” Leox said, “she’ll be in the grungiest cantina this planet has to offer. Which, on Kennerla, is really saying something.”
“I wish I’d worn waterproof boots.” Young as she was, Affie already understood that any fluid on a cantina floor was a fluid you didn’t want to touch. Too late now, though. She squared her shoulders. “Please tell me you know the worst cantina already.”
“Don’t worry, Little Bit. I’ve got a good idea.”
It turned out Leox had had an idea. Affie refused to call it a good idea, however, because no idea that led to the Yorris Lounge could ever be considered positive. Entering the establishment meant bribing the Shistavanen bouncer at the top of the stairs, walking down those stairs while hanging on to the rail to avoid slipping on the gelatinous slime that seemed to coat each one, bribing the Devaronian bouncer at the bottom of the stairs, then ducking under an entry covered in webbing from generations of arachnids. Affie hastily brushed a bit of web from her hair as she blinked her eyes. “It’s so dark in here—I can’t see.”
“The darkness is a blessing,” Leox said. “I suggest rolling with it.”
“If I can’t see, I could trip and fall, and if I fall, I’m going to come into contact with the floor. When do you think this floor was mopped last?”
“Sweet, innocent child. This floor doesn’t know what a mop is, and it’s never gonna learn.”
Affie’s vision finally cleared after more blinking. The scene before her was as disgusting as she had imagined it would be, but the trip was already worth it, because there—standing at the end of the bar, drinking something very purple with smoke rising from it, was Captain Dumas Mar’Ti.
“What did I do to deserve this?” Mar’Ti said as Affie went toward her. “No. Don’t answer that. Those sins are between me and my gods.”
“We were able to talk to each other on Eiram,” Affie began. “Weren’t we?”
Captain Mar’Ti clicked her claws against the glass that held her smoldering drink. “That doesn’t mean I’m not mad.”
“Be as mad as you want,” Affie said. “But be mad at the people who actually screwed up our lives—first my mom, then the Nihil.”
“You’ve taken care of your mom, haven’t you? I’m a reptile; I know cold-bloodedness when I see it.”
Guilt lashed Affie again, but she’d been learning to bear that pain for a while. Maybe she was finally getting the hang of it. “Next we have to take care of the Nihil.”
Mar’Ti cocked her head, signaling her interest despite herself. “Oh, you three in the Vessel know how to deal with that on your own?” Leox looked as though he would’ve liked to interject, but he kept his mouth shut. As he’d been saying for days, this was Affie’s show, and she had to run it.
“No, and that’s the whole point,” Affie answered. “None of us can defeat the Nihil on our own. But together, as a group—we can support each other. Protect each other. And figure out how to hit the Nihil where it hurts.”
“We’re not a group anymore, thanks to you.”
“But we could be a group again.” The nervousness that had slithered through Affie’s guts all morning had vanished. She believed in this enough to fight for it; she just hoped she could say it well enough to make others believe in it. This was the thing she could do to fight back against the Nihil. The thing only she could do. To prove they weren’t powerless. To regain the courage the Nihil had attempted to steal. “Who says the Byne Guild has to exist for Scover Byne alone? What if we banded together again as partners? Every Guild ship can help to protect every other one. We can trade shipments if that works out best for everyone involved. And we can share information, both with each other and with the Republic. If we get back even a third of the former Byne Guild ships. . .that’s a lot of eyes on the Nihil, Captain Mar’Ti. A lot of information the Republic and the Jedi can use against Marchion Ro and the rest of those”—Affie hesitated, unsure whether Kaleeshi had the particular orifice she was thinking of—“fexsnatchers.”
