Star Wars, page 21
“What’s happening again?” Axel asked.
The strong tenor of his voice cut through her memories, and reminded her that Phan-tu and Xiri needed her. “I should go down there.”
“Wait,” Xiri whispered. A faint light sped up from the tunnel.
QN-1 flitted back up to the surface, the small droid trilling an excited sequence.
“Quin thinks it heard him,” Axel said, slowly translating the trills and warbling sounds. “But there are too many tunnels.”
“Thinks?” Xiri asked.
“Why don’t you go down there, Princess,” Axel said, defending his droid.
Gella cautioned, “Axel, you’re not helping.”
“Please,” Xiri whispered, but Gella did not think she was addressing either of them.
High-beam lights flared from down in the cave. Shouts rose to the top of their ridge as blasterfire lit up the dark.
“We have to trust that Phan-tu is safe,” Gella said. “Right now, we have to free these soldiers.”
Axel leaned over the ridge and craned his neck. “That’s going to be a bit difficult if they end up shooting at us.”
Gella joined him and studied the maze of stalagmites, the rows that lined the cave. Boulders were piled up below, and as pebbles skittered beneath her boot, she saw that with every attempt to blast their way out, they’d buried themselves deeper into the rocky cave. But she saw her way through, and perhaps, they’d be able to get everyone out safely.
“I’ll draw their fire,” she said, drawing her path between the narrow rock spires with the tip of her finger, “while you and Axel climb down. Once I have their attention, you can order them to stand down. If changing Quin’s frequency didn’t work, they may not even know the war is over.”
“And in the event they do not stand down?” Axel asked.
She thought of Axel and Phan-tu’s conversation, which she’d been quietly listening to as they tried to make the comms work. Taking a deep breath, she turned her back on the steep drop of the basin, balancing on the edge of the ridge with her boots.
“Wear them down,” she said, and took the leap.
* * *
—
Phan-tu Zenn never used to fear the dark, until it devoured him. Falling through the network of tunnels beneath the mountain ridge, he lashed out. Clinging to nothingness. It was a recurring dream, that feeling that everything he had was a dream and one day, he’d tip back into reality and the plunge would be nothing like the comfort of his ocean. That safety was an illusion, an unfulfilled promise he made to the people of his planet. And now, the people of E’ronoh.
When he landed, he didn’t move for fear of having broken something. Slowly, he wiggled his fingers and toes, pushed himself up, only to have the ground move. Shift. He could see nothing, not even his hand flexing in front of his face. He dug into his pockets, but carried nothing that would provide light. He reached down to touch the ground, and his fingers came away dusted with powdery sand. He inhaled the cool, mineral scent of stone, felt the indentations of tiny particles embedded into it. Remnants of when E’ronoh’s canyons might have been split by rivers, covered in oceans. A time so long ago, only the fragments of shells petrified in stone remained as evidence.
Perhaps there had been a time when his world and Xiri’s were not too different.
The thought of her, of Gella, and even Axel snapped him back to life. He needed to get back to them, but he did not know a way out. He heard a distant shouting from the surface. He tried to find grooves and notches along the stone but the tunnels were too smooth, and he only slid back down. His knuckles and palms raw from trying to climb, he remained on his knees.
He’d never for a moment thought tying himself to Princess Xiri would have landed him here; nor had he thought it would be easy. Simple. A hurt that could be smoothed away like the grooves in stone around him. That took time. It took erosion, wearing away. He laughed, alone and in the dark. Wasn’t that what Axel had said to him moments before? But if the heir of his world’s longtime enemy could sing a sea chanty of Eiram to a dying soldier, then wasn’t that something they could build on?
Phan-tu closed his eyes and settled into the dark. Was it different from being under the seas of E’ronoh? They both had cold, quiet, solitude, and creatures scuttling in the corners. Instead of a current of water, he felt air.
Wind.
A thin breeze, like the ribbon in Xiri’s hair. He followed it, climbing into a tunnel and crawling his way out. Eiram’s soldiers needed him there. With every nudge forward, the current got stronger. Light seeped at the distance. The noise, too.
He’d crawled right into the center of a nest of thylefire scorpions.
* * *
—
Gella Nattai loved the sensation of falling. True, she did not care for flight. Flying was a seesaw of movement, and depending on the pilot, she was left excusing herself to the restroom. But falling? That was different. As she leapt into the night sky, she unholstered her twin lightsabers, trusting the Force would carry her safely. Why couldn’t she always trust herself as implicitly as she did in moments like this? Wasn’t every decision she made similar? With no guarantee but the guarantee that it was as the Force willed it.
As she landed in a crouch at the center of the cave, she felt the soft shock through her legs. Then when she was steady, she ignited her lightsabers. The vibrant hum within the core of her moonstone hilts ran up her arms. She inhaled the cool scent of stone mingled with decay.
The contingent of E’ronoh’s red-clad soldiers noticed her first. An older woman sporting a head bandage did a double take and then redirected her fire to Gella. The Jedi Knight raised her left blade and deflected the blast.
“Where the hell did the Jedi come from?” the soldier shouted to the man behind her.
“The Jedi are with Eiram,” a rough scrape of a voice said from the inner, shadowed corners of the cave. “Shoot her down!”
Gella glanced up to the rocky ridge for signs of Xiri and Axel Greylark, but the high beams being used by both shuttles washed out the corners of the basin. They would make it, she knew it.
“Jedi, run!” The sharp cry came from the wreckage of the blue Eirami shuttle.
In that moment of distraction, Gella nearly missed the second shooter from the E’roni side. She had just enough time to lean back, the centimeter of proximity grazing heat at the tip of her nose. She righted herself with a nudge of the Force, and used the severed stalagmites as stepping-stones to draw even more attention. Red blasterfire sailed toward her. Gella spun, each bolt ricocheting off her violet plasma blades and illuminating the E’roni camp. She heard someone scream, a blaster clatter against stone.
Gella balanced on the spur of a stalagmite and used the reprieve from blasterfire to let her voice carry. “Stand down!”
“Go make trouble on some other rock, Jedi,” the rough voice said. The threat was made clear as a large, bearded man stepped out from the shadows. He leveled a heavy blaster at her. He didn’t wear military clothes, instead had on stained coveralls. “You have no authority here.”
Gella looked up to see Xiri and Axel slide the rest of the way down the stone and land on the shelf of the cave above. Axel drew his blaster while Xiri stepped forward into the light. She gestured at the Jedi.
“She doesn’t,” the princess said, “but I do.”
“Captain!” the woman with the bandage gasped. She saluted and stood at attention. “Acting Lieutenant Marlo, here. Have you brought backup?”
Gella had been right. They didn’t know the war was over. That meant they’d been down there for days.
Slowly, half a dozen battered soldiers emerged from behind the barricade. “Who issued your last orders?”
“Lieutenant Segaru, ma’am,” Marlo said, “two weeks ago. We got intel that an enemy ship was attacking A’ranni. A few of their soldiers died on impact, and we took care of some others. We’ve been pinned down ever since.”
“Lost all comms,” a younger soldier said, turning to the bearded man in the coveralls “Some of the villagers like Hix came to help blast us out but it didn’t work.”
Hix, a bearded farmer, made a deep grumble. “We’ve run out of food, water. All we had left were ammo and a bit of courage to fend off the attack until you remembered us.”
Gella felt the thrum of discontent. It was like the cemetery all over again, except these E’roni had blasters and rocks.
“That is a lie!” an Eirami soldier in a dirty uniform shouted. She stepped out of the cover provided by the stranded shuttle with arms up. “We did not come to attack. Our ship was shot down and we crashed. We’ve lost all communications with Eiram.”
Someone fired at the woman, and she ducked. Gella, who’d been attuned to the crackle of feelings, blocked it with her lightsaber. It lanced against the top of the cave and caused a small avalanche of pebbles.
Gella sensed Xiri’s worry and her nearly impossible stance unraveled quickly. This E’roni unit had been forgotten on their own soil. They were starving and holding out hope that someone would come for them, but no one had. Now Xiri had to reveal that not only had peace been brokered, but their perceived enemy, the beings whose lives they’d taken, had died in vain.
“By decree of Monarch A’lbaran of E’ronoh and Queen Adrialla of Eiram,” Xiri said, her strong voice filling the cave. “A ceasefire is in effect, and a permanent treaty of peace is being drawn up as we speak.”
“I don’t believe it,” came a whisper from the dark.
“Impostor!” Marlo cried, pointing a finger at Xiri. Then the acting lieutenant turned to her soldiers, any sort of formality she’d shown her captain and princess was gone. “Why does she travel with an Eirami guard? This is another deceitful trick. We cannot trust her.”
E’ronoh’s soldiers trained their guns at their princess. Axel shoved the shocked Captain A’lbaran and the pair broke into a run as far as the shelf of the cave as the soldiers opened fire.
Gella used the Force to leap, spinning and deflecting fire as she worked her way across the maze of stone. She wouldn’t be able to keep that up for much longer. She jumped to the ground and took cover behind one of the stalagmites. From there, she had a clear view of E’ronoh’s barricades. Axel and Xiri joined her side, flinching as red fire carved away at their shelter.
“Well, that went as expected,” Axel said airily, dusting the front of his tunic. “How are we to prove you’re you? Unless…are you an impostor?”
Xiri glared at him. “Now is not the time to test me, Greylark. And it isn’t their fault. We abandoned them. I did this. And Phan-tu may be—”
“We will find him, Captain A’lbaran,” Gella said. The Jedi had faith, but the princess, Gella understood, needed tangible proof. “First, we must subdue your army. I’ll give you a clear shot to stun.”
The princess of E’ronoh raised her blaster. Axel pressed his back against a rock formation. Their eyes met, and he nodded. They were ready.
Gella seized the crates and yanked them through the Force, bursting through rows of crumbling stone. The fine particles billowed in the air, obscuring the soldiers’ view of them.
Axel moved with a swiftness she had not expected. He felled the nearest soldier with a shock of blue, then took cover. Every time she’d tried to gauge his emotions before, she’d felt nothing—as if he were cocooned in beskar. But now she felt a trill of excitement, a burst of his adrenaline. He looked at her, and in the warped shadows, he smiled like he knew every secret in the galaxy.
Behind her Xiri cried out. She staggered forward into plain sight, grasping the blaster burn on her shoulder. Axel yanked the princess back in time before another hit could land.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” Xiri said, switching her blaster to her good hand.
Still, cold fear threatened like a vise at Gella’s throat at the thought that her charge was hurt. But she would not allow it to take hold. She drew deep from the well within her and stepped into the line of fire. This time, she advanced fast, engaging her lightsabers and moving with them in an arc. Violet light slashed and crackled against red blaster fire. She made herself the bigger threat, and that gave Xiri and Axel the opportunity to flank. Blue energy pulsed and pulsed until one by one, all the soldiers fell.
The dust settled, coating everything within reach in E’ronoh’s crimson dust.
Xiri fell to her knees beside her people, and Gella knew this was not a victory.
“Check on the others,” Xiri said solemnly, getting up to wade deeper into the ship that had been repurposed as an encampment. “I’ll find restraints.”
Gella still crackled with energy, though it was beginning to fade. She hadn’t needed to call on the Force with such fervor before. Her body ran so hot, the cold desert air felt like a gift.
“That was impressive,” Axel commented, keeping pace at her side.
“Thank you.”
“I clearly mean me.”
She grumbled but found a strange comfort in his levity. They marched ahead in the network of stalagmites. On the other side of the cave, where the Eirami ship had crash-landed, three soldiers emerged. The woman and two men. Gaunt eyes peered at them from hollow, bruised faces. Like Salas, they were in bad shape, though their injuries didn’t appear fatal.
“Is it true?” the woman who’d spoken earlier asked. She favored her left leg and had her arm tucked into the crook of the other. “About the treaty?”
Gella suddenly felt very cold from the inside. She slowly moved her hand to one of her lightsaber hilts.
“It’s true,” Gella said, trying for Master Roy’s serene voice. “Princess Xiri is to marry Prince Phan-tu Zenn. We will get you medical attention and then get you home.”
The woman breathed hard, pale-green eyes scanning the area behind Gella and Axel. Her bottom lip trembled. “Where is he then? Where is Phan-tu Zenn?”
“He’s with Salas,” Axel said, gesturing toward the exit with his hands. “He was badly injured, but we found him.” At first, Gella didn’t understand why Axel was lying. But the truth was, they didn’t know Phan-tu’s fate. She didn’t agree with the way he was trying to gather their trust, but she understood.
“Our queen would never.” The woman pulled her arm free. Not injured but hiding her blaster.
Axel drew his chrome pistol and pointed at the men. They raised their hands in surrender. “Don’t.”
Gella couldn’t move fast enough. Weighed down by their fear, their doubt, she hesitated for one moment too long. That cold sensation returned as the woman took aim at Gella, and the other two reached for their weapons.
Axel Greylark fired.
Over the span of the war, Xiri A’lbaran had endured many things. The first was her brother’s death. Niko was their father’s joy. When he was alive, she’d understood her place on E’ronoh. She was a warrior in her own right. Thylefire-made. She’d completed her coming-of-age trek through the canyons and survived. She’d gone to university, away from their system, to learn, to find an eligible match to bring home—perhaps someone of industry or titled. She’d be expected to train her children to be warriors, too, because the only certainty in E’ronoh was that war would one day come.
As she watched over the burning ruins of the basin, she wondered if war only came because her family willed it. Would her brother have made the same decision she had? Would her father have found another reason to take up arms?
But that night was not the time for guilt.
It was a night for courage.
With the help of Gella and Axel, they’d lined up the dead bodies of the soldiers from both E’ronoh and Eiram and built a pyre. Only flame could burn the things these stranded soldiers endured. Pinned down in a cave, without food or water, cut off from home, fighting a war they didn’t even know might be over. Xiri had seen terrible things over the last five years, but she had never seen this.
Axel watched the fire roar. Xiri would not have believed he had it in him, but he’d saved Gella’s life. She watched him wander away in silence, and Gella take a step to follow. But Xiri was certain he wanted to be alone, and she gripped her Jedi friend’s wrist.
“He’ll wander back.”
Gella turned her attention to the barge and lowered the ramp. The dissenters who had fired upon them and refused to stand down dragged their feet up the boarding ramp into the cargo hold of the Amaryliss. When they reached the next village and got back on schedule, they’d have the prisoners sent to the Rook for disciplinary hearings.
“My father would have killed them on the spot.” Xiri wasn’t sure why she’d said that out loud.
She met the Jedi’s curious gaze. “And that is why you are the one who put a stop to the Forever War, and not Monarch A’lbaran.”
She felt like one big bruise, inside and out. The weight of the years past that should not have belonged to her pressed down on Xiri.
“The Forever War. I never thought it rang true, but now I know it does.”
“You and Phan-tu are forging something stronger,” Gella said.
Xiri watched as dawn approached. She let herself voice her fear. “What if Phan-tu is lost?”
This time, the Jedi did not give her any assurances.
At the sound of tumbling rocks, Xiri and Gella reached for their weapons. QN-1 flew out of the cave. Its triangular light panel pulsed red.
She pressed her hands on her stomach. Hunger fought with her unease. “Any sign of him?”
Axel was not around to translate the little droid’s trills, but she caught the moment when Gella tilted her ear to something Xiri wasn’t connected to in the same way.
“Do you hear that?” Gella asked.
Xiri listened to the hoot of a night bird, the warming metal under fire, boots scraping against a ramp. “Nothing that wasn’t there before.”
