Spilled Milk By: Lock, Silence, Gremlin, FLATTOP, and Dragon Day One Primeday /Begin Communication: From: CAPT. Gernesse, CO, INT. Dolus Insidiae To: CDRE. Barand, CO, ISD. Conviction Successfully arrived at the target system. Found one (1) planet with survivable atmosphere. Raging storms impede further scanning. Recommend dispatch of a survey team. Large type-3 asteroid belt. Ready to proceed with orders. Confirm? /End Communication. I. [ CRS Vigilant; Classified System ] Spook looked at him grimly. "Move it, Captain," she said, her voice icy. "Your OC is ready for you." From his cot, Roy 'Lock' Callahan looked up at the red-skinned Twi'lek and couldn't help the lop-sided grin that burst onto his lips. Standing up, the white-haired pilot stretched casually. Spook gave an impatient grunt and Lock chuckled. "I'm going, I'm going." He got as far as the doorway of his room before he stopped, pausing to ask, "Aren't you going to hold my hand?" Spook answered with a push, launching him into the hallway. It was complete chaos, more than Lock had imagined it would be. A small medical team had been dispatched to deal with the fallout. They were going door to door with small pink bottles of medicine—a little something to placate burning mouths, and a little something to placate burning stomachs—in case the Devaronian Fighting Bull peppers and the spacer's skyline chili decided they were going to take the fight to a new front. Unforeseen mistakes were made that day. Battledog had rubbed his eyes after they'd started tearing up and, apparently, Trip, as a Sullustan, was mildly allergic to all Devaronian peppers, but Lock was sure he'd be all right. For the most part, though, most of the Wing just had a shockingly spicy—okay, shockingly very spicy—surprise when they took their first bite out of the chili. Some put on a brave face and finished their bowl, and would pay for it later, but most listened to their better instincts and set it aside in search for any kind of relief. The culprit had been obvious. As much as he tried, he'd been unable to suppress the mischievous grin that overwhelmed him as he watched it all unfold. Much like the one plastered all over his face right now. As he was marched towards Jalb's office, Renegades came to watch and glare at him. Promises of revenge were muttered. He'd better keep an eye on everything he ate from now on; sleep with one eye open, or not at all. Lock had expected as much. You didn't provoke a slumbering beast if you were not prepared for retaliation. He only hoped that when they eventually got him—because he knew it was inevitable—it would be as good, or better, than what he just pulled off. Bulldog pushed his way to the front. "I'm going to kill you this time, Lock," he said menacingly. He'd been one of those who'd fought past the burn and finished the bowl—it was Bulldog's chili after all—and he'd had a couple of glasses of bourbon beforehand, so he didn't start feeling it until he was nearly done. . . Lock gave him a huge grin. The pilots and staff thinned out as he drew closer to Jalb's office. Finally, it was just him, Spook, and Thanatos between him and destiny's door. Rogue's XO was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, an amused look in his youthful face. Luck had befallen the Major, as he'd been out on a date, and had a pleasant home-cooked meal in the quarters of a lovely young Lieutenant from the Vigilant's Bridge Crew, and had completely avoided the chili. That pleasant night had been ruined by the emergency—in other words, thanks to Lock's stupid stunt. Thanatos pushed himself off the wall and started to walk past Lock. "You really did it this time, Lock," Thanatos said, chuckling as he went. "He had to eat some of it to verify the reports." Well, that certainly threw a hydrospanner in the works. The smile on Lock's lips dimmed as 'unforeseen consequences' took on a whole new meaning for the Corellian. At last, he reached the office. On the door it read 'LTCOL REYNOLDS.' Someone had pressed on a piece of duct tape above the name and scribbled 'Jalb_K' on it. Below, there was another one that read 'Rogue Leader,' and under that one was another piece of tape that said 'Wing Daddy,' which Lock recognized as Gremlin's handwriting. He'd never felt any sort of trepidation when approaching this door, but Thanatos' foreboding words had, admittedly, put the fear of a higher power in him—well, maybe just a little bit. Spook reached over to the side of Lock, and pressed a button on the panel attached to the frame of the door. It opened at once, and she pushed him in. "Thank you, Lieutenant," Jalb answered, his usual upbeat Macquarrien accent weighed down by his serious tone. "I'd like to speak to my pilot alone." "Yes sir," she answered, stepping back out. Lock turned to see the door close in front of her. "Ya know what this is?" Jalb asked, bringing his subordinate's attention back to him. Lock turned to look at Jalb. He finally noticed the little beads of sweat forming on the man's brow, the way he kept pursing his reddened lips, how his left leg was impatiently bouncing under the table, the slight shake of his left hand, which held the bowl of fiery chili, offered out to Lock to accept. Rogue Leader was handling the burn quite well, Lock decided, though the intensity in the man's eyes worried him. At first, he attempted to ignore the gesture, but Jalb stretched out his arm further, and Lock was forced to hold the abomination he'd created. He peered into the red and brown pool sitting in the bowl of treacherous beans and ground nerf-meat, and saw his own distorted reflection. No, wait, that was just a shadow caused by the reflection of the light above, a reflection of the lies told by this innocuous-looking bowl. "Yeah," Lock answered, glancing up at his OC. Don't laugh, he reminded himself. Fly casual. "Looks like Bulldog's nasty chili." "Are ya sure, Lock?" Jalb asked, raising his voice slightly. "It tastes different today. It's got a little more kick to it. Why don't ya give it a try, mate? Go on." Lock looked down at the chili unenthusiastically. He'd known it might come to this, but he always thought it wouldn't happen to him. Jalb noticed the hesitation. "Come now, Lock. Go on. Gripping the spoon he stirred the chili, feeling the mystery chunks roll underneath the surface of the liquid. It had cooled down significantly since it had been served, but the thin, soupy mixture had yet to begin to coagulate. He didn't let that fool him, though, he knew that the cool broth hid a fiery secret. "I-I don't want to," Lock finally said. A smile grew on Jalb's face. He breathed in, hissing as if a pressurized latch had just been opened. Lock felt his gaze upon him. "Why's that, mate?" Jalb asked innocently. "It's Bulldog's nasty chili," he answered, as if that would be enough. "I can make it an order." By the calm tone of his voice, Lock could tell that Jalb was serious. Sometimes you played and you won, sometimes you had to eat the devil's chili. Pulling on the utensil, he summoned a hefty spoonful and brought it close to examine it. Cold, yet there was a whiff of something dangerous in there. "I had to, and now you have to," Jalb told him. For the last hour or so, Lock had been laughing at people reacting to eating this very chili, and somewhere deep inside he'd assumed he'd be able to handle it with grace, but, as the spoon reached his mouth, a pit of doubt opened in his stomach. Lock was quick about it, swallowing almost as soon as the content entered his mouth, minimizing contact as much as humanly possible. "It's not so bad," Lock mused, and at first it wasn't. "I mean, it's definitely an improvement," he continued. The pepper burned away your taste buds, after all. He made sure to set the bowl down on the desk. He didn't see any water or, really, anything to drink anywhere in the room. Alarm bells were going off in his head. "Oh . . . Kark . . . Kark me," he muttered. It began in the back of his throat and pulsed outward, like a fire running amok. All of a sudden, every nerve in his mouth was aflame. He inhaled sharply, taken aback by the potency . . . and got the hiccups. Each HIC a magmatic blossom of ignited fury. Soon, tears began to stream from his eyes, and his nose got stuffy. Lock resisted the urge to touch his face as the experience transported him to a different realm for a few moments. Jalb looked upon the results of his justice, and was well pleased. HIC "Listen up, Nines," he began, satisfaction permeating his voice. "You were way out of line. I expected better from you. This whole mess does not exemplify the kind of behavior we expect from pilots in Rogue Squadron, Captain. Even if that wasn't an issue, you put Trip in the sickbay! They're pumping his stomach clean as we speak! He'll be out of commission all week!" "I-ah-I HIC d-didn't— " "He is supposed to fly a time sensitive mission today!" Jalb cut him off and stood up, forcing his pilot to look at him. Lock's gaze went blank, hiccupping violently while enduring the sun's core burning a hole through his tongue. "Damn it, Lock! Half the Wing has filed a complaint, and the other half is plotting revenge!" Jalb shook his head. "Here's what's going to happen. First, you're going to get your butt to the flight deck, and report to Captain Gemilan—you're filling in for Trip! When you get back, you're doing two weeks of tug duty!" Tu-HIC-ug duty!? "Tug duty, Captain! Is that a problem? Or do I need to make it three weeks?" "No, HIC-sir! "Right. Get out of here. They're supposed to take off in fifteen minutes. Your butt better be inside a cockpit in ten, got it?" "Yes, sir!" "And one last thing, Nines." HIC Sir? "Next time don't let your OC eat the chili." II. [ Hangar; CRS Vigilant; Classified System ] Twelve minutes later, Lock was on the flight deck shrugging on his flight jacket as he chugged down a second of the little pink bottles that the medics had been handing out. Gremlin, of course, was the first to notice his arrival. With a huge grin, the young, beautiful Zeltron hopped off of her X-wing's S-Foil and confidently strode forward, positioning herself between Lock and the rest of the team; hands on her hips. "Well, look who it is," Gremlin announced. She couldn't help but tease him. "The terror himself, Old Man Lock. I didn't realize you still had it in you, I thought those kinds of things were a young man's game." "Don't those jokes get old?" Lock asked, rolling his eyes. She snorted, amused. "I could take that and run with it; you know—" "I know." "—but I'll have mercy today. Come on, I'll bring you up to speed," she said as she motioned towards the rest of the team. As Lock reached her, she turned to walk with him, "I think you already know Dragon." "Yeah, he was my wingmate when I flew in Corsair," Lock said. He gave Dragon a lopsided grin as he approached, casually holding out his fist towards the man, who smirked and promptly responded, bumping his own fist into Lock's. "All two weeks," Dragon replied. "You're lucky I didn't eat any of that chili, by the way," he continued, raising the same fist he'd just used to greet Lock with. "I'd have to kick your ass on principle." "Ha!" Lock barked a laugh, but he was certain that Dragon was being completely serious. Instead of dealing with that, he turned to the next team member that he knew, "Hey, Flattop, what's up, good to see you." Flattop seemed amused. Honestly, the two didn't know each other too well, beyond the fact that they were both Corellians. Rogue and Spectre Squadrons, like most of the Wing, kept rather busy, and although Lock was sure they'd chatted a few times at the SSD over the past few months, he couldn't remember anything about him other than he used to be a racer before joining up with the New Republic. "How's the missus?" Lock asked. "You mean the near misses?" Flattop replied with an amused look. "Because that's all I've been getting lately." "Ouch, well, you know what they say, every girl is—" "A New Hope," Flattop cut him off with a grin. "You said the same lame joke last time." Lock laughed. "So I did. Don't blame me—according to Starfighter Command, statistically, I should've been dead by now." "Well, you know what they say," Flattop said, a sly edge to his voice. Dark humor was a warrior's bread and butter. "Every new mission is . . ." "A New Hope!" Lock said, laughing. "No," Silence interjected with grave seriousness. "Every mission is a chance to strike back at the Empire." Lock and Flattop's grins faltered. Seeing them pause, she broke into a grin. "What? You think you got the market cornered on dumb jokes? Think again." Lock gave her a lop-sided grin and held up a hand, waving slightly. "Hey." "Hey," she replied with a raised brow. "Lock!" Called out one of the mechanics, interrupting Lock before he could say anything else. He turned to where the voice was coming from. "Your bird is almost prepped! Just finishing pre-flight checks, you should be good to go in five!" Lock gave the man a thumbs-up, and the mechanic went back to what he was doing. Lock turned back to the group. Two Spectres and two Corsairs, and now him. Admittedly, he felt like an outsider, but he'd worked with Gremlin for years, so he was sure it would all go smoothly. "Right," Gremlin said. "That gives us a few minutes to fill you in." "Let's do it," Lock answered, trying to sound enthusiastic. "It's a pretty simple blockade run," Gremlin began. She'd only made Captain recently, and now held equal rank to Lock. In a sense, it felt strange. He was so used to giving her the rundown and the orders that being in the opposite position for the first time was . . . well, new, and strange. He looked forward to getting used to it. "Omaraga is a peaceful farm planet, pretty much an Imperial breadbasket. A few months ago, there was some dissent, and the Imps cracked down on the planet hard. Refugees have been running the blockade since, trying to escape, but most are no match for TIEs." "That's where we come in," Dragon interjected. "Yeah, apparently NRI has an agent on the ground. They've coordinated a run with us. They take off, we meet them in orbit, and cover them out to hyperspace," Gremlin concluded. "Seems simple enough," Lock answered. "Should be like milking a nerf," Flattop agreed. "I've never milked a nerf," Silence mused, looking a little uneasy. Gremlin nodded in agreement with Lock's and Flattop's assessment. "Yeah, but in any case, the brass doesn't want the Imperials to know that the Vigilant and the Wing are close enough to provide support, so we've been given an operational callsign." She grinned, "I got to pick!" Lock, Flattop, Silence, and Dragon stared at her. "Red!" She exclaimed finally, very pleased with her choice. "Flattop, you'll fly as Red Two. Lock, you're Red Three. Silence, Dragon, Reds Four and Five, and I," she paused, smiling ear to ear as she turned to Lock, "will be Red Leader." "Ha! Oh, now you've made it to the top, haven't you?" Lock teased. He was glad, however. There had never been any doubt in his mind that if she lived long enough (which wasn't a given in their profession), she would go far. "Congratulations, Red Leader." The others didn't really get why Lock thought it was so amusing, but they knew of the history between Lock, Gremlin, and Red Squadron. "Alright! Lock, get to your X-wing. The rest of us will mount up and start launching," she clapped her hands together, breaking up the circle. "Let's go, Renegades!" III. [ Lock's X-wing; Omaraga System ] Days later, when Lock told the events that transpired, particularly this part of the story, he would go deep into speculation. As he saw it, things on the ground must have gone something like this: "Hello, I'm a stupid refugee," hand puppet number one would squawk. "Hello, stupid refugee, I'm also a stupid refugee," answered the second hand puppet in a falsetto tone. "Oh no, the escort that is supposed to keep us from dying hasn't arrived. They're ten minutes late! I'm so stupid," reiterated the first hand puppet. "Oh, I know, I know! Let's be even more stupid and, instead of waiting a little bit longer, let's launch right now!" The second one inevitably said, setting a series of events in motion. "What's the worst that could happen?" Not ten minutes later, the refugees would be pinned down by Imperials, like nerfs staring into the gaping jaws of a Rancor. Lucky for them, the cavalry arrived just in time, but also late, but in time to save their asses now from the situation they created because they were late in the first place. Kark it, let's move on. The swirling blue light of hyperspace ended abruptly for Lock and the others, dumping the five starfighters from Renegade Wing into the Omaraga system. Luckily, whoever was driving the stupid train in the refugee convoy had thought to use the same escape vector that had been pre-planned, which sat near the point Red Flight would emerge into realspace. This meant the convoy was only tens of klicks away, rather than hundreds or even thousands. The five ships materialized; Silence and Dragon leading the charge in their A-wings, followed by two X-wings, Lock and Gremlin, in tight formation, with Flattop at the top of the inverted V formation in a U-wing. "Set engines to max," Gremlin said as soon as they entered realspace, assessing the situation in seconds. "Red Two, prepare the sensor jammer, let's try and remain undetected as long as possible. I'll have my R2 patch an encrypted channel to those freighters." "Calling those patched-up bathtubs with engines freighters is an overstatement," Lock said to his astromech, keeping his snarky comments to himself and off-comms. "I've seen bathroom stalls with a higher hull rating." As they drew closer, the situation became clearer. The refugee convoy was a mixture of older ships, most of them predating the Clone Wars, in various stages of disrepair. There were five vessels in total, and between all of them, Lock calculated that there were about six to seven hundred lives at stake. An Arquitens-class command cruiser was in pursuit, and according to sensors, it had only launched two TIE Interceptors which were already hounding the convoy. From what Lock recalled, such a command cruiser could only dock a total of three Interceptors. Or was it five? "Gold Convoy, this is Red Leader, do you copy?" Gremlin spoke into the comms. "Repeat, Gold Convoy, this is Red Leader. Do you copy?" A few seconds passed before a panicked voice replied hastily. "Yes! Yes! I Copy! This is Gold Convoy! Hurry, Red Leader, they're right on top of us!" "Evan!?" Silence blurted over the comm. "You're the 'agent on the ground'?" "M-Major Vikeron?" The voice replied. In his cockpit, Lock raised a brow. Major? He wondered what kind of story the young woman hid behind those sharp eyes and easy smiles. Clearly she had some history with this Evan guy. "I mean, Lieutenant! Sorry!" The NRI stumbled over his words, clearly stressed out and in over his head. "I promised these people we could protect them, but it's getting real hot out here!" Lock winced. The agent was definitely inexperienced with field work, making promises like that. "They gave you a field assignment?" Silence's disbelieving tone confirmed Lock's suspicions. "Hang tight, Gold Convoy, we're ten klicks out," Gremlin answered, the tone of her voice implying that if the two wanted to catch up, this was not the time. "Be ready to cut and run for the designated hyperspace coordinates when we rendezvous. We haven't been detected yet, wait until we—ugh! Nevermind!" The convoy leader had not waited, and the ships had turned towards the position of Red Flight. Lock rolled his eyes. He could understand the panic and fear to a certain degree, but when panic and fear was routine, one became invariably desensitized. In this case, their fear and panic were going to make Lock's job harder, which only increased the odds of his career ending earlier than anticipated. The second indicator that they've lost the element of surprise came from the Empire itself. "Rebel starfighters," said an authoritative, crisp voice that was transmitting on all frequencies. Every time Lock heard a voice like that, the hairs on the back of his neck stood. He'd been a rebel longer than he'd ever served the Empire, but the conditioning he'd gone through was not so easily forgotten. "This is Captain Aguston Sezar of the Legio Decimus, this planet Is under the Empire's protection," he warned. "Power down and surrender or face certain death." "This convoy is under the protection of the New Republic," Gremlin informed Sezar. "I advise you to call back your fighters, or we will take that as hostile action and respond in kind." "You have no authority, Rebel scum!" Snarled the Imperial. "Test us and find out," the Zeltron replied, defiance in her voice, and Lock grinned. "Red Leader out." Gremlin switched to the squadron's encrypted channel. "Alright, we expected we might run into resistance. Four, Five, I want you on those TIEs. Use your jammers to get as close as you can." "Copy, Lead. Four, on me," Dragon said. Lock watched as Dragon's A-wing veered off, followed by Silence, who replied, "On your wing, Five." "Two, Three, on me. We're going to put a few dents on that cruiser," Gremlin continued, excitement in her voice. "Arm ion torpedoes. Three and I will fire first, followed by Two. Once we knock out its shields and power, see if you can lob that torp right into the hangar of that cruiser Two!" "Specific targets?" Lock joked on comms. "Do we look like Buccs?" "You better Bucc up then, Three!" Gremlin fired back, causing Lock to laugh. Yeah, she might be a Captain, and an XO now, but she was still Gremlin. "S-Foils in attack position, jam on my mark . . . threetwoonelet's jam!" The A-wings were just barely in range of Flattop's signal jammer, hiding them from enemy sensors as they approached. Flying at top speed, they were the first to truly see the dire straits that the convoy was in. The refugee convoy was in complete disarray, with no cohesive formation. Its fastest ships were further ahead than the older, slower GR-45 medium transports, leaving them to the wolves. Yet, it was these two beat up GR-45's that carried the most refugees by far. Once white, their hulls were a dirty, stained brown color, littered with dozens upon dozens of black pockmarks, scorched memories that grew in number with each pass of the two TIE Interceptors that harassed them. Of the two, the Alesia was in better condition than the Gergovia, which had begun to trail behind from damage to its engine. Just as Dragon and Silence closed in on the convoy, hitting their boost in an attempt to get there faster, the two squints scored a critical hit to one of the Gergovia's engines, causing it to explode with enough force to take out the engine sitting next to it. The Gergovia shuddered as main power was severed, and the transport began to drift aimlessly in space. Inside the ship, the secondary generator attempted to sputter to life, but the damage to engineering was so severe that even it could not combat the darkness that consumed its halls, decks, and cargo bays. Lights, life support, and artificial gravity died alongside the secondary generator. Two hundred passengers suddenly found themselves in zero gravity, complete darkness, and nothing but the growing fear and panic that began to consume them. "I'm on Alpha Two," Silence declared. "Alpha One is mine," Dragon replied. Without a doubt, Captain Sezar warned the squints, because as soon as they destroyed the engine, the two TIEs split, breaking off in opposite directions. Alpha One slipped between the two GR-45s, leaving the Gergovia behind, and approaching the Alesia from the rear. The squint pilot hugged the stained, once-white, hull of the transport in the hopes of making life harder for his pursuer. Dragon had activated his jammer, enabling him to momentarily disappear from sensors as he slipped in behind his target. For a moment, both the TIE Interceptor and the A-wing skimmed the surface of the Alesia, the bottom of both starfighters less than a meter from the transport's hull, as Dragon lined up the shot and fired. His high-power rapid lasers cut the distance between them, burning through durasteel plating until the superheated plasma reached the sensitive innards of the Interceptor, causing it to explode. Since he was flying so close behind the squint when it blew up, the experienced A-wing pilot was forced to fly through the wreckage, causing minor damage to his snubfighter's hull. "Scratch one Imperial bastard," Dragon growled into the comms. Lock and Gremlin's X-wings sped by the Alesia as Dragon finished off his target. They were loosely followed by Flattop's U-wing. Seconds later, they passed the Gergovia, which was floating limply in space. Lock frowned, he knew that was going to be a huge problem one way or another. Once they passed the soon-to-be derelict vessel, they reached open space, and, suddenly, there was nothing between them and the Legio Decimus. "Red Three, let's switch sides and boost on my mark. I'll fire my ion torp first; you'll wait a second and follow up with yours." Gremlin coordinated. "After that, it's up to you to pop them in the mouth, Red Two." "Copy that, Red Leader," Flattop replied. "Just give me an opening and I'll knock a few teeth loose." Lock simply replied, "ready." "Mark!" For the better part of the last two years, back when Lock himself had the title of Red Leader, he and Gremlin had flown as wingmates, and had known each other far longer than that. At that moment, it showed. As soon as she gave the order, he moved his stick, guiding his X-wing over and up while Gremlin went down and under. In perfect synchronicity, both pilots ignited their boost for a few seconds before cutting their engines and using their inertia to drift-turn at approximately ninety degrees. They both reignited their boost once the Legio Decimus was in sight, to begin their attack run. "One away!" Gremlin announced as she fired her ion torpedo. On approach from the opposite direction, Lock had a clear view of the angry blue ball. He waited, there was a science to this. One, and two, and . . . "Three away!" He called out as the torpedo launched from its tube with a thunk, before angrily 'FVROOOSH'ing away. Lock pulled and twisted his stick again, visually scanning the cruiser ahead. "Tenkay, give me targets," he asked his R5 unit. The astromech quickly brought up three of the cruiser's guns that were targeting either his X-wing or the torpedo. Lock twisted his way out of range of a few blasts, and prepared himself. Any second now . . . The problem with ion torpedoes, in Lock's opinion, was their speed. That said, they were powerful little beasts—just two of them were enough to completely wipe out an Imperial-class Star Destroyer's shields for a good minute or two, so this tiny Arquitens-class cruiser had no chance. As soon as Gremlin's torpedo made contact with the Legio Decimus' shields, they went down, leaving the vessel completely unprotected against Locks' torpedo. Lock managed to shoot and destroy a gun that was doing its best to intercept the projectile, allowing the torpedo to reach its objective and slam into the cruiser's hull. Immediately, a pulse of electrical energy surged through the ship, shorting out systems as it went, and knocking out its main power source for at least a few minutes. If it had been let at that, the Renegades could go home and call it a win, but they still weren't done. "Two away," Flattop said. A third, meticulously-targeted ion torpedo made its way towards the Legio Decimus. Powerless, the cruiser could do nothing to stop the torpedo as it flew towards the unprotected hangar, nested between the two triangular sections of the ship that constituted the bow. As soon as it made contact, it decimated the hangar, overpowering and short circuiting the remaining TIE Interceptor, as well as all service racks and gear. Even if the Legio Decimus recovered well enough to pose a threat, its hangar would be out of service until they could undergo repairs at a shipyard, which was, ultimately, the desired outcome. "Whoo! Nice shot, Two! Good job, guys. Come on, let's head back to that convoy," Gremlin said. As the U-wing made a pass over their defeated enemy and turned towards the convoy, both X-wings fell in formation with it. As they were leaving the battered cruiser behind, Gremlin decided to switch frequencies, hoping that the Captain of the Imperial cruiser might hear her. She let her voice trail as she said, "Don't say I didn't warn ya, Gus . . . !" Alpha Two was the last Imperial left, and he was being hounded by two A-wings. After having killed Alpha One, Dragon had joined Silence in hunting down the second Interceptor, who had proven to be a much more skilled pilot than his flight leader. Earlier, when he first split from his wingmate, the Interceptor pilot had been able to sneakily get the upper hand on Silence by going under the Gergovia, using it to obstruct her view while he gained speed. He then cut his engines and used his fighter's great maneuverability to turn one hundred and eighty degrees. Positioned perfectly, he was able to fire his shunt-charged lasers head-on at the fragile A-wing, burning through Silence's front shields before she realized what her opponent had done. Her reflexes saved her, as she yanked on her flight stick, and quickly equalized her shields with the other. Now, the squint pilot focused on an easier target. Shunting laser energy into the Interceptor's engines, he dumped it all into his boost, cutting and boosting in a rhythmic pattern, using his momentum to carry him between bursts in a technique known as 'boost-skipping'. He opted for a triangular-forward pattern, skipping above, behind, and below Dragon, twisting the TIE Interceptor's nimble body around to point directly at the Gergovia. The squint pilot accelerated, gaining as much speed as possible before his final boost, which he would use to ram his fighter into the Gergovia. It was suicidal, but, after Endor, the remaining Imperials were becoming more and more fanatical. As the GR-45 transport came closer, he emptied whatever laser energy was left in the cannon's magazine. Thunderous bolts of green plasma scorched burn marks into the transport's hull, thinning out its armored plating. The squint pilot leveled the TIE to crash at an angle, taking advantage of the damage he'd done. As he reached the last few hundred meters, he switched to a general frequency channel. "For the Empire! AHHHH!" He engaged the boost and cut it, intending to boost skip just one more time for added momentum . . . and that was his mistake. Silence had been forced to break off earlier, but after disengaging momentarily to let her shields recharge, she was back in the fray. Alpha Two had proven to be quite annoying, even as she hunted him down in coordination with Dragon. She watched the Imperial bounce around her wingmate, and then break off sharply into a straight line towards the Gergovia. "He's going for it!" Silence called out as she slammed all power into engines and pushed the A-wing to its limits. For a moment she thought she might be too far, but then remembered how her ex-Imperial pilot colleague had used 'boost skipping' to create and close space much faster than what regular boosting would allow. This wasn't a get out of jail free card for faster snub speeds, however, as the process wrought havoc on starfighter airframes and engine assemblies. Extensive use of boost skipping led to breakdowns at an accelerated rate, which made the maneuver very risky for pilots to execute, let alone the difficulties in actually pulling it off. It was especially perilous if they weren't around a friendly retrieval option to pick them up if things broke down. The A-wing's Novaldex J-77 Event Horizon engines were already finicky to boot, prone to malfunctions and alignment issues without added strain of crazy maneuvers. Silence mentally rattled through the precarious situation in the blink of an eye. With a deep breath she hit the boost, and the light craft surged forward. She cut engine power immediately after, and felt as the A-wing continued to advance as the kinetic energy pushed her back into her seat. Again, she boosted, and skipped, and then again, and again. Visibility was the biggest handicap that all TIE starfighters shared, and that made them ridiculously easy to sneak up on. Silence knew that if she fired on the squint, its momentum would cause it to inevitably crash against the Gergovia, so, she decided to use the Imperial's own trick against him. As the Interceptor pilot cut power to his engines one last time, Silence hit her boost to slide right under him. She then cut her boost and pulled back on her flight stick to use her own momentum as leverage to bump the TIE Interceptor upwards, and out of its intended trajectory. This way, when the Imperial pilot did hit his boost, his ship would go flying into a different angle, and away from his target. As for herself, Silence was able to cut her momentum down just enough that when she did strike the transport, she harmlessly bounced off. Although, the scrape marks on the bottom of her snubfighter would bring tears to the eyes of any A-wing mechanic. Lock saw this unfold from his X-wing as he returned from the cruiser with Gremlin and Flattop. The TIE Interceptor was deflected upwards into the maw of Dragon, who lit it up with his rapid-fire cannon and flew right into his target's wreckage . . . again. This time, Dragon wasn't as lucky, and the flaming husk of the squint hit the left side of the A-wing's canopy, leaving a nasty crack that made it almost impossible to see through. To make matters worse, a piece of Interceptor wing caught onto the A-wing's left gun and sheared it off. "Grash tak nakkhar!" Dragon swore into the comms. "Sorry!" Silence said meekly, even though she'd just saved hundreds of people. "Wakachangi's going to kill you, you know?" Flattop warned Dragon with a laugh. Dragon growled back at him. "Hey, now," Flattop couldn't help himself. "That's just what Wakachangi said!" Silence, Lock, and Gremlin joined in on the laughter. They'd won, after all, and adrenaline was still pumping through their veins. It wasn't over, though. They had a convoy to protect and one of the largest ships was dead in the water. The Renegades had not even begun to consider the ramifications of that, but they soon would. "Nice job, Red Flight, you saved our butts!" Evan said, relief clear in his voice. "This is Captain Ganso of the Gergovia, said a new voice. "Thank the Force for the New Republic. We're starting repairs and estimate an hour or so to completion." There was complete silence. An hour? As Captain Ganso should have been aware, the Omaraga System was under an Imperial Blockade. The Legio Decimus was not the only ship patrolling this system—there were two Imperial-class Star Destroyers in orbit at this very moment, who were, more than likely, already monitoring the situation closely. Up until now, the cruiser and its fighter complement had been sufficient to deal with the problem. Now, it required their attention. Both ships had already begun to move in the direction of the convoy. "Is there any way to do it faster?" Gremlin asked. "Negative, Red Leader. The damage to engineering was extensive. We have to re-route emergency power before we can even start to repair the engines," Ganso answered. Lock could swear he heard the sweat dripping off the man's forehead. "I've got more bad news, Lead," Dragon informed them. "My primary fuel tank is damaged and I just switched to reserve." They all knew that, if all they did was jump, he had maybe five hours of fuel left, and that was cutting it close. "Dank farrik," Gremlin uttered. "What about the Alesia? Can they take on passengers from the Gergovia?" "I'm afraid not," Evan answered, sounding defeated. "We are pretty much at full capacity, and so is the Gergovia." "That doesn't leave us with much of a choice," Lock commented. "Those Star Destroyers will be here in ten minutes, and I would bet a stack of credits they've already launched a full squad of squints at least, which will arrive sooner." No one said anything. Lock felt sorry this decision fell on Gremlin's shoulders. She was too young to be deciding who lived and who died. It was a tough call and, whilst Lock knew what he would do, he knew that he had to leave it to her. For what felt like an eternity, everyone just waited for someone to say it. "Alright," Gremlin began. "Those Star Destroyers are almost on top of us . . ." "What?" Evan broke in, confused and frantic. "You can't be saying you intend to—" "We can't sit around and wait for four hours, and we don't have the numbers . . ." Gremlin continued. The excitement from before was gone. Lock frowned. For some reason, somehow, it felt worse than he'd expected it to. "We need to save the most people we can . . ." "You're just going to abandon us!?" Ganso accused. "Wait!" Desperation and disbelief filled Evan's voice. "Come on, there has to be another way. Maybe we do have room, we can make room, we have to try, we can't just—" "We don't have the time," Silence cut him off, as if stepping back into a time and place where she'd outranked him. "Major Vikeron, please!" "I'm not your frakking major anymore, Captain Feldspar!" Silence snapped. "It's not my call to make!" After a split second, the lieutenant seemed to realize she was shifting the heart-wrenching blame to Gremlin. "But if I were," she added hastily. "I'd make the same decision. We can't save everyone. If we stay, then everyone dies." "You're the ones who were late!" Ganso yelled desperately. "This is on you!" "Red Flight, you have your orders," Gremlin said coolly. "Gold Convoy, follow us or stay, it's your decision." "Damn you, Red Flight! Killers! Liars!" Captain Ganso wailed into the comms, and when he realized the Alesia was following suit, he added: "Feldspar, you guaranteed us safe passage if we mobilized! You didn't warn us your people would just as soon leave us to die! Frak you!" "No—I didn't want—" Evan tried to protest, but his voice gave out and he couldn't finish. "I'm sorry," Gremlin said. Everyone else remained silent. "Who gives a damn how you feel, schutta!?" Ganso spat and cut the comm. It would take them a few minutes to reach the hyper point, and, in that time, the TIE Interceptors Lock had foretold caught up to the Gergovia. Like a pack of ravenous dogs, they got to work on her, buzzing about in a murderous frenzy, devouring her outer hull with their green bolts. The Gergovia's hull tore open just as the convoy and its protectors reached the edge of the system and jumped away. A brilliant flash engulfed the Gergovia and over two hundred refugees ceased to exist. Lock took one last look before hyperspace whisked him away from the Omaraga System and the tragedy he'd caused. They'd won, damn it. This was nerfshit. IV. [ Lock's X-wing; Hyperspace ] When retelling this part of the story, Lock would leave out the horrible, sick, guilty feeling that congealed within him; how he'd come to realize that his stupid joke had caused the deaths of over two hundred people. He couldn't help but feel relief that it had not been any of them—the Renegades, his friends—and though he was disgusted with himself for weighing any one of their lives against two hundred and choosing the Renegades every single time, Lock could live with it. The swirling blue of hyperspace was so familiar that, where he had once only felt dread and anxiety, now he found comfort. Lock's life felt segued by blue tunnels of light that had taken him from one fight to the next, one heartbreak after another. Eventually, he realized that they meant the opposite as well: they were an escape, a clean getaway, another mission accomplished, one more day to live before the Bank of Life came to collect its debt. Though they had lost the Gergovia, Red Flight had still escaped to hyperspace with four refugee ships. The Alesia not only turned out to be the largest of the ships in the convoy, but, ironically, the most modern. The Hispa, the Gaula, and the Britonni were all older freighters, so old and repaired, modified, or patched together so many times that he had a hard time recognizing them. He was pretty sure that one of them, and Flattop had backed him up on it, the Hispa, was a Corellian YT freighter, or, at least, a much more primitive version of one, with more saucer and a centralized cockpit—one of those things Lock would see in junkyards back in Corellia. The Gaula, and the Britonni, according to Silence's theory, looked like they had begun their life as a smaller, uglier version of the modern BFF-1 Bulk Freighter. Neither seemed like they had flown in at least fifty years, and, even now, pieces of the ships were flying off willy-nilly. This posed enough of a concern that both ships were positioned in the rear upon hyperspace entry, just to avoid unwanted accidents. The refugees were pretty angry about leaving the Gergovia behind. Lock understood to a degree, but that didn't prevent him from seeing their hypocrisy. Prior to the Renegades' arrival, the Hispa, the Gaula, and the Britonni had been more than willing to leave the Alesia and the Gergovia behind—children and all. So, in Lock's humble opinion, they should be thanking Gremlin and the rest of Red Flight for saving who they could. Gremlin had ordered comm silence, telling the refugees that the Imps would track down their position down if they didn't comply. Had she not done that, Lock was pretty sure they would still be down her throat. Conversation on the Renegades' private channel had been sporadic, mostly affirming to Gremlin that she'd made the right choice. He'd been on the receiving end of those words before. One thing was saying you'd have done the same, and another was actually doing it. After a short game of "guess the freighter," the pilots started quieting down and going into their usual long hyper flight routines. For Lock that meant one thing. He fished out a small datapad from his boot, scooted down on his seat as far as he could, and leaned back, getting comfortable in the tiny, cramped space so he could play "MonTure, the ultimate Monster Capture Adventure! CarboSteel Edition (trademarked)." He'd barely got past the intro screen when his astromech whistled. Lock sighed as he read the message. He knew he'd be receiving one of these; he'd just hoped for a few hours of play time and separation first. "Patch her through, Tenkay," Lock said. Immediately, he was greeted by Gremlin, "—eelllloooo, canyouhearme? Hello? He—" "Yeah, yeah, I can hear you," Lock answered with his usual impatience, but playing it up a notch for fun. "So, what edition are you playing today? IceComet?" "I beat that one already," Lock replied. "I was about to start—" He stopped abruptly when he heard her snoring—playing it up a notch for fun. "Yeah, whatever, what do you want?" "I don't know, I'm bored," she complained. "I can't concentrate on my holodrama." "Which one?" It was an easier topic than what was probably on her mind. "The Hawkbatman Rises." "Ah, the Nar Shadaa Trilogy. Pretty good, or it was." "Imperial censors did a number on it." "I remember," he said. "Yeah . . ." For a moment, they said nothing. The bantha in the room was inevitable. Either he'd say something, or she'd say something. He took a deep breath. "Look, Gremlin, back there—" His X-Wing suddenly shook, and warning sirens blared as the astromech wailed. "—what was that?!" "I'm detecting gravimetric fluctuations!" Flattop called out over an open channel. "Dank farrik! We're—" V. [ Lock's X-wing; Unknown System ] "—reverting to realspace!" Gremlin replied. The starfighters arrived first, followed moments later by the Alesia and the Hispa, which were in turn followed closely by the twin spacefaring disasters, the Gaula and the Britonni. Ten kilometers ahead of the convoy, with a halo of light shimmering around its hull due to its white paint job and the nearby sun, sat an Interdictor-class Star Destroyer, easily identified by the bulbous growths protruding from its structure. This was, without a doubt, some of the worst news they could've possibly received. The imposing vessel generated a gravitational field that plucked ships out of hyperspace and kept them stranded in realspace. Worst of all, it could carry up to twenty-four TIEs—a full two squadrons. Lock felt his stomach sink. "I don't know what kind of nerfs you have on Corellia, Two," Silence mused over the open comm. "But if this is how you milk them, I want no part of it." "Kark," Dragon muttered. "They must've known we'd come this way." "They probably covered all possible escape routes," Evan interjected. "What's the plan, Red Leader?" Lock frowned. He didn't particularly like that tone. "They're launching fighters, Lead," Lock informed Gremlin. "I'm picking up . . . two squints, two dupes, four eyeballs." "That's . . . a lot," Evan replied. He wasn't wrong, eight was more than five, and Lock doubted that any of those freighters could last more than a few minutes in a firefight. They were weak, but at least they had speed to their advantage. The Alesia was quite the opposite, and would more than likely be targeted first. The Renegades were not equipped to take on an Interdictor with a full complement of TIEs, and they should count themselves lucky that they were only facing eight. Lock remained silent, allowing Gremlin to make the decision. "Looks like this system has a few planets and an asteroid belt," Gremlin announced. "I think that our best bet is that asteroid field. If we burn at full speed, we should be able to keep ahead of those TIEs. Red Four, you're our scout. Find us a place to hide. Five, Two, stick near the transports. Three, you're with me. Those squints are going to get here before we can make it to the asteroids. Let's go, people!" "Red Four, I'm on it!" Silence called out. Lock saw her A-wing neatly flip around in the opposite direction and fire off. "Two copies, Lead, good luck," Flattop pulled his U-wing into formation with the freighters and the Alesia. He'd stick closer to the larger ship while Dragon settled his A-wing amongst the faster, smaller transports. It was damaged and on its fuel reserves, but still a good choice to protect the faster ships. They were all making an about face and turning towards the nearby asteroid field. "Red Five in position," Dragon chimed in. "No quarter, kill them all." "Red Three, sitting here next to you, Red Leader," Lock said. "Let's stick with the convoy for a bit to allow for those squints to make space between themselves and the rest, then we pounce," Gremlin said. Solid strategy. Lock thought. By running, they would use the TIEs speed difference against them—the Interceptors would out-speed the Fighters, and both of them would out-speed the Bombers. If they timed it right, they'd be able to take out the Interceptors before the Fighters got to them, and perhaps even the odds. At least a little. These were old-school tactics. As predicted, the TIE Interceptors soon broke away from the pack of TIEs, out-speeding the Fighters and the Bombers significantly. While this wouldn't really matter as much over short distances, the further the Renegades travelled, the more and more the squints would inch further away from their companions and closer to their intended targets. Soon enough, the Interceptors reached the point of no return: the moment that Gremlin and Lock were waiting for. After a quick countdown by Gremlin, both X-wings cut their engines and turned to face the Interceptors. "Arming rockets," she said. "Let's jam!" Pushing his throttle to the max, Lock felt the X-wing roar to life, its rumble familiar, part of himself. Anxiety burned away and, in its wake, a cool darkness was left behind, overwhelming the pilot as he entered yet another fight for survival, where his death could also mean the death of his friends. Refocusing his attention onto the Interceptors, now less than three klicks away, and getting closer by the second, he reminded himself that the only thing that mattered right now was to kill or to be killed: kill them or they kill us. The rest was baggage, and baggage only slowed you down. "We'll have about a minute before those eyeballs are on top of us!" Lock called out. The adrenaline had kicked in, elevating his voice. Truth was, they'd probably have less than that, and if they didn't get these squints on the first pass, it'd be over as soon as the eyeballs got to them. When they were two kilometers out, Lock's thumb began to hover over his auxiliary trigger. At one-and-a-half kilometers, he noticed how hard he was breathing. He adjusted his shields forward and flipped his lasers into overcharge. Just as they reached the kilometer mark, both Lock and Gremlin yelled, "FIRE!" In an instant, the kilometer of space separating the X-wings and TIE Interceptors lit up in explosions of color. Green and red plasma whizzed past, tearing through the rockets the X-wings were firing, and through the ion rockets the squints were firing in return. Enough rockets slipped through to rip one of the Interceptors apart, although Lock's target had managed to hit him with one too many ion rockets. His X-wing's shields went down, leaving him vulnerable to the next rocket, which knocked out the ship's power, and to the green bolts trying to eat through his starfighter's hull. Lucky for him, Gremlin managed to take out the second Interceptor before it could cause too much damage. "Tenkay! What are you doing back there?!" Lock called to his R2 as he slammed a fist into one of the many panels in his cockpit. After a few solid slams, the lights went back to normal and the ship's engines re-activated. "Put everything into engines! Get us the kark out of here!" "Break off, Three!" Gremlin shouted into the comms. He recognized the panic in her voice. "I'm good, Lead!" He replied as he saw his boost gauge fill up. "Thanks, Tenkay," he nodded towards his droid. "It should get us away from those eyeballs." Lock hit the boost and the momentum kicked him back into his chair as the X-wing sped away from the TIE Fighters that were now eager to put him out of their misery. Boosting more than doubled Lock's speed, so he managed to get out of range before his pursuers got to him. Gremlin's X-wing pulled up next to him when his boost finally cut out. She was close enough that he could see her in her cockpit. He gave her a thumbs-up and, before she could ask, said, "I'm good, Lead. Takes more than that to bring me down." "Copy that," she answered, relief in her voice. "I still have half my rockets. Let's see if we can get a few of those TIEs to break off. Flank left." As she gave the order, both of them pulled on their flight sticks and did a long half loop, coming up on the TIE Fighters from the left side. Unwilling to be caught unaware, two of the Fighters broke off and performed a similar maneuver, pulling a half loop in an attempt to get behind the X-wings. Lock and Gremlin had been expecting, even hoping, for that to happen. As they broke off and tried to loop around them, both veteran pilots tracked the two eyeballs with their scopes, waiting for the right moment to . . . "Let's get 'em!" Gremlin called out. Lock opened fire and pushed his throttle to maximum, closing in on the exposed TIE Fighter. The biggest design flaw of Sienar's TIE series was the cockpit. It only let you look forward, which meant that everything else was a blind spot. In trying to imitate the X-wings' loop and get behind them, the Imperial pilots had left themselves exposed. For a second, Lock wondered just how green these pilots were. Both of them had targeted the same TIE, which exploded before the pilot even understood what was happening. That was enough warning for the other pilot to hit the boost and get the hell out of there, on the double. "Ignore him," Lock advised. "Focus on the other two." "This is Two," Flattop interjected. "We're about to enter the asteroid field." "Copy that," Gremlin answered. "Three, follow me in." "On your wing, Lead," Lock weaved into formation with Gremlin, who was in pursuit of the two TIE Fighters that had not broken off. They were nearly within firing range of the Alesia. Lock had been minding his energy distribution, trying to build up the power in his engines. "Boost?" "Boost!" The X-wings raced towards the TIEs at increased speed, closing the space between them from behind . . . "Rockets!" Gremlin called out. Lock only fired a few before he realized they'd miss their mark entirely. The TIEs split off in opposite directions and went completely evasive. "I've got Lefty!" he called out and pulled after his target. He heard Gremlin call out "Righty!" but he was too concentrated on the here and now to confirm. From the way the Imp was zigzagging the alphabet in front of Lock, it was clear he wanted to live. For an instant, Lock debated turning around, but he knew he couldn't do that. This was war. They all knew death was a possibility. Lock straightened out his fighter, linked his overcharged lasers, waited a few heartbeats, and fired. The bolts connected with the Fighter's twin ion engines. As plasma melted its way into the target's core, it caused a chain reaction that briefly ignited the TIE before blooming into an explosion. Lock pulled away a victor, but didn't really feel like one. Worst of all, he'd been dragged out into the middle of nowhere by the Imp, and was now several klicks away from the skirmish. Instead of dwelling on it, he checked his sensors for Gremlin. Her TIE Fighter had led her on a wild goose chase, going around in random high-speed loops until, somehow, they'd entered the asteroid field. The other TIE Fighter, the one that had gotten away earlier, had entered it as well. He was closing in on the convoy along with the Bombers . . . "Three here. Bad news, guys," Lock said. "The two dupes along with an eyeball are coming up right behind the convoy. I'm a few klicks away from your position—on my way." "Copy that, Three," Flattop answered. "This is Two, breaking off to scare and eyeball and double dupes." "I'm still working on Righty," Gremlin seemed strained. "He's being a righty old pain in the ass!" "I've reached the planet," Silence said. Even in an A-wing, it had taken her a while to get past the asteroids to get close enough for a scan. "The atmosphere is too thick to get a proper reading of the surface. Looks like one big storm from up here." "Can we land?" Gremlin asked. If they couldn't scan the surface, neither could the Imps. "Like I said, I can't really get a reading of the surface . . . other than the fact that there is a surface down there," Silence replied. "Though I suppose that if there's a surface that would mean that we can technically land." "Good enough for me!" Gremlin announced. "Get the convoy moving that way. Five, Four, come on back, we need your help." "Roger." Dragon had been rather quiet, probably because the severity of the damage to his A-wing meant that he couldn't be out there fighting right now. Lock understood the feeling, but he preferred Dragon being alive and grumpy, instead of being just another casualty in a war that had already dragged on for too long. "Red Two, engaging TIE Fighter," Flattop said as he brought the TIE into the U-wing's sights. It was then when he noticed a red ball hurling through space towards him. Did that Imp just dumb-fire that missile!? Flattop thought as he scrambled to put his sights on the missile to shoot it down before impact, giving the Imp the opening he needed. The U-wing was suddenly struck with a volley of green plasma bolts and blue ion rockets, which burned through its forward shields instantly. Using one hand to recalibrate his shields before the ship's hull sustained too much damage, Flattop pulled on the flight stick and rolled away, a feat for a U-wing in an asteroid field. Having to constantly readjust trajectory for random moving objects was annoying, but it made Flattop damned hard to hit. He'd successfully led off the TIE Fighter, but was in no position to take on the Bombers, and now all that stood between them and the convoy was Dragon in a damaged A-wing. Lock was still two klicks away, one full kilometer before weapons range. "Alesia here, we have target-lock warnings," Evan said over the comms. "Oh sithspit! Here they come!" "Five!" "On it." Dragon did the only thing he could do. He hit his chaff and flew straight into the trajectory of the two orange balls of light. Normally, that would be enough to suffocate any normal missile, but today wasn't Dragon's luckiest day—those were Goliaths. The two missiles exploded as soon as they came in contact with the chaff field, sending out a wave of concussive shrapnel in all directions. A single Goliath would've nearly stripped the A-wing's shields on a good day. Two of them, however, completely wiped out the shields and knocked the engines offline. The blast sent Dragon careening into a nearby asteroid. The A-wing crashed nose first, its fore malformed and bent upwards at an angle, and bounced off in a random trajectory, slowly spinning adrift. For an instant time seemed to freeze and everyone held their breath, waiting for Dragon to say something. "Five!" Lock finally said. No answer. "Red Five, do you copy?!" "Two is inbound!" Flattop declared, pushing the U-wing into a bank and firing at some asteroids in an attempt to destroy them to clear a path towards Dragon's damaged craft. The TIE Fighter on his tail wasn't having it, and as soon as he realized what Flattop was trying to do, he began to predict the U-wing's trajectory and began to dump ion rockets onto Flattop's six. "Get this eyeball off me! "Almost there, Two, ETA thirty seconds!" Silence called out. They didn't have half that much. Sensing their weakened prey, the TIE Bombers set Dragon's A-wing in their sights and spooled up their rotary cannons. Both dupes fired in unison, sending a hail of plasma bolts towards the lightly armored fighter. Because it was already so heavily damaged, and its structural integrity already compromised, the A-wing was torn in half. With its engines offline and beyond repair, and having used up most of its fuel, there was no explosion—the snubfighter merely came apart. "Sithspit!" Lock cursed over the comms as he finally got within range of the Bombers. He picked a target and let loose with all he had, sinking his remaining rockets and his lasers into the dupe's stern. It tried to veer away, but Lock stuck with it until his laser banks ran dry. Curse their damned armor! "Five!" Gremlin was still dogfighting 'Righty,' who was putting his fighter's smaller frame and higher maneuverability to good use in the asteroid field, hounding the Zeltron woman. Lock knew that this was going to hit her hard . . . if they survived. "I'm not reading any lifesigns," Flattop was doing his best to inch closer to the wreckage, but the pilot in the eyeball chasing him was just as crafty as the one keeping Gremlin busy. What Gremlin didn't have, however, was a vengeful Corsair inbound. Silence did not yell, did not cry out, did not curse. She gritted her teeth, shifted all power to lasers, and pulled up behind her target. Silence squeezed the trigger. Overcharged rapid-fire lasers bore a hole through the cockpit of the TIE Fighter in mere seconds. It exploded, and she angled her A-wing to fly above and through the explosion, avoiding the debris. The remaining A-wing on the field weaved through asteroids, cutting corners and taking shortcuts better than the TIE Fighters could. Within seconds of dusting her target, Silence reached the Alesia. She cut her engines just above the transport, and drifted momentarily as she repositioned herself to face the Bombers. Then, she took off at full speed once again. Lock's lasers had enough charge to fire again, and he did so, cutting his throttle down to stick behind the lumbering Bomber. He targeted the engines, unloading bolt after bolt of red-hot plasma until the hull gave way and the Bomber exploded. Lock had to slam his stick to the side to avoid crashing into the bulky piece of wreckage. "One dupe down!" "One more to go," Flattop said as he and Silence converged on it. He fired from above, and she fired from below. The Bomber never really had a chance, it had signed its death warrant the moment he went after a Renegade. "Second dupe down." "Bad news," Lock said. He'd finally had a moment to check his sensors. "It looks like the Interdictor launched another wave right after we took out those squints. They're almost here." "I'm picking them up too, Lead," Flattop confirmed. "We have a head start, but if we don't leave now . . . . You guys go on ahead, I'll go get—" "He's gone," Silence finally said. Lock could see her fighter returning from the wreckage. "I didn't pick up any lifesigns, didn't see any movement." Not too far away, a TIE Fighter exploded. "Finally!" Gremlin exclaimed, breathing a sign of relief. "Oh . . . I'm sorry, I didn't—" "No, don't worry," Silence answered quickly. They all understood. "We . . ." Lock could tell that Gremlin was struggling to recompose herself. Her X-wing was approaching the convoy, which had never stopped moving. "We can mourn our losses later. We need to get these people . . . and ourselves, to safety." "Roger that, Lead," Flattop replied somberly. Lock sighed. "Three copies." "Forming up on the convoy," Silence said. Lock watched her A-wing roar past him as they all converged on the refugee ships. "Diamond-Epsilon formation," Gremlin said, and the Renegades fell into a rotating diamond formation was standard practice. "Now let's see if we can find a place to hide . . ." Day Two Centaxday /Begin Communication: From: CDRE. Barand, CO, ISD. Conviction To: CAPT. Gernesse, CO, INT. Dolus Insidiae Find Rebel Convoy crash site. Monitor all transmissions. Commence deployment of probe droids. INT Platzhalter inbound to assume command and deliver specialized ground forces. /End Communication. I. [ Silence's A-wing; Unknown Planet ] "I can't see anything in this mess! It's worse than the Zavian Abyss!" Silence yelled over the radio, fighting the hurricane-force wind. The dense sandstorm blocked all visual navigation with a dark, swirling shroud of grit. She had to navigate by instruments only, and without an astromech to help her follow the friendly dots on her radar. "Easy, Red Four." Gremlin's stressed but controlled voice crackled with static. "Keep going down. The canyon should protect us once we're far enough in it." "Just follow me, Red Four. I'll lead you in." Lock almost sounded bored. Good! She needed that extra bit of calm. "Copy. On your tail, Red Three." Taking a breath, she targeted Lock's X-wing, using her HUD to gauge his distance. She flinched. Way too close! Then suddenly the blips on her radar flicked and vanished. Her lock disappeared and her life support system warned of radiation. "Red Three, I've lost contact. Repeat, I've lost visual and radar contact. Flying blind here." Not even static answered her. Had they all crashed into a cliff face? Or had the solar activity just scrambled her instrument readings? Fan-frakking-tastic! Unable to see how far away Lock was, and fighting the howling gale, she nosed down, just slightly, just enough to fly under him if he reduced speed. Down. She was certainly headed down. Her instruments told her that much and precious little else. Crungggg! The jarring impact against her hull sent her bouncing off in another direction. She fought the stick, but had nothing but instinct to tell her the difference between a safe direction and certain death. Skreeeee! Metal shrieked as her hull skidded against rock again, sending her flying off on yet another vector. "I can't see ANYTHING!" Down. She was headed there one way or another. Ramming the stick forward and yanking the throttle into reverse, she let gravity lead her. Flying in atmosphere had never been her strong suit, but she grasped the principles of it, and using reverse thrusters to slow her descent beat blazing down into oblivion at top speed. She slowed to a crawl, watching her instruments closely, but the wind wasn't having it. It kicked her from side to side, the little A-wing having hardly any mass to fight the gale with, and then slammed her against unseen rock. Blast it all, she needed velocity to maintain a straight path before her hull tore apart! Gritting her teeth, she shoved the throttle forward, praying the wind and sand cleared before she hit the canyon floor—desperately hoping an outcrop didn't cut her descent short. Suddenly, dark became light and then the shroud thinned to a dirty haze. Steep, striated cliffs whizzed past her cockpit. Jutting pinnacles rushed towards her. She hauled back on the throttle, but flying against gravity wasn't like flying in empty space. Swerving to the side and yanking up, she sent the agile craft spinning out of the way. The spires flicked past, nearly touching her, and then— *** She clawed through the dark haze a second time, grasping for the light. It kept eluding her, pulling away each time she got close, until finally she dragged herself into consciousness. Gasping, she lifted her head. No more shrieking metal. No more whining engines. Dead silence. Well, not quite. Something whispered distantly, like screams of tortured souls. She shivered. The transparisteel canopy was opaque with a million fractures that glittered dimly. She pressed a careful hand against it. It had saved her life. She was lying on her side, and she felt lightheaded and floaty. Something was whistling. She needed to get her bearings. How was she on her side? A-wings were flat. They couldn't land on their sides. Red warnings displayed the damage done. No engines, no life support, no shields. The only good news was the external environment readout that said the atmosphere was mostly innocuous. Thin, but at least not corrosive or toxic. Her radio crackled sporadically with static. She frowned. Interference? Or someone trying to make contact? "Hello? This is Red Four. Please respond." More static. Hard to tell. For all she knew, the Imperials had followed them down and were looking for her. With a grudging sigh, she hauled on the canopy release. Something clicked but it didn't open. "This is Red Four, requesting assistance." "Fzzrkk—Four—srkk." Breathing sharply in relief, she tried again. "Hello? This is Red Four. Can you hear me?" "Kkhhk—location—frrhk." She couldn't even make out whose voice it was. A glance told her that her radar was dead, like almost everything else. Could they even pick her up on radar? Where was she? The bottom of the canyon? Flares. She reached under her seat and pulled out the emergency kit. Rations, emergency air canister, medical supplies, sealant, water purification tablets, and a host of other things. Finally she found the flare gun. "Watch for a flare. I repeat, watch for a flare." "—krssshkk—" She tugged at the canopy, but it would not budge. She shoved at the shattered transparisteel, but it had been designed too well, and even in its current condition, her efforts only made it flex. She couldn't kick it, because her legs were tucked down in the footwell and she had no room to maneuver in the claustrophobic cockpit. She beat her palm harder against the canopy. Metal groaned and the A-wing shifted. Her stomach lurched. It occurred to her that she had no idea what situation the ship was in, but it clearly wasn't stable. She felt it vibrating. Squinting, she tried to make out what lay beyond the fracture lines, but she only made out a brownish blur. Time for a more finessed approach. She pulled out her DC-15A blaster carbine and aimed. Wait. No, no, no. This transparisteel would be blaster-proof. Grumbling under her breath, she shoved the blaster back into its holster and grabbed the canopy slide again. She bent her frustrations upon it, heaving with all her might. The ship wobbled with every heave, until finally— Something gave way, and the canopy scraped plaintively against rock, opening a few centimeters. Wind punched her in the face, howling through the gap with shocking force. She recoiled, struggling to breathe against the air pressure, and when she managed to get a lungful, she choked on silt. Hastily, she slapped the controls on her flightsuit, activating the mag con that would normally protect her when ejecting into space. Immediately the pressure on her face stopped and she could breathe again. Coughing on residual dust, she poked the flare gun out the crack and fired. "Flare away! Flare away!" "Copy—kzzk—orming visual—frrrshk—Four." It was then that Silence actually looked out the gap in the canopy. She stared into a sickening chasm. The swirling silt impeded her view, but that abyss was easily a klick deep, and what a stunning view it would be without the tinge of dust! The canyon walls were streaked with reds and grays and— "Contact. I see the flare. Heading your way." Suddenly Flattop's voice rang clearly in her ear. Luckily the helmet protected her ears from the wind. "Still no sign of you on radar. Can you narrow down your location?" "Sure, surrre." Nervously, she eyed the chasm and then the sky and the cliff above. Finding a signal mirror in the emergency kit, she clamped it in a death grip between her fingers and examined the surroundings. The nose of her A-wing seemed to be wedged between a boulder and the cliff face on the narrowest ledge any A-wing had ever lodged upon. "Uh, yeah, I'm somewhere on the canyon wall, like, I dunno, a kilometer from the bottom, maybe? I'm literally between a rock and a hard place. Like, the right half of my A-wing is gone, and it's really kriffing windy, and would you please hurry up!" "I'm looking as fast as I can. Just hang tight." "I'd be hanging a lot tighter if I could, trust me!" Silence had never considered herself afraid of heights, but that drop made sweat chill her back. She tried to push the canopy shut, but it stuck obstinately. "Look for all the skid marks and the trail of A-wing parts, alright?" "Copy that." She could almost hear his eyes rolling. One breath at a time. If she kept her eyes closed, she could blot out the height, but the wind kept buffeting the A-wing and tearing at her flightsuit. She could imagine the broken ship working itself loose. Nope. Nope, better to keep her eyes open. Her stomach twisted the moment she peeked at the canyon again. There was no winning. All it would take is one especially violent gust of wind, and this would be her end. If it dislodged from the boulder, she was as good as a bug-splat. The A-wing kept wiggling maddeningly. "Look, Flattop, if I die—" "Shut up. You're not going to die, Four. I have contact." Flattop paused. Was that a stifled laugh she heard? "What the frell have you done to your poor A-wing?" "Just get me out of here!" She pushed a fist out the gap and shook it as she saw the U-wing pull into view. With far more surface area than a tiny A-wing, the U-wing bucked and swayed as Flattop fought the gale. "Small problem, Red Four." Finally Flattop sounded appropriately stressed. "I'm not sure I can get close enough to tractor beam you in. These gusts really want to throw me against the cliff. I could just as easily crush you as save you." For a moment, neither of them could think of anything to say. Silence cleared her throat. "I'm not dying out here." "Didn't you just say if—" "I changed my mind, okay!" She racked her brain for a solution that wouldn't put Flattop or her at risk. The problem was, there weren't any safe options. She had no way to spare herself the risk . . . but she could spare Flattop. "Hey, uh, how are you with sports?" "Sports?" "Eh, yeah." She eyeballed the chasm again, hating every bit of what she was about to propose. "You know. Like, catch?" "Hey, whoa! Even if you jump as far as you can, it's not far enough from—" "I can't even get the canopy open far enough to get out." Silence swallowed. "But, uhm, I have an eject handle right here. The ejection seat usually has a parachute or repulsorlift generator, right?" "You honestly think a parachute or a repulsorlift would save you in this wind?" "No. That's why I'm asking if you can play catch." She couldn't get any useful info from her display. Nearly everything was listed in red. "Got a better idea?" There was a short pause. "Negative." "Look, it'll take me a long time to hit the bottom. If you miss, maybe there's time for a second pass." Flattop sighed heavily, and the U-wing pulled away. "Let me reposition." "Hey, look. If I die—" "Not that again!" "I just mean to say, if I die, it's my own dumb fault, not yours, okay?" Silence gripped the ejection handle. If she had thought about what she was doing, fear would have paralyzed her. So she thought about tearing off a bandage. *** A sock puppet dove for the floor, screaming in terror. "I'll save you!" A second sock puppet dove after it, missing. "Thanks a lot," the first puppet sarcastically retorted before resuming screaming briefly, and then added, "Oh, look at that. There's no wind down this far. Ooh, even better—my parachute works. I didn't need you after all." The second puppet turned away. The first one chased after him. "Hey, come back! I still need a lift. It's freezing down here!" *** "I think that's the most fun I've had in my entire life!" Silence gushed from the co-pilot's seat. "What a rush!" Flattop frowned at her. "You nearly gave me a heart attack." "Can we go again?" Silence grinned. "You Corsairs are freaking insane." He shook his head. A female voice spoke from behind his seat, startling them both. "It's called 'survivor's euphoria.' Simply put, she's high on adrenaline." "Doc!" Silence turned in her seat. "I told you guys to stay on the Vigilant!" A scarred, disembodied R2 unit head—Doc Jobber—rose into view, lights turning from purple to orange as a male voice responded. "We agreed you would undoubtedly require us to save your fleshbag butt again." Silence made a face at that very unflattering description of her behind. "Look, my A-wing doesn't have room for you. Wait a sec. You agreed on something?" That didn't bode well at all. She relied on Doc and Jobber fighting over everything to keep them both in check. "Flattop! Why did you let them in here?" "Hey, don't blame me. I checked the passenger hold, not for trash behind the seats!" "Trash? I'll show you trash, meatsack!" Jobber rose angrily. "Inferior lifeform!" "And this is why I still haven't given you any appendages." Silence dunked him behind the seat again. "The climate changes on the planet are incredible." Flattop changed the topic a moment later. "Coming through the atmo, it was well below freezing, but things seem to be warming up rapidly. Fortunately, these canyons are so deep, the temperature down here seems more stable." Silence looked as he pointed out the U-wing's canopy to the left. Myriad caves and indentations dimple the lower cliff faces, and verdant life spilled out of them like a magnificent hanging garden. Vines, moss, and ferns crowded the shelves, vying for sunlight. "Whoa! How does this planet not have a name yet?" She pressed her face against the canopy. "I'm going to call it . . . Aiviano Veduri. It means Floating Gardens." "It certainly is a sight." Flattop nodded to a huge split in the red and grey rock. "We took shelter in there." Silence gaped as they cruised closer. Even the Alesia fit inside! As she counted the three other civilian ships and the two X-wings, her face fell. The absence of Dragon's A-wing was a harsh reminder of their current situation. Once the U-wing settled alongside the X-wings, the three of them disembarked. Gremlin rushed to meet them. "You had us worried, Silence!" "Not half as worried as I had myself!" Silence laughed nervously. "My poor A-wing is half the ship it used to be." "Come with me." The Zeltron ushered them along to a gathering of people, where Lock waited with folded arms. Gremlin scrambled onto the nose of her X-wing. She cleared her throat, but the huddles of civilians were too busy arguing to notice. "LISTEN UP!" Lock barked. The crowd hushed instantly, turning to see Gremlin's lithe figure standing tall. "I . . . would love more than anything to give you all good news, but . . . the truth of it is . . . we have to lay low for a while. With all the electromagnetic interference from the storms on the planet's surface, we're hoping the Imperials can't find us. The trouble is, we don't know how long it'll be before they give up and go home. The interference is hiding us, but it also means we can't signal for help." "How long do you think the Imperials are going to keep us pinned down?" a civilian in heavily mended clothes asked. Gremlin opened her mouth hesitantly, but Silence knew the captain couldn't answer that question. No one could know for sure. Butting in to cover for Gremlin, Silence raised her voice. "I can tell you no TIEs are coming through that storm. They'd be ripped apart. Which means we're probably safe for now." "We need to know how long we can hold out," Gremlin took over again, with renewed certainty. "So please, captains of your ships, do an inventory of your supplies and get me an estimate as soon as possible." "We weren't planning on taking in the sights. Water, maybe a day's worth. Food, maybe a bit longer." An older woman of a belligerent tone stepped forward. "Are you going to triage more of us, like you did the Gergovia?" "N-no." Gremlin paled, and Silence saw her pained frustration. "We did everything we could." "Tell that to everyone who died. Your 'everything' wasn't good enough." Silence flinched, half-expecting poor Gremlin to crack, but instead, the Zeltron stubbornly lifted her chin. "I know that. But I also know if we had done anything else, even more lives would have been lost. Now, please do an inventory and get me those estimates ASAP." Grudgingly, the crowd started to file back to their ships. One of them glanced over his shoulder on his way to the Alesia. "Evan!" Silence ran after him. "Evan, wait." He pulled away from her, and she saw the fatigue aging his youthful face. "I'm busy, Major. You heard your captain. Inventories ASAP. And somehow, I'm the acting captain of the Alesia. This was never how this mission was supposed to go. They said I just needed to coordinate some civilians, to get them moving." "Yeah. Officers like to tell us a mission will be simple, but war makes everything messy. Why do you think I took a desk job?" And yet here I am back on a flight roster for round two because the desk job was even worse. Silence attempted to lighten the situation. "How come I keep having to save your butt? Why are you all the way out here?" "I don't have time for this, Major. May I go now?" "I'm not your—" She sighed in exasperation. "Sure. Go. Dismissed." "Yes, ma'am." He bobbed his head and left, visibly agitated. "I'm not your major anymore," she muttered as he disappeared inside. She hated his continued use of her old rank. While she preferred being a mere second lieutenant, every time Evan called her 'major', she felt like she'd let him down. He'd looked up to her, and maybe still did. She still felt obligated to protect him and bail him out of sticky situations. The disparity in ranks had made everything awkward. That and she got the distinct feeling Evan now hated her guts for being so quick to accept the decision to leave Gergovia. "Ha! Easy prey," Jobber's crass voice crowed in her ear, startling her. "Unexplored planet, clear signs of local lifeforms, and not one of you is paying attention to the obvious source of danger." "Jobber!" She jumped back. "Stop sneaking up on me!" "It's not my fault you organics don't pay attention to your surroundings!" Jobber bobbed mockingly. "Like that cave passage back there that could hold untold dangers, that none of you fleshies are even looking at." Silence glanced into the deeper, darker end of the gaping crack where the ships had found refuge. Sure enough, there was an opening of about three meters that led into blackness. She sighed. "We have bigger problems to worry about." "You don't know that. Have you even looked inside? Checked for the droppings of large predators? Venomous lifeforms?" "No! Fine! If you're so concerned about threats, since you disregarded me telling you to stay on the Vigilant, you can go look for yourself!" Silence shooed him away. "Don't get stuck, because I'm not coming in there after you!" He made a rude-sounding comment in Droidspeak and floated away on his repulsorlifts. Finally alone with her thoughts, Silence considered what to do to resolve things with Evan. Right now, she couldn't do anything. So, she turned her attention to Gremlin, who was taking inventory of supplies in her X-wing. "Captain?" Silence held up her own emergency kit. "I managed to save this from my A-wing. It's got the standard compliment of rations and nutrient tablets and stuff. I don't know how long we're going to be here, but I'm willing to share with the civilians." "Thanks, Silence." Gremlin's face told Silence everything she needed to know. Having interrogated and interviewed dozens of beings, she could read people fairly well. "Hey. You know you did the right thing, right?" "I know." The Zeltron looked away, staring into the mossy depths of the enclave. "But it's hard to tell yourself that when so many lives were lost." "Yeah, well, remember that we'd all be dead if you hadn't made that call. You didn't panic. You kept your head. You got as many people out as you could. That's the important part. Ma'am." An embarrassed blush crept onto Silence's face as she kicked herself mentally. "Please excuse my etiquette. I keep forgetting my place." Lock, half buried in his own X-wing cockpit, popped up. "So what's the deal with that NRI guy calling you 'Major'?" Silence shrugged. "I was his superior not long ago. I guess neither of us has adjusted to my demotion yet." "Demotion?" A white eyebrow rose. "Major to Second Lieutenant is three demotions by my count. What the frell did you do? Sleep with a general's daughter?" "Ah. No." Silence made a face. He tried again, amused by her discomfort. "Refuse to sleep with a general?" "No! I mean, yes, I would refuse if—Oh, shut up." She scowled at his mirth. Of the many mistakes she'd made, stupid liaisons were not one of them. "Insubordination. Resisting arrest. Disobeying orders. Assaulting an officer. One or more of those." Even the preoccupied Gremlin looked up at that list. She seemed surprised, but if it caught Lock off guard, he hid it better. "Insubordination?" Lock's good-natured sarcasm was hard to miss. "Also known as 'doing the right thing', given my circumstances, if you care to know. Sir." How long would it take her to regain the habit of addressing Captains properly again? Yet something about his attitude put her at ease. He wasn't the sort to bust her chops for telling him off when he was teasing her. He chuckled when she caught herself. "With a rap sheet like that, someone might think you have a problem with leadership." "No, sir. Just with scumbags." He laughed, but then an awkward silence fell among them. Gremlin returned to counting rations. Lock ducked back into his cockpit. Silence wanted to leave, but she couldn't. Not yet. She cleared her throat. "Captain Callahan, might I have a word with you, in private?" "Sure." Lock climbed out of his cockpit and dropped to the ground, the carpet of moss making his landing almost silent. Silence led him to what she hoped was beyond Zeltron hearing. She stopped at the back wall of the enclave, lowering her voice. "You and Gremlin go way back, yeah?" "Sure." She considered how to phrase her concerns. Gremlin and Lock were both Captains at the moment, but she'd read both of their personnel files, and Lock had years of experience in command, while Gremlin did not. "She's new to this being in-charge business, and she just made a decision even hardened veterans don't want to have to make. It didn't win over the civvies, either. She's going to have it rough." "She's tougher than she looks." He put on a nonchalant face, but Silence saw him glance in Gremlin's direction. "She better be, because the last thing we need is for the person in charge to crumble in front of civilians who already hate her guts. She's young, and that's not going to win their trust any. If she falters—" His face hardened. "Lieutenant." The single word reminded her that she'd overstepped her rank. Again. But to her surprise, he followed up with a knowing smile. "It's hard, isn't it? Going from being in charge to being just another minion. Give Gremlin a chance. I think she'll surprise you." Right. Like her, he'd once been in command of a squadron, she remembered from his file. "Once you get demoted from commander, scope of responsibility gets smaller, but sense of responsibility doesn't, does it?" "No, that's a permanent side effect." His brow furrowed slightly. "But I thought you were an NRI Major." "That was after I got demoted for gross incompetence leading White Squadron." She smiled bitterly. "Well. Given our resounding success as commanders, maybe this little sortie is better off in her hands." "Hold up. How did you know I used to be a commander?" Ehhh, nice way to blow your cover. Silence thought fast for an excuse. "What? You expected an NRI agent to transfer over without doing some background checks on her future wingmen?" "I'll grant you that, but you're in Corsair, not Rogue." "I'm not a Rogue. I'm just thorough." She grinned briefly and then sobered. "But about Gremlin . . . It's not that I don't trust her. It's just . . . well, she probably looks up to you after serving under you. Maybe you could bolster her confidence somehow." "Don't worry. I'm keeping an eye on her." "Good." She felt like she should mention Dragon, but speculating on whether he lived would help no one. Either he'd died mercifully with his A-wing, or the Imperials had captured him—an infinitely worse fate. As harsh it sounded, she was grateful she was relatively new to Corsair. The loss of a stranger hurt less . . . but that wouldn't make it any easier to tell the rest of Corsair. A dim roar caught her ears. She quickly glanced at Lock. "What's that sound?" He pointed behind her, and the opening to the canyon. She turned and saw sheets of water cascading over the opening, and where ribbons of water parted, they revealed torrents of rain. "Whoa. That was sudden." Silence looked down at the ferns beneath her feet, reassuring herself that anywhere a plant could grow for an extended period of time had to be safe. She could feel vibrations through her boots. "Um, why does it feel like an earthquake is happening somewhere? Jobber better not have—" Right on cue, the floating R2 head came cruising out of the cave depths, lights glowing purple. "Doc, did you guys knock something over?" The vibrations were growing stronger. "No." The head wobbled. "There appears to be a sudden increase in water circulation." "At least our water shortages are solved." Lock led the way through the curtains cascading over the entrance, pushing through a clump of alarmed and amazed civilians. As he reached out to touch the water, Doc wedged herself in front of him, nudging him back. "Hey! Bloody droid!" "I'm detecting high radiation readings from this water. Touching it would be non-lethal, but nonetheless inadvisable for your continued, long-term health." Doc patrolled in front of the crowd, driving them all back a pace. They didn't need much encouragement after she said the word "radiation". "I'm guessing drinking it is also out of the question." Gremlin appeared from behind them, sighing. "I don't think our water purification tablets probably cover that type of contamination." "Correct." Doc bobbed, a motion suggestive of a shrug. "However, Jobber and I did locate a source of non-irradiated water in the cave system that should be viable for purification." "Oh. Good." Gremlin sounded too relieved to even exclaim. She gestured to Lock and Silence. "Go see if collecting water for the civilians is doable. Flattop and I will hold down the fort out here. See if you can find anything edible . . . that won't kill us." Doc Jobber's lights flashed orange. "I saw signs of large predators, which are probably edible, meat being a pretty universal food. But large predators will definitely try to kill us. You meatsacks, that is. Meat being a universal food, and all of that. Ha!" "Amendment to my orders—" Gremlin waved a finger at them. "Don't get eaten." Silence held her tongue, as she usually did when not comfortable. Spelunking was not her preferred activity in life. "Yeah, we'll try not to," Lock answered dryly. "Come on, Silence. Let's get a move on." She followed Lock, who followed Jobber toward the black hole in the back of the enclave. Ignoring her fears until the last moment was the only way she got around them. Denial combined with procrastination made a powerful combination, so it wasn't until they stepped into the darkness that her palm began to sweat against the grip of her blaster. "Hold up." While Lock waited impatiently, Silence opened the emergency kit strapped to her leg and pulled out a handful of glowsticks. She hooked one onto Doc Jobber, handed one to Lock, and held a third one in her damp left hand. Then she unholstered her blaster. "Okay. Let's go." There were times her pale skin became useful. Like now, hiding the fact she'd probably lost all blood flow to her face. Even though Jobber's orange lights and the blue glowsticks sufficiently illuminated the dark passage, there was always a black maw up ahead, waiting to swallow them. Wet moss combined with light gravity made slipping a frequent occurrence, and more than once, they had to help each other off their butts. Deeper in, the moss gave way to slime molds. Water dripped on all sides from stalactites onto stalagmites, creating a constant drip-drip sound that echoed through the passage and into unseen depths beyond. Their meager light cast towering, shifting shadows on the walls. She shivered, but doggedly kept up with Lock and Jobber, because a cave was the last place she wanted to be left behind. Behind the squelch of their steps and the incessant dripping, a distant roaring permeated the walls. The noises brought a sense of life to the cave that Silence didn't appreciate. What was worse, being alone in a dark cave or realizing you weren't alone at all? "Are we there yet?" "Nearly." Jobber's orange glow disappeared behind a bend. Lock halted unexpectedly. "Hold up." Silence put on the brakes, but slime molds and wet moss said no. With a squeak, she lost her footing, crashing into Lock, who pitched forward, unable to catch himself. The incline of the cave floor made it impossible to stop their momentum, sending them zipping around the turn, under Jobber, and into the shadowy beyond. "Watch your step," called Jobber as they flew past him in an undignified heap. Silence scrabbled frantically at the moss and the slippery stalagmites, finding no purchase, and all she could think about was black, hungry chasms and how the floor would vanish from under her at any second. And then it did. The floor fell away, and her stomach dropped, and then they sprawled across hard rock. She grabbed for the nearest stalagmite, and flinched away violently when it squished organically and her gloved fingers tore holes in it. She backpedaled hard, tripping over Lock's form and falling on her butt. He grunted unappreciatively. She could see. She had no idea where the glowsticks had gone, or where Jobber was, but she could see. Lifting her head, she stared at a million specks of blue light carpeting a vast, domed ceiling. Below, a crystal-clear pool of water that reached a good two hundred meters at least, and the glimmering surface reflected the light across the walls. Slabs of fungi jutted from the walls, as huge as dinner tables and pulsating slowly with orange light. Her gaze dropped to her glove, which now glowed dimly with orange goo. At least she knew now what she'd grabbed. "Why you got to go and kick a fellow while he's down?" Lock rolled over and sat up. Glancing at the orange dripping from her hand, he laughed. "Ha! You're shaking like a leaf." "Adrenaline." Narrowing her eyes, she got up and brushed herself off, hiding the trembling of her legs. "From the fall." "Yup." His dismissive acceptance told he believed nothing. "Just a little slip and slide, like kids play on." "Sure." In the dark, into the unknown bowels of an unknown planet. She saw Jobber pop out of a nearby orifice in the cave wall. "You could have warned us!" "I did." Jobber floated away jauntily. "Warnings come before the danger!" Silence hesitated, unnerved by the way her raised voice ricocheted off the cave walls. "Don't forget, you can't gloat and say 'I told you so' if you never told anyone anything, you flippin' wingnut." "I could have caught you . . . if I had appendages." Jobber made a rude noise. "Yeah, and if you had appendages, you could have slipped and fallen, too!" Silence swatted at him. "So I don't think your argument has a leg to stand on!" "And whose fault is that?" Jobber zipped out of arm's reach and paused. "There is a small predator watching you." "Great. Wait. What?" Silence turned and squinted into the shadows. Sure enough, two green eyes reflected light back at her. "How big is small?" "Unlikely to pose much physical threat," Jobber observed from his vantage point. "Unless it's poisonous." "You mean venomous," Doc interrupted. "Whatever." Jobber drifted higher. "Would you like me to go squash it? Just to be sure?" "No, Jobber!" Silence watched the eyes vanish at her retort. "There. It's gone. Why are we even down here?" "Water." Lock approached the water's edge. "Yup. Looks like water." "Like water filled with all kinds of creepy little lifeforms we know nothing about." Surly, Silence peered into the depths. A myriad of lights—red, purple, green, and every other color—flitted through the water. Crouching, she looked closer. "Little squiddy fish things. Yay." "Most likely, bioluminescence is used to identify each other." Doc drifted over the water. "The sensors in this astromech are rudimentary, but they indicate the water would be safe to consume after a standard purification treatment. If I had better sensors, I would be able to confirm this assessment with more confidence." "You see?" Getting up, Silence rolled her eyes at Lock. "I get it from both sides. I'm not a parts shop!" Lock shrugged. "If I had a floating droid that followed me everywhere, I'd equip it with every gadget under the sun." "See?" Jobber scoffed. "The man gets it." "Just imagine." Rubbing his jaw, Lock eyed the droid. "Install a caf machine in there and you could have hot caf wherever you go." "Ooh." She'd never thought of that. "Good point. Man, I could really use a cup right now." "I'm not a bleeping vending machine!" Jobber screeched. "I'm a security droid!" Chuckling, Lock headed back the way they had come. He assessed the incline. "We're going to need to cut steps into this rock if we want to transport water out of here in any large quantity." "Or to get out of here at all, you mean?" Silence tried the crawl into the tunnel and slipped right back out. She swallowed back a sudden stab of fear. She didn't want to be trapped down here. "Oof." "Can't we just sit on your droid's head?" Lock reached for Jobber. "Do I look like furniture to you, meatsack?" Jobber darted away. "Their repulsorlifts aren't strong enough to carry either of us." Silence pointed at the hole. "Jobber, go back to Gremlin. Tell her to bring some rope or cable or something. And have her anchor it at the top so we can pull ourselves out of here. Maybe the civvies have something to cut rock. I hope they have a way to carry water, too." "You want a cup of caf with that?" Jobber sailed up the tunnel. "Too bad! I don't have enough hands!" "Hands are useful," Doc's voice echoed from around the bend. "It's a scientifically proven fact." "Insufferable!" Silence shook her head. With a sinking stomach, she watched the droid leave. If Doc Jobber didn't make it back . . . Don't think about that. "I thought they were bad when they argue, but it's worse when they agree!" Fixing a stoic expression on her face, she turned around to face the cave. Breathe. Look around. Get over it. "Man." Lock chuckled with an annoying amount of amusement. "You really hate caves, don't you?" "Huh? I'm fine." Sweat soaked the back of her shirt, but he couldn't see that through her flightsuit. She picked a direction and strode off towards a bristling outcrop of purple fungi that looked like toadstools on steroids and nearly matched her in height. Better to explore than to let her fear paralyze her. "I don't know what you're—" The eyes sprang out of the shadows, revealing a lithe, light body. Growling, it showed fangs and the black and gray fur fluffed up in defiance. Long, tufted ears folded back. The tail, half again as long as the body, writhed and lashed in a serpentine fashion. Silence froze. Her heart hammered about a million beats per minute too fast. Her eyes grew wide. Her mouth opened. "Easy, Si, easy." Lock approached slowly. "It's not that big. Just back off, and it'll be fine." She clapped her hands over her mouth. "But it's so cuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!" Lock caught her flightsuit in one fist and dragged her backward. "It's also territorial, so back off." "I want to pet it." Silence struggled against Lock's pull, but that proved hard with only half her normal weight to dig in her heels. She kept staring, enamored. The creature was gorgeous and its large, green eyes and huge ears made it adorable. "The fur looks so soft! Look! Parts of it glow red!" "Because it's angry. Leave it be!" She fumbled her datapad out of her pocket and started taking pictures. She had to. There was no way she could go back with a story like this without pictures. No one would understand this sight without pictures. "Oh, for kark's sake." Lock hauled her backwards until the creature warily retreated into the shadows. "I thought you were some grizzled veteran who knew how to keep it together. You're just a teenage girl squealing over cute things." She puffed up indignantly. "Why can't I be both? Come on! It was really cute." "Sure," he finally admitted gruffly. He was suppressing a smile, she was sure of it. "I thought it ran away earlier. Why do you think it stayed here?" "Territorial?" He shrugged. "Just don't aggravate it again." *** "But it's sooooooooo cuuuUUUuuute!" One sock puppet waved around in a swooning fashion. "I want to pet it! I want it to EAT ME." "Oh, shut up!" Another sock puppet grabbed the first, trying to choke it out. "Knock it off, you two," scolded a third. "My name is Gremlin, and I'm here to rescue you." "Aww, but—!" "Get some shuteye. It's sundown." *** Silence lay across a bench seat in the passenger compartment of the U-wing, staring at the rivets in the ceiling, and thinking. Normally, she put herself to sleep every night by reading the personnel files of the Vigilant's crew. She and Gremlin had each taken a bench, while Flattop graciously took the floor. Lock had insisted on sleeping in his X-wing. Somehow, Gremlin had also ended up on the floor, curled up against Flattop like a loth-cat. Without something to fill her brain with, it filled itself with unwelcome thoughts about the Interdictor overhead, the Gergovia, Dragon's fate, her poor A-wing, and the uncertainty of their position. It also filled with welcome thoughts, remembering the unmatched grace and beauty of the long, feline creature in the caves. Were there others? Different colors? Rolling over and pulling the thermal blanket around her tighter, she forced her brain to focus on the creature, instead of the other things, but it didn't help her sleep. "Wakey-wakey!" Jobber shattered her efforts to doze off like a drill instructor at Reveille. Flattop jerked awake from his fitful snoring, grabbing for his blaster and shoving it in the direction of the droid. "Joooobbber!" Silence pulled the blanket over her head. "Shut up! Shut off! Something. Go away." Gremlin just murmured something in her sleep and hugged Flattop more tightly. He frowned and peeled her arm off his waist. "Ma'am, I don't think this is entirely appropriate." ". . . grmf . . . cold . . ." Gremlin finally sat up. "What time is it?" Silence peeked at her wrist chronometer. "The frell, Jobber! It's only been three hours since nightfall." "Good morning to you, too, meatbag!" Jobber retorted before Doc took over. "The sun is rising and the sandstorms appear to have resumed on the surface. The radioactive rain will commence shortly after." "Ugh. Fine! I wasn't getting any sleep anyway." Silence threw off the blanket and stumbled to the rear of the compartment. "What I wouldn't give for a shower. And a proper cup of caf." Doc floated after her. "Technically, the water in the caves could be bathed in." "I'm not skinny-dipping in a cave with a bunch of transparent tentacle-fish!" Silence shuddered, but then she smiled. "However, we do need to crack on with the effort of getting water to the civvies, don't we?" A few minutes later, Silence pounded the side of Lock's X-wing. "Wake up! We've got work to do." Muffled expletives from inside told her off in no uncertain terms, but she didn't care. She couldn't wait to get back into the caves and see if the long cat was still there. As Doc predicted, the silt sifting out of the sky outside the enclave soon turned into sheets of rain. At Gremlin's direction, the civilians had rounded up a few tools and set to carving steps into the stones. Silence waited impatiently behind them. Even though they made fast work of the task, she didn't like the dark, slimy tunnel at all, particularly when the rock began roaring and rumbling after the downpour started. The civilians uneasily finished their task, staring warily at the unmoving walls. "Perfect! Great job, everyone!" Silence tested out the steps, much happier now that she held a proper lantern and was not descending out of control into the darkness. "Water's over there." Pointing vaguely at the underground lake, she promptly headed off to the right side. Where was— "Hold up, lieutenant." Lock's scolding voice caught her. When had he shown up? "What did I say about disturbing the wildlife?" "Oh! Sir. Hello. Uhm." Silence shoved her hands into pockets of her flightsuit. "I just wanted to . . . scout. You know. Make sure nothing's in here that might . . . hurt the civvies! Yeah, we have to make sure people are safe." "Right." Lock folded his arms. Sighing, Silence squinted into the shadowy shrooms, but she couldn't see any sign of the creature. She finally pulled out her datapad and gazed at the pictures. "Do you think there are others? What else do you think lives down here?" "Do you really want to find out?" Lock smirked as he pointed to an opening off to the left side of the lake. "It goes deeper." She frowned at him. She knew from his taunting smile he was challenging her fear of caves. And nothing fired her up more than someone rubbing her weaknesses in her face. She narrowed her eyes. "Fine. I'll go scouting. Sir." "Good luck. I have to help organize the civilians." He waved at her, equal parts taunting and dismissive. Swallowing her dismay, she took a long look at the cavern, with all its lights and life. Maybe the rest of the cave network was similar. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad. "C'mon, guys." She waved to Doc Jobber. "If something happens, I'm going to need you." The droid trailed behind her, muttering softly. "Hear that? She admitted she needs us." "Ha!" Jobber snorted. "Like that's ever in question." Silence rolled her eyes. She slapped a fresh glowstick to the droid's undercarriage and surveyed the few she had left in her kit. Leaving them as markers, she wouldn't get very far. At least that would give her an excuse to come back quickly. "Hey, Silence." "Hey. Oh!" She looked up at Flattop's voice. "Hey, Flattop! What are you doing down here?" "I wanted to see what all the fuss was about down here. And Lock said you needed backup." He gazed around the cavern whistling. "Ain't that something? Such a hellish surface, but down here it's actually pretty cool." Backup? So either Lock wasn't a complete jerk, or he'd at least realized it was stupid to spelunk alone. "Yeah, it's rad. Wait till you see the wildlife!" Silence used thoughts of discovering a whole clowder of those long cat creatures to bolster her spirits. As long as she wanted to go deeper and see what was around each corner, it would keep the fear at bay. The tunnel was dark and damp and—Silence flinched violently as something hit her neck. It was also drippy. "What do you suppose that roaring is?" Flattop held up a glowstick, but the stalagmites and stalactites offered no answers. Silence tried to ignore the shifting shadows as she shivered. "Well, given the monsoons outside every sunup and sundown, I'm guessing the water is—Whoa." Rounding the next bend, they found a raging waterfall thundering down a chasm as topless as it was bottomless. The water flickered eerily, carrying bits of dislodged moss and water creatures into the bowels of the planet. Silence backed away from the edge, bumping first into Doc Jobber and then into Flattop. "Yep, dead end. We're done here. But that's the roaring you heard." "No, actually it isn't." Flattop followed her back through the tunnel. "I heard something deeper. More like—" Then Silence heard inhuman screaming. Followed immediately by a bellow and then human screaming. "Frak! The civvies!" They bolted out of the tunnel in time to see a scene Silence could only register in fragmented pieces. The civilians, panicking, pushing and shoving to fit into the exit all at once. The massive, shaggy beast emerging from somewhere behind the mushroom trees. The long cat creature, fluffed up to three times its size, its accents glowing a brilliant red. It squalled at the beast. The battlecry ricocheted off the walls in a way that would have unnerved any smaller foe, but not this cave beast. The metal-like gleam of the twenty-centimeter claws flashing through the air as the beast's guttural roar shook the cave. The cat's gravity-defying leap at the cave beast's face. A bellow. An impact that Silence felt through the floor. Bang! Flames erupted from the colliding animals. The flash blinded her darkness-adjusted eyes. Then more flashing. A heavy thud. Silence. She looked back up, squinting against the darkness. Flames licked at the cave beast's fur, filling the air with the choking scent of burnt hair. Flattop reholstered his blaster. The civilians were safe, for now. Silence bolted forward. "Wait! It might still be alive!" Flattop's hand snatched at her and missed. As soon as she reached the beast and looked at the almost unrecognizable remains of the cat-like creature it had crushed against the rocks, she turned away, clenching her jaw. But then she turned back, snatched out her own blaster and drilled the beast repeatedly in the face. "It's not alive anymore." Silence bared her teeth at the charred, destroyed skull of the beast. With laser-focus, she returned to the civilians, finding Evan and the older woman who seemed to be in charge amongst them. "Get everyone out of here. We need to make sure it's safe." "It came out of nowhere," said a weathered farmer with a child clinging to his leg. "My son was playing over by those shrooms, and then the cat started shrieking. If it hadn't been for that, we wouldn't have seen the big creature in time." That only made Silence's fingers clamp harder around her blaster's grip. "Evan, get everyone out of here." "Yes, ma'am." The captain began ordering people into lines. "I told you there might be large, dangerous predators down here." Jobber sailed out of reach to avoid any retaliation, but Silence ignored him. "In fact, there's a large egg over in the corner just waiting to hatch out and assault us with alien, flesh-eating parasites!" "I don't care about flipping eggs, Jobber!" Silence marched over to the fallen cave beast and kicked it. "I'm worried about more of these!" "And look what happened when you didn't listen to me last time." Jobber snorted mechanically. "Most hatchlings are unlikely to present much threat, but there are some known species that are most dangerous when they are newly hatched," Doc chimed in. "Certain survival mechanisms—" "Then go watch the stupid egg and make sure nothing bad comes out of it!" Silence climbed over the warm corpse and pushed behind the largest shrooms. Sure enough, a large split in the rock led deeper into the cave network. "I could go smash it to bits," Jobber suggested. "No! Leave it alone." Silence pushed into the hole, her blaster raised and her other hand gripping a glowstick. She heard the distance before she saw it. As her eyes adjusted, she made out another large cavern. It split off into many tunnels. The din of waterfalls echoed throughout, giving the sense that the system went on for endless kilometers. "Lieutenant!" Lock had finally made it through the civilians jamming up the entrance, and he caught up with her. "Where do you think you're going?" "Scouting the caves for threats, sir," Silence snarled. "Weren't those your orders?" "What if there's a whole nest of creatures like that one back there?" "I hope there are!" Silence took a breath. She closed her eyes. She knew she was being stupid, and they couldn't afford that here. "Fine. Let's find and block all the openings. We can jam some of the bigger boulders or stalagmites into them so nothing can get through easily." "That's more like it." Lock herded her back out, where they had to climb over the beast again. "Anyway, I thought you were more interested in harassing that poor cat thing. Where did it go?" Silence halted. Her knuckles cracked around the glowstick and her blaster. Lock frowned at her expression, and then he looked down and saw the bits of black and gray fur. *** The sock puppets stared at each other speechlessly. *** Silence threw herself into the labor of blocking the passages leading deeper into the caves. She hauled boulders that should have broken her back and shoved even larger ones into place with a few makeshift levers. When work-hardened farmers twice her size were sweating and swearing and taking breaks, she kept going. It forced her attention to remain on the work and the exhaustion. It kept her mind and body occupied. And when she returned to the U-wing, she pulled the blanket over her head. No one was going to see her eyes betraying her. No one was going to ask her why the death of some alien animal had broken her, when the loss of a fellow pilot had not. No one, that was, but herself. *** Morning came too soon, again. Instead of Jobber making a racket, Silence woke to Gremlin shaking her shoulder. "Hey, time for—" Gremlin stared at her for a moment. "You don't look so good." "Of course I don't," Silence grumbled, sitting up so that her black hair felt over her swollen eyes. "What's wrong with this hellish planet that has to have three-hour nights! It takes me half that time just to fall asleep." "Umm." The Zeltron didn't look convinced. "Sorry, ma'am." Silence pulled on her boots to avoid showing her face. "What do you need?" "I'm calling a meeting." "At this hour?" Then Silence realized Flattop wasn't in the passenger hold. She squinted out the front of the U-wing at the canyon and saw the sun blazing down from directly overhead. "Why didn't anyone wake me? Where's Doc Jobber?" "Last I saw him—her—it—them?" "Any of the above are accurate." Gremlin shrugged helplessly. "Your droid was hovering over some weird egg in the cave. Jobber said they were protecting the camp from brain-sucking larva and refused to leave." Silence rolled her eyes. "What's this about a meeting?" Lock stepped into the passenger hold, followed soon after by Flattop. Gremlin waved for them to sit. "I picked up a signal earlier. Imperial." Silence sat up straight, suddenly remembering why they hadn't left this infernal place. The Interdictor. "They're still looking for us? It's been days!" "Actually, it's been less than twenty-four hours." Lock tapped his chronometer. "Local day cycle really messes with the mind, doesn't it?" "Ugh." Silence rubbed her eyes. "Yeah. Okay, so Imperial transmission. What did they say?" "I don't know. It was encrypted and we don't have the means to decrypt it. Also, half of it was obscured by interference, maybe because of the frequent solar flares." "But that means half of it got through." Flattop brightened. "So if we try long enough, we should be able to get a transmission out to command and request backup." "And give away our location to the Imps up there?" Poking a finger upwards, Lock shook his head. "Better to let them think we all died. If we hold out long enough, they'll give up and go away." "We can't hold out forever. We only have so many purification tablets, but even if we rig up some water filtration system, the food won't last." Gremlin brooded for a moment. "I have some of the civilians butchering that cave beast and roasting it. They might not like it, but Doc said it seems edible. Still, we have hundreds of mouths to feed. It won't go far." Silence stood up abruptly, checking her blaster's remaining charge. "Then we go unplug the tunnels and find some more." "Whoa, someone's thirsty for blood suddenly." Lock arched an eyebrow at her. Sighing, Silence sat back down just as abruptly, not wanting him to see through her motives. "Fine. Look, just tell me what the plan is, and I'll do it." "I don't have a plan yet," Gremlin admitted. "That's why I called this meeting. What are our options, besides staying here and trying not to starve?" "What other option do we have besides either staying or making a run for it?" Flattop shrugged. "It's not like we can cut a deal with Imperials, and we're too out-numbered to fight them." "We can't outrun an Interdictor. And even if we could disable it somehow, we still couldn't outrun the rest of them with the Alesia" Lock made a face. "That boat's so slow a Hutt could outrun it on open ground." An idea came to Silence's mind, but she didn't have the heart to utter it out loud. Lock, however, didn't have that problem. "The other ships could make it. If we split the fleet, they can only chase one group of us. Being the slowest, Alesia would be a prime target, but we can save the rest of the convoy." Gremlin recoiled. "Are you suggesting we sacrifice hundreds of civilians—" "It's called triage. Better to save what we can than none." His face hardened. "Look, it's not pretty, but if we ditch all cargo on the other ships, we can cram as many of the Alesia's passengers into them as possible." "The Alesia's also the biggest ship here! There's no way that many people will fit." "It's better than none," Lock insisted. Gremlin's voice rose. "And how are you going to pick who gets to go and who gets left to die?" "Wait, maybe there's a better way." Flattop rubbed his jaw. "What if we take the fastest ships up first and lead the Imperials away while the Alesia sneaks off?" It was never going to work. No matter which way they tried, one or more civilian transports were going to be lost. Silence stood up. "My only suggestion would be to figure out where the Imps are hanging out, and then scoot our convoy to the opposite side of the planet. If we could get into their blind spot, maybe we could get enough of a head start to have a chance." Gremlin perked up, but Silence immediately shot down her own idea. "And that's probably impossible due to the surface conditions. If we get caught in a sandstorm flying at low altitudes, we might not make it. I didn't. And if we get caught in a solar flare, we're all toast." Gremlin deflated. "I'm sorry, but some situations are lose-lose." Silence bit her lip. She hated being the downer of the group. "Look. I'll go along with any plan you decide, no matter how dangerous, as long as it doesn't involve me getting captured. A slipshod plan executed with determination and decisiveness is better than the best strategy executed without commitment." "I need more time to think about it. You're all dismissed. Thank you for your input." The look on Gremlin's face as she tried to remain calm and composed hurt Silence's heart, but she couldn't help. She wasn't in command, and if she were, she wouldn't be any more prepared to make a decision than the young captain. No matter what they tried, the Alesia was vulnerable. Stepping out of the U-wing, Silence rubbed sleep and grit out of her eyes one more time. Focus on what you can control, not what you can't. She wandered around the camp until she finally found Evan. The NRI captain was in the cargo hold of the Alesia, staring at a wall of supply crates and water reservoirs. He tapped numbers into his datapad, but his gaze occasionally drifted around the hold, at the makeshift bedrolls littering the floor and the children running around on them while their parents tried to keep them out of trouble. "Tag! You're it!" "You'll never catch me!" A little girl, maybe three years old, plowed head first into Evan's legs. She bounced back from the impact, giggling, and took off running. "Sorry!" "Sorry," the girl's mother repeated, jumping off the crate she'd been watching from. "It's not safe to let the smaller kids out, and they're getting a bit stir-crazy." "Don't worry, ma'am." Evan smiled after the girl. "They're taking the situation pretty well, if you ask me." "Hey, Evan," Silence interrupted. "I need to talk to you in private for a moment." He nodded and led her to the bridge, which sat empty. "What is it?" "You're still mad at me, aren't you?" He shrugged, as if acknowledging there was no use lying to a trained interrogator. Might as well face the problem head on. "Evan, the decision to abandon the Gergovia had to be made. It was either them or all of us and them. You know that." "I understand that." His brow furrowed. "What I don't understand is how you and your fellow pilots can be so matter-of-fact about it. You treat it like it's such a simple decision to make, letting so many people die." "Because it was simple! You know why? Because we weren't choosing to let people die. We were choosing to save as many people as possible!" "You act like someone's life means nothing as long as they are sacrificed for a good cause. You didn't even shed a tear over them, did you? Hundreds of men, women, and children! We were their only hope, and we failed them! How can you not regret that?" "Because I can't!" Silence thought guiltily about how she'd cried the night before about the dead cat, but not about any of the other lost lives. "This is war, Evan. We can't save everyone. We can only make the best decisions possible. You either learn to shut off your emotions, or you blow your brains out, and I'm not falling into that second category. You know why? Because if I'm dead, I can't help anyone. I'd rather be some heartless rock still saving a few people than dead and buried when people need me." The answer gave Evan pause, but he wasn't satisfied. "You pilots barely gave it a moment's thought!" "Because in battle, snap decisions are the only ones you have time to make, or even more people die. Bad decisions kill people, Evan, but guess what?" Silence's gaze bored through Evan's skull and into the past. "Indecision kills everyone! Ask me how I know!" White Squadron. The answer hung between them, unspoken. He shook his head and glanced away. "Sorry. I shouldn't have assumed you didn't care." "Of course I frakking care!" She shoved him backwards. "But leaders can't let their emotions get in the way!" He caught himself against the console. "Sorry, ma'am. I crossed a line." Deciding she'd had enough of that conversation, Silence switched gears. "I want you off the Alesia." "Why do you think I'm here? Not many of the civilians know how to fly a ship this size, and the ones that do are flying the other ships." "I'm sure the smaller ships could use your help just as much." "Why are you trying to move me?" Silence bit her tongue. She'd always been on the side of truth. She was honest to a fault. She abhorred lies. Yet here she was, unable to tell him the truth. She didn't have to. "You're up to something, aren't you? The Alesia's the slowest ship in the group now, which means you're planning an escape, and you're willing once again to make sacrifices." Evan's jaw muscles bunched. She couldn't deny it. No matter what they did, the Alesia was the least likely to survive, and she wanted Evan to at least have a chance. "Evan—" "No." "Evan, please." Even if he was the only person she could save out of this mess, she could live with the results. "Lieutenant Vikeron!" He drew himself to his full height, just a couple centimeters taller than her. "I am not abandoning my post. Are we clear?" His sudden tone of authority—carrying not just conviction, but a maturity as well—startled her. She took a step back as he took a step forward. "Yes, sir." "Good." His voice lowered, warningly. "Then maybe you'll find a new-found resolve to save the Alesia instead of throwing these people to the wolves the moment things get hairy." She stared at his young face for a moment, and without thinking, her hand lifted to deliver a crisp salute. "Yes, sir." *** It was with a strange mix of pride and shame that Silence left the Alesia. Having served as Evan's superior and mentor for years, she felt as if she'd raised a fine officer. But it came with the bitter reality of her current station and how she'd gotten here. He used to look up to her. Did he think less of her now? She shook her head to clear it. She hadn't cared about rank before. Why did she care now? Mercifully, her datapad chirped, signaling a text communication from Jobber. The egg is hatching, and seeing as how you haven't equipped me with a flamethrower, you better get ready to blast some bugs! "Great." Silence set off at a jog. One never knew with Jobber how seriously to take his concerns, but as she squeezed past civilians carrying water vessels in the tunnel, she remembered how territorial the long cat had been. Small animals would normally only take on much larger creatures when they were in packs . . . or a nest was at stake. Silence flew out of the tunnel, skidding on slippery moss and barely catching her balance before cornering sharply and running towards the orange glow of Jobber's lights behind the looming shroom trees. She ducked through the shrooms in time to see a black, leathery egg wobbling in a nest of soft moss. A tiny face peeked out of a tear in the egg membrane, and it stared with giant green eyes at Jobber, who hovered over it ominously. "Jobber!" Silence pushed him away. "Don't you dare!" "Eee!" The kitten tottered out of the egg, tripping over it and sprawling over the edge of the nest in the cutest way possible. Its body was stubby and chubby compared to its parent, but it was still too long and ungainly for it to manage. "EeeEE!" It struggled over the edge and wobbled, sprawled, and teetered towards . . . Jobber. "I do believe it's the sort of species that imprints on its mother," Doc observed. Doc's purple lights seemed to confuse the kitten. Its round head tilted. "Ee?" "The only imprinting that's going to happen here is the imprint I'm going to make if this thing tries to bite me." "Jobber! I swear by every deity of the known universe that if you harm this creature, I will personally slag every wire in your heartless, soulless metal shell!" Silence scooped up the kitten in both hands, although it would have fit in one. She used the sleeve of her flightsuit to wipe embryonic fluid off its nose. "Don't you worry. I won't let your daddy squash you, no I won't." Jobber's lights flashed. "Who are you calling 'daddy', meatsack?" "Who are you calling 'daddy', Silence?" Silence gave a small shriek of surprise as Flattop pushed through the shrooms. She cupped her hands to her chest, hiding the kitten. "Nothing! Nobody!" "Whoa, is that a nest back here?" Flattop's eyes found the empty, limp egg. "Is that an egg? Is that—" "Eeee?" said Silence's hands. "Silence?" Flattop cocked his head warningly. "What are you doing?" "Um." Silence wasn't sure why she felt so guilty or secretive. She slowly opened her hands, allowing the chubby furball to emerge. With its ears and tail no more than nubs, it looked a lot like a velveteen tuber with giant eyes, yet somehow adorable at the same time. "Jobber found it." "What is it?" Flattop squinted at it. "Eeeeeee!" It blinked at him. "It's the offspring of that feline creature that was over here . . . before . . ." Silence swallowed and hugged it closer. "You know we can't keep pets." Ah. So that's why she felt guilty. "Well, we can't leave it here alone! It'll die." "We'll be lucky to not die ourselves," Flattop remarked dryly. "I don't care." Silence ignored his pessimism. "It's coming with us. Its parent gave its life for it, and in doing so, saved civilian lives. There's no way I'm repaying it by letting its baby die! Don't you dare breathe a word of this to Lock or Gremlin or anyone! Swear on your life!" "You don't even know what it eats!" Seeing her expression, he folded his arms. "Fine. I won't mention it to the others, but you're on your own smuggling it and caring for it." Doc came to her rescue. "Actually, it's safe to say it's a carnivore, based on the shape of the species' teeth. Given the local fauna, it probably eats either fish or rodents." "Or humans," injected Jobber. "Eeeeeeeeeee!" The kitten wiggled out of her hands and flopped on the ground. Its four short legs swam across the ground towards Jobber. "Oh, and it imprinted on Jobber. So Job's a proud pappy now." Sniggering, Silence got up and brushed herself off. "You protect that thing with your life! I need to find it food." *** One sock puppet looked another up and down curiously. "Silence, are you . . . fishing?" "Oh, er, hey, Gremlin. What are you doing down here?" "Whatever happened to that egg Jobber was guarding?" The first puppet moved away. The second puppet flailed about in a panic and chased the first. "Don't go over there!" They bumped into a third sock puppet and all three looked down for a second. "It's so adorable!" "I KNOW, right? But we can't tell Lock." All three puppets turned and looked off in the distance at a fourth, which wasn't paying any attention. And then, it turned around. *** "You know we're not allowed to keep pets, lieutenant." Lock frowned sternly at Silence, who had tucked the kitten into her flightsuit a few seconds too late. "It belongs in the wild. You don't know what kind of dangerous traits it might have that you don't know anything about." "But—" "Besides, you'd probably just kill it, because you don't know how to take care of it. No one does, because no one bothered to study this poodoo-packing planet!" Lock's eyes narrowed. "Put it back where you found it." "Awww." Silence gently set the kitten on the ground. She, Flattop, and Gremlin backed away from it. "There. Was that so hard?" "Come on, Jobber, let's go." Silence beckoned to the droid, which floated after her. "EEEE!" The kitten puffed up and chased the droid, bouncing and bumbling like a balloon with not quite enough helium in it. The low gravity helped it along. After a second attempt, it sprang upwards and flailed wildly in the air behind Jobber before sinking slowly down. On its third attempt, it scrambled on top of the droid's dome and flattened itself against the surface with a shrill sigh as it deflated. "Just . . . what am I seeing here?" Lock reached for the kitten, but Jobber casually drifted out of reach. "Those things can fly? Float? Inflate?" Silence shrugged. Lock jabbed a finger at the ground. "Whatever. Droids can't keep pets either. Put it back." "Actually, Captain Callahan," Gremlin purred with a smile, "you're not in charge here." "Great! You too?" Lock threw up his hands. "Fine. But the moment command hears about this—" "Well, command isn't going to hear about this . . . are they?" Gremlin's gaze skewered him dangerously. After looking to Flattop for support and getting only a shrug in return, Lock sighed and gave up. *** It was silly to try to sleep every three hours. Lock supposed the pilots kept trying because they were exhausted, and the short bits of broken sleep they'd caught so far hadn't helped much. Gremlin probably hadn't slept more than ten minutes since setting foot on Planet Nuclear Buttcrack, by Lock's estimation. Flattop and Silence had maybe caught marginally more. Sleep deprivation had made them all emotional and grouchy, so right now—as Silence and Gremlin sat on the floor of the U-wing, feeding the alien kitten bits of translucent fish and giggling like children—came as a pleasant reprieve. Flattop had found a scrap of discarded wiring somewhere and pulled it around for the kitten to chase. Its green eyes grew even bigger and it bounced clumsily after it, sending the girls into peals of laughter. What was it about cute baby animals that turned grown women, veterans of war, into schoolgirls? More importantly, how did Silence think she could smuggle the creature aboard the Vigilant and not get caught? Eventually, Gremlin passed out on the floor, curled into a ball with a smile on her face. Silence fell asleep sprawled face-first over one of the benches. Flattop was the last to go, dozing off still sitting up. It was the most peaceful scene Lock had seen in a while. "Meee?" The kitten patted at Doc Jobber, who lay in the corner, plugged into a charging port. It looked at Lock and then back at the metal dome. "Eee?" "Shush. Papa Jobs is just . . . sleeping." Lock leaned over from his bench and, after double checking that everyone was firmly asleep, he stroked the kitten's tiny head and scratched between its nubby ears. "Meh. I guess you are kinda cute." "Eeeeee." It rubbed its face against his fingers. "I hereby nominate you to the position of morale officer." He wagged a finger at it. "It's a very important job, you hear? No slacking." It sat down, staring at him with giant eyes that blinked slowly as it began to purr. It swayed, and then fell flat on its face, as dead to the world as the snoring humans around it. Well, it wouldn't be the first time any of them got in trouble with command. *** "I'm just saying, you've got room to spare in there." "That's like me saying you've got room to spare in your brain!" "Jobber, come on." Silence waved a spanner at the droid, who hovered just out of reach. "I built you. You're just a circuit board, a memory core, and a few wires. Honestly, an astromech head has way more room than you need, but I had to use the scrap that was available." "You don't see me cutting open your skull trying to find somewhere to store my spare change, do you?" "Jobber! Ow!" Silence plucked the kitten off her leg, which it had decided to climb with its tiny, needle-sharp claws. "We need somewhere to hide it, and since it thinks you are its parent, I don't have any other options. I need to build a secret compartment inside of you." "Keep your grubby flesh-fingers off my delicate bits!" Jobber bumped into the ceiling of the U-wing's passenger compartment, unable to fly any higher. As Silence scowled at the droid above, the kitten needled its way up to her shoulder, squeaking incessantly and staring accusatively at Jobber for sailing out of reach. Gremlin stepped inside. "What's going on here?" "Jobber's having kittens because I want to build a secret compartment inside him." "I'm trying to not have kittens, human! How would you like me to slice you open and shove a small droid in your chest?" Gremlin lifted a finger. "People do that all the time when their organs fail." The droid's lights went purple, and Doc's soothing voice took over. "Surgery doesn't bother me. However, I think I may have a solution amicable to both parties." "Thank you. A voice of reason, finally." Silence winced as tiny claws pricked her left ear. "What's your solution, Doc?" "If we're going to undergo surgery, perhaps you can also take the opportunity to provide us with a functioning appendage." The kitten launched itself from Silence's head, inflating so it could drift up to the droid's level and clamber on top of it. It sprawled over the droid's dome and promptly started purring. There was no way she could hide the creature anywhere else for long. It would start crying and squeaking. Doc Jobber went everywhere with her, so she wouldn't have to worry about leaving the kitten unattended. No one would suspect the droid of harboring a pet. "Alright," Silence bargained, "I'll give you a limb. But its design and function will be of my choosing. "Function being the key word!" Jobber's orange returned. "It'd better have a useful function." Silence rubbed her jaw. How could she design any appendage, however innocent, that Jobber couldn't use as a weapon? Then again, he already turned himself into a bludgeoning instrument capable of dealing severe concussions. Maybe a fragile limb wouldn't be much worse. "Hey, Captain. I'm going to be busy for a while, unless you need an A-wing-less A-wing pilot for something." "No, you go right ahead." Gremlin waggled her fingers at the kitten. "So cute!" "Thank you, ma'am." "There's a solar flare causing total interference today, so I sent Lock out earlier to do some scouting. If we can figure out the location of the Imperial fleet, maybe we can better prepare an escape plan." "Ah. About that." Silence turned the spanner over and over in her hands. "Seeing as I don't have a ship, I'd like to be assigned . . . to the Alesia." "But that ship's the most likely to—" Gremlin stopped, seeing Silence's stubborn expression. "It's because of Evan, isn't it?" "Not exactly." Silence stared at the spanner for a moment. "Let's just say, I've become such a pragmatist that it's easy for me to justify the sacrifice of others. But if it's truly the right call to make, I should be able to put my own life on the line just as easily." "That's not—" Static sputtered out of the U-wing's radio. "Is that Lock?" Silence peered through the front viewport from behind the empty pilot's seat. Sure enough, Lock's X-wing cruised through the enclave's entrance and settled next to the U-wing. Gremlin and Silence both hurried out of the U-wing to meet him. Lock popped his canopy and pulled off his helmet. "They haven't forgotten about us." Gremlin frowned. "Nor are they likely to." Lock climbed down, looking annoyed. "I nearly ran over a probe droid a few dozen klicks up the canyon. It saw me, so I slagged it. I doubt it got a transmission out with that flare going on, but I wouldn't put it past the Imps to investigate why their probe went missing." "With our current supplies, we can only hold out a few more days, even if they don't find us." Gremlin's face tightened with concern. "Then you better figure out what we're doing fast, because things are going to come to a head pretty soon." Lock glanced over Gremlin's shoulder at Silence's troubled face. "You got something to add?" "No. I wish I did." Silence hugged herself unhappily. "We can't hide forever—" Gremlin frowned. "Or can we? Water's plentiful if we can figure out a filtration system, and there are native lifeforms that could sustain us if they are safe to eat. The cave network must be extensive to support a creature the size of that cave beast. If we entrench ourselves there, they'll never be able to get to us." "Sure." Silence hated caves, but maybe dying was worse than being stuck underground for a few weeks. Maybe. Purpose and determination filled the Zeltron's face. "We have a new mission. We need to explore that cave network until we find shelter, food, and water that will last until the Imperials decide we aren't worth the effort." Silence thought of the dark, roaring bowels of this nasty little world and cringed. Gremlin turned back to Silence. "I need everyone on this task immediately. Including shipless A-wing pilots." "Yes, ma'am." Thanks. I hate it. Then inspiration struck. "I think I can help find us edible sustenance. Just give me a few hours and access to all the tools, ma'am." *** "There!" Silence switched Doc Jobber on and stood back, admiring her work. "Running diagnostics." Doc's purple lights flashed. "New hardware detected." "What?" The lights went orange instantly. A spindly arm with a tiny scraper tool extended from the bottom of the droid, right next to the hidden hatch Silence had built in. "What is this anemic, fragile twig?" "It's for taking samples. I found an old spectroscope in one of the civilian ship's medical bays and built it into your undercarriage. Now Doc can make a more accurate analysis of the chemical compounds of all the flora and fauna we come across!" "This would snap off the moment I ram it into someone's face!" Jobber waved it around in disgust. "I only agreed to a useful limb! THIS IS MALPRACTICE!" "It's an excellent upgrade." Doc interrupted. "Thank you. It will be of tremendous service for our current situation." "And, tada!" Silence scooped up the kitten from the U-wing bench and tucked it inside the hatch. "Kitten? What kitten?" "Don't think you're going to get away with this travesty!" Jobber scolded. "I feel violated!" "Oh, hush." Doc steadied Jobber's erratic movements. "Listen. It's purring!" Jobber grumbled, but as the purring grew louder, even he shut up. Silence beamed. To be continued...     Copyright © 1995 - 2022 Renegade Wing