Star Wars - To Fight Another Day Read online

  The tramp freighter Quandary’s ruddy-cheeked second mate pulled off his headset. “Silver Station’s under full alert,” he exclaimed. “Somebody intends to blow it up in less than a day.”

  Tinian I’att pushed a strand of red-blond hair behind her left ear. The news sparked no rush of fear, no clench at the pit of her stomach, and that disappointed her. Other people might die, people who had reasons to go on living. It seemed wrong not to care. “Who wants to blow it up?” she asked. “Why?”

  Ten days ago, the Quandary had picked up Tinian and her traveling companions at Ksiczzic III. Tinian had never seen poverty before she started running from the Empire. She was getting a fast education. Half of the Quandary’s bulkheads braced the other half, and its crew took pitiful pride in mismatched uniforms that she would’ve been ashamed to wear on the job back at I’att Armament.

  The second mate had taken a liking to her, although she hadn’t encouraged him. He shook his head. “All they told me is that it seems to be a vendetta. Smart saboteurs don’t announce their intentions.”

  “Do we still have to dock there?”

  “You bet your sweet … hr’m.”

  Tinian felt a hand grip her shoulder. That must be Sprig Cheever, the musician who had lent her his wife’s ID. Tinian had fled the Druckenwell system with Cheeve’s troupe, eluding Imperial troops who wanted the contraband she carried. Cheeve’s wife planned to follow as soon as Druckenwell calmed down.

  The second mate stepped backward and spoke courteously. “Yes, ma’am. The Quandary’s got a weakening hull section. Didn’t want to alarm you passengers, but we’ve got to get repairs here at Silver.”

  “That’s all right.” Cheeve, a KeyBed player and songwriter, wore a short, neat goatee. He dropped his hand from Tinian’s shoulder and leaned up against a bulkhead.

  Tinian didn’t mind when Cheeve hovered. She’d always been small for her age, and she’d grown up with bodyguards. Cheeve had kept his distance during their three weeks on the run, letting her cry when she need to cry, telling her stories when she needed to be distracted. At Druckenwell, an Imperial Moff had ripped Tinian’s life into pieces and fed them to her. Every hour or two she choked on a memory.

  “We’ve come to talk with Una Poot,” Cheeve drawled. Una Poot equipped seven resistance cells in this sector of Imperial space. As soon as Tinian delivered the illicit prototypes she and her musical protectors had smuggled off Druckenwell, she could rest. She’d’ve fulfilled her last reason to go on.

  Intellectually, she knew she must find a new purpose — but knowing didn’t make her care. She’d lost too much.

  The second mate raised a sparse eyebrow. “Good luck,” he said. “You’ve got 16 resistance fighters lined up ahead of you to talk to her. And she’s real busy right now.”

  Tinian had met the other passengers. They’d shared tasteless rations in a stale-smelling cargo hold that the crew called its “mess.” Her fellow travelers were the last survivors of a decimated underground, trying to join the Rebel Alliance.

  “She’ll see me.” Cheeve stroked his goatee. “She’s my father’s aunt. I’ve got a standing invitation.”

  The second mate’s mouth made a small, round “o.”

  And she’ll want what’s concealed in our instruments, Tinian predicted.

  Besides her alleged husband Cheeve, she was traveling with his fellow musician Yccakic — a multitalented Bith — and their droid Redd Metalflake. Biths stood out in a crowd because of their high, hairless craniums, quintuple mouth folds, and long knobby hands. She’d learned on this trip that they perceived sounds as precisely as other species perceived colors, and even called them by color names.

  She stared out the freighter’s tiny viewport. Across several degrees of arc, a deep, rosy pink aurora outshone the stars. Five dark vortices near its center radiated golden energy pulses that crisscrossed, forming visible waves of dark and light pink, amplifying and muting each other. Tinian wondered what they were.

  A black square in front of the aurora grew and resolved into a cube surrounded by long cylinders joined at haphazard angles. The aurora showed between cylinders, except at the center, where Tinian guessed the original station remained inside its add-ons.

  “Silver Station doesn’t look like much,” muttered Yccakic. “because it isn’t. It’s not even a good place to hide. I can’t imagine why Una Poot headquarters here.”

  “Inertia,” said the second mate. “We’ll be docking in oh, about 17 minutes. I think you’ll want to strap down.”

  Tinian followed Cheeve back along the ship’s creaky corridor into the six-meter bunk space they’d been allotted. Cheeve and Yccakic had bunked together, gallantly giving Tinian the other barely padded shelf.

  She climbed onto it and strapped in. At her feet, deactivated for the trip, lay a large, red, dented metal box mounted on treads. Redd Metalflake was the band’s self-contained droid sound system. They’d shut him down in order to pass him off as luggage during this leg of the trip, to avoid theft. Their small lock box wasn’t big enough to hold him.

  Inside Redd Metalflake and the band’s instruments nestled an armload of electronic components that was everything valuable she had left. She’d been an armament heiress. Her late grandfather, Strephan I’att, and her late fiancee, Daye Azur-Jamin (Why can’t I remember their faces?), had developed a personal shield generator that could be mounted on stormtrooper armor, making it truly invincible. Moff Eisen Kerioth had ordered her grandparents shot dead, so that he could claim the technology as his own invention (At least I can feel hatred). Daye had sabotaged the factory and died beneath its debris, rather than let the Empire get away with murder and theft. A rubble-lined crater marked where I’att Armament had stood. Searchers had found no survivors.

  She blinked up at the bulging underside of the upper bunk. She must be getting better. She felt like dying most of the time now, instead of all the time. She only wanted to hurt the Empire before she vanished, by giving that armor technology to someone who could produce and use it. Una Poot had been the best bet.

  Yccakic’s huge, hairless head appeared over the top bunk’s edge. Yccakic played a mean Bottom Viol. He was one of the sector’s best bass men. “Tinian?”

  “Still here,” she said.

  “Green up, kid. Stay close to Cheeve and me while we’re on Silver Station. Okay?”

  “Sure.” She wished he’d stop worrying about her. She wanted the nightmares to end. She’d dreamed about Daye again last night, trying to warn him to get out of the factory before it exploded. “Yccakic?”

  The Bith leaned over again.

  “Is Cheeve concerned about the sabotage threat? The… vendetta that crewman told us about?” The band had learned to rely on Cheeve’s presentiments. If he predicted trouble, they moved on.

  Yccakic’s shiny head vanished for a few moments, then reappeared. “He doesn’t like it,” relayed the Bith, “but he says, ‘Out here in the galaxy, things aren’t always easy.’”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” she muttered.

  A creaking old protocol droid escorted Tinian, Cheeve, Redd, and Yccakic up a cylindrical passage, around a 90-degree gravity anomaly, then left and right, up and down through three more reorientations until Tinian felt hopelessly lost. Silver Station seemed to be a veritable warren with tarnished walls. She’d never seen so many alien species. Creatures gawked as Tinian, Cheever and Yccakic lugged two enormous instrument cases, followed by a boxy red droid. Redd Metalflake propelled himself around left and right turns, but each time gravity changed, his treads malfunctioned. Cheeve had to lift him, turn him, and set him on the new path.

  Tinian offered to help.

  “Sorry,” Cheeve
grunted. “He’s only got one handle. You’ve got to stand guard, and Yccakic’s got to steady the instruments.”

  She thrust a hand into her pocket. Cheeve’s wife Twilit had lent her most of a wardrobe, including this long shapeless gray vest. Tinian was trying to stay inconspicuous.

  At last the protocol droid led them to a hatch. As it extended a manipulator arm, its servomotors protested with a long squeal. “Wait here,” it intoned. “You may consider it your bunk room.”

  Tinian stepped past the droid into the cubicle. Its bulkheads did not curve, so she guessed that she’d finally breached Silver Station’s original construction. It smelled old. Because of her years at I’att Armament, Tinian could identify 31 explosives by odor. Here, thankfully, she didn’t smell any — only staleness that came from one corner, as if some creature had nested there.

  The station bunk room would have dwarfed their shipboard cubicle, though, and it had a washroom and a meal chute. Yccakic ordered a liquid concentrate. Some Biths had trouble pushing solid food past all those mouth flaps. “Is it good?” Tinian asked.

  “Not particularly,” admitted the Bith. “But it’s cheap.”

  Tinian sighed. Watching credits took a lot of getting used to. She’d learned to eat nutritious bulk. She longed for a juicy gorss steak, or half a pot of savory likryt stew.

  Several hours later, she got up and started pacing.

  “Relax,” suggested Cheeve. He slouched at the bunk room’s narrow table, punching a datapad and tugging his goatee. Tinian guessed he was writing a song. “This could take a while.”

  “I’d like to get out and explore.”

  “I don’t think that’d be wise,” said Cheeve.

  “Why not? Are we prisoners?”

  “Not exactly. But your credentials, and Yccakic’s, are being checked.”

  Tinian frowned. “My grandparents worked for the Empire. So did I. Will that count against me?”

  “Depends. We’re all deserters here.”

  “Don’t go all purple on us, Tinian.” Yccakic lounged on a bunk. He hadn’t moved since he slurped down his meal. “See if you can interface Redd into that information port. We might as well check the Rebel rumor mill.”

  Redd sat in the corner farthest from that stale smell. “I’m not very good at that kind of thing,” he warned as Tinian approached him. “I’m — ”

  “Get over here,” she ordered, trying to sound serious, but she tended to laugh when addressing Redd. He didn’t look anything like the shining protocol and line droids she’d once worked with. After she steered him close to the wall port, he extended his data attachment. “Find out about this bomb threat first,” she said.

  He downloaded silently. After almost a minute, he said, “It sounds serious, Tinian.”

  She didn’t panic. Redd was always pessimistic. “Cheeve isn’t worried. What’s up?”

  “I’m not very good at — ”

  “Redd!” drawled Cheeve. “Just tell us.”

  “Silver Station has Ranats,” Redd said.

  Tinian blinked at Cheeve. “What are they?”

  Cheeve punched a datapad key. “Con Queecon, they call themselves. Big rodents native to the Aralia system. They’re nasty — smart enough to fight but too stupid to understand surrender. It’s illegal to arm a Ranat. What are they doing here, Redd?”

  “Evidently this Rebel matriarch you’re looking for — ”

  “Una Poot,” said Cheeve. “Come on, get with it. Edit function: fewer comments, more data.”

  “Una Poot found a colony of Ranats pilfering large quantities of station food. She ordered them eradicated. The survivors are out for vengeance.”

  “But if they blow up the station, they’ll kill themselves too,” Tinian exclaimed.

  “I said they’re stupid.” Cheeve shrugged and shut down his datapad. “The Empire categorizes Ranats as semi-intelligent. It’s legal to kill them in self-defense.”

  “How lovely.” Tinian pushed hair out of her face. “I’ll remember that if I’m attacked by one.”

  “The Imperial military has supposedly been trying to train Ranat mercenaries to send against the Rebel Alliance,” interjected Yccakic.

  “Uh-oh,” said Tinian. “These might be mercenaries?”

  “Vermin, more likely.” Cheeve cocked an eyebrow. “Redd, give us general grapevine. What’s the big story today?”

  Redd paused, then said, “The Empire has constructed a huge space station capable of destroying an entire planet. They named it the Death Star. They tested it at Alderaan — ”

  “Alderaan?” chorused Tinian, Cheeve, and Yccakic. “But that’s an enormous population center,” Yccakic continued.

  “The Empire blew it to boulders,” Redd said mournfully.

  Tinian gasped.

  “But,” Redd continued, “the Alliance destroyed the Death Star.”

  “That’s better,” Tinian exclaimed. She wanted to hear that someone was hitting the Empire. “What kind of explosives did they use?”

  “One starfighter pilot got in a lucky shot.”

  “One?” Tinian breathed. That was no lucky shot. That was almost supernatural. It would’ve interested Daye …

  Startled, she blinked at Redd Metalflake. For a moment, she’d felt excited.

  If Una Poot lost Silver Station to a few lousy Ranats, she’d never forgive herself. It’d serve her right for trying to live and let them live.

  She sat down on a tabletop to wait for news. The door of her headquarters room — a modified galley that suited large groups — slid shut behind her rag-tag security people as they scattered into the Station. Ever since she’d arrived as a young merchanter, she’d despised uniformed security and everyone else who looked official. Even the few uniformed troops the Rebel Alliance had scraped together gave her the mulligrubs.

  Una and her first husband, Drogue, had delivered a tugship cargo of culslon gas to Ord Segra spaceport. They hadn’t known that Ord Segra customs exacted seven percent of cargo value in bribe money. They’d refused to pay. Customs officials had shot the Poots’ tug tanks full of holes and given chase. She and Drogue had jumped blindly into hyperspace and emerged here. Drogue had died soon afterward, prospecting the Dragonflower Nebula for other valuable gases. He’d taken too many risks …

  Una studied her gnarled, spotted hands. There’d been two husbands since, and neither had survived. Now she was aging with Silver Station. Before she made the Final Jump, she wanted to light a few fuses that’d burn long and slow, and explode some day in the Emperor’s face.

  She glared at the galley door. If those blasted Ranats destroyed Silver, the Monor system would lose a vital shipment of blaster carbines. She ought to be out there hunting Ranats herself, but she couldn’t move quickly enough to blast them anymore.

  Her comlink buzzed. “What?” she barked. “Did you find them?”

  “No. A Sprig Cheever to speak with you, with prior clearance. He has two companions. Their credentials check.”

  She made a fist and whacked her table. On another occasion, she’d’ve welcomed young Cheeve. His hot music and his cool attitude peeled years off the calendar. “What does he want?”

  “He claims to have something you can use.”

  Maybe she should’ve trained a regular defense force, instead of relying on secrecy to protect Silver Station. But nothing lasted forever.

  “All right,” she grumbled. “Send them up.”

  When the hatch slid open, Tinian recognized the protocol droid who had met them at the docks. The same asymmetrical dribble of grease leaked from his mid-chest restraining bolt. “Una Poot has agreed to meet with you. Follow me.”

  Cheeve had dug Tinian’s pieces of modified stormtrooper armor out of his KeyBed, Redd Metalflake’s insides, and Yccakic’s Bottom Viol. Carrying their stash, they followed the droid deeper into Silver Station.

  Una Poot’s “receiving room” looked like a galley — tables stood head to head, wall to wall. The crone herself sat at the head of
one table. Threads of gray hair dangled over her shoulders. She wore an old green tunic and a pair of black pants that rolled at the top. Maybe they’d been half of some larger person’s shipboards.

  “Cheeve,” she exclaimed in a rusty-sounding voice. “I wish I had time to chatter, but I don’t. What is it you think I can use?”

  “This is Tinian I’att,” Cheeve said casually. “She’s got — you tell her, Tinian.”

  Tinian related her story. At the appropriate moment. Yccakic displayed the vital pair of smuggled c-boards. “I only hope someone can use them against the Empire.” Tinian finished.

  “Custom armor isn’t cheap,” snapped Una Poot. “Most resistance troops can’t afford any armor. What’s your price?”

  “You don’t understand. I’m giving them to you. You’ll have to analyze them, and — ”

  “Everybody has her price. If I don’t pay you, you’ll come for me later.”

  Tinian considered. “Well, there’s a favor you could do me.”

  “Hah. There’s always a price. I told you. What’s the favor?”

  “When I was a kid — ”

  “You’re still a kid.”

  Tinian flushed. Pain and loss had aged her. Didn’t it show? “I had a Wookiee bodyguard who died helping me escape the Imperials. I’d like to find someone who was related to him, so I could make sure Wrrl’s memory was honored. That would mean a lot to him.”

  Una Poot half smiled. “That’s an unusual favor, missie. I’ll think about it, if I’ve got time. It’d be nice to be rich enough to have bodyguards.”

  “It was,” Tinian admitted humbly. “I’ve only begun to realize how nice it was.”

  “Good,” Una Poot cackled. “The more the Empire took from you, the harder you’ll fight.”

  Tinian glared at the crone. “In that case, they’re in for trouble. They slaughtered my family while I watched.”

  Una Root’s eyes darkened. “There’s more behind that pain in your eyes than your family or a bodyguard, girl. What was he like?”

  He? How had the old woman guessed? Tinian pictured Daye in her mind: dark-haired, a long gentle face, and that odd gray streak at the center of one eyebrow. “He was brilliant,” Tinian remembered. “Hard working. And — I never told anyone about this on Druckenwell, but he’s dead now, so it can’t hurt him, can it?”