"For those of us who fought the Empire, there was a shared realization that lurked in the back of our minds. It was something hardly anyone dared to speak out loud because it was too awful to face. The simple fact was that we were fighting a losing battle against impossible odds. In opposing Palpatine we were setting ourselves on a path of pointless struggle and certain death. In the end, though, I think it was that unspoken realization that bound so many people together and made the Rebellion possible."
The enemy frigate's shields crumbled under a continuing hail of turbolaser fire from Spearhead's port batteries. A volley of concussion missiles tore through its engine compartment and ignited its power core. The frigate flared and was gone.
Jan Dodonna would have felt better above that, but Freedom Song and Leveler had planted themselves off Spearhead's starboard bow and were overwhelming the destroyer's defenses. Starwind, meanwhile, was exchanging a broadside volley with Valediction and neither ship seemed to have the advantage. The bulk of Slayke's main carrier, chewed up by Starwind's batteries, now drifted into Sarillion's rings to be chewed up further before falling into the planet, but destroying Valediction was the goal that superseded all others, and it didn't look like Captain Nahm was going to pull it off.
Grant watched the tactical holo with his lips pressed tightly together. Jerec hovered behind him, 'watching' the holo as well, though Dodonna had no idea how the blind Inquisitor was really experiencing the battle. He might have been savoring all that pain and death.
"We're running low on ships, Admiral," Dodonna said. "If we're going to move in, we should do it now."
"I don't believe Spearhead is going to last much longer," Jerec said.
He didn't need the Force to tell him that. The ship was getting overwhelmed, and if it went down, three heavy capital ships would be free to pound Captain Nahm's vessel into dust.
"At least pull back Starwind," he said. "She might be able to draw Syne out from the-"
Spearhead's marker flashed red and yellow. Dodonna turned to the viewport just in time to see her bow get torn to shreds by Freedom Song and Leveler. Her stern and command tower began to be pulled toward the planet, even as she desperately fired her engines in an attempt to escape.
"Pull Starwind back," Grant ordered.
Dodonna breathed a sigh of relief. Valediction didn't chase Ni-sihl-Nahm as his vessel pulled back to mid-orbit to join the three remaining capital ships.
Four destroyers, including an interdictor, should have been enough to take the enemy fleet, but Syne and Slayke had been fighting a ferocious battle, luring Grant's forces behind the veil of Sarillion's rings ship-by-ship and destroying.
"Enough of this," Grant breathed. "We're regrouping for a full attack."
It seemed to be the only option they had left. Dodonna asked, "Do you plan on bringing Closed Fist with us?"
"The interdictor stays," Grant said. "The three of us are going in beneath the rings." He tapped his fingers nervously on the edge of the tactical console, then added, "But not yet."
"Are we waiting for something?" Dodonna frowned. There weren't any reinforcements on the way from N'zoth, though if he called they could be at Sarillion in under six hours.
Without answering, Grant stalked over to the communications station. Dodonna watched him go.
"The Emperor won't be pleased if they escape," Jerec said. "With any of us."
Dodonna didn't even know what he was doing here. He didn't want his career to end with this fiasco.
"The Emperor is in a foul mood already," Jerec continued. "Grant's failure will not help."
"Already?" Dodonna frowned. "Can you… sense the Emperor's moods?"
Jerec didn't respond. Dodonna wasn't sure he wanted to know anyway.
-{}-
Syne had no qualms about letting Starwind slip away. The brawl with the destroyer had damaged their port shields heavily, and they also needed to launch repair crews to collect the escape pods from Fat Bastard before they were pulled into the gas giant or cracked open by the stone and ice fragments in Sarillion's rings.
Leveler and Freedom Song moved closer to help. Syne walked to the communications station and placed a call to the other capital ship captains.
"We seem to be holding our own well," Avit Madrisk's shrunken blue holo-image said.
"Thanks to your surprise, Captain," Slayke grinned from Freedom Song's bridge. "You know, gent and lady, we just might pull this off after all."
"It's been very costly," Syne reminded them.
"Not as costly as it's been for Grant."
"How long until the next attack?" Madrisk asked.
"Not long, unless he's waiting for reinforcements. What do you think, Madam? Have we finally pissed Grant off enough to get him in here?"
"I sincerely hope so," Syne said. His remaining three star destroyers would make for an ugly fight, but she wanted to face him in battle more than anything. She was amazed the fight had drawn on this long and was even starting to hope she might live to see A'Sharad again.
But the thought of A'Sharad brought her down from the adrenaline-high of battle and reminded her of the one thing more important than revenge on Octavian Grant.
She excused herself from the conversation and stepped into a quiet alcove at the back of the bridge. She quickly placed a call to Sajin on her personal comlink.
"Madam, are you there?"
"I'm here, Sajin. Are you with Jadesei?"
"Yes. She's been wailing like an animal, but what can you expect, with the ship getting all knocked around."
She sounded breathless, scared. Syne knew the feeling. "Sajin, we have a lull right now, but I think Grant is going to attack again soon. Personally. I need you to be ready."
"Me?"
"I want you to be ready to take Jadesei and leave the ship."
There was a long pause. "Where can we go?"
"I don't know, but I'll designate a shuttle for you. Something that can hide in Sarillion's upper atmosphere if it has to."
"Are you sure we won't be safer on Valediction?"
"I'm not sure of anything right now, but I want you to be ready to protect my daughter."
"I'll do anything. You know that. But Jereveth… What about you?"
She looked back at her bridge, her loyal crew ready to sacrifice themselves, and wondered if they should mean as much to her as her child.
They didn't, and never would, but just as Jadesei was her daughter, she was Gregor Syne's.
"I have a duty here," she said. "But if the time comes, I'll do everything I can to be with you."
She clicked off the comlink and exhaled. She didn't want to die on this bridge. She would do anything she could to avoid it. But she knew she might not have much choice in the end.
Like father, like child. A'Sharad would understand that, wherever he was.
-{}-
The moment Laranth dropped out of hyperspace, he knew they were in trouble. There were too many stars, and Sarillion was too far away.
A'Sharad Hett was in the co-pilot's seat next to Sacha. His mangled arm was still bound against his chest and the painkillers made his head swim with every sharp motion, but he still lunged forward against his crash webbing and tried to make out what was happening in the far distance, where Sarillion's broad rings spun on their diagonal axis around the flame-colored world.
"They must have an interdiction field up," Pavan said behind him. The cockpit was absolutely crammed with people: I-Five, Den, Altis, and Ash were all stuffed into the space behind Hett's chair.
"Checking scanners now," Sacha reported. "But I bet you're right."
"I'm trying to comm system," Hett said, though he could only do so much with one hand. "I'm getting nothing. We're still being jammed."
"What about main sensors?" Altis asked. "Can we find out what's happening at the planet?"
"Hold on, I'm getting something now." Sacha chewed her lip. "I'm reading capital ships. Big ones. Definitely a brawl going on out there."
"What ships?" Hett pressed.
"I'm getting one group with… an interdictor and three destroyers. One Venator-class, one vicstar, one of those new impstars."
"What else?"
"There's another group. It looks like they're pinned down in Sarillion's lower orbit. I'm getting an assault carrier-"
"Madrisk," Hett muttered under his breath.
"-some kind of Techo Union battleship-"
"Slayke."
"-and another destroyer, Victory-class."
"That's her!" he pounded the console with his good fist. "That's Syne!"
"Can we get there faster?" Jax asked.
"We're already at full sublight. We won't hit the planet's orbit for another hour," Sacha said.
"What'll we do when we get there?" Den asked.
Nobody had an answer for that, but it didn't matter.
Forward was the only direction they could go.
-{}-
They crossed beneath the curve of Sarillion's rings in one straight line: Empire Star in the center, Assail on its port flank, Starwind on starboard.
The enemy fleet was there to meet them. Valediction hung slightly back, while Leveler and Freedom Song lurched forward along with the two remaining support ships: one gunship and one museum piece, a Corellian corvette painted in old Judicial scarlet.
Standing on Empire Star's bridge between Dodonna and Jerec, Admiral Grant ordered, "Starwind and Assail, move forward on Freedom Song."
"That will put Assail in front of our firing axis," Dodonna reminded him.
"And block us from Syne's," Grant nodded.
The man seemed intent on drawing out a confrontation and Dodonna knew there was nothing he could do to stop him. He glanced at Jerec, wondering if the High Inquisitor's Force powers were making much-needed sense out of this brawl, but the bind man's expression was both frustrated and distant, as though he was distracted by something much further away.
As ordered, the other two destroyers pressed forward. Dodonna watched the battle being through the forward viewport, now filled with the swelling gaseous swirls of Sarillion's outer atmosphere. Assail cut sharply across Empire Star's bow while Starwind began firing on Freedom Song with its forward batteries. Leveler adjusted heading and began to attack Assail, while the two smaller support ships dropped back to Valediction.
Turbolaser fire lit up Slayke's front and port-side shields. The ship stopped its charge and tried to pivot so it could deliver broadside volleys at both ships, while Leveler settled on Assail's tail. The destroyer was taking fire on both its fore and aft shields, which meant it wasn't going to last long.
Neither was Slayke. Even as Freedom Song attempted to deliver broadsides against two targets at once, its shields started to overload. Starwind fired off a volley of concussion missiles whose red trails slipped past the flickering particle shields and impacted. Geysers of flame tore open the hull. Assail shunted power to her aft shields to deflect Leveler while increasing forward fire.
Then Freedom Song's engine module exploded. Hands of fire seemed to race up the spine of the ship, consuming hull module after module, until they'd wrapped the bow in a dazzling spiral of flame. Dodonna's breath caught as he watched the blaze consume Slayke's flagship until there was only scorched metal left.
Cheers went off across the bridge, but Empire Star's captain shouted them down. Even as Freedom Song's black smoldering husk began to fall toward Sarillion, Valediction was surging forward.
"At last," Dodonna heard Grant snarl behind him. "At last!"
-{}-
As Syne watched Freedom Song burn, she felt like all her hopes were burning with it.
She's thought, going to meet Grant's charge, that Freedom Song, Valediction, and Leveler could tackle each of Grant's three capital ships one by one. She hadn't been expecting the sudden turn of the Venator-class destroyer and the two-to-one crushing of Freedom Song.
Now Slayke was dead. The last two ships he'd commanded, Black Dancer and Scarlet Thranta, charged on the Venator without being ordered. Madrisk was already pounding the ship's aft. Slayke's two little escort ships, a hungry for revenge as she was, began attacking its bridge.
"Guns," Syne ordered, "Open fire."
Valediction shuddered as her forward batteries unleashed wave after wave of green energy on the destroyer's starboard side. It shunted it shields to meet the barrage, but they were already straining under Leveler's attack. A series of explosions tore through the hull, and Black Dancer landed a well-placed concussion missile barrage that impacted on the ship's dual command towers, tearing them open and spilling fire and debris into space.
The flaming destroyer's engines failed and it began to tumble toward the planet in Freedom Song's wake. That brought a half-hearted cheer from Syne's crew, ended immediately when the other Victory-class destroyer began firing broadsides against their port shields.
"Pull forward!" Syne ordered. "After Grant! After him!"
It was two capital ships against two. Valediction and Starwind were the same class of ship and, statistically, even matches. Grant's Empire Star was twice as big and three times and well-armed as Leveler but it didn't matter.
She's fought this far against impossible odds, and Octavian Grant was in her sights.
Not even Yvolton was urging caution now.
As they pressed forward, surging past the dead destroyer, Black Dancer fell back to engage the other Victory-class. With their leader gone, Slayke's people seem to have lost all fear of death. The gunship unloaded her entire payload of missiles on the destroyer's forward shields, followed by a wave of laser blasts. The shields absorbed the projectiles but not the energy weapons, and plasma bursts tore through the ship's side and ignited the magazines of its port weapon batteries. Twisted metal, flame, and unlucky crewmen gushed out into space even as the forward gun batteries kept firing. Black Dancer's shields finally collapsed, and the gunship vanished in a burst of white-hot light.
The crippled destroyer struggled to keep up. Valediction, Leveler, and brave little Scarlet Thranta pressed ahead toward the waiting gray diamond of Grant's flagship.
-{}-
Ni-sil-Nahm's blue holo flickered over the communi-cations console as he said, "Engines at seventy-five percent, General. We're falling out of firing range."
"Keep up the best you can," Dodonna told him. "We're going to need you. Ni-sihl."
"Can you hold out against Syne?" Even through the static he sounded weary.
"We'll do our best," Dodonna said. "Keep fighting, Captain, that's an order."
"Anything for you, General," Ni-sihl-Nahm said, and the holo flickered off.
Dodonna looked around the bridge. You could see the tension in everyone's faces as they watched Syne's two ships looming up ahead. If they were anything like Dodonna they were probably trying to understand how an easy rout had turned into a brutal fight to survive.
Grant was down by helm control, crouching low to give orders to the lieutenants in the crew pit. Then he stood up and moved over to another station with ease and languor, like they weren't about to grapple with his nemesis with odds against them. Dodonna was starting to wonder if the man hadn't simply gone mad.
As for Jerec, he was still standing by the tactical console, forehead wrinkled in consternation.
Dodonna walked over to the Inquisitor and said, "Can you do anything to help us, Lord Jerec? Anything at all?"
Jerec tilted his head to face him, to look at him with those sightless eyes. "There are Jedi here."
"With Syne? You said there weren't."
"They're out there!" Jerec stabbed a finger toward the back of the bridge.
"You mean they're somewhere else in the system?"
"Yes. And I think… they are just the ones I'm looking for."
Without further explanation, Jerec stalked, probably to order the launch of some fighter expedition. Grant, mean-while, was over at the comm station and didn't seem to care what Jerec was doing on his ship. Up ahead, Valediction and Leveler had passed out from beneath the veil of Sarillion's rings and were almost in firing range.
Dodonna was starting to think he was the one going mad.
Then the deck lurched as Empire Star began to pivot away from the planet. The viewport panned away from Syne's ships, from Starwind, from the swirling planet and its shimmering rings.
"Admiral, what are we doing?" Grant staggered back to the comm station.
"We're letting Syne chase us," Grant said. He almost sounded happy.
"Is the interdictor going to fight with us?"
Grant shook his head. "Trust me, General."
The man really had gone mad. If they'd charged forward, brought Syne to a halt and given Ni-sihl a chance to take her from behind, they might a chance, but the interdictor couldn't brawl as well as a vicstar, even a damaged one.
"Admiral," the tactical officer reported, "She's coming after us. All three ships."
"Very good. Comm, tell Closed Fist to drop her interdiction field."
"What?" Dodonna gaped. "We're escaping?"
Grant just looked at him and smiled.
-{}-
"The drag field's gone!" Sacha bleated.
Hett lurched forward in his seat. "Can we jump to the planet?"
"I can try a micro-jump, I think."
"Why did they drop it?" Jax asked behind them. "Is Grant running?"
It seemed impossible, but Hett couldn't see any other option. By some miracle combination of luck and tactical brilliance, Syne had winnowed Grant's fleet down to two destroyers, one of them crippled and slow. Now both Leveler and Valediction stood ready to tackle his flagship head-on.
"Got it!" Sacha cried.
The stars in their viewport stretched long, turned the world white, then turned back to stars a half-second later. The fiery marble of Sarillion exploded in front of them, as did Grant's massive star destroyer.
When Hett tried to work the comm system again, Jax gasped.
He looked up just in time to see four more star destroyers wink into realspace: three Venators and one smaller, broader vessel with a bow split open like the mandibles of an insect. He'd only seen that kind of ship once before, at Bavinyar.
Then Sacha said, "Incoming fighters!"
-{}-
The voice said crisp and clear over Empire Star's bridge loudspeaker: "This is Captain Griff of the star destroyer Majesty, reporting as ordered."
"Very good, Captain," Grant said loud enough for the whole deck to hear. "I'm glad you could make it."
"What are your orders, Admiral?"
"What do you think?" Grant smiled. "Destroy them all."
"With pleasure, sure."
As soon as the connection clicked off, Dodonna spun on Grant. "Who is that?"
"One of my officers from the Ryndellian sector fleet," Grant said.
"Why didn't you call him before?"
"I didn't need him before."
Dodonna's mind spun through all those dead ships, all those thousands of dead crewmen. "All of this… Just to draw out Syne..."
"She used her trick too soon, General. I kept mine for last."
-{}-
In an instant, it was over.
Bitter certainty washed over Jereveth Syne and laid bare her mistake. They always said she was cold but she wasn't; she'd let white-hot anger, the need for revenge, overtake her better judgment.
Now four new star destroyers were rushing to overtake her, Grant's flagship swung to face her, and the final destroyer was limping up from behind, cutting off the only place she could run.
In that moment, as she stood on the bridge amidst the panicked crew, the wailing alarms, she knew that every-thing she had done had come to nothing.
And then she remembered what she should have never forgotten in the heat of anger.
"Sajin?" she barked into her comlink. "Are you there? Sajin?"
"I'm with Jadesei," she replied quickly. "What happened?"
"Get to the shuttle. Now."
Sajin didn't ask questions, didn't hesitate. Syne could hear her daughter wailing as the other women took her out of her crib. It was probably the last sound she'd ever hear Jadesei make.
"What about you?" Sajin asked.
She wanted to sprint for the bridge as fast as she could, but she couldn't ask Sajin to wait.
"The interdiction field is down. Get the shuttle and run. Go to Dornean space. I'll find you if I can."
"I'll do it. And Jereveth-" Sajin's voice cracked. After all the years they'd shared there was too much to say.
"Thank you, Sajin. Thank you for everything."
Syne turned off the comlink. Then she turned to see Thi Xon Yimmon standing two meters away from her, staring at her. His expression was strangely calm, even as the battle raged around them, even as death crept ever-closer.
"I have people I need to protect," Syne said defensively.
"If you didn't, you wouldn't be here," Yimmon said calmly. "None of us would."
"You're not afraid."
"Are you?"
Fear was one of those things her father had taught her to lock away so it couldn't mess with the rest of her. She'd gotten pretty good at it, but not perfect.
"Yes," she admitted. "I am."
"But you'll fight, even knowing the odds?"
"I always have."
He gave a soothing smile. "Then you're in good company."
The four new destroyers were charging in fast from the port side. They'd be within firing range of Leveler in minutes. Up ahead, Empire Star was turning to show her broadsides.
And Scarlet Thranta was shooting past Valediction's bow, right toward Grant's ship.
Syne hurried over to the comm station and told Wells, "Get me that ship! Now!"
"She's already hailing you, Madam. Audio only."
"To my comlink," she ordered and fished hers back out. "Scarlet Thranta, state your intent. Are you running?"
"Doesn't look like we'll make it," said the corvette's captain. Syne couldn't remember his name.
"State your intent!"
"This was Slayke's first command, back when he was a Judicial. We figure it deserves a send-off he'd be proud of."
The red glow of its thrust engines blazed in front of Empire Star. The destroyer was already unloading its batteries but the corvette was a small and nimble target.
"We'll slow him down for you, Madam! Scarlet Thranta, out!"
The line went dead. Syne stared ahead. Everyone did. The whole bridge watched in silence as Scarlet Thranta slammed right into Empire Star's forward shields. The force of impact tore through the energy barrier and sheared the corvette to pieces. Debris shot like bullets and ripped holes through the destroyer's bow.
Cheers went up. Syne almost joined them, but Well's hand grabbed her forearm.
"Madam," he said, "A call from Madrisk."
"Put him on."
The captain appeared as a flickering holo above Wells' console. He snapped a salute and said, "Looks like they just gave you an opening, Madam."
An opening for revenge. An opening for escape. She had to take it either way. The confusion alone should be enough for Sajin and Jadesei to escape.
"We'll try to hold off the other destroyers," he said, and they both knew what it meant.
She said, "Die well, Avit."
He nodded. There wasn't anything else to say. The holo flickered off.
She turned to command the helm to fire all forward thrusters, but Yvolton was already on it. She looked over her shoulder and saw Thi Xon Yimmon, standing tall in the center of the bridge, an island of of calm and even confidence. She understood how this man had gotten So many beings to follow him.
Just maybe, they would follow him still. She could hear the distant engines groan as Valediction shot forward.
-{}-
If he'd had anything in his stomach, A'Sharad Hett would have thrown it up already.
Sacha was hurling Laranth into a mad series of twists and spirals to avoid the TIE fighters that had come roaring at them. Den was practically hugging the back of her pilot's chair and Jax gripped the back of Hett's with both hands.
Hett barely noticed any of it. He was leaning over the comm system, trying desperately to hail Valediction.
"Jereveth, Jereveth, are you there?" he shouted, "Valediction, respond!"
The ship rocked. Sacha swore and said. "That one got through our shields!"
"Did it damage any systems?" Jax asked.
"I don't know," she grimaced and jerked the control yoke. "I'm kinda too busy to check."
Behind them Altis muttered, "I can feel him. He knows we're here."
"Who?" bleated Den.
"Jerec. They said he was coming for us at Prakith…"
A pair of Y-wings from one of the rebel ships whipped past and picked off one of the TIEs. Laranth pulled a sharp turn, forcing the other TIE to slow. One of the Y-wings clipped its solar panel with its turret gun and sent the crippled fighter spiraling into deep space.
"We have to get closer!" Hett snapped.
"If we get closer we're going to pick up more fighters!" Den said.
"No! We need to get closer!" Hett pounded the comm system with his fist. "Valediction? Valediction?"
Suddenly a scratch voice said: "That you, sir?"
It was a voice he'd heard a million times, a clone's voice. "Wells? Is she there?"
"One sec-"
A wash of static drowned out Wells. Hett punched the console again, so hard his hand hurt, and told Sacha, "Just a little more!"
Suddenly a tiny blue light sprung up in front of him. He found himself staring at a flickering, distortion-marred image of a young woman with a stern pale face above an embroidered uniform collar and a pair of epaulets.
A sad smile softened that face and she said, "Hello, A'Sharad."
-{}-
Red lights flashed and alarms wailed as damage reports bounced back and forth across the bridge. Jan Dodonna held tight onto the tactical console as the ship shuddered once more. Through the forward viewport, he could see Leveler charge to meet Griff's ships. The hail of turbo-laser fire from all four vessels quickly overwhelmed it. Leveler was attempting a suicidal ram of the lead destroyer when its engines exploded and a fireball consumed the entire ship.
Nobody on the bridge cheered or even noticed.
"We lost the forward missile magazine!" someone shouted.
"More hull breaches!" Somebody else said. "Eighty percent of the atmospheric shields are holding."
"Seal off all compartments fore of the hangar!" The ship's captain ordered. "Engines, report!"
"Still functioning, sir."
Dodonna spun on Admiral Grant, who stood in the center of the bridge with his hands clenched at his sides, staring at the approaching white wedge of Valediction.
"Admiral," he said, "We have to fall back! Now!"
"Not again," Grant snarled. "Not again!"
He grabbed the admiral by one shoulder and shook him. "We can't defend like this! We have to pull back!"
Then someone from the comm station called, "Admiral! It's Captain Nahm!"
-{}-
"Jereveth!" Hett jerked forward as far as his crash webbing would allow. "You have to get out! Now!"
"Grant is on that ship! I can take him!" she insisted.
Valediction was charging the big star destroyer, now smoldering from hangar to bow. The new destroyers were cutting in toward her flank but they slowed to maneuver around Leveler's fiery wreckage.
If Syne could break Grant's ship, they could escape into hyperspace. All of them.
And he knew how much she wanted to destroy Octavian Grant.
"A'Sharad!" she said. "Run! Go to Dor-" There was a surge of static, blurring her image and obscuring her words.
"No!" Hett shouted and punched the console yet again. "Come back!"
"-and Sajin!" Syne was saying. "Whatever happens to me, you have to-"
Another burst of static. He said, "Jereveth, listen to me! Don't stay on the bridge! Get to the escape pods, we'll pick you up!"
Her image resolved again. "Just hold on, A'Sharad, we'll be clear in a minute."
"What happened to Jadesei? Where's our daughter?"
"I sent-"
The connection broke again. Hett snarled at Sacha, "Take us in! Closer!"
"Lots of hot light out there," she grimaced. A storm of green turbolaser blasts that was starting between Vale-diction and Grant's ship.
"I don't care if we get burned! Take us closer!" He hit the comm system again.
"Look!" Jax stabbed a finger between them. Hett looked out the viewport and saw a second vicstar, surging up from behind Valediction.
-{}-
Syne hung over the comm console, repeated A'Sharad's name, praying the signal would come back and his holo-image would flicker to life in front of her again.
Instead she felt Yvolton's hand press on her shoulder. She looked back and saw a grim face.
"They're coming up from behind us," he said. "The last destroyer."
She'd forgotten about it entirely. She looked across the bridge at the tactical display: one red wedge was almost upon theirs.
"Spread our shields out," she said. "Block their fire."
"Madam, they haven't opened guns."
Cold realization took her. Before she could say anything, a blue holo jumped to life above the console once more.
"Jereveth!" Hett's broken image said, "Get to an escape pod! Now!"
"Oh, A'Sharad," she breathed, "I am so, so sorry."
"Hurry!"
"I loved you so much." Her face felt right and her vision blurred. She felt cold water run down one cheek. "Take care of our daughter."
The bridge shook. The holo died. Someone cried, "They're coming in on our starboard side!
"All guns fire!" Yvolton called.
It wouldn't do any good. Syne placed both hands on the shoulders of her comm officer, bent low, and told Wells, "Thank you for your service, Lieutenant."
Wells looked at her, blinked the dark eyes that shared by a million men but still his own, and said, "Thank you for the opportunity, Madam."
Syne straightened. The bridge shook again. She looked across the chaos to see Thi Xon Yimmon, immovable in the center of the bridge. She blinked her vision clear and his eyes met hers.
He didn't say anything, didn't even change his expression, but somehow he gave her strength.
She turned to the forward viewport and saw Grant's flagship sitting so close, so infuriatingly far away, and wondered what her father's last sight had been before he died.
-{}-
Starwind's bow tore into Valediction's starboard side, bursting through shields and shearing through layers of durasteel. Their hulls scraped and tore into one another until Starwind's tip collided with the forward missile magazine in Valediction's bow. The chain of explosions tore through both ships, igniting more weapon caches, until the firestorm finally reached Valediction's main power core.
The resulting fireball swallowed both ships and flared so bright everyone on Empire Star's bridge covered their eyes and turned their heads.
Everyone except Vice Admiral Octavian Grant.
He stood with one hand pressed against the transparisteel of the forward viewport, squinting stubbornly into the inferno, savoring every flash of light and burst of flame and flailing chunk of twisted, blackened metal.
He felt like he had passed through a door and left the rest of his life behind him: All the plotting and tricks, all the tactical gambles, all the failures. They belonged to another man.
Staring at her pyre he realized that Gregor Syne's little waif had been the most capable enemy he'd ever faced.
He took his hand off the transparisteel, clacked his heels together, and snapped a salute. He held it for one second, two, three. Then, solemnly, he lowered his hand to his side.
She deserved that much, anyway.
It took forever for the fire of two star destroyers to burn out, but when it dimmed enough so that it no longer stung his eyes, he turned to see the rest of his bridge. General Dodonna was taking his hand away from his face, finally, and peering at the smoldering wreckage with abject horror. High Inquisitor Jerec, who hadn't needed to hide his face at all, wasn't even paying attention to the explosion. He was accosting a tactical lieutenant who looked incredibly confused, about some topic Grant neither knew nor cared to know.
He turned away from them all, back to face the burning ships, to savor the end of it all.
-{}-
A'Sharad Hett screamed a horrible wordless wail. Jax and I-Five lurched forward to retrain him before his agonized flailing broke something in the cockpit, or worse, mangled his bad arm even more. Hett was a huge man and a Jedi Master besides, so I shrunk like the coward I am against the far wall behind Sacha's chair
Our pilot was already spinning us away from the planet and setting course for who-cared-where. As Jax and I-Five hooked arms around Hett's shoulder and pinned him to the chair, I asked her, "When do we leave the gravity well?"
She eyed her console. "Right about… Now!"
She reached for the level to fire the hyperdrive but froze. I snapped, "What's wrong?"
"Nav computer's kriffing down!" Sacha snarled. "When they winged us they must have messed up our systems!"
"Who cares? Micro-jump! Just get us out of here!"
"I can't, not here!" She waved a hand at the tightly-packed old stars of the Koornacht Cluster. She was right. A blind jump here was liable to get us fried instantly.
Beside us, Jax and I-Five had finally managed to subdue the raging Hett. The big man was pressed back in his chair, chest heaving for air, gleaming tear-trails running down between the black tattoo-lines on his face. I had no idea what kind of anguish he was going through then. I didn't even know he had a wife and child until a minute ago.
And right then, sorry to say, I didn't really care.
"I-Five," I said, "Can you fix the nav-comp?"
Five was still leaning over Hett with one arm hooked around his shoulder. When I asked the question he stared at me, just stared, like I was speaking a totally foreign language, until I remembered his astromech incarnation's explosive suicide run at Prakith.
Then Master Altis said, "I may be able to help."
I'd almost forgotten the old guy was there. He squeezed himself between Sacha and Hett's seats, stretched out his arm, and placed his hand on the console, right over Sacha's nav computer.
Then he closed his eyes.
I stared at him. So did Sacha and Jax and I-Five.
"You've got to be kidding me," I said.
Sacha glanced at her sensor console. "We've got a bunch of TIEs coming after us. If your magic trick's gonna work, old man, it's gotta work now!"
Altis didn't say anything, but I could see his brows scrunch together in concentration.
"Does that even work?" I-Five asked, half in disbelief and half in wonder. "How can you use the Force to talk to machines?"
We looked at Jax for an answer, but he looked as perplexed as we were.
Then something chimed on Sacha's console. She whooped and said, "Nav-comp's back online! Where you wanna go?"
"Anyplace safe," I told her.
Master Altis withdrew his hand from the console and stepped to the back of the cockpit. Jax and I-Five, they stared at him in awe, but me, I was looking straight ahead when the starlines jumped to infinity and flung us far, far away.