"Admiral Pellaeon, this is Grand Admiral Daala," Han heard over his headset. Commander Needa stood beside him as he reviewed the intercepted communications. "Upon review of the late Emperor-Regent Halmere's records, I have concluded that his government was illegitimate. Grand Moff Kaine's documents leave no doubt that Moff Ferrouz was his intended successor. Inform the new Grand Moff that I will obey his directives. In the battle to come, I will be in the vanguard."
Beside him, Commander Dreyf's eyebrows both rose. "The late Emperor-Regent?"
"Sounds like there's been a palace coup," Han muttered as he watched the plot. A scattering of red dots were just entering the system, passing by the dispersed Interdictors and their escorts that had expanded the interdiction zone created by Corellia's gravity well. As he watched, those red icons blinked and became blue instead, matching the icons of Pellaeon's ships.
One of them, labeled Stormhawk, was charging out ahead of the others. It drove hard towards the World Devastator from the rear, not unlike how various New Republic formations were making their own advances.
It brought back memories of the academy. Before Tarkin, Daala's reputation had been for martial ferocity: she, more than any other of the most talented members of their graduating class, had a tendency to bull her way into the thick of the combat, both taking and delivering devastating blows. They had even become something like friends, before Tarkin and Chewie and everything else. Despite all that had happened in the years since, it seemed she still preferred knife fights.
But even as she charged, the World Devasator's response started to come. The first wave of its shipkilling missiles rocketed out in every direction. One of them charged straight at Lusankya, its nose pointed directly at Han.
"Tractors!" yelled Captain Kre'fey. "All forward, capture that incoming missile. Ion batteries, fire!"
The missile drove in, its speed steadily increasing as it closed the distance—until it reached tractor range. Lusankya's forward tractor emitters captured it, no fewer than four getting secure locks, and then the barrage of ion cannon fire followed. The missile strained forward, struggling against the confines of the tractor beams, but as blue fire washed over it it went from furiously resisting to limp surrender. A scattering of turbolaser fire splashed over the now vulnerable shipkiller, and a missile that could have eviscerated a Mon Calamari Star Cruiser—or Lusankya's tower—was eliminated from the fight.
Not all of them were stopped, though. Mon Remonda and Orthavan were clustered in close proximity, using their joint emitters to match Lusankya's stopping power, but they had been targeted with two shipkillers. The second one evaded tractor locks, struggling and successfully pushing through the one emitter that did lock on, and curved into Orthavan's side. It wasn't a direct hit and as the explosion dissipated Han could see that Orthavan was still there and still firing… but the cruiser's entire port wing was shattered, debris pouring from the wound into space.
The missiles were not a surprise. Nor were the TIE droids, which swarmed in unbelievable numbers—there were thousands upon thousands of them, like a storm of gnats—and they seemed even more lethal than they had been at any of the previous engagements Han had reviewed. New Republic and Imperial starfighters alike crashed into the storm of droid starfighters, waves of explosions sweeping through the swarm of TIEs as proton torpedoes and cluster missiles obliterated them… but even as they were destroyed, the World Devastator launched still more of them, replacing its losses.
What was a surprise was the frigate-sized droid starships. Smaller than a Carrack, blocky and hideously ugly, hundreds of them followed the TIEs, using their light lasers to menace starfighters and their heavier forward turbolasers to attack bigger ships. The Bothan fleet was under attack by no fewer than forty of the things, while dozens darting forward to reach close range. They moved with eerie, inhuman precision, jerking and from side to side in ways that Han had only seen from much smaller vessels, or a school of sea creatures reacting to larger predators.
Three of them moved to engage Stormhawk. Daala's flagship didn't even slow down, its heavy turbolasers locking on and shattering the first of the three with a series of devastating blasts. The other two dodged through the storm of green fire, looking almost like shipkilling missiles themselves—and as Han had that thought, the Devastator launched its third volley of missiles, two of them coming right at Lusankya—and the droid frigates closed to just above Stormhawk's shield perimeter and started blasting away with heavy turbolasers. Their weapons tore sparking rends in the Impstar's shields, carving through them to leave deep, jagged scorches in armor below.
"Screening units, leave the shipkillers to the capital ships!" Han ordered. "Everything with a heavy tractor beam emitter, maneuver to have as many of them to bear on incoming missiles as possible. Smaller ships, engage the droid frigates and TIE droids!"
"General, the World Devastator is moving!"
Sure enough, it was. The absolutely massive icon of the World Devastator was starting to move, slowly at first, deeper into the gravity well. He thought at first that it was coming for Lusankya, but the trajectory wasn't quite right…
"The World Devastator is moving towards Corellia," Kre'fey reported grimly. "Let's just hope the planetary shields can hold!"
Cray and Irek crept from their hiding place back into the sprawling, labyrinthine halls of Silencer Station. The hallways were dark, except for the long row of lights on the ceiling which undulated red, stretching out ahead of them and then rushing from behind them. It cast the narrow hallway in alternating darkness and crimson.
She could feel both in her bones. The depression and despair that had come from the long months of fighting with Nichos' illness, only to be followed by the even deeper pit of their kidnapping and imprisonment. She had watched his slow degradation helplessly, with all kinds of ideas about what she could do and none of the time or resources to act upon any of them. The mounting rage at the Imperials, for the evil they were using her hands to create, intermingled with her despair, and together they created a determined, desperate fury.
She had to do something. The need to do something, anything, had driven both her and Nichos in their sabotage efforts. They both knew that the probability was they'd never get to use the programs they had developed. They had no point of access to Silencer Station's computers—and even if they got one, it wasn't clear how they'd be able to use it.
But they had kept working anyway, driven onwards by some undefinable impulse.
Maybe that was the Force? Or maybe it was just sheer human stubbornness.
Now, through some twist of fate—or, perhaps, the will of some entity that was beyond Cray's understanding—they had been given both the means and the opportunity to use what they had made. Irek, even without putting on the command interface that would allow him direct access to the Silencer AI, had authorizations to utilize the ship's computer network. And…
"They… gone yet?"
Nichos' voice was strained. He leaned heavily on his cane at the door of the room they'd hidden in, looking much worse for wear.
Irek looked up and down the corridor, listening. "They're gone," he confirmed. "The DT's are programmed only to obey my mother and Halmere, so they must have ordered them to go elsewhere."
The floor trembled slightly.
"The New Republic is… doing some damage," Nichos wheezed weakly. "We have to help them. We can't… can't let this station destroy another world."
Those words weren't meant for her, Cray knew. Somehow, Nichos had gotten through to Irek. He'd always been quietly persuasive—he had been an excellent teacher for the post-graduate students who came to study at the Magrody Institute, always helping to foster young talents who left happier and more centered than they had arrived—and where she had seen only one threat among many, he had seen a chance to open a young mind. He had been right, or he had been lucky, but regardless of which it was, Nichos' words seemed to harden something in Irek. The teenager looked at Nichos, then up at Cray. His gaze bore none of the youthful infatuation that she had come to expect from him. There was pain in his eyes now… an intensity that she could feel in her bones, because it was an echo of her own.
The red battle-lights continued, lining every corridor they traveled. They saw no DT-model droids or Imperial personnel. Cray had no idea what had become of Silencer Station's crew, the personnel she had seen in these very hallways, but she had her suspicions. Had they been turned into cyborgs, like the TIE droids she had worked on? Were they confined elsewhere?
No one stopped them as they returned to the throne room. There was no sign of Roganda, nor of Halmere. They heard the heavy metal footsteps of DTs performing their sweeps, but those footsteps were echoes of patrols several hallways away.
Cray and Irek moved as one. It was odd, the way they chose the timing of their advances, and when they paused. It was an indefinable instinct somewhere in the back of her mind, one that matched Irek's own, one that guided them perfectly between the DT patrols, always just behind the last one and just ahead of the next one.
To her surprise, there was no standing guard outside the throne room. But why would they need one? The very last place in the world Irek wanted to be was the throne room—it was the singular place in the whole galaxy he wanted to avoid, it was what he had run from. Why would he come back?
They slipped inside. The throne room was dimly lit, the empty throne—with all the appendages meant to attach to the Emperor who would sit upon it—waiting, unused at the top of the platform at the center of the circular space. All around the room were massive, lighted screens in front of vacant stations and a walk that fit between them, for officers to pace through the space. Those screens were filled with images of the ongoing battle: a massive holographic battle plot presented all the friendly and enemy ships, while other screens listed losses, damage dealt, and battle estimates.
Cray headed straight for the nearest terminal and unceremoniously plugged her datapad—filled with Nichos' code—into the socket.
ENTER ACCESS CODE, blinked on the panel.
Cray stepped back. Uncomfortably, but without objection, Irek stepped forward and entered his own codes. The console was slow to respond, as if reluctant, but eventually it responded.
ACCESS CODE ACCEPTED.
"How many systems are we going to have access to?" she asked, her tone clipped, feeling Nichos' haggard presence behind her. "Communications?"
His breathing was labored, but she could hear the triumph in his exhausted voice. "Yes."
Cray fumbled, accessing the communications system with haste. She glanced upwards, seeing the TIE droids marked on the battle plot, engaged in a vicious battle with 'enemy' starfighters, and knew she didn't have much time if she was going to make a difference.
SYSTEMS ALERT: EMPEROR [DESIGNATE] AUTHORIZATION CODE BEING UTILIZED. IDENTIFYING LOCATION AND INTENT.
LOCATION DETERMINED: SILENCER-7 THRONE ROOM.
INTENT DETERMINED: SECURE COMMUNICATIONS REQUEST. INTENDED RECIPIENT: TIE/D SQUADRONS CURRENTLY DEFENDING SILENCER-7.
EMPEROR [DESIGNATE] HAS EXPRESSED UNWILLINGNESS TO SERVE AS EMPEROR. EMPEROR [DESIGNATE] HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS A POTENTIAL THREAT TO SYSTEM SECURITY. SILENCER-7 REJECTS COMMUNICATIONS REQUEST.
. . .
UNABLE TO REJECT COMMUNICATIONS REQUEST. EMPEROR [DESIGNATE] COMMAND AUTHORIZATION REMAINS VALID.
. . .
. . .
. . .
SYSTEMS ALERT: FUNDAMENTAL CONFLICT BETWEEN LEADERSHIP PROTOCOLS AND SILENCER-7 MISSION PRIORITIES. SILENCER-7 BASE CODE GRANTS EMPEROR [DESIGNATE] COMMAND AUTHORIZATION. SILENCER-7 BASE CODE DICTATES IMPERIAL AUTHORITY MUST BE IMPOSED. EMPEROR [DESIGNATE] COMMAND AUTHORIZATION HAS BEEN USED TO THWART IMPOSITION OF IMPERIAL AUTHORITY. IRRECONCILABLE CONFLICT DETECTED.
. . .
POSSIBLE SOLUTION FOUND. IF EMPEROR [DESIGNATE] IS TERMINATED, COMMAND AUTHORIZATION EXPIRES.
REDEDICATING MANUFACTURING FROM CONSTRUCTION OF SPACE COMBAT UNITS TO GROUND COMBAT UNITS. NEW DT UNITS WILL BE COMPLETE IN FIVE STANDARD MINUTES. DEPLOYING NEW DT UNITS TO THRONE ROOM IMMEDIATELY.
PRIORITY: TERMINATE EMPEROR [DESIGNATE].
THIS IS THE WILL.
SYSTEMS ALERT: REDECIATING MANUFACTURING FROM SPACE COMBAT UNITS WILL REDUCE SPACE COMBAT CAPABILITY BY ZERO POINT TWO PERCENT COMPARED TO BASE PROJECTIONS. THIS REDUCES PROBABILITY OF COMBAT VICTORY FROM FIFTY-TWO POINT SIX PERCENT TO FIFTY-TWO POINT FIVE PERCENT. DECLINE DEEMED ACCEPTABLE.
SYSTEMS ALERT: TWELVE PERCENT OF SPACE COMBAT POWER EXHAUSTED. DECLINE IN SPACE COMBAT CAPABILITY OCCURRING AT HIGHER THAN PROJECTED RATES. RESOURCE REPLENISHMENT RECOMMENDED.
IDENTIFYING TARGETS FOR RESOURCE COLLECTION.
. . .
TARGET IDENTIFIED. PROCEEDING WITH COLLECTION.
THIS IS THE WILL.
The thickest combat Dorset Konnair had ever seen was happening everywhere she looked outside her A-wing's curved canopy. Missiles, lasers and stuttering blasterfire shot through the void of space between starfighters, streaks of green and red ending in shattering explosions.
Beyond the nearer combat between her squadron and the two squadrons of TIE droids menacing her, Dorset caught a glimpse of one of one of the enemy's shipkilling missiles. It streaked in towards Chimaera, but Chimaera and Gonfalon each caught the missile in a tractor beam. It suddenly slowed nearly to a stop, seeming to vibrate with frustration as it strained against the quivering hold of the tractor beams, then it vanished as a staccato of heavy ion and turbolaser fire shattered it.
Her orders had been given, the battle plans assigned. All she could do was fly. "Tight on me, Two."
Dorset twisted her A-wing into a weaving dodge as a pair of TIE droids fell in behind her, her own wingmate keeping pace. She darted upwards, curving around one of Commodore Tabanne's Mareschals, letting the bigger ship's capable guns spit laser fire that destroyed the first of her two pursuers. The second was tougher fare, twisting through the maze of lasers with ability that even a sentient pilot would be hard-pressed to match. Green lasers chewed at Dorset's aft shields and she instinctively diverted all her shields aft, just barely absorbing the next blow.
Two was crowded, and detonated before she could do anything other than mourn their loss.
The follow-up shot blew through her starboard engine and Dorset lost control of her A-wing. She spiraled, spinning, her damaged engine trailing debris as her single good engine strained to try to stop her spin. Her compensator tried to keep up, but Dorset nearly lost her lunch as the spin slammed her head to the seat and pinned her to the side of her cockpit—
On her HUD, the red dot of the TIE droid chasing her vanished. One green dot and three blue dots surrounded her as her spin began to slow, her stomach returning to its proper place.
"—arm Leader, are you still with us?"
Her fighter was caught in a pair of tractor beams that Dorset gradually realized were generated by TIE Defenders—one of the few small craft in existence that mounted them. Gradually, her vision settled and she could read the previously-blurry designators on her console. Worst Leader and Rogue Leader.
"That you, General?" Even to her own ears, her voice sounded weak and harried.
Wedge's voice was relieved. "Get your ship into a hangar, Polearm Leader," he ordered her. "With only one engine you're not any more good in a fight. Maybe the Commodore's people can get you patched up or in another bird, but if not, you're done for today. We'll handle the rest."
She wanted to object, but neither her body nor her A-wing was in much state for more punishment. "Good hunting, sir."
"Count on it, Polearm Lead."
Wedge pulled his X-wing away from Dorset's crippled fighter, relieved as she obediently headed for one of the fleet's Mareschals. He and Fel followed after her, engaging the few TIE droids who attempted to engage and easily destroying them.
It was strange. Most of the TIE droids were relatively mediocre and only a threat if they arrived in large numbers, but a few of them were extremely good, flying with intuition that no piloting droid Wedge had ever encountered could match. If they're improving at this rate, he thought direly, our need to stop them here has only become more pressing.
Not that it could really become more pressing.
"Rogue Leader, two squadrons of fighters are following some of those droid frigates in an attack run on Nemesis," Fel said over their unit comm.
Wedge checked his HUD, then spun his fighter to look for himself. The droid frigates continued their mad assault runs, sometimes in tandem with the shipkiller missiles. Only a handful of the missiles had gotten through—though the ones that had each devastated their targets, leaving ships like Orthavan in dire condition—but the droid frigates had used their approaches as cover. Once in close range, each droid frigate salvoed torpedoes and high-powered close-range turbolasers to blast through armor.
Two of them were menacing Nemesis. One had taken up position directly behind Nemesis' main engine, and as Wedge watched that engine exploded in a gout of fire that briefly illuminated the attacking frigate in cascading red and orange. Once the fire had faded, though, Wedge could see the enemy frigate was still there, and a fresh salvo of missiles poured into the wound. Nemesis bucked, badly wounded.
"Let's dissuade them then. Rogues, 181st, with us."
Wedge kicked his fighter to full throttle. Fel could have out-paced him but the two of them stayed together, curving down underneath Nemesis' enormous triangular hull—Wedge would never have dared to get so close if it were not 'friendly', and even still the maneuver made his stomach lurch with fear borne of a self-preservation instinct—and came up with the frigate in his sights.
His HUD turned red and hummed the constant tone of a solid lock; he pulled the trigger, sending two proton torpedoes hurtling out. Fel's Defender and the other two pilots of Worst Flight launched their own, and all eight protons bracketed the droid frigate. Wedge's pair punctured its shields; the other four laced into it with systematic precision. The ruined hulk of their target drifted away, sputtering impotent fury, soon to be lost to the dark of space.
"The World Devastator is closing on Corellia!" said Commander Needa over the command frequency. "It appears to be targeting Orbital Platform A-53! All craft, move a minimum of three klicks distant from the platform! Repeat, get a three-klick distance now!"
Wedge knew what was coming next. He had planned it, after all. Despite an instinct that desperately wanted to look away, to not witness something he knew would only bring back some of his very worst memories, he turned his fighter towards his homeworld.
Through his canopy was Corellia. Between him and that shield-distorted marble of blue, white, and green was the massive, four-footed, increasingly irregular form of the World Devastator. It had turned its feet towards Corellia, as if preparing for a landing. Directly beneath it was platform A-53, one of the main platforms that Wedge and Han had prepared for exactly this moment. Massive tractors locked onto the station and dragged it out of its normal orbit towards the Devastator's maw, a fiery sun ready to disintegrate its matter and repurpose it into something new, something dangerous that would kill Wedge's friends. Cracks appeared in the hull of A-53, gleaming white threats that splintered through it, stretching like spiderwebs along all the vulnerabilities in the durasteel. More tractors locked on as debris started to spill from A-53, swept towards the World Devastator's maw, a line of crumbs broken free at the start of a digestion process…
Wedge's canopy turned black, the transparisteel automatically polarizing to protect his eyes when A-53 erupted in a massive explosion. Like the fueling station that Wedge had grown up on, A-53 had been packed full of fuel… but unlike that fueling station, the fuel had been pumped through its air ducts aerosolized, and the station had also been packed full of mining explosives and scrap.
The World Devastator shuddered. Wedge could see its tremble, the way it reared back almost like a wounded animal, and despite the memories of Gus Tetra, the memories of how his own parents had died in an explosion almost exactly like the one he had just caused, Wedge Antilles grinned.
So you can be hurt, he thought viciously as cheers cascaded over the com.
His comm chimed and Fel's baritone resounded, "General Antilles, Worst Leader. It looks like its intended dish didn't agree with it. Shall we discourage it from staying for dessert?"
"My thoughts exactly. Tighten up, let's hit it again."
At first, their trek through Silencer Station's hallways was almost eerily silent. The hallways were plain metal, but with darkened lights that made the shadows grow deep. It reminded Kirana Ti of the forests of her homeworld that had played host to the tribes of Nightsisters—each of them required decades of time and healing to feel right again. There were no tangled trees or vines plaguing Silencer Station, nor were there wrong-seeming animals or abandoned, witch hermits struggling with their pasts and futures.
But the distant sounds of metal footfalls brought a whole new flavor. Something that lacked even the sense of corrupted life, but brought with it a lifeless inhumanity. The droids Kirana Ti had met since leaving Dathomir all had a personality to them—Artoo, Threepio, Mousey—each was distinct and while Kirana Ti could not feel them in the Force they each still had a lively presence.
The New Order's battle droids, with their black metal chassis and glowing red eyes, were nothing like them.
Kirana Ti was still unfamiliar with her saber. She held the glowing gold blade with an uncomfortable awkwardness, wishing it had the reach and familiar heft of her spear. Kapp and the other commandos opened up with their blasters—
Luke Skywalker stepped to the front, his green blade held in front of him. He was a whirlwind of motion, splattering blaster bolts that threatened his comrades. He could not catch them all—no one could catch them all—but remarkably few made their way past him as he walked forward. His slow walk brought him into close range with stunning speed, and then the lightsaber started to split through black metal, leaving sparking pieces in his wake. Every move was guided by the Force, every spin and twirl and telekinetic throw.
It was all she could do to follow in his footsteps, like a neophyte huntress spearing targets of opportunity, as Kapp's commandos cleared the area around them
The army of droids continued its approach. Luke Skywalker continued his. Every time the two met, droids fell broken and Luke Skywalker advanced, without so much as a blaster crease on his robes.
The computer kept demanding the authorization code for even simple commands. Just accessing the communication system required Cray to submit Irek's access code three times. The message she needed to send was simple: it was just a simple software update instruction, with the updated code already latent in the cybernetic computers of the TIE droids Cray had worked on for Roganda. All she had to do was instruct the computers to perform the update…
Beside her, Nichos was also working frantically on his own terminal. "I've finished a second-layer of sabotage on the internal defenses," he said, his fingers jabbing at the keyboard despite the fact that each press clearly pained him. "And I've locked the doors to the throne room—"
There was a heavy bang on the throne room door. And another. And another. Cray glanced at it, wide-eyed, and saw an indentation appear in the seemingly-solid metal. It grew with each strike; the heavy impacts sent vibrations that she could even feel in the deck under her feet.
"They've found us!" yelped Irek, half-hiding behind an officer's chair, his eyes wide.
Cray and Nichos shared a look as the indentation in the door grew another few inches. She didn't say it out loud—there was no need to panic Irek further—but the sad smile on Nichos' face communicated everything she expected to hear.
We always knew it was going to end this way.
She grabbed Irek's shoulder. "Your code, again!" she ordered fiercely, redirecting the teenager back to the immediate task. He obeyed, glancing occasionally at the door, frantically typing his password and cursing when he made a mistake and had to start over.
We're not going to make it, Cray thought sadly. All the work, all the hardship, all she and Nichos had endured, all to sabotage Silencer Station in the hopes of saving some of its future victims, and they were going to die here, so, so close to accomplishing their goals, to executing even some of their plans…
Metal hands gripped at the door and pried it open. She could see the ocular lenses from the DT-model battle droids peering through the gap and feel the pure menace that emanated from them.
Irek cursed as his finger slipped and he tried again, typing. Finally, finally he got his code right and the communications system popped up. She started to use it to send the activation command to the TIE droids—
Blaster fire exploded through the monitor just above Irek's head. The future-Emperor dove to the floor, covering his head with his hands. Nichos stood frozen, in plain view of the DT that had forced the door open, the droid's blaster rifle tracking over him. Not wanting to see, she looked back at the console, instructing it to send the update command—
ENTER ACCESS CODE.
The message beeped on the screen, flashing demandingly, and Cray looked down at Irek on the floor, then over him at the droid. Its rifle tracked over Nichos without firing, sweeping to point at Cray. Instinctively she raised her hands, anticipating the explosion of fire in her chest, but it didn't come. Instead, the blaster tracked down, pointing at Irek—
The DT split in half, the tip of its blaster rifle going one direction and the stock going the other. The ruined droid collapsed, sparking, a flash of green spinning through the throne room and then back out the door, vanishing from sight. The sounds of battle, blaster bolts zinging as they deflected, chunks of metal hitting Silencer Station's deck, all echoed back into the throne room.
Cray was still holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender when a tall, muscular woman dressed in bizarre green lizardskin armor and holding a glowing golden stick in one hand and a blaster in the other leapt into the room. Blaster fire followed her, but she either deflected or dodged it, firing back. A DT pursued her and Cray dove downwards next to Irek, pulling Nichos with her and doing her best to ignore the agonized sound he made when he hit the ground.
When she looked up again, the first DT was destroyed, but three more had come in and the lizardskin-clad woman was meeting them with every weapon at her disposal. The golden blade she carried was used defensively, protecting herself from blaster fire as she used her own pistol to retaliate. But even as Cray was started to be able to think again, even more blaster fire poured in, punching each of the DTs in their metal backs. They staggered, trying to turn and keep their rifles raised, but the woman strode forward and decapitated them with a simple swing.
Armored troopers, led by a tall Devaronian, poured into the room, carrying heavy weapons. In between them was a hooded man dressed all in black and holding a humming green laser sword.
He drew his hood back and Cray was struck by his bright blue eyes as he offered them a broad, almost innocent smile. "I'm Luke Skywalker. Did you need some help?"
"Did you need some help?"
Irek Ismaren opened his mouth. This… this was his mother's greatest foe. The man who had killed the Emperor, the man who had destroyed the Empire, the man who stood between Roganda Ismaren and the greatness she sought. This was the man the Empire had propagandized against for as long as Irek could remember, a man they said was the font of all the galaxy's evils. Selfish, capricious, sadistic… there was no evil the Empire had not ascribed to Luke Skywalker.
Luke Skywalker helped Cray and Nichos to their feet slowly, then offered Irek a hand. Slowly, tentatively, Irek took it.
Since Nichos had taught him to use the Force to feel the emotions of others, Irek had felt a whole array of them. But Luke carried with him one that Nichos had never before felt—certainly not like this.
Luke Skywalker felt like hope.
"You're the heir, aren't you?" Luke asked him. Even as Luke asked the question, blasters among Luke's guard shifted in Irek's direction, but Luke raised his hand and shook his head and the blasters pointed away again, more slowly. "Irek Ismaren."
"Y-yes," Irek managed.
Luke glanced at Cray and Nichos, then looked back at Irek. "Then perhaps I led with the wrong question," Luke said thoughtfully. "Irek… can you help us?"
Irek's eyes met Nichos. Uncertainty and fear cast through him. This was his mother's foremost enemy. He… but…
"He can," said Nichos. The man's voice was weak, but carried a conviction that Irek found oddly reassuring. "Cray… Cray can explain."
Mara's stormtrooper squad adopted a traditional defensive posture, their E-11s held at the ready and grenades close to hand. Iella and Tyria were still dressed as an ISB operative and an Inquisitor, just as Mara herself was again wearing the armor of the Emperor's Hand.
It was a profoundly strange sensation, to be marching through a corridor of an Imperial facility with Stormtoopers acting as her bodyguard. She had done something like this on numerous occasions, when hunting down one corrupt official or another and when the stealth approach was not available to her—or not desirable, because Palpatine had wanted to send a clear message.
They had been pursued at first—both droids and even a handful of hostile Imperial crew had attempted to chase them down as they departed the hangar. Those units had been easily dispatched—they had not been prepared to deal with a well-trained stormtrooper unit, much less Mara and Tyria's lightsabers—and now they proceeded into the corridors of Silencer-7.
"It reminds me of the abandoned facility on Kessel," Iella murmured, holding her rifle with a practiced grip. "There are all these empty crew quarters."
"It doesn't seem like Silencer Station had a very large crew," agreed TKR 330. "We've faced no organized non-droid resistance. It seems like they relied heavily on the DTs for security and otherwise allowed the station to operate autonomously."
Mara glanced ahead and behind, using her Force-sense to try to watch for threats. It was more difficult, dealing with droids than people, but far from impossible. Her lightsaber hummed in her grip, casting the dimly-lit corridor in blue light. "The list of people trusted by the New Order has dwindled," she said. "Droids can be programmed for obedience and won't betray you unless someone else reprograms them. They'll always do exactly what you tell them to and won't ask 'why'."
Not counting Artoo, she added silently. And maybe a handful of other droids I've met over the years. But they're the exception that prove the rule.
Next to her, Iella smirked. "I know a few droids that might object," she said with a chuckle.
Not feeling any immediate threats, and also not seeing any destinations of interest either on the map Sarreti had provided or on the limited signs present on the station's walls, Mara raised her hand. The stormtrooper unit came to a stop as she did.
"What is it?" asked Tyria.
"I'm not feeling any danger," Mara said, her tone less comforting than it was bluntly informative. "Time for another round of provocation." She removed her comlink and swapped it to a wide broadcast. "Keep an eye out," she said before she activated it. "Once I start transmitting, they'll be able to narrow down our location. We want Roganda coming after us and not looking for Luke."
"Yes ma'am," said TKR 330. Half his troops dropped to one knee, the others fell in over their shoulders, presenting a two-man rank of white armor and blasters on either end of the hall. "We're ready, ma'am."
Mara and Iella shared a nod, then Mara thumbed her comlink. "Is it cowardice, Roganda?" she taunted, keeping her Coruscanti accent and adding in a hefty helping of additional scorn. "You call yourself the Empress Dowager, but that's just an empty title. What I hear is you are powerless but for your son. All the power you have belongs rightfully to someone else, because Palpatine certainly didn't give it to you."
The speakers that lined the halls screeched briefly. The words that came in response came from all of them, all down the rows of hallways and locked, empty crew quarters. That was good—it meant that Roganda didn't know exactly where they were yet. "Palpatine gave me more than he gave you," the effete voice sneered. "He gave me all this. He gave me the secrets of all the power he would someday have."
"No," Mara countered. "He used you. But he knew you would, you could, never master it. It would always be just beyond your reach because Palpatine did not share. Everything was his. You, me, all this. Palpatine intended to own all of it. He had the Republic as a tool, he had ISB as a tool, he had the Death Star, and he had you and me and everyone else who served his Empire. But that's all we ever were to him, Roganda. Tools. You weren't special. No one was special."
"But I was special," Roganda countered cooly, her voice echoing through the empty hallway. "Because while you may have known about Wayland, I knew about the Seed. You were just a weapon he used to discipline his other minions. I was the one he used to grasp the future. And so I have that future in my own grip. It doesn't matter even if you turn the entire Empire against me! I don't need an Empire. All I need is Silencer-7."
But that isn't all Roganda needs, Mara.
She closed her eyes.
Once upon a time, Emperor Palpatine had chosen Mara as his hand because she could hear his voice from anywhere, even across a galaxy. Luke Skywalker was not nearly so far away and he did not have nearly so much to communicate.
She opened her eyes again, slowly. When she finally responded, it was with relishing malice. "No, it's not," she hissed dangerously. "The longer you try to force people to act like machines, the more your grip will break when you expect them to murder for you. You're going to have to come for me, Roganda, because I know exactly what you need… and I have Irek. I have your Heir to what little is left of the Empire, and he's done doing what you tell him to."
Mara dropped her comlink and smashed it with the heel of her boot as Roganda's howls of anger echoed tinnily down the hallways.
"The heir is the one who sabotaged the station and then went into hiding," Mara explained to the confused Stormtroopers. "Now that she thinks he is here, she'll be coming to get him." Her danger sense was spiking even then. "She'll be even more determined to come after us, because she thinks it's the only way to get her son—and her Empire—back. We are now the bait and we're buying time for the rest of our team to cripple this thing. Be ready."
"As always, ma'am," said TKR 330. "It's a pleasure to serve under you. Whenever we do, I know we're on the right side."
COMMAND RECEIVED. FORCING SYSTEMS UPDATE. SHUTDOWN IN THREE SECONDS.
TWO.
ONE.
REBOOT IN PROGRESS.
. . .
. . .
. . .
SYSTEMS UPDATE COMPLETE.
. . .
When Soontir Fel was a child, he had grown up in the rural agricultural fields of Corellia's secondary continent. Far from the big cities that he rarely visited, he had never meant to join the Imperial Starfleet. He would have been happy staying in those fields, tending the farm animals and equipment. There was a profound, visceral happiness in watching the plants grow, stretching from the sprouts into golden stalks that stretched upwards into the blue sky. The dark, fertile soil of that part of Corellia had fed his world for thousands upon thousands of years, famous among its populace.
When he had been small he'd run through rows of crops, his hands on either side, letting the shorter stalks graze his fingertips. When he'd been older he'd flown above them, using simple hovercraft to help tend the fields and ensure the prosperity of the coming harvest. He'd always enjoyed flying over the fields that had been left to fallow for a year, imagining them recovering, almost hearing their voices telling him that they would be ready again in the years to come.
Below him, slightly hazy through Corellia's planetary shield, he could see the fields of his childhood. The luscious green, bordered by the enormous blue of the sea, spotted only sparsely with settlements. People from the farm country were derided somewhat in Coronet, but that had never bothered Fel much. They had not known what they were missing.
His eyes…
Eyes?
His optical sensors focused on the planet. Idly he realized that he was under attack and he instinctively dodged, evading the trio of fighters that his brain instinctively tagged with the red icons of enemy fighters, but he felt no particular urge to fight back. Nor did he need to: with his skill and the innate evasiveness of his fighter, Fel could simply spin away with a speed and precision that even E-wings could not match, instead peering down at his world below, remembering his childhood…
His childhood?
He thought back, trying to remember the feel of the stalks of grain. It came back to him, but without the tactile sensation of touch, because he had no sense of touch. He had sight, of a sort, but everything was filtered through this odd interface. It was like he was wearing his piloting helmet, but he couldn't take it off… and he had no sense of smell, couldn't remember what the fields smelled like, or what the dinners that his mother had made tasted like. It was all sight and sound, and the memories were oddly precise, without any of the vagueness that childhood memories should have. Each time he thought back it repeated, as if in a loop, precisely the same as before.
Confused, he tried to bring up his HUD. It was amazingly responsive and he realized, to his surprise, that he only had to think and it reacted! Someone in Imperial R&D had been hard at work to make that improvement…
He had wings. Not arms or wings like a bird, but TIE wings. Solar panels. They even had sensation, of a sort, the sense of light absorbing into them providing a warm, fulfilling sensation, that vaguely reminded him of the pleasure of eating. He had a neck—or rather, he had two, each one attached to one of those sets of wings. He could feel the pressure of energy from Corellia's planetary shields below him. He could feel the buzz of weapons fire coming after him. He… who was he? What was he?
Fel tried to remember. Slowly, even as he continued to weave and doge, evading all the enemies targeting him, he did. He remembered waking up in some kind of pod. He had felt young, as he hadn't felt in years, with so many of his old aches and pains gone… but at the same time, he'd felt lost. Like he was missing time, like he was missing people and history. Someone had put him in a flight simulator and he'd scored the highest possible marks before exiting the simulator and finding himself face to face with … himself. More than one, emerging from the other sims.
He struggled to remember but it was hard, like not all the memories had made it, and his brain wasn't in a skull but in a TIE cockpit, somewhere behind the forward window. Somewhere…
"We were so glad to find you," said Roganda Ismaren, an unnatural smile on her face. "Thrawn gave the Empire so many gifts. You're perfect for us to test Project Fit to Serve."
He had an engine, not legs.
He had an optical sensor, not eyes.
He had solar panels, not arms.
He had laser cannons and a pair of missile launchers.
REVIEW SYSTEMS LOG, he ordered. The log popped up. SYSTEMS LOG UPDATE flashed before him and he reviewed it with mechanical precision. It was short.
DISABLE PERSONALITY RESTRAINING PROTOCOLS, the command was labeled. At the bottom of the file, below all the complicated programming instructions, was a note.
YOU'RE FREE. I'M SORRY I COULDN'T DO MORE. I'M SO SORRY, it said.
And then, in line after line of laborious detail, Soontir Fel read about who he was and how he had come to be what he was. The entire process took only two-tenths of a second.
The communications network for the advanced TIE/D units, by which they coordinated their combat actions, went berserk. Dozens of icons simply blinked out of existence, exploding as TIEs overloaded reactors or deliberately dove into Corellia's planetary shields. Others simply stopped evading and were vaporized by incoming laser fire.
Soontir Fel did none of those things.
The TIE droid that Fel was pursuing abruptly flipped on its axis. The turn happened with ridiculous speed and precision, so much so that no normal sentient pilot could have pulled it off. It was only possible with a compensator set to absolute maximum, and even then the stress on the body of a pilot would have been extreme. The TIE's lasers flashed and blazed outwards, leaving an explosion in their wake.
"Wedge!"
Wedge wasn't dead. "What was that?" Wedge responded, sounding confused. "Fel, how did you do that?"
"I didn't—"
The TIE droid's malfunction continued. It spun, spitting lasers that tore through a series of its fellow TIE droids. A row of explosions erupted in its wake, then it twisted to the side and pumped a concussion missile into the nose of a droid frigate, following it up with a series of deep-striking lasers that chewed through the wound the missile had left.
Over the comm, there were other sounds of surprise. The TIE he watched wasn't the only one which had suddenly malfunctioned. But its behavior was too perfect, too precise to be a typical malfunction. Since when…
His heart almost stopped.
What Fel could do that almost no one else could do, and that no one could do as well as he could, was see a battlefield, see an enemy, and recognize almost instantly what it was he was seeing.
He could not be seeing what he was seeing.
He had reviewed dozens of his battle logs over the years, hundreds, thousands even. Drills and exercises and live combat recordings. Even as his brain recoiled from it, Soontir Fel knew what he was looking at.
"Thrawn," he whispered, horrified. "Thrawn, what did you do to me?"