Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company (7 page)

Namir sighed. “Can I trust you not to do it again?” he asked, expecting he knew the answer.

Don’t be stupid
, he thought.
Just lie to me.

“I don’t know,” Corbo said.

Namir swore inwardly.

“If I post a guard,” he said, “tell him to shoot you if you show your face near the brig again—does that seem fair?”

“That seems fair.”

“Good. Because I’ve got a lot of dead soldiers I need to replace. I need the lot of you in fighting shape, not abandoning ship.”

So far as Namir was concerned, that resolved the incident. He made a point not to inform the captain.

Others weren’t as discreet. “I have no love of the Imperial Ruling Council,” Gadren announced in regard to Corbo’s aborted attack on Chalis, “and I am not alone. But a woman stripped of all power deserves pity and contempt, not fury.”

Namir, Gadren, and half a dozen others sat in the Clubhouse—a cramped, dimly lit crawl space above the ship’s engineering section that jumped with each pulse of the hyperdrive. Set amid metal pipes running from floor to ceiling were storage crates cushioned with throw rugs and a dented table someone had stolen from a bombed-out cantina. Namir was skimming through post-combat supply inventories that boiled down to “not enough weapons,” while Gadren, Ajax, Brand, and Twitch played cards. Roach sat near the card players—in Charmer’s favorite spot, though Charmer was still in the medbay—observing. Namir didn’t know how Roach had found her way to the Clubhouse; it usually took recruits months to get an invite, and he certainly hadn’t invited her.

“She’s got the captain’s ear,” Twitch muttered. “Don’t seem powerless to me.”

Ajax ignored Twitch, eyeing Gadren. “That mean you wouldn’t take a swing at our prisoner if the chance came?”

“I shot her once already,” Gadren said.

Brand glowered until each of them drew from the deck. Roach had stopped watching the cards, instead staring down at her hands as she wove her fingers together and pulled them apart with quick, awkward motions.

Ajax glanced at Roach and grinned wickedly. “Maybe fresh meat here thinks
she
should get a chance. The prisoner ran her planet, after all.”

Ajax had joined Twilight after the obliteration of the Rebellion’s Thirty-Second Infantry. He’d been one of five survivors among four hundred dead, and he still proudly wore the Thirty-Second’s “Bleeding Roughnecks” badge. He was a jerk and a grenadier with better aim than most snipers. Namir found him tolerable in small doses.

Roach kept looking at her fingers. Gadren spoke to Ajax but watched the girl. “The fresh meat knows she is not alone. We
all
have scars, and we endure them together.”

Roach squeezed her hands together until pink skin turned white. Finally she met Gadren’s gaze. “You got scars?” she asked.

Twitch played a card that made the rest of the table wince. Gadren kept speaking as he reshuffled the deck. His voice was calm, easy, as if he’d answered the question a thousand times before. “The Empire took my kin,” he said, “and sold them as slaves to a Hutt clan.”

Roach cursed softly. Brand looked down at her cards, as if avoiding intruding on a private moment.

“If I had not found Twilight Company,” Gadren said, and shrugged, “I would have died long ago. Sharing grief and grievances does us good when we face an enemy of such ebon depths. The Empire is a force unprecedented in any age, poised to end history itself. No one should confront it alone.”

Ajax glanced at the pot, tossed in a credit chip, and smirked. “Shortest story I’ve ever heard a Besalisk tell. Good on you, Gadren.”

Namir’s instinct was to toss his datapad at Ajax, but he was only halfway through the inventory. Instead, he called, without looking up, “First: Don’t be obnoxious. Second: He’s Corellian, not Besalisk. Insult him right.”

Ajax cackled. Namir didn’t understand why until he saw Gadren smiling, too. Even Roach and Brand seemed to be holding back snickers. Twitch didn’t look away from her cards.

“Corellia is a human world,” Gadren said patiently, “and I lived there a long time. I consider it my home. But my species is Besalisk.”

Ajax slapped his right hand on top of Roach’s left. “The sergeant there?” he said to Roach in a mock-whisper. “He ain’t
cultured
and
educated
like us.”

Namir swore at Ajax in a cool, stilted tone. The others laughed, and Namir tried to let the moment of humiliation glide over him. Dwelling on it would only make it worse.

The card players picked up the game again. Twitch won the next round, to no one’s surprise. Roach seemed to be struggling with something, looking between Gadren and the others, parting her lips now and then as if she wanted to speak. Of the players, only Brand seemed to notice, but she kept her usual silence.

“Six months,” Roach finally said, “in an Imp detention center.”

The others looked at her, perplexed. She hunched her shoulders and shrugged. “My grudge,” she explained.

Gadren gruffly clapped Roach on the back. Twitch raised an eyebrow inquisitively, but didn’t press Roach for the details.

Ajax grinned. “Guess it’s story time.” He took the deck of cards from Gadren and began to deal. “Winner of this round picks who goes next.”

Namir watched Ajax closely, but he couldn’t tell if the man was cheating or not. All he was sure of was that, two minutes later, Ajax
winked
when he claimed his victory and pointed at Brand.

Brand took it in stride. “I’m not here for a grudge,” she said.

Ajax pressed her. “So why are you?”

“I took a bounty on the captain,” Brand said.

Gadren shook his head. Namir knew he’d heard that much of the story before. The others were suddenly focused on Brand.

“What happened?” Roach asked.

“I changed my mind,” Brand said. “Your story, Ajax.”

Ajax was keen to share, and Namir decided to make his exit while the others were occupied. He didn’t need to hear about Ajax and his lovers and their hunting trip again, and he didn’t want to be around when
his
turn to speak came. He wasn’t in the mood to argue and he wasn’t in the mood to lie.

He ascended the ladder through the tight shaft leading to the aft end of the crew deck. He paused at the top, closed his eyes, and leaned against the gentle curve of the wall. He was glad Roach was finding a place in the company. He was glad Governor Chalis was a distraction from rumors of imminent doom. But he needed a break of his own.

Or he needed to get back to the fight.

Halfway to the barracks, Namir realized that Brand was walking beside him. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been there or where she’d caught up. He couldn’t even pinpoint the moment he’d noticed her company; she had eased into Namir’s consciousness like stars emerging at night.

When Namir looked directly at his companion, Brand spoke in an easy tone as if they’d been talking for hours. “How do you think they’ll hold up?”

Namir struggled to make sense of the words. “The new recruits?”

Brand nodded.

“Roach is trying. The others don’t know jack about squad combat, but they can shoot and take orders. We’ve seen worse.”

“You give them the meat grinder speech?”

“Figured it wasn’t the time. They saw us on Haidoral. They’re not under any illusions this life is glamorous.”

The corner of Brand’s mouth twitched. “Doesn’t mean they know High Command sends us into hell every time.”

“
Howl
sends us into hell.”

“Howl keeps us alive.”

“That, too.”

Brand snorted. “You ever think you’re too hard on him?”

Namir glanced down the corridor. There was a lot about Howl he didn’t want to be heard saying, particularly by the recruits. “Howl’s a genius,” he said. “You won that argument on Blacktar Cyst. Just wish he wasn’t mad as a glitterstim addict reading omens in his filth.”

They walked together in silence until the door to Namir’s barracks came into view. “You know it’s going to get worse,” Brand said. “With her on board?”

“Roach?” Namir asked.

“Don’t be stupid.”

Namir studied Brand’s face, tried to read her expression. As ever, she was closed to him. “You know something? About what the captain’s up to with Chalis?”

Brand turned and began to walk away before she even answered. “I don’t know anything,” she said. “But sometimes I guess lucky.”

The attack came three days later in the middle of the night shift. The ship’s klaxon brought Namir out his bunk with a groan of exhaustion and frustration, but he had his shirt and boots on in under thirty seconds. His bunk mates were scrambling to dress, as well; Roja asked Namir if he knew what was going on.

“You’re kidding” was Namir’s only answer. He was too tired for anything else.

The first rumble and the subsequent echo of rending metal made it obvious that the
Thunderstrike
had entered combat. The ship’s corridors were full of Twilight soldiers rushing to shelter while the crew took to battle stations. Unless the enemy sent a boarding party, infantry had no place in a clash of starships, and the best Twilight’s ground troops could do was stay out of the way and keep their distance from the hull. Meanwhile, the bridge crew, engineering, and the gunnery staff—along with the
Apailana’s Promise
, if the gunship hadn’t been destroyed in a surprise attack—would try to keep everyone alive.

Namir recognized the energy and purpose in the crew members and despised them with every step they took. They weren’t to blame, but there was nothing worse than feeling useless and stupid during a fight.

Namir’s assigned shelter was the mess hall. Twilight soldiers were pressed tight against one another when he arrived. The room stank of sweat. Someone called his name and waved from near the entrance—Sergeant Fektrin, one hand cupped over an ear and the other fiddling with his comlink.

Namir pushed his way through. Fektrin finished speaking into the comm as the ship rumbled again. “All shelters report in,” he said. “Head count is a few short, but we assume it’s just stragglers.”

“Take their names when they show up, report any fresh meat to me,” Namir replied. “Any idea who’s attacking?”

“Something bigger than a pirate, smaller than a Star Destroyer.”

The deck lurched, and several soldiers toppled into their peers. Namir kept his balance as Fektrin cupped his ear again before growling, “Section ten. Might be a hull breach.”

Namir swore reflexively. So much damage so fast was never a good sign. But section ten was low-risk. Not much there except—

He swore again. “What about the brig? Is it intact?”

Fektrin looked confused, then winced as he was struck by comprehension. “Nothing from the guard, but that could mean comm trouble or—”

Namir was already heading out of the mess.

He knew that in all likelihood, the prisoner was secure in the air lock. Maybe she’d already been relocated. But he’d found an excuse to do something other than wait and he’d taken it.

As he approached section ten, Namir reached a blast door in the corridor. Someone had sealed off the hall. He checked the panel readings, saw there was still life support beyond the barricade, and decided to chance it. The air lock wasn’t more than fifty meters out. How bad could it be?

Namir tapped in a code and felt an expulsion of heat break against his face as the door irised open. The corridor howled like a storm. Orange flame raged out of air vents and severed pipes, splashing into the wall and causing metal panels to warp and shriek. Namir stumbled back a step, then fell to his knees when the ship shook.

He swore again and wished he’d brought his helmet.

He pulled his shirt up to half shield his face and wrapped his hands in the ends of his sleeves. The fabric was, in theory, fire-resistant; in the field, he’d seen combat outfits fuse to men and women’s skin before it caught flame—not strictly comforting, but proof of durability. He paused long enough to wonder about the fire’s temperature—was it fueled by chemicals from the pipelines?—but shrugged away the question. He didn’t have the expertise to apply the answer if he’d had one.

Namir resisted the urge to charge forward. He couldn’t afford to stumble or fall if the ship took another hit. Instead, he set a deliberate pace, knees bent for balance and to keep his body small. The heat was searing, but soon the pain seemed to plateau—agony ravaged his skin, and it neither grew worse nor faded. He felt no different when he pushed through a curtain of flame than when he left it behind.

Then he was at the air lock.

The door was sealed. At the base, lying flat as if she’d been slammed unconscious against the door by one of the ship’s upheavals, was the on-duty guard. Namir couldn’t tell whether the woman was still breathing, but the flames hadn’t reached her. A glance through the air lock’s view panel revealed that the governor was still inside, sitting cross-legged at the far end of the room.

Suddenly Namir laughed. He had no idea whether he was authorized to open the air lock—whether his codes would open the door.

He might burn to death for nothing.

At least he wasn’t waiting in the mess hall.

He pulled his shirt back into place and punched his access code into the lock. The door mechanisms groaned and stirred.
Guess the captain has some faith in me
, he thought.

The air lock interior was furnished with everything the stores of the
Thunderstrike
had to offer, though that amounted to little more than a trunk, a cot, a stained food tray, and a portable sanitation station. Several datapads were stacked on the cot, and in front of the cross-legged governor hovered a miniature holo-droid, projecting a shimmering blue web of spheres and lines. Chalis’s hands played across the image, extending and rotating the lines, reshaping the web with expert precision.

Chalis was standing and the web was gone by the time the door was fully open. “I see you chose not to let me suffocate,” she said.

Namir knelt and checked the guard’s body as cooler air flooded in from the air lock. Still alive. He recognized her face but couldn’t recall her name—one of the recruits Twilight had picked up on Thession.