Alphabet Squadron - Alexander Freed Read online

  After the officer, they were nearly all human. That was the most obvious clue to their origins—the Empire had been, as the propaganda said, built on the labor of galactic humanity. The passengers were mostly young, but not without exception. Mostly clean-cut, though a few were untidy. They looked across the tarmac with trepidation. To a person, they had attempted to rid themselves of identifying gear—even the ones still in Imperial uniforms had stripped away all symbols and regalia. Quell suspected some carried their insignia badges anyway, secreted in pockets or sleeves. She’d encountered more than one set of rank plaques at the junk swap.

  She identified the ex-stormtroopers by their boots—too sturdy and well fitted to abandon, their white synth-leather caked in grime and turned the yellow of a bad tooth. Quell gave the stormtroopers a perfunctory glance and removed them from her mental checklist. The officers were given away by their bearing, and she scanned their features, searching her memory for matches and finding none. (I have an extremely good memory, she’d told the droid, and it was true.) She felt a vague satisfaction at identifying a combat medic by her Academy ring, but otherwise noticed nothing remarkable.

  All of them were bastards, she knew. The new arrivals got worse every day.

  When Quell had arrived a month ago, Traitor’s Remorse had already been crowded with the first wave of deserters who’d abandoned their posts after the Battle of Endor. Some had come out of bravery, others out of cowardice, but Quell respected their foresight: They’d understood that the Emperor who’d built an interstellar civilization and governed for two decades was dead, and that his Empire wouldn’t endure without him. That without an heir, the Empire’s sins (and they were many—the most zealous loyalty officer couldn’t believe otherwise) would corrupt and destroy what remained. That the impossible victory that the Rebel Alliance had achieved—the assassination of the Emperor aboard his own massive battle station—was worth embracing wholeheartedly.

  Quell hadn’t been part of that first wave. Instead she’d come during the second.

  The days after the Emperor’s death had been chaotic. The massive uprisings on thousands of planets—along with proving that the rebels had been right all along about public sentiment toward the Empire—made it clear that there would be no return to the old ways, no swift restoration of familiar rule. Yet a strategy, of sorts, soon emerged inside the remains of the Imperial military. Fleets across known space took part in Operation Cinder: the leveling of civilizations on Nacronis and Vardos, Candovant and Commenor, and more besides. Planets both loyal and in open revolt. Planets rich in resources and planets that possessed nothing but faded glory. They were bombed and gassed and flooded, their own weather patterns and geology turned against them. Nacronis was ravaged by siltstorms. Tectonic devices shattered the crust of Senthrodys.

  The Empire tried to destroy them all. Not to deny the New Republic access to vital territories. Not to thwart insurrections. Not as part of any meaningful plan to secure the Empire. The surviving admirals had said it was for all those reasons, yet not one was fully satisfactory. Maybe Operation Cinder had been conducted out of some sort of perceived necessity, but it was fueled by rage and it would do nothing—it was obvious, beyond obvious—to slow the Empire’s disintegration.

  Cinder had been a turning point. Loyal soldiers who had executed whole planets at the Emperor’s behest had seen billions of lives snuffed out for no strategic gain and known that the moral calculus had changed. Imperial heroes unable to stomach the slaughter had turned on their superiors. Naboo, the Emperor’s own homeworld, had been saved from genocide with the aid of Imperial Special Forces commandos. They had come to a shared realization: It was one thing to fight a losing battle, and another to disregard the cost.

  That had been the second wave of desertions and defections.

  Which meant anyone who’d stayed afterward had made a conscious choice to forget the cost. To forget the fact that preserving the Empire as it had been was a lost cause. To fight on anyway, consequences be damned.

  Every day after Operation Cinder, the pointlessness of the carnage became clearer. Every day, those remaining inside the Empire were tested anew. So far as Quell was concerned, the men and women aboard the GR-75 transport had failed too many tests to deserve sympathy or redemption. The ones who came tomorrow would be worse still.

  A voice penetrated her thoughts like a needle into skin. “See anyone you like?”

  A man in a rumpled coat picked his way toward Quell, looking between her and the grass as if afraid he might step on a mine or a glass shard. He would have appeared human—wiry black hair flecked with gray, brown skin shades darker than Quell’s own tawny hue, a skinny physique lost under his garments—if it hadn’t been for the two wormy stalks protruding from his skull. She identified the species: Balosar.

  “Not really,” she said. She hadn’t seen him before—hadn’t noticed him arrive on a transport, nor stood in line with him for rations. He wasn’t in uniform, but he surely wasn’t a defector. She added: “No rule about standing on this side of the fence.”

  “Stand where you want,” the man replied. He stopped three paces away and squinted in the direction of the transport. The new arrivals continued their march, each exchanging a few words with the sentry before heading for processing. “Who are you watching for? You come here every day. Are you expecting friends? A lover? Rescue?”

  “We’re free to go, aren’t we? Why would I need rescue?”

  It was a half-truth, and Quell was curious how the man would react. Officially, the residents of Traitor’s Remorse could leave at any time. But taking flight would guarantee the New Republic’s ire, and who knew what sort of grudge the rebel government would hold? Anyone not in line for a pardon was risking a perilous future.

  The man simply shrugged. “I’m glad to hear you say that. Not everyone feels the same way.” His voice flattened. “Answer the question, please? Who are you watching for?”

  Quell heard the entitlement. The man had authority, or wanted her to think he did. She didn’t look at him, and found her answer in the march of defectors. “You see the one with the scars?” She lifted one finger—barely a gesture—in the direction of a bulky man in a leather vest. Rough red marks ran from his neck to the undersides of his ears.

  “I do,” the Balosar said, though his attention was entirely on Quell.

  “I’ve seen scars like that. Surgical augmentations. My guess is he was a candidate for one of the elite stormtrooper divisions—death troopers, maybe—but his body couldn’t take the mods.”

  “Supposing that’s true, it’s very likely in his file. Why are you watching him?”

  Quell whirled to face the man. She kept her voice level, excised the frustration. If he was with the New Republic, she needed him. “You’ve got a man with that past, who stayed with the Empire as long as he did—you think he’s good recruiting material? You want him wandering around the outpost, free and clear?”

  The Balosar’s lips twitched, and he smiled in realization. “You’re looking out for us. That’s generous, but we won the war; we can manage our own security.” He extended a hand. “Caern Adan. Alliance—excuse me. New Republic Intelligence.”

  Quell took the hand. In all her interviews since arriving, she’d never met a New Republic spy. If he’d been Imperial Intelligence, she might have been terrified, but terror seemed premature.

  The man’s grip was weak until she squeezed. Then it became a pinch. “Yrica Quell,” she said. “Former lieutenant, 204th Fighter Wing. At your mercy.”

  “The 204th was never known for its mercy, though, was it?” He looked like he was about to laugh, but he never did. “ ‘Shadow Wing,’ your people called it. Quite a name, up there with Death Star. Sightings all over prior to Endor, at Blacktar Cyst and Mennar-Daye, slaughtering rebels and keeping the hyperlanes safe…did you happen to fly at Mimban?”


  The litany of names struck like blows. She didn’t flinch. He had come prepared and he had come for her. “Before my time,” she said.

  “Too bad. It’s a story I’d love to hear. Some of my colleagues didn’t notice you all until—well, until Nacronis—but we both know you were spectacular for years. If Grand General Loring had appreciated you more, if Vader had paid more attention to the starfighter corps, you’d probably have been at Endor yourselves. Maybe kept the poor Emperor alive.”

  “Maybe so.”

  Adan waited for more. His smile wilted but didn’t disappear. Finally he went on. “That’s all past. Since Operation Cinder, though, Shadow Wing keeps popping up. Nine sightings in just over two weeks, tearing apart convoys, bombing outposts…even took out one of our star cruisers.”

  Another blow, aimed with more care than before. He might have been lying about Shadow Wing, but it sounded possible. Even plausible. Again, she didn’t flinch, though she felt her injuries throb in time with her pulse.

  “Nine sightings in two weeks,” Quell said. “It’s been a month since Nacronis.”

  Adan nodded brusquely, scanned the ground as if searching for a place to sit, then shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Which is why I’m here. Dozens of the Empire’s finest pilots disappear at a time like this? They’re not hiding out awaiting orders; they’re running silent.”

  She didn’t look at the trail of defectors still emerging onto the tarmac. She didn’t even meet Adan’s gaze. She was focused on the words, turning them over in her head. “You have a theory?” she asked.

  “I have a plan,” Adan said. “I’m assembling a working group to study the situation. Experts who can analyze the data and predict the enemy’s next move. Maybe do some investigative legwork.”

  She fixed the words in her mind: I’m assembling a working group.

  She cut the resistance from her voice like a tumor. Cautiously, she answered: “I was hoping for a military position. Somewhere I could fly.”

  Adan’s smile was rejuvenated. “I’m sure you were, but we’ve seen your file. The Shadow Wing pilot who couldn’t save Nacronis? No high-level clearance, no access to classified intelligence or special expertise—just a solid track record of shooting rebels. You’re not anyone’s favorite candidate for recruitment.”

  So work for New Republic Intelligence, Quell heard, though he didn’t say the words. Sit at a console and help us hunt your friends. Maybe you’ll even get a pardon out of it.

  What Adan uttered aloud was: “Consider it. If I decide I want you, I’ll find you—and I expect you to have an answer ready.”

  * * *

  —

  For a month, Yrica Quell had waited to prove herself. To show that she had abandoned the 204th Fighter Wing for a reason. To show that she could offer the New Republic a talent it lacked, bringing Imperial rigor and discipline to its starfighter corps.

  She had waited to take part in the war’s end. To fly again. She had waited to do something decent for once, the way she’d wanted to long ago.

  She wasn’t certain Caern Adan was offering any of what she wanted. Maybe she hadn’t earned it.

  Traitor’s Remorse turned cold at night. The gently numbing chill of the day turned to wind that whipped Quell’s poncho around her hips and forced her to keep her good hand on the brim of her hood. She pushed against the gale as she trudged between stacked containers-turned-houses, under swinging electrical cables, and into the shelter of a bunker dug out of a low hillside.

  The wind’s roar faded within, replaced by laughter and conversation. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Quell saw two dozen figures seated on crates and on the dirt floor. They were playing cards and dice; swapping old tales and showing old scars. They should have been drinking, but there was nothing worth drinking in Traitor’s Remorse. (There was harder contraband for those with a taste for ryll or death sticks, but no one was fool enough to indulge where the New Republic watched.)

  Quell had come to the Warren to trade. She had no friends in Traitor’s Remorse—passing acquaintances, an old man with whom she shared her supper rations, but no friends—yet seniority had its privileges. She’d been at the outpost as long as anyone, and she knew which New Republic officers were forgiving and which held “special” grudges. She knew where to buy an extra meal and who claimed to be able to smuggle out messages. She could swap rumors for rumors, and the people who might know about Caern Adan would give her a measure of attention.

  She passed deeper into the bunker, down a hallway and past a young logistics consultant brokering the exchange of military casualty lists. She nodded to an engineer who’d helped her repair a faulty heater, but the man was fixated on a diagram he’d sketched on the floor. She saw none of the regulars she sought, and she was nearly ready to move on when she spotted the stormtrooper.

  The surgical augmentation scars on his neck seemed to burn in the flickering electric light. He turned a hydrospanner over in his hands as if it were a weapon. If he was the sort to join the death troopers, maybe he’d used one as a bludgeon before.

  Quell wasn’t a fighter by nature. She’d never gotten into a pointless scrap in her Academy days and only once been in a fistfight as a teenager. She was military, true, but she was a pilot first—shooting things was the least of her duties. Nonetheless, she approached the man unafraid of what might come next. Why’d you finally jump ship? she planned to say.

  And if he gave the wrong answer? If he took a swing at her? After a day of feeling small and frustrated and helpless, maybe a fight was what she needed.

  She never got to say a word.

  She felt the rumble first. The ground bucked and she swallowed a lungful of dust before the thunder even registered. The screaming that followed was strangely muffled, and she realized she’d gone deaf. She was blind, too, but that was the dust again—pale white clouds that stung her nostrils and scattered the dim illumination.

  I’m hit, she thought, and knew it to be a lie. She was fine. She wasn’t sure about the rest of the Warren.

  One part of her brain calmly reconstructed what had happened as she stumbled forward. There had been a bomb—nothing big, maybe a jury-rigged plasma grenade. Someone had planted it in another room, or carried it inside and triggered the detonator. Someone like one of the new defectors who’d arrived on the GR-75, determined to make an example of those who betrayed the Empire. She pieced the story together easily because it had happened twice before. This was the closest she’d been to a blast.

  Her foot crushed something soft—an arm covered in blood and scraps of leather. Leaning forward, she was desperately relieved to see it was attached to a body. The stormtrooper. The death trooper candidate. She knelt beside him and wrapped her good arm around his burly chest, allowing him to scale her and stand.

  He was a bastard, she reminded herself as they lurched toward the exit. But then, so was everyone at Traitor’s Remorse.

  They struggled forward step by step, coughing up grime and navigating by the muted shouting. Eventually Quell felt the weight of the stormtrooper disappear and realized another person had lifted him away. She could almost hear again. Someone—perhaps the same person who had taken the stormtrooper—asked about her health. She choked out a reply and stepped out of the Warren and into the artificial glow of the shantytown.

  No one prevented her from pushing forward through the perimeter of ex-Imperial onlookers and tense New Republic security officers. No one cared enough to try. She briefly considered going back, but she was dizzy and half deaf and could see the dust on her breath. She’d just get in the way of the rescue team.

  But she realized as she coughed and spat that she had the answer she’d come for.

  She wasn’t sure Caern Adan would give her an opportunity to fly, or to prove herself, or to do anything decent. But the bombing had reminded her that those
things were luxuries.

  She had to find a way out of Traitor’s Remorse. Any chance was worth taking.

  III

  Caern Adan stretched an elastic band between thumb and forefinger, let loose, and watched the band soar across the supply closet that served as his office. It deformed in flight, missing IT-O by ten centimeters and puncturing the cone of azure particles emitted by the droid’s holoprojector. The humanoid figure standing within the cone pixelated and flickered into nonexistence.

  “You’re aggravated,” the droid said, unhelpfully.

  “I’m attempting to get something actionable out of you,” Caern answered.

  “Actionable intelligence is your area, not mine.”

  IT-O adjusted its holoprojector—a gift Caern had installed in the droid many months earlier—and the figure re-formed, magnified a dozen times over. Yrica Quell stared lifelessly over her jutting nose out of creaseless, bloodshot eyes. There was a fragility to her that went beyond the obvious cuts on her lips and scalp—a sort of glasslike sharpness, equally likely to injure or shatter. Imperial arrogance ground down and humbled.

  Caern studied the image and sighed. “Suppose you’re right,” he said. “She’s lying. What exactly is she lying about? Or—” He silenced the droid with a slash of his hand. “—give me this: What do we think is true?”

  IT-O floated like a toy boat in a slow current. “She has suffered trauma,” it said.

  Caern resisted the urge to interject: Haven’t we all?

  “Physically, of course,” the droid went on, “but she’s struggling to process recent events. She’s isolated. Simultaneously hypervigilant and unfocused.”

  “Vague,” Caern said. “Ever consider telling fortunes for a living?”