• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Mother, I hope I make you proud today.

00:00

The universe suddenly expanded around Taggar’s recon fighter. Ahead lay a gray-green marble frosted with swirls of pale yellow clouds. The mission timer started to count upward as the imaging systems stirred in their mountings. Taggar flew a steady line as he read the reports from R2-R on his cockpit display.

IDENTIFIED: ARAMADIA-CLASS THRUSTSHIP

IDENTIFIED: ARAMADIA-CLASS THRUSTSHIP

IDENTIFIED: VICTORY-CLASS STAR DESTROYER

IDENTIFIED: ARAMADIA-CLASS THRUSTSHIP

IDENTIFIED: IMPERIAL-CLASS STAR DESTROYER

IDENTIFIED: EXECUTOR-CLASS STAR

DESTROYER

The list grew longer as N’zoth grew larger ahead. Rone Taggar wanted to be afraid, but he did not have that luxury. He told himself he could be brave for five more minutes. In five minutes—perhaps less—it would be over.

Taggar tried to whistle past the graveyard, but his mouth was suddenly too dry.

There had been a tug-of-war between Leia and Ackbar over who would be invited to be in the War Hall at Fleet Headquarters when the data from the Koornacht recon incursion came in.

“This is not the time to repay favors or curry favor,” Ackbar had said, holding out for keeping the list as short as possible. “You cannot control information that’s already been freely distributed. We will need time to evaluate the data and place it in context.”

“Everyone on that list has a legitimate right to know what’s going on in Farlax,” she had argued. “They’re all going to have to be part of the decisions to come—Defense Council, Security Council, the rest of the Ruling Council, Rieekan from NRI. It’s not as though I’m trying to bring in outsiders.”

“No,” Ackbar said. “You are only bringing in a senator who just tried to have you removed from office, and another who is likely to try in the near future. They are part of the same government as you, Leia, but they are not your allies.”

Behn-kihl-nahm’s opinion had settled the question in favor of Leia’s side. As the intercepts neared, the room was full of extra bodies, and there was more than enough to occupy them.

The full-wall display in the War Hall had been divided into twenty-four identical rectangles. Each contained an intercept chart, with a blank circle representing the target planet and a red line marking the expected path of the scout. As the contacts proceeded, the charts would change to show the position of the ships and the progress of the scans.

Beside each chart was space for a flat-screen feed from the scout’s imagers. At the moment the name of the target world and the type of scout assigned to it were displayed in that space.

Ackbar, Leia, and Han stood together at the back of the room, leaning on the railing at the edge of the raised observer’s platform and watching twenty-four timers counting down in synchrony.

“It kind of reminds me of a tout board I saw at a million-credit betting parlor on Bragkis,” Han said, “and everyone standing around waiting for the race to begin. ‘Who’s got a favorite?’ ‘What odds will you give me on Wakiza?’ ”

Leia usually found Han’s irreverence refreshing. But she had no patience for it just then and walked away after shooting him a hot sidewise glare. Han’s first instinct was to follow, but Ackbar stayed him with a touch.

“Let her be,” he said. “This is a hard time. She does not have much water under her.”

The room quieted dramatically in the last seconds, as everyone working attended to the console before them, and everyone watching turned away from their conversations and looked up toward the display. As zero turned to plus-1, the entire wall came alive with moving images as the charts began to change and the first images arrived.

It almost seemed to Han as though the wall were a squirming mass of tiny creatures made of light. Unless he focused his attention on just one area, the effect made his stomach turn and his nerves jangle.

Ackbar raised a hand and pointed to the lower right corner of the wall. “One casualty already,” he said. Number 23, a pilotless ferret,