• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I gave you that information already. What have you learned?”

The comm officer seemed to fade out of focus. “We regret that your brother did not survive initial military training. Our exercises are very strenuous, designed to discourage all but the best candidates.”

Kyp’s ears filled with a roar like rushing water. He had expected the news, but confirmation sent despair through him. “What … what were the circumstances of his death?”

“Checking,” the comm officer said. Kyp waited and waited. “During a mountain survival tour he and his team were snowed in by a sudden blizzard. He appears to have frozen to death. There is some indication he made a heroic sacrifice so other members of his team could survive. I have the full details in a file. I can upload it if you like.”

“Yes,” Kyp said, his mouth dry. “Give me everything.” He recalled an image of his brother: two boys throwing small reed boats into the water and watching them drift toward the marshes—then the look on Zeth’s face after stormtroopers had crashed into their home and dragged him away.

“This will take a moment,” the comm officer said.

Kyp watched the data scroll across his screens. He thought of Exar Kun, the ancient Lord of the Sith who had shown him many things that Master Skywalker refused to teach. The news of Zeth’s inevitable death was like severing the remaining threads of Kyp’s fragile restraint. Nothing could stop him now.

He would show murderous Carida no mercy. Kyp would remove this Imperial thorn from the New Republic’s side and then move on to topple the big Imperial warlords gathering their forces near the galactic core.

He waited for Zeth’s files to finish uploading into the Sun Crusher’s memory. It would take a long time for him to absorb all those words, to imagine every detail of his brother’s life, the life they should have had together.…

Emerging from the thin veil of atmosphere at the limb of the planet, a battle group of forty TIE fighters roared toward him. Another cluster of twenty came from the opposite horizon in a pincer formation. The ploy of Zeth’s files had merely been a delaying tactic to keep him preoccupied as the Caridans launched an attack!

Kyp didn’t know whether to be amused or outraged. A grim smile flickered across his face, then vanished.

The TIE fighters came in, firing what must have been intended as crippling laser blasts. Kyp felt the thumps of their impacts against the Sun Crusher, but his special quantum-layered armor could withstand even a turbolaser blast from a Star Destroyer.

One of the TIE pilots contacted Kyp. “We have you surrounded. You cannot escape.”

“Sorry,” Kyp said. “I’m fresh out of white flags.” He used his sensors to track the lead TIE fighter from which the message had come. He targeted with his defensive lasers and let loose a volley that strafed across the ship’s flat solar panel. The TIE ship broke apart in a flower of white-and-orange flame.

The other fighters retaliated from all sides. Kyp targeted with his own defensive lasers, selecting five victims. He managed to strike three.

Using the extreme mobility of the Sun Crusher, he accelerated upward just as the surviving TIE fighters sent return fire through the expanding explosions of his first round of victims. Kyp laughed out loud as two of the fighters hit each other in the cross fire.

The wall of anger rose and strengthened in him, increasing his reservoir of power. He had already given more warning than the Caridans deserved. Kyp had stated his ultimatum, and Furgan had sent out attack ships.

“That’s the last mistake you’ll ever make,” he said.

The TIE fighters continued to fire, missing more often than not. Laser bolts spanged off his armor, causing no damage. The pilots did not seem to know how to target and shoot properly. They had probably spent all their time practicing in simulation chambers, without ever fighting an actual space battle. Kyp relied instead on the Force.

He shot back, obliterating another ship, but decided