• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

He would pilot out of the storage section. Safer. If the Coruscant command gave him any troubles, he would separate the sections and let them worry about the fighter while the storage unit escaped. He had just slid into the pilot’s chair when he heard something behind him.

He stiffened but did not turn. He might have been mistaken about the sound.

No. There it was again. The hollowy inhale of someone breathing through a mask.

Jarril swallowed. As he turned, he put his hand on his blaster.

Two stormtroopers faced him, blasters already trained on him. “Where do you think you’re going?” one of them asked. The voice was unrecognizable through the helmet’s mouthpiece.

Then Jarril realized they weren’t stormtroopers. They were wearing his cargo. He recognized the battle scorch on the helmet on the right.

They must have come on the ship wearing other clothing. They had put on the stormtrooper uniforms to scare him? He wasn’t afraid of stormtroopers. At least, not stormtroopers wearing his own haul.

“I think it’s high time to leave Coruscant, don’t you?” Jarril asked. He wished he knew whom he was addressing.

“We plan to leave,” the other trooper said, “after you tell us your business here.”

“I was visiting an old friend,” Jarril said.

“Strange time to be visiting,” the first stormtrooper said.

“Strange time to be helping yourselves to my equipment,” Jarril snapped.

“It’s ours ultimately,” the second stormtrooper said.

“You don’t want to get caught wearing those on Coruscant,” Jarril said.

“We won’t get caught,” the first stormtrooper said. He nodded his helmet toward Jarril. “Put down the blaster.”

Jarril shrugged and let go. “I wasn’t going to use it anyway.”

“Tell us again why you’re on Coruscant.”

“Why are you?” Jarril said. “Did you have anything to do with that bombing?”

“We’ll ask the questions,” said the second stormtrooper.

Jarril swallowed. His head was woozy from exertion on top of too many drinks. It was his ship. He should be able to find a way out of this. “I was following a lead.”

“A lead,” said the first stormtrooper. “I thought you were visiting an old friend.”

“Where’d you think I was going to get the lead?”

“From Han Solo, husband to the leader of the New Republic?”

They had followed him. He wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of this one. He grabbed the control console, but too late. A well-placed blaster shot hit his hands. He screamed as pain burned through him.

He clutched his hands to his stomach and looked at the troopers. “What do you want with me?” he asked, voice shaking.

“To silence you forever,” said the first stormtrooper.

And then they did.

Six

Luke had seen the medical center near the Imperial Palace this full only once before, and that had been in the days after the Empire attack that had forced the New Republic leadership to lead. A long time ago now, but it felt close, with all these wounded around him. Wounded waited in reception areas just like guests, while medical personnel found beds for them, or moved them to more-specialized wings of the medical center.

Luke walked among them, feeling more shaken than he had when he learned of the attack.

Familiar faces, some gray with pain, others so scarred he could barely recognize them, looked away from him. The attack had to have been horrible. He had been worried when he approached Coruscant and all the defenses were up. He had had to get special clearance from Admiral Ackbar—no one could raise Leia—and it wasn’t until he had spoken to Mon Mothma that he had known why.

As he strode through the hallway to the recovery areas, something grabbed him around his booted leg. He looked down to see Anakin clinging to his thigh.

“Uncle Luke,” Anakin said, his face upturned, his blue eyes tear-streaked, his eyelashes gummed together.

Luke bent down and picked up the boy, even though, at six, Anakin was getting too big to be held in this way. Anakin clung to him so tightly that Luke could barely breathe.

“Is your mother all right?” Luke asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

Anakin nodded.