• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Ackbar knew that Jesmin was his niece.

He hit the clear button.

Sir, I regret …

Even that was formal, impersonal. He and Ackbar were not friends; they were fellow officers. But he had great respect for the Mon Calamari naval officer and felt that Ackbar had similar respect for him.

He felt for Ackbar and his loss. He’d known that loss himself, the day a pirate’s escape had destroyed the refueling station where his family worked and lived. He’d lost his home, his family, his past. All that was left to him was his future, one that had then seemed threatening instead of inviting.

But that was just the opposite of what Ackbar would experience, wasn’t it? Jesmin was not his past. If anything, she was a piece of his future. Was that not even worse? Suffering the pain of the loss of a loved one … and of the future she represented?

He took a sip from his drink and tried to settle his thoughts. He’d had to perform this task so many times. He should be good at it by now. But he felt just a little touch of pride that he wasn’t, that it never came easy to him. That he could never be glib about it.

He hit the clear button.

He wrote, Sir, it is my sad duty to report to you the death of Jesmin Ackbar.

Kell had peeled halfway out of his coveralls when the door to his quarters slid open. Tyria stepped in and hit the door-close button.

He looked at her. She didn’t speak; her expression was tight, worried.

Finally he said, “Isn’t one of us supposed to make a joke?”

“Some other day, maybe. What have you been up to?”

“Making sure Blood Nest wasn’t rigged to blow. Which it was. And trying not to throw up. Fortunately, I succeeded at defusing and failed to keep my stomach under control, rather than the other way around.” He turned his back to her, shoved his coveralls down to his ankles, and stepped out of them on the way to his little closet. He felt light-headed; working for hours on a stomach that was empty and violently protested any attempt to fill it made him that way. “How’s Myn?”

“I don’t know. Ton Phanan doesn’t know. Myn just lies there, staring off into nowhere. He’ll eat if you put food in his hand, drink if you put the cup to his lips. But he’s gone somewhere.”

Kell selected a clean jumpsuit in TIE fighter pilot black and began to put it on. “How long do you think you can keep it under cover?”

“I don’t know, Kell. Long enough to shake him out of it, I hope. Ton says that if this, this collapse goes on his record, that’s probably it for his career as a pilot.”

“Maybe it should be. Maybe he’s too close to dissolving to fly again.”

“That’s not for you to say.”

He finished pulling the jumpsuit up and zipped it up. “I know. That’s why I’m going along with this, this scheme. In spite of the fact that it might kill all our careers.” He shrugged. “It’s the least I can do. I failed to save Jesmin. Maybe I can help with Myn.”

“Don’t say that. I heard what you tried with Jesmin. That was … tremendous.”

“It would have been tremendous if it had worked. Since it failed, it was just futile. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You knew those two Ugly pilots were lures. You probably saved my life by making me take the time to think about it. Was that something you’d run into before?”

She shook her head. Her ponytail swayed slowly. “I just … felt it. I almost saw you being vaped.”

“Could that have been the Force at work?”

“I don’t think so. I wasn’t concentrating on using the Force.”

“What’s it like when you do concentrate?”

She gave him a bitter little smile. “It’s like putting my toe into a nice warm river back on Toprawa, and starting to slide in, and then looking over my shoulder and seeing that my ancestors for twenty generations back have all lined up behind me with stern expressions to make sure I’m doing it right, and I suddenly realize that I can’t swim well enough to make them proud of me. If I go into the water I’ll drown. That’s what the Force is like to me.”

“No wonder you want so badly to learn to use it.”

She looked at him as if trying to figure out whether to be offended.

“All