Aftermath: Star Wars Read Free

to be discovered. But he’s still here. If he didn’t want us to blast him out of the sky out
there,
you really think he’d be eager to die in
here
?”
    “Could be a suicide attack. Maximize the damage—”
    “No. He’s here. And he can’t be far. Find him.”
    Nils gives a sharp, nervous nod. “Yes, Admiral. Right away.”

“We have to turn around,” Norra says. “Plot another course—”
    “Whoa, whoa, no,” Owerto says, half laughing. He looks up at her—one half of his dark face burned underneath a mottled carpet of scars, scars he claims to have earned with a different story each time he tells it: lava, wampa, blaster fire, got blitzed on Corellian rum and fell down on a hot camping stove. “Miss Susser—”
    “Now that I’m home, I’m going by my married name again. Wexley.”
    “
Norra.
You paid me to get you onto the surface of
that
planet.” He points out the window. There: home. Or was, once. The planet Akiva. Clouds swirling in lazy spirals over the jungles and mountains. Above it: Two Star Destroyers hang there like swords above the surface. “More important, you ain’t the only cargo I’m bringing in. I’m finishing this job.”
    “They told us to turn around. This is a blockade—”
    “And smugglers like me are very good at getting around those.”
    “We need to get back to the Alliance—” She corrects herself. That’s old thinking. “The
New Republic.
They need to know.”
    A third Star Destroyer suddenly cuts through space, appearing in line with the others.
    “You got family down there?”
    She offers a stiff nod. “That’s why I’m here.”
That’s why I’m home.
    “This was always a risk. The Empire’s been here on Akiva for years. Not like
this,
but…they’re here, and we’re gonna have to deal with it.” He leans in and says: “You know why I call this ship the
Moth
?”
    “I don’t.”
    “You ever try to catch a moth? Cup your hands, chase after it, catch it? White moth, brown moth, any moth at all? You can’t do it. They always get away. Herky-jerky up-and-down left-and-right. Like a puppet dancing on somebody’s strings. That’s me. That’s this ship.”
    “I still don’t like it.”
    “I don’t like it, either, but life is full of unlikable things. You wanna see your family again? Then we’re doing this. Now’s the time, too. Looks like they’re just getting set up. Might could be more on the way.”
    A half-mad gleam in his one good eye. His other: an implacable red lens framed in an ill-fitting O-ring bolted to the scarred skin. He grins, then: crooked teeth stretched wide. He actually likes this.
    Smugglers,
she thinks.
    Well, she paid for the ticket.
    Time to take the ride.
    —
    The long black table gleams with light shining up from it—a holographic schematic of the
Vigilance
’s docking bay and surrounding environs. It incorporates a fresh droid scan and shows damage to two of the TIE fighters, not to mention the bodies of the stormtroopers—those left there as a reminder to others what can happen when you tussle with rebels.
    The pilot of the Starhopper? Most definitely a rebel. Now the question: Was this an attack? Did he know they were here? Or is this some confluence of events, some crass coincidence that led to this intersection?
    That, a problem for later. The problem now is figuring out just where he went. Because as she thought, the ship contained no body.
    Best she can figure, he rigged the proton torpedoes to blow. Before they did, however, he…what? She taps a button, goes back to the Starhopper schematic she pulled off the Imperial databases. There. A stern-side door. Small, but enough to load small parcels of cargo in and out.
    Her new pilot friend ducked out the back. Would’ve been a considerable jump.
Jedi?
No. Couldn’t be. Only one of those out there—and zero chance the rebels would send their golden boy, Skywalker.
    Back to the bay schematic—
    She spins it. Highlights the access ducts.
    That’s it. She