Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(97)

She can’t go anywhere. She and Brentin are on the roof—she pondered crawling to the edge of it and rolling off, if only to fall far enough to break her neck and end the misery. Meanwhile, Brentin is curled in upon himself, moaning and rolling around. Clearly he’s lost to madness.

All the while she watches the battle creep ever closer to the base. The Empire’s line isn’t breaking, but it’s falling back. In the distance she spies a mushroom plume of fire erupt from the top of a walker before it tortuously topples over. Not far from that, an X-wing—so far away it looks almost like a child’s toy whipping about—clips its wing on a spire of rock and crashes into a DF.9 turret placement. Trooper bodies fly.

In the sky, the two fleets rage against each other. It’s hard to tell much of what’s happening—the sun is so bright it feels like it’s about to set her corneas on fire. Best she can see is that the Imperial fleet is holding firm. The Republic ships aren’t making a dent. Not yet. But she fears they will.

It’s inevitable.

Soon it’ll come here, to the base. That’s what Rax wants. Not only does she get to sit here and watch it all collapse, she’ll be underneath it when it does. When the base goes, she’ll go, too. Maybe captured. Probably dead.

And Rax will get away.

But to where? And why? It’s his endgame she can’t figure out. All of this is a show. It’s in service to something. And that place he was protecting out in the valley near the Plaintive Hand—it means something.

Not that it matters. He’s gone. She remains.

Sloane laughs, then weeps, then bows her head like a penitent monk.

“Gah!” Brentin cries out, suddenly. He rolls over, arching his back and baring his teeth to the sky. Pain seems to cross his face. Suddenly a wave of energy pulses the air, causing all the hairs on her arms and neck to stiffen. Brentin stands up, shaking his hands—the two cuffs around his wrists drop away.

She looks at him, astonished.

“You’re free.”

“Uh-huh. And you’re next.” He bends down, scooping something into his open hands, talking as he does. “You ever notice how dirty this planet is? I don’t just mean it like every planet is dirty—I mean, it’s so dry, so desiccated, everything erodes to dust. Dust picked up on the wind and blown everywhere. Like here.”

He shows her his hands, which are now piled with little puffs of brown and rust-colored dust. Then he gets behind her and begins massaging the dust right into the cuffs.

“What are you doing?”

“Rebels like me, we get trained on how to escape all kinds of situations. Magnacuffs are hard to beat, but not impossible, long as you can get something in between the magnetic couplings. In this case—”

Bzzt! Another pulse of energy as the cuffs fall from her wrists.

“The dust of Jakku.”

I’m free, she thinks.

“You’re something, Brentin Wexley.” She knows now that her instincts to preserve his life were right.

“We rebels had to stay ahead of you Imperials somehow.”

“We need to move fast,” she says. “Find a ship. Intercept Rax.”

“You think he’s going back to the valley.”

“It’s our only shot. Something’s going on here. Something big that I don’t understand.” Even if he’s not there, whatever he’s hiding will be the key to understanding it all. “Come on.”

Sloane moves with long strides, ignoring the pain in her side, in her legs, in her throat. She pushes away her dehydration, pretending it just doesn’t exist. As she finds the turbolift down, she already begins to formulate a plan in her head—they’re going to need a ship. Going overland won’t do. Too slow, and the battle raging here will make traversing the surface of Jakku an untenable prospect. That means they need to be airborne in something fast. A TIE could work because it’s fast, nimble, versatile.

Good news is: They’ve got plenty of the Imperial starfighters here—an automatic belt-fed line of them set up for fueling, launch, landing, and refueling. Churn and burn. Fighters. Interceptors. Bombers. Strikers. Move them up and out, get them flying.

The lift hums downward. It dings open. They step out and see a dust-swept hallway—it’s empty. The base is like a tomb. Dirt-caked and filthy, and quiet as the grave, too. Abandoned already? Sloane wonders. Or is it just that the entire breadth and depth of the Imperial forces are already out there, fighting tooth and nail against the New Republic incursion? She suspects the latter. All the pieces have been pushed out onto the game board. None are in reserve. Rax is betting the Empire all or nothing.

A mouse droid wheels past, blurping and squeaking as it rounds the corner. It’s the only sign of life they see.

That is, until they round the same corner.

The mouse droid comes squealing back, zipping through Sloane’s legs—there’s a moment of distraction as she dances out of its way—

And when she turns back around, she’s face-to-face with an Imperial officer. Noncom black. Small hat askew. The bars on the woman’s chest indicate she’s a prison warden, which doesn’t make any sense because—

“Norra,” Brentin says.

“You,” Sloane says to the woman.

A blaster thrusts up into Sloane’s face. “Yes. Me.”