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  It took a moment before they regained their wits. “You should have told us,” Vrake said. “We could have assembled a turret here. Or a sensor array.”

  “I had no idea their path would lead here,” I explained. “And that kind of gear would have slowed us down.”

  “Won’t the light alert our prey, or these ghoma, to us?”

  “This hue calms the animals. I don’t know why. And we only keep it on long enough to make camp, OK?”

  I busied myself with the sleeping gear. Vrake and his men gathered a few meters away and spoke among themselves. When they finished, a pair of the stormtroopers sauntered off and began to patrol the edge of the clearing.

  We ate under the night sky. Those troopers not on patrol spoke in hushed tones. Soldier talk, old as time itself. I sat alone, weighed events. I stewed, as Chloa would say.

  Something wasn’t right. I just couldn’t figure out what.

  “Don’t worry,” Vrake said to me, suddenly.

  I snapped out of my doldrums. “Hmm?”

  “I know that wistful look. Tomorrow we’ll have them, and you can return to your family. The Empire will remember your aid to us here, I’ll make certain of it.”

  I nodded. “You have kids?”

  “Mm. Far from here,” he said. “Now, rest. We’ve organized watches.”

  I wasn’t tired, though. My body was, sure, but my mind still churned on the events of the day. I removed several items from my pack and assembled them, careful to attach the special battery last. Soon I had the holoprojector in one piece. I lay beside it, on top of my bedroll, the night pleasantly warm. Hands tucked behind my head, I stared at recordings of my children playing. Chloa, smiling shyly.

  I’d learned, over the years out here. Soft light seemed to appease the forest. The Zoess had always left me alone, as if we’d struck a bargain. I wondered if I’d broken that bargain today.

  Maybe so, because I woke some time later to sounds of violence.

  Angry grunts of exertion. A shout of triumph or maybe rage.

  A figure before me. Cerean, female, wearing prisoner’s garb. Her face ghostly, lit by the flickering images from the holoprojector. I rolled as her spear came down. It slammed into the dirt where my head had been. She cursed.

  Her companions were in a rough circle around the wooden post, each one standing over a bedroll, stabbing with spears, again and again.

  “Something’s wrong!” one of them shouted. “They’re not here,” said another.

  A boot slammed into my ribs, knocking me back to the dirt. I rolled and raised my hands. “I’m only a guide,” I said.

  “Be silent,” she hissed.

  “Yes,” a voice called. Vrake. “Be silent.”

  The stormtroopers came in from hiding places around the perimeter of the clearing, forming a circle around the rebels who shifted from foot to foot, spears darting from one target to the next.

  I shook my head. My ribs throbbed. Equal cries of “stand your ground!” and “do not move!” intermingled in the confused camp, as the stormtroopers closed in.

  “We won’t surrender,” the woman beside me said.

  Vrake began to pace. “Interesting venue, this forest. It puts us on equal footing. Our bowcasters,” he said, and nodded toward the nearest rebel, “and your... what have you got there? Spears? Charmingly primitive—”

  The woman beside me squeezed the weapon in her hands. There was a dull click, and then the tip of the spear shot outward. A harpoon. I should have seen it sooner, the length of wire coiled around each rebel’s upper arm.

  The tip of the weapon sprang outward at phenomenal speed, just missing Vrake’s face, before whipping back and reconnecting itself into the barrel of the “spear”.

  Vrake’s men raised their bowcasters. Everyone tensed.

  My eyes were fixed on Vrake’s hands. They were clasped behind his back, but he’d turned to dodge the attack and I’d caught a glimpse of what he held. The two small spheres I’d given him. I scrambled backwards toward the center of the clearing, to the marker post and my gear.

  All of them—rebels and stormtroopers alike—shifted on their feet, adjusting their aim from one target to another. Sizing each other up. Deciding who to shoot first or which way to dive.

  The air grew still. The forest, dead quiet. That strange instant of calm that always manifested before violence.

  My hand bumped something. I turned, saw my still-flickering holoprojector, and my mind filled with grief and remorse. The idea that I might never see Chloa and the kids again.

  One last glimpse, at least. I focused on the image.

  And saw a stranger. Not my kids, not Chloa, but a woman with dark hair. It took my brain a few seconds to grasp who this was. No stranger at all. Far from it.

  Princess Leia Organa stood there, holographically. The interruption of my own recording meant this was an emergency broadcast. She was speaking. I picked up the device, careful to keep it in the circle of stones lest the forest annihilate us all.

  “He’s got a weapon,” one of the rebels barked, unsure. It didn’t occur to me until later that he’d meant me.

  “The tracker fights with us,” Vrake said. “Or he’d better, if he wants to see his family again.”

  I’d activated the sound. I wasn’t listening to them anymore, but to her. Princess Leia Organa.

  “All of you, stop. Listen!” I shouted. Croaked, really. “Stop fighting. Something’s happened.”

  I magnified the image until Leia seemed to stand, life-size, on my palm.

  She was saying, “The Death Star outside the forest moon of Endor is gone, and with it the Imperial leadership. The tyrant Palpatine is dead...”

  I stood there, the rest of her words unheard. Palpatine was dead. The Imperial leadership, gone. I glanced at Vrake, who stood frozen, trapped between disbelief and anger. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. Somehow the only words that came to mind were the ones I’d just uttered.

  Stop fighting.

  MORE TO SAY HAVE YOU?

  The events of this story tie-in with Star Wars Aftermath: Life Debt, by Chuck Wendig, available now from Del Rey Books.

  Become a fan of Del Rey Star Wars books at www.facebook.com/starwarsbooks or on Twitter @DelReyStarWars

  From Star Wars Insider 169 (November/December 2016)