have utilitarian concessions. The double-walled transparisteel cap keeps warmth
in and ice out. The waterfalls are wonderful to look at, but they fill our
reservoir down below and feed our ichthyoculture farms."
, "I concede the point." Corran smiled. "Tell me more about the disease that's
causing you problems."
"It's a virus that mutates quickly and sweeps through the colony." Farl
shrugged. "Left untreated the symptoms come and go inside two weeks, though
there is lingering weakness for another month after that. The symptoms are
congestion, coughing, fatigue, body aches, and a fairly ravenous appetite.
Bathing in the mineral springs here seems to help, but a bacta bath will be far
more helpful."
Ooryl's mouth parts clicked open and shut. "Your virus sounds similar to the
Cardooine Chills."
"True, though that illness can only afflict a person once before he or she
develops immunity." Farl led them on through another atmosphere lock and into a
darkened corridor. "This virus mutates so quickly that we can't create a
vaccine. It spreads through the population such that someone just recovering
from one strain catches the next. On a larger world there would be more of a lag
time between epidemics, and a bigger world would have more resources to be able
to deal with the illness. Right now, though, a sick person eats enough food for
a family of four, and this threatens the whole colony.
"The most recent strains have been nastier, increasing the appetite and
debilitating the victims, which is why we sent out our call for bacta." Farl
sighed. "When we got word from Thyferra about how much it would cost to fill our
order, well, we fairly well despaired. Then you showed up in-system with a
tanker ship carrying enough to go a long way toward wiping the epidemic out."
The small man led them into an office and invited them to sit in rickety, rusty
chairs. He walked around a makeshift desk and sat on a stool. "So, I need to
ask, what do we owe you for this bacta? The market value for it is something in
excess of a billion Imperial credits."
Corran glanced over at Ooryl, then shook his head. "You don't owe us anything."
"But this amount of bacta, it is valuable. You must have paid a great deal for
it."
The Gand leaned forward. "Ooryl believes Corran would tell you that the bacta
was collected as part of a bad debt. It cost Corran and Ooryl nothing; therefore
it's offered freely."
The puzzled look of amazement on Farl's face slackened into an expressionless
mask. "I see."
Corran smiled. "You needn't think of it as stolen, since
the government that would have demanded payment from you is not legitimate."
A wry grin twisted the lower half of Farl's face. "Dealing with pirates and
smugglers holds no difficulty for us. The transparisteel and other modern
conveniences you see here were not made here, so we have traded with outsiders
before."
"If that's not the problem, what is?"
Farl frowned. "We've always given something in exchange for what we took. In
some cases we have hidden people from their enemies. The fish we raise here are
considered delicacies on some worlds and are extinct on others, so some
collectors favor them. The problem is that a billion credits would buy all of
them, and most of this colony, too. We will not take charity, but we cannot
offer you value for what you have given us."
"I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. You mentioned mineral springs
as part of your treatment for the chills before, right?"
"Yes, but I don't see"
Corran held a hand up and looked at Ooryl. "Flying in here didn't I tell you I'd
give half a billion credits for a hot bath and a good fish dinner?"
The Gand hesitated, then nodded extravagantly. "Indeed, Qrygg remembers your
using those very words. And Qrygg concurred."
"There you have it, Farl Cort." Corran opened his hands. "A hot bath and a hot
fish for each of us and we're even."
The colonial administrator smiled. "I'll see to it that you get your money's
worth."
"Liberating the bacta from Iceheart has already done that." Corran laughed
aloud. "Getting to sit in a hot bath and think about how furious she'll be will
make the experience just that much more perfect."
The moment Tycho Celchu's X-wing reverted to realspace, a chill ran through him.
He had been to Alderaanto its
Graveyardbefore. He had seen and flown through the stony disk that was all that
remained of the world on which he had been born and had grown up. His last
vision of the world as a whole, cohesive ball had come when he shipped out to
the Imperial Military Academy and the pride that marked that memory now mocked
him.
He had returned to Alderaan before, but he had not yet Returned. Among the
survivors of Alderaan, Returning had taken on a reverence and importance unlike
any other tradition he could recall. It seemed as if all the mental and
emotional energy that had been funneled into the planet's pacificistic
philosophy had been shifted and focused on a person's Return. Some people even
described their Return as a watershed experience, one that changed their lives
completely and profoundly, opening them to the greater truth of the universe.
Those claims had been made by people wearing beatific expressions. They talked
about what should be done on a Return. They specified what should be said, what
should be offered, and what should be expected in return. They ritualized what
Tycho felt should be a distinctly individualized experience, then encouraged
each other to share their experiences so they could mutually reinforce their
beliefs in the healing nature of the Return.
The Return had become something of an industry to service the Alderaanian
community, and Tycho had not found himself immune to its lures. After guiding
several bacta tankers to Coruscant, Tycho had set down on the planet and spent
some time with a few Alderaanian friends. As a result of their conversations, he
had decided to make his own Return, and then went out and proceeded to buy all
the things he would need to do it correctly.
Following the dictates of others rankled him, but he could not deny that inside
he felt a need to do some of the things bound up in a Return. He purchased a
Memorial Capsule, then bought little gifts for all of his dead. He picked out
things he knew they would have enjoyedromantic holodramas for his grandmother
and sisters, wine for his father, flower bulbs for his mother, and a datacard
of the latest
recipes for his mother's fatherthe gourmet. For his brother, he picked up a
holobio of Luke Skywalker, knowing Skoloc would have thrilled at being able to
meet Luke and learning the Jedi would be returning to the galaxy. While part of
him rebelled at the idea of buying these things and jettisoning them to orbit
amid the Graveyard, the symbology of it satisfied a need inside of himself to
place amid the shards of the world items that would mark the lives of people of
whom there was no longer a trace.
Choosing something to memorialize Nyiestra had been all but impossible. He had
kno
wn her all his life, and before he hit puberty, he knew he loved her and
would marry her. He had been as certain of that as he had been that the sun
would rise and set on Alderaan for the rest of their lives. She had agreed to
wait for him throughout his time at the Academy and then even through his first
year of duty. If he survived a year as a TIE pilot, then he'd get moved up in
the chain of fleet command, making it possible for him to marry and start a
family. Never had he doubted, never had she doubted he would survive that first
year, so to both of them their future had been assured.
Then the Death Star exploded that future. Another chill sank through Tycho,
puckering his flesh. Because his father was the CEO of Novacom, the largest
HoloNet provider on Alderaan, Tycho had been able to make a realtime HoloNet
call to his home on the occasion of his birthday. Everyone had been there, all
smiles and laughter. They had presents for him and toasted him with wine. Though
thousands of light-years distant from the celebration, he felt every bit a part
of it; then the transmission went down, the holographic images dissolving in a
static.
Tycho had just smiled. Such interruptions had happened before and in each
instance he had given his father a hard time about it. Throughout the next week
he mulled over what he would say to his father. He had looked forward to the
exchange, since matching wits with his father was a true joy in his life.
Then word filtered down through the fleet that Alderaan
had been destroyed. Blame had been placed on the Rebels, but he'd known
instantly that they were innocent. While his Imperial indoctrination had left
him no doubts that the Rebels would destroy a planet to gain their ends, he knew
it would not be Alderaan. They drew support from Alderaan, according to the
rumors, so destroying it would only make sense for the Empire. The fact that the
Emperor dissolved the Imperial Senate before Alderaan died, instead of in
reaction to its death, firmly focused blame as far as Tycho was concerned.
So he defected. At the next planet, Commenor, he went on leave and never came
back. He joined the Rebellion and for well over seven years had fought to
guarantee no other world would face the fate of Alderaan. And guarantee no other
man would have to decide how to memorialize the woman he had intended to share
the rest of his life with.
Part of what made the choice so difficult were the changes he had undergone
since Alderaan's death. Had he made his Return immediately after leaving the
Imperial Navy, he would have encoded a poem on a datacard and set it adrift in a
device that would have broadcast it over and over again. The comfrequency
traffic that his R2 unit scrolled across his main screen showed thousands of
others had thought of the very same thing.
It hurt deep down knowing that the man he had become would not have been a
suitable match for Nyiestra. The life they had planned together would have been
possible in a bygone age, but only if they refused to look at what the Empire
was doing within the galaxy. Wrapped up in its cocoon of pacifism, Alderaan had
seemed insulated from things going on in the galaxy. It was as if when we
disarmed we set ourselves above and beyond the petty concerns of the galaxy,
and we thought doing so would keep us safe.
Bail Organa and his daughter, Leia, had seen the folly of that idea, but
Alderaan had been slow to awaken to their call. Many people clung to their
pacifism as if it would save them from anything the Empire could do. They had
felt that the only way the Empire would win was if it could force them to
abandon pacifism. Being sacrificed to preserve their beliefs
was not too great a price to payan attitude especially easy to hold when no one
believed the Empire could or would destroy a planet.
Tycho had long since seen the error of that philosophy. Pacifism for the sake of
pacifism is the height of arrogant selfishness when that belief prevents you
from acting to save others from harm. While he had no more love for war than any
other Alderaanian, he had chosen to go into the military to be in a position to
influence and change the military. And when it became necessary to destroy it, I
became a Rebel.
In the Rebellion, he had seen and done things that Nyies-tra could not have
understood. He knew she would have done all she could have to support him and
comfort him and help him deal with everything, but the fundamental changes in
him meant that they would no longer have been suited to each other. At the most
basic level, he accepted as true a concept that Nyiestra would have resisted
with every neuron in her brain There are some people who are so evil and
capable of creating such misery, that killing them is the only way they can be
dealt with. Grand Moff Tarkin, the Emperor, Darth Vader, Warlord Zsinj, Ysanne
Isard, General Derricote, and Kirtan Loor were all beyond reasoned arguments
designed to make them repent and abandon their evil ways.
The same events and experiences that would have sundered him and Nyiestra bound
him and Winter. In many ways, his relationship with her astounded him because it
was so wholly different from the one he had enjoyed with Nyiestra. Whereas they
had done everything they could to minimize their time apart, he and Winter
simply sought to make the most they could of the time they had together. Both of
more often than not for the foreseeable futureyet the fact that each knew the
other was out there somehow staunched what would otherwise have been a hideous
emotional wound. He knew both of themand probably everyone else from Alderaan
that had been left alonefeared getting too close to someone in anticipation of
losing them again. Despite that fear, they had grown close and provided an
incredible amount of support for each other.
Ultimately, it had been Winter who suggested to him the perfect gift to
memorialize Nyiestra, a woman she had never met or known.
Tycho found and purchased a perfect crystal sphere onto which had been acid
etched the continents of Alderaan. Into the heart of this idealized version of
the world he had called his own, he had Nyiestra's hologram imbedded. From
within the depths of the world she had loved, Nyiestra smiled out at him,
forever preserved, unchanging, and beautiful.
He keyed the comm unit and flicked on his IFF transponder. "I am Tycho Celchu,
son of Alderaan, now orphan of the galaxy. I have come to this place of my birth
to pay homage to who I was and those I knew. And those I loved and love still.
It is my wish that when life abandons me, I am returned here to be among you, so
that for eternity we may be together as we should have been in life."
He punched a button on his console, opening and purging the storage compartment
in the X-wing's belly. Under the control of the R2 unit, the memorial capsule's
compressed air jets pushed it forward till it emerged from beneath the nose of
the snubfighter. A lump rose to his throat as the black oval capsule slowly
began its trip into the swirl o
f stone that once had been Alderaan.
Tycho cleared his throat. "These gifts are but insufficient tokens of the love
for you all that still burns within me." He hesitated for a second, then
deviated from the formula he was supposed to speak to do his Return correctly.
"This fighter is another. It bears the colors of the Alderaanian Guard and
transmits their code. It is my pledge to younot of vengeance but of vigilance.
I hope you rest well knowing you will rest alone, because it is my life's work
to see to it that no one else suffers as you have. I won't rest until this quest
is complete."
He hit another button, closing the cargo compartment. The capsule continued
drifting away, and he was tempted for a moment to blast it to bits with his
lasers. He had no doubt that amid the debris, ships waited and searched for
things to recover. The individuals who had located and brought in the Another
Chance had been on a salvage mission of sorts, and
countless were the stories of treasures rescued from the ruin of Alderaan.
Many of those treasures were shown to be forgeries, created and planted by
confidence tricksters to prey on the Alderaanian community. Even nastier than
they were the people claimed to have been from Alderaanall rescued by miracle
or coincidenceand who subsequently sought to insinuate themselves with families
who had survived but had lost relatives. Because of the nature of the Imperial
economy, a considerable portion of the wealth of Alderaan had survived the
planet's destruction, making the survivors quite prosperous and, therefore,
targets of opportunity for criminals.
He watched the capsule until it vanished into the swirl of debris. "Rest easy. I
miss you all." He punched up the power on his IFF beacon and pulsed its
transmission out in one grand confirmation of his vow, then shut it down, turned
the X-wing around, and started the long trek back to Yag'Dhul and the war
against Ysanne Isard.
12
Fliry Vorru fought the sense of nakedness that his abbreviated clothing inspired
in him and braced himself for Ysanne Isard's tirade. "Yes, the diversion of the
convoy has been confirmed by a number of sources. It is not the utter disaster
you have made it out to be since Antilles is not holding on to our tankers, but
is returning them."
"Returning them so we can refill them and he can take them again." Her