Free Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alex Freed

there was no rushing the captain when he had his own topic in mind.
    “Time isn’t just the provenance of philosophers,” Howl said, as if correcting a child’s mistake. “We live on a ship powered by energies that sunder cause and effect, beginning and end … hyperspace is a mystery more profound than gods and demons.”
    Howl dropped into a chair across from Namir, spread his hands, and bowed his head. “Yet we use it to make war,” he said, “and here we are. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
    “Governor Chalis,” Namir said. “Were we attacked because of her?”
    The last of Howl’s effervescence vanished, as if incinerated in a flash fire. “We don’t know.
Chalis
certainly thinks so, but she’s not an unbiased source.”
    “The more she convinces us the Imperials value her, the more she can demand for her help. I get that,” Namir said. “But you’ve talked to her. Do
you
think she’s for real?”
    “She could be.”
    “Because if she is—” Namir pressed on. He was sure he was overstepping; he was first sergeant, not the captain’s strategist or second in command. He was in Twilight to execute orders, not question them. “—Twilight has a target on its back. A lot worse could come.”
    “Vader,” Howl said. “Chalis said it to me, too.”
    Namir shrugged. “Vader or Captain Dirtfarm—doesn’t matter
who
comes if they’re backed by an armada. The best thing for us is to get rid of her.”
    Howl shook his head and tapped a long, slow rhythm onto the holotable. “I can’t,” he said. “We found her, and she’s our responsibility.”
    “Turn her over to another company. Someone in the Rebellion must be equipped for this.”
    “Equipped for what?” Howl asked, without a trace of impatience. “We don’t even know what we have, and we’re still ten thousand light-years deep in Imperial territory and struggling to get to safety. No one nearby can watch her or protect her any better than we can, and I’m not prepared to take more dramatic action.”
    Namir watched his captain. He didn’t doubt Howl was capable of lying to him; good commanders often lied to their troops. Yet his arguments had the ring of truth.
    They simply weren’t complete.
    “You think it’s a trap,” Namir said. It was a guess. “She’s a double agent, or she’s being manipulated.”
    “It’s a possibility,” Howl said.
    “You think you have a way to find out,” Namir said.
    Howl smiled, but he didn’t answer. He stood and paced a few steps, stared at the door to the workroom, then held up a hand as if calling for silence.
    “The Rebel Alliance,” he said, “is falling apart. Things are as bad as they’ve been since—well, since long before you came aboard—and if the Empire wins, it wins completely. We need an edge, and we might have found one.
    “I’m going to test that edge. If it cuts, I’m going to hone it. We’re already taking the first steps.
    “Chalis promised to assemble a schematic—a holographic map of the Empire’s entire logistical network, showing its strengths and vulnerabilities. If she can do that, it
will
change the war. But we need to see if we can rely on her first.”
    Namir nodded slowly. “So what’s our next mission?” he asked.
What did she tell you when you first met?
    Howl didn’t reply. He merely opened the workroom door to the corridor and smiled again, sadly, at Namir.
    Their meeting was over.



CHAPTER 5
    CARIDA SYSTEM
    Day Ninety-One of the Mid Rim Retreat
    Captain Tabor Seitaron felt an internal buzz of distress as he stepped off his shuttle into the hangar of the Imperial Star Destroyer
Herald.
His boots seemed to cling to the polished floor and his intestines felt as though they’d been compressed under a stone. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d experienced the tug of artificial gravity—perhaps four years ago, during the test flight of the
Rueful Confession
?—but he knew it hadn’t always afflicted him so.
    He felt
old.
He should