Free Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alex Freed Page A

have been on Carida, teaching military history to cadets who’d mastered the art of appearing attentive in class. Instead, he’d spent the morning being ferried from Academy to spaceport to hangar without the barest hint as to why.
    “Captain Seitaron, sir! Welcome aboard.”
    Tabor looked to the ensign who stood stiffly at attention. His posture was adequate, his uniform neatly pressed, though his eyes were bloodshot and sunken. The boy—the man, Tabor supposed, though junior officers always seemed like boys nowadays—was backed by two stormtroopers whose arms were locked rigid at their sides.
At least
, Tabor thought,
they’re following protocol.
    “At ease,” he said. The trio relaxed their shoulders only a touch.
    “We’re grateful you could come,” the ensign said, and began to lead the way out of the hangar—briskly at first, then abruptly slowing his steps to accommodate Tabor. “If you have anything stowed on the shuttle—”
    “Nothing,” Tabor said. “I was told the prelate wanted to see me?”
    “He’ll be ready for you shortly,” the ensign assured him. “This way, please.”
    The stormtroopers fell in behind Tabor and the ensign as they braved the depths of the ship. Tabor had served aboard Star Destroyers even before they’d earned the name—during the darkest days of the Republic, when shipwrights used to building merchant vessels and gilded yachts had scrambled to learn the arts of war. He’d seen the ships evolve from overwrought behemoths barely able to power their frames to the greatest weapons in the Imperial fleet, each capable of transporting thousands of soldiers or laying waste to continents and orbital platforms. The
Herald
was one of the later designs, postdating Tabor’s active service; though he knew its specifications, he didn’t recognize the high-pitched hum of its engine or the droids that scurried among its data terminals.
    Nor did he recognize the path the ensign followed through the cavernous hallways and operations rooms. As they walked, the ensign kept up a polite but incessant patter, pointing out the ship’s features—its complement of walkers, its updated turbolaser targeting systems—and making a point to inform Tabor where to find the officers’ mess, the crew quarters, and the bridge. He related the ship’s upgrades to triumphs in Tabor’s own career—“I’m sure that extra ten percent efficiency would have been useful at the Battle of Foerost!”—and Tabor humored the boy, nodding approvingly and asking the obvious questions. But his mind wandered.
He’s giving me the whole blasted tour. How long does he think I’m staying?
    “When were you assigned here?” Tabor inquired, barely hearing himself as they marched past duty stations.
    “Four months ago, along with most of the crew.”
    Four months? That surprised Tabor. The ensign wasn’t the only man who looked exhausted. Officers flinched as Tabor walked past, tapping at their consoles frenetically. He saw others slump their shoulders the moment they thought he’d looked away. He recognized a mixture of diligence, fatigue, and suppressed terror typical of men who’d spent
years
behind enemy lines.
    He could have made delicate inquiries, asked about the ship’s recent missions and the background of the officers aboard. Perhaps he still would—it rankled Tabor to see morale in such a state—but that could wait until he was home. The
Herald
was not his ship or his responsibility.
    The tour was mercifully truncated when the ensign left Tabor alone in the conference center with an assurance that the prelate would join him shortly. Tabor took the opportunity to wipe his brow and ingest a tablet the medics had prescribed to calm his innards. He checked the time on a nearby console; at the Academy, it would soon be time for lunch.
    It was nearly an hour before Prelate Verge finally arrived.
    If the ensign had been a boy, the prelate was practically a child—barely twenty years old, at a