Zare decided he’d survive his year at AppSci the day Coach Ramset named him center striker on the grav-ball team. Which was also the day he met Merei.
Practice was over, but Zare was still sitting on the lowest level of the bleachers in his pads and armor, peering down at game footage on his datapad with a grav-ball resting between his feet. He paused the footage and closed his eyes, letting the smell of cut grass fill his nostrils. Maintenance droids were simultaneously mowing the grid and repainting the green-and-white SaberCats logo in its center, chattering at each other when their duties conflicted.
“Congratulations on being named center striker,” someone said in a Core Worlds accent.
Zare was familiar with the clipped, superior tones of the Core, but he’d rarely heard that accent since arriving on Lothal. He opened his eyes and saw a pale, skinny girl with short black hair looking down at him.
“Thanks,” Zare said, trying to recall if he should know her name. “I’m Zare.”
“I know. What game were you watching?”
“Last season’s final Carvers game,” Zare said. “We play them this weekend. I’ve been trying to figure out their patterns. By knowing our opponents, we can hit the grid feeling like we’ve already played them.”
The girl looked skeptical.
“What’s wrong?” asked Zare, a bit annoyed.
“It’s not the same team—half the Carvers have graduated.”
“What’s your name again?” Zare asked, now more than a bit annoyed.
“Merei Spanjaf—from your crop management class.”
“Of course,” Zare said. “I remember now.”
“No, you don’t,” Merei said, plopping herself down next to him. “But that’s okay. Go on—you were telling me your big plan.”
Zare raised an eyebrow at that, then shrugged.
“I’m scouting the Carvers’ coach—not the players. He’s still the same, right? Coaches don’t change their strategies much from one year to the next.”
“Interesting hypothesis,” Merei said. “Are you testing it, or just assuming you’re right?”
“I’m watching the footage, aren’t I?”
“And you know your eyes aren’t deceiving you? You’re sure you haven’t started out with an idea and paid more attention to the facts that fit than the ones that don’t? Because we do that all the time without realizing it.”
“How would you do it, then?” Zare asked. “Since you seem to think I got named center striker despite being blind?”
“Oh, don’t be a baby, Zare,” Merei said with a grin. “Since you asked, I’d classify all the available grav-ball plays, then watch the footage and assign each play to a category, noting the score, position on the grid, and which drive of the series it is. But don’t just do it for last season—that’s too small a sample. Do it for all the seasons under the same coach. Then you’ll have real information. Gut feelings are useful, but data is truth.”
Zare crossed his arms. “And how did you learn so much about grav-ball?”
“By loving it my whole life,” Merei said. “And before you ask, yes, I play. On Corulag I was top kicker in our youth bracket.”
“Corulag, huh? That explains the accent. When did you move to Lothal?”
“A little over a year ago. And you?”
“Beginning of the summer.”
“And do you like it here?” Merei asked.
“Yes,” Zare said, and realized he meant it. “It’s not a space station—that’s an improvement right there. We’ve lived all over the place, assisting sector ag ministries with research projects. I hope we get to stay here for a while. I like the sunshine. And the air.”
“I like those things, too,” Merei said. “How about the people?”
“They seem nice enough,” Zare said warily.
“Yeah, mostly,” Merei said. “But some of the old-timers resent newcomers. They think we’re all Core Worlders come to exploit them and tell them they’re doing everything wrong. Which is true sometimes. But they love grav-ball—and that counts for a lot if you ask me.”
“What variant did you play?”
“Corellian rules. We played indoors, but the grid was the same size as this one.”
“Did you wear hover boots?” Zare asked.
“Never,” Merei said, looking offended. “That’s not real grav-ball.”
Zare must have looked skeptical, because Merei rolled her eyes.
“Oh, just gimme the ball,” she said.
Zare flipped the ball to Merei, who tucked it under one arm and strolled out onto the grid, pausing to push her hair away from her face.
Under the rules played on Lothal, a grav-ball grid was divided lengthwise into eight zones, called octets. The team that won the chance-cube toss started at the center of the grid. They had three drives to move eight meters into the next octet. Succeed and they got three new drives to go another eight meters. Fail and the ball went to the other team, going the other direction.
At either end of the grid was a scoring circle, and at the center of that circle was the goal, a three-meter hoop on a stalk. Putting the ball through the goal by hand or tossing it through from inside the scoring circle was a touch-score, worth four points. Kicking it through the goal from anywhere on the grid was a kick-score, worth two.
The center striker started each play with the ball. He or she could run with the ball, pass it to one of the two other strikers, or hand it to one of the two fullbacks for a carry. Behind the center striker, two defenders and a keeper protected the goal.
Grav-ball was an exhausting, frantic game, with the same players having to alternate offense and defense over three periods. Zare loved the sudden shifts in momentum, the strategies and the satisfaction of outguessing or outplaying an opponent. And here on Lothal he’d discovered he loved it even more played on green grass and under a real sky.
Merei looked down the grid to the goal, nearly thirty meters away. She tossed the ball into the air and drove her foot into it, letting out a huff of effort. Zare watched the ball sail through the goal. It bounced off a maintenance droid, which let out an indignant squeal.
“Good kick,” Zare said when they stopped laughing. “It’s a bit harder with defenders in your face, but good kick. Were you on the squad last year?”
Merei shook her head.
“I don’t like Ramset’s play-calling,” Merei said. “He’s too conservative—it’s mostly carries and he nearly always goes for the trap-kick on third drive, even when he’s within a meter or two of gaining a new octet.”
Zare nodded, keeping his expression neutral. The kicker spent much of the game on the sidelines, coming in when the team needed a kick-score or a trap-kick—kicking the ball to the other team as far down the grid as possible.
Coach Ramset’s conservative ways had bothered him throughout tryouts. But he wasn’t going to tell this strange, pushy girl that.
“Maybe,” Zare said. “But remember Coach only gets one time-out per triad—the center striker runs the offense. So what would you do differently?”
“Everything,” Merei said. “You’re the best player—you’ve got an accurate arm and you can improvise plays under fire. Ramsy was right to make you center striker, at least.”
“Thanks,” Zare muttered, but Merei either didn’t notice or ignored him.
“You’ve got two speedy strikers with good hands in Bennis and Kelio, and a solid defender in Atropos,” she said. “Fullbacks are a little slow off the mark, though Sina’s got a nice sense of the field. As for Ollet, he has good size—he ought to be better than he is. But Plandin is an average keeper at best, and Lazar doesn’t have the range to be kicker. Point is, you should be passing more often to take advantage of your speed, with carries to keep the other guys honest. An offense that uses mostly carries makes sense if you’ve got bigger fullbacks and a keeper who can prevent scores. But you don’t.”
Zare frowned, running a hand through his close-cropped hair. He still wasn’t sure he liked this girl, but her scouting report of the SaberCats matched his.
“And your opinion of Coach Ramset is based on classifying plays, right?” he asked. “Not just your eyes? Because you’ve told me those can’t be trusted.”
“I looked at eight seasons’ worth of footage,” Merei said. “I’ll show you the percentages if you like. Or, if you prefer, I could crunch the numbers on the Carvers and see what strategies come to mind.”
“The game’s in three days,” Zare said, trying not to let Merei hear that he was impressed. “You can really do all that by then?”
“How’s day after tomorrow?”
“Okay,” Zare said. “I’ll look. But on one condition—you try out for kicker.”
Merei grinned and nodded.
Zare’s agricultural-science classes were boring, but the class he really hated was Current Events.
It had sounded good; he’d imagined classroom discussions of the latest reports from the battlefield, with details about slavers and pirates earning their just rewards under the guns of the Imperial Navy. Instead the instructor, Mister Tralls, droned on about Imperial projects on planets Zare had never heard of. He spent most of his time in Current Events poking at his datapad or staring at the recruiting poster for the Imperial Academy and wondering what his sister was doing.
But one morning Zare heard Tralls mention the planet Chrona and looked up, startled.
“Chrona was where the Trade Federation helped engineer a famine,” he said. “They suppressed harvests of crops genetically modified to deliver more nutrients because a healthier population would need fewer medical services—on which they had a monopoly. Productivity on Chrona suffered for years until the Empire nationalized agriculture and reintroduced the modified…Do you have a question, Mister Leonis?”
“Yes, sir,” Zare said. “Um, I’m sorry, sir, but what you just said isn’t correct.”
Heads turned and his fellow students peered curiously at Zare.
“Is that so? What, exactly, was incorrect?”
“Well, sir, the Trade Federation had developed its own modified crops, but they weren’t ready for mass production. They didn’t care about medical services, just their own profit margins. And it was only a year before the new crops were distributed, after the Republic settled the court case in the Trade Federation’s favor.”
A couple of students murmured. Tralls blinked at Zare, a stiff smile on his face.
“It seems Mister Leonis has other news sources than his teacher’s, class,” he said. “Though perhaps we should inquire into where he got this information? Well, Mister Leonis?”
“My parents developed the crops that the Trade Federation suppressed,” Zare said. “They lived on Chrona and testified before the Republic judiciary. My father still complains about the verdict all the time.”
Tralls was silent for a long moment. Someone in the back row laughed.
“But there wasn’t any famine, sir,” Zare said. “My parents would never have pursued the case if it meant people went hungry.”
“I see,” Tralls said. “That was certainly enlightening, Mister Leonis. We’ll discuss it further after class.”
Zare nodded, suddenly aware he’d done something wrong. He felt his cheeks flush.
After the other students filed out, Tralls looked him over, eyes cold.
“Do I draw up plays for you on the grav-ball grid?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Zare said.
“Then perhaps you’ll do me the courtesy of not trying to teach my class.”
“But what you said—”
Tralls folded his arms across his chest.
“Do you wish the Trade Federation were still in business, Leonis?” he asked.
“No! They tried to ruin my family’s work! But—”
“Then perhaps you might think about the point of today’s lesson,” Tralls said. “It wasn’t to exactly represent the motives of a discredited organization in a case that happened years ago, but to demonstrate how that organization’s actions affected the galaxy in the absence of a strong central authority. Progress was impeded, and the welfare of galactic citizens suffered. Do you disagree with either of those points?”
“No, sir,” Zare said. “Of course not.”
“I’m glad we’ve established that,” Tralls said. “Then before you raise your hand next time, think about whether your contribution is a positive one. Dismissed.”
“You can do this, SaberCats,” urged Coach Ramset, his red eyes bright in his green face. “You’ve got to dig deep and find what’s inside. Second drive, six meters to the next octet. Get a new set of drives and we’ll have Merei in range for a kick-score and the win.”
The Duros coach clapped his hands as a cheer rose from the bleachers behind them. “Two minutes left, Sabers. Let’s do this!”
“Right,” said Zare, gulping water on the sidelines, huddled up with his teammates as the final seconds of their coach’s final time-out ticked away. Beck Ollet was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, Frid Kelio’s Rodian features were mottled dark green with fatigue, and Claith Bennis was gasping for breath. But all nodded at Coach Ramset.
“We’re going one-eighty-three omega,” the Duros coach said.
Zare nodded. That play called for faking a carry to Beck but giving the ball instead to Hench Sina, the beefy, tusked Aqualish who was the SaberCats’ weak-side fullback.
He felt Merei stiffen beside him and glanced over. She was rigid with disapproval, feeling the play was too cautious.
“You heard Coach,” Zare said, giving Merei a warning look. “Let’s do this.”
The SaberCats walked back to their positions on the grid, cam droids drifting after them. A roar went up from the bleachers, which were packed with AppSci students and adults in green and white. Zare had expected a handful of onlookers, and been surprised to find the seating bowl around the grid almost completely full.
He looked at the SaberCats’ wing attackers, waiting downfield outside the scoring circle; they weren’t allowed inside it without the ball. He glanced at the Carvers across the drive line, waiting for the play to begin. Then his eyes jumped to the scoreboard: APPSCI 36 WEST CAP CITY 36.
Go for four, settle for two, Zare thought. Make it happen.
Beck and Hench crouched down in front of him and he yelled, “March!” Beck faked turning to take the ball as Zare pressed it into Hench’s hands, then shoved the brawny Aqualish forward into the Carvers. The two of them chugged forward, feet digging at the grass. They gained two meters, then maybe one more. Then impact, pain, and stillness.
He heard the groan from the stands and knew before he even looked up: they were short of the next octet, with just one drive left. If they failed to gain three meters on this next play, they’d have to surrender the ball.
Zare looked over at Coach Ramset, saw him point to his foot and send Merei onto the grid, replacing Bennis. Ramset wanted the trap-kick: Merei would kick the ball deep to the Carvers, forcing them to begin their own attack with a long way to go and a minute and a half remaining.
Merei joined the huddle and Zare clapped her on the shoulder.
“Trap-kick offense, boys—keep them off our kicker,” he said. “Then we’ll stop them on defense.”
“Zare, it’s not going to work,” Merei said. “You’re all tired, and their wing attackers have been outrunning us all day. They’ll score and we won’t have enough time to go back down the grid to tie.”
“You’re not the coach,” Zare said.
“But you know I’m right,” Merei said. “We’ve studied the Carvers, Zare. They always guard against a pass on this play and send defenders to the strong side. Every time.”
“I’m not tired,” Beck protested, but his pale face was flushed and his light blond hair was dark with sweat.
Zare glanced at the scoreboard, frowning. Then he nodded at Merei.
“I’m glad you’re not tired, Ollet,” he said to Beck. “Because you’re getting the ball. I’m going to fake to Merei and send you up the weak side, with me and Sina blocking. We’ll get a new set of drives, use up the clock, and kick for the win. But we’ve got to make the Carvers believe the fake. We’ve got to sell it. Now let’s go!”
The SaberCats clapped hands and settled into their positions. Zare looked over Hench’s shoulder at the Carvers. Their eyes were on Merei, behind him in position to kick. He bellowed, “March!” and felt Beck duck behind him. He thrust the ball into Beck’s outstretched hands and rammed his shoulder forward, alongside Hench. He felt the crunch of impact, the Carvers defending them stumbled, and then they were chugging down the grid with Beck in the middle as the crowd roared. Ahead of him, the Carver defenders rushed to intercept, the keeper crouched to defend the goal.
The scoreboard told him there was one minute and eighteen seconds left in the game.
“OLLET, GET OFF THE GRID!” Zare yelled as he and a defender came together with a crunch of armor.
If the SaberCats scored too quickly, the Carvers would get the ball back with plenty of time to tie—and the SaberCats were too tired to stop them. Lying in the grass entangled with the Carver defender, Zare saw Beck take a hasty right turn and cross the boundary, ending the play and stopping the clock.
“Trick play,” the Carver player said disgustedly.
“You just wish you’d thought of it,” Zare said as he helped the other boy to his feet.
Lining up at the fifth octet, Zare glanced at the sidelines and saw Coach Ramset with his hands on his hips. Beside him, Merei grinned and pumped her fist. Zare saluted her.
“Carry plays,” he told his teammates. “Keep it simple, burn up that clock, and give Merei a nice short kick for the win.”
The SaberCats were exhausted, but the Carvers were now demoralized. Zare and his teammates pushed through the fifth octet in two plays then ran two more plays that brought them near the end of the sixth octet, without risking a pass that a Carver defender might snatch out of the air. On the third drive, with two seconds left in the game, Zare turned and signaled for Merei.
Zare lingered under the sanisteam, letting the heat work the fatigue out of his muscles. He wound up leaving the locker room at the same time as Beck, who was pressing a spray-bandage over his forehead.
“Good game, man,” the big fullback said. “Way to control the clock.”
“Thanks,” Zare said. “Couldn’t have done it without your big carry.”
“Or Spanjaf’s kick,” Beck said. “Where’d you find her?”
“More like she found me,” Zare said as they arrived at their parked jumpspeeders.
“Yeah, I bet,” Beck said, then grinned. “She seems pretty capable.”
“Yeah, she does,” Zare said, wondering why he found Beck’s smile suddenly annoying. “We live on the west side. Where do you live?”
“Just this side of the marketplace,” Beck said.
“We’re neighbors, then.”
“Guess so.” Beck frowned. “I still can’t keep Capital City straight. I grew up in the Westhills—ran a jogan orchard with my folks. We moved here in the spring. This town…it’s a bit big for me.”
Zare nodded. “Our last home was Hosk Station—I’m still getting used to looking up and seeing sky.”
Beck grimaced. “Sounds awful.”
Zare shrugged. “Just different. Why did you move?”
“Because the Empire was paying premium credits for orchards and farms,” Beck said. “Guess I can’t blame my folks for taking the offer, but I wish they hadn’t. Still, the grav-ball grid here’s a lot nicer than my old school’s. Bennis said that’s Fhurek’s doing.”
“Fhurek?”
“Janus Fhurek—you’ve seen him talking to Ramsy on the sidelines. Skinny guy, kind of a red face. Bennis warned me that you don’t want to get on his bad side.”
“So he’s the headmaster, then?” Zare asked. “But I thought the headmaster’s name was…”
Beck brayed laughter.
“That’s right, you’re not from Lothal,” he said. “Fhurek’s the athletic director—around here that’s a lot more powerful than headmaster. Think of this place as a junior sports organization that also happens to be a school. Grav-ball every weekend in the fall and winter, chin-bret every weekend in the spring—that’s what puts the parents and the alums in the stands. And all the while, new ag specialists and Academy cadets are getting trained.”
“Academy cadets?” Zare asked.
“Sure,” Beck said. “Fhurek’s tight with the Academy administrators—a lot of officers have started off here. And a lot of stormtroopers, too, if that’s what you want to do with your life.”
Zare shot his teammate an annoyed look.
“My sister’s an Academy cadet,” he said.
Beck shrugged. “No offense meant—I don’t have anything against the Academy. It’s just a little too regimented for me, that’s all.”
“And then Merei sent it right through the goal. SaberCats thirty-eight, Carvers thirty-six, game over,” Zare said into his headset. “You should have seen it, sis—it was beautiful.”
Dhara laughed, smiling at him over the datapad link.
“Sounds great. But was the coach mad that you didn’t use his play?”
“Oh, I’d be in the soup if we’d lost,” Zare said. “But we didn’t. Thanks to Merei, and Beck.”
“And you,” Dhara said. “I think you had something to do with it.”
“I suppose so,” Zare said, then grinned. “How’s the Academy?”
Dhara blew out her breath and rolled her eyes.
“I’m glad orientation is over and I can talk to you guys again. It’s drills and more drills, and then some drills. Running drills, and agility drills, and weapons drills, and drills about drills. But I swear I’m already stronger and faster.”
“And tireder,” Zare said.
“Auntie Nags would say that isn’t a word,” Dhara said. “Seriously, though—it’s hard but I like it. This is all I ever wanted to do—give back to the Empire. And now I get to do it.”
“And I’m still waiting.”
“Sounds tough, Mister Grav-Ball Star! Now tell me about this Beck. Have you gotten to know him at all? Or is he just the fullback?”
“I talked with him a little bit last night,” Zare said. “He’s third-generation Lothal—his parents just sold their orchard to the Imperial Agricultural Collective and moved here. I think he’s a little homesick. He’s almost as big as Ames, but…well, there’s more going on upstairs.”
“Oh, don’t be mean, Zare.”
“Sorry,” Zare said. “How is Ames, anyway?”
“Good, I think,” Dhara said. “I haven’t seen him much since orientation, except during assessments. He’s specializing in ground tactics and I’m mostly taking officer-training classes—there’s an internship at Imperial headquarters that I really want to get. But I’ll say hi for you next time I see him. Now I want to know about Merei.”
“What’s to know? She came from Corulag with her family a year ago.”
“Oh? What ministry are they part of?”
“None—they’re data-security specialists. Contractors to a bunch of ministries.”
“She’d love it here, then. Security is crazy. For instance, there are datapads that can’t be taken out of certain rooms without a sensor firing and the whole Academy going on lockdown.”
“Merei would hate that,” Zare said. “Unless we’re on the grav-ball grid, she’s never without her datapad. She’s an information junkie.”
Dhara waited, then raised her eyebrows in that infuriating way she had.
“And that’s it?” she asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, I think you do,” Dhara said. “I get a feeling you like her.”
“She’s my teammate,” Zare said, exasperated—and annoyed that his face suddenly felt warm. “And my lab partner.”
“Sounds like you have chemistry together,” Dhara said.
That took Zare a second.
“And this sounds like I’m hanging up on you,” he said, as his sister laughed.
The next morning, Zare woke up to find a message on his datapad: Athletic Director Fhurek wanted to see him in his office during his first free period.
Zare walked down the path from the classroom building to the athletic complex. Fhurek’s office was upstairs, above Coach Ramset’s. The athletic director’s walls were covered with commendations and holos, many of them showing him standing next to high-ranking local Imperials.
“Is that you, sir?” Zare asked, peering at a holo of a ruddy-faced young man in grav-ball armor.
Fhurek smiled.
“Good eyes, Leonis,” he said. “Yes, that was forty-odd years ago. Fury Fhurek, they called me. Started at strong-side striker and moved up to center striker. I held the AppSci record for completed passes until an alien broke it a few years ago.”
Fhurek looked at the image of his younger self for a moment, then smiled at Zare.
“But I didn’t bring you here to relive my schoolboy heroics,” he said. “Sit down, Leonis. First off, I wanted to congratulate you on being named center striker, and the admirable leadership you’ve shown so far. I know you intend to enter the Academy next year, and I have friends in the administration—friends who appreciate the importance of the lessons we teach here in our athletics programs. I will make sure they know about what you accomplish at AppSci.”
“Thank you, sir,” Zare said. “That means a lot to me. My sister’s a new cadet this year and I can’t wait to join her.”
“Dhara Leonis—I know,” Fhurek said. “I hear she’s doing well. Your family should be very proud of you both. And how is it playing for Coach Ramset?”
Zare’s eyes skittered over the holos, his instinct for honesty and his loyalty to his coach briefly at war in his mind. But he knew the latter was more important.
“Well, we’re still figuring out strategies and play-calling,” he said. “But I like playing for Coach Ramset—everybody does. And he’s a good teacher.”
Fhurek nodded.
“Good, good. What I’ve always loved about grav-ball is the coach teaches, but then it’s up to the center striker to win the game. In a way, it reminds me of what we’re trying to do here on Lothal.”
“How’s that, sir?”
“Ministers on Coruscant make plans for the Empire, but it’s planets like Lothal where those plans are put into effect. Out here we’re still ramping up production—of agricultural goods, of course, but also of minerals and other resources. At the same time, we’re introducing the populace to the benefits of Imperial citizenship—and the responsibilities. We need to discover which alien and immigrant elements better our society, and which are undesirable. Quite a challenge, wouldn’t you say, Leonis?”
“I suppose so, sir,” Zare said.
“You’re new here—you’ll understand soon,” Fhurek said. “The point is, the future of the Empire will be built here, on planets like this one. In the Outer Rim we may lack some of the history and culture of the Core, but we’re free to create a new order, one without the constraints of that past. That new order starts with the young, Leonis—at the Academy, but also right here on the grav-ball grid. The SaberCats are your team to help shape—your own new order to create.”
Zare hesitated. Yes, he was center striker. But no center striker ever won a game alone; it took a team to do that.
Fhurek saw his uncertainty and leaned forward, eyes fixed on Zare.
“I know that seems like a tall order, Leonis,” Fhurek said. “And it demands both compassion and toughness. If I can help you figure it out, it would be my pleasure.”
The chime finally sounded just as Zare was convinced he’d actually fall asleep in Crop Management and get his first demerit of the year.
“I can’t believe how boring that was,” he grumbled as he and Merei walked down the hall, passing AppSci students in a mixture of work coveralls and SaberCats jackets. They’d become friends over the first month of school, progressing from nodding at each other when they passed in the hall to waiting for each other so they could catch up between periods.
“Boring?” Merei asked. “Even the stuff about seeding clouds with enzymes? I thought the graph showing how nutrient output rose but then crashed was fascinating.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Zare asked, holding the door open and following Merei into study hall. “Nutrients, fertilizer…my parents love that stuff, but all I want is to get it over with and join my sister at the Academy.”
“I was talking about information, not farming,” Merei said as they sat at a table and pulled their datapads out of their satchels. “Information is power—and just like on the grav-ball grid, you can use that power.”
“To do what? Maximize jogan-fruit yields?”
Merei looked around the room for a moment.
“Let me show you something,” she said. “But not from my school account. I need to go through a service that makes me anonymous.”
“You’re not going to do anything illegal, are you?” Zare asked.
“Shhh,” Merei said. “Tell the whole Outer Rim, why don’t you? No, nothing illegal—but I don’t want anyone monitoring network activity to think otherwise.”
“What if you get caught?” Zare asked.
“Please,” Merei said. “My mom and dad are data-security experts, remember? Give me some credit.”
Zare found himself watching her. She typed incredibly quickly, her fingers moving gracefully over her datapad without ever seeming to miss a key, and while he was still reading what was on the screen her eyes had devoured the available information and found the most important part, sending her fingers dancing across the keys again.
When he’d met her, he’d thought Merei was plain. But something about the way she arched her eyebrows made him want her to do it again. And then there was the way one corner of her mouth zoomed upward right before she laughed….
He shook his head.
Where did that come from?
“Whoever set up the Empire’s network on Lothal was more concerned with speed than security,” Merei said. “It’s stuff like this that’s been giving my parents heart attacks. Like AppSci’s computers are linked to the entire Imperial network—not just the ag ministry, but transportation, security, and everything else. You can’t see anything super sensitive, but look at this. These are records of TIE fighter patrols—assigned routes, flight duration, and so on. Now let’s graph the flight paths on a map of the area around Capital City. Take a look.”
Zare saw a tangle of lines that looped between intersecting points.
“Here’s us, and here’s the main air base,” Merei said, gesturing at the datapad’s surface. “Now, look at the flight paths and take a guess where the fuel depots and recharge terminals are.”
“Here, here, and here,” Zare said, tapping the places where the loops converged.
“Three out of three,” Merei said with a smile and a wiggle of her eyebrows. “Pretty good, Mister Leonis.”
“Thanks. But so what? Everybody knows where the depots are.”
“Everybody on Lothal knows. But someone from another star system could figure out the same information even if they’ve never set foot on this planet. Now look more closely at the flight paths. Guess which spots the Empire is most concerned about?”
Zare narrowed his eyes and pointed at several spots covered by multiple flight paths from different origins.
“Right again,” Merei said. “You just found the Sienar flight lab, the governor’s complex, and the ag ministry, and the minerals ministry—here comes Beck.”
Zare’s eyes jumped among the points he’d identified.
“I see what you mean. But then what’s at this point? And at this one out to the west?”
“I don’t know,” Merei said, restarting her datapad. “But whatever those things are, someone’s pretty interested in them. Where have you been, Beck?”
Beck settled into the seat next to them with a sigh.
“Fieldwork,” he said wearily, closing his eyes. “You spend the morning trying to administer a sedative to nerfs. I’m sure I stink.”
“I didn’t want to say anything, pal, but that would be an accurate statement,” Zare said, wrinkling his nose at the sharp tang of nerf sweat clinging to the big fullback.
Beck shrugged. “They don’t call it Applied Sciences for nothing, you know. But yeah, I’ll take jogan blossoms over a bunch of nerfs any day. The orchards on a warm autumn night? Sweetest smelling place in the whole galaxy.”
He frowned at the memory, his eyes far away. Which gave Zare an idea.
“Hey, Merei, AppSci’s part of the ag ministry network, right?” Zare asked, trying to sound casual. “Does that mean you can see information about the Ollets’ old place?”
“I could call up general information for the area—crop yields and stuff like that,” Merei said. “That part of the network is open to AppSci students for schoolwork.”
“I’d like to see that,” Beck said, standing to look over Merei’s shoulder. “Harvest begins in just a couple of weeks.”
“Perfect,” Zare said. “You get to peek in on the old homestead and Merei gets to talk to someone who actually cares about farm reports.”
Merei stuck her tongue out at Zare but asked Beck for the coordinates and started tapping and clicking through menus with a speed neither boy could follow.
“This is where your family lived, right?” she asked.
“Yep,” Beck said, peering at the map. “There’s the river, and the hills, and the farmhouse is right here, in this valley. Hmmm. These are expected crop yields, right? They look low, but it was a dry summer with weird dust storms that rolled in from the west.”
Zare pulled out his datapad, thinking anything would be better than hearing Beck and Merei discussing crop yields.
“But what’s this symbol?” Beck asked.
Zare peeked over at Merei’s datapad. Beck was pointing at a blinking green cross. Merei pursed her lips and started typing.
“It’s a land-use symbol,” she said. “I found it—the area’s been classified as ‘RECODED FOR EXTRACTION/REUSE.’”
“That’s got to be wrong,” Beck said. “The jogan-fruit harvest is a tradition here.”
“I’m sure it is wrong,” Merei said. “Probably some clerk in the ag ministry entered the wrong symbol. I’ll flag it for review so they can change it.”
“Thanks,” Beck said. He looked at the screen and smiled. “If we beat the Green Dragons this weekend, I’ll take you out to see the orchards. You city kids need to see the real Lothal.”
The Green Dragons were no match for the SaberCats. Zare spent the whole day throwing to Bennis and Kelio for touch-scores, while Merei used well-placed trap-kicks to maroon them deep in their own territory. The SaberCats won by twenty-six, moving to 4–0 on the season, and as they came off the grid Fhurek locked eyes with Zare and pumped his fist. Zare grinned and saluted in response.
The next day, Zare met Merei and Beck on jumpspeeders. They donned their helmets and goggles and headed west. The mushroom-shaped bulk of Imperial headquarters and the other towers of Capital City shrank behind them and disappeared, leaving the three of them riding along the ferrocrete road through the grasslands, interrupted every few minutes by old landing beacons. Their towers were now abandoned, pitted with rust and creaking slightly in the wind.
The day was warm, and Zare enjoyed the way the wind rippled and dappled the fields, creating momentary patterns of light and dark green that ebbed and flowed around them. With Beck in the lead, they rode for about forty-five minutes, until hills appeared on the horizon. The hills grew until Zare could see they were covered with a mix of low shrubs and trees.
They topped a low rise and the land ahead dipped down to a white thread of fast-moving river that separated the grasslands from the hills beyond. A durasteel bridge spanned the river, barely wide enough to let a landspeeder pass. A ribbon of orange flexi-tape blocked the way across.
Beck eased up on the throttle and his jumpspeeder came to a halt. Zare raised his goggles.
“This is the Barchetta River,” Beck said, parking his speeder. “And those are the Westhills on the other side. My family’s orchards are right up there. But I don’t know why the bridge is out.”
Someone had affixed a sign to the flexi-tape.
“‘Scheduled for demolition,’” Beck said. “It says to cross four kilometers south. But there’s no bridge there.”
Something whined above, and Zare turned to see a trio of TIE fighters following the line of the river, perhaps a hundred meters above the water. He nudged Merei and the two of them waved at the fighters, cheering when the leader waggled his solar panels in response. They kept waving as the fighters shrank and disappeared to the south.
Beck was still scowling at the sign.
“They must have built a new bridge downriver,” Zare said.
“I guess,” Beck said. “Only one way to find out.”
They followed a road along the river and soon found the new crossing, which was wide enough for a freight transport.
“See?” Zare asked.
Beck nodded, then looked upriver unhappily. “I used to fish from that bridge with my pop. And now they’re going to knock it down?”
Merei glanced at Zare.
“Progress means change, Beck, and that can be hard,” she said. “The Empire will make your family’s old lands feed more people. But that means you need bigger transports to bring the crops in for harvesting. And that means you need bigger bridges.”
“You don’t have to talk down to me, you know,” Beck said. “I may be out in the fields with the nerfs while you’re crunching numbers, but we go to the same school.”
“I didn’t mean—” Merei said.
“Forget it,” Beck said. “Look, I’m glad the Empire’s improving the harvest, but my family didn’t just get here—when we planted the orchards you still carried a blaster because of Loth-wolves. So this isn’t just numbers to me, Merei—it’s home. Yeah, I get why they need a new bridge. But why can’t they leave the old one, too?”
Beck shook his head. “At least it’s still the same river. Come on—even with the detour we’re only a few minutes from the orchards.”
The Ollets’ homestead was tucked in a hollow of the hills, behind a gate at the end of a pitted road. Beck lifted the latch on the gate and nodded for Zare and Merei to follow, leaving the jumpspeeders at the road.
“It’s beautiful here,” Merei said.
Zare nodded. It was cool and shady under the trees, and the air was perfumed with something bright and sweet. Beck saw him sniffing and grinned.
“That’s jogan blossom,” he said. “Like I said, sweetest-smelling place in the galaxy.”
A rambling single-story house was set deeper beneath the trees, boarded up but intact. Beck stopped and looked at it for a moment, his chin quivering. Merei put her hand on his shoulder.
Zare started to say something, then paused. He’d heard a sound in the distance, like a twig snapping. As he turned to look, harsh barks erupted from beneath the trees. Several squat, yellow-furred creatures were running down the path toward them, sharp teeth bared. Spit flew from their mouths as they snarled and snapped.
“Look out—neks!” Zare yelped. But he realized almost immediately that it was too late; the speedy neks would reach them before they could retreat to the gate. He looked around frantically for something to hold them off—a stone or a fallen branch.
“Hold! Hold up there!” someone bellowed.
The neks came to an abrupt halt a few meters away from them and pawed the ground unhappily, growling. Behind them, a man in worn clothes came down the path, blaster rifle raised.
“Whoa, take it easy,” Beck said, putting his arms in the air. Merei and Zare did the same.
The man kept the rifle trained on them. He had lank black hair and a patchy beard.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “You’re trespassing.”
Beck put his hands on his hips. “Beck Ollet. I lived here until the spring. I brought my friends from Capital City to show them where I grew up.”
The man frowned, then lowered the rifle. He whistled at the neks, who reluctantly trotted back up the hillside, turning to give Zare and his friends a last suspicious look.
“Grew up in Kinpany Gap myself,” the man said. “They’ve started mining it now, y’know—everybody’s sold out. Got a job providing security while the droid pickers are at work.”
“Droid pickers?” Beck asked. “That work’s too delicate for droids. And it’s weeks too early to pick jogan.”
The man shrugged.
“I’m just here to guard the place. Look, I guess it’s okay for you to look around a bit. But do it fast—I don’t need any trouble.”
Beck nodded and led Zare and Merei up the path. After a minute they emerged in a field beneath the blue sky, one divided into neat lines of squat jogan trees. Maroon flowers drooped from the gnarled branches beside pale purple fruit that was crisscrossed with wavy white lines.
Black harvester droids were working their way down the trees, red photoreceptors peering at the fruit. Graspers snatched clumsily at the branches and cutting tools sheared away the fruit, which thudded into buckets.
“No, no,” Beck muttered. “This is all wrong.”
Zare had never seen a jogan orchard, but he could tell immediately that Beck was right. One of the droids finished its work and backed away from a stripped tree, dragging its bucket behind it with one grasper. The ground was littered with broken branches and misshapen fruit.
“They’re ruining everything,” Beck said, hands balled into fists.
“Beck, take it easy,” Merei said. “We all know there’s no use arguing with droids. When we get back to Capital City we can file a report with the Ag Ministry. You can help them understand how to handle next year’s harvest differently—how to make progress.”
“Progress,” Beck muttered, blinking as he looked over the ravaged orchard.
Beck was silent whenever Zare passed him in the halls of AppSci that week, but he took to the practice grid like he was possessed, leveling several of their teammates in drills. The week ended with a home game against the East City Brawlers, the fifth in the SaberCats season. Both Zare and Merei knew the Brawlers would be a tough opponent: they had two burly fullbacks and a coach whose strategies followed no predictable pattern.
What Zare hadn’t counted on was the ref.
In the last period, with AppSci up by two, Hench dropped the ball on a carry and Zare scrambled after it, wrapping it protectively in his arms as the Brawlers tried to pry it loose. He heard the chime indicating the play was over, got to one knee—and was driven into the turf by one of the East City fullbacks.
“What was that poodoo?” Beck roared at the offending Brawler, hauling a woozy Zare to his feet. The crowd was booing, and Zare could hear Coach Ramset and Merei screaming from the sidelines.
“Back to the line,” the ref said, a cam droid hovering over his shoulder. Zare had a sudden urge to smash the curious little machine.
“Sir, that’s contact after the chime,” he said quietly to the ref. “It’s got to be a foul.”
“Maybe on whatever fancy planet you come from, kid, but on Lothal we call it smashmouth grav-ball,” the ref yelled, loud enough for the other SaberCats to turn and stare at him. “Now get back to the line or I’ll penalize you for an on-field delay.”
Zare looked at him for a moment, then turned his back.
“Huddle up!” he barked at his teammates. They stared at him through the protective bars of their green-and-white helmets. Beck was wild-eyed with fury.
“Don’t let it rattle you,” Zare said, staring at each of the other SaberCats in turn. “We’re up by two, three minutes to go. Go down the grid for a touch-score and we’re up by six and they’re beaten. Or if we get the kick-score, they have to come all the way back for a touch to tie. Keep your cool and we’ve got this.”
The SaberCats marched down the grid, gaining hard-fought octet after hard-fought octet, until they were just outside the eighth octet and the scoring circle. It was third drive. Zare glanced at Bennis and Kelio, taking positions right outside the circle, with the Brawlers’ keeper flicking his eyes between them. Even if the SaberCats didn’t score here, crossing into the eighth octet would give them three plays to try again.
“Sixty-four delta,” Zare said—he’d hand off to Beck behind the line and the fullback would either run it into the scoring circle for an attempted touch-score or heave it to Frid Kelio on the wing.
The SaberCats crouched down and Zare yelled “March!” Bodies crashed into each other all around him and a Brawler threw him to the turf and landed on his back. He heard cheers and shoved the other boy away, getting to his knees to see Frid with his arms raised in triumph. The ball lay behind the goal and the Brawlers’ keeper had his head down in despair.
Then Zare heard the cheers turn to gasps, and the sound of three chimes.
He turned and saw Beck on the ground, pummeling one of the Brawlers. Zare rushed to pull the fullback off the other player and got caught in a scrum, with everybody pushing and shoving.
“AppSci 23 is ejected!” the ref screamed, pointing at Beck. “Major misconduct foul! That means no goal—East City gets the ball at center grid!”
“It was a late hit!” Beck roared at the man. “You saw it! Just like you saw the last one! You’re crooked as a kriffing Hutt!”
“Off the field, 23!” the ref yelled. “Or I’ll have you suspended!”
Zare grabbed the back of Beck’s uniform and started hauling the enraged fullback away from the play, signaling Coach Ramset for a substitute.
“You can’t lose your cool like that,” he said to Beck. “You just can’t!”
“We’re just supposed to sit there and get fouled? There’s no point playing if the game’s rigged, Zare!”
Three plays later, with a simmering Beck watching from the sidelines, a Brawler stiff-armed Hench, leaped over Zare’s outstretched arms, and raced down the grid for an easy score as time expired.
Visiting Day at the Imperial Academy meant Zare had to cram himself into a formal tunic and endure both his mother and Auntie Nags attending to his hair despite his protests.
“Mom, enough!” Zare yelped. “We’re going to see Dhara, not the Emperor!”
“You are a prospective cadet,” Auntie Nags scolded, photoreceptors flashing yellow. “That means you must look your best!”
Zare finally managed to escape the nanny droid, and a half hour later he and his parents walked through the main entrance of the Imperial Academy, accompanied by other parents and siblings looking equal parts nervous and proud. Then protocol droids ushered the visitors into an amphitheater hung with banners emblazoned with the Imperial sigil. The anthem of the Empire began to play and everyone got hastily to their feet as cadets marched onto the stage from either side in immaculate white uniforms, gray trousers, and black boots.
Zare was the first to spot Dhara, but as always she’d already spotted him. Zare didn’t know how she did that. When they were kids he’d refused to play find-and-seek with her because she’d find him almost instantly. A grin split Dhara’s face as she saw her brother pointing at her and she winked before resuming her serious expression.
After Commandant Aresko finished speaking, the cadets filed off the stage and joined their guests. Zare waited until his parents had greeted Dhara, then hugged his sister. She stepped back, smiled, then squeezed him again.
“It’s only been a month but I swear you’re taller,” she said. “Must be all the grav-ball heroics.”
“No heroics yesterday,” Zare said, still fuming about the loss to East City.
“Mom told me,” Dhara said. “Win or lose, you’ll be glad for it—you may not think of it this way, but you’re already training to be an officer. Teamwork, leadership, strategy, discipline—that’s what we’re taught here every day.”
“At least we get to talk to you,” Tepha Leonis said. “Pari Bunkle hasn’t been able to speak with Ames since he entered stormtrooper basic training—and she was told she couldn’t visit.”
Dhara nodded. “Stormtrooper training is crazy stuff. Glad I didn’t get chosen to specialize in it. Though if I ever have to lead troops into battle, at least I’ll know what it was like to wear a bucket and armor.”
“That’s right,” Leo said. “You’ll know what you’re asking your soldiers to do. That makes for a better leader.”
“Don’t talk about war, either of you,” Tepha said. “I want you nice and safe, Dhara, and far from any kind of battlefield. And that goes for you, too, Zare.”
Zare rolled his eyes.
“But enough about the Academy,” Dhara said. “I want to know what’s happening at home. Sounds like you had an unhappy adventure out west, little brother.”
“Yes,” Tepha said with a sigh. “Someone in the ag ministry’s made a mistake. I followed up on the report that Zare’s friend Merei filed, but I didn’t get anywhere. They’re insisting that area be recoded for mineral extraction.”
“We’ve been over this,” Leo said. “It’s a matter of perspective. Lothal’s too far from the trade routes to ship jogan-fruit profitably, and there’s enough supply already for local needs. That area’s more valuable for mining.”
“I know what the numbers say, Leo,” Tepha said. “But sometimes it feels like those numbers have no room for growing things, or people.”
Leo was shaking his head, becoming agitated.
“Like I told Zare, this is about people,” he said. “It’s about maximizing Lothal’s value for all Imperial citizens, not just those who live here.”
“Tell that to Beck,” Leo said.
“Invite him over and I will,” his father replied. “The men and women who run the Empire have to think of the well-being of the entire galaxy, not just one planet—let alone one orchard. That’s what your sister’s learning to do here, and apparently it’s what you need to do, too, Zare.”
The four were silent for an awkward moment.
“So that went well,” Dhara said with a laugh. “Let’s try again. How’s Auntie Nags?”
Zare chuckled. “I have to send her out of the room before I tell Mom and Dad about grav-ball practice. She says it sounds dangerous. And dirty.”
“I agree with her about the dangerous part,” Tepha said with a scowl. “Fourteen-year-old children playing full-contact grav-ball? I’m all for sports as part of a good education, but people on this planet are crazy.”
“Oh, Mom, enough!” Zare moaned.
Dhara laughed again. “Dirty and dangerous, huh? And which one of those does Auntie Nags consider worse?”
“I think it’s a tie,” Zare said.
Before practice the next day, Zare stopped by Fhurek’s office.
“Sir, do you have a minute?” he asked.
“Of course, Leonis,” the athletic director said. “Sit down. Tough break against East City.”
“I’m not sure I’d call it that, sir,” Zare said. “That’s what I wanted to talk with you about. We had that game won, and then…well, and then Beck turned it into a defeat by losing his temper.”
“Passion is part of grav-ball,” Fhurek said.
“Right. I know that, sir. And I don’t want to take that away from Beck—he needs it to be effective. But he can’t lose control like that—it puts everything we’ve worked for as a team in jeopardy.”
“Yes,” Fhurek said. “Teamwork, leadership, strategy, discipline—a grav-ball squad needs all of them to succeed.”
Zare cocked his head, curious. Then he remembered: Dhara had said much the same thing at the Academy on Visiting Day.
“Leonis?” Fhurek asked. “I was asking you which quality success starts with.”
“Oh? Sorry.”
Zare considered the question.
“Teamwork,” he said. “An average team that works together will beat a good team that doesn’t. Take Hench, for example. He may not have Beck’s talent, but I don’t need to worry about him when I call a play at the line—I know he’ll do his job and execute, regardless of the score, the refs, or anything else.”
“Are you talking about the Aqualish?”
“Yes,” Zare said. “Hench Sina.”
“Right, that’s the name,” Fhurek said. “He strikes me as a brute-force fullback and nothing more.”
“Really? I don’t see Hench that way at all, sir.”
“Perhaps you need to watch more carefully in practice then, Leonis,” Fhurek said. “Don’t get me wrong—a fullback who’ll smash his head into a durasteel wall is valuable, in his way. But to win week in and week out, you need players with not just passion but also tactical intelligence.”
Zare looked at the athletic director, puzzled. He’d come in here to discuss Beck, who’d lost a game by taking a stupid penalty, and instead Fhurek was running down a SaberCats player who’d done nothing wrong—and who’d shown Zare the very qualities Fhurek said the team needed.
“Right, sir,” Zare said. “Anyway, I was wondering if you had advice for dealing with the discipline issue.”
Fhurek brightened.
“Certainly,” he said. “I asked you which quality was the most important one for success, and you said teamwork. But that’s not correct, Leonis. It’s leadership. Players—people—need to be led. They need to be taught—to execute strategies, to be disciplined, but most of all to obey. Remind your players of that, and you shouldn’t have any more problems. And if you think a player can’t be taught, then you have to consider if you’d be better off without them.”
“I don’t see any problem there, sir,” Zare said.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Fhurek said. “But keep your eyes open—a good leader doesn’t let affection for his players blind him to their shortcomings. You understand that, right, Zare?”
“Absolutely,” Zare said, thinking of Beck’s abilities—and his anger.
“Good,” Fhurek said. “Now go out there and lead.”
When he hit the grid, Zare called Beck over to the sidelines and warned him that he planned to ride him all week about not getting lured into fouls against the Thrashers, the SaberCats’ next opponent. Beck rolled his eyes, but to Zare’s relief the message seemed to get through: he was eerily calm in every practice that week, rehearsing plays with icy effectiveness.
When the next game began, Zare caught sight of the Thrashers’ two long-armed wing strikers and he allowed himself a moment of worry. But their center striker’s throws were erratic and their fullbacks kept turning the wrong way and missing tackles. Beck, meanwhile, looked like a different player: he ignored all fouls and provocations while shoving his opponents around the field. Merei got the scoring started with a pair of early kick-scores, and by the third period the Thrashers were exhausted, shoulders slumped as Zare connected with Bennis or Kelio to gain a new octet or sent Beck or Hench rumbling across the grid. The final score was SaberCats 44, Thrashers 18, and it didn’t feel even that close.
Beck joined the other SaberCats in singing the AppSci fight song on the speeder bus back to Capital City, but when Zare and Merei exited with their equipment bags, he surprised them.
“I was thinking of taking another ride out to the orchards,” he said. “You two want to come along?”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Merei asked as they tossed their bags on the hover-truck with the other SaberCats’ gear.
“I just want to take another look,” Beck said. “It might be the last time. Besides, it’s even more beautiful in the moonlight.”
Zare glanced at Merei and saw his own doubt reflected in her face. She raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips, and he knew what she was thinking: If he’s going to go anyway, maybe we can keep him out of trouble.
“Okay, but just a quick look,” Zare said. “If I’m too late Auntie Nags will send stormtroopers out after me.”
“Great,” Beck said. “I just need to get something from my locker. Meet you at the jumpspeeders.”
Lothal was even more beautiful at night; that much Zare had to admit. One of the moons hung low in the western sky, and above their heads the stars were spilled across the heavens like some deity had thrown them there. It was amazing to think that one government controlled all of that, and that Zare and his family were a small part of its efforts.
Construction droids had been at work; beyond the new bridge a widened road now led up into the hills, almost all the way to the Ollets’ old homestead. The three friends walked their jumpspeeders along the old road and left them outside the gate. Choruses of insects filled the darkness with song, and the silhouettes of night-hunting avians swooped across the stars.
Beck took a clear polybag out of his jumpspeeder’s cargo carrier. Zare saw it was full of meat.
“Dosed with nerf sedative,” Beck explained when he saw his friends’ curious expressions. “Relax—I just want to be able to look around without getting tooth marks on us.”
He lifted the gate and motioned for Merei and Zare to follow. The path leading to the orchard was a pale thread in the moonlight.
Merei was the first to see the shadowy figures moving down the lines of the jogan trees. But these weren’t neks—they were people. When the intruders heard Merei’s startled cry, they raced for the deeper woods to the south, crashing through the jogan branches as they went.
Zare squeezed Merei’s shoulder, suddenly aware of how close she was to him. She looked up at him, their faces just a few centimeters apart, then turned away. Zare started to say something, but saw Beck had moved into the orchard and was crouched beside a dark shape.
“Come on,” Zare said to Merei. In the moonlight he could see the dark shapes were squat droids, apparently deactivated. They had powerful arms that ended in flat metal disks.
“Those aren’t harvester units,” Zare said.
“No, they’re seismic surveyors,” Merei said. “They use their instruments to create a 3-D map of the rock formations beneath the surface.”
“Your parents said this area had been reclassified for mineral extraction,” Beck said to Zare. “I just didn’t think it would happen this fast.”
“Me neither,” Zare said. “But what are those things sticking out? Down low, on the droid chassis.”
“They’re detonators,” Beck said, getting to his feet and looking down at the surveyor droid. “Someone’s rigged these droids to explode. There’s no danger, though—whoever we interrupted didn’t get a chance to set the primers.”
“Then we’ve got to tell someone,” Merei said.
Beck snorted. “Let them blow.”
“You don’t mean that,” Zare said. “None of us like what’s happening to the orchard, but this is illegal—and dangerous. I’m calling the authorities.”
“Fine, you do that, Zare,” Beck said. “I’m going to go find the people who did this.”
“Are you crazy?” Merei hissed. “You could get hurt.”
“Or mistaken by the authorities for one of the intruders,” Zare said.
“I’ll be back before they get here,” Beck said. “I spent my whole life in these woods, remember. I know every centimeter of them.”
He headed off across the orchard. Zare took his comlink from his belt and commed the emergency channel, telling the Imperial lieutenant who answered where he was and setting his comlink’s locator so it could be tracked. Then he and Merei waited nervously in the darkness, only slightly reassured by the whine of TIE fighters somewhere in the night above them.
“Some adventure, huh?” Zare asked.
“It’s a little too much for me,” Merei said, but she squeezed his hand. Despite his uneasiness, Zare smiled—and Merei smiled back, her face pale in the moonlight. He leaned toward her.
Branches snapped and Beck appeared out of the darkness. Zare and Merei parted hastily, but apparently not hastily enough.
“So you’re going to be his girl, I guess,” Beck said.
Merei crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m my own girl, thank you very much,” she said.
Zare was grateful when lights appeared at the far end of the orchard. The three of them shielded their eyes as the troop transport turned a spotlight on them.
Zare stepped forward as the stormtroopers disembarked from their side-mounted compartments, but Beck got there first.
“They went that way,” he said, and pointed to the forests to the north.
Zare started to protest that Beck was sending the soldiers the wrong way—the intruders had run south—but stopped at the grim expression on his friend’s face.
“Fan out, men—search formation,” the squad leader said, his electronically modulated voice harsh in the night. “You kids get back to your bikes and head home. We’ll take it from here.”
When they got back to Capital City’s marketplace, now shuttered for the night, Beck simply raised his hand in a curt farewell and zoomed off toward his own house.
Merei watched him go, teeth worrying at her lip.
“Was he worried about the intruders?” she asked, then looked around and lowered her voice. “Or worried someone might catch them?”
“I couldn’t tell,” Zare said.
“I don’t think I want to go back out there,” Merei said. “And I don’t think the two of you should, either. I’m scared something bad is going to happen if you do. It’s strange—I don’t get worried poking around networks, even when I know I’m investigating things I probably shouldn’t be, and it would be bad if I got caught. But to have it happen out here, in the real world? That felt totally different.” She took off her helmet, shaking her head. “Now you think I’m ridiculous.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking at all,” Zare said. “About the other thing, Merei…”
Merei took a sudden interest in fixing the strap on her goggles.
“I’m sorry, Zare, I…I don’t want things to be weird,” she said, the words colliding and tripping over each other in her haste. “We’re…we’re teammates.”
“And friends,” Zare said.
“And friends,” Merei said. “I want us all to be friends.”
“I want that, too.”
“Right, okay.” Merei crammed her helmet back on. “So I’m glad we settled that. Good night, Zare.”
The lights of her jumpspeeder shrank and vanished in the darkness, leaving Zare to wonder what, if anything, they’d settled.
Auntie Nags woke Zare the next morning, her photoreceptors yellow.
“An Imperial officer is at the door,” she said. “He wants you to come with him to the security ministry for questioning.”
Zare sat up in bed, instantly awake. He fumbled for his clothes while Auntie Nags rolled back and forth in agitation.
“Are Mom and Dad here?” Zare asked.
“Yes. They’ve offered our visitor a cup of caf.”
Auntie Nags’s eyes flashed red.
“How could you, Zare Leonis? This is related to that foolish adventure you and your friends went on last night, isn’t it? The one you told your parents about when you arrived home at an improper hour.”
“Remind me not to thank whoever programmed you for eavesdropping,” Zare muttered. “Since you heard that, you also heard me say we didn’t do anything wrong.”
Auntie Nags rolled away grumbling something. What he’d said was true, Zare told himself—they hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not really. And he’d told his parents the truth. Or most of it, anyway—he’d decided not to mention the detail about Beck sending the stormtroopers in the wrong direction.
Zare went into the kitchen and found Lieutenant Roddance drinking the last of his caf. The officer nodded at Zare and got to his feet.
“As I’ve told your parents, you’re not in trouble,” Roddance said. “In fact, you’re to be commended for alerting the Security Ministry to a potential insurrection. I just need you to come with me and tell us what you saw. It’s to assist our investigation.”
Zare nodded, and at the Security Ministry he did as Roddance asked, telling the lieutenant everything—except, once again, what Beck had done.