Aftermath (Star Wars: Aftermath, #1)

by Chuck Wendig

“It’s a trap!” comes Ackbar’s voice over the comm.

the look of a raptor before it takes your eyes.

Wedge isn’t a killer. He’s a pilot, and taking down other pilots means ending the lives of combatants. Comm officers aren’t soldiers, aren’t pilots. They’re just people. Wedge thinks: That’s a lesson we could stand to learn. Imperials are just like us. Some of them, at least. It’s easy to label those who serve the Galactic Empire as pure evil, all enemy, but truth is, a lot of those who do so were either sold a bill of lies, or forced to by threat of pain or death.

What’s come before will come back around again. Republic was the way of the world before, and it’ll be the way again. And for a time everyone will cheer them on, and everything will be cozy-dosie, but there will come a time when things go sour and someone decides they got a better way of doing things. And the New Republic or the New-New Republic or the Republic We Got This Week will clamp down hard and then those people with the so-called better way will become the brave rebel alliance and the Republic will become the enemy and the wheel will turn once more.”

Jas once heard the story that the Jedi constructed their own lightsabers and she figured, well, why can’t she do the same with her rifle? So she did. Because she can do whatever she wants.

War is not a state of being. It is meant to be a temporary chaos between periods of peace. Some want it to be the course of things: a default fact of existence. But I will not let that be so.”

“Democracy is not in need of defense. People are.

It is time to return democracy to the galaxy.

It never comes easy. Many try. They pretend at doing the work, but aren’t ready for what awaits. Because the job? The job never comes easy.

Amid the Empire, the presence of the Sith was less a fact and more a myth:

the dark side understands that everything has a cost, and the cost must always be paid.”

Palpatine felt that the universe beyond the edges of our maps was where his power came from. Over the many years he, with our aid, sent men and women beyond known space. They built labs and communication stations on distant moons, asteroids, out there in the wilds. We must follow them. Retreat from the galaxy. Go out beyond the veil of stars. We must seek the source of the dark side like a man looking for a wellspring of water.”

The Galactic Empire is a broken mirror. Many reflections of itself, shattered and separate.

“Do not sell the stormtroopers short,” Jas snaps. “In number, they are dangerous.” “So are swamp buffalo,” Sinjir says.

“I PERFORMED VIOLENCE,”

“I have faith in the New Republic.” Tashu chuckles. “And that faith will be tested.” “Your face will be tested when I kick in your teeth.”

“The meeting went well the same way a crash landing goes well. It was an ineffective, inconsequential first step.”

The TIE is a suicide ship, isn’t it?

Failure has to be illuminating: an instruction manual written in scar tissue.

Akiva: the first Outer Rim planet to officially have joined the contingent of worlds pledging themselves to the New Republic.

“You’re my home. Wherever you go, that’s where I live.”