Chapter Text
Kleya tried to sleep.
The station had obviously decided it was daytime now, because the room’s lights were glaring brightly even through her closed eyelids. She pulled the bedclothes over her head, turned this way and that, mashed her head against the pillow. She hovered for a while on the edge of sleep. Fitful thoughts and images and feelings that might have been half-formed dreams swam confusingly across her mind:
A hospital room, glaring white like the lights beyond the bedclothes. A machine sighing and hissing, then coming to a halt. The pain, deep in her heart, when the silence fell. Vel. Vel, with blonde hair and red hair; a socialite, a guerilla, a soldier. A kind word, a strong hand, an unfamiliar feeling of comfort and contentment…
Something in her reacted to that, bringing her back almost to full wakefulness. She lay there, blinking in the light, the fabric of the pillow smooth against her cheek.
She wondered what time it was. She knew she needed to get up, that others were waiting on her, but felt an irrational reluctance to move. It would break the spell, she thought, burst the little insulated bubble of safety she had created here with Vel last night and this morning. It would mean going back to the real world, where nothing and no-one was safe. That was the stark truth; no-one was ever safe. Not out there, not in here. The bubble was a delusion. If life had taught her anything at all, it was that.
It was a nice delusion, though, she caught herself thinking. She could pretend, couldn’t she, just for a little while?
The pillow against her face smelled of Vel, and perhaps still held the faintest trace of her body heat. Or maybe that was just another flight of her imagination. Even if it was, it made her think again about last night, about the vivid smell and taste and feel of another body, moving in synchronisation with hers.
Not just another body. Vel’s body.
She focused on her own hand, resting on the pillow a few centimetres in front of her face. She closed her eyes again, as if she could fool herself, and kissed herself on the inside of her wrist, very lightly, her dry lips barely touching the skin.
She pretended it was Vel’s skin her lips were touching. She had played out such fantasies a thousand times before, lying in her bed above the rear of the gallery, although usually she imagined the star of some holo-show she had seen, or some particularly pretty woman or man she had glimpsed out on the walkways of Coruscant. Beneath the covers, she gently ran her other hand over the curve of her naked hip, as if she could do it stealthily enough for her conscious mind not to notice it was hers. She stroked the top of her thigh, making herself shiver, and made believe it was Vel that did it. She imagined it was Vel’s fingers slowly tracing the downward slope of her belly, lightly enough to feel the tiny hairs standing out from the smooth skin. Her hips twitched in anticipation as her breath quickened and sweet tremors ran the length of her body…
But it was not Vel. It was just her, pawing clumsily, embarrassingly, at her own flesh. She was suddenly looking down on herself from some imaginary vantage point, and cringing at what she saw.
That was what it took, finally, to make her move. She threw back the covers and clambered out of the bottom bunk. She was not doing that. Not right now, and not to a mental image of Vel.
Of all people, she thought again, and then realised just how ridiculous that thought was after everything that had happened over the past day.
The floor of the cabin was cold against her bare soles. Her head spun only a little as she lurched to her feet. At least her injury seemed to be getting better with each passing day. Or maybe she just wanted to believe that. Still, she barely stumbled or swayed at all as she crossed over to the tiny bathroom.
She stood under the shower, after cranking the temperature to a punishing level, careless of the station’s presumably finite water and energy resources. She rubbed refreshing foam over her limbs and her body’s various curves and creases, then vigorously washed it away. She was still thinking about Vel, about the strangeness of what had happened last night. Any minute now, she half-expected, she was going to wake up and realise she had dreamed it all. Just the idea of Vel wanting her, like that, of her wanting Vel the same way… Now Vel had left and she was alone again, it all felt so unreal.
She still wanted Vel, she realised. As the hot water flowed over her, she closed her eyes and summoned the memory of Vel’s arms closing around her, how strong they had felt as they enfolded her, squeezing her close. She remembered the feel of Vel’s muscles, firm and unyielding, just beneath her silky skin; how much they had fascinated her as she ran her hands over them. Safety may have been a delusion, but she had felt that delusion with all her heart while those arms had been around her. And more than that. Vel had not just held her, she had seen her, letting her eyes move over Kleya’s bared body, murmuring her appreciation, saying she was beautiful. Kleya had felt not just wanted but desired, in a way she was not sure she had ever felt before.
She eventually emerged from the shower’s steamy confines, pink and tingling, and wrapped herself in one of the slightly musty-smelling towels they had found here on arrival. She brushed her teeth, then started to scrape her unruly hair into some semblance of order, securing it in a tight bun at the nape of her neck.
There was still some part of her, a sneaking echo in the back of her mind, that sneered at herself for thinking that way about last night’s liaison. How silly, it asked, how self-indulgent, how weak, would a person have to be to lose themselves in such comforts when there was no comfort to be had, when the galaxy was burning, when the Empire was winning…? The fight was all there was, the only thing worth a damn; wasting time with anything else was a dereliction of duty, verging on surrender.
She had spent so much of her life believing that. Until a few days ago, it had been the creed she lived by. Now, though, another part of her replied to these thoughts of scorn and disdain. When would there be a better time? it asked. She might never get another chance. She had said as much to Vel last night.
And that was when she remembered Cassian was dead, an hour at least after first awakening. The recollection was like a slap to the face. Not just dead, but dead because of information she had given him, dead because he had come back to save her.
No. Even if that was true, and not just that sneaking echo putting the worst slant on it all, what was she going to achieve by brooding on it, when there was so much else needing to be done?
She found herself clinging to that memory of Vel’s encircling arms, as desperately as she had clung to Vel herself last night, letting herself feel that, think about that, instead of all the other things beating on the doors of her conscious mind, trying to force their way inside. As methods of self-medication and self-distraction went, it certainly seemed like a healthier option than some of the others she had witnessed, and even tried, over the years.
Some people used alcohol or other drugs to help blot out the horror, to keep functioning and fighting when their every instinct was to run and hide. She knew Luthen had done as much, sometimes, in the early years of their association. He had used drink as a crutch, in those days, to get him through the harder moments; just as he had used it when he had still been a soldier of the Empire, intoxicating himself to dull the screams of innocents.
And then her mind betrayed her again, following that thought all the way to its end. She was no longer reliving Vel’s embrace; she was remembering how Luthen had smelled, that first day, when they had first met. She was no stranger to the mood-modulating effects of strong beverages, albeit always aware of the danger of becoming reliant upon them. She might even consider herself a connoisseur, but to this day the one thing she could not drink was junipera. Just a whiff of its sharp, fruity aroma would send her plunging back through time until she could hear the thunder of the landing transports again, the stuttering blasters and bored comms chatter of the troopers. Until she could see her mother again, even if she could never quite picture her face, urging her to flee.
“Ikram, run! Run! And don’t look back. Whatever you hear, don’t look back…”
But she had looked back. She had seen everything that happened. She could see it again now.
She came back to the present with a snap; shuddering, gripping the edge of the metal sink to keep herself upright, seeing the shock and dismay written on her face in the mirror. She had not thought about that memory or that name in a very long time. She had not allowed it, because she knew how much it compromised her. She knew how much her operational effectiveness depended upon denying herself such feelings. Now, though…
Now, she closed her eyes once more, willing herself to feel something else, to feel Vel’s arms surrounding her, their bodies pressing against each together, their mouths too. She did not know whether she should feel guilty about using the memory of their encounter that way, to drown out that other memory in particular, or whether that was exactly the purpose of what they had done last night. A temporary respite from pain and regret, to be drawn upon later, when and if times got even harder.
But was that all it had been?
Another part of her had welcomed not just the warmth, the closeness, the pleasure, but also that feeling of being held still and close like that, constrained by a gentle strength she had sensed more than felt. She had felt like she could not have broken free, or even moved, if she had wanted to, but she had not wanted to. She had drawn a sort of comfort and a subtly different kind of pleasure from the idea of not having to struggle for now, not having to think and plan and fight the way she had for every waking moment of every day for seventeen years. She had been content to give herself to Vel completely, to lean into that strength, dig her fingers into those firm muscles and just…be; just lose herself in the now, and breathe and rest and let somebody else take control for a time, let somebody else decide what happened next.
Just the thought of being told what to do instead of having to calculate it second by second, of being guided, coaxed, maybe even used… Thinking about it now, alone, made her shudder inside, made her heart beat a little more quickly. She was not sure why it should, or what it said about her. Surely, she should be recoiling from her own half-formed fantasy. Wasn’t control, constraint, what she was meant to be fighting against? There was a difference, though, she thought, between the kind of control the Empire exerted and the willing, temporary ceding of agency to an intimate partner one trusted and felt safe around.
Trust. She was not sure how Vel, who seemingly wanted only to serve the needs of others, and to be told she had done it well, would react to being told about these musings. Although would it not simply be a different sort of need she could work to fulfil? The strangest thing to Kleya was that she could even imagine telling Vel about these thoughts.
There was something shocking about the way they had opened their hearts and minds to one another last night. To Kleya, it felt as significant, maybe more significant, than the way they had opened up their bodies. Vel had spoken honestly about things Kleya doubted she had ever shared with anyone, maybe not even her cousin Mon. In turn, Kleya had told Vel secrets that until a few days ago she had had every intention of carrying to her grave.
To do that had gone against everything Luthen had ever taught her, against every standard to which she had ever held herself. Secrets were currency. Secrets were treasure. They were something you tried to trick and pry out of others, something you hoarded and guarded until it was time to use them to your advantage. Giving them away, exchanging them freely like that, would have seemed hopelessly naïve, indeed wildly irresponsible, to the Kleya who had lived and operated on Coruscant for so long.
She never would have believed such trust could exist between the two of them, or between herself and anybody apart from Luthen, although she had told Vel things last night she had never shared with him. But ever since that night in the rain on Yavin, through their misadventures here at Mako-Ta, that trust had been growing between them, fragile at first and with both of them largely oblivious to it, but growing, until…
She left the closet-sized bathroom, draped in the big towel. The deep pile of the material felt soft against her bare skin. As she wandered about the cabin looking for some clean clothes, she thought about Vel again, about how there were different kinds of strengths and weaknesses beyond the merely physical, beyond the ideas she had held about what made an effective resistance fighter.
Just the thought of all that pain, all that sadness, Vel must be carrying on a daily basis… And yet she was still able to play the confident leader, still able to worry and care about others. There had been a time when Kleya had tried to deny and suppress her own pain and sorrow rather than confront them, because she mistook them for weakness, because, she realised now, she had been naïve and immature. Instead, she had tried to project the image of what she imagined to be strength, using the cause and the mission, and the rituals of technique and tradecraft, as a crutch just as Luthen had once used the bottle.
Cinta, she thought, had maybe done something similar, pushing aside everything apart from the fight because to stop and think, to feel, unfiltered, even for a moment, would be her undoing. Kleya had approved of that, had admired Cinta for her certainty and focus. And maybe, she had to admit, had admired her for other reasons her devotion to operational efficiency had never allowed her to acknowledge.
And then Cinta had met Vel, and suddenly things that had seemed so certain became more complicated for her. The old Kleya, so clever in some ways and so stupid in others, had seen that as a problem. She had seen it as something that might blunt the edge of her most trusty blade, something therefore that had to be dealt with. Or that had been what she had told herself. She had kept any jealousy or irrational sense of betrayal she might have felt locked in the most secret part of her heart, hidden even from herself.
The very idea of Vel knowing about that and saying she forgave her for it, was awe-inspiring to her. She thought about everything Vel had done for her since that rainy night in the jungle, even after everything she had said and done to her, all the years of lies and manipulations. She felt absurdly lucky Vel had not turned her back on her and left her to stumble deeper into the wet nighttime forest. Thinking about it all filled her with shame and regret, and a profound, genuine gratitude, even as she wondered how she could ever even begin to repay what Vel had given her, or make amends for the wrongs of the past. Even as she thought about how Vel insisted Kleya owed her no such thing.
To have lost what Vel had, to feel as broken inside as she knew she must feel, and still be able to show that forgiveness and sympathy, to still be able to think about and care about other people, to put their needs before her own… That was true strength, she realised now.
Was she capable of that herself? Could she still learn to be compassionate, to be strong without being hard? Could she ever be as strong as Vel? She honestly did not know if she could, or even how she might go about it. She almost laughed, imagining the anger and scorn with which she would have reacted to the mere suggestion back in the Coruscant days, when she had regarded Vel as anything but strong.
As she dressed, she thought of the way Vel had looked at her last night and this morning, the things she had said to her. She thought of the comfort and care Vel so obviously needed but which she still denied herself, maybe thinking of it as selfishness. Giving comfort and care was not something Kleya was very experienced in. Maybe the best she could do for now was just to be there for Vel, to accept whatever companionship Vel might extend her and try to reciprocate it, and to let her know what she was doing was good. That seemed important to her, something that might give her some inner peace. Maybe doing that was the first step in trying to be a better, stronger person. Maybe in time she could even grow into somebody who deserved Vel’s forgiveness.
Somebody who deserves Vel, the voice whispered at the back of her mind.
When she was dressed, she left the cabin, walking along the hallway and across the empty crew lounge. In the kitchen area, she found Wil sitting with his injured leg propped up on one of the benches. He started to get up when he heard her approach along the corridor, but when it saw it was her immediately sank back down again.
“Morning,” he said. “Or is it afternoon now?”
“I’m not that late,” she protested as she started to rummage through the pile of rations they had left on the counter. “Do we have any caf left?”
“Some of us have put in a day’s work while you were getting your beauty sleep. We’ve had another two ships in already today.” Wil’s tone was light and playful. Kleya could feel herself starting to smile in response, and wondered about it. Before coming here, Luthen was really the only person she had ever joked with like that in her adult life.
She found a by-now familiar green-grey packet among those littering the counter. “Mmm, the famous Imperial Army blend.”
“Hang on a minute.” Wil rose and limped over to the storage cupboards behind the counter. He opened one of them and took out a jar with a red label. “Tapani Gold,” he read aloud before handing the jar to Kleya. “Dreena turned her nose up at it, because you know, instant caf is beneath her, but it’s a lot better than that Imp shit.”
“Where did you get it?” Kleya unscrewed the lid and took a sniff. It actually smelled something like caf, which was a positive sign. She spooned some into the mug she had selected and headed for the hot water dispenser.
“One of the ships that arrived this morning,” Wil said. “The Duchess Senna, I think they said the name was. Another one of those hammerhead corvettes.”
“Another one?”
“The petty officer I was talking to said there were three of them with the Fleet originally, but the third one rammed an Imp star destroyer at Scarif.”
“Rammed?”
Wil nodded. “Took it out too, he reckoned. Along with themselves, of course.”
“Um…good work?” Kleya responded, uncertainly. “I suppose.”
“Yeah, I didn’t really know what to say to that either. He seemed very proud of them, though.” Wil stooped to open the cooling unit under the counter. “Anyway, I told him we didn’t have that much food aboard to give them, and he said it was alright because they had plenty. In fact they’d just resupplied themselves from some Kuati freighter right before the battle.”
“Resupplied themselves?” Kleya considered that. “You’re not telling me the heroic, square-jawed Alliance Fleet engage in a little casual piracy between missions are you?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” Wil answered. “But there are some rough and ready characters in the Fleet.”
“Not just the Fleet, from what I’ve seen.”
“So,” Wil continued, in the tone of somebody deciding to change the subject, “he gave me some stuff as a thank you for helping them get settled in.” He produced a square, pale-coloured container. “Look!”
“Milk?” Maybe Kleya had had things too easy on Coruscant, in that respect, but she was struck by how quickly a few days of living on preserved rations had made something she could have picked up in the nearest corner shop there seem like a rare luxury.
Wil grinned at her as he took out a second container to show her. “Both kinds; blue and green.”
She took the first container from Wil’s outstretched hand and poured a measure of blue milk into her mug. The caf turned a greyish-brown colour with just a hint of turquoise froth around the edges. She handed the milk back and took a sip. It really was a lot better than the Imperial Army caf, she had to admit.
“He gave me a bottle of nog, too,” Wil said. “I stashed it at the back of that cupboard there. Don’t tell Vel.”
“Where is Vel?” Kleya asked, perhaps a bit too casually, as she took another sip of caf.
“She’s in the sickbay in Hab Module One,” Wil replied. “Getting that leg looked at.”
“Good,” Kleya said, very emphatically. “I told her she should, but I thought maybe she’d put it off again if duty called.”
“She’s been named Acting Base Commander now,” Wil added. “This whole place is called Delta Base now, apparently.”
“Oh.” Kleya nodded. “Good for Vel. Does she get a promotion and a pay rise?”
“I don’t think so. Anyway, while she’s in sickbay she’s appointed Dreena as her stand-in, so Dreena’s now the…”
“Acting, Acting Base Commander?”
“Right.”
Kleya looked at him. “Are we all in danger? More danger, I mean.”
“She says if any of us get out of line, she’ll have us court-martialled and shot. Especially me. Apparently, she can do that according to the regulations.”
“The power’s gone to her head,” Kleya observed, jokingly.
Wil gave her a wry look in return. “Dreena’s currently in conference in the control room with some of the Fleet officers, giving them their marching orders. The crews are going to help us get the rest of the station habitable, ready for the evacuation. I think she’s going to have them swabbing decks and painting things, probably.”
Something Wil had just said pulled Kleya up short. “The evacuation?” she asked.
Wil’s apparent good humour faded a little as he gave her a grim nod. “Yeah. It’s on. They start evacuating everyone from Yavin to here, either tomorrow or the day after. They say it’ll take four days, but, well…I’ll believe that when it happens. I just hope there’s enough room for them all.”
“I’m sure there will be,” Kleya said, making an effort to be positive. “It’s going to be a lot more crowded here than it is there, though. I imagine they’ll have to prioritise finding another planet, or planets, to set up some new surface bases.”
“You’d think,” Wil agreed, “but I doubt they’ll tell us what the big plan is unless they want us to do something again.”
“Need to know.”
“Right.” Wil was silent for a moment, musing. “You know, I quite liked Yavin. I liked the forests, and the sunsets, and… I even liked the rain. It’s strange to think I probably won’t ever see it again.”
Kleya tried to stay hopeful: “After we win…”
“Yeah, after we win.” Wil gave a little snort. “We’re going to do a lot of things after we win, aren’t we?”
“How are you feeling, this morning?” she asked him, quietly, as she sipped more caf. She saw how serious his expression grew as he thought about his answer.
“Alright,” he said, eventually, and then let out an explosive sigh. “I keep thinking about him, you know? Cass, I mean,” he added, as if she needed the clarification.
“I know,” she said, and felt another stab of guilt at not thinking about him straight after waking up. There had been other things on her mind.
“It still keeps creeping up on me,” Wil went on. “I’m in the middle of doing something, thinking about what’s in front of me, and then…” He rubbed his face, taking another deep breath. “Dreena’s been so good,” he said, half to himself. “Putting up with me, I mean. You’d think someone who’s been hurt as much as she has wouldn’t have any worry left for other people, but… It’s the opposite, you know?”
Just like Vel, Kleya thought, reliving some of her musings from when she had been alone. She did not share the observation out loud.
“I don’t know what I’d do without her,” Wil was saying.
“I think she might say the same about you,” Kleya suggested. And then: “I’m still only starting to get to know her properly, but she seems like…a very special person.”
“She is,” Wil said, simply. “Although I think she’d get annoyed if you said it to her face.” He went quiet again then for a short while, before adding in a low, hesitant voice: “Thanks, by the way, Kleya.”
“What for?” she asked, gently.
“For yesterday, when I…” He was avoiding eye contact with her now. “You know, when I…?” When he’d broken down sobbing in the communications array, she realised he meant. “Thanks for…you know, being there.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Kleya said.
“You…”
“I really didn’t,” she pointed out, quite truthfully. “But,” she added, “if it was any comfort to you that I was there with you, then I’m glad.” She gave him a gentle smile. “I really am. Isn’t that what you said to me?” she mused. “We’ve all got to be there for one another, because who else is going to be?”
“Right,” Wil agreed. “The survivors.”
“That’s right,” Kleya said. “So…if you ever want to talk or anything, then…I’ll probably just listen to you without doing much, because we’ve established that I’m not very good at the hugging and so forth, but if it’s any help…”
He let out a small laugh at this. “You’d be surprised how much it does help, sometimes.”
“No,” Kleya said. “I’m started to realise that for myself, now. Since I’ve been spending time with all of you.”
“Like I said, a fucked-up sort of family, if you want one.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what I want,” Kleya said, softly, as she considered the caf in her hand.
“And what about you and Vel?” Wil asked, with that hesitancy again. He must have seen how Kleya stiffened slightly in response, because then he said: “Sorry, none of my business.”
“No, it’s alright,” she said, even as she tried to think of something to say that wasn’t either oversharing or obviously evasive.
“It’s just, you said you were going to, to…talk last night. Try and figure things out.” He let out an awkward little cough. “And Dreena spoke to Vel this morning, and she thought maybe there’d been…some movement on that.”
“Oh, there was movement alright,” Kleya said, almost without thinking.
Wil visibly squirmed a little at that. “Like I said, none of my business.”
“I’m sorry.” Kleya could not help letting out a little laugh of her own. “No. Um, Vel and I, we… We did talk. We went over a lot of…things between us that we probably should have talked about a long time ago. I like to think we…understand one another a little better now. Um…Yes.”
Wil nodded slowly at that. “There are a lot of different ways, aren’t there, for people to be there for one another? To support one another.”
“There are.”
“I mean, take Dreena and me…” He paused, thinking. “Sometimes you’ve just got to take a chance, haven’t you? Even if it seems risky, or seems like the wrong time, sometimes… Well, we might not be here tomorrow.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Kleya told him. “And you can tell Dreena that’s very good tradecraft. Not taking promising new intel at face value, I mean, but instead immediately tasking a well-placed alternative source with corroborating it. Very proactive. General Draven could learn from her, I think.”
“You can tell her yourself,” Wil replied as the comlink clipped to his shirt let out a squawk. He cocked his head slightly, listening to his earpiece. “The Acting, Acting Base Commander says her staff conference is over now…”
“She has a staff?”
“…and your shift started half an hour ago, according to Vel’s roster. She wants me to go and wake you up.”
“Tell her I’m awake,” Kleya protested, while draining what was left of her caf. “Really half an hour ago?”
“She says.” Wil keyed his mic: “She’s already awake. Drinking caf with me in the kitchen. Yeah.” He killed the mic and looked at Kleya again. “Dreena says stop drinking caf and get to work. And she wants to know why aren’t you wearing your comlink?”
“I left it in the cabin,” she realised. Her blaster too. It was the kind of carelessness she never would have tolerated in herself back on Coruscant. “Well, I’d better jump to it, then.” She rinsed her empty mug in the sink and put it back where she had found it. “Before Dreena throws me in the brig.”
“Court-martialled and shot,” Wil reminded her as she made to exit the kitchen. “She didn’t ask me to ask you about you and Vel, by the way,” he called after her.
“She did,” Kleya said, with another smile as she glanced back at him. “You just didn’t notice her doing it.”
***
Lagret unstopped the bottle of revnog and poured a generous dose into the cup of caf sitting on Major Partagaz’s former desk. He choked down a couple of mouthfuls as he stared blankly through the open blinds, blinking in the pale grey early morning light.
More security barriers had been erected on the far side of the plaza overnight, and as he watched a phalanx of darkly gleaming KX droids marched ominously into position behind them. Their gold shoulder stripes marked them out as military-grade models. They joined the small crowd of black-clad Army security troops and armoured Stormtroopers in full combat order already ranged along the barriers. Reports of civil unrest had been coming in all night, from all over Coruscant, ever since the disturbance at the Senate. The live broadcast of Pamlo’s speech had been cut off, but evidently not quickly enough.
Lagret took another swig from the mug. It burned all the way down, leaving him choking on fumes, but he was already starting to feel the edge come off. He could actually breathe freely for the first time in hours. He had spent a sleepless night here in the office, waiting for the other boot to drop, wondering what he was going to do when it did and coming up with nothing. For those first couple of hours, he had been resigned to his fate, or at least had recognised it as inevitable, and yet he had heard nothing. No Stormtroopers had appeared at the front entrance to drag him away; Colonel Yularen had not come back on the holo to tell him he was under arrest. No summons had been received inviting him to a meeting with Military Intelligence or the Royal Guard from which he was very unlikely ever to return.
And as the hours had passed, his sense of resignation, the almost peaceful acceptance of his personal doom, had started to crack. The growing thought that maybe he had got away with it, or perhaps could get away with it if he could make good use of these extra hours, should probably have given him hope. Instead, it had only made him more desperate. Instead of devising an escape plan, he had only found himself paralysed by a terror he had not yet felt when he had reported to Yularen. What should he do? He, who seemingly had failed as thoroughly as a man in his position could? What could he do?
Then he had thought: what would Partagaz do in my place?
That had only made him think about the blaster burn on the conference room table that the cleaning staff had not yet managed to buff out. He recoiled from the notion. Just the idea of…
And then he had thought: what would Orson do?
By the time the second boot had finally fallen, about half an hour ago in the form of a priority signal from the Imperial Household Office, he had thought he had found an answer to that.
You don’t need to be faster than the acklay, mate. You only need to be faster than the other poor bastards running away from it.
A message chimed into view on his datapad, where he had discarded it next to the revnog bottle. He let out a deep, semi-involuntary sigh. Time for the morning meeting.
He forced down the remainder of the liquor-laced caf, only gagging a little, and ran his hand over his unshaven chin before fastening the collar of his tunic. He picked up the pad and proceeded to the conference room, as briskly as his current disposition allowed.
He stood at the head of the great ring-shaped table, just as Partagaz had once done every day, trying not to make eye contact with any of the distressed-looking Supervisors seated around it. He was trying even harder not to look at the blaster burn in front of him. In the end, he set down his datapad on top of it, hiding it from view.
Even through his revnog haze, he could feel the deep unease in the stark white room, could almost taste the defeat hanging in the air like stale sweat. Nervous whispers rustled around the table, and among the entourages of Attendants occupying the wall niches behind each chair. He was honestly not surprised, considering the procession of disasters the ISB had suffered over the previous few days. Everyone around the table knew the situation was bad, even worse than it had been already; there had been plenty of time overnight for those not directly involved in the action at the Senate to engage in gossip and rumour-mongering. They were all merely waiting to find out precisely how bad, and what it meant individually for each of them.
“Now, we shouldn’t be too dismayed about how things went last night,” he began in what he hoped was a reassuring tone of voice. He tried to ignore some of the incredulous murmurs and glances this elicited around the table. “The important thing is we did manage to arrest twelve Senators by the time the operation was complete, all of them in the top one hundred on the primary arrest list.”
“Twelve,” he heard somebody whisper to their neighbour. “Out of three hundred and…”
“Now, obviously some aspects of the operation didn’t quite go according to plan,” he conceded. “But all in all, it could have been a lot worse.”
They all stared at him as if he had grown an extra head.
Lagret took a deep breath, smelling the liquor fumes on it, and looked down at the pad instead of at the appalled eyes converging on him from all directions. “Now, a few updates on the developing security situation. As you know, there have been riots on some of the lower levels overnight, but martial law has been declared and I’ve been informed the Army and Stormtrooper Corps have everything well under control.”
“My sources tell me the Stormtroopers went crazy down in CoCo Town during the early hours,” one Supervisor piped up. “Mowed down about two hundred rioters. Well, people they said were rioters, anyway.”
“What do you expect from bucketheads?” one of the others commented. “Using them for internal security is like using a rancor to herd ghoats.”
“They look very impressive guarding things on the evening HoloNews, though.”
“Well, at least none of our people were involved this time,” Lagret interjected. “Combined Headquarters will have to deal with it.” He looked down at the next item on the agenda: “The Imperial Decree dissolving the Senate and giving the Grand Moffs and Moffs direct control of all sectors is now in effect, and additionally the Emperor has appointed Grand Moff Tarkin his personal representative with special responsibility for suppressing the Rebellion. This means Governor Tarkin now has oversight of all Imperial military and security forces, including ourselves.”
“So…Tarkin’s in charge of everything now?” Attendant Joydali asked apprehensively from his place near the far wall. “Supreme Commander, or something like that?”
“I’m sure he’ll do an excellent job of it, too,” Lagret insisted. “I can tell you Colonel Yularen is liaising directly with Governor Tarkin as we speak, and my understanding is he is doing his best to impress upon the Governor that he can count on the ISB to carry out any duties he may require of us with the utmost zeal and discretion.”
He heard another snippet of whispered conversation coming from the far reaches of the table: “…knows Tarkin’s thick as thieves with Naval Command and Military Intelligence. We’re going to be…”
Lagret did his best to ignore this remark, continuing to work his way down the list of points on the pad: “As you’re all no doubt aware, due to, um…certain events, the Corusca Sector is currently between Moffs, so Grand Admiral Tigellinus, Flag Officer Commanding Combined Headquarters, has been appointed temporary military governor…”
“Oh, good,” he heard Supervisor Grandi comment, rather acidly. “We have a lot more Stormtrooper massacres to look forward to, then.”
He could not help but think Major Partagaz had never had to put up with running commentaries like this during his morning briefings. “ISB Enforcement and Tactical units based on Coruscant have been asked to liaise with the Grand Admiral’s staff to find out what roles have been assigned to them in support of the state of martial law.”
“Does that mean we’re all under military command now?” another of the Attendants ranged around the walls chimed in. “Have we been…drafted?”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not the case.” Lagret was actually quite far from being sure on that point. The memo forwarded by Combined Headquarters had been positively vague in its wording, in fact. And the military were supposed to be so good at drafting that kind of thing. “The priority for all ISB departments right now is tracking down and detaining those Senators who managed to evade arrest last night.”
“Tynnra Pamlo in particular,” Grandi grimly observed.
“Quite so,” Lagret agreed. “Former Senator Pamlo, who as of last night is wanted in connection with a suspected attempt on the life of Grand Vizier Amedda.” He flicked his eyes in Grandi’s direction, to see her reaction to that. She gave him a piercing look in return, clearly on the point of objecting that they both knew that was not the true version of events.
“Will Enforcement and Tactical be taking point on that too?” a different Supervisor asked.
“That is my understanding,” Lagret answered, “but they may ask some of you for any additional information you have on the wanted Senators, so I’d ask all of you to be ready to respond promptly to any such requests you may receive.”
This prompted a chorus of vaguely affirmative noises around the table.
“I think that’s everything,” Lagret concluded. “I know all of you have plenty to be getting on with, so I won’t keep you any longer. Supervisor Grandi and Attendant Joydali, please could you both stay behind for a moment? I need to discuss something with you.”
Grandi had been staring at him suspiciously since their brief exchange regarding Pamlo. Now, he saw her eyes narrow as she tried to work out exactly what was going on. Joydali, for his part, looked terrified. As well he might.
Lagret waited for the rest of the Supervisors and Attendants to file out of the room before he came over and took a seat two places away from Grandi, waving a hand to indicate Joydali should sit at the table too. The Attendant reluctantly lowered himself into the chair on the other side of Grandi.
“Now,” he told them, “there’s probably nothing for either of you to worry about.”
“I should hope not,” Grandi replied, very directly, her eyes never leaving his face. “Anything either Attendant Joydali or I did yesterday was carried out under your authority as acting head of Investigations.”
“Well, I’m going to have to challenge you on that,” Lagret replied, choking down a surge of revnog reflux. “I did have an informal discussion with Colonel Yularen before he left for his conference with Governor Tarkin, regarding keeping an eye on things around here, but I haven’t formally been appointed acting head of anything.”
“Oh no,” Grandi said, “you’re not going to scampweasel your way out of this one. You haven’t got that friend in high places anymore.”
“I hardly think that’s appropriate,” Lagret protested. “Yes, I’m proud to say I counted Director Krennic as a personal friend, going back to when we were both young men, but I’d remind you how he valiantly, and selflessly, gave his life in the service of the Empire. There’s no need to go…”
“Are we in trouble?” Joydali cut in, his face a picture of fearful misery.
Lagret gave him a bland smile. “As I say, there’s probably nothing for you to worry about, but…”
“But?” Grandi asked, venomously.
“Well, just before this morning’s meeting,” he told them, “I received a call from the Palace about what happened last night at the Senate…”
“It was just a misunderstanding,” Joydali pleaded. “The Stormtroopers, it was their fault that…”
“To be honest,” Lagret said, “the Palace aren’t even that concerned about the primary arrest list or anything like that. They’re mostly worried about the potential assassination attempt on the Grand Vizier. I mean, as you can probably imagine, the Grand Vizier’s worried about it too. They just want to rule out the possibility of Senator Pamlo and her entourage working with rogue elements within the ISB to…”
“That’s not what happened,” Grandi angrily objected.
“It’s not as if the idea of rogue elements within the ISB isn’t a genuine concern nowadays,” Lagret pointed out, very reasonably he liked to think. “Jung, Meero…”
“You know that’s not what happened,” Grandi insisted. “The woman with the blaster was a loyal ISB asset, and while she obviously behaved very stupidly, I think she thought she was doing her job…”
“I know that,” Lagret said. “And I tried to explain that to the Palace, but, well, the Royal Guard…”
“The Royal Guard?” Joydali asked, horrified.
“It is their job, after all,” Lagret continued. “They just want to clear things up.”
“Clear things up?” Grandi eyed him contemptuously.
“I explained to them that the woman who was killed was an ISB contact, and they naturally asked who she was reporting to within Investigations, and so in the spirt of interservice cooperation…”
“Have you been drinking?” Grandi asked.
“No,” Lagret replied, instantly. And then: “Well, just a… Just a nip.”
“For medicinal purposes?” she surmised, disgustedly.
“Yes, that’s right.” Lagret blithely carried on: “They asked me who she was reporting to, and I had to tell them it was you, Supervisor. I couldn’t lie to them, could I? So, they…that is the Royal Guard…just want to talk to you.”
Grandi’s eyes widened. “Talk to me?”
“To both of you,” Lagret clarified. “You see, they’re quite concerned that the way the Senate operation played out, the mix-up, I mean, the…failure of coordination, as I tried to explain to them, that it was in some way orchestrated as a diversion, to compromise the security procedures at the Senate and facilitate this attempted assassination.”
“The attempted assassination that never actually existed?” Grandi queried.
“And I had to explain to them,” Lagret said, “that all of the detailed planning of the Senate operation, including the…oversight that led to said coordination failure, was, well… It was the two of you, wasn’t it?”
“Under your overall command,” Grandi retorted.
“Yes, but I can’t prove that,” Lagret told her. And neither can you. “As I say, I was never formally appointed to any sort of command position. And there isn’t even any documentation that would show…”
“I don’t believe this,” Grandi said, mostly to herself. “You pathetic, cowardly…”
“Now, steady on,” Lagret said. “No need to get personal.”
“You never asked me to contact Combined Headquarters about the Stormtroopers,” Joydali almost whined. “Honestly, sir, I know you think you asked me, but you didn’t. Really, you didn’t.”
“All you have to do is tell them the truth,” Lagret assured them. “And I’m sure everything will be…” He checked the chronometer hanging on the wall at the head of the room. “They’re going to be here very shortly.”
“Who’s going to be here?” Grandi asked.
“The Royal Guard. They’re just sending over an escort for you, to convey you to the Palace, where they can…talk to you.” Lagret looked at Grandi. “Now, would you like to be alone for a moment, Supervisor?”
“Why would I want to be alone?” she asked.
Lagret was suddenly very aware of the datapad he had left at the far end of the table, and of what it concealed. “To collect your thoughts?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” Lagret coughed quietly. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve done your best in very difficult circumstances, and any errors you may have made are completely understandable, but…”
“I haven’t made any errors, you disgusting little man.”
“But you might feel differently,” Lagret finished. “I remember how Major Partagaz, when he was faced with similar circumstances, wanted to…”
Grandi stared at him in combined fury and disbelief. “What…? Kill myself? Are you suggesting I should kill myself?”
“No, no, of course not. I’m merely suggesting you might want to consider your options.”
“Fuck off, Lagret.”
Lagret tried to maintain his magnanimity. “Well, I don’t think there’s any call for…”
Joydali’s face had turned as grey as his tunic. “S-sir, I…”
The conference room door sighed open, to allow another Attendant to stick her head around it: “Captain Lagret, there’s an officer from the Royal Guard here to see you.”
“Ah, yes.” Lagret rose to his feet. “I’d better show them in.”
“You’re pathetic,” Grandi told him as he made for the door. “Inadequate. A time-serving waste of space. Everyone used to laugh at you behind your back, you know. You’re only here because Partagaz wanted to bank a favour from your pal Krennic. You realise that, don’t you? Otherwise, you’d still be…”
The words stung, even through the cloud of revnog fumes surrounding him. Still, Lagret managed to take a deep breath and walk steadily out into the corridor. The small party of visitors were already making their way towards the conference room, with the Attendant nervously standing to one side to let them through. The young, smiling man in the lead wore the black service uniform and breast insignia of a Stormtrooper Lieutenant, with crimson Royal Guard stripes running along the seams of his breeches and the matching braided aiguillette identifying him as an Imperial Equerry. He was followed by a uniformed Sergeant and four armed and fully armoured Stormtroopers.
Two each for Grandi and Joydali, Lagret could not help but reflect.
“Are they ready, sir?” the Lieutenant asked, as if he were about to take them for a pleasant stroll in the park.
“Yes, they’re just coming now,” Lagret replied.
“I’ve been asked to relay a message to you from the Palace,” the officer told him.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, sir. Those Senators you managed to arrest last night. There are twelve of them, aren’t there?”
“That’s correct,” Lagret confirmed.
“The Household Office wants them moved to the Arrth-Eno Custodial Complex, sir. Immediately, they said.”
“That’s, um, the, the Stormtrooper Corps prison, isn’t it?” Lagret clarified. The Emperor’s preferred prison, he did not need to add, for those unlucky enemies he considered to have wronged him personally.
“Yes, sir, that’s right,” the Lieutenant confirmed. “A platoon from the 2nd Royal Guard Legion are on their way to your main interrogation centre now, to facilitate the transfer. You should probably contact your Marshalls and tell them to cooperate. I mean, we wouldn’t want any unfortunate failures of coordination, would we?”
“N-no, no, of course not,” Lagret fervently agreed. “And will there be any kind of…official order issued…?”
The officer’s smile widened. “I was told to transmit the order orally, sir. You could call the Palace and confirm with them, but between you and me, sir… I wouldn’t recommend it, really. The Household Office are a bit too used to being obeyed, if you ask me. They can be a little tetchy when people question them.”
“I’ll…I’ll…” Lagret swallowed. “I’ll let the Marshalls Service know.”
“Very good, sir.”
The conference room door opened again behind him, to reveal Supervisor Grandi standing there stiffly with murder in her eyes. The Lieutenant made a small motion of his head and two of the waiting Stormtroopers immediately stepped forward to flank her.
“I’ll tell them everything,” she hissed as the troopers escorted her away along the corridor, with her almost running to match their long-legged marching pace.
“Yes, you should,” Lagret agreed.
“Everything,” she repeated. “I’ll ruin you, Lagret.”
“Just tell the truth,” Lagret assured her, “and I’m sure everything will sort itself out.” The Lieutenant did not have to snicker quietly like that as he said it, he thought.
Joydali emerged next, face shining with sweat and visibly unsteady on his feet, as the second pair of Stormtroopers moved alongside him.
“Get your hands off me,” he exclaimed, panicking, as one of the troopers took him by the arm. “I said, get your filthy…”
In a single, fluid movement, the second trooper extended the folding stock of his blaster carbine and drove it hard into Joydali’s midriff. It looked like a well-practiced action. The burly Attendant dropped to his knees, winded. The two troopers grabbed an elbow each and commenced half-carrying, half-dragging Joydali in the direction of the exit, their Sergeant sauntering after them.
The Lieutenant barely glanced at them. He continued smiling brightly at Lagret.
“I think that’s everything, sir,” he observed. “Don’t you?”
“Er…yes…”
“Mind how you go, sir.” The Lieutenant made off after his men. Lagret stood there in a very still, breathless sort of silence and watched them go. A minute later, it was as if they, and Supervisor Grandi and Attendant Joydali, had never been here at all.
Lagret, however, was still very much present.
You don’t need to be faster than the acklay…
Continued…