The Ruins of Dantooine (2 page)

“I’m telling you,” the first argued, “that if they haven’t repaired or replaced the Death Star by now, they won’t. And that should tell you something.”

“What do you mean?” his comrade responded, and even Redge could hear the unease in the man’s mechanized voice.

The first stormtrooper shifted his stance slightly. “I’ve heard rumors that the Rebellion is growing, becoming more powerful. If they could take out a weapon as great as the Death Star, there’s no telling just how strong they really are. I think the Emperor is hiding that from us.” His voice had dropped surprisingly low, considering he had to speak through a transmitter. “I think he’s hiding many things.”

“Talk like that will get you killed,” his friend warned him.

“Or worse,” Redge added in a gentle, melodic voice.

Both troopers turned suddenly, clearly caught off guard. That was the technique that Redge enjoyed the most: knock an opponent off balance and strike while he was teetering.

“Sir, I-I didn’t know you were here,” the first stammered.

“Obviously,” Redge replied easily, enjoying the man’s apparent discomfort. He decided to let him squirm a moment longer and so remained silent, forcing the trooper to try to dig his way out of his shallow grave.

“I’m sorry, sir, I meant no disservice. I was just explaining my concerns to—”

“Don’t bother trying to explain anything to me, soldier,” Redge interrupted coldly. “I know exactly what you were trying to explain to your ‘friend’ here.” He nodded to the other man. “You feel our Emperor is keeping things from you, keeping you in the dark, so to speak?”

“It’s just that—”

“It’s just nothing,” Redge warned him darkly, his facade of pleasantness a memory. “You know all that you need to know and nothing more or less, like the rest of us. To serve the Emperor is to trust in him completely and question nothing.”

The stormtroopers remained silent, and the Inquisitor knew they were both too frightened to speak. That fear warmed his cold heart. The corners of his thin lips twitched in growing pleasure. He relaxed his stance ever so slightly.

“But,” he graciously allowed, “you do make a good point in your own simplistic fashion.”

“Sir?” the second soldier asked, and Redge knew they were fishing for anything to redeem themselves.

“The war is far from over,” he admitted. “We do have the strength and the power to crush the Rebels; that much is obvious. However, the Rebels are devious, and like fanned rawls they have hidden themselves well and fashioned nests and lairs at the highest levels of power. Only when we drive them out and exterminate those hidden in our midst will victory truly be ours,” Redge explained, momentarily caught up in his own fervor.

But before he could pursue the discussion further, he felt an almost imperceptible change in the air pressure of the chamber. The wiry hairs on his arms rose, and Redge knew the Emperor’s door had slid open.

He turned his back on the two stormtroopers, their presence completely inconsequential now, and
watched as a black figure separated himself from the impenetrable shadows of the doorway. As the stark figure moved forward, Redge felt his stomach turn and experienced a moment of vertigo. Sensitive as he was to the Force, the Inquisitor was nearly overwhelmed by the power of the man moving toward him.

The giant figure was covered from head to toe in obsidian armor. On his chest plate, a series of devices blinked blue and red, in time with his breathing and his heartbeat. His face was covered by a grotesque, helmeted breath mask that resembled the skull of some dark god. He moved swiftly yet deliberately toward the Inquisitor, his black cape billowing behind him. He looked like nothing so much as a winged bird of prey.

Redge vaguely saw, from the corner of his eyes, that the troopers snapped even straighter at the ominous presence than they had for him. He didn’t notice much more as he sank gracefully to one knee in a deep, obsequious bow.

“My Lord Vader,” he whispered with just the right amount of reverence.

“Rise, Inquisitor,” Lord Vader ordered in a deep, rich voice, his orders punctuated by his unmistakable mechanized breathing. “Rise and walk with me.”

Redge rose as gracefully as he had knelt and resisted the urge to shake out his cloaks yet again, refusing to appear foppish before a Dark Lord of the Sith. He stretched his back even straighter, but still had to look up at the Sith Lord who stood two meters
tall. Before he moved with Vader, however, he turned to face the two soldiers.

“Since you both have so much free time on your hands to reflect, I will see about relocating you to a post that you will undoubtedly find more … challenging,” he told them. “Perhaps something in the Hoth system,” he mused. “I don’t believe we have sent many satellites out there yet. Report to your garrison commander for new orders. Your tour of duty here is now over.” With that, he turned and marched alongside Lord Vader, briefly contemplating what hellish location they would eventually be dispatched to.

After a few moments of silence that were distinctly uncomfortable for Redge, he addressed the dark shadow. “Yes, my lord?”

“The Emperor wishes to know how you are progressing,” Lord Vader demanded.

Redge struggled to keep his equilibrium. The dark power of the Force rolled off Vader in crashing waves.

“Inquisitor?” the distorted voice demanded, and Redge knew he would not ask the question a second time.

“My lord,” he began, “I understand the seriousness surrounding the nature of the mission.”

“Do you? I am honored that you agree with me,” Vader replied. Redge thought he could almost hear the sarcasm in the Sith Lord’s voice.

“I only meant, Lord Vader, that I fully comprehend my role in this.”

“Do you, Inquisitor?” Vader asked him, stopping just before both men reached another hallway. Only Vader’s mechanized breathing could be heard echoing in the antechamber. Redge was momentarily at a loss for how to proceed. Darth Vader was the only creature that ever inspired this effect in the Inquisitor.

“Do you truly know what it will mean,” the Sith Lord eventually continued, “if the holocron should return to the Rebels’ hands?”

Redge swallowed hard. “Yes, my lord, I think I can appreciate what should happen. If the Rebels manage to retrieve that device—with, among other things, its list of high-level Rebel sympathizers—and activate those spies, the Empire could very well crumble from within.”

Vader regarded him stonily before he raised a gauntleted finger to point accusingly at the Inquisitor. “What are you doing about it?” he demanded.

“Lord Vader, I have my best operative on the trail of this item even as we speak. I have trained this agent for many years, and I believe there is no one better suited for the mission. We will not fail,” he promised, barely hiding the quaver in his voice.

Vader stared a moment longer and then turned to walk down the hallway, his heavy footfalls muffled by the thick pile of the carpets. The Inquisitor hastened his step to keep up.

“The Death Star incident will never occur again,” Vader told Redge. The Inquisitor knew the Sith Lord was not really sharing a confidence with him as much
as he was simply thinking aloud. However, he did nothing to interrupt Vader, awed as he was in the moment.

“The fact that those plans slipped through our fingers and reached the cursed Rebels …” Vader’s voice trailed away and he tightened the fingers of his left hand.

As he did so, Redge felt a pressure build up around his heart. His breathing grew more rapid, and black spots began to dance around the corners of his vision. He slowed his pace and vaguely saw that Vader was continuing on, unaware that he had lost his stricken companion. Redge placed a hand against his chest. He felt as if a fambaa were settled atop it. His head swam. Then, as abruptly as the pressure began, it disappeared. He rested one hand against the marble wall and tried to catch his breath before trotting weakly after Vader, who had not paused in his march.

“Inquisitor?” Vader demanded.

“Y-yes, my lord?” Redge stammered, barely recovered from Vader’s unconscious assault.

“Your best agent, you say?”

“Yes, Lord Vader,” Redge said, his voice growing stronger with every passing moment. “This agent will not fail.”

Darth Vader turned and stared at Redge once more. “Inquisitor, you should know full well that that there is no such thing as failure within the Empire. I suggest you remember that.” He raised a
finger and shook it once, ominously, toward the Inquisitor and then turned and left. The hiss of his automated breathing faded as he marched down the length of the passageway. Only when Redge was no longer in the presence of the Sith Lord did he realize that he had been holding his own breath. He let it out slowly.

Redge turned from the hallway and walked over to an alcove with a view of the Emperor’s personal shuttle, an AT-ST standing guard nearby. He leaned his head against the cool marble wall and sighed. His thoughts drifted from the holocron to his operative and back to Vader’s barely concealed death threat. He understood only too well how much was riding on the success of this mission. Redge sighed and continued to stare out into the night. The rain fell harder.

The young woman gazed out into the clear night sky. She sat on the forest floor with her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees, her hair hanging down in thick braids. There was nothing extraordinary about her at first glance. In her loose shirt and trousers the dappled color of the forest, she could have been nothing more than a young woman doing a little stargazing at the end of a long day. It was only when her face came into view that anyone would have recognized the self-possessed manner in which she held herself, even while sitting on the ground. And the ancient look in her eyes.

Senator of a now dissolved government and Princess
of an obliterated world, Leia Organa had not lost her faith or her purpose, though her titles carried no meaning. Her will was forged of the hardest metal, and that will had so far carried her through the many dark times the Alliance had faced. Though only in her twenties, she was wise beyond her years. She wore her mantle of responsibility with a strength that defied reason. The many troops and commanders who followed her wondered at the woman who never showed fear to anyone. And Leia maintained that confidence in front of everyone. She knew she couldn’t afford not to. Still, there were times, mostly in the dead of night, when she doubted and worried. At those moments, if it was possible, she would sneak out from wherever she was and breathe in real air, not the manufactured atmosphere of a hidden base or starship, touch the soil and look to the stars. That simple act grounded her and always brought her peace. It reminded her that she was a part of a greater whole and that there was an order to things that had to be followed. Knowing that she was a part of this order renewed her and gave her the strength to carry on. She had always done this alone, since she was a child. But this had changed recently.

Leia heard the faint rustle behind her but didn’t reach for her pistol. She suddenly ducked her head, closed her eyes, and smiled. She knew who it was.

The blond youth dropped down to squat next to her. He was dressed in much the same fashion as she was. In the starlight, Leia could see he also wore an
easy smile. But his blue eyes weren’t quite as innocent as they had been when she had first met him so many months ago. There was a touch of faded sadness to them and something else, as well. Something that Leia could see was growing. She knew that with each passing day, Luke Skywalker was learning more and more about the mystical ways of the Jedi. And that path of knowledge was changing him.

“It’s late,” he told her, and she noticed he didn’t bother to ask why she was outside the hidden Rebel shelter. Over the last few months, Leia had discovered that he shared the same need that she did to feel the worlds they were on, even for a little while. What had surprised Leia was that she didn’t begrudge his presence as an intrusion, but welcomed his company. They sometimes sat for hours in companionable silence. The closeness she felt to him was something new for the Princess.

“I know,” she whispered back in a husky voice.

“What’s troubling you tonight, Leia?” he asked.

Leia sighed. She didn’t resent his question. She
had
been more preoccupied of late. And there was perhaps only one other person she might have shared her fears with, but he was on a mission far from their temporary base on Corellia. And, when she was honest with herself, Leia had to admit sometimes she was nervous around the smuggler-turned-Rebel, as though there were an uncertain current that passed between them. With Luke, she simply felt at home.

“We have so far to go,” she eventually replied, trying to mask the weariness in her voice.

“But we’ve come so far,” he told her gently. “The destruction of the Death Star alone was a huge victory.”

“I know,” she agreed. “It was a momentous success and a great rallying point for the Alliance. It crystallized the hopes of so many who were undecided or afraid. But it was only one victory, and it cost us so many lives,” she confessed tiredly.

“You’re right on all counts,” he agreed. “But the Empire will fail because they put their faith in technology rather than people. They don’t recognize that all the lives they’re trying to crush actually make a difference and will determine the outcome of this war.”

Leia studied him more closely. For a moment, he had the same enthusiasm and naïveté as when they had first met, when she knew he felt like he could conquer the Empire single-handedly. She smiled and felt her mood begin to lighten.

“I know that, too, Luke,” she said. “I think that’s why this latest mission weighs on me so heavily.”

“The holocron?” Luke asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes. The names stored there could turn the tide for us,” Leia admitted. “As you said, our greatest strength lies in those who work toward the same goal as us. If that list should fall into Imperial hands, not only would it mean certain death for those sympathizers but it could spell the end for us,
as well. Just as we needed help from within the Empire to defeat the Death Star, we need these people and the glimpses inside the Empire they can offer us now even more.”