Battlefront II, page 13
“Of course not,” Gleb replied, annoyed. “This is supposed to be something resembling work release, Iden. You have been found guilty of sedition. You are lucky to even have a bed rather than a cot in the local prison.”
Can’t risk anyone smelling alcohol on me, Iden thought. And I bet she loved turning me down.
“Thought so. Are we done here?”
Gleb took another slurping, dribbling pull on the beverage. “I think so, yes. Up at oh five hundred. You can exercise in the courtyard, and there is a fresh uniform for you in your room. Be ready to go by oh seven hundred. And the work will not be pushing datapads, either. Dismissed.”
The rush of resentment at hearing Gleb uttering the order surprised Iden. She greatly outranked the Aqualish, and for a moment she was tempted to remind Gleb of that fact. But Gleb was a key player in this scheme, and in her own way was performing a valuable service to the Empire.
Iden would be gone soon enough, her attention taken up with the meat of the mission. She could afford to let Gleb have a momentary sensation of superiority.
Her room was surprisingly pleasant, if not as luxurious as her former—and present, she supposed—boss’s was. There was a small, neatly made bed with a nightstand and an adjustable lamp, a table with a datapad—and a holoprojector.
Rather cowardly, she thought, Iden decided to hear from her father first. It had been deemed too risky for him to contact her during the arrest and court-martial phase, but this particular recording had been earmarked for Gleb.
His image was only about the size of her hand, but even in miniature his presence came through. “If you’re watching this, then you have arrived successfully and are in your room at Gleb’s residence. This means that we’ve navigated everything smoothly, and you are now reduced to waiting. I trust, though, that you will rise to the occasion and persevere.
“You have, of course, been isolated from current events, even public ones, until now. Gleb will be able to fill you in on many things, and I’ve sent along a few bottles of brandy to, ah, lubricate the flow of information and to show the Empire’s appreciation of her cooperation.”
Iden snorted. So that’s where the bottles had come from.
“The others have already embarked on their own journeys to the rendezvous point,” Admiral Versio continued. “I have been in irregular contact, so largely they, like you, are on their own. I have confidence, however, that shortly all of you will rendezvous at the Dreamer base of operations and proceed as planned. In the meantime, I suggest when possible without further incriminating yourself that you maintain the façade and keep yourself in the public eye. Gleb will assist in that.”
I’ll bet she will, Iden thought sourly.
“If there are further developments that you need to know, she will inform you.” The hologram disappeared. Not even a goodbye or good luck.
Iden had been concerned that her father might say something best not overheard, so she had chosen to view Versio’s message inside, away from any prying eyes. But she realized as she looked about the small room that she had not been outside—at least, not without the company of three or four stormtroopers—since the events had begun. Gleb had mentioned a courtyard, and suddenly Iden felt the need to escape even a pleasant confinement.
She took the holoprojector with her. Even if it was overheard, this second message would not harm the mission in any way.
The earlier overcast skies had cleared, and the courtyard was surprisingly pleasant. There was little greenery, admittedly; there was little “greenery” anywhere on the planet, though it was not an ecumenopolis like Coruscant. Not yet, anyway.
But there was a shin’yah tree. As was traditional, it had been planted so that its branches overhung a small stone pool. The water was not completely still, but it flowed, slowly, over an unlipped edge into a second pool. From there it drained so that, out of sight, it would be quickly and efficiently purified and cycled back into perfectly potable, clear liquid. The blue sky and the bright leaves were reflected in the pool, and as Iden watched a breeze rustled the tree. A single scarlet leaf detached itself from its branch and wafted its way down to land in the water.
A thin, crimson curl twisted languidly as the water leached the leaf’s pigment. Another curl joined it, and a third, then a fourth. The impression one had was that the dying leaf was bleeding out. Folklore had it that the tree had once been a young woman who had slashed her wrists when forbidden to marry the suitor she had loved.
The water bore the fallen leaf and its billowy scarlet trail slowly toward the edge in a funereal manner. Iden watched it hover there, then gracefully tip over the edge, out of her sight.
The trees had survived, amusingly enough, because of her father, who praised them as a symbol of the planet’s devotion to the Empire. Displaying the trees had become a popular pastime for those wanting to stay on the Empire’s good side—which was anyone and everyone among the planet’s nonhuman populace who had the room to plant them.
This had happened before Iden’s birth, but she had watched the holos of his speech—the one that had gotten a red stone statue of him erected—often enough to remember almost all of it. Certainly the most famous lines: “Once the Maiden of the Shin’yah let her life’s blood flow, drop by drop, for a great love. And so, too, we of Vardos, the people of the Shin’yah, let our life’s blood flow in heroic battle, for love of our Empire.”
It amused Iden that while they were a symbol of Vardos’s patriotism, the trees were purely ornamental. They yielded no fruit, and the wood did not lend itself to carving or for use as firewood. They were, quite literally, good for nothing—other than propaganda and looking pretty—but that small detail seemed to have escaped her father. They had become a symbol to Versio, and that was sufficient to grant them amnesty when the rest of the planet’s vegetation succumbed to the march of duracrete.
Iden was, nonetheless, glad they had been spared. She had a dim memory of a house full of paintings of the white trees and their weeping red leaves, and a mother and father who smiled and spoke kindly to each other.
She grimaced. She could put off the task no longer. She sat on the gray stone side of the pool, carefully put down the holoprojector, and activated it.
She gasped softly.
Her mother—her beautiful, radiant, always smiling mother, who was never unkempt despite her slow decline—looked terrible. Her large, expressive eyes were bloodshot, and her hair was a mess. She stared seemingly straight at Iden as she spoke.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Zeehay said. Her voice cracked on the last word. “I had to find out about it through the HoloNet. I couldn’t believe it, at first. I told Garrick that blond boy had set you up. That my darling Iden, who loved the Empire just as much as I did, would never, ever turn her back on it like that.
“But it wasn’t a setup. I’m told you’re going to be court-martialed. I want you to know I’m going to do whatever I can to help you. I can’t bear the thought of losing you. Whatever you did, however you feel…it can be changed if they just won’t take my baby.”
Fresh tears filled Zeehay’s eyes and trickled down her dark, sunken cheeks. She wiped them away and for a moment sat silently, pressing her full lips together hard.
“I don’t know what happened to you. I don’t know who got to you, or why you would say such horrible things. It’s not true. The Empire is a force for great justice in this galaxy. It’s the only thing that stands between us and the mindless, angry chaos of the Rebellion. What do you think I’ve been doing all these years? I have a gift, and I’ve used it to inspire others to join up, to support their Empire, so that we can finally help those who need our help!”
She’d done more than just use her gift to inspire others. Zeehay had traveled to planets all over the galaxy, trying to reach the populations with her art. It was on such a mission that she had contracted the disease that was slowly sucking the vibrancy, the good humor, the very life out of her. She’d fought it for four years, but Zeehay and her daughter knew that the time would come when she could fight no longer.
The medical droids had encouraged her to keep painting, to do what she enjoyed as long as she could. They cautioned Iden that undue stress would be detrimental.
One of Iden’s hands drifted to the opposite wrist. She squeezed it, hard. Pain blossomed, bright and clear and sharp. Iden needed the pain someplace where she could control it. She was sure that there were no Imperial bugs in Gleb’s house, and she was equally sure that Gleb herself had installed means of spying on her new houseguest. And Iden was not going to give her former teacher the chance to gloat over Iden’s suffering.
“Baby, I want you to know that whatever happens, I’ll always love you. You’re my daughter, Iden. You’ll always be my daughter. And I’ll always be your mother. Whatever you do, whatever you say…I can’t ever not love you.”
Zeehay took a long, quivering breath. “But…I have lost my respect for you.”
A soft, hurt sound struggled to escape Iden. She bit her lip, hard, and squeezed the cuff injury harder.
“I am…shocked, and disillusioned, and—Iden, you didn’t just betray the Empire or the Emperor. You betrayed your father. You betrayed me. And I’m not sure I can ever forgive you for that.”
Mama, no—
Years fell away. Iden stood beside her father, who towered so tall over her then, watching the shuttle lift off the ground, bearing her mother far, far away. Iden wouldn’t see her again for years, and never again on Vardos.
It’s all right, her father had said. It’s best for all of us that she’s gone. She’s a Versio in name only. We—you and I—are true Versios, and Versios don’t cry, do they?
No, sir, her five-year-old self had replied in a voice thick with unuttered shrieks of grief. Versios don’t cry.
Iden gritted her teeth and jabbed her thumb into the raw flesh.
The holographic image smiled weakly through her tears. “But I will try to forgive. Once you understand what you’ve done, and how wrong you were. But you’ve got to get to that place. So you get there. And you get there fast.”
Zeehay seemed to want to say something more, but she changed her mind. She shook her head and wiped again at her wet face. Then she reached out toward the holorecorder—and was gone.
You get there. You get there fast.
Iden’s pain dissolved, replaced by grim determination. Oh, she’d get there, sooner than any of them ever expected. Because once they had found the source of the information leak—once they had ground the Dreamers into the dust and returned victorious as Inferno Squad—Iden would be able to be a captain again. She would be able to tell her mother then that everything she’d said had been a lie, and it was only love of the Empire, not hatred for it, that had given her the courage to get through these awful days.
She lowered her gaze and saw that the pressure on her wrist had caused the wound to reopen, and a drop of red blossomed in the water, then drifted away.
Iden felt like a leashed pet.
She was allowed some liberty, but only under proper Imperial supervision. If Gleb was not in residence at the same hours Iden was, three guards remained on duty. Gleb had warned Iden to always assume she was being overheard when they were present. Iden had assured her that it went without saying, even as she swallowed her anger at this blatant assumption of her stupidity. Meals were taken in Gleb’s presence, and everywhere Iden went she had an armed shadow walking a few paces behind her.
What hurt most of all was not being able to fly solo. Iden missed the cockpit of her TIE fighter so much that she ached when she thought about it. She craved the comforting blackness and circular enclosure; the glint of red lighting, the efficient controls that responded with ease to her touch.
It had been ten days since her arrival, over a month since her “act of treason,” and despite Admiral Versio’s assurances that the Dreamers were actively searching for a figurehead, there had been no hint that the terrorists were aware of her presence here. No cryptic messages, no attacks on Gleb’s house, nothing out of the ordinary. The only notice anyone had taken of her had been some of Gleb’s students, who had shouted “Traitor!” at her while she was being escorted to her ship three days before.
Maybe the Dreamers simply thought that justice had been done. Maybe they didn’t believe Iden. If only her mother hadn’t doubted her, too…but Iden couldn’t allow herself to dwell on that. She would complete her mission, sniff out the source of the leak, recover the dangerous information, and return to a hero’s welcome and a parade. Or, perhaps, be quietly reassigned. Either way, her mother would, one day—hopefully soon—discover that her daughter was not, never had been, never could be a traitor.
She couldn’t shake the memory of the holorecording, though. Zeehay had looked so frail. Iden’s mood and thoughts were dark when she stepped into the starfighter and settled into the pilot’s seat. A moment later she heard the footsteps of her copilot, Azen Novaren, on the ramp.
Her first assigned copilot—or “watchdog,” as Iden knew she was meant to be—had been a woman named Semma Waskor. Captain Waskor had been judgmental, but at least she also had been taciturn, which meant that Iden was not going to be subjected to lectures. They had nodded to each other, Iden had gotten in the pilot’s seat, and that was pretty much that other than what was absolutely necessary for Iden to complete her patrol circuit over various Vardosian cities. It had suited her fine, and she was saddened to hear that Waskor had been badly injured in a tram accident, along with several others. At first, Iden had hoped the tram accident would herald contact from the Dreamers, but no such luck.
Instead, she’d been saddled with Lieutenant Azen Novaren, an older man with graying hair and lines etched in his face from too much sun. He’d been entirely forgettable, and the last two days had been more boring than irritating.
“Good morning, Iden,” he greeted her as he boarded.
She sighed. Iden. “Good morning, Lieutenant Novaren.”
She heard the door slide closed behind him as he replied, “I really hope it will be. We’re going on a little trip together.”
And Iden felt the press of a blaster muzzle between her shoulder blades. Her pulse leapt and she practically cheered.
Finally!
She went very still. “What’s going on, Lieutenant?” she asked quietly.
“I already told you. We’re taking a little trip. Now, very naturally and calmly, I’d like you to get out of your seat, sit in the copilot’s chair, and strap yourself into your crash webbing. And don’t attempt to summon help. I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Through the viewport, she could see other pilots in the hangar going about their business. Bored looking, all of them; dull-eyed, doing their duty, going home in the evening to spouses and families or a night alone watching holovids and drinking what alcohol their credits could purchase. They had all watched Iden like shirrhawks at first, hungry for novelty, but that had worn off by the fourth day. Now no one noticed that Iden Versio was sitting in plain view with a blaster pressing into her back, and that was just fine with her.
She obeyed, easing into the copilot’s chair carefully, keeping her hands where he could see them, and strapped herself in.
“Hands behind you,” Azen instructed. When she complied, he snapped a pair of stun cuffs onto her wrists. “Now. Be a good girl and don’t make any noise, and I won’t have to hurt you.”
“Hurt me? I thought you were ready to kill me.”
“Oh, don’t think I won’t if I have to, but you’re much more valuable to us alive.”
“Who’s us?”
“All in good time. First, we need to get clear of this awful little planet and out of the Jinata system.” Casually, Novaren flipped switches, pressed buttons, and went through the precheck. Then he said, “J-Sec Patrol, this is Lieutenant Azen Novaren piloting the Brightstar, 4014B, requesting permission to take off.”
“Brightstar is scheduled to be piloted by Iden Versio, Novaren,” came a voice.
“Copy that, but there’s been a change of plan.” His voice was calm, bored; the voice of a pilot doing a job he didn’t particularly like and had been doing for too long. Iden found herself admiring that. “She’s copiloting today.”
“I’ll need verbal confirmation of her flight code from Versio.”
Azen looked at her expectantly. He indicated the blaster he held at his side, out of sight of the other security members milling about outside. Iden hesitated, then said, her eyes locked with Novaren’s, “Versio here, confirming my flight number is 18104.”
“Copy that. You’re cleared to go.”
Novaren flipped the radio off. “You agreed rather quickly,” he said.
“You didn’t leave me much choice. Your blaster wasn’t set to stun,” Iden said, nodding at the weapon.
He didn’t reply, focusing instead on lifting off and hovering for a moment before heading toward the open doors. “Sharp eyes. No, it wasn’t,” he said, reaching down for it. “But it is now.”
He fired.
—
By the time Iden blinked into consciousness, slightly nauseous and aching, she and Azen were surrounded by stars. “What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing much,” her kidnapper replied. “Just a jump to hyperspace.”
“There’s a tracker on this ship.”
“Not anymore.”
Iden regarded him with a hint of admiration. “You’re good,” she said. “Let me guess…you were behind the tram incident. You needed to get my minder out of the way.”
“Guilty as charged,” Novaren replied.
“A lot of people died on that tram.”
“A lot of people died on Alderaan.” He gave her an appraising look. “Or had you forgotten that?”
Iden winced with feigned pain and looked away. “No, of course not. Not forgetting about it is what got me court-martialed. I’m…a little surprised it was this easy. I would have thought there would be some excitement around stealing a J-Sec vessel.”
“Plenty more where we’re going.”
