Battlefront II, page 20
“I see that,” Iden said, annoyed, “but why?”
“Why do people dance?” the Mentor asked, and this time she realized he was teasing.
She was still annoyed. “A Twi’lek,” she said. “I know enough about slavery to know that Twi’lek female slaves are very popular with…with people who own slaves. Their masters make them dance for their own entertainment. So why would Dahna want to dance?”
“Let’s ask her!” the Mentor said. Then he called out, “Dahna! Our newest member wants to know why you want to dance, since you were forced to as a slave.”
Iden expected everything to come to an awkward, if not downright hostile, halt. Instead, the teal-skinned woman threw back her head and laughed.
“Because I can, child,” she said. “Not because I have to. Because I want to. Because I can dance, or sing, or not do any of those things if I don’t feel like it. I dance because I’m happy, here, with my family. I dance because I am free.”
A roar of approval went up. “This is what you’re helping bring about, Iden,” the Mentor continued.
“Partying?” Iden said, only a little sarcastically. Dahna’s simple joy in her movement was infectious. Piikow, though still enjoying himself, had started to tire, and then Del had darted in, gently carrying the elderly Chadra-Fan to one of the flat-topped rocks where he could recover from the exertion.
“No,” the Mentor replied, choosing to take the question seriously. “You’re helping to bring freedom to the galaxy. So that one day, everywhere, people will be safe to express themselves. To enjoy, without fear. That’s what the rebels want, in the end. That’s all we want.”
Del caught her eye and gave her a warm grin. Surprised, Iden smiled back, a bit awkwardly.
“This makes you uncomfortable,” the Mentor observed.
Yes, it does. Because what I’m seeing here now couldn’t be more different from what happened here this morning. And it’s hard for me to know that these hearts that are so full this moment can turn so cruel.
“It’s certainly not the Empire,” she said. “And…that may take some getting used to.”
—
The next morning, if the term could even be used in a place that was constantly twilight, Inferno Squad was scattered as usual when they were sent for. Staven was waiting for them in the common cavern. Gideon was already there, sitting beside him, cleaning a blaster. He nodded at his “brother” in greeting, but largely ignored the rest of them.
“I hope you’re ready to get to the real work,” Staven said. “Because I’ve got jobs for all of you.”
Finally, Iden thought. She, Del, and Seyn quickly expressed their willingness. Gideon looked as though this was not news—which it probably wasn’t. He and Staven appeared to have bonded after Gideon’s test flight.
Staven waved them all to sit while he outlined the plan. “The Empire has begun mining operations on Affadar, and we all know what that means.”
Iden knew a little about Affadar. It was a largely undeveloped world, with a relatively small population of humans and an indigenous amphibian species called the T’Laeem. The T’Laeem were sentient but primitive. Mining operations there couldn’t be beneficial to them, but the human population would likely benefit from a new prosperity. And, of course, the Empire would have access to resources necessary to continue the war. The Empire was often faced with such difficult choices.
“For a change, the worst thing about this situation is not the Empire,” Staven said. “It’s the local government in the designated mining province that has chosen to work with them. Specifically, the ephor, Emoch Akagarti. He’s personally profited from the alliance at the expense of not only a beautiful world and the likely extinction of a sentient species but the health of his own people—or so rumor has it.”
He smiled that edgey, cruel smile. “In three days, we’re going to pay him a visit. We’re going to use the J-Sec ship that Azen so nicely brought us when he kidnapped Iden. Del, we need you and Piikow to spruce it up, make it look more Imperial at first glance. We’ll also allow you access to our databanks so you can figure out how to hack the security for the ephor’s residence.” Iden forced herself not to smile. An ephor was not a moff, but if Del could hack into a moff’s home, he could definitely handle this.
“We don’t want to kill this man, necessarily. We want to ruin him. Destroy him. Show his people what kind of slime he really is. So here’s how I think we can do that.”
The more Iden listened, the more she liked the plan. It could solve several of Inferno Squad’s problems in one fell swoop.
The downside was, their schedule for eliminating Azen just got bumped up. Way up.
—
Del was delighted that he could work on the J-Sec ship for both the Dreamer’s mission and the one for Inferno Squad, and Seyn’s timing couldn’t be more perfect.
“You’ve got the list?”
“I do,” Seyn said, and handed him the datapad. “It’s all on there. Everything I could remember. Code names, alternate identities, the wording of his censures, everything. It should be of use.”
“I’m sure it will be of very great use. Thank you. It’s going to be tricky, but I think this’ll work. I’m going to use these as keywords. I’m also going to see if I can find his logs in here.”
“Where’s Piikow?” she asked, looking around.
“He’s not been feeling well. Kinda worries me.”
She turned, surprised. “Worries you? He’s a Dreamer, Del. He’s the enemy.”
“He is,” Del said. “And he’s a smart, funny, imaginative little fellow who didn’t deserve what happened to him or his family. I can hold both in my head.”
“Just make sure it’s in your head, not your heart,” she said. “Good luck.”
—
Seyn was heading back to the communal cavern for a bite to eat when she heard Sadori softly calling her name.
“Sadori! Hi,” she said, stammering a little. He’d caught her by surprise, and she rebuked herself. Then again, Sadori was quiet and lithe, moving with the grace of a big cat. The combination of his naturally gray skin and his dark clothing rendered him almost invisible in the dusk, but his pink eyes glowed brightly. He was calm, poised, and precise in everything—except when he was around her.
He fell into step beside her. Back at NavInt, her size had been completely irrelevant. Her companions were coworkers, whom she spoke with mostly in passing, and she spent almost all her time in her dark room watching vidscreens. Not only was her work detached emotionally, she was also physically removed from it. But here, and especially when she stood next to Sadori, she became acutely aware of her physical self: she barely came up to the middle of his chest and had to take almost two strides to his one.
Sadori cleared his throat. “I was just wondering if…if you might like to walk with me? It’s pretty quiet tonight, and there’s a place I go that I’d love to show you.”
Seyn was hungry, but everything was so tentative with Sadori that she was afraid of crushing him if she declined, and the team couldn’t afford to close any doors right now.
He noticed her hesitation. “We won’t be long, unless you decide you want to stay. I think you’ll like it. But we can come right back if you want.”
Warrior from birth Sadori might be, but there was a gentleness about him. She need fear no harm. Besides, she knew a thing or ten about dropping an attacker who was twice her size. So she smiled. “I’m a bit hungry, but why don’t we take something to eat with us?”
His expression brightened. “A…picnic? Yes, let’s do that.” He smiled down at her, then said, “Oh…by the way, do you know how to swim?”
Seyn looked at him askance. Would a slave have been taught this? Possibly. “I do,” she said. “Are we going swimming?”
“We’ll be in water. Only if you want, though.”
She was wearing one of Dahna’s outfits, a sleeveless tunic that fell to midthigh on the Twi’lek and midcalf on her, and leggings she’d had to roll up twice. She could stand getting wet if the occasion warranted it. “We’ll see what I think when I get there.”
“Then let’s pack our picnic and go!” He held out his hand.
Seyn looked at it for a moment. Del had to deal with a chatty Chadra-Fan. Iden was forced to endure barely civil discourse from the Dreamer leader. Gideon, lucky bastard, got to go flying. And I have to pretend to be romantically interested in a teenage boy.
She smiled up at Sadori as she took his extended hand. They walked into the cavern, wrapped up some fruit and raw vegetables and two prevva eggs in some fabric, then went out into the constant twilight. She raised an eyebrow at the sight of a speeder bike awaiting them.
“Ever been on one of these before?” Sadori asked.
What was the right answer for a slave? “No,” she lied.
“I’m very good at it. You’ll be safe, I promise. Hop on and make sure you hang on tight.”
Hoping she would not regret this, Seyn climbed onto the bike behind the large Kage youth, slipped her arms around his narrow waist, and held on.
Mindful of Seyn’s supposed lack of experience, Sadori took it slowly, navigating through a maze of trees for about fifteen minutes until they had reached a semi-grassy area. When the night phase of Jeosyn arrived, the grass would die, to return at “dawn.” But for now, it was thick and lush, a pleasant contrast with the stone areas where the group made camp.
Sadori powered down the bike and held out his hands to help her off. She allowed him to do so, looking around curiously. There were the usual lichen-covered rocks, and starlight. The grass was a nice change, but it wasn’t exactly special. She looked up at Sadori in inquiry.
“Not here,” he said, and pointed to what was a dark smudge against a sloping hill. “There’s a grotto in there. That’s the place.”
Seyn took a step in that direction, but Sadori hesitated. “Seyn,” he said, “do you trust me?”
She tensed, but she was more curious than afraid. “Why do you ask?”
“I want to surprise you,” he said, his voice warm and eager.
She glanced again toward the grotto, then said, “Yes. What do you want me to do?”
“Take my hand and close your eyes,” he said. “I’ll make sure you don’t stumble. I promise.”
Seyn closed her eyes. She was still tense and knew he could tell that, and when he touched her his hand was gentle and respectful. He instructed her when to step forward, and warned her when there was a stone or uneven ground in her path. He kept his promise; she did not have a single misstep.
She could feel it when she entered the cave. The air was moist and cool. She heard a soft lapping sound—the promised water for possible swimming. It smelled like rich dirt and growing things, a comforting scent. Sadori put his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face in a certain direction, and then she heard him moving about the area.
There were a few soft splashes and then he said, “Okay…open your eyes.”
She did so—and gasped.
Magnificent indigo crystals jutted up from the floor of the cavern, providing light enough to see but little more. Sadori had removed his tunic and stood waist-high in the water. He kept very still, hardly even breathing. In his hands, he held a large bowl that was carved from another type of crystal, also purple, but lighter, more magenta in color.
“Sadori, this place is beautiful,” Seyn said honestly. She found herself smiling.
“It is,” he agreed, “but this isn’t why I brought you here.”
He lifted one hand from the crystal bowl with a flourish, then dipped it into the water with a sweeping motion.
Soft blue light appeared, trailing after his fingers like liquid blue flame.
It was nothing unique in the galaxy. The scientific phenomenon of bioluminescence, the emission of light by a living organism, appeared on multiple worlds. But here, in the cool, slightly damp darkness, it looked ethereal and mystical.
Sadori beamed at her pleased reaction. “You can stay there if you want,” he said.
“Oh no,” Seyn said. “I’m coming in.” She kicked off her boots, but before she stepped into the pool, she paused and looked at him. “But…I’m curious…why have you brought me here now?”
His expression turned pensive. “We’ll be going on our first mission together very soon. Anything can happen. I wanted to share this place with you before—well, just in case something goes wrong.”
Seyn realized that not even special forces like Inferno Squad lived on the edge as much as the Dreamers did. They put their lives on the line with every mission, of course, but they didn’t wear bombs strapped to their bodies. No wonder they danced, and laughed, and drank, and lived while they could.
She stepped forward into the pool. With each splash of her feet, there was a blue rippling reaction as the tiny living organisms in the water responded to movement. The bottom of the pool leveled out quickly, and she stood facing Sadori as he held the bowl.
He set the bowl down into the water. A sudden flare of blue around it continued as the crystal bowl floated, bobbing gently. Sadori picked up a small stick about as long as his hand that had been resting inside the bowl.
“This bowl came from my homeworld of Quarzite. It was one of the few things we took with us when we left. As long as there have been Kages, it’s said, there have been these bowls. And as long as the bowls sing, the Kages will continue.”
Very gently, he struck the bowl’s rim with the stick.
A haunting, bell-like tone issued forth. Another blue flare blossomed in the pool, fading with the sound.
“The vibrations,” Seyn said, her voice soft with wonder. “They can feel the vibrations.”
His pink-hued eyes glowed like the tiny sea creatures. “Magical, isn’t it?”
It was not magic. But at the same time, it was.
“Yes,” Seyn said. And she stood there in the cool water, shivering but unwilling to leave, not thinking about the past or the future, but fully here in this place, with this beautiful boy, listening to the haunting tones of the singing crystal bowl while Sadori played the music of ancient stones, and the glowing blue creatures danced to the sound.
—
The Mentor offered encouragement during Iden’s repeated practice sessions with him at the amphitheater. She was improving, she could tell, but the Mentor was constantly trying to make her even better.
“Don’t shout,” he would tell her. “You don’t have to.” Or, “Don’t let your eyes dart around. You want to look full into the holorecorder. You can’t possibly tell me you’ve never done that before.”
Iden felt a stab of pain as she recalled her mother’s message. It reminded her that she needed to finish this mission and get home, and tell her increasingly frail mother that her daughter had never once swayed from her loyalty to the Empire. She would need to deliver a few “speeches” on behalf of the Dreamers, but she hoped fiercely that it would be no more than that. She also hoped, probably futilely, that her mother might not be informed of the speeches. It had been hard enough on Zeehay to see the footage shown at Iden’s court-martial. If she saw this—
“Of course I’ve done this before,” Iden said. She could not allow herself any distraction from the task at hand. “But this feels different.”
“You’re getting better. I know I’m pushing you.”
“Don’t apologize,” Iden said. “I don’t want to be better, I want to excel. Staven brought me here for this and I want to prove myself to him.”
“You and I have so much in common, I suppose I simply assumed you’d take to this as easily as I did. I know it’s not something you’re used to, but it’s hard to overestimate how helpful to our cause it will be. You’ll be saving lives, too. It is always better to reason with people than to kill them.”
“Some people just can’t be reasoned with,” Iden said. She went to sit beside him on the ground. He seemed to be in a reflective frame of mind; maybe she could use that. She grasped a nearby stick and began scratching lines in the hard-baked dirt.
“And that knowledge grieves me,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean I can deny it.”
“You’re an odd partisan,” she said.
“I know. Staven and I…disagree on how to go about many things. But we both agree that the Empire must be defeated.”
Scritch. Scritch. Keeping her eyes on the lines emerging from the tip of her stick, Iden said, “What do you mean, we have so much in common?”
He was quiet for a moment, then spoke. “I came from a famous family,” he said. “During the Clone Wars, I was…confused. Seeking answers, with all the fire and folly of a young teenager.” He smiled a little. At the gesture, Iden glanced at him. She could see the boy inside him still; if the years had not been kind to his spirit, they had been gentle with him physically. “I ended up with the wrong sort of rebels, and then what I thought were the right sort.”
“Saw and Steela,” Iden said.
“Saw and Steela,” he confirmed. “But we lost Steela, and Saw forged his own path with the partisans. My goddaughter joined him. I didn’t. Not then. It seems like over the course of my life, I’ve been on every side imaginable. The Confederacy, the Republic, the Empire, the Alliance, and then back to the partisans. I worked with Saw again for a time—not physically, but we were in communication. Then came Jedha, and now Saw’s gone. I was angry, and sorrowful, and I wanted—I want—this war over.”
“You don’t approve of the level of partisan violence.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No,” he said. “Never have. But I do approve of Saw and Steela’s passion, and I don’t want to overthrow Staven. I just wish he would listen.”
An idea was forming, hot and exciting, inside Iden’s mind. This could be the way to complete the mission. She had already observed that some of the partisans did what they did because they felt there was no choice. Others seemed to thrive on the violence, the slaughter. She understood that. She’d never felt as alive as when she was firing on the rebels, blowing them out of the sky.
