Battlefront II, page 21
Every member of Inferno Squad was a soldier. They’d all been involved with combat. Taken lives.
Some in ways more brutal than others—
This was the answer. Each team member was already focused on one or more of the partisans. Staven was not leading a unified band. Names easily came to mind of those who were either as unshakably loyal or as bloodthirsty as he—Azen, the adult Kages, Nadrine. Then there was Piikow, and Dahna, who did what they did out of duty, not delight.
She paused and looked at what she had absentmindedly sketched in the dirt: stick figures with blasters. Some were scowling. Some were smiling.
Divide and conquer.
An ancient strategy in warfare, perhaps as old as warfare itself.
Iden had wondered why she was always mending and polishing armor. Most of the time the Dreamers didn’t use it, preferring their nondescript gray flight suits. Iden thought perhaps they stripped the corpses of their clothing simply to have trophies. But now, they would prove highly useful.
Because she was the most familiar with stormtrooper armor, at least as far as Staven knew, the Dreamer leader wanted her suited up for the mission. It would help her avoid recognition, which was unlikely but possible, until such time as she wanted to be recognized. And the HUD would be invaluable. Rebels might call them “bucketheads,” but stormtroopers wore armor that was extremely functional.
Her codes for Imperial space identification—as she had known they would be—were accepted. She was glad that Staven had finally decided to test them; if they continued to be “good” after too much longer, it would be suspicious.
All was well as they set out. Their first stop—Akagarti’s residence. The J-Sec shuttle was brought in at night, flying dark and landing a safe distance away. It was large enough to contain a speeder that carried four, and Iden, Staven, Kaev, and Nadrine made their way to the perimeter fence. A pair of EMP grenades made short work of it. They waited to see if the crackling display triggered any reaction, but there was nothing.
“To the house,” Staven ordered.
“I can’t believe we’re just walking up to the front door,” Kaev muttered.
“Backwater worlds rely pretty heavily on specific types of technology,” Iden said. “Once you know what they use, you know how to counter it.”
They were not challenged when they approached the house. Iden had brought a bigger weapon into the fray—a DEMP, or destructive electromagnetic pulse ion carbine. She used the highest setting. It discharged with a burst of blue filagrees of electromagnetic radiation, chasing one another over and around the residence, destroying any recorders, force fields, or other security devices.
The other three targeted the door and fired, creating a burning hole. Cradling the DEMP in one arm, Iden reached out a hand for a blaster. Staven gave her one. She walked forward cautiously, blaster at the ready, then fired again and again through the gaping hole. When at last she stepped through, she saw four stormtrooper bodies sprawled in the entry foyer.
It was possible they weren’t dead. Stormtrooper armor was designed to dissipate blaster shots. Iden couldn’t risk them recovering and attempting to stop the Dreamers’ plan. There was only one way to be sure.
I’m so sorry, Iden thought as she placed the blaster muzzle at the vulnerable juncture of torso and shoulder on each stormtrooper. You die for the Empire.
She straightened. Her HUD revealed no immediate threat. “Clear,” she called back. The other three climbed carefully through the still-smoking entrance, and Staven said, “Kids first, then the parents,” as they raced inside.
The house, not quite as large or as lavish as Moff Pereez’s, was dark and quiet. There was no other security in this area, and Iden suspected that if there were troopers or guards in the house—and it was possible there weren’t; that the EMP attack might have drawn them all—they’d be locked in whatever rooms they found themselves in. No automatic doors would be working anywhere in the house.
“Stand back,” Iden called. She fired at the door, then kicked it in.
Akagarti’s daughter, seven years old, was standing away from the door as Iden had advised, fists clenched, her tears betraying her bravado as she stared up at Iden.
“Trooper?” she asked. “What’s going on out there?”
Iden felt a pang. This child was an Imperial citizen, one who did not fear stormtroopers but saw them as a source of protection.
“Come with me,” was all Iden said. She reached down and grasped the girl’s arm, ready to clamp down if the child panicked or bolted. She did neither, accompanying Iden obediently as they left the child’s room and went into the hallway.
A sudden high-pitched shriek of terror told Iden that Staven had retrieved the little three-year-old boy. The girl tensed but didn’t pull away. It was only when she saw the door to her parents’ bedroom open with Nadrine standing guard, cradling the large blaster in her arms with easy familiarity, that the girl put the pieces together and tensed to flee. But Iden dug her gloved fingers into the soft flesh of the child’s upper arm and dragged her into the bedroom despite her struggles.
Ephor Emoch Akagarti and his wife, who looked to be in their early forties, wore sleeping clothes of comfortable-looking white fabric. They sat bolt upright in their bed, stiff as if they were made of stone, only their eyes darting about in helpless, hunted terror.
But when they saw their children, the stillness shattered. The mother let out a wailing sob and surged forward, and Emoch cried, “No! Please! Whoever you are, please don’t hurt my family!”
Nadrine whipped the blaster around and pointed it directly at the woman, who froze, trembling, while Kaev seized Emoch and hauled him out of bed.
“Room’s clear, by the way,” Nadrine said to Staven. “No bugs.”
“Good.” He leaned over the child and said calmly, “Run to your mother.” The boy scrambled to obey, racing to the bed where his mother scooped him up and clung to him tightly. To Iden, he said, “Let the girl go, too.”
The girl wrenched herself free, turning her small face up to Iden’s helmeted one with a look of bitter disillusionment before she hastened to climb onto the bed. Her mother pulled her close as well.
Staven turned to Emoch. “How your family fares in the next half hour is entirely up to you. And ‘whoever we are’ happens to be Saw Gerrera’s partisans.”
Emoch gaped at him. It was not an attractive expression. “I…that’s not possible, Saw G—”
Staven backhanded the man savagely. His wife gasped and the little boy whimpered.
“You’re not fit to speak his name,” Staven said, his lip curling with disgust. “He’s gone, but the dream he had is alive and well. I hope your family will be able to say the same of you. Come on.”
Staven dragged the cowering ephor to his feet, snapped a pair of stun cuffs on him, and shoved him in Staven’s direction. “Where are you taking me?”
“We’re going to pay a visit to the water purification plant.”
The man blanched, and the mark Staven had left now stood out even more. Iden waited for the lies, the protests, the explanations, but all Emoch said was, “I’ll do whatever you want, but I beg you, please don’t hurt them.”
“Good little dog,” Staven approved. “Now my friend here is going to wait here with your family. If any of your guards tries to come in here, he’ll happily kill them. If any of your family tries to escape, he’ll happily kill them, too. Everyone clear on this?”
The three on the bed nodded silently.
“Good. Now. You three are going to have a front-row seat at what we’ll soon be showing to the rest of the galaxy.” He placed a palm-sized holoprojector down at the end of the bed.
“Are you going to kill us?” the girl asked. She had been crying, but her flushed face was composed now.
“Possibly,” Staven said. “It all depends on what Emoch does. Fair warning—you might learn a few things about your husband and dear old dad that you won’t like. You’d better hope I’m happy with what happens in the next fifteen minutes or so.”
He jerked his head toward the door. “After you, trooper,” he said, mockingly. Iden stepped back out into the hallway. She, Staven, Nadrine, and the hapless Akagarti would rendezvous with the J-Sec shuttle outside. Akagarti would direct them to the water purification system’s entry and, hopefully, cooperate by continuing the façade that all was well.
—
Staven drove the speeder while Iden sat beside him. In the back of the four-person speeder, Nadrine pressed her blaster to Emoch’s temple. Iden’s HUD continued to allow them to easily navigate the area.
They met with no resistance. “Backwater security is a joke,” Iden muttered.
They arrived at an area marked by large, blocky buildings: the treatment plant for the mine’s runoff. “Which one is the last in the process?” Staven demanded. “Where the purified water is kept?”
“That building, on the far right,” Emoch said. “The cisterns are in there.”
They got out of the speeder and approached the building. Staven and Nadrine each carried a multifrequency spotlight glowrod. They entered the building the same way they had entered the house, and Iden swapped out her DEMP for a blaster. Once inside, their glowrods revealed a gargantuan plastoid container about five stories high. Pipes led into it and away from it. The top was flat, and affixed to the side was a simple two-person lift. Each of the four walls of the vast room had a door large enough to permit machinery to pass in and out. “Where do those lead, Emoch?” Staven asked.
The man swallowed. “Different rooms where processing occurs.”
“What kind of processing?”
“Screening, coagulation, sedimentation—”
Staven cut him off. “I think we should have a look at that, too, then.” He smiled at Nadrine. “Can you take the speeder and handle that while the trooper and I conclude our business with Emoch?” The ephor cringed, very slightly, at the turn of phrase.
“I’m on it.” She turned to Akagarti and showed him another holorecorder, waggling it playfully. “And the galaxy is going to see everything that I do.”
Emoch actually stumbled. Iden wondered if he was going to faint. She could almost smell the sour reek of fear. She thought back to Inferno Squad’s first mission, where they had crashed the wedding of Moff Pereez’s daughter and recovered blackmail material, and asked, “You don’t have a bad heart, do you?”
He turned to her and, to her surprise, gave her a sad smile. “No,” he said, “but I’m sure you all think that I do.”
“Well,” Staven said, with that awful brightness that presaged something dark and dangerous, “then let’s head on up to the top and take a look around, shall we?”
He removed the stun cuffs and nudged Emoch with his blaster. “I’ll be right behind you,” Staven told the ephor as he started to climb. Iden went to the one on the other side and ascended the great tank.
Staven and Emoch had reached the top shortly before she had. Still keeping his weapon trained on the ephor, Staven strolled to the side of the vat and peered over.
“That’s a long way down,” he observed. Akagarti bit his lower lip at the comment.
The top of the cistern was completely flat, with a trapdoor in its center. “Locked,” she said. “Do you have a key, Emoch?”
He shook his head, and the apprehension on his face was obviously genuine. “N-no,” he stammered. “I…to be honest, I’ve not been here since the plant was formally opened. I’ve not been anywhere in here since then.”
“Well, then,” Iden said, and fired her blaster at the lock. To her surprise, Emoch cried out. “Scare you?” she asked.
“Y-yes,” he said, staring at the smoking hole she’d blown in the door. She frowned and gazed at him searchingly. He was growing more agitated. Though that wasn’t surprising, really. He had to suspect that whatever Staven intended, it would be happening shortly.
As if to confirm her thoughts, Staven angled his glowrod in her direction and said, “Start recording.”
Iden was ready. They’d discussed the sequence of events, and she’d even rehearsed it with the Mentor. While Staven kept his blaster trained on the ephor, Iden set down the holorecorder on the level surface. She gazed into it and began to speak.
“Citizens of the Empire,” she began. “For we all are, still, citizens of the Empire. You have been tricked. Lied to. Betrayed. Murdered. If you defied the Empire, you were killed, and even if you acquiesced and obeyed, kept your heads down, you were still killed. I know. I once believed in the Empire. But I know better now.”
She lifted her hands and removed the helm, shaking out her long hair, and gazed directly at the unnamed audience. “My name is Iden Versio, and I’m a member of Saw Gerrera’s partisans. I believe in the dream.”
—
It was hard to believe, watching the strong-voiced, confident woman proclaiming her hatred of the Empire, that a few days ago Iden was intimidated by public speaking. But that was Iden, Gideon mused. She never met a challenge she couldn’t bend to her will.
“I’ve got to say,” Azen said, sitting beside him at the ship’s console, “she’s absolutely fantastic. I really didn’t think she could pull it off.”
Obviously you don’t know her, Gideon thought but didn’t say. Instead, he watched, silently, as Iden, still clad in her stormtrooper armor except for the helmet—a theatrical touch suggested by the Mentor—continued.
“I am here on the planet Affadar, with Ephor Emoch Akagarti. He is the leader of the southernmost continent of Pammur, which is rich in forests, rivers, and mountains…and in minerals the Empire wants. Emoch has assured his people that their water supplies won’t be affected by the mining runoff. And I am here, standing atop a cistern supposedly full of purified water, to hold him to that promise.”
Iden reached a gloved hand through the hole she’d blasted in the hatch door and pulled the door open, holding the holorecorder so that the viewer could see what she saw. The water was about two meters from the top. Gideon could hear it lapping quietly.
“It looks clean,” Azen said. “I wonder if we’re on a wild caranak chase.”
“The water certainly looks clean enough, and there’s no smell,” Iden was saying. “But there’s one way to find if this water is potable.”
She removed a bottle from her utility belt, fastened a cord securely to it, and then lowered the bottle into the water. Once it was filled, she pulled it up and presented it to Emoch.
“Here you go, Ephor,” she said. “Prove to us that this water is clear. Take a nice, long drink.” Emoch stared at the proffered bottle blankly.
At that moment, Gideon heard Nadrine speaking on her comlink. “You won’t believe this,” she said. “We’re still recording, right?”
“Yeah,” Staven said. They were not live; Staven wanted to hedge his bets in case Iden froze up at a crucial moment. “What have you found?”
“Nothing, is what I’ve found.”
“I don’t follow.” But Gideon did. He started to grin.
“Water needs to be processed at several levels before it’s potable,” Nadrine was saying. “I found cisterns full of fresh runoff, and the first few layers of processing—eliminating solids, removing anything that clouded or colored the water, that sort of thing. But then there are two rooms where the cisterns are empty. The pipes completely bypass them.”
“So you’re saying that there are levels of processing that are simply not happening?” Iden said, trying to get clarification for the hologram’s future audience.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Half of this plant is just for show.”
Iden turned to Emoch. “Those filtration systems must be expensive to purchase and maintain,” she said. “Much easier to just produce water that appears to be filtered. Who’s going to know the difference, Emoch? Not your family. I’m willing to bet they drink water brought in from the north, or maybe even offworld.”
Emoch didn’t answer. Again, Iden thrust the bottle at him. “Drink. Or we’ll kill you where you stand.”
He extended a hand, wrapped his fingers around the white bottle. “I’ll be happy to drink,” he said, and true to his word, he took several long gulps.
“Dammit. Stop recording, Iden.” Staven was annoyed.
But Iden wasn’t about to listen. “One of the chief dangers of this runoff is the fact that it contains a large amount of dangerous heavy metal and bacteria. Not enough to harm someone in a single serving. But children are advised not to drink it, because they’re much more susceptible. Isn’t that right, Ephor Akagarti?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” the man replied, not meeting Iden’s gaze.
“The hell he doesn’t,” Gideon muttered. “Iden, you’re brilliant.”
“So you’re saying this is safe for children? I hope you’re right. Kaev—you are with Emoch’s family. How are they doing?”
“So far, so good.” Kaev was trying to play along, but he had no idea what Iden was doing.
“Good. Make sure the boy has a nice, refreshing drink of the filtered water his father says is perfectly harmless.”
“Handing the bottle to him now,” said Kaev, catching on.
There was no bottle, of course. There hadn’t been time or opportunity to stop off here, fill up a bottle, and then break into the house to kidnap the ephor’s family. But Emoch didn’t know that.
“No!” Emoch shouted. “No, Taryai, don’t drink it! None of you touch it!”
And there it was. To save his family, Emoch might drink a few mouthfuls of the obviously toxic water. But he wouldn’t put his vulnerable child in jeopardy. It was almost noble. Almost.
Azen couldn’t tear his eyes from the riveting drama that was unfolding…as Iden had banked on.
While the ISB agent stared at the man begging for his children’s lives, Gideon feigned a stretch. His right arm extended upward and back, locating and touching a button on the hovering droid. It slowly, soundlessly, moved away to another part of the ship to do what Del had programmed it to.
There was still plenty of time to escape. Time enough for Gideon to enjoy Emoch’s unraveling.
Some in ways more brutal than others—
This was the answer. Each team member was already focused on one or more of the partisans. Staven was not leading a unified band. Names easily came to mind of those who were either as unshakably loyal or as bloodthirsty as he—Azen, the adult Kages, Nadrine. Then there was Piikow, and Dahna, who did what they did out of duty, not delight.
She paused and looked at what she had absentmindedly sketched in the dirt: stick figures with blasters. Some were scowling. Some were smiling.
Divide and conquer.
An ancient strategy in warfare, perhaps as old as warfare itself.
Iden had wondered why she was always mending and polishing armor. Most of the time the Dreamers didn’t use it, preferring their nondescript gray flight suits. Iden thought perhaps they stripped the corpses of their clothing simply to have trophies. But now, they would prove highly useful.
Because she was the most familiar with stormtrooper armor, at least as far as Staven knew, the Dreamer leader wanted her suited up for the mission. It would help her avoid recognition, which was unlikely but possible, until such time as she wanted to be recognized. And the HUD would be invaluable. Rebels might call them “bucketheads,” but stormtroopers wore armor that was extremely functional.
Her codes for Imperial space identification—as she had known they would be—were accepted. She was glad that Staven had finally decided to test them; if they continued to be “good” after too much longer, it would be suspicious.
All was well as they set out. Their first stop—Akagarti’s residence. The J-Sec shuttle was brought in at night, flying dark and landing a safe distance away. It was large enough to contain a speeder that carried four, and Iden, Staven, Kaev, and Nadrine made their way to the perimeter fence. A pair of EMP grenades made short work of it. They waited to see if the crackling display triggered any reaction, but there was nothing.
“To the house,” Staven ordered.
“I can’t believe we’re just walking up to the front door,” Kaev muttered.
“Backwater worlds rely pretty heavily on specific types of technology,” Iden said. “Once you know what they use, you know how to counter it.”
They were not challenged when they approached the house. Iden had brought a bigger weapon into the fray—a DEMP, or destructive electromagnetic pulse ion carbine. She used the highest setting. It discharged with a burst of blue filagrees of electromagnetic radiation, chasing one another over and around the residence, destroying any recorders, force fields, or other security devices.
The other three targeted the door and fired, creating a burning hole. Cradling the DEMP in one arm, Iden reached out a hand for a blaster. Staven gave her one. She walked forward cautiously, blaster at the ready, then fired again and again through the gaping hole. When at last she stepped through, she saw four stormtrooper bodies sprawled in the entry foyer.
It was possible they weren’t dead. Stormtrooper armor was designed to dissipate blaster shots. Iden couldn’t risk them recovering and attempting to stop the Dreamers’ plan. There was only one way to be sure.
I’m so sorry, Iden thought as she placed the blaster muzzle at the vulnerable juncture of torso and shoulder on each stormtrooper. You die for the Empire.
She straightened. Her HUD revealed no immediate threat. “Clear,” she called back. The other three climbed carefully through the still-smoking entrance, and Staven said, “Kids first, then the parents,” as they raced inside.
The house, not quite as large or as lavish as Moff Pereez’s, was dark and quiet. There was no other security in this area, and Iden suspected that if there were troopers or guards in the house—and it was possible there weren’t; that the EMP attack might have drawn them all—they’d be locked in whatever rooms they found themselves in. No automatic doors would be working anywhere in the house.
“Stand back,” Iden called. She fired at the door, then kicked it in.
Akagarti’s daughter, seven years old, was standing away from the door as Iden had advised, fists clenched, her tears betraying her bravado as she stared up at Iden.
“Trooper?” she asked. “What’s going on out there?”
Iden felt a pang. This child was an Imperial citizen, one who did not fear stormtroopers but saw them as a source of protection.
“Come with me,” was all Iden said. She reached down and grasped the girl’s arm, ready to clamp down if the child panicked or bolted. She did neither, accompanying Iden obediently as they left the child’s room and went into the hallway.
A sudden high-pitched shriek of terror told Iden that Staven had retrieved the little three-year-old boy. The girl tensed but didn’t pull away. It was only when she saw the door to her parents’ bedroom open with Nadrine standing guard, cradling the large blaster in her arms with easy familiarity, that the girl put the pieces together and tensed to flee. But Iden dug her gloved fingers into the soft flesh of the child’s upper arm and dragged her into the bedroom despite her struggles.
Ephor Emoch Akagarti and his wife, who looked to be in their early forties, wore sleeping clothes of comfortable-looking white fabric. They sat bolt upright in their bed, stiff as if they were made of stone, only their eyes darting about in helpless, hunted terror.
But when they saw their children, the stillness shattered. The mother let out a wailing sob and surged forward, and Emoch cried, “No! Please! Whoever you are, please don’t hurt my family!”
Nadrine whipped the blaster around and pointed it directly at the woman, who froze, trembling, while Kaev seized Emoch and hauled him out of bed.
“Room’s clear, by the way,” Nadrine said to Staven. “No bugs.”
“Good.” He leaned over the child and said calmly, “Run to your mother.” The boy scrambled to obey, racing to the bed where his mother scooped him up and clung to him tightly. To Iden, he said, “Let the girl go, too.”
The girl wrenched herself free, turning her small face up to Iden’s helmeted one with a look of bitter disillusionment before she hastened to climb onto the bed. Her mother pulled her close as well.
Staven turned to Emoch. “How your family fares in the next half hour is entirely up to you. And ‘whoever we are’ happens to be Saw Gerrera’s partisans.”
Emoch gaped at him. It was not an attractive expression. “I…that’s not possible, Saw G—”
Staven backhanded the man savagely. His wife gasped and the little boy whimpered.
“You’re not fit to speak his name,” Staven said, his lip curling with disgust. “He’s gone, but the dream he had is alive and well. I hope your family will be able to say the same of you. Come on.”
Staven dragged the cowering ephor to his feet, snapped a pair of stun cuffs on him, and shoved him in Staven’s direction. “Where are you taking me?”
“We’re going to pay a visit to the water purification plant.”
The man blanched, and the mark Staven had left now stood out even more. Iden waited for the lies, the protests, the explanations, but all Emoch said was, “I’ll do whatever you want, but I beg you, please don’t hurt them.”
“Good little dog,” Staven approved. “Now my friend here is going to wait here with your family. If any of your guards tries to come in here, he’ll happily kill them. If any of your family tries to escape, he’ll happily kill them, too. Everyone clear on this?”
The three on the bed nodded silently.
“Good. Now. You three are going to have a front-row seat at what we’ll soon be showing to the rest of the galaxy.” He placed a palm-sized holoprojector down at the end of the bed.
“Are you going to kill us?” the girl asked. She had been crying, but her flushed face was composed now.
“Possibly,” Staven said. “It all depends on what Emoch does. Fair warning—you might learn a few things about your husband and dear old dad that you won’t like. You’d better hope I’m happy with what happens in the next fifteen minutes or so.”
He jerked his head toward the door. “After you, trooper,” he said, mockingly. Iden stepped back out into the hallway. She, Staven, Nadrine, and the hapless Akagarti would rendezvous with the J-Sec shuttle outside. Akagarti would direct them to the water purification system’s entry and, hopefully, cooperate by continuing the façade that all was well.
—
Staven drove the speeder while Iden sat beside him. In the back of the four-person speeder, Nadrine pressed her blaster to Emoch’s temple. Iden’s HUD continued to allow them to easily navigate the area.
They met with no resistance. “Backwater security is a joke,” Iden muttered.
They arrived at an area marked by large, blocky buildings: the treatment plant for the mine’s runoff. “Which one is the last in the process?” Staven demanded. “Where the purified water is kept?”
“That building, on the far right,” Emoch said. “The cisterns are in there.”
They got out of the speeder and approached the building. Staven and Nadrine each carried a multifrequency spotlight glowrod. They entered the building the same way they had entered the house, and Iden swapped out her DEMP for a blaster. Once inside, their glowrods revealed a gargantuan plastoid container about five stories high. Pipes led into it and away from it. The top was flat, and affixed to the side was a simple two-person lift. Each of the four walls of the vast room had a door large enough to permit machinery to pass in and out. “Where do those lead, Emoch?” Staven asked.
The man swallowed. “Different rooms where processing occurs.”
“What kind of processing?”
“Screening, coagulation, sedimentation—”
Staven cut him off. “I think we should have a look at that, too, then.” He smiled at Nadrine. “Can you take the speeder and handle that while the trooper and I conclude our business with Emoch?” The ephor cringed, very slightly, at the turn of phrase.
“I’m on it.” She turned to Akagarti and showed him another holorecorder, waggling it playfully. “And the galaxy is going to see everything that I do.”
Emoch actually stumbled. Iden wondered if he was going to faint. She could almost smell the sour reek of fear. She thought back to Inferno Squad’s first mission, where they had crashed the wedding of Moff Pereez’s daughter and recovered blackmail material, and asked, “You don’t have a bad heart, do you?”
He turned to her and, to her surprise, gave her a sad smile. “No,” he said, “but I’m sure you all think that I do.”
“Well,” Staven said, with that awful brightness that presaged something dark and dangerous, “then let’s head on up to the top and take a look around, shall we?”
He removed the stun cuffs and nudged Emoch with his blaster. “I’ll be right behind you,” Staven told the ephor as he started to climb. Iden went to the one on the other side and ascended the great tank.
Staven and Emoch had reached the top shortly before she had. Still keeping his weapon trained on the ephor, Staven strolled to the side of the vat and peered over.
“That’s a long way down,” he observed. Akagarti bit his lower lip at the comment.
The top of the cistern was completely flat, with a trapdoor in its center. “Locked,” she said. “Do you have a key, Emoch?”
He shook his head, and the apprehension on his face was obviously genuine. “N-no,” he stammered. “I…to be honest, I’ve not been here since the plant was formally opened. I’ve not been anywhere in here since then.”
“Well, then,” Iden said, and fired her blaster at the lock. To her surprise, Emoch cried out. “Scare you?” she asked.
“Y-yes,” he said, staring at the smoking hole she’d blown in the door. She frowned and gazed at him searchingly. He was growing more agitated. Though that wasn’t surprising, really. He had to suspect that whatever Staven intended, it would be happening shortly.
As if to confirm her thoughts, Staven angled his glowrod in her direction and said, “Start recording.”
Iden was ready. They’d discussed the sequence of events, and she’d even rehearsed it with the Mentor. While Staven kept his blaster trained on the ephor, Iden set down the holorecorder on the level surface. She gazed into it and began to speak.
“Citizens of the Empire,” she began. “For we all are, still, citizens of the Empire. You have been tricked. Lied to. Betrayed. Murdered. If you defied the Empire, you were killed, and even if you acquiesced and obeyed, kept your heads down, you were still killed. I know. I once believed in the Empire. But I know better now.”
She lifted her hands and removed the helm, shaking out her long hair, and gazed directly at the unnamed audience. “My name is Iden Versio, and I’m a member of Saw Gerrera’s partisans. I believe in the dream.”
—
It was hard to believe, watching the strong-voiced, confident woman proclaiming her hatred of the Empire, that a few days ago Iden was intimidated by public speaking. But that was Iden, Gideon mused. She never met a challenge she couldn’t bend to her will.
“I’ve got to say,” Azen said, sitting beside him at the ship’s console, “she’s absolutely fantastic. I really didn’t think she could pull it off.”
Obviously you don’t know her, Gideon thought but didn’t say. Instead, he watched, silently, as Iden, still clad in her stormtrooper armor except for the helmet—a theatrical touch suggested by the Mentor—continued.
“I am here on the planet Affadar, with Ephor Emoch Akagarti. He is the leader of the southernmost continent of Pammur, which is rich in forests, rivers, and mountains…and in minerals the Empire wants. Emoch has assured his people that their water supplies won’t be affected by the mining runoff. And I am here, standing atop a cistern supposedly full of purified water, to hold him to that promise.”
Iden reached a gloved hand through the hole she’d blasted in the hatch door and pulled the door open, holding the holorecorder so that the viewer could see what she saw. The water was about two meters from the top. Gideon could hear it lapping quietly.
“It looks clean,” Azen said. “I wonder if we’re on a wild caranak chase.”
“The water certainly looks clean enough, and there’s no smell,” Iden was saying. “But there’s one way to find if this water is potable.”
She removed a bottle from her utility belt, fastened a cord securely to it, and then lowered the bottle into the water. Once it was filled, she pulled it up and presented it to Emoch.
“Here you go, Ephor,” she said. “Prove to us that this water is clear. Take a nice, long drink.” Emoch stared at the proffered bottle blankly.
At that moment, Gideon heard Nadrine speaking on her comlink. “You won’t believe this,” she said. “We’re still recording, right?”
“Yeah,” Staven said. They were not live; Staven wanted to hedge his bets in case Iden froze up at a crucial moment. “What have you found?”
“Nothing, is what I’ve found.”
“I don’t follow.” But Gideon did. He started to grin.
“Water needs to be processed at several levels before it’s potable,” Nadrine was saying. “I found cisterns full of fresh runoff, and the first few layers of processing—eliminating solids, removing anything that clouded or colored the water, that sort of thing. But then there are two rooms where the cisterns are empty. The pipes completely bypass them.”
“So you’re saying that there are levels of processing that are simply not happening?” Iden said, trying to get clarification for the hologram’s future audience.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Half of this plant is just for show.”
Iden turned to Emoch. “Those filtration systems must be expensive to purchase and maintain,” she said. “Much easier to just produce water that appears to be filtered. Who’s going to know the difference, Emoch? Not your family. I’m willing to bet they drink water brought in from the north, or maybe even offworld.”
Emoch didn’t answer. Again, Iden thrust the bottle at him. “Drink. Or we’ll kill you where you stand.”
He extended a hand, wrapped his fingers around the white bottle. “I’ll be happy to drink,” he said, and true to his word, he took several long gulps.
“Dammit. Stop recording, Iden.” Staven was annoyed.
But Iden wasn’t about to listen. “One of the chief dangers of this runoff is the fact that it contains a large amount of dangerous heavy metal and bacteria. Not enough to harm someone in a single serving. But children are advised not to drink it, because they’re much more susceptible. Isn’t that right, Ephor Akagarti?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” the man replied, not meeting Iden’s gaze.
“The hell he doesn’t,” Gideon muttered. “Iden, you’re brilliant.”
“So you’re saying this is safe for children? I hope you’re right. Kaev—you are with Emoch’s family. How are they doing?”
“So far, so good.” Kaev was trying to play along, but he had no idea what Iden was doing.
“Good. Make sure the boy has a nice, refreshing drink of the filtered water his father says is perfectly harmless.”
“Handing the bottle to him now,” said Kaev, catching on.
There was no bottle, of course. There hadn’t been time or opportunity to stop off here, fill up a bottle, and then break into the house to kidnap the ephor’s family. But Emoch didn’t know that.
“No!” Emoch shouted. “No, Taryai, don’t drink it! None of you touch it!”
And there it was. To save his family, Emoch might drink a few mouthfuls of the obviously toxic water. But he wouldn’t put his vulnerable child in jeopardy. It was almost noble. Almost.
Azen couldn’t tear his eyes from the riveting drama that was unfolding…as Iden had banked on.
While the ISB agent stared at the man begging for his children’s lives, Gideon feigned a stretch. His right arm extended upward and back, locating and touching a button on the hovering droid. It slowly, soundlessly, moved away to another part of the ship to do what Del had programmed it to.
There was still plenty of time to escape. Time enough for Gideon to enjoy Emoch’s unraveling.
