Battlefront II, page 23
She scoffed in disbelief. “Me? Not a damn thing. But you”—she smiled, cruelly—“you just doomed yourself.”
He sagged, then lifted his head. He knew better than to look to Staven; there would never be forgiveness there. So he looked to a gentler man.
But even the Mentor, it seemed, had his limits. His brow was knotted and his blue eyes blazed in righteous anger.
“So many in this galaxy are born into their fates,” he said. “They labor, and suffer, and die, unable to alter them, unable sometimes even to hope that something will change. I’ve lost people I loved fighting for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. Who couldn’t choose. You were one of the lucky ones who could, Azen. And you chose the Empire. You chose to betray those who believed you to be a friend. Don’t you dare look to me for mercy. I’ve stood in both places of this war, too. But I made a decision. And I will live or die by my choice. Kaev and Nadrine did die for theirs. You—you will die for nothing.”
Azen looked like a trapped animal who felt the net closing in. But it was too late for any escape, any appeal for sympathy. He’d never been a pleasant person, not to anyone.
“Tell us what you know,” Staven said. His voice was flat, dead, which was somehow more sinister than his fury.
“And you’ll make it quick, is that it?” Azen shook his head, recovering some composure, some little shred of dignity. “No. I refuse.”
Now, at the end, he was finally behaving like an Imperial, Iden thought.
A sort of energy went through those gathered. They knew what that meant. Iden did, too. She’d seen reports about what partisans did for information. The Empire performed torture as well, from time to time as necessary. But it was more elegant. It caused pain without damage. Well, physical damage, at least.
The Dreamers would not be so scrupulous.
“You’re going to have to work for everything you get from me,” Azen said.
“Don’t worry,” said Staven. “We will.”
They did.
It took seven hours for Azen to die.
The mood was somber that night at the encampment. Work would begin on the shuttle, but not yet. Everyone needed to process what had happened. Staven had ordered that Azen’s corpse be put “in the usual place. Though even Crunchers might well choke on such putrid meat,” he had added.
Upon his return to the encampment, he’d wordlessly taken a speeder bike and roared off by himself. No one seemed to notice or care when the members of Inferno Squad did the same thing, one by one.
Iden had directed them to a specific spot she’d found during her daily runs. Although they’d all grown largely accustomed to living in near-darkness, they’d brought their night-vision goggles to keep alert for predators—both the two-legged and the multilegged kind.
“It’s good to see you,” Iden said.
“It’s good to see you and Gideon at all, considering what happened on the mission,” Del said. “And Staven wasn’t very stable when he got off the shuttle, either. I thought he was going to blast you first and figure things out later.”
“You weren’t the only one,” Gideon said, then added lightly, “although I’d have made a fine leader if that had happened.”
“Not yet,” Iden said. She looked at them and squared her shoulders. “A good day’s work for sure, but we still haven’t made inroads on where the partisans have been getting their information.” Nothing they had been able to obtain from Del’s investigation into Azen via the ship’s logs indicated he had anything of note. It did look like he had hoped kidnapping Iden would be the “big score” to restore his favor in the eyes of ISB.
“I guess either Staven has his own informant offworld that he’s being extraordinarily tight-lipped about, or else your friend the Mentor is sitting on something he’s doling out sparingly,” Seyn said.
“He’s not my friend,” Iden said, quicker than she intended. “There’s tension between those two, and we need to start pushing that. Hard,” she said. “Gideon, Staven seems to have taken to you. He’s going to need a friend right now after Nadrine’s death and Azen’s betrayal. Plant some doubt in his head about the rest of the group. Even me if you have to, but especially the Mentor and those who seem to think like him.”
“I will be the absolute best friend Staven’s ever had,” Gideon promised.
“How are things going with Piikow?” Iden asked Del.
“Fine. He seems to like everyone, and everyone likes him.”
Iden shook her head. “Not good enough. Piikow appears to operate on an even keel. Convince him that Staven isn’t a trustworthy leader anymore.
“Seyn.” She turned to the youngest member of the team. “So far, you’ve done a fine job ingratiating yourself with the Vushans. Keep up the good work. I’ll continue trying to get information from the Mentor. Does anyone have any questions?”
There were none. “All right. We’d better wander back toward the encampment. It’s all right for us to be seen together now, I think—we’re all welcome here at this point. But I’d rather it not happen too often. Comm me if you learn anything or you think there’s trouble.”
Gideon punched Del in the shoulder. “Come on, brother mine. Let’s head on back.”
“Hey, quit punching me,” Del said good-naturedly. “I’m your big brother, remember?”
“Ah, but I am the witty and dashing younger brother who flies the ship and gets to have all the fun.”
Their voices faded. Seyn started to head back, too, but Iden said, “Seyn? I need a word.”
“Of course,” the other woman replied promptly.
“We’ve all been making ‘friends’ here. But you’re the only one who’s involved in…well, I suppose it’s a romantic relationship.”
“Not to worry, Captain. I don’t love Sadori any more than Gideon is Staven’s best friend.”
“If there is something between you two, I need to know. Things like that can get tricky.”
“Permission to speak freely?” At Iden’s nod, Seyn said, “I’ve worked with literally hundreds of agents. Many in deep cover. I’m well aware of the peril of getting emotionally involved. Besides, he’s just a teenager.”
“He’s eighteen, you’re twenty,” Iden said. “It’s not that big of an age gap, but your point is well taken. I’m sorry I questioned your judgment.”
“It’s understandable, Captain. Will that be all?”
“Dismissed.”
On impulse, Iden decided to climb one of the trees. She was feeling stifled under the deep canopy. When she stuck her head out of the leafy cover, pulled off her night goggles, and beheld the glittering starfield, she felt a tug of homesickness. How she wanted to be out there, in the Corvus. Wearing her uniform again.
She had asked Seyn not because she doubted the other woman’s resolve, but because she herself was surprised by how the deaths had affected her. It had been part of the plan, of course, and at the time the idea had been conceived she had felt nothing. But Kaev and Nadrine had been easy to like, and seeing the anguish in Staven, and how it had affected all the partisans…she didn’t like where her thoughts were going.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” Del called.
Despite her somber mood, she was smiling as she said, “Permission granted.” Within a few minutes he was on a branch beside her.
“Thought you headed back to camp with Gideon.”
“Couldn’t help but notice you wanted to talk to Seyn.” He pulled off his goggles and looked at the stars, as she had done, then turned to her. “You okay?”
“We got rid of Azen and cemented our position in the group. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t too rattled by what happened today,” he replied. “We chat with, laugh with, eat with, and fight alongside these people. We even sleep next to them. But they’re still the enemy. This is harder than combat. It’s easier to kill someone whose favorite color you don’t know, or who hasn’t trusted you with their dreams.” He paused, then said, “Gideon told me Staven cried.”
“Really?” Iden asked, surprised.
“He did. It shook him. It’s the second time he’s lost a woman he loved.”
“I suppose we can use that,” Iden said.
There must have been something in the tone of her voice, because he turned to look at her.
“They’re rebels, Iden,” Del said, kindly. “They’re not people. We can’t think of them like that. If we do, we can’t finish what we came here to do.”
“Who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?” Iden asked.
“Both of us, I guess.”
If Gideon were here, he’d say, “Thinking about them as people makes you soft. And Versios aren’t soft.”
And he’d be right.
Wouldn’t he?
—
Iden was more than ready for another mission to happen, and glad that Seyn, who had done so much without complaining behind the scenes for so many others, was going to finally see some action. As long as Seyn returned safely, Iden didn’t even care if the mission was a success or a failure. Success would buoy Staven and distract him from his moodiness that so often seemed to be directed her way. Failure would make him more unstable, and give the Mentor something to point to.
It was a fairly straightforward mission, though it relied heavily on Sadori and Seyn being convincing in their roles as two teenage schoolchildren. The event was a public-relations stunt. The relatively calm world of Anukara was opening a munitions factory. Anukara’s moff, Rys Deksha, would be playing host to General Ivel Toshan for a public ceremony to open the plant. Students from a nearby school would be given a special tour and get to meet their moff and the general. Afterward, there would be a luncheon for the dignitaries.
The idea was for Seyn and Sadori to blend in with the students and plant a bomb at the final stop of the tour—the great hall. It would kill the moff and the general and in Staven’s words, “Send a strong message about how far we’re willing to go to stop the Empire.”
Dahna frowned a little. “You’ll delay the opening, and that’ll cost them a lot of credits, which is good. But while Toshan and Deksha are public figures, they’re not very highly placed,” she said.
Iden and her team, of course, had offered no objection to the plan. This was as her father had warned her—sometimes her own people would have to die. She thought of the stormtrooper, beaten bloody, who had died still trying to rally and fight. The assassination of a moff and a midlevel general would be a black eye to the Empire, but Dahna was right. This wasn’t a statement about “how far they would go.”
“No, they’re not, but you see…they’re not the real targets.”
Iden had a terrible suspicion. He couldn’t possibly be suggesting what she thought he was. Not even the Dreamers would—
“It’s the children.”
Several people spoke at once, most of them sounding as stunned as Iden felt.
“We’re not child murderers!” snapped Dahna.
“There’s nothing more innocent than a youngling, Staven,” Piikow pleaded.
The Kages said nothing, but Sadori looked stunned, his gray face paler than usual. Her team was struggling to keep their composure, and Iden herself felt cold sweat gathering at her browline and under her arms.
“Absolutely not!”
The voice was deep with anger, resonant, and brooked no disagreement. The Mentor, who usually sat quietly and seldom even offered an opinion when the missions were being assigned, was on his feet. His fists were clenched, and his eyes were bright with righteous fury.
Staven didn’t rise. He stayed seated atop one of the flattened boulders, meeting the Mentor’s hot fury with cold eyes. “This isn’t your group, Mentor,” he said. “You have no voice here.”
“I will not allow this, Staven,” the Mentor continued, as if Staven hadn’t even spoken. “This is too far. I told Saw, and I will tell you, there are limits to what you can do. If you exceed them, you are on the side of hate and cruelty, and that’s the side of the Empire. If you want to sit next to them at the table, killing children is the quickest way to do it!”
“I’ve given everything to fight the Empire!” Now Staven did rise and took two steps toward the Mentor. “Everything! I’ve got nothing left but hate and cruelty, and I will shove that down the Empire’s throat every chance I get until they choke on it!”
“The Mentor’s right,” said Staven’s second in command. “We can’t kill innocent children.”
“Dhana, these aren’t ‘innocent children,’ ” Staven said. “They’ve been robbed of their innocence because they’re children of the Empire. They’re already rotting on the inside. They might be young, but their family, their friends, their culture is our enemy. And they’ll grow up to get into stormtrooper uniforms and kill us and our loved ones.”
Iden swallowed hard as the words of her father came back to her: The child of a rebel may be a child yet, but we must look to the future. It will grow up to be an enemy. And our enemies must be destroyed.
“Our enemies must be destroyed.” Iden wasn’t aware that she had spoken until all heads turned to her. The Mentor looked startled. Her jaw tensed, but she didn’t deny the words. She had to communicate to her team that no matter how brutal or personally devastating the task, they had to complete it. They couldn’t risk the mission.
Iden made a vow then and there. This would be the last mission in which they would participate. Her team would set the Mentor and Staven against each other, just like they were now, their own codes and morals, like sharp teeth, rending one another. Inferno Squad would determine who had the intel, where it was hidden, and take it. And let the tiny handful that remained of Saw Gerrera’s partisans see their “dream” drown in despair and discord.
The beast would devour itself.
—
Del had been able to hack into the system and obtain the codes that permitted them to land near a school shuttle filled with nearly four hundred excited human children ages fourteen through eighteen. Dressed in matching school uniforms, Seyn and Sadori walked over to board the shuttle. Only humans were admitted into the school, so Sadori was disguised: He had spent over an hour having his pale-gray face and neck covered with concealing cosmetics; he wore contacts that turned his naturally pink eyes brown and hid their soft glow. Fortunately, the school permitted gloves, as long as they were black.
“We do this all the time,” he had told Seyn. “This is a weapon that’s every bit as important as a blaster or a vibroblade. Kages aren’t commonly seen outside of Quarzite, so if we don’t want to attract attention, on this stuff goes.”
Seyn, who had supervised so many undercover agents, was impressed. Each Kage had their own palate. While all three had had gray skin, their shades varied, and the cosmetic hues were selected to match the tone as much as possible. Halia, for instance, would apply warm, darker colors that made her resemble Iden, whereas paler Sadori’s human color was closer to Gideon’s. This school was not a military one, so Sadori was able to keep his long, black locks and thus conceal his Kage ears. If someone took the time to examine him, they might notice the flaws. But Seyn knew from experience that people generally saw what they expected to see.
Sure enough, the harried teachers glanced cursorily at the two “students” and then at the IDs Seyn had so carefully crafted, and waved them through without pause. Sadori was proud of her; Seyn had expected nothing less.
“Go all the way to the back and fill in all the seats!” one of teachers instructed. Sadori went first. Seyn followed. Then: “Wait.” Seyn tensed. The teacher, a tall, slender man with sharp features and a dully pained expression, peered at the droid affixed to Seyn’s back. “You can’t take the droid with you.”
“Check the card,” Seyn said, as if she was tired of reminding people. “I’ve got a medical condition that it helps monitor.”
He looked at her skeptically, then reread her ID card. “All right. You can bring it, but it will have to go into the compartment at the rear during the flight.”
Seyn rolled her eyes and then said, “Okay, okay.” She looked over her shoulder and addressed the droid. “You heard him,” she said. “Go on. I’ll wait for you outside when we get there.”
The droid booped its acknowledgment, detached itself, tucked up its limbs, and flew over the heads of the excited students as it made its way to the rear of the shuttle. Sadori had already found a seat and waved her over.
“Are you nervous?” His voice was pitched low as he reached for Seyn’s hand and squeezed it.
She squeezed back. “A little,” she said, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. How many agents had she monitored, how many more had she sent into the field, in situations nearly identical to the one she was experiencing now? She could do a count if she had the time, but knew it numbered in the hundreds.
And how many didn’t make it back? She pushed the thought aside. She had to focus on the job at hand.
She settled back into her seat, making no effort to remove her hand from his gloved one. It helped with their cover: two teenagers more engrossed in each other than anything else. No one looked twice.
Beneath their uniforms, as always when the partisans went on a mission, they both wore patches of the malleable explosives. The material was difficult to detect, and while the Empire did have the technology to do so, such scanners were still new, prone to breaking, and very expensive. The intel that they had on the plant on Anukara was that such equipment had not yet been installed. Seyn hoped that was still true. If not…the droid would be able to disable the scanner.
The flight to the weapons factory was filled with the loud sounds of rambunctious students, and completely uneventful. When they exited the shuttle, Seyn waited, and the droid emerged and immediately settled again onto her back.
“Let’s go,” Sadori said. He leaned over as if to kiss her cheek but instead whispered, “You’re going to do great!”
She smiled at him and fished out her comlink. “Hi, Dad!” she said brightly. “We’re here, waiting to get in. I’m so excited!”
“Stop making me feel old,” Del said. “Will you get to keep the comm? Your…mother and I worry, you know.” She could imagine Iden’s eye-roll.
