Chapter 2
“You should really get some sleep,” Hoss proposed.
It took a moment for Dreem to comprehend that she had spoken.
“Yeah I should,” he said in a groggy voice as he stretched out in the co-pilot’s seat. Then he spoke through a yawn: “I just can’t.”
The pilot’s seat complained as Hoss sat down.
“You worry too much,” she claimed.
He studied her for a moment.
The woman took pride in looking like a scoundrel – or least he thought so. The varied clothes she styled herself with did give her that look, but it was obvious to anyone with a bit of experience that she wasn’t dangerous. Not to say she couldn’t pack a punch, but she didn’t have that killer instinct others did. She wasn’t a hard criminal. She wasn’t a murderer.
“Is there something stuck in my teeth?” she asked suddenly and he realized he was staring.
“Ah no… No,” he said slowly and put his gaze on the vastness of hyperspace instead.
“We might be headed into a fight you know,” Hoss continued.
He was well aware of that.
“Do you want me to find some of those level 435 pills?” she offered. “They’ll do you good.”
What?
He shook his head and frowned.
“I don’t need drugs to get me through this, Hoss, this isn’t the first time I’ve gone without sleep for a day.”
She started flipping her blaster and sent him a cocky grin.
“Relax Mister Holy, it’s sleeping pills.”
Oh right.
He sucked in a breath through his nostril and exhaled a yawn into his hand.
“No, I’ll be fine,” he replied. “But thanks.”
Hoss shrugged her shoulders.
“Suit yourself.”
After that exchange, they both sat in silence for a while. He watched the stars fly by at lightspeed and let his thoughts flow freely.
Will I ever find them?
Not a day went by without his thoughts touching his lost family. He refused to believe they were dead, but it was a bilateral statement. He had heard of the Empire’s vivid usage of slave labor so to believe they were still alive gave him hope, but that they were only alive to work in one of the Empire’s slave operations disturbed him immensely.
He shifted in his seat.
So many lives shattered by the Empire, it’s a wonder it hasn’t crumbled yet.
He reckoned it was held together by fear alone. People were afraid to even speak out against the Empire. Doing so had consequences, but the galaxy was a large place and if one was a little careful, it was possible to slip through their fingers. Their particular cell had gone under the radar of Imperial forces for months. He didn’t know every type of operation they had conducted in that time, but the ones Hoss and him were sent on were typically scavenge missions or deliveries. Most of it had been food supplies to needing communities and it made him feel good to know that their actions had made a difference, but he always had a nagging feeling at the back of his mind.
He didn’t want to do good for everyone, he wanted to save his family.
He had made Commander Tamas understand that from the first day and the aged leader had promised that in due time, they would do something about it. He wasn’t selfish enough to demand that the entire cell change its course for his crusade, but he knew he wasn’t the only one who had an interest in freeing slaves. Captain Tikira was from Ryloth too. A larger village than his and he had heard that the atrocities committed by the Empire there far surpassed what he had experienced.
There was a great interest in recruiting more people too, and if they liberated an entire colony, how many of them wouldn’t want to take up arms to fight back at those who subjugated them?
All of the sudden, something was off in the cockpit. He noticed that Hoss had ceased spinning the blaster in her hands.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She didn’t answer him immediately, but eventually, she slumped back in the chair and breathed a reply.
“I’m not really sure,” she said. “You know the jedi, right?”
He was the leading expert on the subject among his associates, that much was true.
“I know them to an extent, yes.”
“Well, what are they supposed to be like?” she asked.
He didn’t know what had warranted her sudden curiosity, but he jumped at the chance to convey what he knew. It wasn’t every day she actively sought his wisdom.
Brushing away empty ration packs from his lap, he sat up straight.
Hoss looked at him like she was actually listening for once.
“I can only tell you what I remember,” he started off. “The jedi are compassionate, honorable and powerful beyond our understanding because of the force.”
“The force? Aint that just some mystical nonsense?” she said as she began flipping the blaster in her hands again.
He frowned slightly, shaking his head.
“No, no.. It’s real enough. I asked about it once, but the reply I got was pretty - .. well, mysterious.”
He rubbed his beardless chin as he recalled the words.
“The force is what connects us all, flows through everyone and everything,” he recited.
Hoss made some incredulous sound and shook her head rapidly.
“Alright, you’ve lost me.”
He threw up his hands.
“I don’t know what it means either, but I know it works. I’ve seen jedi using the force to move objects, jump impossibly high and more.”
She didn’t look convinced, but he wasn’t interested in trying to satisfy her standards. She’d see for herself someday.
“Riiight.. Well, anyway, why aren’t you in the cabin? It’s not your watch.”
Yeah why am I in the cockpit?
He was pretty exhausted and there wasn’t much in the way of comfort in the co-pilot’s seat of the odd transport, but he couldn’t sleep in his cabin and if he wasn’t going to sleep anyway, he might as well sit somewhere with a view.
“I like your company,” he said, trying to sound funny.
Hoss scoffed.
“Charming, but I’ll pass.”
He tried on his best smile, but it didn’t feel very convincing. That sinking feeling he had felt in his stomach had only grown worse since they left the corvette and it kept gnawing at him like a stomachache. It tore on his strength, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had considered asking Adder about it since jedi always seemed to be experts on omens – at least in his eyes, but she had been meditating in her cabin ever since they took off.
It’s probably nothing.
Suddenly anxious to think of something else, he blurted out a question.
“What do you call that thing anyway?”
“This?” she said, looking to the blaster that she was spinning for the umpteenth time.
He nodded.
She halted its motion and brought it closer into the light with some excessive gesture she had practiced a thousand times.
“This baby- “ she started off like she thought he was genuinely interested. “ –is a priceless rarity. Top quality.”
He could see every little detail of it. It was squarish in design, small and the blemished surface of the metal belied the notion that it was quality. To him, it looked kind of Imperial which meant it was properly as common as space dust, but he didn’t say that.
“I call it Shilka,” she continued, “it’s a WESTAR-35, but I modified it a bit.”
Why does she modify everything?
The model designation rang no bells in his head, but he got curious.
“What does that name mean?” he asked.
She held it up and aimed the weapon at the cockpit windows.
“No idea, thought it sounded good.”
He sighed.
Smugglers.
Before she could go on about the finer details of the blaster, a warning sounded.
“Finally,” Hoss stated, “we’re nearing our destination.”
About time.
“I’ll prepare coms with the escort,” he said and turned to arrange the set frequencies they always used on such missions.
“Good and maybe you should wake up our companion in the back,” Hoss finished.
“I am awake,” Adder injected.
Both pilots glanced over their shoulders.
The mirialan jedi stood tall with her hands locked behind her back. Her eyes were strictly forwards on empty space.
“Oh Adder, hey. Didn’t notice ya’ there,” Hoss said as she realigned her focus to what was going on outside the cockpit.
Dreem raised a hand in a mute greeting and then went back to work with the coms.
Getting way too sleepy here.
“You haven’t been having nightmares again?” Hoss asked as the ship exited hyperspace with a shudder and she took over manual control.
“I’ve been meditating. Where are we?” she asked quickly, but Dreem couldn’t make it out either.
Right in front of them was a dark, barren moon where large rocky ravines ran through empty wasteland. There was a purple shine to its atmosphere. Definitely not a hospitable place, but before he concluded anything, he glanced to their pilot.
She imitated the voice of an interplanetary shuttle driver.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to ORT45M.”
He had never heard of that place before.
“Which means?” Dreem asked as Hoss didn’t explain it further.
“It’s a mining moon,” Adder complimented. “Imperial.”
Hoss wrinkled a brow.
“Yes, it is. How’d you know?” she asked as they entered the atmosphere.
But before Adder could answer, the coms crackled and Dreem silently cursed himself for losing track of his duties.
“You’re supposed to contact your damn escort as soon as you exit hyperspace y–“
Dreem flipped the switch to speak into the mic, overruling any other transmission on the short range escort link he had set up.
“This is the Anguilli, we have exited hyperspace and..”
He gave himself a small pause, wanting Tikira’s rage to subside before he continued.
“.. we suggest you stay in tight defensive formation around us for now.”
He reluctantly let go of the mic and was relieved to hear silence.
“You handled that pretty well,” Hoss grinned while clutching the control yoke, guiding them closer to the murky surface of the moon.
I’ll be hearing for that later.
Outside, he saw the interceptors close in on them, complying with his request for now. He wasn’t permitted a break, however, as the medium range coms started.
“This is the Imperial Mining Corporation garrison on Imperial mining moon ORT45M.”
Hoss and Dreem exchanged glances.
“State your name and purpose here.”
“You better tell me this was part of the plan,” Hoss’ disconcerted voice said.
He didn’t have a clue what was going on. Why would the Commander send them to such a place? Regardless, he had to do something so he picked up the mic and thought for a moment, then activated it.
“This is the transport ship Anguilli. We are carrying med supplies for the garrison,” he tried and then observed the others hopefully.
Adder looked completely unstricken by the situation, but Hoss listened as carefully as he did to the reply.
“Affirmative Anguilli. You may proceed to landing pad six, be advised that the atmosphere is not breathable.”
“Roger that, we’ll be landing immediately,” he finished.
As he put the mic back in its holder, Hoss voiced his exact thoughts.
“They didn’t give us an approach vector?”
“Apparently not - something is off,” he added.
“And they didn’t threaten to kill us should we veer from it,” Adder interjected.
That’s also true.
They didn’t usually treat civilians very well, working them like captives most of the time and taking what liberties they wanted in insulting and frightening them. Something was definitely off about this. Not even considering the fact that they had an escort with them which to Imperial standards must have been seen as abnormal.
“I’ll let the escort know we’re landing. Stay on guard, I don’t like this,” he informed them.
“There is no need to worry,” Adder said mysteriously. “These are not Imperials.”
“How do you know?” he asked automatically, but he got his answer when he saw two A-wings coming their way.
A-ha.
He couldn’t stop himself from smiling.
“Sorry about that boys, welcome to former Imperial mining moon ORT45M.”
A rebel cell must have destroyed the place and he wasn’t the only one happy about that. Hoss gave out a cheer and he heard a mixture of ‘Oh yeah’s and ‘Nice!’ from the short range link. Adder’s face remained a neutral mask, but he’d accepted by now that that was simply how she was. The smiles didn’t come to her unless you talked her into them.
As they descended down a deep cylindrical shaft of cliff walls, Dreem noticed they passed through a protective field. It was akin to those found on larger vessels, protecting an open hangar from the hazardous vacuum of space – or in this case the unbreathable atmosphere. At the bottom, the Anguillia touched down gently and the scanners told them that the place wasn’t hazardous to living beings.
He hadn’t been to a mining facility before, but the idea of living and breathing without seeing the light of day unnerved him. He could only imagine what horrors the Empire exposed their subjects to here.
“Opening the ramp now,” Hoss stated, already on her way out of the cockpit. “I’m gonna take a break, you haul the crates this time.”
“Seems fair,” he reasoned and got up from his seat.
He swung his blaster rifle on his back before starting towards the cargo hold. Adder followed him wordlessly through the piles of crates. As he stepped out unto the hangar deck riddled with red dust, he saw the four fighters of the escort land. There was plenty of space on the circular landing site and three large tunnel openings all conjoined here. From what he guessed was the main tunnel, he saw a crowd of besalisks approaching. They were dressed in work suits that were so stained with soot that he could only barely tell that they were once yellow.
Miners?
“You’re a sight for sore eyes!” one of them called out.
Dreem waved at him and remembered to put on a friendly smile.
Adder didn’t say anything.
“The transport is filled with med supplies,” he said quickly and then took a look at the weary faces around him.
“What happened here?” Dreem asked the besalisk who had stepped out in front.
He hadn’t seen many besalisks in his time, but this one looked old. His heavy, reptile features were gnarled, all four of his bare arms littered with cuts and faded scars. He was the living image of a person who’d worked hard all his life. His voice was friendly enough, albeit a bit rough.
“I cannot thank you enough, friend. We couldn’t have overpowered the Imperials without the help of your friends, but even so, we took some heavy losses,” he informed them.
The rebellion stretched much further than Dreem knew of apparently. It wasn’t at all a bad thought, however it did worry him to know how costly it had become.
“We’ve been out of stock for days,” he went on, as two of his arms made humble gestures, the other two motioned for his crew to get to work. “If you hadn’t arrived now, I’m afraid more of my people would have died.”
A dozen or so of the besalisk miners sat to work unloading the transport and Dreem felt a mixture of worry and relief at the same time. They’d been right on time, but then again, they hadn’t known how urgent it was.
“Is there anything we can do?” he asked with concern.
The besalisk shook his head.
“Not unless you’ve got healers with you. We’ve gathered up our wounded in connecting tunnel B-4.”
Dreem turned to Adder, but she wasn’t moving. She didn’t even look their way.
“Sergeant Telbud!”
It was Tikira’s voice.
Dreem exhaled and gave the besalisk a nod. The next thing on their agenda was to link up with the rebel cell in the area, but he had more questions. Were there only besalisks here? What were they mining? Did they know of other mining moons?
Perhaps they’ve seen twi’lek slaves.
“Yes, Captain?” he said as he turned around to meet the imposing woman.
“I see you’ve already made arrangements to get the supplies off the transport,” she began as she stood before him with the flight helmet under her arm.
“I have. Should w-“
“Good, now let’s have a chat with whoever is leading this cell. You two come with me.”
Dreem had been commanded about many times before by Tikira, but she still managed to make him hate it every time. Rolling a shoulder to unwind his tension, he followed along with the Captain’s hasty strides. She was headed down the main tunnel like she knew which direction to take so he simply walked in her steps with Adder beside him.
He wanted to ask if there was anything Adder could do to help the wounded, but then again, if there was, she’d probably already be doing it. Or perhaps she wanted to complete their mission as soon as possible. They had delivered the supplies, so all that was left was to hook up with Fulcrum. He was looking forward to that, but it bothered him to know there were so many people in need here and that there was nothing more he could do.
Looks like she’s bothered by it too.
How did a bunch of unintelligent lizards and a handful of rebels overthrow an Imperial garrison?
The Inquisitor squinted at the rusty red rocks as if they had been accomplices in this act. Heavy equipment lay scattered around the cavernous tunnel and the three of them had to walk around tunneling machinery more than once. She had no idea what the Empire wanted from this moon, but if she had to take a guess, she’d say some sort of metal. The air was heavy and difficult to breathe, but what was worse, was the fact that she’d never get all of that dust out of her clothes again.
Barriss’ clothes, she corrected herself.
Her hands were prickling to wield the lightsaber. It had been approximately two days since she’d gone undercover and most of that time had been spent in hyperspace. Meditation worked well to let her release her frustrations, but she lacked more physical satisfaction. It was necessary to remind herself of the power she could summon.
The twi’lek Captain who walked in front was unstable. She’d realized that just from the few sentences she’d heard from her. The Captain’s voice was almost without the typical twi’lek accent and her demeanor ironically reminiscent of that of an Imperial officer. The force showed her many things and it showed her the clear signs of hate radiating off this rebel woman. There was no doubt that she had it in for the Empire.
The Inquisitor’s lips curled ever so slightly.
It was pleasing to watch. To sense the knot of hatred that refused to untie in the Captain’s stomach, to listen to the distressing memories that the Captain kept reliving. The idea of giving her a miniscule push to send her down to even deeper anguish was far too tempting. While it would definitely yield a great amount of delight, it was detrimental to the success of her mission. She couldn’t have some mad woman ticking off before she had gotten her hands on the jedi, but it was good to know she could tick her off.
Meanwhile, the Captain’s suffering reminded her of the hapless mirialan she enjoyed torturing too.
Are you listening Barriss? Or have you finally decided to give in?
The tunnel grew narrower and she realized they were headed for something that had been built and not dug out of the walls. Stepping inside what looked like an Imperial modular structure, she felt immediately at ease by the more stringent shapes and generic white light. It was like a breath of fresh air, although the heavy atmosphere was no different in there.
She wondered how far the tunnel system spread throughout the moon. There hadn’t been that many miners in the hangar, so if she were to guess based on sheer numbers, she’d guess not far.
“You there!” the Captain called out.
“Captain Tikira, is it?” a second voice responded.
It was a rebel trooper that much was obvious by his way of dressing. He was clad in almost completely similar rags as the male twi’lek.
“Yes, how’d you know?” Tikira said.
“We’ve got a connection to the hangar you arrived in. Drikk’s told us you arrived with the supplies?”
“Drikk is the besalisk?” she asked and then added: “and yes, we have.”
The trooper spoke something into a wrist com and then gestured for the three of them to approach. It wasn’t until the Inquisitor had passed the man that she saw he was armed with a plasma torch – a tool used for carving through particularly tough areas of rock or metal.
Must have been a desperate struggle at the very least.
They entered a larger room which she recognized as being a surveillance room. Consoles and monitors littered the walls and she knew they had been used to keep an eye on every speck of dirt in the cave system. Many of them were dotted with blaster impacts, broken or otherwise useless now. There were some spatters of blood here and there, but the corpses had all been removed.
“Through here you’ll find the command central. Lieutenant Fulsae is waiting for you,” the trooper informed them before saluting smartly and standing aside.
Captain Tikira and Dreem returned it, but the Inquisitor moved past without so much as a glance in his direction. She was curious to see what kind of person had taken over this place. As far as she could make out, the garrison must have consisted of at least a hundred men if not more. Admittedly, there were no signs of Imperial vehicles such as TIE-fighters or AT-ST’s which should have been numerous at such a site.
“Welcome, I’m Lieutenant Fulsae Jaksam and boy am I glad to see you here.”
The woman who spoke was middle-aged, wearing the same officer’s uniform as Commander Tamas had worn, though she didn’t seem to put as much effort into it. Her otherwise pale complexion was broken by band aids scattered about her cheeks. Fragmentation wounds, no doubt, but she still managed to look lively with the ruby red hair she had tied up in a ponytail behind her capped head.
“Captain Tikira Omastraka. This is Sergeant Telbud and Adder.”
The Captain motioned to each in turn as she introduced them and they both inclined their heads politely.
“Adder?” the Lieutenant asked curiously.
“A cover name,” Captain Tikira explained. “She is a jedi.”
The Lieutenant’s eyes widened, but then she nodded slowly, understanding the need for secrecy.
Dreem shot the Captain a glance, clearing his throat.
The Captain seemed unaware of what Dreem was trying to point out until he raised an arm and gestured towards the other people in the room. There were two more troopers in the room who stood with their backs turned towards them. Their blasters were trained on two captives kneeling on the floor with their hands on the back of their heads. They could not have avoided hearing that.
Imperial officers who surrendered?
The Inquisitor knew it was entirely likely, but to give up in the face of such a disastrous defeat? Death would have been better – no doubt the reward they would receive should they ever make it of this alive. Had it been another installation, perhaps the rebels would have seen fit to give them a chance to become turncoats. But when said captives had operated a slave facility? They’d have better chances trying to breathe in space.
“We’ve made our base here in the central command structure,” the Lieutenant went on. “We have control of all outgoing communication from here, along with surveillance of the cave system, processing plants and living quarters.”
The Lieutenant breathed out a sigh as she opened up a console and motioned for them to step closer.
“My orders were to assault the mining moon and supply the miners with weapons,” she said as she pushed buttons on the console keyboard. “Our intelligence suggested that the garrison consisted of about a hundred Imperial troopers along with about twenty TIE-fighters and a handful of walkers.”
Recordings of several surveillance cameras appeared on the console monitor in a four-by-four square matrix.
None of them said anything for a moment. All of the squares were dark or obstructed by something.
“Apparently, the garrison had been thinned out a day before we attacked,” she revealed and then pressed a button, making the four squares cycle through several camera angles, all showing the same dark, obstructed image.
“With no TIE-fighters and no walkers, their defensive plan had changed from overwhelming force to ‘destroy everything’.”
The Inquisitor suppressed a pernicious grin.
“They had rigged the entire cave system to collapse and those who weren’t outright crushed, most likely suffocated from the resulting spread of the toxic atmosphere.”
“We’re all that’s left of the strike force,” she finished with dreadful finality.
The Inquisitor felt the fury seethe from the Captain through the force just moments before she heard the deft thud of someone getting whacked.
Captain Tikira stood over one of the captive officers and was spewing out some verbal curse in her barbaric twi’lek language. The officer held a hand to his nose that was smeared in blood. It amused the Inquisitor to no end, but the others were abhorred by it.
“What about your ships? What about the miners?” Dreem asked quickly. No one moved to assist the recovering captive and no one dared reprimand the Captain.
Lieutenant Fulsae made a grimace and shook her head.
“The ships we arrived in were docked at other hangars,” she explained. “The tunnels leading there have been either destroyed or flooded with toxic fumes. With regards to the miners, there are those you met in the hangar and then there’s about twice that many who are wounded and are currently receiving medical attention by their own.”
“But how do you intend to get out of here then? Is someone coming for you?” the twi’lek Sergeant asked further.
The Lieutenant’s gaze went from him to Adder and then she replied.
“We’re expecting Fulcrum today. She is bringing along enough ships to get us all out of here.”
She? And she’s bringing an entire fleet to the slaughter.
The Captain spoke up once the peak of her rage had subsided.
“What about the Imperials? How many captives do you have? And why haven’t they tried to retake the moon?”
If the Lieutenant was perturbed by the rapid questions, she didn’t show it.
“Some of them could have survived the cave-ins, I suppose, but I believe most are dead. We’ve got about ten captives of whom two are the officers you see here and one is the mining contractor.”
“Mining contractor?” Dreem broke in.
“Yes, the guy who was running the place for the Empire,” she explained swiftly and then moved on. “We’ve been jamming their transmissions since we started the assault, so it’s unlikely anyone knows the moon has been taken. However, they will know once the regular shipment doesn’t arrive on schedule.”
“We expect a military response in about three days, but we’ll be on the other side of the galaxy by then,” she concluded with a smile probably intended to lift their spirits, but the Inquisitor saw straight through it.
Much sooner than that.
“Who is she?” the Inquisitor inquired, changing the subject.
The hazel eyes of the Lieutenant beamed uncertainty for a moment, but then she understood the question.
“You haven’t met her yet?” she said needlessly. “She’s relatively new, but her intel has always been on point.”
Flaunting a tight smile, the Inquisitor pushed on while the three others watched her.
“I understand that, but I need to know what she looks like. What’s her name? Do you know the color of her lightsaber?”
There were few jedi knights the Inquisitor could not take on, especially with an army at her back, but a jedi master might be able to slip between her fingers.
“Well eh- …” the Lieutenant hesitated, touching her cap. “I haven’t seen her in person, but you’ll see her once she arrives.”
“You’ve seen her through holo transmissions?” the Inquisitor asked, not letting the Lieutenant off the hook just yet.
“Yes, but she was always hooded. I couldn’t see –“
Her wrist com crackled and a voice spoke up.
“Lieutenant Fulsae, this is Corporal Jeeks. You better get in here.”
“Coming,” she replied swiftly. “I’ll have to check this out, you can take the officer’s quarters if you’d like to rest a bit. My men will take care of the supplies and if you need refueling, just let Drikk know.”
There would be no more information gathering from Lieutenant Fulsae for now, but it didn’t seem like she knew anything of use. The Inquisitor required a moment to think over her options. She didn’t have as much to go on as she would have liked, but it was good enough. She could make a plan.
“I’ll retire then. Do tell me if Fulcrum arrives,” she told them before turning sharply for the quarters. She didn’t need anyone to show her the way and while it was certainly interesting to observe the Captain take out her frustrations on the captives, she had work to do.
She vaguely heard Dreem ask for the mining contractor before she slipped out into a connecting corridor. It was a short walk to one of the officer’s cabins, which had an interior even more compact than the cabins on Hoss’ ship. They had only the bare minimum of necessities. A desk, a bed and a small refreshing room. Everything was square in shape and of a solid metal fabric – just the way she liked it.
She sat down on the hard bed and took up her com device. She considered what she should write, seeing as a voice message was too risky at the moment. Especially with all the surveillance Imperial facilities usually contained. Thinking twice, she relocated to the refreshing room, just to be absolutely certain no one was looking over her shoulder.
The rebel cell had to have been destroyed by now, but how should she plan her next move? The troops on the ground along with the miners would stand no chance against an Imperial stardestroyer. She could perhaps even incapacitate them all by herself, but it would be meaningless if she didn’t have Fulcrum. The elusive jedi was a she which narrowed down the possibilities of her identity, however it didn’t help much in determining what her course of action should be. If she was a jedi master, the Inquisitor was looking at a challenge. While she might be able to take on a master, the possibility that the jedi could make an escape was too great.
The Inquisitor turned her lips inwards and bit down.
I cannot let that happen.
If she didn’t produce any results with her reckless venture soon, the Inquisitorius would almost certainly assume she had either gone rogue or worse, incompetent. She had requisitioned precious Imperial assets for her mission and that meant a failure would result in severe punishment, most likely death. That would be preferable to the alternative. If she had gone rogue, there would be a massive manhunt to hunt her down and even though that might also end with her death, it could also end with something far far worse.
The cell.
She felt a shudder spread throughout her body.
Anything but that.
Memories threatened to emerge, but she forced herself back into the moment. She had to plan this assault so that there would be no chance of failure. Engaging her strategic mind, she gave it a ponder.
The solution which would yield the highest chance of success, would be to wait for the jedi to arrive. Wait for her to enter the cave system and then trap her somehow, perhaps destroy all the ships in the hangar bay and then have the Imperial forces assault the moon. It meant that the Inquisitor had to stall the jedi long enough for the landing to take place – something that might be difficult. The chances that a jedi wouldn’t recognize her was exceedingly slim so she would have to fight.
But it was the best chance she had. Stall the jedi, let them start the evacuation and then hit them when they’re vulnerable. A simple plan, but the force stirred and sent her confidence wavering.
Breathing out, she reached up to remove the simple black hair cover. Her dark-brown hair didn’t reach her shoulders, but it was long enough to satisfy her standards. It was almost a foreign sensation to feel the strands stroke against her skin. She realized she missed the pointy black helmet, the dark shoulder pads emblazoned with the white Imperial cog. The power the uniform of an Imperial Inquisitor projected was staggering. Not many understood who Inquisitors were or what they were capable of, but glance at them and people knew to be afraid.
She guffawed. That was the key word.
Afraid? Why am I afraid?
As her face split into a grin, she felt the force bend to her whims.
An Imperial Inquisitor afraid of a jedi?
She ran a hand through her hair and then took up the com device. The dark side coursed through her, empowering her self-confidence and beseeching her to fuel its nature. To wreak havoc, to rip apart these insufferable dissidents – to savor the suffering of the weak.
And that was exactly what she was going to do.
The lines of text skittered across the screen.
Harmless words on a black monitor, but the implication was like a blow to his guts.
Does she think we’re her pawns to move around as she pleases?
The Imperial Captain took a deep breath, the simple gesture enough to unnerve the technician who was manning the console before him.
“What shall we reply, Sir?” an officer asked from behind him.
The Captain put great emphasis on obedience and discipline and he was in theory obligated to assist the Inquisitor in whatever way required of him when a jedi was involved. But could a glorified mystic really demand the attention of a force as large as a stardestroyer?
Eight thousand officers.
Twenty-five thousand crew.
Five thousand stormtroopers.
All of that to catch some lunatic? Some crazed mystic?
The puny ‘rebel cell’ they had been called in to evaporate had been nearly a waste of time. While it was always good work to eradicate nonconformists, he had thought he was headed into a battle, not a complete slaughter. He tightened his fists by the sheer audacity of the Inquisitor.
Even though he had gone along with the orders to destroy them all, he felt that the Inquisitor at the very least could have listened to his appeal that they execute the rebels publicly to discourage further actions of the sort. But as expected, her instructions had been strict and immovable. Destroy the rebel cell and wait for further orders.
Well, they had been waiting for nearly a day now and then finally, the Inquisitor had deigned to transmit a message outlining their new orders. There was no doubt this Inquisitor saw them as underlings fit only to be used in a wasteful struggle against a dying species of mystics. He didn’t know if his men felt the same way, but he was not about to let an upstart Inquisitor treat him like her pet. He wasn’t about to tell his superiors that he’d been absent from his duties because some ambitious assassin wanted him to do her job.
“Sir?”
“Inform the Inquisitor that the Exactoris will make the jump immediately,” he ordered.
“Yes, Captain.”
“And Lieutenant,” he added. “Prepare another message.”
“For who, Sir?”
“Coruscant.”
Dreem considered himself a modest man. He didn’t take any pleasure in cruelty and he didn’t feel good about killing people, but he understood the necessity of it. Sometimes, a bit of cruelty could make killing superfluous.
How odd that sounded in his mind.
Captain Tikira stood over their captive. The Imperial contractor who had been in charge of the mining operation on the moon spat a lump of blood on the dusty metal floor, raising his gaze to stare at Tikira in defiance.
“I see how it is,” he said, his breathing strained and his eyes filled with spite. “You’re looking for your friends, aren’t you?”
“I’m asking the questions here!” the Captain shouted, rewarding the man with a blow to his temple.
Being tied by both hands and feet, he couldn’t defend himself, but to his credit, he managed not to fall over.
“So I was right,” he continued, without a care for his own well-being. “Family, maybe?”
“Shut up!”
Dreem stood by as Captain Tikira grabbed him by his Imperial coat and pulled him to his feet. She was a lot stronger than she appeared, he noticed. Or perhaps it was the rage driving her.
“Answer the question or I’ll carve it out of you,” she threatened in a voice hoarse with hate.
The captive flashed a bloodied smile.
“Do you really think they’d use twi’lek in a mine?” he mocked.
The Captain’s jaw clenched and Dreem knew it would be impossible to stop her now.
“Your kind are fit only for more .. exotic purposes.”
That bastard.
Dreem felt his chest clench and tried hard not to think of his family’s fate. It helped a bit to watch Captain Tikira throw him to the floor, but when she started kicking him in the guts, he was only reminded more of what the Empire had done.
The man vomited blood and tried to curl up to protect his torso, but that only made the Captain target his face instead. The blood was pooling up and the man offered less and less resistance.
Dreem wrinkled his nose. He knew the man deserved it, but the gory mess the man’s face was turning into was almost too much for him – and Captain Tikira still didn’t stop. It wasn’t until the man stopped moving that she stepped back and looked at what she had done. Her breathing was fast and the lower parts of her orange flight suit were stained with blood, not to mention her boots.
“Are you good?” Dreem asked, trying to figure out what state the Captain was in now.
“Yeah,” she said between breaths. “Fantastic.”
She poked the man with a boot and frowned when he didn’t move.
“I should have cut his fingers off first,” she said with a snort.
He knew she would and was relieved it hadn’t come to that.
“All the same, I don’t think he knew anything anyway.”
The Captain was glaring down at the grizzly corpse while she brought her breathing under control.
“You think he was lying?” she said suddenly.
He touched his lekku, trying to think. It was getting harder to focus properly – he’d really need to get some rest soon.
“He must have known we wouldn’t let him live,” he reasoned, “and even if we did, the miners would surely have done worse to him.”
“Maybe he just wanted to provoke us,” he suggested.
She shook her head and finally turned away from the dead man.
“Maybe, but you know how the galaxy sees our species,” she said with scorn. “I don’t see why the Empire would see us differently.”
He knew exactly what she meant. His species along with a few select others were seen as especially attractive to many of the other humanoid races of the galaxy. Before the Empire took control, twi’lek servants, dancers or handmaidens were as common as dirt. With the Empire in control, they had become even more common, which was ironic for an Empire that tried to portray humanity as above the other species in the galaxy.
He followed her through the door into the corridor, but after only a few steps she halted and looked at him.
“If he was telling the truth,” she said to him, “is there any way for us to find them?”
There wasn’t much of a chance. He was surprised she was even asking him. Surely she knew it too.
“It’s unlikely the Empire kept them together,” he said honestly and while it made his heart sink to think about it, he couldn’t lie to himself. “They’ve most likely been sold at some slave auction and scattered across the galaxy.”
It wasn’t very comforting, but he didn’t think the Captain needed any comfort from him. While he respected her endeavor to free their enslaved people, she was heartless and downright cynical at times in her approach. He didn’t doubt for a second that she’d sacrifice him and his mission if it meant her success.
But it was difficult to deny the emotion in her eyes. He couldn’t tell whether she was furious or sad.
“I swear they’ll all pay for what they did,” she said bitterly.
He couldn’t agree more, but he had a feeling her hate ran much deeper than his did.
“At some point they will, but I won’t focus on revenge before I know for certain that they’re all gone.”
He didn’t know how he would react if they were all dead. He preferred not to think about it.
Captain Tikira’s wrist com lit up and they both listened in as Hoss’ concerned voice spoke up.
“Captain, you better come down to the hangar.”
“What is it? What’s going on?” the Captain asked swiftly, already walking with Dreem in tow.
“A ship land- well.. crashed in the hangar.”
“Whose ship?”
“They’re pulling the pilot out now.”
They stared at the circular communications device strapped to Captain Tikira’s wrist as they waited. It was pulsating a light blue color every time a bit of static caught on the other end.
“I think it’s Tapham, Captain.”
The Inquisitor had barely been left alone for an hour before Dreem came bursting through the door. She had felt his uneasiness already when he stepped into the corridor, so in order to get whatever it was he wanted over with as fast as possible, she was already up from her meditative position and waiting for whatever he had to say.
He looked a bit startled to see her, but then quickly composed himself.
“Tapham is here, I think you need to see him.”
The human pilot.
“Tapham? Why is he here?” she asked automatically, leaving the room with him to head for the tunnels leading to the hangar.
“I don’t know,” he said. “He crashed and Hoss says his fighter is ‘all shot up’.”
When the Inquisitor looked at him for clarification he pulled his shoulders in a shrug.
“I have no idea what’s going on. He should have been with the cell doing practice.”
She tightened her fists as anger built up inside.
A fighter escaped a stardestroyer? Incompetent fools.
If the rebels learned of what happened to the cell, they’d be on guard, but the first question in her mind wasn’t how such a thing could have happened.
How did he get the coordinates?
Only the Commander and Hoss knew them. Did that mean the Commander had survived too? Had he sent the boy after them just to save the boy’s life or to warn them? She decided she’d get her answers when she saw the boy, but it had to be before he said too much.
“Where is the boy now?” she asked.
“Hoss took him to the place where the rest of the miners are. She’s trying to get him to talk.”
Seconds away from exploding in a fit of ill-concealed rage, she reached out with the force to unwind and found the shape of something rectangular.
One of the square lights in the ceiling died with a short, metallic screech.
Dreem looked up, but didn’t comment on the sudden outage of a single light. He didn’t notice the eyes that glared at his back either.
Not yet, not yet.
Soon.
It was a mantra she had to repeat to herself several times to quell the rising urge. The dark side cried out for much more elaborate release, but she couldn’t now. Not when she was so close to catching the jedi.
As the exit of the Imperial structure got closer, the durasteel floor become increasingly dirty with the red dust. They walked by what looked like a coms room and out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the orange skinned Captain in the bright-orange flight suit. She was glaring skeptically at Lieutenant Fulsae while they exchanged words over something on a screen.
“This doesn’t bode well,” Dreem said and caught her attention. “I’ve had a bad feeling for a long time and I don’t like what this looks like.”
“What does it look like?” she asked neutrally, masking the hatred in her eyes by concerning herself with navigating the uneven surface of the tunnel.
“I don’t know, but why would he be here? Something must have happened.”
“You’re tired and on edge, Dreem,” she countered. “Don’t stress yourself needlessly with speculation.”
It won’t help you regardless.
She heard him exhale and the sound of his blaster rifle bumping against his back as he moved was the only sound for a few moments. Then he spoke again.
“Maybe you’re right.”
As they reached the hangar, the Inquisitor realized that Hoss’ description of Tapham’s fighter wasn’t an overstatement.
That boy is either an expert pilot or a living miracle – if he’s still alive.
The interceptor had crashed with no landing gear. It’s former white body with red stripes was streaked all over with sooty blaster marks. Both of the stabilizing tail fins were nearly gone with various electronic wreckage trailing from the openings. The cockpit windows had nasty horizontal cracks and to top it all off, the engines were emitting a thick black smoke. The dizzying smell of burnt wires and plastics reached both of them.
“I- .. I hope that boy is okay,” Dreem stuttered.
“We’ll see,” she said impatiently. “Where to?”
She’d soon learn the extent of the failure that was this boy’s survival. That is, if he was still in a state where he could articulate a proper reply.
Dreem swallowed loudly and nodded his head in the direction of the tunnel opposite the one they had just come from.
“Let’s hurry, he might need your aid.”
Dreem started running and she followed. It wasn’t long until they came to a halt again. The wounded besalisk miners numbered around thirty or forty she guessed by a rough estimate. They were scattered around on various surfaces, some sitting on rocks, some sitting on trolleys or smaller manual ore carriers. The crates with med supplies were being emptied by other miners. Some were seated and trying to tend to themselves, some were complaining loudly, and some were lying down in silence with murky bandages around their heads.
The tunnel ended a short walk further down in a large cave-in, but before they got that far, Hoss called them over to a spot by the rocky wall. She’d placed the boy against it and was trying to make him drink from a bottle, but his head was slumped forwards and he didn’t move.
He’s barely alive, she realized with a feeling not all too different from relief.
“Tapham! Dreem shouted as they came close. The twi’lek Sergeant knelt beside the pilot, pulled his helmet off and tried to get him to look his way, but there was no reply. The boy’s eyes were closed and the helmet splattered with blood.
“Is he going to live?” Dreem asked Hoss.
“Don’t ask me, I’m not a medic.” she said, clearly in distress.
Before Dreem managed to say more, the Inquisitor was over the boy pilot. He was going to call on her anyway, so she might as well beat him to it.
“Doesn’t look good,” she said and then upon closer inspection: “Not good at all.”
The human pilot had looked young and eager when she last saw him on the corvette, but he didn’t look as fresh now. His breathing was irregular and his black hair was thick with blood. The orange flight suit was torn in some places where fragments had penetrated the cloth and lodged itself in his body. She could tell he would need some professional attention soon, otherwise he’d die.
I could speed things up a bit.
Dreem groaned helplessly.
“Is there nothing you can do?” he asked the Inquisitor.
There were plenty of things she could do. Plenty of things she wanted to do, but this was a delicate situation. Did he know about her? Did anyone in the rebel cell realize who she was?
Or perhaps they recognized Barriss Offee?
That wasn’t likely. The public life of that despicable jedi had been mostly confined to the military and that one court proceeding, so her publicity was nigh nonexistent. But whether they had a real suspicion about her or that they simply suspected that someone from within had betrayed them really didn’t matter. She couldn’t let this boy live.
“He will die soon, no matter what I do,” she said with a clinically neutral voice.
Hoss stood up and put her hands to her head.
Dreem cursed in his rough native tongue, but didn’t turn away from the wounded boy.
She placed a hand on the boy’s chest and the other on his head, already feeling the dark side push her impatiently. It craved another sacrifice and she wanted nothing more than to oblige.
“He has sustained a lot of fragmentation wounds,” she explained. “He’s bleeding internally and I can feel - .. I can feel him slipping away.”
She made sure her voice carried grief, but whether it was convincing or not was beyond her concerns. One of them sighed behind her, but she was too far gone to react to it. She didn’t spend time thinking about how she’d kill the boy, the force simply followed her line of thought.
The boy started choking as his chest was unable to rise and fall any longer. She reached out in the force and touched his mind. He woke up instantly, but he couldn’t move his eyelids to see. She felt the confusion in his head as he fought to understand why his lungs refused to inhale air. Why did darkness seep in all around him?
His bewilderment grew worse when he realized the thoughts that echoed in his mind weren’t his own.
Shh.. It will all be over soon.
He tried to twitch. He tried to roll aside, to move his limbs, to scream – anything, but nothing worked
His limbs no longer answered to him.
Why do you struggle against the inevitable?
Crippling fear spread throughout the parts of his mind that still functioned and the overwhelming force pressing down on his chest threatened to erase even those last bits.
The darkness is the end of your suffering.
Hoss and Dreem were blind to the murder that was occurring right before their eyes.
Accept it.
The force cried around the two of them and something stirred in the Inquisitor’s mind. Something that protested this cruel act and wanted to set her conscience on fire, but it was weak against the sensation of the dark side. While she made use of the force, the dark side made use of her and she knew it, but she didn’t care. Things were entirely out of her control, but it felt so good. It was raw power coursing through her veins and if she had to surrender her soul in exchange for it, so be it.
But before she could finish it, she felt a disturbance in the force that tore away her focus like a flare in the dark.
Fulcrum.
Dreem’s nerves were on edge as he watched Tapham go through a fit of coughing.
Come on, you can’t die like this!
He didn’t dare say anything as the jedi was working on him, but when Tapham stopped coughing and went back to ‘normal’, he couldn’t control himself.
“What happened to him!?” he nearly shouted, his voice nearly snapping.
Adder didn’t answer him at first, so he put a hand on her shoulder.
She recoiled from his touch so he let go, but pressed on. He wanted answers.
“Tell me what happened, he almost died!”
“I’m going back to command,” she said and then left him staring after her in amazement.
What was that!?
He wanted to run after her, but he couldn’t leave Tapham like this. Cursing, he turned to Hoss.
“What’s going on?”
“You’re asking me?” she said wondrously.
Why do I tolerate this woman.
“Yeah, I’m asking you,” he continued. “How did Tapham get here?”
“What? ‘the hell am I supposed to now?” she blurted out.
“You were the only one who knew the coordinates,” he said, his voice accusing.
“The Commander knew them too,” she countered. “The only explanation for this is that he sent Tapham here.”
“Why would he do that?” Dreem asked and threw out his arms. “There’s no reason for him to be here!”
Hoss rolled her eyes and spoke with dripping sarcasm.
“Oh I don’t know, maybe the fact that his ship has been reduced to cinders by blaster fire gives some indication?”
He turned around and ran a hand down his face, trying to inhale some air to calm himself, but the thick atmosphere in the cave was appalling.
Hoss continued to spell it out.
“Obviously, someone attacked him – maybe the entire cell, so it’s possible the Commander sent him after us, maybe to warn us.”
Everything Hoss had said made sense, but it gave him a headache. Why hadn’t the Commander jumped here himself if they had been attacked? Even with Captain Tikira’s squadron away on escort duty, the cell still had eight more interceptors to protect themselves, so whoever had attacked them would need a lot of firepower. That opened up the next question: Who would attack them? He couldn’t think of anyone except the Empire, but there was no way they could have gotten a hold of their location.
“Just because you’re lacking sleep and can’t put two and two together, don’t come blaming me for any of this! If you haven’t noticed, we’re both the possible next target for whoever did this to Tapham!”
“Wait Hoss, you’re right,” he said as he turned around to face her again.
“He might be dying and we – Wait what?”
“I’m tired and I can’t think straight,” he cut in. “Obviously someone attacked him, but before we conclude whether the entire cell was assaulted or not, lets send them a transmission.”
Hoss exhaled and shook her head.
“Already tried that, there’s no answer.”
“That’s not to say they’re gone. They could be in hyperspace now, moving somewhere our gear can’t reach them.”
Hoss bit her lip and considered it.
“Yeah it’s possible, but it won’t do us any good to keep guessing. The only way to know for sure is to ask Tapham, when he gets back on his feet.”
“If he gets back on his feet. You heard what Adder said.”
They both looked at the young pilot and the mood grew sour. Suddenly he felt ashamed for acting up in front of the boy and what could very well be his last living moments.
“Maybe Fulcrum is bringing medics,” Hoss said in an attempt to sound hopeful.
I hope she is.
Shouting from the hangar caught his attention.
“Everyone!” a gruff voice called out. “Rescue is here!
The sound of engines grew louder and louder. Someone was landing in the hangar.
“We’ll have to move the wounded first,” Drikk shouted when he was sure he had everyone’s attention. “There aint enough space on the transports to carry all of us at once, so we’ll send them off first!”
The besalisk miners looked relieved and a rush of motion went through the tunnel as they all set about following Drikk’s instructions. Dreem and Hoss sent each other a glance and then took a hold of Tapham almost simultaneously, carrying him between them with his arms on their shoulders.
“You hear that Tapham? Help is here,” Dreem said to the unconscious pilot.
There was no visible reaction, but he felt like he had to at least try to encourage him, whether he heard him or not.
You’re not dead yet. There’s still a chance.
As the red rocks gave way to the dust-covered landing deck, Dreem noticed how orderly the miners were. Besalisks were large, reptile-like creatures who had a strength that far surpassed his own. At a glance, he wouldn’t have considered them to be mannered, but seeing them work in unison to carry those too wounded to walk on their own made him mentally hit himself for being so judgmental. The ship which had landed was of a type he hadn’t seen before. It looked like a flying container with the sides folded down to allow for embarking. He saw the wounded being directed to the right side of the ship by someone he’d never seen before – presumably the pilot of the transport.
“Over there, on the right,” he said to Hoss as they changed direction.
“I can carry him on my own, try and find a medic!” Hoss told him.
That’s probably for the best.
He was having more trouble than he’d like to admit with supporting the pilot. He felt spent and drained of energy and his headache was only growing worse, so he transferred the weight of the boy to Hoss and took off in a sprint towards the foreign pilot.
“We need a medic urgently for this man!”
The pilot noticed his distress and had an answer prepared.
“Put him on the transport with the others, we’ve got people who can see to him onboard the corvettes.”
“We’ve got several corvettes here?” Dreem asked in awe.
The pilot wore a helmet that covered most of his face, but Dreem could make out a smile as the man gave him a slap on the back.
“Yeah! You did good, we’ll take it from here.”
He nodded in a wordless gratitude and then looked around for Hoss, but he didn’t need to, she was coming his way without Tapham.
“He’s onboard, I’m going to the Anguilli,” she stated.
“Got it! There will be treatment where he’s going,” he assured the smuggler and she threw him a thumbs up over her shoulder while she ran for her ship.
The Anguilli could carry at least as many as the other transport and as the square transport took off, Dreem saw miners flocking at the entry ramp to Hoss’ ship. Almost all of the wounded had been packed into the first transport so it wouldn’t take more than one more flight to get the rest of them out of there. They’d be out of the mining facility and gone from the moon within half an hour he hypothesized.
And there’ll be a bed for me.
The thought wasn’t entirely unsatisfying, but then he realized he had nothing to do and was just standing there in the middle of a stream of people being evacuated.
He’d better find Captain Tikira. Even if there were no tasks to be done, she’d berate him if he didn’t think of reporting in his idleness at once. The thought of listening to Tikira’s shouting sent spikes of pain through his head. It would definitely not help his headache.
But before he could take another step, someone hailed him by his rank and name. Something was familiar about the voice, but he couldn’t make out just who it was.
“Th-“
He cleared his throat.
“That’s me,” he finally got out and spun around to meet another jedi.
The Inquisitor stared at the scene on the monitor with growing anxiety.
She couldn’t make out who Fulcrum was, because the camera through which she was looking only gave her an overview of the busy hangar and did not have a zoom option - but there was something eerily familiar about her force signature.
Who are you?
Memories surfaced and for once she let them, but it was all hazy. She remembered words, blurry images and a collection of events which when all mashed together, didn’t make any sense. But there was an underlining emotion to all of them that was as foreign to the Inquisitor as compassion. It was no use searching her emotional repertoire, however, for she had long since discarded it in favor of control. That was the extent of her power now, but that made her wonder.
How powerful are you?
The force had been relatively calm, but by the arrival of the jedi it had reacted strongly. The presence of the jedi was like a bright light that stirred up the darkness around it. The Inquisitor could sense the conflict in the force, the struggle between the darkness that had previously enveloped all things on the moon and the light that now sought to budge in uninvited to restore balance.
The dark side galvanized her and she felt her anxiety mix with resentment against this unwanted change. Bitter hatred for anything that threatened the power she had worked so hard to obtain made her blood boil and her fingers itch.
She felt the jedi’s presence move from the hangar, so she switched the camera view a few times until she found her walking through the tunnel with the twi’lek Sergeant in tow. She saw her features more clearly now in the flickering white light of the tunnel lamps. Blue and white striped montrals, orange skin covered by tight cloth pieces. A part of the Inquisitor’s mind woke up screaming, but the Inquisitor was in control. She wasn’t afraid.
She’s coming this way.
No more stealth, she promised the darkness around her and abandoned the meticulous plan she had conceived. As a reward for her zealous eagerness, every breath she took felt invigorating.
I’ll destroy her.
You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
She stood back from the console and closed her eyes. She pictured the woman her words were directed at in her mind. A flimsy mirialan woman who shuddered at the thought of violence. A weak young girl who couldn’t see the hypocrisy she lived in every day. The jedi knight who shouted warnings no one wanted to hear – and was shouting warnings in the Inquisitor’s mind right now.
You couldn’t do it, but I can.
The upcoming battle and the promise of revenge made her heart beat faster and her transition ever quicker.
Maybe I’ll let her live.
Perhaps I’ll make her just like me.
The crystal within the lightsaber squirmed by her touch and she couldn’t resist a malicious grin. The jedi had entered the structure and the Inquisitor could tell she was moving faster. No doubt she felt the powerful presence nearby, but did she know it was her doom she was walking into?
Did she know it was the doom of an old friend too?
Small lamps by the main entrance flashed, indicating someone was attempting to open the locked door.
The Inquisitor slowly turned to face the entrance, clutching the lightsaber behind her back.
The door whined as it was forced open and fell inwards. It landed with a heavy, metallic clang and when the echoes had settled, a shocked voice from her nightmares reached her ears.
“..Barriss?”