A/N: This story takes place about a year and a half before ROTJ. I often wondered how the crews of the Imperial Fleet reacted to Darth Vader's hunt for Luke Skywalker... and what would happen if that hunt led the Dark Lord to answers he didn't know he needed. As with all good stories, that search reaches in and grabs hold of the lives of several others along the way. I hope you enjoy!
Many thanks to m4x70r for letting me play with the OC Nathon Tydon from the story "To No Avail." It's a great story, and I highly recommend it. :)
It all came down to a single name.
Commander Luthar Friel, first officer of the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Peremptory, stared down at the information scrolling across the data pad without really seeing it. The mission to intercept a rebel convoy smuggling stolen Merr-Sonn weaponry out of the Bormea sector had been a success. Eighty-nine percent of the cargo had been reclaimed, the lost amounts being consumed during the firefight on the last mandal class corvette. According to the recent reports, no casualties were suffered on the Imperial side—only some serious and minor injuries that were being treated in medbay—and a minimal loss of life among the rebel forces. The rebel survivors were currently filling the detention levels of the ship, awaiting interrogation.
Lieutenant Colonel Medeiros and his stormtrooper unit were to be commended for that. All in all, a pleasing days' worth of activity.
Only that one name on the list of prisoners held his attention, branded itself into his thoughts. Why, of all people, did it have to be her? For once in her infuriating life, why couldn't she have done as he and her brother had asked?
And why of all the rebel transports to be captured, did she have to be on the one the Peremptory took on behalf of Lord Vader?
His lips compressed in a thin line as he rode the lift down to the detention levels, his duties warring with the memories of a little girl clutching her dolly, staring with wide eyes as her brother and his best friend strode across the parade grounds of the Imperial Academy to graduate with honors. Their uniforms had been perfectly pressed, their posture as they marched proudly across the field perfectly executed. New boots—officer's boots—shining with polish in the afternoon Carida sunlight.
And after the ceremony, the newly minted Ensign Nathon Tydon had scooped up his baby sister in both arms, swinging her about. The high pure laughter of a child mingled with the woops of congratulation and laughter from the families and friends of the graduates of Friel's glass. Friel, himself, had removed his uniform cap and placed it over the girl's head, smiling widely as the thing nearly fell down to her shoulders. She'd flung her tiny little arms around his neck, lunging into a tight hug with what she called her "second brother."
It had been a good memory, Friel reflected, the small smile fading from his lips as the lift doors opened. It had been one that kept him going during difficult assignments. Her letters to him when she was still young, before adolescence had gripped her and she'd discovered there were better uses for boys than throwing rocks at them or calling them smelly, had often reminded him that there was a reason he was in the Imperial Navy. That there was someone waiting for him to come home, waiting for him to protect her and all that she held dear.
That someone had to stand up for her and her freedoms.
It took forever for that cell door to rise, and yet it felt like it happened all too fast.
The first thing he saw was dirty reddish-blonde hair, matted with the dark brown of dried blood. The second was the too thin frame of a woman ignoring proper nutritional habits. That was all wrapped in a black baggy jumpsuit of a spacer. Her hands were bound, tethered to the wall with a thin but unbreakable durasteel cable. But then that head lifted, the curtain of those matted curls parting to reveal a face that was bruised but still distinguishable. His heart sank, the tiny tremulous hope that this was all a coincidence, that someone else had her same name and appearance, melted beneath unrelenting reality.
There was no mistaking those eyes, those mismatched eyes. One blue. One green.
Renate Camlyn Tydon.
His best friend's little sister.
His adopted little sister.
"Renet," he whispered, the nickname barely audible. His eyes filling with the scream he could not give vent, his hands gripped behind his back tightly to keep them from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her until her head snapped clean off her shoulders.
WHY!
The word screamed in the silence between them.
Why? Why the rebellion? There were so many other avenues within the Empire she could have taken to help the war effort, if fighting was what she wanted to do. She was the daughter of a Regional governor, from a good Core world family. She could have done anything, married anyone, become a governor for star's sake! A million trillion other options to voice her upset if she felt something was wrong with the galaxy in which they lived.
Why the rebellion? Stars, why?!
Those eyes focused on his, and the look in them stabbed him worse than any weapon. Hatred. Pure unadulterated hatred boiled in those jeweled depths. Loathing made into tangible flesh. And all directed at him. No, not completely at him, his rational mind whispered, finally catching up to the emotional shocks to his heart. She was glaring at his uniform, at his rank bar. Hating it and his choice to don it, to wear it proudly.
And somewhere in those angry eyes, there was fear. There was still that little girl he thought on as his only sister. That alone snapped him back into focus. He reached a hand out beside him, felt his stormtrooper escort drop a data pad into is palm.
"Renet Camlyn," he said formally, dispassionately, reading her rebel alias from the data pad in his hand. "Do you understand why you have been detained?"
She said nothing.
He lifted an eyebrow, making a show of reading the displayed data before handing the pad back to the trooper. "Your record is impeccable, which makes me wonder why you have chosen to take up with known terrorists, Miss Camlyn."
"Don't you call me that, Imperial," She spat at him. "You know my first name. You know me."
Do I? He thought with a momentary pang. I thought I did, Renet. I really thought I did. But it appears that I never did. And that hurts the most.
"I do not know you at all," he continued in that flat tone, his posture as straight as it had been on the day of his graduation. On the day he'd held that little laughing girl… "I knew a girl that bore your name, Miss Camlyn. You are not that same person. Now please answer the question. It will not be repeated again. Do you understand why you have been detained?"
"Yes," she spat again.
"So you admit involvement with the terrorists known as the Rebel Movement." It was not a question.
"Yes."
"How old are you, Miss Camlyn?"
"You already know that, Imperial."
Friel lifted a hand, signaling the trooper to stop before he began moving. Normally a sharp smack to the face with a gauntleted hand would have been in order, enough to remind the prisoner in question to be mindful of the rank that stood before her. To remind her that cooperation was in her best interest, or things would get much, much worse.
He had to avoid that as much as possible. For her, for the man that was a brother to him, and for himself.
"Answer the question, Miss Camlyn. The next time I will not stop this officer from doing his duty."
He watched her fear intensify by degrees, watched her eyes take in the armor, the blaster held ready, and the mask that looked like a stretched skull. Finally, her eyes lowered, her shoulders starting to lose their defiant stance. Inwardly, he sighed heavily as he began to put the pieces together. He'd seen this sort of thing before with the rebels his ship had captured. She'd joined the rebellion for the silly romantic notion of it most likely. She had really believed it would all be like those holo-dramas, all romance and adventure. Did she really think she could slip free of the consequences for her actions, or that rebellions would be won without a drop of blood shed?
Did she even consider her own could and would be spilled far before anything she did made a difference?
"I'm seventeen," she said at last, fire still in that tone, but muted beneath shaking fear.
"Seventeen," he echoed. "A shame. A true shame that you threw away your life so soon. Tell me where your ship was heading."
"I don't know."
"Miss Camlyn—"
"I don't know," she exclaimed, exasperated. "I'm telling the truth. I don't know where we were going or what we were carrying. Only that we had to get there. I wasn't told anything else."
"Why did you join with the rebels?"
"I don't really see—"
This time he didn't stop the trooper from striding forward and grabbing a fist full of her hair, yanking her head up painfully. She yelped, tears pulling free of those eyes, the orbs widening as that hand pulled upward still, forcing her to first sit up straight, and then to sit painfully erect, and then to nearly rise up on her knees on that metal shelf she sat upon. The action produced the usual result, the pain smothering the fires in her eyes and leaving room for fear to consume the last of her resistance.
Friel stepped forward, a look of hard disapproval on his features. A look that had made many a junior officer step three times as fast to avoid him.
Renet stared at him as if she didn't know him. As if he was the personification of every imagined monster under her bed when she was a child.
But she wasn't a child anymore, he had to remind himself. She was nearly an adult, close enough in age to be tried as one for her crimes. And if he wanted to help her at all, he couldn't back down. He had to be that monster, and he had to scare the life out of her.
"You are not in a position to decide what is relevant here, Miss Camlyn. You are a prisoner, a confessed terrorist against our government, and under arrest per the orders of Lord Vader, himself. If you wish to help yourself at all, you will answer each and every one of my questions honestly, precisely, and with alacrity. Do I make myself clear?"
Normally she would have nodded. Instead, she swallowed hard, mouth opening as if to respond and then thinking better of it when glancing at the trooper still hurting her.
"Good. We begin again. Why did you join the rebellion?"
"Be-because I thought they were doing good things."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Good things? You call the murder of countless officers and civilians a good thing?"
"I meant about the slavery and the discrimination," she managed out between quiet whimpers. "It's wrong and you know it."
He believed the same, disliked slavery in any form. But he was at least smart enough to know there were better ways in which to go about a social reform than outright rebellion!
"What I believe is not the topic at hand, Miss Camlyn. What is, is the fact that you thought the murder of Imperial citizens and officers was the best way to go about ending such things. More to the point, you used this as an excuse to commit several major crimes."
"But I never killed anyone! I couldn't! I'm not like that!"
"Irrelevant," he snapped back harshly. "You were found in the company of men and women suspected of those crimes. The charge is guilt by association even if you are innocent of the acts, themselves. You will be judged alongside your compatriots and share in their punishments for breaking the law."
He let that sink in for a minute, and knew he'd truly scared the life out of her when she started to cry. To truly cry like the child she was. For she was a child in his eyes, would always be a child. However the Empire did not share his view, and there were too few months separating seventeen from the legal age of majority. She'd be tried as an adult.
There was nothing he could do about it. And that knowledge hurt the most.
"But no one was supposed to get hurt!" she sobbed, the tears flowing freely down her bruised cheeks. "It wasn't supposed to end like this. It was supposed to be peaceful."
He wanted to shake his head, to sigh aloud in sorrow and resignation. The sigh that left his lips instead was soft and full of disgust. "You made a very bad decision, Miss Camlyn. And I am truly sorry. Lieutenant, release her," he said to the trooper, turning on his heel to leave the room. And forced out the words that stuck so painfully in his throat. "Per standing orders from the Admiralty regarding rebels, prepare the prisoner for level one interrogation."
He didn't need to see her to know her eyes widened further, to watch her leap from the shelf and nearly rip her shoulder from its socket when the durasteel cord reached its length and snapped her back against the wall.
"NO! DON'T DO THIS!" She begged. "PLEASE, LUTHAR, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! OH STARS, PLEASE! PLE—"
The door closed, cutting off the pleas, the crying. Though Friel knew he would hear them long after they were finished. Would see her in this state every time he closed his eyes for a long, long time to come. Renet, I am so sorry. I wish there was more that I could do. However you belong to Lord Vader now, and you will answer for your stupid, idealistic decision.
And he? He would ultimately have to answer to his best friend now, to go and tell Commander Nathon Tydon, First Officer of the ISD Dark Star, that the baby sister he thought was safe on their homeworld was about to undergo interrogation. And that Friel, himself, had ordered it.
It was no longer a pleasing day.
Friel barely heard the man that stepped over to him as he approached the detention cell monitoring stations. He stopped, turned eyes that were heavy with regret masked behind pure cold anger on the man. So much so that the other took an involuntary step backwards.
"Sir," the yet unknown officer began, licking his lips as if questioning the wisdom of approaching the XO at this time. "A word, sir. I know you are busy, sir. But I think this will interest you."
Friel took a deep breath, stifling the urge to shove the other man aside and get on with his day. "I should hope so, officer…"
"Gant, sir. Avery Gant, Lieutenant Commander."
"Very well, Lieutenant Commander Gant, you may have your word."
Gant saluted, turned, and lead Friel down the hall to a more private corner. "Sir, I understand the prisoner you just interrogated is Renate Tydon, the sister of Commander Tydon, the First officer of the Dark Star."
Friel felt his teeth grind together. So much for trying to protect Nathon and his good name from this mess. "You are correct," he growled. "I'm waiting to see how a reiteration of known facts is urgent enough to compel my time."
Gant paled slightly. "Sir, I was in charge of monitoring your interrogation of Miss Ty—I mean MissCamlyn. I think… Sir, it is my professional opinion that Miss Camlyn was not in her right mind. She exhibits all the classic symptoms of brainwashing, sir. She is malnourished, unable to articulate properly her reasons for being a member of this rebel ship's crew, nor her reasons for joining with the rebels in the first place."
A tiny bubble of hope forced its way through the gloom around his heart. If Gant was correct… "You do realize that may not be enough," he said, choosing his words carefully. "She is the prisoner of Lord Vader, as are all the rebels captured this day. Do you believe your evidence of her mental state will hold up under such scrutiny?"
To his credit, Gant met his gaze evenly. "Not just on my word, sir. If you believe the same, I know it will be enough. There is president in the data bases for this kind of thing. Most prisoners found to be coerced into wrong actions are sent instead to medical facilities for deprograming. Most are eventually released back to their lives with a strong warning not to misbehave again. Out of those released, there has been a one hundred percent success rate with reintegration into society."
Friel felt his mouth twist unconsciously. He'd heard of these medical facilities before, and most patients sent in emerged as less than themselves. While it was true that all the bad aspects of their personalities that lead them to their unfortunate decisions were removed, it was normally at the cost of the majority of the person's very identity. What emerged was fully programmed to love and adore the Empire, to do anything to ensure its continued existence.
Those facilities produced fanatics. They did not cure defects.
But Renet was from a wealthy, respected Core family. And if her father agreed to a house arrest for her and private doctors to tend her mind… It could work. It could really and truly work.
She could be saved.
"Why?" Friel asked at last. "Why are you going to this amount of research and work for this prisoner in particular?"
"I know Commander Tydon personally, sir. He was a mentor of sorts for me on my first assignment. I owe him."
"That has to be a strong debt if you are willing to go out on a limb with Lord Vader, Gant. I want to make certain you know what you are doing."
"Yes, sir, it is, and yes, sir, I know what I am doing."
"Then you have my approval. If prisoner Camlyn answers truthfully and with relative ease under the level one interrogation, you have my recommendation for a rehabilitation plan for her. Submit your findings to me formally and I will handle the rest."
"Yes, sir."
Friel turned and walked towards the lift, his mind turning over the possibilities one by one. If Lord Vader disagreed with their findings, he and Gant may very well find themselves next to Renet in a cell. But this was a chance, a real chance. And for the memory of the laughter of a little girl that was like a sister to him, he would take that chance.
