Holding her is dangerous.
She'll die before she'll tell you anything!
A rough but precise impact juddered the Drunk Dancer's head. Mari felt the gradual spin accelerate for the few moments it took for her and the ship to adjust. Bitters was already running, and she followed.
Inside the docking bay, Shuttle I-LO sat still, taking up one corner. Suddenly it was rammed forwards as a larger, triangular military craft shoved is way in, making space for itself, cramping the vast hall. Within seconds, uniform-armoured stormtroopers were pouring out, their rifles already aimed and ready.
'Stay behind me!' Bitters yelled over the shrill, fast sound of the opening door. 'If you can't, stay behind something!' For a moment he stopped. 'All right, too late. We're making a stand. Get to the cockpit and stay there!'
With this he rushed back into the storeroom, and KN-11 strolled quietly to the opposite one, ignored. Outside the cockpit door, Mari and Crispin heard Bitters emerge with something heavy and metal. In the time he had left, the Rebel fashioned an unimpressive barricade and positioned himself in the doorframe.
Mari's hand hovered over the cockpit door controls, before flitting away and landing on Crispin's shoulder. Hearing something, she pushed him into her back, though he escaped to find a position mirroring hers and aping Bitters'.
Protect him, she heard her head scream, trying to overpower the whirlwind of accusatory thoughts and guesswork strategy. Protect him and get out the moment you can. She shouldn't have brought Crispin here. He was a kid. She hated herself. The blaster she had grabbed itched her hand. Was she about to shoot at the troopers? Should she turn herself in? Surrender?
And then the door was open and there was no time to think about any of it. The white helmets that had flashed through her panicked mind appeared for real, but the image was blasted away by a detonator she didn't see Bitters throw. He had already landed a few shots in the troopers' legs, and now he caught the midriff of one who fell to the floor.
The troopers hadn't seen her. Bitters took a moment to stay back, and looked empty again. She pitied him, and maybe even could have killed those troopers.
But he was nineteen. She had to keep him alive.
Bitters would never win this fight. He was one against who-knew-how-many. Mari levelled her blaster, aiming it at the Rebel's head, then thought better and pointed it at the larger target of his back.
No option. It was Bitters' life for Crispin's. No option. She wanted so badly to close her eyes, but she was too terrified to do so.
Crispin fired. The red bolt pounced away from him and smacked hard into the wall, metres away from anyone. But now the troopers were changing their aim.
.
'Now then,' said Governor Tarkin, collecting his thoughts. 'Perhaps you'd deign to speak with me, at least. I shan't be so presumptuous as to ask for the name of the system again. But something to call you, at least? I find the popular Rebel scum distasteful, and I think my dear would sound rather patronising.'
The woman sat across from him, on a clean, brushed slab, was pretty. Tarkin guessed her age at early thirties, but in fact he was nearly a decade off. Her black hair was long and thickly curled, tied back an hour ago but now half pulled-out, laying in wet strands over ocean blue eyes. They stood out like elegant strokes of ink against the rich, cream skin.
'Oh my,' he muttered, failing to sustain the mock enthusiasm he had intended. 'Eye contact.' A murmur now. 'Goodness me, I am getting somewhere.'
The prisoner was a curious one. Normally at this stage in an interrogation, the subject would either give up and scream confessions, or else make a game of it, laughing or inviting further abuse. The latter was slightly more time consuming. This woman merely endured, gasping and convulsing if her body needed to, with no apparent interest in putting up any front other than silence.
'It's clear you were in charge, at least. Might I call you General? Commander? I'm afraid I have no idea what sort of model your group has used for rank.'
Peculiar. But there were yet means available. And there would be more tactical errors in the Rebel plans to come. More captives.
Very few of the resistance members would be like this one. But she was fascinating, if nothing else. Such strong women were a rarity, particularly nowadays.
Her breathing became audible for a few moments. Now holding onto his eye contact quite fiercely, she tied her hair back again. What was she looking for in his face? Maybe he was getting through to her after all.
Mari watched the troopers move their sights onto her, but didn't jump back behind the door. Not yet. There was anger in her now, and no more decisions to make. Without daring to aim, she fired a blaster for the first time in her life. A second shot flew simultaneously, from Crispin's pistol, and one of the two hit.
Immediately a volley of larger, brighter bolts flew into the room, close enough to Mari's retreating face to warm it. They splattered against the walls, the floor and the viewscreen, leaving carbon scoring as a warning.
Now, protecting the lad meant shooting at the Imperial Army.
But Bitters was back in control, managing to surprise those troopers who were still picking a target. Two more men fell, and were uncaringly kicked to the side by their comrades, allowing more to emerge and fire.
Just like that, all of Bitters' opportunistic hits seemed to count for nothing. The fight had been re-set. But he fired a couple of hasty shots before diving back behind his side-door.
The massive return fire shredded the improvised barricade, even creating a couple of workable defensive positions for the troops – a durasteel cabinet and a hefty slab of a table found themselves lying sideways, facing away. Two of the troopers took advantage of a lull and dived for the cover, covered by enthusiastic fire from the others, in both directions. More men emerged in the doorway, exposed but shooting.
The empty space between Crispin and Mari flashed red on and off, reminding her of the abrasive street signs all over Triple Zero, which at that moment seemed very welcoming. Every time her vision was obscured by the volleys, she worried for the young man she couldn't see, and every time they had silence, instincts overcame her and she simply fired. On her third time away from the doorframe, she actually saw one of her shots cut a soldier's neck. Instantly, he collapsed in on himself, dropping to the floor and landing on another man's foot. Her arms tensed and shuddered, but the adrenaline still felt good.
Bitters had one more detonator, which tore apart one of the two men hiding behind the furniture, and covered the squad with smoke for a second. Mari and Crispin watched the opportunity develop but both failed to take it, numbly watching, simply unprepared for the situation. Further up, their leader knocked over two more stormtroopers with well-aimed shots.
This time, no-more emerged. Through the squealing rifles, she heard a triumphant yelp. Only two left! They were actually winning. Mari allowed herself a grin, but only half as big as Crispin's.
Through the smoke, a single blaster bolt emerged and Mari watched it, knowing exactly where it would land, screaming for a way to stop it. The short, cut-off beam seemed so harmless now that she was focused on it. Just a rectangle of colour. What harm could that do?
With a thud that seemed louder, more visceral than the rest, Bitters slammed down. His punctured chest hit the wall and then the floor.
Crispin, safe in the cockpit and hidden from view, slumped down likewise, helplessly distraught, empty. The look on his face made Mari aware of a pain in her stomach. For a moment there was no gunfire.
.
The Grand Moff didn't usually conduct interrogations personally, but he had a particular interest here. The prisoner was a leader within the Rebellion. She knew the location of their headquarters.
The so-called 'Alliance' was becoming something of a popular myth among the people of his sectors and the evidence suggested it was gaining more and more real-world support. It was hard to find concrete evidence of the new movement, but there were marks left on the galaxy's surface, scratches and disturbances that were testament to the disease spreading beneath.
Tarkin was adept at tracking these oddities and ironing them out. Most of those who watched him assumed that the Clone Wars had taught him this skill, and drew comparisons between the current threat and the old Confederacy of Independent Systems. But these people misunderstood the cause and effect. It was his vision and his intolerance for such underhanded forces that had granted him success in the Wars. This had made him a sector governor, and then a Moff once the Empire was firmly established.
It was his drive that had elevated him, his unwillingness to live with threats. Acceptance that every level in the hierarchy brought greater enemies and greater weapons against them. Greater control for the wielder, and thus power. It was his passion for the ultimate weapon that had made him who he was. And of course, there was the doctrine.
The Tarkin Doctrine had been a magnificent boon to his career and to the security of the Empire itself. The meaning and the use of the doctrine had taken many forms, but the words remained clear. Every man in government and military alike knew the condensed version. Rule through fear of force, rather than force itself.
The fear of force was great, and Tarkin had used it to make himself powerful. It had justified the installation of oversectors and the Grand Moffs, of whom he was the first. The gathering Rebellion was yet to strike, but Tarkin had shaped himself and his doctrine to combat it.
Once he knew the location of the secret base, of their fleet, it would be over. Once there was no opposition and His Majesty possessed supreme power, He would be untouchable.
Security.
The report to the palace would be a simple one. A military ship had been encountered within the core, and the uprising had been dealt with. All prisoners were executed, and this last one rather more slowly.
Ho hum.
.
Do something, Mari. I don't know what. Do something.
The pain hit her stomach again, and Mari wondered if she had been shot. Looking down, almost scared to take her eyes from the advancing troopers, she saw that she was uninjured. Instinctively she looked at Crispin, but he was fine too.
They're coming.
She watched a white-armoured elbow steadily encroach into her field of vision. There was no time to think of something. Crispin needed to get up.
Get up, Crispin.
The blasterfire re-emerged, this time appearing right after she heard the blasts, pummelling the walls quicker. She became aware of an appalling smell. No time.
Feeling that ending it now would be preferable to watching, she hurled herself into the corridor, firing her blaster in whatever direction it was facing. She found the two stormtroopers even closer than she had imagined, pressing the barrel hard into one of them by accident and hurting her wrist. When he dropped she felt a neat hole being punched into her other forearm, and killed the remaining trooper without trying.
Her head swam into an uncomfortable thickness, as if a night's drinks had hit her all at once. Cris was up now, and making her stand too. Without feeling her legs she saw them straighten and hoped he would keep her steady.
Bitters was there, smiling calmly. It was good to see. He looked so comfortable.
'You take this,' he said to her, pressing something cold into her hand, something dappled with sweat drops. Oh, the laser sword. She groped around with her thumb, trying to avoid the buttons and plate that might set the thing off. Bitters' breathing was very loud.
'You take this, sister, and get it back to Dantooine where it belongs. You take it back, and may the Force be with you.'
The boy started to speak, but she pulled him away. They needed to get away from this.
.
She spat at him, but Tarkin did not smile. As pleased as he was with the breakthrough, he had been spat at.
All he had done was mention the Wookiee planet. It had not even been intended to incite her. It was one of the more frequent destinations logged into her navigational apparatus. Of course, like the others, it would make an appalling secret base. Tarkin guessed that the most frequent stop-off point had its records erased, and that it was somewhere distant and unheard of.
Cleaning himself, he kept his close distance. He didn't expect her to spit again. Thus far she had seemed completely calm, ignoring him as one might an unruly child.
The mind-probe had achieved nothing, though it had been applied vigorously enough to kill the other prisoner. This one simply looked at him, not even aggressive until now, as if the neural implants were broken.
So far he had yet to find the 'on' switch.
Perhaps this Wookiee planet…
For fifteen minutes he questioned her on the subject, applied stimulations to weaken her a bit, even raised his voice. But her guard had not been down long. A second after her little reaction, she closed her eyes and her mouth again.
Three hours later, he gave up. Standing to his full height, Wilhuff Tarkin turned away from her and left the medical room. His firm yet slender fingers grasped one-another behind his back as he entered the adjoining office. A rather crude one-way mirror showed him the Rebel still silent, but he did not look.
Almost as if he had timed it, a communicator issued a two-tone bleep and revealed the blue-white, flickering image of Lieutenant Taq Acys.
'Governor, sir,' it began respectfully. Tarkin nodded but looked through the image, into the table. He placed his hand on his chin, still thinking. Above it severe features were arranged around high cheekbones and a forehead edged in white. The face was well-known and feared just as much. Some claimed rather to despise it, but Tarkin knew this amounted to the same thing.
'Good evening, Acys,' he replied distantly.
'Disappointing news from the team we left on the Rebel ship, sir. Killed, the lot of them. Some sort of ambush. There was a survivor we missed, it seems. And he had help.'
The fate of a handful of white helmets meant little to Tarkin, but the report left him with questions.
'What do you mean, a survivor you missed?'
The hologram straightened its neck. 'Our squad leader only gave us a hasty report. We assume the man was hiding when the ship was boarded. We had suspected the Drunk Dancer was once a smuggler's ship.'
'And now it belongs to a single Rebel, who managed to outwit a troop of my men.'
'He's not alone, sir. Bizarrely, before it was boarded by our own men, the freighter hosted an Imperial Transport shuttle. We think the pilots helped our Rebel in the ambush.'
'Imperial Transport? A registered ship from Imperial Centre?'
'IT Shuttle I-LO,' said the hologram speaker. 'One of their older vehicles. I can't imagine what sort of package they might have been delivering. I wonder if they got a return address!'
Tarkin did not care to respond to the meek little joke, but wanted to discourage it nonetheless. "Find out," he said simply. There was enough ambiguity in his face to sufficiently intimidate the young officer.
'Yes, sir,' Acys began to say, but Tarkin ended the conference at the beginning of the second syllable.
Grand Moff Tarkin saw clues everywhere, but it required little investigative insight to track an Imperial Transit delivery ship. He could not yet fathom what affiliation these civilian pilots had with the freighter's former crew, or how much they knew. But he would have his answers quickly.
His vision was keen and precise. When it fell on a sector, a planet, a man, it penetrated that target's skin, gleaming insight and revealing weak points. He sought the rebel base now, grimly determined to snuff it out.
The Grand Moff did not make mistakes; Senators and Moffs made mistakes. Vader made mistakes. Perhaps the Rebels had made their next one already.
Re-activating the holoprojector, Tarkin spoke a simple command to the armed officers guarding the facility. 'Terminate her.' He had wasted enough time on this. He had pressing business with Imperial Transport's customer services department.
As he sank back into his chair, his mind scanning the galaxy for the secret base, he heard a shot and a muted thump. For a moment, his head moved toward the mirror.