A/N: A big thank you to everyone that has read, reviewed, favorite and followed. I say it every time and I mean it every time. Every review helps me to make this story better. So thank you again!
I know there was some confusion last chapter with what happened with Leia. A lot of that is explained in Loyal Soldier of the Empire - Journal of an Imperial Stormtrooper by Hoplite39. I should have mentioned that in the previous chapter's notes. Sorry! Please read that story as it is amazing and ties in heavily with this one. Major thanks to Hoplite39 for allowing me to play with the concepts and characters that make that story amazing. :D
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun.
I awoke to one of those moments where I wondered if anyone got the number of the swoop bike that ran me over. Everything hurt, from the tips of my toes to the top of my head—especially my head—which felt like someone had used it to score a goal in Phrenbi game playoffs. But that would have required me to be on Alderaan where the Phrenbi playoffs were traditionally held, and I cognizant enough to know I wasn't there.
If I was there, I wouldn't hurt this badly. Physically, mentally, or emotionally. And that was the plain honest truth.
There was nothing but blurry pain when I finally opened my eyes, strangely surprised that they had been shut at all. Random images slowly began to take shape, and the first thing I saw was a stormtrooper helmet close enough to kiss. I jerked back, or tried to at least. There was an armored hand beneath my head, cradling it slightly. If one could be said to be cradled by white armor. It definitely wasn't meant to be nurturing or comforting, let me tell you. It was probably the least requested "look" for the galaxy's most posh nurseries.
Unless, of course, you believed what Leia had said about the Empire stealing babies from Rebels to be raised as the next generation of stormtroopers. Madness, I tell you! Our Emperor had enough people volunteering to join the smash-and-grab teams that enforced the laws. Why would he, if he was truly so wise as we were all lead to believe, turn children in to weapons of war? Why blame the sins of the parents on children not old enough to understand? Leia had to be wrong. She had to be playing a prank, or being malicious on purpose. I'd be malicious and spiteful if I'd been kidnapped and treated anywhere near the way Bria Theran had been.
And yet… yet… maybe it was the ball of agony my world had turned into, but I could see some sort of twisted justice in it. Certainly we in the so-called "elite" suffered under the same traditions. If my father decided to tell the Emperor to go suck hyperdrive fumes, my entire family would feel the consequences. We'd all be rounded up and given to the worst of the Core families for sport. Turned into little more than slaves.
Was it really a hard leap of logic to think that the children of rebels were treated the same? Taught to yearn for Imperial service with all their being, never told that they, themselves, were serving out the punishment for their parent's foolish actions?
It made my head hurt—more than it already did—to think about that.
"She's awake, sir," came the filtered male voice from the mask in front of me.
"Is she damaged?"
"Unknown, sir. There are no external injuries I can detect."
"Check her eyes. Lack of response to light stimuli will indicate brain injury and damage."
Brian damage… I almost laughed at that. If only! Part of me wished valiantly that I had been hit by a swoop rider, that the past month had been a bacta-treatment-related nightmare. But even my stupid brain wasn't that gullible. I knew what had happened. I knew that Leia somehow knew the psychological weakness in the conditioning of my trooper escorts, and had applied that… that… horrible blasphemy of hers in some effort to escape. It had caused the troopers with me to try and kill her just to shut her up. Which had led to a firefight. Which lead to someone blowing out the controls on the lift by accident.
Which lead to my current decent into madness. I mean the heart of the Death Star.
Same difference in my book at this point.
"I'm okay," I said aloud, my voice sounding muted to my own ears. "At least I think I am."
"I will be the judge of that."
A white-armored hand landed on the shoulder of the white armored person currently cradling my neck. The buzz of some sort of scanner whispered around me. Probably medical in nature. Though why stormtroopers carried medical scanners at all was a surprise to me. Then again, they had all sorts of belt boxes built into their armor. For all I knew there could have been a box for rations, a box for first aid, a box for a holocube so they could watch the latest vids while on boring guard detail…
"Stop," I said irritably when that buzzing sound approached my head again. "I said I was fine."
"Miss Motti, you are under Order—"
"Order 0000A, yes. I know that. My life is in your hands. My continued existence second only to your oath to the Emperor, may he live forever. If I so much as have a scratch on me, your honor is forever destroyed. I get it. I know the drill. Cassio made me memorize it during my training."
The only response I got to that little speech was the armored hand on the back of my neck clenching until I couldn't move it, the owner's other hand grabbing my opposite shoulder until I was wedged against his chest. No room to move, to so much as flail a hand at the annoying scanner buzzing around my head.
"Satisfied?" I growled, watching the second trooper read the results.
"Minor to moderately severe concussion," the trooper read aloud. "Bruises along most of your body, Miss Motti. There is a hairline fracture of the malleus bone in your left ear that will cause difficulty with your balance. Trooper TK-7759, you will assist Miss Motti in movements. I will take point."
That caused me to blink, sitting up after TK let go of me. They weren't kidding about the bone in my ear or the concussion. My head hurt so badly I thought I was going to vomit, so the idea of actually walking around? So not in my playbook.
"Movement?" I echoed, rubbing gingerly at my broken ear as if I could clear whatever it was that muffed it. "Why are we leaving? Shouldn't we wait right here for rescue? I mean, you guys have comm'ed the station by now, right? Or don't they have trooper trackers on you to know where you are at all times? Isn't a recovery team in route right now?"
The one obviously in command stood, slipping the medical scanner into a belt box and retrieving his blaster. "I am certain LC-9087 has called for an emergency extraction. However, this area is heavy with radiation. It is interfering with our short-range comlinks. In addition, exposure to this much radiation could be fatal. We need to move now."
I almost wilted with relief. LC-9087… he'd been in that turbolift, and had saved Leia's life. If anyone could keep a level head and get us the help we needed, it was him. I mean, he'd been the one to recognize my face moments before his squadmate had executed me months ago on Alderaan. Anyone that could recognize a flash of a profile hidden behind tangled brown curls and instantly correlate that to a detainment order that wasn't part of his current mission objectives had to be sharp, right?
I realized that I was suddenly placing a lot of faith on someone I had never really met. But if he was half the man I thought he was, I was going to correct that when we got out of this. Whether the meeting meant anything to him or not.
And then it dawned on me just what RC-5342 had said. Radiation? I felt my head spin, and I didn't know if that was the concussion or if my sudden realization of just where we had ended up was making me want to pass out again. "How high is the radiation here?"
"Miss Motti, we should mo—"
"Oh enough with this polite crap," I snapped, hoisting myself to my feet and then wobbling unsteadily on them. "Look, I understand that you are doing your jobs and what I'm about to state is probably the height of stormtrooper rudeness. But we aren't exactly in a position anymore where protocol is going to be our saving grace. I'm Tessa. You'll call me Tessa. And I want to know your names. Now."
They exchanged looks, before the leader finally looked at me. "Zarine Yalasa, operating number RC-5342."
"Tobias Angkill, operating number TK-7759."
Alright. Finally, we were getting somewhere. At least verbally. "Okay, Zarine and Tobias. Nice to meet you. Those are names I can remember. I don't want to be caught in a situation where I'm trying to remember your numbers if I want to talk to you. Does that sound less insulting?"
"We are not offended," Zarine offered, and it felt strange to assign a woman's name to that male filtered voice. "We are honored to be given this duty, Miss Mot—Tessa. We would be further honored to complete it by returning you to your proper place alive."
I almost cracked a smile at that. Almost. "Zarine, that's the most polite way I've ever been told to shut up and move along."
"Yes, Tessa."
"How high is the radiation in this area?"
Tobias pulled a white disk from his belt. "High enough that remaining here for much longer will cause long term damage. According to the readout, we have been here four hours already. We cannot delay, Mi—Tessa. We must move to a location where the levels are lower."
I couldn't argue with that, so I settled with gaping at him as he took that white disk and a black strap and began to affix that disk to my wrist. "Wait, don't you need that?"
"Your protection is of higher priority. Our armor will offer some resistance to the radiation."
I tried to close my fingers over his, to stop him from doing this. Either my aim was way off due to my injuries, or he was just that fast. Every time my fingers got in the way, he shifted the disk and continued binding it to me anyway.
"You said some resistance," I tried. "But not complete resistance."
"I still possess my shield," Zarine put in, tapping a belt box. "TK-7759 and I will rotate usage for the time being."
They weren't going to let up on this argument, I knew. Their orders and their honor wouldn't let me come to harm, even at the cost of their lives. I gritted my teeth and nodded. Making a mental note to somehow slip the shield to one of them in about an hour. It didn't matter to me if it was their job to die for me. I wasn't going to let it happen unnecessarily. And that was that.
"Okay," I said again, glancing at the shield. "I think… I think I might know where we are. The radiation being this bad can only put us in one of four points on the station—under the main superlaser generators. I think… I may know how to get us out of here."
They stared at me a long moment, so much so that I sighed. "You know, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm dating a Grand Admiral, for star's sake. And not one that gets his jollies in running a Fleet. I'm dating a scientist, someone with a brain. What in the Empire did you think we talked about on our tours of this station, the weather on Imperial Center?"
Again, they said nothing. I had the sinking sensation that they had both served as my escorts before. And they both thought I was just like Domina Tagge, an empty-headed, vapid, harpy of a woman that cared only about her rise in the social arena. I gritted my teeth again, shaking my head. Of course they would think that. Wasn't that the image I had given off under the drugs? Wasn't that what all those silk dresses and fancy dinners projected?
When I got out of this situation, I was going to wear pants again. Kriff, I would put on a full Imperial Uniform if I had to. The image of the metal roses from Admiral Daala floated into my mind, and I made my memory of her a focal point. She wouldn't be wasting time arguing with stormtroopers and lamenting fancy dresses. She'd have taken charge and saved everyone all by herself, I was willing to bet.
After I met LC-9087 face to face (even if I had to stun him, sit on his chest and remove that damn helmet myself to just get a look at him), I was going to insist on visiting Admiral Daala wherever she was stationed. Uncle could arrange that. I'd make it a condition of my wedding agreement.
"Never mind," I said, stalking forward… and nearly falling on my face until Tobias caught my arm. "This way," I said with a lame wave of my hand. "We need to find a way up. There should be ray shafts and maintenance tubes around here somewhere. At the very least we should find a panel to make a call."
One of the first military doctrines that Con had had to learn at the Academy was this: no plan, no matter how well devised, ever survives first contact with the enemy. I remembered him railing at that, determined to prove his instructors wrong. A well-laid plan, complete with reliable reconnaissance of the attack zone in question, should have no trouble dispatching an enemy of questionable strength. And no matter how he spun it, how many times he ran his perfect scenarios through the computer, he was always proven wrong.
There were too many variables in open combat. Weapons could jam or misfire, terrain that was suddenly stable could collapse and take the majority of your forces with it. Weaker enemies could turn into raging death machines if pinned into a corner. And no matter how well you thought you knew your chosen battle ground, there was always something more to learn, something that was overlooked or forgotten.
Like, say, what happens to circuits if massive amounts of energy were funneled through them when they weren't grounded properly.
I stared at the melted mess that was the latest comm. panel and tried my best not to have a screaming fit. It was the fifth one we'd found in the past five hours, and like all the others, it was so much melted slag. When the Death Star had destroyed Despayre, it had had to have drawn every last bit of juice from the four massive generators, funneling it through more systems than I knew how to count to create that massive death beam. I didn't know much about engineering, but I did know enough to realize backup and safety components were always installed in anything electrical, designed to blow first in the case of a power overload and protect the more sensitive circuits.
The backup grid had blown perfectly as it should have, protecting the vital systems.
Unfortunately the auxiliary call panels weren't considered vital systems.
I leaned against the wall, holding Tobias's blaster rifle and helmet while he fiddled with the ruined lumps of metal that used to be components. "Any luck?"
He popped his strawberry blonde head out of the panel, shaking it both to remove the burnt cinders from it as well as to give me the bad news. It reminded me of a lion cub doing the same. Tobias was far too young to be a stormtrooper in my opinion. Barely my age if a day older.
"No, Miss Tessa. I was able to scavenge a few more parts from this unit, but not enough remains to either repair or construct a new communicator."
"Then we keep moving," I said, watching him drop the parts into the makeshift bag we'd made from one of my skirts. "There's bound to be a way out or a panel somewhere we can use."
"Yes, Miss Tessa."
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Zarine glancing down at the radiation shield clipped to her belt. At least I think that was what she was looking at. You could never really tell behind those helmets. "Something wrong, Zarine?"
There was the slightest hesitation, as if she really didn't like going by her given name. "No, Miss Tessa. We should do as you suggest and continue on. Thus far the radiation levels are falling, but not fast enough for human standards. It is my suggestion that we skip the next few comm. panels and continue our climb upward."
"But we run the chance of missing a viable comm. station, or one we can fix."
"Each moment we delay is potentially deadly, Miss Tessa. Given the viability in the last five panels, I do not believe we will find an operational one in this sector."
I couldn't argue with that. I wanted to, don't get me wrong, but she did have a point. And while I had somehow become defacto leader of this survival squad, she had the experience with actually surviving life threatening scenarios. I amended my previous plans once we got out of this place. I was going to see if Zarine wanted to go with me to visit Admiral Daala.
And then I was going to beg both women, on my knees if I had to, to teach me how to be as strong as they were. To not be so bloody useless. Somehow I got the feeling that Martio would approve. I certainly knew that Cassio would.
Stars, Cassio… I should have kissed him in that art gallery instead of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Even if my kissing him was the only thing that got him away from Uncle and back where he belonged. Was it crazy that I was expecting an Admiral several hundred light years away to suddenly return the favor and save me? Probably. Just as crazy as wanting to throw everything to the winds and ask Cassio to run away with me.
I blamed that on the concussion. And the radiation.
"Okay," I relented, pushing thoughts of both men from my mind and focusing on Daala again. Time to be a strong woman and save myself! "We compromise. We skip the next five stations. Deal?"
"Agreed."
I handed Tobias back his helmet and rifle, accepting the bag in return. I was voted the one to carry the components, leaving Tobias and Zarine free to carry their blasters just in case. I had no idea what they thought they were going to have to shoot down here. The station was too new to develop any kind of mynock or pest problem, and if a nest of rebels had taken up residence in the bowels of the Death Star unnoticed, the Empire had bigger problems than they thought.
They could keep their guns. I'd carry the sack/remains of my skirt. Just like I'd given in to letting them call me 'Miss Tessa.' As apparently it was above their training levels or ranks or whatever to be on first name basis with me.
Zarine nodded her helmeted head, taking point again and leading us forever onward. The hallways were narrow, too narrow for us to walk side by side. Unfinished raw durasteel, black as night, made up these sections of the base. Maintenance hallways made for droids and the occasional lone technician that had the bad fortune to draw duty when said droid malfunctioned. I ended up in the middle with Tobias's hand on my shoulder for support and guidance as whatever had melted the comm. units also blew out the lights. Tobias and Zarine were fine with their helmets, switching between spectrums and scanners to have clear sight in the utter dark. I was reduced to using Tobias's glow rod, thickly wrapped in another section of my ruined skirts so that I had enough light to see two steps ahead of me and not interfere with their dark sight.
We came to an intersection, and I took a moment to think. If our progress in the past five hours put us where I thought it did…
"Left," I declared. "Left should lead us towards the main trash compactor lines. If I'm correct, we're about a hundred or so decks beneath detention block AA23. It's a good thing I actually paid attention to the layout of this place."
I saw a tiny minuscule tilt to Tobias's head, reminding me so much of how LC-9087 had almost glanced at me in that turbolift a lifetime ago. At least it felt like a lifetime ago since he'd dragged me—literally—kicking and screaming onto the station. Stars, I still had to apologize for that, too.
"What?" I asked him.
"Nothing, Miss Tessa."
I snorted. "You know, this trip is taxing enough without conversation to break up the monotony. I'm in charge here, or so your Order 0000A states. So ask your question or make your comment."
Another momentary pause, and I got the feeling he was waiting for Zarine to countermand what I'd said. When she didn't, he continued. "May I ask why you were interested in the layout of the Death Star?"
"Honestly? I was hoping to find a way to escape it."
His hand on my shoulder did one of those jerky motions that was almost too subtle to notice. "Why?"
I fought not to turn my head to look at him. My balance was still horribly wrecked, and moving my head at all sent of shooting pains behind my eyes. "For many reasons, I suppose. Chief among them simply because I did not want to be here."
"Why?"
"For starters, I'm not military. I'm a civilian. And this isn't exactly a destination resort. Secondly, I didn't want to get married."
"I… don't understand, Miss Tessa. What does marriage have to do with the Death Star?"
I laughed, a bittersweet sound. "That's the question, isn't it? I'll save you from all the boring political details, but it basically comes down to this: it's an unspoken law among the Core World families that once a person comes of a certain age, they are expected to marry someone of equal or better status in the Royal Court. It's all about alliances and duties to your family."
"And you did not want to do your duty?"
The question was asked with such a level of disbelief in it that I did glance backwards. I don't know what I expected to see, given that he still had his helmet on. But I could imagine the shocked disbelief that went along with those words.
I shook my head, rewarding myself with nearly stumbling to my knees both from a lack of balance and a sudden blinding pain. Tobias somehow tucked his blaster into the crook of one arm and got the other around my waist before I so much as tilted.
"Thank you."
"You are welcome, Miss Tessa."
"Though I suppose now I owe you an answer to that question for saving me."
"You owe me nothing, Miss Tessa. It is my honor to serve the great families in the course of my duties to the Emperor."
I sighed. "You all really believe in your oaths and duties, don't you, down to the last letter of them."
"Of course," he said, the conviction in his strong words matching the disbelief in his last. "The Emperor, in his wisdom, has provided for us all. Everyone has a place in the Empire, everyone a duty to perform. Those that are without duty or honor simply do not want either. We are to follow the example of our Emperor and pity them, guide them within the loving orders he has issued through our chain of command."
A stray memory finally clicked for me. The silence from LC-9087 in that turoblift the first time. The way that all my escorts had explained things to me in the simplest of terms. How I thought they'd treated me like glass, like something fragile on the orders of Cassio and Conan. Now I knew. They really did think I was an idiot. A poor, unintelligent creature one step above an alien only by virtue of being human. They didn't respect me at all.
They pitied me. Pitied me and my running away from my duty to marry and produce another narrow minded biased man or empty-headed pitiable woman.
And they fired relentlessly on the other species of the galaxy not out of rage or a psychopathic conditioning to kill, but because they felt they were doing the compassionate thing. Putting down a rabid or wounded animal to end its misery.
If I didn't already want to vomit from the concussion and ear injury, I surely would have now.
"I hate this place," I nearly sobbed.
"Why?"
Kriff, he was still "speaking freely," twisting that knife into my heart with his innocent questions. Me and my big mouth, wanting these troopers to speak with their programmed rhetoric. I suddenly missed the oppressive silence. I suddenly regretted a lot of things.
I shrugged out of his arm, hurrying to keep pace with Zarine a few steps ahead. "Because it reminds me of everything I hate in this galaxy," I answered bluntly. "Why can't people just be people? Why all these laws and restrictions and hatred wrapped in twisted compassion?"
"Because," Tobias said, catching up to me and putting that gauntleted hand—the one that had felt so reassuring and protective until he'd said what he'd said—back on my shoulder to guide me. "The galaxy tried that before. It gave us the Separatist Movement in return, and after that the Clone Wars, and after that the Jedi Uprising. It took the august wisdom of our Emperor to sweep away the old and give us true and lasting peace."
"At the end of a blaster?"
He shrugged. He actually shrugged. I felt it through his hand. "What would you have us do, Miss Tessa?" He asked, earnestly wanting my answer. "The galaxy was on the brink of ripping itself in two. The Senate approved with thunderous applause the rise of our Emperor. Did you not see the humble tears in his eyes as he assumed the role they cast him into? It was a faith-strengthening show that every loyal citizen of the Empire should review daily. You are a Motti, and as such so much closer to our wise Emperor than I could ever dream. Surely one of your noble blood is unhappy with something, you will have a wise modification to suggest."
I gritted my teeth, clenched that makeshift bag until my knuckles were white with effort. And then let it go, letting out the breath I had been holding along with it. Tobias honestly didn't know what he was saying. Or more to the point, he couldn't see past the programming to understand the words he was truly speaking. Having been on the receiving end of that conditioning drug, I knew firsthand just how powerful the need to believe whatever you are told could be.
"I don't have all the answers, Tobias," I said tiredly. "If I did, I'd be on Imperial Center right now making those changes."
"I see," he said, sounding almost cheerful, as if finally understanding something that had puzzled him. "You do not want to be here, or to be married, because you devote yourself mind and heart to assisting His Majesty in finding those answers to those challenges. That is why you wish to be elsewhere. Miss Tessa, thank you for this conversation. Your dedication to the Empire is truly beyond measure. Like the time I escorted Admiral Motti, this has been one of the greatest honors of my life."
"By the Empire, you ate more than your fair share of the conditioning drug, didn't you?"
"Never, Miss Tessa," he continued gravely, utterly missing the sarcasm in that question. "We are prohibited from consuming anything save for our medicated rations. It is grounds for Administrative Punishment."
"What is—"
"TK-7759 speaks out of turn," Zarine snapped, eyes still forward as we headed towards a growing funk in the air. Apparently I had been right. We were heading towards the main garbage collection lines. "He speaks of stormtrooper business to one not in the white armor, and perhaps should meditate on his oaths to our Emperor in silence until he understands the difference."
"Yes, sir," Tobias snapped, crisp and proper like a trooper should.
"No, Zarine. It's okay," I tried. "At least about the conditioning drugs. I understand it completely."
"You are not a stormtrooper, Miss Tessa. You cannot know."
"I beg to differ, Zarine. I've had those drugs. I know what they can do."
I'd seen stormtroopers move quickly. I've seen them aim in the blink of an eye and fire two rounds before said blink was even finished. But unlike the drugs in question, I'd never experienced it when I was at the wrong end. Just suddenly the hand on my shoulder tugged me backward until I slammed into Tobias's chest. And just as suddenly Zarine was filling the space I'd stood in, looming over me almost larger than life. She was almost as tall as Con, and at least as tall as Cassio, so she could loom with the best of them.
"Explain that last statement, Miss Tessa."
"I thought you said we had to keep mov—"
One gauntleted hand caught my chin, thumb and forefinger on either side of my mouth. "Explain," she said softly. Deadly. "Do so now."
"Someone has been drugging me," I said in a rush, eyes wide. Aware very much that Tobias's other hand wasn't securely around my waist, and that his weapon was held in that free hand. A tiny shift of that arm and he could pump several rounds into my side. I'd be dead before I even felt it. "I don't know who. Uncl—I mean Grand Moff Tarkin, General Tagge, and Admiral Motti don't know at this point who was doing it. Just that someone was slipping me the base conditioning drug for about two weeks. I've received a week full of decontamination injections to counter it. So I should be fine, right?"
Stars, let that be right. Let this whole thing be alright…
I got the impression of Zarine taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She made a hand signal, and Tobias eased up on my shoulder. "I take it this is a serious thing?" I couldn't help but ask.
"Yes." Was all she would say, turning away from me and starting down the hallway.
"It's stormtrooper business, am I right? And you do not discuss that with non-troopers."
"Yes."
I let Tobias gently push me forward, continuing on our journey. "Why are you so angry? I didn't accuse you of doing this to me."
"Honor," Tobias answered, a simmering anger replacing the appreciation in his voice. "You are not a trooper, so you do not understand what is required of us. We put aside everything. Family, marriage, our very sense of self. We become more, a part of large collective, by doing so. Our drugs, as you roughly put it, are a mark of our honor and sacrifice in the name of the Emperor. For another to consume them… it is an insult to every honorable trooper, alive or dead."
"I never meant insult. I—"
"It is not you that I am angry with, Miss Tessa," Zarine growled. "When we complete our mission objective and you are safely reunited with your family, I will personally see to it that the matter of your drugging will be resolved. Not a trooper on this station will rest until the culprit is found. Our honor is stained. Our oaths to the Emperor violated. Both will be avenged."
I decided to stop talking then for two reasons. Firstly because I was just digging myself deeper into trouble with these two. And secondly because the next time I opened my mouth, I really would vomit. Not from the concussion or the conversation, but from the stench that permeated the air. We'd found the main garbage collection level, and the noxious odor nearly knocked us all to our knees.
