Hi readers,
Hope you are all keeping safe. So Maya was right. There is an Imperial mole with the Rebels. Wonder who it is?
Stay safe.
Sued13
CHAPTER Seventy Three
"I'll get it," Ana shouted into the back of the shop; she had just come up from the basement carrying the additional stock Essie wanted to put out, when the doorbell rang as someone entered the shop. Ana stopped moving as soon as she saw who entered.
He looked good; it had been a couple of months since she last saw him and he was early.
"She's not ready. I wasn't expecting you until this afternoon."
He nodded. "I wanted to see her."
Of course he would; she's his daughter.
"Come in the back."
This was more difficult that she thought it would be.
"I can only stay a few hours. Not overnight. Not like we agreed. I have a mission. I'm sorry."
"It's not me who's missing out." It sounded harsher than she intended.
"Point taken."
"Can you tell me…."
He shook his head.
"Okay."
This was too civilised.
He followed her at a discreet distance; he would never have been so distant, before.
Kallie was sitting in her high chair, earnestly squeezing some kind of pale bland looking fruit, watching as it emerged from between her chubby fingers. Essie was standing next to her smiling indulgently at the mess their daughter was creating.
"She's sitting up on her own?" He smiled as he said that.
"She's strapped in." Confirmed Essie, "just needs some support, she can't quite do it herself but she won't be long."
Ana walked by silently and placed a kiss on her daughters head, dragging her fingers through her, unruly strawberry blonde curls.
She definitely has the Fett eyebrows, he thought, out of the blue.
He realised she was stretching her tiny hand out to him and making some incoherent noise in his direction, and smiling.
He looked at Ana, questioningly.
"She recognises you."
He raised an eyebrow; he hadn't been here very often for that to happen.
Ana activated her Holocomm and showed the image to Kallie; "Daddy." She asserted.
"Buir." Rex corrected.
Ana looked up at him, "Buir." She corrected herself.
Kallie pointed at Rex then the Holocomm and giggled.
"Clever girl." Confirmed Ana; she closed the image down.
The distance between them was closed by Rex and Ana felt a little breathless from the nearness of him. She needed to calm down.
"I'm going to work in a minute, so you can stay here. I'll be out of your way."
No, stay! He wanted to say.
"Oh! Where?"
"Jay has a surgery now, so I go in a few days a week, just to do routine stuff. Dressings etc."
"Oh….good."
He watched as she went to wipe her daughters face, "Here let me."
Their hands met briefly to exchange the cloth; it was as if he had never been away. Her touch brought back all those feelings, he thought had been destroyed. He wanted to pull her to him, drag her into a kiss and never let her go.
He moved his hands, several seconds too late.
She turned, pulling her hand away, only inches from him now.
It would be so easy to take her in my arms and say sorry for being an idiot. Sorry for not being able to get over a war that ended 18 years ago. Sorry for letting it continue to dictate my choices.
He hadn't realised his hands were on her arms, until she looked down at them.
"I have to go." She stepped back.
He let her.
.
Ana pulled on her coat and did not even say goodbye before she was walking as quickly as she could, to the surgery; she unlocked and headed to the back. Solid and unforgiving, she needed the wall to lean against. Seeing him had been so much harder than she thought it would be.
It would have been so easy to take his face in her hands and kiss him. Kiss him like there was no tomorrow. Like he was the only man in the galaxy.
He was….. for her.
She pushed away to get the datapad from the desk and saw her hands were shaking; she needed to sit before her knees gave way; they already felt shaky.
There was no way she was being here when he visits again; she would just end up doing something stupid.
The drops of moisture on her desk surprised her, then she felt them on her cheeks. Wiping it away she sniffed and muttered to herself. "Di'kut! Pull yourself together. It's over."
The surgery was opening in ten minutes, so she set up the datapad and Appointments, trying but failing to act as normal, as if nothing had happened.
.
Titus took the details from the Imperial mole embedded with the Rebels, at Yavin; this was small scale compared to what Grand Admiral Thrawn was after. Titus would have gladly bombed them to ashes but the Grand Admiral had other ideas and this agent was providing some helpful intel. He should notify Yularen but he needed the information himself first.
"Seelos."
Titus thought there was nothing on that backward hell hole, except sand and inhospitable forests. It's inhabitants weren't much better. Apart from the main city, there were small settlements dotted across the planet attempting to civilise the place but failing miserably. There were still pockets of outlaws that roamed some areas.
The Empire normally had no interest in the place but suddenly it was sending troops there and there was talk of a Garrison to protect its mining interests. That was new. He would have to investigate that; there may be an opening there for him. A further step up. It also held the key to getting rid of that clone, Captain Rex, who really should have taken up his offer to be a training officer, when he made it.
He activated his com.
"IC2224?"
It was always difficult to tell the stormtroopers apart; they all looked exactly the same in their armour and sounded the same...mostly.
"Yes sir." That tone was an improvement.
"I have the intel for you, Commander."
He pressed his Comlink.
The stormtrooper checked his datapad.
"Received, sir."
Titus could see the trooper checking through it.
"I have my squad ready, sir."
"Good."
"They know that we want him alive and it doesn't matter about the woman and child. they're collateral damage and serve no purpose to the Empire."
"Yes sir. Understood."
He looked at the information.
"This intel…..?"
"It's good. It's from one our best moles. They've been been infiltrated for years, from the beginning almost. It's good. The best. We've acted on their intel before and had good results. Even Grand Admiral Thrawn thinks highly of them."
The stormtrooper appeared to consider this snippet of information.
"Is this to be seen, as an example or more low key ….Sir."
"Low key, for the moment. The Rebels need to know that no matter how safe they feel, the Empire can get them at any time. But at the moment we need the 'good will' of the residents of Seelos."
"Yes sir. Understood."
"Are you up to this, Commander? You are a little …..old for frontline duties."
"I am up to this, Sir."
"Good. You do come with the highest recommendation. I'd hate to have to advise Lord Vader that you were not what he thought you to be."
As if. Thought the Commander.
"Good. I look forward to hearing from you soon."
Titus leant back in his chair; the fingers of his prosthetic hand drumming on his desk. They sounded loud compared to his organic ones.
"That Clone will rue the day he refused me."
.
Rex only stayed a couple of hours but at least he had made the effort to see his daughter. He was doing his best; Ana stayed at the surgery until she knew he had left. When she arrived home, Kallie was bathed and in bed and Essie was gushing about Rex.
"He did everything, fed her, played with her, changed her diaper and I tell you that smell was enough to make you gag."
Essie liked that man; she would go as far to say in her own way she loved him, as part of her family. Tula was equally smitten.
Ana was glad that he was looking after his daughter like that; it just confirmed what she always thought.
He was a good man.
.
"Essie stop fussing we're only going to Jay's. We have enough of everything. We'll be back by nightfall and yes I'll remember to tell Jay everything."
As much as she loved her Aunt, and owed her and Tula more than she could ever repay, sometimes she just wanted to be alone with her daughter. She was looking forward to that.
She still couldn't believe how much she needed to take for her, including the stroller.
A few minutes into the journey Ana glanced back; just as she thought, she had dropped off to sleep, which was good as they were getting to the more denser area. She looked around, and still couldn't remember that night when she supposedly came into the Forest. At least she had left Kallie at home.
She was not herself at that time; Jay had told her not to dwell on it. That she was ill.
The road was clear, it was a beautiful sunny, if chilly day; warmer winds had blown up from the desert but it still wasn't warm enough to go without a coat, especially on a speeder. You could never predict the weather accurately in this area. She pushed the speeder on, eager to get to Jay's; he had said that somehow Bonnie had got pregnant. Ana didn't even realise there were any more Tooka's around here but she had given birth to two kits and the girls wanted to give one to Kallie. The thought amused her as it would irritate Essie but she bet that Kallie would be able to keep it.
The proximity light flashed on the dashboard; unusual, thought Ana, it was normally a straight run through to the house, unless there a gang of outlaws roaming again but it had been years since that had happened and there had been no alerts. They tended to keep to themselves with the Empire around.
She slowed the speeder to a crawl, finally seeing the reason for the alert, a downed tree across their path.
"Fek. How did that happen?" She recognised it as a Brylark tree, exceptionally strong, you only hoped that you didn't have to move one as they were harder than most metals. It must have been diseased to actually come down. Alighting from the speeder, she checked Kallie, still asleep. She tried blasting the branches off; that didn't work. It was just too high for her old speeder to rise above. She would have to go along the old trail; she wasn't turning back now, she was really looking forward to seeing everyone.
She stopped. There was a noise that was out of place; a sick feeling slowly materialised in her stomach. It sounded vaguely familiar she listened again. Her eyes flicked over to check Kallie – still sleeping soundly. She walked slowly around the speeder and primed her blaster again and realised what it was.
She was not alone.
"Anybody there?" She shouted, as she slowly opened the speeder door; it could be anyone. She could get a couple of shots off and be away, if there was only one. She waited and the the undergrowth parted as two figures encased in the familiar white plastoid armour emerged.
Kallie was still in the back almost hidden; Ana didn't want to antagonise them. She smiled.
"Oh. Thank goodness. I thought it was outlaws."
Her heart pounded within her chest; she was sure they could hear it.
"I need to get past the tree; it's blocking the road. My speeder's too old to rise over it. I'm visiting a friend."
Don't babble, keep calm.
She still had her blaster in her lowered hand, she put one foot in the speeder. Not sure exactly what she was going to do but hoping these were the less experienced troopers.
"Ana Sant?"
Fek! This wasn't random.
"No, you're mistaken."
She readied herself to fire; two rapid shots from here she could do that and head back into town. And then what?
Think about that later.
She took the shots; definitely hit one but the noise behind her, distracted her and the second shot missed, as the second trooper moved.
Another one.
Her blaster arm was yanked back. She lashed out automatically, just as her father had taught her but with the speeder and one eye on Kallie, she was unbalanced and she could do nothing about the plastoid covered fist that hit her in the face or the darkness that engulfed her.
