AN: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading this story. As always a special thanks to everyone who has kindly commented. It means the world to me that people actually like and enjoy what I write.
This is a longer Interlude and one that just serves to remind the reader of all that has gone before from one character's POV and perhaps give just a tiny little bit of background to the character that we didn't have before.
My thanks to Kazlynh again for beta reading... and I urge you all to try out her fic on this site She writes a great Wedge Antilles!
Disclaimer: As always, I make no profit from my fan fiction and all copy rights belong to Lucasfilm and Disney - except for all the OCs and Rhovan, they are mine. :p
Isolation
Thecla lay on her back staring up at the high ceiling of her cell. She had tried to keep track of the time since she had been brought here, but she knew that within a few days she had lost it. Time had no meaning: it was uncountable seconds and minutes that slowly ticked past leaving no sense behind them... for nothing ever changed here. The door remained shut, the dull orange glow rose from the floor grating and the walls remained grey, flat and rough.
Sound did not penetrate from beyond the four walls. There was nothing to differentiate between one minute and the next: nothing except her own rough breathing and whispers.
This wasn't what she had expected.
With a groan she sat up, her hand going to her head as a wave of dizziness threatened to drop her. They only gave her water and food once a day, through a slot in the wall. She knew it was automated, she knew it was at different times of the day to keep her disorientated and she knew what drugs were laced into the food to keep prisoners passive, sedated, and easier to control..
She still ate and drank. She knew how this place worked.
She knew she could be in this cell for the rest of her life. She knew she could be left here, abandoned just as she had abandoned others when they had displeased her master enough to suffer this fate.
"Death is too easy… Let them rot."
And rot they would, driven mad by a solitary existence.
And it now looked like she was to suffer the same fate and she could not work out where she had gone wrong. She may not have followed her mission to the letter, but still she had accomplished what she had been tasked to do.
"You wished to see me, Master?"
"Ah, my dear." Palptine opened his arms, the pale flesh of his hands stark against his black robes. "Rise, rise…"
She did as commanded, but kept her head bowed as her Master stood and came around his desk to greet her.
"It has been too long, my young friend," The Emperor commented. "I hear your mission was a success?"
"Yes, master," she spoke clearly, enunciating each word. "Moff Fhren will no longer be laundering stolen funds."
One gnarled hand was laid upon her shoulder. "That is good news. I trust he understood my message?"
"Yes, Excellency. He was most apologetic." She allowed a little smirk to play on her lips, recalling the man pleading for his life even as her blade had slit his throat.
"Good… Good!" Palpatine sounded appeased, pleased. He walked around her, fingers trailing over her shoulders and she tensed, fought a shudder of disgust. She loved him, revered him, but his touch always upset her.
"I have another mission for you, child."
"I am yours to command, Master."
"Lord Vader has uncovered the name of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, but he has been reluctant to divulge it." He withdrew his hand, tucked it into the sleeve of his robe and moved to stand in front of her.
"Master, I can easily slice into…"
Palpatine chuckled. "You are always so eager to please, to serve. You do me proud."
She said nothing, just waited in silence.
"The pilot's name is Luke Skywalker, a boy fresh off a Tatooine farm and yet the Force is once more tainted with the light of the Jedi Knights, with the stench of Obi-Wan Kenobi."
She swallowed, hearing and feeling the rage that underscored Palpatine's words.
Skywaker?
Kenobi?
Were they not names from history, were they not the names of…
"You remember your lessons? You remember the treachery of these names?"
She cleared her throat. "They were hailed as heroes during the Clone Wars. Skywalker died during the Jedi Uprising at the temple. His master, Kenobi, gravely wounded Lord Vader during an attempt to assassinate him."
"You are correct, my dear. During the Clones Wars those two brought chaos to the Galaxy, their names were uttered wherever there was death and destruction…." He paused and turned, walking back to his desk and she knew she was about to be dismissed. "Vader believes this new Skywalker to be his son."
His son…
She didn't know what to make of that statement, wasn't sure how to understand it. "His… son, Master?"
Palpatine turned, grinning. "Anakin Skywalker's son," he explained. "Hidden on Tatooine by Kenobi. Partially, trained by Kenobi. He could become a powerful enemy."
She understood her mission without being told it. "You wish me to infiltrate the Rebellion and eliminate Skywalker."
Palpatine sat back behind his desk and looked up at her. "I want you to infiltrate the Rebellion, my dear, but I do not wish you to kill him, not yet. I want you to watch him, gauge him. I want you keep him away from Vader. Do whatever it takes to keep him free of Lord Vader's custody."
She licked her lips, afraid to ask... "And if I cannot? If his capture is inevitable?"
The yellow of her master's eyes seemed to glow with menace, with anger, but his tones were placid and calm. "Then, child, you may kill him."
And that is what she had done.
She had joined the Alliance, trained in the infantry and finally she was posted to Rai'mar. From there she had watched Skywalker from afar, had listened to gossip and idle talk about the Rebellion's blond haired, blue-eyed poster boy. At first she had hated him, at first she had seen him only as the enemy but then suddenly he was no longer there.
Shot down on Escaal. Missing in action.
He had been out of her reach, either dead or captured. She had been prepared to be recalled to Imperial Centre, expecting to be chastised for failing in her mission, when the message finally reached her: she was stay where she was.
Skywalker was on his way back to Rebel Alliance lines, aided by an Imperial Major.
Major Erwin Rhovan: a talented and ruthless interrogator, who had apparently defected to the Alliance, taking Skywalker with him. Palpatine had warned her that the situation was complicated, that he suspected Rhovan of serving both the Empire and the Rebellion. There had been no other explanation; Rhovan, was not within her remit. Her mission was Skywalker alone.
She had made sure she was there when Rhovan had brought Luke in. Her stomach had flipped at the sight of him, lying battered, tortured and unconscious on the deck of the shuttle. Her reaction had unsettled her. In the course of her duty she had left others lying in similar, physical states... and worse. Why had the sight of Skywalker disturbed her?
She didn't get the time to ponder it as, along with Haslam, she had to pull Wedge Antilles off of Rhovan.
Haslam: the big puppy of a man, who followed her so faithfully, she had sometimes wondered if he was another Imperial operative, placed at her side by Palpatine.
On Ra'imar she had taken a lightsaber to her belly when she had saved Luke. She had been so determined that Vader was not going to get him that she had almost paid for it with her life.
She had been surprised to come to in the Alliance Bacta tank, but no less determined to see her mission to conclusion and so she had begun to follow Skywalker, to watch him, to ingratiate herself into his life.
It had been working. She had guided him to safety when he was drunk and disorientated during the ash fall after the fiasco of Cusrean. She had deliberately walked past him in the mess hall, caught his eye and smiled at him as she joined her squad mates. She had heard the comments that came at her back.
"Cute butt, huh, Luke?" Antilles had teased.
"I don't think of sex every time I look at a girl," Skywalker had admonished, but she had heard the smile in his voice.
"Sure you do," Antilles, argued. "You just don't admit it."
When the holonet had broadcast the pictures of the devastation Skywalker had wrought at Cusrean; it was she he had looked too. Their eyes had met and she had seen his horror and despair; his guilt and helplessness. She had looked away first: she had looked away because the anguish she had seen in his eyes was too much, and because she hadn't understood the feelings that had suddenly arisen with her… feelings for him.
She cared.
Somehow, and she still didn't understand how or why, he had gotten to her. Somehow she had allowed her defences to lower and she had made the biggest mistake of her life.
She cared for Luke Skywalker.
Leaning back against the cool, rough wall of the cell, she could see her mistake so clearly, now... but in becoming a part of his everyday life, she could remain close to him, keep him from Vader, slip a vibroblade between his ribs if her Master ordered it.
So it had been easy to find him after his attack on Major Rhovan. She knew about the place he went to that no-one else knew about: the natural atrium, hidden by the trees, several hundred yards away from the base.
He had been practising with his lightsaber against a pair of remotes. He was fast, the blue blade slicing through the night air just a blur to her eyes. The sight was astonishing, the precision of his thrusts and parries like those of a skilled sword master... And then he had turned and screamed in rage and anger, slicing through both remotes with two final strokes only to fall to his knees and vomited into the deep ash that covered the ground.
"Well, remind me never to get you angry."
She had revealed her presence to him, had joined him sitting in the volcanic ash and dust and they had talked: they had connected. She had told him about killing the civilians in the store... and he had accepted her at her word. They had made a bond; they had something in common; they had killed innocents in the grip of battle.
She hadn't been joking with Solo when he had confronted her about her feelings for Luke.
"I'd like to check out his thrusters if that's what you mean, Sir."
The Corellian had laughed and had gestured that his lips were sealed, and that had been that. She had gone down the sewer in a vain attempt to reach Luke, but he had been convicted of a crime and taken to prison and out of her reach. Trapped in a city full of Vader's troopers, she'd had little choice but to contact her master and request to come in so that she could fulfil her mission. A request that had been granted.
Luke had seen her, had seen the blaster pistol in her hand, and had understood why she was there. He had not seen an Imperial assassin. He had not seen what she truly was. He had seen a friend there to help him: there to kill him.
"Do it."
Believing that she, too, was about to die fulfilling her Master's wish, she had pulled the trigger.
There had been a brief hesitation, a few seconds of a pause after Skywalker had fallen from the ramp, then the impact of her actions had hit those around her. The gun had been swept from her hand, her legs kicked out from under her and she had been on the deck and being trussed up like swine for slaughter just as Vader began to shout for a medic. There had been a commotion, shouting, a calm measure of panic invading the soldiers around her. An emergency medical capsule had been retrieved from a storage compartment and rushed down the ramp into the growing snow storm.
Closing her eyes Thecla licked her lips, remembering those awful seconds when she thought that Luke was still alive. Why else would they need the capsule?
But a trooper entered the shuttle, striding towards her, bending to pick something up from the deck.
Dragged to her knees, she had brought her head up to stare into the barrel of her own gun.
"Is he dead?" she had asked, not really expecting an answer.
"He's dead," the soldier confirmed.
She smiled. Skywalker was dead and so was she. She closed her eyes as the trigger was pulled.
Only to open them again half way along a corridor on the Executor as she was being dragged to the brig. She had only been stunned. But why? Why would Vader keep her alive? Had he known their Master had sent her after his…
His what? His prey? His…
"Vader believes this new Skywalker to be his son."
Her master's voice returned and with it the confusion she had first felt at the wording Palpatine had used.
His son?
"Anakin Skywalker's son," her master had amended with a smile.
… his enemy's son.
She had managed to find her feet by the time she stepped from the turbolift and found herself looking at a bruised face, a freshly swollen face, but a familiar one.
"Major Rhovan," she greeted, surprised that her voice was steady because her heart hammered in quiet panic: she knew what this man was capable of. If he was here and not with the Alliance that meant… What? What did it mean? That he was the same as her? "It's good to see a familiar face."
"Lieutenant Commander," he welcomed, reading her true rank from her uniform, with a bow of his head, acknowledging that he had recognised her. "Or, is it Sergeant?"
She forced a smile. "Well, I suppose that's for you to find out."
He never did. She never saw him again, she never saw anyone. Her last contact with another person was when she was transferred to this cell with a hood over her head.
Rising from the solid sleeping platform, she walked the cell. Approximately one hundred and eighty centimetres wide, two hundred deep; not much to walk, but it was all she had. She walked, she paced, her mind racing, her mind panicking, going over and over the events that lead her here. Going over and over words that had made no sense, words that she had dismissed and forgotten until time was all she had and her memory her only sanctuary.
"Vader believes this new Skywalker to be his son."
And still they made no sense… and yet, alarmingly, they did.
"Do whatever it takes to keep him free of Lord Vader's custody."
Why? Why had that been her task?
Never before had she questioned her master. Never before had his motives mattered to her. But now… Now it could mean everything.
Why was she to keep them apart?
Why…?
Her hand shook as she raked it through her hair, her fingers getting caught in the tangles. The rich colour now dull with sweat and grime.
Why?
Luke had been training, had been improving and growing stronger.
The Dark Lord of the Sith was hunting him, scouring a Galaxy for one man, one pilot.
"Vader believes this new Skywalker to be his son."
Two powerful Force users and…
"Do whatever it takes to keep him free of Lord Vader's custody."
… she was to keep them apart because…. Because together they…
Suddenly chilled she stopped before the door, stopped before the steps that had lead down into her prison as bitter comprehension struck home.
…because… because together they would be a threat to her master.
She shivered, jitters shuddering through a weakened body.
Because together Luke and Vader would be more powerful than the Emperor. Together they could over throw Palpatine and take the throne and the Galaxy.
No… that was wrong! Luke was a Rebel. Luke believed in the Republic. Luke would never join the Dark Lord. Unless… Unless Vader had something to offer him, something Luke deemed worthy enough to give up the fight for.
Was it possible?
"Vader believes this new Skywalker to be his son."
Trembling she placed a hand against the thick durasteel door and used it as a support to lower herself to sit on the steps. Sitting there she realised that she was afraid, terribly afraid of what would happen when the cell door opened, and even more afraid of what would happen if it never did.
Had she killed Darth Vader's son?
ooOOoo
To be continued...