This is a work of fan fiction and all canon characters, scenes, and concept are the property of LucasArts. Original characters and plot property of Gerald Tarrant.
Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.
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Eight: Ties to the Past
Leia's own room was dark and icy cool. Trembling, she half-stumbled across to her bunk as the door hissed shut and pressed her face to the soft pillow, letting all the tears flow. Her mind wandered wildly as she wept, conjuring up images of the past and present, memories in vivid colors.
Bail Organa had been a strong, caring father, a strong, caring man. She had had no mother that she could remember clearly. Yes, there was another image, a soft hand, a face that she could faintly recall, a voice.
But she had died.
So Bail Organa had been her father, and she had grown up in his house and people had called her Princess.
It had been pleasant, those childhood years on Alderaan. Memories of her aunts, her friends, of Winter who had been her best friend.
Father, who is Winter?
Her father had not known. No one knew. Winter was just there, hauntingly beautiful even as a small girl, silent, with her curtain of long, rippling pure white hair.
Why is Winter's hair white, Father?
Winter had always been there in Bail Organa's house on Alderaan. So Leia had become her friend. They had been different as rain and shine-cool, calm Winter, and wild, daring tomboy Leia. Princess, murmured visiting dignitaries to Winter. And Winter would smile, shake her head.
No. I am not the princess. Leia is the princess.
Leia with the tangled brown hair, torn skirts and scraped knees. Her father's friends looked at her and frowned and privately counseled Bail Organa to bring her up properly, as a princess should be brought up. And Bail smiled and let Leia run wild wherever she pleased.
She learned manners, eventually, as her father began bringing her along on his visits of state to other planets, where Senators' daughters dressed neatly and sat primly on the edges of their cushioned seats and ate their soup daintily with golden spoons. Leia hated it. But she had learned. And soon she could sip tea as elegantly as any of them, though she preferred the talk of politics Bail Organa had with the young ladies' fathers.
Father, I want to become a Senator.
She remembered how she had expected her father to be surprised, and instead was herself surprised by the calmness of his gaze and his nod.
Politics was not as easy as learning to sip tea, but Leia could wrangle with the best of them, and they were astounded because she was a woman. Natural talent, they said to her. Who are you? And those who knew said in superior voices, she is Bail Organa's daughter.
No, I am some other man's daughter. Some other man who left his wife, my mother, who I cannot remember and who died before I ever knew her. I am not Bail Organa's daughter.
The Senate was different from anything she had ever experienced before. Those who had been astounded left her, seeking after their own personal glory. And Leia was left alone, speaking her mind to those few who would listen. But that number grew, yearly, monthly, weekly, daily.
Mon Mothma. The youngest senior senator ever of the Old Republic. Mon Mothma of the auburn hair and cool blue-green eyes. People listened to her, drawn to her by some invisible force that Leia had never had. Mon Mothma had listened and brought others to listen as well. Leia had talent. She was one of the best. And Bail Organa had smiled and nodded, but with worry in his eyes, because there were dangers.
Palpatine was a danger. He had always been, but neither Bail or Mon Mothma had thought of him as anything. A man who lusted after power and glory, and slowly but surely gained his goal. And it had been too late when Leia finally realized Palpatine's final intent.
She had tried, as she had tried with everything in her life. She had tried to stop him, to counter his destructive policies with sharp words. But somehow, she had failed.
Father, I tried. I'm sorry.
She had tried to help Bail Organa in his Rebellion. Help him and Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis of Corellia. She had liked Garm. Liked him very much. And Garm had liked her. But her father did not like it, and she did not see Garm again for a very long time. And Palpatine gained power and called himself the Emperor and declared a New Order throughout the galaxy.
Bail Organa retired, undiscovered by the Emperor, to Alderaan. Leia helped him as much as she could, but she had her own duties. She was a grown woman now, a Senator in her own right, although there was not much Senate left. She left Winter to care for her father.
He was not your father.
She did not remember when she heard of the Death Star. Garm had told her of a secret pet project of Palpatine's but she had laughed it off, wanted to think that her efforts to defeat Palpatine had not been a total failure. And Garm had let her believe that, before her father had hustled him off to Corellia somewhere.
If you had really loved him, you would have searched for him.
Perhaps she had not really loved him, after all. She had stopped wondering. He was probably dead, anyway.
The Death Star. Darth Vader. The Emperor's heavy hand was increasingly heavy on Alderaan. Leia worried about her father. His health was failing. He was growing old, and he was not as energetic as he once was. The Rebellion, she decided, would be her own responsibility now.
When had she decided that? She did not even remember. There had been councils of war, treaties with planets that had been brutally used by the new Empire, secret meetings with her father and Mon Mothma. And no Garm Bel Iblis. She supposed he gradually faded from her memory. She wondered now if she had faded from his.
I never loved him. I only thought I did.
The Emperor had to be stopped before he disbanded the Senate and declared the galaxy under his rule. Who could stop him? The leaders of the planets of the secret Rebellion that was no longer quite secret shook their heads in dismay. He is too powerful. Leia, shaking her fist at them, saying, You are members of the Rebellion! Where is your spirit?
You do it, Princess.
And then there had been Madine.
Young, handsome, dashing Crix Madine, when his hair was still rich, dark brown and he had still been daring and adventuresome. Commander of elite Imperial troops. The traitor to the Empire, who had turned to the Rebellion in its infant days, when it was still growing. Madine, who, aware what the senseless killing required was doing to him, knew that he had to defect or lose himself completely in the savageness of the New Order.
So he joined the Rebellion, secretly, slipping away from his Imperial duties now and then to negotiate his defection with Mon Mothma and General Rieekan, because the others did not trust him. And Leia had met him one night at an secret officers' meeting, when he was still technically an Imperial, serving in the Imperial army. Rieekan, introducing Madine to her.
Crix, I want you to meet Leia Organa, Bail Organa's daughter and a principle force in the Rebellion. Leia, this is General Madine.
And Crix had smiled mysteriously and taken her hand and said, She's beautiful. Rieekan had taken it for a mere compliment on Madine's part, moved on. And that night, Leia truly fell in love for the first time.
So she was in love with General Crix Madine, the cocky, bearded commander, and Madine in turn was oblivious to the young Princess-Senator of Alderaan with the long brown hair and fiery temper. She did not see him much, for he was always back on mission training with his Imperial commandos. She had opportunities to send messages by his newly assigned aide. But what could one say in a message from an aide?
It was another state dinner, a routine council of war conducted by Mon Mothma, on watery, beautiful Mon Calamari. Madine had somehow found a way to slip out unnoticed from his training exercises, and she was placed next to him. Suddenly she was shy, answering his friendly questions in whispers, picking at the delicious Mon Calamari delicacies on her plate and avoiding his gaze. Until dinner had been concluded and the council not yet begun and Madine said quite suddenly, walk with me.
She had been too startled to say no. So they walked through the corridors of the Mon Calamari embassy, she walking quickly, head down, and him following behind. At length they came to a large room covered by a dome and with windows all around looking out onto the emerald sea. She had been walking ahead of him feeling hot and embarrassed by her unexpected shyness until he called out to her, and she stopped, waited for him to catch up.
Except he never did. She had been gripped from behind and spun around before she had time to scream. And suddenly Crix's face was there, close to hers, and he was whispering, you idiot. I love you. Why are you running away from me?
Then he bent his head and kissed her long and sweetly on the lips, and she put her arms around him and returned it. So it was, that Crix Madine and Leia Organa stood together in the room surrounded by blue Mon Calamari sea and knew that they had each found in the other what they had been missing.
Except that again, it was not to be.
And so the days passed, with them spending as much time together as they could before Madine had to leave, while Bail Organa seemed not to notice. Or perhaps he approved more of Madine than he had of Bel Iblis. Though Leia did not see why. Bel Iblis had not been an Imperial deserter. Nevertheless, duty was first, and Madine had sent word, a heavily coded transmission, saying They suspect something. I will remain with my troops for now and return when I can. Be vigilant.
And they had been vigilant. The Death Star technical readouts had been taken on Toprawa and Leia volunteered to retrieve them. But she had failed. Again. The Tantive IV had not been fast enough. And she had been too slow. Vader. Tarkin. The screams of her crew as the stormtroopers boarded her ship.
I grow tired of asking, Princess.
Dantooine. They're on Dantooine.
Alderaan. The green bolt of energy and light. Vader's heavy breathing behind her.
Rieekan, you failed your people. As I failed them.
She lost her father who was not her father. The only father she had ever had was gone. And she had never been his daughter. She did not deserve to be. She had failed him.
Her one comfort was that Crix had not been on Alderaan. But that was small comfort. She was, at that time, already less in love with him than she had been. They had not seen each other for at least a year, and he had not sent word to her or any other official of the Rebellion. Perhaps she was bitter that he could not find the time to tell her he still loved her, though it was cruel of her to think that. Perhaps Alderaan had changed her in ways that she could not tell. Or perhaps she had never loved Crix, either. Perhaps he was dead.
You are a failure. Daughter of an unknown man, you have failed those who loved you most.
She had not seen Crix when she arrived hurriedly back on Yavin on the Falcon. He was still off fighting somewhere. But there was Luke. And Han. Luke, she had thought she loved, at first. But now she was not quite so sure. He was more like a brother. Han...
He is a smuggler, Leia. And you are a princess.
Luke and Han had done what Crix could not do. They had destroyed the Death Star, become heroes. And still Crix did not come back.
He returned one night, a day and a half after the Death Star, had burst into a Council meeting hastily with a message that there was a fleet of Star Destroyers building up near the Yavin system. Evacuate, he said. Evacuate now. He had glanced only once at her, a painful glance of recognition, but she looked away. She knew that she did not love him now.
So they evacuated to Hoth. Madine had come with them, abandoning the Empire for good after he had received orders so vile that he knew he could have never lived with himself had he carried them out. In the last wave of evacuation, Dodonna had been lost to Imperial attack but rescued. By a team of commandos led by General Crix Madine. And Leia had gone up to Crix afterwards and said, I do not love you anymore, and nothing you do will win me for you again.
And the look of agony in his eyes was impossible to bear, but she bore it like she had borne Tarkin's injustice and left Crix there. And after that, he was just Madine again.
Han, why have you left me now?
The memory ended.
Leia sat up, taking in the dark room, the intercom light that blinked on and off in the blackness. She shivered. It was cold, and the level that the sleeping quarters were on was too far down to receive any sunlight. She wiped her eyes on the pillow, blew her nose. She could have taken it, like she had taken Alderaan, kept it in her soul, if Madine had not behaved like that. Couldn't he see that they were no longer together? That they should each go their own separate ways?
Her breath froze. Was that why he had wanted to see her?
Well, she wouldn't compromise. She had no time for things like that, anyway. There were messages that needed to be sent, weapons crews to supervise, officers to reprimand. Why did Madine care if she still loved him or not, anyway? Why did she care that Madine still loved her?
Why did she care that Han hadn't returned?
She hadn't cared that Madine had not returned. It was just something to be lived through, forgotten. Han, though was different. She cared. She cared deeply.
Don't even start, Your Worship.
She jolted in surprise. The thought was similar to what Han would have said. Groaning softly, she took a deep breath to calm herself and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She would go wash her face and go question the security people about a blip on the northern perimeter. Anything that Madine wanted to say, he could say to her in the control room. There was no need for him to get her alone.
Resolved, she stood and started for the door.
"This is," Captain Zeldiri intoned solemnly, "A council of war."
Harkov sighed, tapped his fingers against the metal of the circular holo-film projector, spoke tiredly. "We all know it is a council of war, Captain. Please proceed and skip the formalities for today."
Zeldiri glanced at him with annoyance. He and Harkov had never liked each other, and probably never would. Different backgrounds, different worlds. Zeldiri had grown up as a pampered child of a wealthy family on Coruscant, his father being one of the joint owners of the incredibly successful SoroSuub company. Raised amid glittering palaces, fancy nightclubs and the majestic splendor of Imperial City, he had been accepted into the Imperial Academy purely because of his father's influence. Harkov had seen the man in action, seen him command, and wondered how in the worlds Zeldiri had advanced as far as the rank of lieutenant, let alone captain of the Protector.
And however hard he tried, he just could not get rid of Zeldiri. An officer, especially a high-ranking one like Zeldiri, had to commit a serious crime to be demoted or transferred, and Zeldiri had not done any of that. He was just purely annoying, and as far as Harkov knew, that was no call for court-martial. High command would be reluctant to court-martial Zeldiri anyway, no matter what he did; Harkov had read about "the money power" once in his studies on Carida, and now, at least, he thought he understood a little of what the term meant. Zeldiri was also a die-hard Imperial. That could prove a problem...later.
Harkov returned Zeldiri's gaze mildly until the captain gave a shrug, as if to say that the admiral's opinion was of no importance to him, and turned back to the holo projector, signaled to General Cion.
The general worked the controls and activated the projector with a low hum. The picture that sprang up was a schematic of the fish-like freighter captured the other day.
"Ripoblus standard freighter/transport," Zeldiri said, waving at the image with a metal rod. "The design itself is unlike any we've seen before. We've analyzed the specimen brought in yesterday and carefully gone through the holds for other...illegals. Of course, the freighter is still under study and many of its components are of a different make than ours. Study should become easier once we actually come into contact with an inhabited Ripoblus world. We can pull a dump of their library and store whatever of their information we need."
"You'll do no such thing!" Harkov said sharply, startling General Cion with the vehemence of his retort. Zeldiri turned his sharp gaze towards him.
"And why not, sir?"
"We are fighting a war, Captain. I have become a butcher of innocents; I have no wish to become a criminal as well."
"Admiral," Zeldiri said with exaggerated patience, "they are no innocents. They are the enemy, and-"
"NO!" Harkov roared, cutting off the rest of Zeldiri's intended reply. "No," he repeated softly. "We stop their war. That is all."
The silence around the room was strained. "As you wish, sir," Zeldiri said mildly, though his tone was betrayed by the anger in his eyes. He turned away from Harkov and nodded to Cion. "Continue."
The schematic zoomed in closer to the forward part of the ship. "As I said," continued Zeldiri as if nothing had happened, "the design of this ship is unique but the placement of their systems is quite standard. The forward section contains the sensor array and targeting systems. Their communications array is above the cargo modules and the bridge, apparently, sits on top this ungainly structure." Zeldiri's mouth twisted.
Cion pressed another switch and the display changed to a detailed technical parts of another system. The weapons system, perhaps? Harkov had never been the engineering type.
"This is the weapons, or heavy laser, system," Zeldiri confirmed, waving his ridiculous pointer at the schematic. "Normally, on a freighter so old and obsolete, we would find inferior workmanship on any system. On a weapons system, especially, seeing how weapons have changed and improved over the past few years. But-note." With a flourish, Zeldiri gestured to Cion, who made several quick adjustments. The schematic shifted to an actual holograph of the weapons removed from the freighter. Harkov frowned. The system looked very much like the heavy lasers in use on Imperial ships. In fact...
"I see recognition on many of your faces," said Zeldiri grimly. "As a matter of fact, yet, it is a Sienar Fleet Systems manufactured heavy laser on that ship. A bit modified, but an SFS all the same." There were several sharp intakes of breath through the room. "I would say, Admiral," he turned to face Harkov almost challengingly, "That we now have more here than Lord Vader, or anyone, else bargained for on this mission."
Harkov nodded absently, his thoughts whirling wildly. This did throw a whole new twist on the mission. Of course, this was what everyone had expected after the freighter had been captured, but Harkov had been holding out for some hope, some sign that he would not have to do what was required of him. Now he knew why Mikov had raided the Ripoblus storehouse. Now he knew he might have to do the same.
He turned to face his officers. He could feel their eyes on him intently, some benign, some filled with rage, some coldly calculating. He cleared his throat. "Gentlemen," he said softly. "Gentlemen, you have just seen what I saw. The SFS system used on these freighters has been placed on strict monopoly only to the Empire. Any other use of it is illegal."
"More than illegal!" General Jerad exploded. "It is pure treason!"
Harkov glanced at him and he withdrew, muttering to himself. "Illegal," he repeated. "However, I have heard that...the Rebels," he swallowed, took a breath, sensed Daran's eyes focused on him, gauging him intently. "The Rebels have been conducting raids on Imperial freighters, hoping to acquire some of these systems for manufacture of their own fighters. This discovery, then, can mean two things. First, the Ripoblus might be smuggling directly from the Empire, and must therefore be punished severely. On the other hand, the Ripoblus might be taking supplies from the Rebels, which is a different matter altogether."
"What is different?" Harkov looked around for the speaker and found him. Commander Silpren, his bulky form and belligerent stance hard to miss. "What would be different?" he demanded. "Sir," he added belatedly at the end.
"If they are smuggling from the Rebels," Harkov said harshly, his patience quota running low, "they would in a sense be helping the Empire."
Silpren snorted. "Smuggling from Rebels or not, I say we teach the rabble a lesson! Smuggling is smuggling. Better they be smuggling from the Rebel scum; then we would have an excuse to go after both!" Several nods around the room added weight to his statement.
"Besides, sir," Cion said from his position at the projector. He clicked on the holo image of the freighter. "Why wait when they do start stealing from the Empire, if they aren't already? Sooner or later, the Rebel raids will fail, and the Ripoblus will have to smuggle directly anyhow. I say now, sir. Now!"
"Wisely said, General." Zeldiri sounded smug. Harkov wished he could punch him in the nose. Except that would have earned him court-martial instead of Zeldiri. Frustration threatened to overwhelm him.
"Excuse me, sir," General Daran broke in. He had obviously seen the tension between the two building to the breaking point and wisely decided to intervene. "You said this freighter was old, did you not?" Zeldiri nodded, looking unsure of where this argument was going. "Well then, sir, why couldn't all these illegal systems have been bought before the Empire took control? As you said yourself, the ship itself is so old and obsolete that the system you speak of might be old as well." Harkov glanced at the TIE op/off. Daran stood there, arms folded, expression intent and focused.
Zeldiri turned on Daran with ill-concealed dislike and suspicion. "General," he said with exaggerated calm and patience, as if speaking to a child. "We have fully qualified engineers and scientists on board this vessel. I would not have brought this matter into council had that been the case. However, the system has been positively identified as a recent Sienar model. When it was scanned, the manufacture code had not been erased. It is most certainly Imperial."
Daran nodded, his face inscrutable, though Harkov had no doubt that Daran wanted to punch Zeldiri in the nose as well. "Yes, sir," he said, his voice strained but calm.
Zeldiri sneered at him for a moment more, then continued on with the rest of his lecture as if Daran had not spoken. Harkov sighed, tried to look patient, and waited.
It was another half hour before Zeldiri let everyone leave, much to Daran's annoyance. What annoyed him the most, however, was that Zeldiri insisted on offering final advice to everyone on everything. Not content to let officers plan their own strategy, Zeldiri threw large elaborate schemes at them that were full of tactical errors even a junior-grade cadet could have seen through. Except, Zeldiri could not.
Zeldiri finished, made his grand exit with three aides trailing, and left the rest of the yawning commanders to sort themselves out. With much grumbling, the others bent to gather their various datacards. Daran made to gather his own and then saw Harkov gesturing to him out of the corner of his eye. He nodded slightly, looking unconcerned, although his mind whirred with questions. Did Harkov know Zeldiri was dangerous? Yes, probably. Whatever else he was, Drask Harkov was no fool. Then what did he intend to do about it? Much as Daran would have liked to take Zeldiri out in a full-blown free-for-all as was common in his boyhood on Kepshun, those kinds of things were not allowed in the Imperial Navy. Daran gritted his teeth involuntarily, then forced himself to relax. Nothing, not even Zeldiri, was worth another trip to the ship's dentist. The first -and hopefully only- time had been brutal enough.
By the time he judged it safe to look up, most officers had already left the room, including Harkov. Cion puttered about a while, trying to look busy while keeping an eye on Daran, then finally gave up and with a final distrustful look at Daran, went out the door. Daran sighed. Harkov was nowhere in sight. He might as well leave too. Perhaps he could catch the admiral later and ask him what that signal had been about.
The doors of the war room hissed open at his approach and Daran stepped through the doorway. There was a slight noise as a figure stepped silently out from another doorway further down the hall. Daran started, then recognized Harkov. Without a word, the admiral beckoned him towards the door. He stepped through and the doors closed behind him.
He found himself in a small, trapezoidally shaped room which was a complete contrast to regulation starship design. It was simply but tastefully furnished with a polished wooden desk, a dark upholstered armchair behind the desk, and a small bar in one corner. The walls were paneled with mahogany colored wood and a deep blue throw rug on the cold gray metal floor accented the feeling that he was not on a starship at all, perhaps just on a study on another planet somewhere. He lifted his eyes to the admiral in amazement and was distracted momentarily by a picture on the opposite wall above the desk.
The picture was of a small blue-green planet, unremarkable in that aspect, but what fascinated Daran were the clouds. Swirling around the planet were clouds of every color imaginable: dark teal, bright green, deep red, royal purple, light pink, and opaque white tinged with gold. The scene was so beautiful, so exotic, that Daran could not take his eyes off the planet with its amazing cloud cover.
Harkov moved to the desk. "Yes," he said quietly. "It's amazing, isn't it?"
His voice was filled with bitterness and quiet anger. Daran jerked his eyes away from the picture, searching the admiral's face. But it was a mask, unreadable except for the tightness around the eyes. Without a word, Harkov gestured for Daran to sit.
Daran looked around, found a stool, and pulled it towards him and sat down slowly. He looked at Harkov again, mentally gauging him, judging that tired, harsh face. He was a hard man, certainly, hard despite his efforts not to appear so. There was an edge to him that everyone felt. Daran had felt it more than once. The crew loved him, would die for him if necessary, for he was a good commander, quick to listen and dispense justice, cordial and even personal at times. But never gentle. Kind, perhaps, but not gentle. Always that iron look, as if his heart had been stolen from him and kept under lock and key. Or perhaps as if he were afraid. Afraid of what would happen if that mask he wore were taken from him and his heart returned.
Harkov shook his head a fraction, as if clearing it, then looked tiredly at Daran. "General," he said.
"Sir."
"Kindly answer this question first, before we discuss your business here." Harkov looked at him with a quizzical expression. "When you spoke with Zeldiri earlier in the meeting..." he trailed off, looked at Daran.
Daran smiled faintly. So Harkov had noticed. "Admiral..."he trailed off, casting a significant glance at Harkov.
"You may continue at your leisure, General," Harkov said dryly. "This is my private study. There are no recording devices installed here."
"I understand, sir. As to your first question, I know I speak very little.You have probably guessed that it is an effective tool to keep people like Zeldiri at bay. You must admit, sir, that my silence gives everyone the impression that I know less than they do."
"It does, indeed," Harkov said rather ruefully. Daran wondered if the admiral had had the same impression. Then Harkov straightened, looked Daran full in the face.
"Just what exactly, then, are you doing here?"
The question caught Daran by surprise. "Sir?"
"You heard me, General." There was nothing soft in Harkov's voice. "What are you doing here? Were you commandeered by that woman, Mon Mothma, to spy on me? Are you a traitor yourself?"
"Admiral!" Daran stared at him, in shock and anger. "I would ask you to refrain from referring to Mon Mothma as 'that woman.' And I am by no means a traitor!"
"I do not like Mon Mothma," said Harkov, matching Daran's gaze steel for steel. "I do not think I ever shall. And if you are not a traitor, then what are you?"
Daran let Harkov's gaze burn through him for a moment more. "I am a Rebel, sir," he said simply.
Harkov threw up his hands in exasperation. "General, that is not the reply I want, and you know it!"
"Well, sir, that is the only reply you will get if you keep on like this."
"Tell me what you want," said Harkov simply, laying his hands on the polished surface of the desk. "Tell me what you want from me. You have served with me three years, General, and never said a word."
"You were not a Rebel three years ago."
Harkov opened his mouth. "Wait!" Daran hurriedly leapt into the gap before Harkov could retort. "Admiral, let me explain." He paused. What should he tell Harkov? How much? How much was safe? He saw Harkov waiting impatiently. He opened his mouth to tell the truth, then closed it. No. He swallowed.
"I have served with you three years, sir, but I have been serving the Rebellion eight years already. Even before I was signed onto the Protector. I suppose you could say that I am a 'spy' of sorts, though I have not actually been trained for high-level espionage. I came through the Academy and served four years on the Event Horizon-another Victory-before being transferred. I met some friends on the Horizon-"
"Rebel friends," said Harkov. His voice did not change, but his lips whitened as he pressed them together. "I heard about what happened to the Event Horizon."
Daran swallowed again, hoping Harkov had not seen through his half-truth. Yes there had been an Event Horizon, but he had never served on it for four years. The first time he had set foot on an Imperial ship, the first time he had seen that face, he knew he could not stay. It had always been the voice at the Academy, a voice he could not quite place. But the first time he saw the face, seen the familiar and yet terrifyingly new lines of that expression, he had known that the man was gone forever. And he could never bring himself to serve someone who he knew could never be brought back to who he used to be. Years of too much power had changed the man. Too much power, too much hate.
"Yes, sir, Rebel friends. I was lonely and sick of the Empire and its conquests. They knew that and persuaded me to defect. It was not very hard." That was an understatement. Flynn and Averis had merely suggested and he had lept at the suggestion. "We escaped from the Horizon in the...attack, and my friends took me to Yavin IV, the old Rebel base. They got me an interview with Mon Mothma and she got me signed on to covert operations. I don't know why. Apparently she thought I would be good at that sort of thing."
"And you are," Harkov said. Daran surreptitiously wiped the sweat off his palms.
"Well, I suppose that depends on your point of view. But back to the topic, sir, I knew I couldn't leave it at covert operations. I knew there were more people out there, in the Empire, that were just as tired of it as I was and would willingly join the Rebellion. So I changed my name, got into the Imperial databases and altered my records, and then pulled some strings..."
"And got signed on to my ship. I presume the 'General' is a cover as well?"
Daran forced himself to nod, to keep the truth from slipping out. He would tell no one. No one until he found someone who he could really trust.
There is no one. All men are liars.
"I see." Harkov's voice was bland, expressionless. Then his expression changed subtly to slight interest. "Have you by any chance met General Crix Madine?"
The truth, now. There was no harm in that. "Yes, sir. I served under him before being assigned here."
"And what was your impression of him?"
"He is a superb commander, sir," Daran said. Another understatement. Madine was brilliant. "One of the best I've ever met. He keeps to himself, mostly, or did when I knew him. But he was one of the best, certainly." He paused. "He was very sarcastic, too. Knew when and how to hit 'em."
Harkov grimaced slightly. "The superb commander part was a bit lost on me, but I remember his sarcastic side very well."
"Ah." Daran couldn't think of anything else to say. Of course. It had been a long time. Madine was on Hoth. And there was no one better than him to advise Mon Mothma on Harkov's position, having been an Imperial himself. The Emperor had favored him, too. At least that was what Averis said. Don't think on that. And Harkov had Vader's favor...
Harkov abruptly stood. "I had better get back to my duties, General. I presume you must do the same."
"Yes, sir," Daran nodded, got up from the stool and pushed it back. Was that all Harkov had wanted? To ask him about his background? He stole a glance at the admiral and was surprised to find him staring at the desktop, fists tightly clenched and white-knuckled, face contorted as if in pain. For the first time, Daran felt a flash of regret at having lied to the admiral, but there was nothing else he could have done, really. He put back the stool quietly and then looked up at the admiral again, but that brief moment of anguish was gone.
No, he had wanted something more. Daran had seen, the past few days, the indecision plaguing him, the torture in his mind about the decisions he had to make. But he was too proud to ask for help. From anyone. Even now.
How long can you hold on to your mask, Admiral? How long will you continue to fool yourself? Your time is running out, and you cannot pretend forever.
