Chapter 7 : The Epic: Sriluurian Sand Storm flashback

It took a month or more of practice after the 'device' was surgically implanted, for Eva to begin to understand Vader's (or anyone's) words. As Jedi voices could reach one another across the stars, Vader possessed scant appreciation for the crude, mechanical version necessary for the untuned. But of course Eva knew next to nothing about a Force user's ability in her early tenure with the Empire. And that she'd experienced firsthand from Vader's proximity she'd incorrectly attribute. Although by then, she was beginning to hear stories of an inhuman capacity…

But to its fabricators and operators, the devices were astonishing. From somewhere aboard the Executor in a sector with exceptional security, a small intelligence staff tracked their reconnaissance operatives, Eva and five others, at all hours. They saw what she could, and would hear if she spoke aloud. Eva could tell when the system was live, though actually it was rarely in use, and her detection was a flaw they were working to eliminate. Eva also found it surprising that if she wanted to shut her audience off, she need simply start undressing…

On her end, the set up was not without challenging maintenance. Once Eva had been 'freed' from the hard labor camp and settled in with the Rebel Alliance, a network of operatives ran components to her vicinity and established relays to boost the weak, cloaked signals. Soon after Eva reached the isolated main rebel base of Hoth, the system would run down to critical reserves, and a way to smuggle in support could not be worked out.

But earlier on the inhabited desert planet of Sriluur, where the Alliance had stationed Eva for months, the set up was in top form. There was not much for Eva to do at the minor outpost dusted in red soil- a small collection of mud brick structures and worn evaporators- but bide her time for a more significant assignment. She was supposed to be the long game. The Rebel base's objective was to defend a small research facility, and most days on Srilluur were sleepy. This was not one of them...

Eva hoped the procurement officer could not detect the urgency in her voice. She was hurriedly weaving a tale of woe about equipment she'd left in the canyons, why she needed a speeder bike when it wasn't her turn to run security checkpoints. Two voices were directing Eva at the same time, the officer's before her, and an officer aboard the Executor. Then it was Lord Vader's voice who intruded. And what he told her made Eva's blood chill under the high noon sun. What kind of path of no return was Vader attempting to put her out on? The end of this poor Rebel before her, and her own cover blown? Eva hesitated to disobey an order of Lord Vader's, but they were both beginning to understand her superior skill at reading people. Eva's story worked and the speeder was hers.

Eva set off across the desiccated plains in hot pursuit of a man she didn't know, and had no idea what he'd done, but something had gone wrong somewhere and he needed to be intercepted and taken down, preferably alive, before he left Sriluur.

Sweat was running down her temples from under the helmet, and she swiped at the dust on her goggles with her arm. She was not fast enough for Vader's liking. Intelligence aboard the Executor could determine the gap between widened, as they watched down from satellites. Eva would need to cut him off by detouring through the most precarious of terrain- faster and yet faster still. And for the first time all their practice was put to use. The dance was working- Vader's voice, her reaction. She could in effect, anticipate unseen topography before her. She could maneuver the speeder with Vader's remarkable precision while she was spurred on to a skill far beyond her possession. Through hard turns, she dodged and wove round the rock formations and plunged deep into ravines. For a moment, she again tasted the exhilarating freedom she had experienced in the practice tie fighter. To Vader, it was reminiscent of the pod races he took on as a child- miles distant and ages away from the chasms Eva speed through- the unexpected irregularity to relive those past moments…

Eva was now close now enough to see her quarry, a just over a thousand meters ahead. He was heading north in a speeder with tinted glass, skirting along the edge where the rockery formations gave way to the plain. At the moment he had no cover and hers was thinning. She continued to the maneuver random outcroppings with one hand while untethering her blaster. And from worlds away, Vader adjusted her aim.

To Eva's disbelief she hit his speeder. He lost control and tumbled dramatically. But in the moments she continued at full speed towards him, he pulled free of the wreckage and shot back at her. She instinctually jerked away. A fin of her speeder bike hit hard and she nearly lost control. Her confidence drained away and she wanted to stall. No sooner had she skirted towards better cover, than she noticed the sand smoothed out under her where it ran down the center of a conveniently unobstructed gully. 'Stay off the paths! No no nononono! She braked, but it happened so fast she didn't feel the slash to her midriff until she was flat on her back.

She gasped as her lungs pushed all the air out of her chest, leaving her breathless. Tilting her head back, she caught the glint of a partially disguised wire strung across the path. If not for her body armor, she likely would have been sliced in two. In shock and agony, all she could do was lay there and look skyward with tears.

Somewhere along the way of the whole adventure, Vader's threatening her to do his bidding, had become her wanting to do his bidding.

She forced herself to roll over and crawl to cover. Her leg was bleeding and stung horribly, but the injury wasn't life threatening. A stolen glance northward and she saw her target pulling his valuables from the speeder while holding the blaster aimed in her direction. He began heading on foot away from her, backing into the rock formations. She could trail him, but she stood no chance to catch up. Another shot streaked past her head and she rolled back around the rock she hugged with her back.

Her legs gave way to a squat and she let out a quite scream of frustration. Then she took a heavy slow breath and raised her communicator. A distress signal on an open line was no long shot. There was better than a 75% chance the signal would be picked up by the wrong kind, and most likely the kind that set wire traps.

Eva limped away from the origin of the signal, back to the her damaged speeder bike. She gently pushed it further away, down a ravine and gathered some of the sparse scrub to try to cover it. She shut down her equipment and scrambled back in the objective's direction. Anyone could pick up her life reading as well, but with no electronic signals accompanying, she should be dismissed.

Overhead the sky was turning from gold to the pink and bruised purple of late afternoon. The shadows lengthened and the winds began to stir. Both of them picked their way along though scattered rocks at the plains edge, while keeping out of one another's sight. Shifting dust began to obscuring her view. She continued north while the hours passed, exhausted, in the rawest of environments, while Intelligence aboard the Executor followed on their screens- isolated overseers with their view down from the heavens.

The gap was widening once more. Eva's leg slowed her down, though she was pushing her limits.

Vader remarked on the sand storm.

Intelligence informed Eva that eight beings with transport were approaching the target from the east.

Vader disclosed that he came from a place much like Srillurur. Eva suspected he was listening elsewhere aboard the Executor than her handlers. His words were for her only.

The eight were clearly headed in the direction of the target.

Vader described his inhospitable, long ago home - the wasteland and the savages that had taken his mother.

It would be merciful for the objective if it were a Weequay clan approaching. There was a skirmish, but the eight beings appeared to take the objective alive, with a probable loss to one of their own. Imperial Intelligence could track where he'd be taken and now had time to send troops to collect him at their will. Eva turned back to the long trek to her broken speeder. "What happened to your mother?" she whispered, hoping Vader had lingered and still listened.

"She died."

Arriving at base well after dark, Eva would live another day to pursue her operation undetected. She would sleep in her own bed as though nothing had happened.

And it began that Vader would divulge enough that she wondered if her days were numbered...

In the evenings sometimes, when the Rebel garrison was turning in for the night, Eva would pick through a corroded pile of broken equipment and select something to fix. She'd sit down alone under a single lamp and work with it under a magnifying lens. Her steady, thin fingers were especially well suited to precise tasks. The tasks Vader's gloved hands could no longer manage. As with her broken speeder, he would talk her though each step of the repair, be it a blaster for her own use, a communicator or a regulator for a droid. Only she would know he'd occasionally turn his back on the entire galaxy for a stolen hour of simple, cathartic release. If he was torn that the restored parts would someday be used to save Rebel lives, to possibly extinguish his own troops, he never spoke as much. But now and again he might reveal to her something of his remarkable past…