Part Three:
The Assassin
Chapter eleven:
"So this is kind of like the victor's lounge right now, isn't it?" Zanna muses.
"So you want to trade Games stories?" I ask, "Maybe open a bottle of wine?"
"Hell no," says Zanna. Then, after a pause: "To the first part. I wouldn't mind some wine…"
"That's about the size of it," I say, and slouch down to lay on my side on the bench.
Zanna and I are the only occupants of the same conference chamber I'd stood in to watch the superlaser test only a day or so previously. I'm not sure quite how long it's been, I only know that I haven't slept, but most of the people I know have. I wasn't tired, hit the gym. I didn't even assault anyone in the showers afterwards this time.
An image projects from the holo-emitter, a ghostly vision Rebel fleet as it now appears from the viewpoint of the Kryat's nose. The live feed fills the room, as ships merge and shift into formation. Not long now.
It has all been leading up to this. Everything I'd done, my family, the games, all a prelude to this war on a grander scale. Would it have all happened without me? Most likely, but not in exactly the same way. Goes to show that one little girl from the slums really can make a difference.
When she's a fucking Jedi.
I watch the Black Sun flagship shift a little to the left, pointing parallel to the Krayt. "Aren't you supposed to be over there?" I ask Zanna. "Do your parents want to have their little victor at their side to watch the triumph of the Rebellion?"
"I'm sure the Rebellion and I are the farthest things from their mind."
"You'd just rather stay with me," I'm trying my hand at banter (Thea says that many Jedi value a dry sense of humor) but I don't feel like I'm having much luck.
"Let's look at it this way," says Zanna, "Between you and my parents; I'd rather be with you eight out of ten times."
"Four out of five."
"That's not what I said."
"Hmm," I'm not sure what else to say on the subject.
"Wasn't Edwin going to join us?" Zanna asks.
"He was," I say, "But now he's helping Menissa. She's getting some last minute propaganda together, I guess."
"That's just fine," Zanna says, "Better probably. Still, he's missing out. This will be a great view of the battle."
"Yeah," I gaze at the holo-emitter. "Now I'm seeing how the other half lives." I wonder if the Force Games had been this dull to watch. Then again, I thought most holos were dull.
"Cheers," Zanna pulls a ration bar from her pocket. "You want any?"
I shake my head as the door hisses open. "Hello ladies," says Fenric, grinning his way into the room with open arms.
"Hey you," Zanna moves to him and claps him congenially on the shoulder.
"Did you lovely victors see my little announcer job?" Fenric asks, "I couldn't tell, I only saw Coy over the emitter thing, so-"
"Saw it," says Zanna more seriously. "Very powerful, very intimidating. Not sure WMD is the way to go, I guess. I thought innocent collateral damage was the Empire's shtick. But then again I'm not the one they're letting give the order or making push the button."
"How about you Kara," Fenric nods to me.
I shrug. "Me? I just want to own one."
"Aren't you supposed to be fighting?" Zanna asks, "Or preparing to fight. Being in the army and all."
"They're fine with me here," says Fenric. "There's not going to be so much fighting really."
He was right, at least according to what I'd heard. The plan I'd been told was a simple one. I'm sure it had complexities, but they hadn't told me those parts. We were going to drop out of hyperspace surrounding Coruscant, fire the Organa superlaser, blow up the planet, and either beat it out of there or accept the surrender of any Imperial ships in the vicinity, depending on how things went.
It wasn't a bad plan. Probably about the one I'd come up with.
"Attention. your attention please," the voice is familiar, delivered over intercom. Fenric sits, and accepts half of Zanna's ration bar.
"Attention, your attention please," she's speaking to everyone, everywhere in the fleet, broadcasting live. It's not some private show. "I am President Coy of the New Galactic Alliance. Some have called us terrorists, insurgents, villains. But is it evil to rebel against evil?"
"I always thought evil was just a matter of personal preference," I mutter.
Fenric laughs and Zanna tells me to "Shut up. She's just getting started."
"Are we to sit quietly and wait for death to come to us, to wait to find peace and security in some undiscovered country as we fade from this galaxy, as we allow our friends and our families and our homes to be ripped and raped to pieces by the white-armored emissaries of a single twisted old man? Will we bow to his ideals, dance on his strings?
"No! We will be the change; we will seize today and secure the future. We will choose peace, and create a galaxy where we support our leaders not because we are afraid of them, but because we agree with them.
"But that's for tomorrow. Today we will remember those we have lost, remember what the Empire has done to us and we will do our damnedest to strike them down. We're ending the Empire today. Right now. By any means necessary. You have taken up arms; you have fingers on your triggers. You know what you are about to do, you know what you were meant to do your entire life, and our children and our children's children will look back on this day with pride. Today we fight. May the force be with you all, and may the odds be ever in our favor."
I watch the hologram as ships began to disappear, accelerating into hyperspace with a flare of their engines.
"What a lot of hot air," I whisper, as the Kryat's image of the fleet morphs into the swirls and patterns of hyperspace travel. We're on our way.
"I thought it was nice enough," Fenric says. "Something for the kids to memorize."
"You have kids Fenric?" Zanna glances at him.
"Nah," he shakes his head. "But one day. You know."
"I guess I never really think about that kind of thing," Zanna admits. "You, Kara?"
"Kids are like apprentices, I guess," I say. I never really thought about them either, other than when popping the contraceptive of the day. "As in, I don't think I'm that kind of Jedi."
"This'll be good," Fenric points, as the hyperspace field dissipates and we emerge above the gleaming orb of the Imperial Capital. The fleet is arriving, ship by ship, and space is already full of wreckage. Fighter ships swarm from the larger Rebel ships, engaging craft both governmental and domestic and blowing them out of the sky.
I watch the thousands of interconnecting dogfights spin past, as an orbital security station is blasted to dust amidst them. For a moment, maybe two, it really looks like we've taken them by surprise, like we're winning. Then I bounce in my seat as a detonation rocks the Krayt.
"Aw, shit," says Zanna, pointing, as Star Destroyer after Star Destroyer clears a curvature of the planet and powers towards the rebel fleet. They've already opened fire. A wave of TIE fighters rushes from their hulls to engage the Rebel fleet, and our smaller craft zip to and fro between the larger ships. There are so many energy bolts flying around that my eyes start to feel strained. Too many flashing lights. I resist the urge to blink.
"There we go," says Fenric and I spy the Organa through the fray. It's aimed right for the planet, superlaser primed and ready to go. The smaller Rebel ships take formation around the Organa, defending it from enemy fire. I see a green glow form within the Organa's bow-
Which then sputters and goes out.
Flames burst and fade against the black vacuum as Rebel ships careen into nothingness. The Star Destroyers are concentrating their fire. I watch one of the burst to pieces. Then another. But it's too little too late. Explosions wrack the length and breadth of the Organa, finally tearing it open from the inside. Our greatest weapon becomes nothing but another expanding wave of wreckage.
Believe you me; we had plenty of wreckage already.
With the Organa gone the Rebel ships scatter, then regroup focusing on the incoming wave of TIE fighters. Soon the swarm of fighters ahead of us becomes so thick I can barely see the planet itself. It's a wonder only most of the fighters run into each other.
"Seriously" Zanna breaths, "That? Really?"
A large explosion rocks the Krayt, throwing her into Fenric's lap. The holoemitter cuts out after a flaming TIE fighter filled our POV. We've lost the feed. That's not all we seemed to have lost.
"So why are we not jumping back into hyperspace," I ask. I was almost as disappointed as the next fellow, but that was no excuse for living in the past few minutes.
"No idea, but I intend to find out," says Fenric and makes for the door. Zanna and I follow quickly in his wake. The Krayt shakes from stem to stern. Rebels and their droids rush about frantically as our boots stomp through the hallways.
A Rodian soldier comes around the corner and Fenric catches him by the arm. "What's going on?"
"War!" The Rodian exclaims, and pulls away roughly before he seems to recognize us. "What are you guys doing? You should be fighting!"
"Why aren't we jumping to Hyperspace?" I ask.
"Can't," he says, "Some kind of jamming field projected from the planet."
"It's a trap," Zanna muses.
"I've got to get to my post," The Rodian pulls away.
"Can we disable the jamming field?" Fenric calls.
"What the hell do you think we've been trying to do?" the Rodian is around the corner and gone.
Two corridors and a briefing room later, we find a dumpy human scientist frantically working at a computer terminal. "Hey," I get her attention.
"Oh," she jumps, and then reaches out to touch my arm, almost as if she's afraid I'm just a hallucination. "Thank goodness you're still with us."
"What happened to the Organa?" Zanna asks.
"Other than blowing up," Fenric clarifies.
"It didn't fire," The scientist explains. "Its system got overloaded by some kind of…I don't know. Weaponized transmission signal thing. Still working on it."
Or not. The computer terminal explodes in a shower of sparks, and the scientist is thrown on her back, where she groans, sluggishly wiping blood from her forehead.
We've got no time for her. Weaponized transmission. Overloaded system. Last thing we'd expect. Last minute messages. "I think I know what's happening…" I say.
"Which means?" Zanna glances at me.
"I have a bad feeling about this," I bite my lip. "Come on." If I'm right I could use the backup. If I'm wrong I could use it too.
…
The recording studio hall is empty, save for a pair of guards standing outside one particular door. We round the corner cautiously. "The bulk of the broadcasting equipment is in there," I point.
"How do you know that?" Fenric asks.
"I was here one time and Edwin pointed out that door and said most of the recording equipment is in there."
"Ah," Fenric nods.
"Let's see what happens," Zanna just strides right toward the pair of guards. Fenric and I hurry after her.
"Sorry ma'am," says the taller and broader of the two guards. Both are human males. "I'm not allowed to let anyone past."
"Seriously?" I say. "Even us?"
"Yes…" he sounds a bit nervous. "Orders from the top."
"Is Menissa really the top?" I ask.
"Uh, she's up there."
The shorter guard (he's barely older than me, really) shuffles away from the door. "I'm not going to argue much, not with you guys."
"Well I'm going to do my job," the other guard huffs.
He puts his hand on the butt of his blaster, and Fenric catches his wrist. "Do you really want to do that?"
"We are authorized to go past," I butt in, waggling my fingers in front of his face.
"You are authorized to go past," he shrugs after a pause.
"Thanks very much," Zanna says as the door slides open.
"Neat trick," says Fenric.
I'm just really glad it had worked. I'd generally gotten good at messing people's emotions around, but getting them to do specific things is still a huge challenge. I'm more of a blunt instrument.
The room beyond is smaller than I'd anticipated, and filled with massive computer banks, complex access ports and large monitors, most of which displayed the battle outside.
"This smells suspicious," Zanna crouches, tapping a red stain on the floor.
There's more blood, a few streaks dotting a nearby screen. We find him in the alcove between computer banks.
Edwin is slumped against the wall, with a jagged rip torn through his face. His clothes stained crimson, the hilt of a knife protruding from his chest. Something crunches beneath my boots, just a few of his detached fingers. I kick them away. He's very dead.
I hear a hint of water running, and move to a nearby door. It opens to reveal a small attached refresher unit. Menissa stands wringing her hands in the sink, the water's tinted red when it drains away.
"Oh," says Menissa. "This isn't nearly as bad as it looks."
"You killed Edwin!" Zanna accuses.
"Did I? It's kind of a blur. Threw himself on me. He forced my hand."
"He tried to stop you from sabotaging the Organa," Fenric says. "Traitor," he adds for good measure.
"Nah," Menissa shrugged. "I'm the only one in this room who isn't a traitor."
Suddenly, the Krayt shakes, this time far more violently than before. I lose my balance, roll against the floor to push myself up.
Menissa is already sprinting toward the door. I charge to tackle. I underestimate her strength, and she manages to twist away out of my grip. I knock into one of the computer stations, banging my elbow at just the right angle to send shivers down my arm.
Fenric grabs her in a headlock from behind, lifting her feet from the floor. Menissa's only response is to crunch down really hard on something.
"No," Zanna moves forward, as Menissa's mouth fills with yellow foam. As she gags and chokes, Menissa manages to spit. Zanna cries out in pain and falls back as drops of acid fleck her face.
Fenric tosses Menissa aside, she's already dead. The poison pellet has melted her jaw away.
Zanna winces, small burns flecking the right side of her face.
"Are you okay?" Fenric is concerned for her.
"I will be," she says, "Let's just make sure and grab some bacta pretty soon. I don't want this to scar."
Fenric offers Zanna his arm, but she refuses, claiming she can support her injured self just fine, thank you. The two guards are still waiting for us out in the hall, along with a blaring incessant alarm.
"Wait a second," the guard I'd mind-tricked mumbles drowsily. "Weren't you supposed to go in there?"
"What's going on in there? Is anything wrong?" the alert guard asks.
"Everyone inside is dead," says Zanna.
"And the good news is?"
"Actually," I say, "That is the good news."
With a horrendous shriek of tearing metal, a thick armored limb, half as wide as I was tall, shears through the hallway a few yards down from us.
"What the hell?" Fenric speaks for us all.
The foggy-minded guard screams on everyone's behalf as a small four-legged droid drops down on his head, and rams its sharp little legs right through its neck, spattering the wall with his blood. It's not alone. They're coming from the new hole.
Another droid pounces right at me. I manage to catch in in the air with the force. It hovers before me, straining to reach me, its legs inches from my nose.
Fenric catches his droid with his bare hands, and slams it into the wall. A fourth emerges from the tear in the hallway and scuttles at Zanna, who hops and dodges out of the way. I smash my droid down on top of hers with the force, crushing them both.
A blaster shot rings out, as the living guard destroys the droid that just destroyed his comrade's head. Fenric twists and throws his droid aside, allowing the Rebel soldier to finish it off as well.
With no more little droids rushing to attack us, we cluster around the rip torn through the hallway. The gash extends to levels below and beneath us, the edges glimmering, almost molten. Showers of sparks illuminate fire after fire in decks above and below. There's no sign of the limb that did the damage, though I do glimpse a few more of the small droids scuttling about, fleeing down corridors and maintenance shafts.
"I've seen this before," says Zanna grimly. "Or at least I've heard stories."
"What is it?" I see no time for dramatic. Our circumstances are dramatic enough already.
"It's a droid," says Zanna. "They call it the Terror Walker."
"I can understand why," says Fenric.
"They're huge," says Zanna, "Heavily armored, designed to tear through any obstacle in their way. My parents lost a fine Black Sun Vigo to one of their kind a year or so ago. They're especially devastating when deployed in space. It'll be burrowing toward the engine room right now. When it gets there…the ship is lost for all intents and purposes."
"Sounds to me like it's time to get off this ship," I say.
"If you don't mind," we all turn to see the surviving Rebel guard wave nervously, "I'd like to tag along with you guys."
…
We see a lot of scared people, a lot of flashing lights, and even a fair bit of damage on our way to the hanger. At least we don't run into the Terror Walker. Zanna has given us the impression that with on off those things on board, all of us have only a few minutes before we're floating out in space. I wonder if she's overestimating things a bit (the Krayt is a very formidable ship) but I've got no inclination to stick around and see.
The Rebel soldier claims his name is Stocking. I have no good reason to disbelieve him. He doesn't give a first name, but he does admit that this is the first real combat he's seen. He only made it into the Rebellion a short time ago, after jumping ship from a transport bound to an Imperial military academy. Seems like he just wanted to be on what was starting to look like the winning side. I can respect that.
We emerge into the hanger. I've never seen it this empty. Empty of ships that is, hardly any vessels remain. There are Rebels all over the place though, a frantic communication officer nearly runs into me, shrieking about how all their systems have crashed. Zanna grabs her, tries to calm her down, escorting her back to her station.
Unfortunately, the most promising ship happens to be little more than a bonfire, tucked neatly in the corner of the hanger. I watch a few maintenance droids help the emergency systems to extinguish the flame with some foamy concoction. Meanwhile, a crew of medics tends to a squad of wounded soldiers. Some of their burns look downright mortal. I recognize Galen as one of the patients. His burns are far from severe. The medic patting a bacta patch onto his arm is none other than my sister Primith. She nods my way, and intently goes back to her work.
"Hey, aren't you guys supposed to be fighting?" Doggs strides towards us. His eyebrows look a little singed.
"We're getting around to it," I say.
"I could say the same about you," says Fenric (hopefully in response to Doggs, not me).
"Something penetrated our shields," says Doggs "Blew up this particular shuttle right as we we're getting into it. Took about my entire team out action. By the time I was on my feet, there weren't any more transports to command."
Zanna catches up with us. "External comms are still down, I've got them to signal a ship-wide evacuation," she says.
"But things were going so well," Doggs sighs.
"We've got a bit of a pest problem, sir," Stocking explains.
"A really big one," says Zanna. "Headed for the engines."
"We've got to take out that hyperspace jammer," Fenric says. "And with three victors on the case I've got a feeling we just might manage it."
"Getting off this ship is all I'm really interested in just this second," says Zanna.
I had been hoping for a ship with guns, but an escape pod just might be the best I could muster. I was about to start making my way toward one when a single, battered, troop transport swoops in for a landing.
Syra Antilles pokes her little head out the hatchway, and her eyes light up when she sees me. "T'sup, bitches," she says brightly. "And, uh, sir," she flushes when recognizing Doggs.
"What the hell are you doing?" Doggs shouts.
"Well, I dropped off my troops down on the planet, so I figured I'd come back for a refill."
"Wait, you actually made it down there?" Doggs is astonished.
"Yeah, I managed to coast along, hidden by some wreckage from one of the Star Destroyers we took out," Syra explains.
"Well," I shoulder past her and into the ship. "You've just got your next passengers."
Syra looks a little surprised as Fenric, Zanna, Stocking, and Doggs climb aboard behind me. "I…uh…I...yeah, okay. I'll be in the cockpit. We lift off in about a minute."
Just before the hatch closes, two more Rebels slip inside the doors. "Primith," I say her name in surprise.
"I figure that with the three of you victors on one ship, someone, somewhere, is about to need a medic," Primith says.
"Weren't you guys treating my squad?" Doggs asks.
"Yep, they're being loaded into escape pods," Primith says. "Don't worry, I'm competent, I brought my patient along. He's doing pretty okay. Fit for combat and all that."
"Guess I'm just along for the ride," says Galen.
"You're not the only one," says Stocking.
"Where we're headed, an extra blaster arm wouldn't go amiss," says Fenric, but Galen ignores him as he looks deeply into my eyes.
"I'll be in the front," I say, and hurry after Syra as the transport lifts off the hanger floor.