WHAT CAN BE SAVED

Waiting for the ISB was psychological torture. Tural knew her goose was cooked the minute Swain and Cogon were arrested. Those two would hold up the best they could, but the Empire could make anyone talk. When they did, they would name Tural as their handler and the ISB would be at her door.

That was a month ago. She considered that the Empire knew already, and was just letting her stew. But they wouldn't risk her swallowing pills or slitting her wrists in the refresher before they could wring her dry of information.

Swain, Cogon, you have the strength of titans, she thought.

She wasn't about to render her defectors' strength useless. Even as her universe tumbled down around her, Tural stuck to her regular schedule.

It was hell.

Her only reprieve was the half hour every Primeday when she and Riyo sat down with sticky buns. In the past they'd talked about handler duties, defections in progress, and tips to make their assignments go smoother. Now Tural handed over whatever incriminating thing Riyo could smuggle away in her pockets, and cried.

"I feel like I'm already dead," she wept last week. "Why do I have to be in limbo like this?"

Riyo squeezed her hand and said nothing.

Today was Primeday, and Tural had spent the morning gathering up scraps of evidence, putting on water for tea, and debating if today was the day she summoned the courage to alight from her balcony. Maybe Riyo could inspire her to let go of the feeling she still had something to do in the galaxy and finally commit to it.

The doorbell rang and she checked the chrono. Riyo was early.

"I'm coming!" She set the teapot in its usual place. "Were you running ahead of schedule? Usually you –." She opened the door and fell silent.

At the threshold was an obviously Imperial woman dressed in civilian clothes.

"The squad will be here shortly," she whispered. "Destroy your devices."

Tural's breath stopped while her mind raced. The balcony was looking pretty good all of a sudden.

"How long?" she asked.

"Fifteen minutes, if you're lucky. I only got this head start because Beck's distracted by a prison break."

"A prison break…" Her eyes widened. "Cogon and Swain! Did they get away?"

The woman nodded. "No one's chasing them when they can go after the bigger fish."

"And if this Beck finds my corpse?"

"Then she'll try to catch the little fish again." The woman looked over her shoulder. "I've stayed too long already. Don't tell anyone I was here."

Tural watched her go. Then she retreated back into the apartment, made her way to the balcony door, and latched it shut.

Her life or her defectors? Easiest choice she'd ever made. Now she knew why she hadn't gone through with the deed: she was going to waste Agent Beck's time for all she was worth. The longer she held out, the longer Swain and Cogon had to reach their accepting cell and anything after that would just be a bonus.

Her mind made up, she gathered up every electronic device in the apartment and pulverized them on the bathroom floor. They weren't her network comms, those had been the first things to go to Riyo, but she wouldn't deprive ISB of the joy of painstakingly reassembling her thermostat. She wished she could see the look on the tech's face when they realized.

She smashed the hard drives with a hammer for good measure and moved on to anything that smacked of evidence. Calendars, bank statements, comm bills, everything with an official stamp or letterhead. She'd just lit the burner on the stove when the doorbell rang again.

Tural looked at the chrono. Riyo.

Instead of thrusting the documents into the fire, she gathered them up and hurried to the door.

"I brought muffins!" Riyo announced and her face fell as soon as she saw Tural.

Tural shoved the documents into her arms. "It's no good here. ISB."

Riyo grabbed the documents and shot down the corridor. She didn't say goodbye, and Tural didn't want her to.

She threw some junk mail into the stove to throw ISB off the scent, and then sank into her kitchen chair.

This was it, then. She'd eliminated every scrap of evidence and warned Riyo, and now all there was left to do was wait.

So Tural poured herself a cup of tea and waited.

"How did she know ISB was coming?" Dalla demanded. "Does she have some kind of scanner? If she does, we need to get rid of it!"

"I didn't stick around to ask questions!" Riyo frantically shuffled through the papers Tural had given her and thanked her lucky stars that Echo was in for a visit. She'd ducked into her apartment just long enough to put the muffins on the counter and toss her boyfriend a shirt, and they were out of the building before you could say "ISB's on the way, let's get out of here."

"I heard footsteps when you were in the kitchen," Echo said. "I think someone might have warned her."

"Who would warn her?"

"A Fulcrum agent, maybe." Dalla's expression darkened. "Or someone even further inside the house."

"You've never told us what you mean by that," Echo said.

"Because you don't want to know. My contact is ringing my comm off the hook, so I can see if he knows anything. Is there any rhyme or reason to what she gave you?"

"All I can see is calendars and bills. We already cleaned out the –." An ink stain caught Riyo's eye and she stopped rifling.

The back of a utility bill was covered with Nadea Tural's scrawling handwriting.

Swain and Cogon escaped. Unknown location, need support immediately.

I will give you all the time I can.

Save them, please.

"Oh, my goddess."

"What?"

"Dalla… she says the defectors escaped."

Echo did a double take. "Escaped from ISB interrogation?"

"We're being had. You two need to get the hell out of there –."

"Dal!" Dalla's husband Bernard burst into the holofield, his eyes wild and comm device held aloft. "You need to see this."

"It needs to wait. ISB –."

"Dalla, it's him."

Whoever he was, it was enough to get Dalla to stop and instantly pay attention to the device in Bernard's hand. Riyo and Echo couldn't see it in detail, but as Dalla read her eyes got bigger and bigger.

"Holy shit."

Riyo didn't want to know. She had never seen Dalla look like she did now; wide-eyed and completely rattled.

"It's real," she whispered. "They actually escaped."

"That's not possible," Echo insisted.

"It is when someone does something incredibly stupid." Dalla made a sign to the salt gods.

"Are you saying your contact rescued them?"

"Aye." She swallowed hard. "That's what I'm saying."

"I'll find them," Riyo jumped in. "Nadea asked me; I'll take over handler duties and get them to a cell. I don't care what Massassi group says, at this point –."

"No, I need to do this." Dalla cut her off. "Find them, tell me where they are, and I'll take care of it. Just … find them." She hung up and the holoprojector caught her snatching up the other comm unit.

Echo and Riyo were left in the speeder, staring.

She snapped out of it first. "The defectors."

"Right!"

The Imperial squad entered Tural's apartment with the subtlety of charging banthas, and she put down her teacup a moment before they kicked in her door.

In the lead was a woman dressed in spotless ISB whites. Everything about her was immaculate, from her pristine boots to her coiffed haircut and the smug smirk on her lips. Everything, that is, except for the massive scar running down the left side of her face and the glowing red cybernetic eye.

This, she was sure, was the infamous Commander Beck.

"Senator Tural!" She crowed. "It's a pleasure to meet in person, after hearing so much about you."

"Commander." Tural folded her hands on the table. "It seems introductions won't be necessary."

"We'll have plenty of time for them later. Nadea Tural, you are under arrest for treason, harboring fugitives, and association with known rebels."

"I figured as much. I hope you're patient, Commander, because you'll have to wait for your next lead."

Beck sneered. "You'll talk."

"I don't doubt it. But you'll have to work for everything you get from me." Tural glared at her defiantly.

But Beck wasn't looking at her. Her cybernetic eye whirred and focused on the inside of Tural's arm, where the network tattooist had drawn a star chart in invisible ink.

"It'll be easier than you think, handler." She snapped to her troopers. "Take her into custody. Full-body scan with ultraviolet light, and then take her to the room." Her smirk returned. "Maybe you'll die in the same place your Swain spent her final hours."

Tural dangled the carrot. "I highly doubt it."

Beck sneered, and Tural knew she had her.

Halfway across the galaxy, Dalla feverishly dialed and re-dialed Yularen until he picked up.

"What did you do?"

Yularen ignored her. "Do you have Swain?"

"What do you mean, do I have Swain? I found out about her two minutes ago!"

"You need to find her," Yularen ordered. "She and Cogon won't last long by themselves and if the Empire locates them before you, then we're all dead."

"You rescued them. Where are they?"

"I don't know their current location, but they're in a shuttle with the following identification codes."

"Hold." Dalla muted him and opened a second audio line to Riyo and Echo. "Echo, I need a trace on a shuttle ID."

Echo took down the code and Dalla went back to Yularen. "What were you thinking? You broke two prisoners out of the ISB, and you didn't even tell me? You just make some cryptic comment about doing something stupid and then dump this on me?"

"There wasn't time to discuss a plan with you."

"There needs to be! I'm your daughter, not a Star Destroyer. You can't just commandeer my network and my handlers."

"I had to get her out. They… they butchered my granddaughter. I couldn't stand by and watch it any longer."

"Granddaughter?"

Yularen stopped. "You don't know."

"How could I know when you've never told me?"

"Didn't the handler tell you? Or the arrest report?"

"Her parents aren't listed on the report and 'I'm Colonel Yularen's granddaughter' isn't exactly something you tell your handler."

"Her father is Alexsandr Kallus, your eldest brother. I've showed you holos of him."

That name rang another bell for Dalla. "Wasn't Agent Kallus the arresting officer?"

Yularen's mustache wobbled and that was all the answer she needed.

"I don't know where I went wrong. He loved her so much, and then in a single moment he turned around and – and I stood by and let it happen." He choked up. "Hannah is the kindest, brightest, most loving child I've ever met. She doesn't deserve this."

"No," Dalla said, thinking about the holo of the girl she'd decided to hire and fitting that image with her niece. "She doesn't."

Echo's comm line trilled and Dalla checked it. "That's the handlers with the trace."

"Find her, please," Yularen begged and hung up.

Dalla switched lines. "Talk to me, Echo."

"The shuttle's pinging from Corellia, but there's no guarantee they're still on it."

"Couple of kids in prison jumpsuits, they're still on board. How soon can someone get there?"

"I already called Hunter. They'll be there in forty-five minutes and hope to make the jump to Onderon within the hour."

"Thank you." She let out a sigh of relief. "Both of you. Do you think you're in the clear?"

Riyo spoke up. "We'll stay away until tomorrow, and I'll have to re-sweep everything, but I think we're okay."

"Good. If you notice anything out of the ordinary, get out of there. We've lost enough handlers today."

"Understood." Riyo replied before hanging up.

Dalla sat in silence in front of her empty comm lines and took a deep breath. Stars above, she had a niece. A niece who had just escaped ISB interrogation.

She had a lot to prepare.

"This is kriffing insane," Sloan said on the drive to the spaceport.

"You're telling me." Dalla gripped the steering wheel. "Yularen dumped it all on me in two minutes; at least you got a few hours."

"Hunter says they landed a few minutes ago and he's waiting for us to arrive. We're just going to take them?"

"That's the plan." She spotted the Marauder and pulled into the closest spot.

Someone must have been watching from the cockpit, because as soon as they got out of the speeder the Marauder's side entrance opened and Hunter waved them in.

"Glad to see you." He shut the door behind them.

"Thank you so much for picking them up; I owe you one."

"I'll keep it in mind." Hunter led the way into the ship.

Dalla had a million questions but limited herself to two. "How are they? Were there any issues with the pickup?"

"The pickup went smoothly." They passed Wrecker and Crosshair, the former watching rapt and the latter carefully removing a set of earplugs. "As for the kids, it could be worse."

Crosshair snorted and Wrecker glared at him.

Hunter ignored his brothers. "Do you have a plan?"

"We have a hiding place set up above the museum," Sloan said.

"There's something above the museum?" Wrecker asked.

"Before it was the museum, it was the Rash family estate," Dalla explained. "The first floor was remodeled into the museum, but it was easier to just leave the upstairs living quarters intact. The only remaining access point is in the back offices. Nobody goes there, and nobody knows they're there. They should be fine as long as they stick to the interior rooms and stay quiet."

Crosshair snorted. "Come up with a new plan."

"Why?"

A bone-chilling scream came from the back of the ship and Crosshair looked at his wrist chrono. "Two minutes, on the dot. Would it kill her to hold off for once?"

"That's mean," Wrecker admonished him.

"Some of us value our eardrums." Crosshair quipped and put the plugs back in his ears.

Dalla swiveled into lockstep with Hunter and ordered "Take me to her." She didn't even care that she was on the man's ship. She needed to get to the defectors now.

Hunter didn't challenge her. "They were like this when we found them. He was bawling his eyes out and we had to cover her mouth before she alerted half of Coronet."

They closed in on the bunks and Hunter pulled back the privacy curtain. Inside was a young man in an orange jumpsuit, his eyes red from crying and his knees hugged to his chest.

In the adjacent bunk, a skinny redheaded girl was writhing like she was being exorcised. Omega stood clear of her with a syringe in hand.

"What the kriff?" Sloan blurted. "What is this?"

"This is what happens when you quit a truth serum cocktail cold turkey," Omega quipped. "She's going through withdrawal."

The boy choked up and Dalla reached out to him. "Brent Cogon?"

"That's me." On closer inspection, he was ghostly pale and shaking like a leaf. "Who are you guys?"

"I'm Dalla, and this is my brother Sloan. We're friends of Senator Tural." She focused on Omega and Swain. "Has she been like this the whole time?"

"This is an improvement." Omega tossed the syringe into a sharps container. "Her vital signs have stabilized, but the only way to stop the withdrawal symptoms is with a truth serum taper."

"Which of course we don't have."

Omega nodded. "She'll have to ride it out."

"Did you both get doped up?" Sloan asked Cogon.

He nodded. "They gave her a bigger dose because of her drug resistance training."

"Unfortunately, that makes sense," Dalla sighed.

Swain screeched "It hurts!"

"The pain meds will kick in soon. Here, hold on to Lula." Omega snuggled Wrecker's threadbare, well-loved tooka plushie into the crook of Swain's neck before explaining to the newcomers. "They've been through the wringer. I couldn't start IVs because I can't find a site that has intact skin."

"Holy shit." No wonder Yularen did a jailbreak.

Sloan changed the subject. "We can't have her in the hiding place if she's screaming. What about your house?"

"I have neighbors. Neighbors who sent their kids to the Imperial Academy. What about that caretaker's cottage out in Beast Rider territory?"

"Where the sound will carry through the whole jungle? You'd have to be crazy."

"Then where would you suggest? Dxun?" She had another idea, but it was a last resort. She clung to the fantasy that there was somewhere, anywhere else the defectors could go.

Sloan shot it down: "We both know the place."

There was a lot Dalla wanted to say, but she summed it up with "Kriff."

"What?" Cogon asked. "What is it? Where are we going?"

"We're going to Blackhold," Dalla told everyone, but mostly Hunter. "I'll let Genna know about the change of venue and tell … them that we're coming."

"I'll get the ship." Sloan trucked out of the cabin.

"We can pick up Genna and Sam when they land and bring them up north," Hunter offered.

She was really going to owe Hunter one after this. Dalla unshouldered her backpack and handed Cogon a set of clothes. "Put these on."

Hunter helped him dress while Dalla and Omega cut Swain out of the jumpsuit and wriggled her into the shirt and pants. Removing the clothes exposed more injuries that made her alternately furious and sick, and she mentally logged them to inform the medical team.

"Ready?" Hunter finished tying Cogon's shoes.

Dalla checked her comm. "Sloan's outside. Let's make this quick."

While she and Hunter bundled up Swain, Cogon picked up Lula from where she'd fallen and handed her back to Wrecker. "Thank you."

Wrecker put Lula on a table and folded Cogon in a very gentle hug. "I hope my Lula made you feel better."

Cogon sobbed into Wrecker's shoulder and clung to him with all his strength, soaking up the first kindness he'd been shown in months. Wrecker didn't even blink. He picked up the young man and carried him out of the ship.

Hunter waited until they were out of earshot before he spoke. "Are you sure you can handle this?"

"I don't have a choice. She's family, Hunter."

She'd never told him about Yularen, but it was obvious from his look that Hunter understood in an instant. There was nowhere better for Swain and Cogon to be than in the care of their fractured little family.

"I'll tell Genna and Sam. If you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask." He scooped up Swain with a grunt of effort and led the way out. "And good luck."

"Thank you." She was going to need it.