by Kevin Hearne
“Say, do people around here enjoy mountain climbing?”
The droid whirred and clicked before answering. “Absolutely, sir, it is quite the popular pastime in Tonekh. Would you like some directions to nearby cliffs?”
“No, I know where I want to climb, but I’m a little low on supplies. Might you know where I can find ropes, rock hammers, that kind of thing?”
“Certainly, sir.” He gave me the address of a specialty vendor, and I hired one more taxi to take me there. The rope I bought wouldn’t be foolproof binding, of course, but I could hardly ask the concierge where to buy stun cuffs without raising suspicion. I bought four coils along with some lunch and returned to find our prisoners conscious but lying very still, since Nakari and Artoo both had weapons pointed at them.
“What did I miss?” I asked.
“Nothing. I told them to be quiet until you got back or I’d stun them again.”
“Great. I’m here now. Hello,” I said to the Gotal, “we haven’t been formally introduced. Who might you be?”
The Gotal said, “You have made a huge mistake. I’m not some info sleek to be rolled over.”
“Do tell.”
“I’m an agent of the New Order. When I don’t report in, the Empire will come looking for me, and when they do they’ll find you.”
“I don’t think you’re all that important,” Nakari said. “We know all the Imperial agents in the area, and I don’t remember seeing a Gotal on the list.” That was a lie so casually told that I almost believed it myself.
The Gotal sneered at her. “I’m not with fleet security. I’m with the ISB.”
Nakari narrowed her eyes at him and then looked at me, her cool mask of control slipping into uncertainty. “The ISB list we have isn’t sorted by species. He might be telling the truth.”
I shrugged, playing along with this charade of lists. “It’s possible.”
“What’s your name?” Nakari asked.
“Barrisk Favvin.”
“That’s the name you use with the ISB?”
“Yes. And the ISB is waiting for my report. Let me go and I’ll make sure they treat you well once you are captured.”
Ignoring him, Nakari turned to me and said, “Will you check his name against our list?”
“Sure thing,” I replied, and exited the room to go visit Drusil across the hall. Instead of trying to remember the equation she’d given me earlier, I just knocked and said, “I foiled your plan,” and she let me enter.
“Luke Skywalker. Your face is contused. Did you not capture Migg Birkhit?”
“We did. We also have a Gotal in my room who claims to be an ISB agent. Caught him trying to meet up with Migg. His name is Barrisk Favvin. Any way to figure out if he’s an informant?”
“Let us see.” Moving to her custom hardware, Drusil tapped a series of commands at her keyboard and stared at the results. She repeated the process several times before finally saying, “Yes, he is. Dispatched to meet with Migg Birkhit and investigate his claims, which means they saw that message after all. His orders are to report as soon as he knows anything.”
“So he’s not supposed to report on a schedule?”
“I’m in his personal files and looking at the orders from his superior. There is nothing about a schedule here.”
So he had lied about that. “That’s perfect. We can just hold on to him and the Empire won’t pursue it. But keep monitoring that account. If you get any queries on his progress, tell the Empire that Birkhit is currently unavailable and you—or he—will report as soon as you have solid information one way or the other.”
“Should we not simply say that Birkhit’s information is faulty?”
“No, because then the ISB will reassign Barrisk and we want them to think he’s occupied for a couple of days. We are just delaying them, so we tell them that Favvin is following leads or confirming suspicions, but nothing specific.”
“Understood.”
Returning to my room, I let Nakari know that Favvin was indeed ISB but we didn’t have to worry about scheduled reports. “Basically we can hold on to him here.”
“So you are the fugitives!” he said. “Where’s the Givin?”
“Elsewhere,” Nakari said, and then she stunned them both so that we could bind them easily. We tied up their wrists and ankles and enjoyed lunch together while we waited for them to wake up again. I recruited Artoo to be their sentry, since I didn’t especially want to spend any length of time in the same room with an ISB agent, and neither did Nakari. I had no desire to kill him, but it didn’t seem wise to let him see or hear anything more about us than absolutely necessary, and we didn’t want to listen to an endless stream of threats and Imperial propaganda, either.
Hotel rooms aren’t ideal prisons, but knotted ropes can make decent restraints and a tireless droid capable of delivering electric shocks makes a pretty good guard.
“Don’t complain too loudly, guys,” Nakari told them when they woke to find themselves bound. “You each get a soft bed, we’ll bring you food, and you can watch whatever entertainment holos you want. Try to move from the bed or call for help and the droid will knock you out. If you need to use the bathroom, tell the droid and he will contact us via comm. Behave and you’ll be alive and free in a few days. And if you want a beating at the end to make it look to your superiors like you didn’t enjoy yourselves, I’ll be happy to administer one.” She smiled winningly. “All you have to do is ask.”
THERE WAS A TIME WHEN I thought of war as an exciting prospect and maybe even desirable—compared with the unrelenting dullness of my early life on Tatooine, almost anything else was attractive. But I have discovered since then that there is precious little comfort to be had by anyone during war; the constant stress and loss of friends is like getting lost in the dunes of my homeworld, slowly drying up the tissues of your life until all that remains is a crispy shell of a person. But sometimes—I should say, very rarely, but it happens—you encounter a range of rocks in the sand, and hidden away somewhere among the crags is a spring nestled in a crevice, a lifesaving oasis that is all the sweeter for its unexpected appearance.
Nakari was like that.
After isolating the threat represented by Migg Birkhit and Barrisk Favvin, we had an afternoon and evening of free time until the new engine arrived the next day, and Nakari surprised me by inviting me to relax in her room, a suite with a couch and table and a holoprojector. I accepted, and an afternoon of trading stories about the desert extended into a dinner of room-service pahzik meat, which was in my opinion tastier than nerf and a significant point in Kupoh’s favor. At some point about halfway through the meal she laughed about something and her smile was so charming that I forgot not to stare and she caught me again—she literally had to snap me out of it.
“Hey.” Snap. “Hey.” Snap.
“What?”
“If you’re looking for your food, Luke, it’s down there in front of you,” she said, pointing with her fork.
“Sorry,” I said, dropping my head and feeling the heat rush into my face, trying to think of a time when I’d felt more embarrassed and coming up with nothing.
She chuckled softly. “You’re not what I expected, you know,” she said, and waited until I looked up. Seeing my raised eyebrow, she reassured me with a nod. “That’s a good thing. You weren’t what I pictured from the very first moment we met on the Patience.”
“You had a mental picture of me before we met?”
“Well, yeah! You hear about someone blowing up the Death Star—someone painted as a hero of the Alliance—and you think, That kid’s head is probably so swelled it has its own gravity by now. Or you think someone like that is all about duty and righteousness and wears super-tight underwear. No sense of humor, you know. Because when they prop up someone as a hero they’re not promoting you as a real person: You’re this ideal of political zealotry.”
Simultaneously amused and horrified, I said, “So in your head I was a stuck-up ideologue with no
room in my shorts?”
She gave an embarrassed laugh. “Maybe something like that, yeah.”
“Wow. I’ve never been so glad to defy expectations.”
“I’m glad to be proven wrong.”
Thinking of the aftermath of Yavin, I sighed, dinner forgotten. “If I’m honest, though, I probably did let it go to my head for a while.”
“Ah, so I just caught you at a good time?”
“Kind of. I mean, have you ever looked back at who you were two years ago or even six months ago and shook your head at how stupid you were back then?”
Her expression brightened in recognition. “Yeah! I know that feeling. And you want to go back in time, armed with what you know now, and tell her how it is.”
“Exactly! Two years ago I thought I’d never escape Tatooine and I complained about everything.” I grimaced at the memory of how I’d behaved. “I’d definitely have some things to tell that kid now. And then everything changed. I met a Jedi, joined the Rebellion, and almost instantly had this tremendous success. I saved a princess and blew up a superweapon, got a medal from the same princess, fireworks in my honor and everything. That could turn your head into a planet really fast.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I thought that was just a polite noise and my cue to continue, but Nakari drummed her fingers on the table to stop me and then asked a dangerous question couched in a coo. “Tell me, Luke, am I mistaken in thinking you have feelings for that princess? Because I thought I heard a note of yearning there.”
My eyes shifted to her face and found hers waiting, studying my expression carefully. After a couple seconds of terror, I remembered a widely held policy about honesty and how it was probably for the best.
“No, you’re not entirely mistaken,” I said. “But we’re just friends.”
“Uh-uh, pilot, that’s not going to fly. I’m talking about what you want, not what you are.”
I couldn’t believe the conversation had gotten this uncomfortable this quickly. I wasn’t any sort of expert on relationships, but I felt certain that I had already said too much, and it was unwise to speak to one person about your desire for another. Honesty, I reflected, might not always be the best policy. Sometimes you need to take evasive action.
“I think it doesn’t matter what I want. I’m a farmboy and she’s a princess. Being her friend is about all I can hope for.”
Nakari shook her head slowly as she spoke, not letting me get away. “She’s not all that inaccessible for you. You’re not a farmboy anymore.”
“All right, maybe I’m not, but she’s never shown any interest in me beyond friendship and what I can do for the Alliance. I hope we’re not going to fight about her.”
Nakari’s eyes hardened and her lips pressed together in a thin line. “Hopes are fragile things, Luke. Especially right now. Because it sounds like who you want and who you’re with are different people.”
For a fleeting half second I was elated that she thought I was with her, but I squashed that feeling because that might not be her thought for much longer. “No, that’s not it at all. Why are you angry? You asked if there was a note of yearning and I was honest and admitted one, but it’s nothing beyond that.”
Nakari held up her good hand to quell any further words and then used it to pinch the bridge of her nose as she shut her eyes and took a deep breath. After she exhaled, her hand dropped away and her eyes opened. “Honesty is usually good, Luke, you’re right. But sometimes it’s not what people want to hear.”
“Oh. Well, I wish I could go back to the Luke of two minutes ago and tell him how it is.”
Much to my relief, she snorted and her mouth split in a wide smile. “Don’t be too hard on him. His first impulse there was a good one.”
Allowing myself a cautious grin, I said, “All right, I’ll go easy on him. But I do apologize for encouraging any doubts with my honesty. The honest truth you should remember is that I’m glad we met.”
“Attaboy,” she said, encouraging me. “You bring me the sugar now. Go on.”
It took me a moment to realize she was speaking metaphorically, but I was glad I caught myself before I moved to search for a sugar packet in the hotel room. “Right. Sugar. Well, you are so …”
“I’m so what, Luke? Don’t stop now.”
“So … how do people do this? Everything I can think of to say sounds trite and insincere in my head.”
“Don’t worry. You just earned all these sincerity points with the too-much-honesty thing. That’s not saying you shouldn’t strive to be original; I’m just saying that if you blurt out something I’ve heard before, I might believe you.”
“Ah, but no pressure, right?”
She winked. “Right.”
“Well, actually, that’s something I really admire about you. No pressure.”
Nakari narrowed her eyes. “You sure this is sugar?”
“Definitely. I guess this is a roundabout compliment, but I’m going for originality.”
“All right, dazzle me.”
“Well, I don’t feel the crushing weight of your expectations. I mean you had them—you just shared them with me—but I never would have known unless you said something. And believe me, that’s refreshing. Important.”
Nakari prodded me to clarify. “Important how?”
I struggled to find the right words. “Ever since the Battle of Yavin, I feel sometimes that people expect me to top it and wonder why I haven’t yet. What I feel from you is encouragement to top it—which is very different—and rare.” The other person who habitually encouraged me was Leia, but I thought it best not to elaborate on that.
Nakari leaned back in her chair. “Whoa. I’m not encouraging you to top the Death Star thing.”
“I know—that probably didn’t come out right. Let me try again. The secret about the Battle of Yavin was that I succeeded because of the Force, so to me, topping what I did there doesn’t mean a bigger explosion or killing more stormtroopers. It means taking another step along the path to becoming a Jedi. And I’ve made more progress in the Force since I met you than any other time after I lost Ben. I actually have hope that I can learn to use it now and it’s because of your encouragement … So, you see, you’re …” I flailed for some kind of original phrasing and nothing came to mind. Panicked that I would clam up and let loose another awkward silence into the world, I finished up with a simple fact: “… You’re good for me.”
Nakari waited a few beats to make sure I was finished. “Hmm. That was some pretty complex sugar,” she said, her mouth teasing up to the left, “but you wrapped it and put a neat little bow on it at the end.” She leaned forward again, pushed her plate out of the way, and propped an elbow on the table, resting her cheek against her good hand. Her half smile bloomed into a wide one. “That wasn’t bad, Luke. Full points.”
I felt giddy and exhausted at the same time, the way you feel after a narrow escape from death. I was glad she didn’t seem intent on fanning the flames of jealousy. I didn’t doubt for a second that she still thought of Leia as competition, but at least for the moment she was content to let it slide. And I had better not push my luck any further. Having negotiated one minefield successfully, I’d be a fool to step back in and dance around.
Reaching across the table to snag her plate, I placed it on top of my own and rose to clear away dinner.
“You know what?” I said, as I moved to the kitchenette. “If I could go back to see that old Luke—the one right after the Battle of Yavin with a medal around his neck, still riding high after sinking proton torpedoes down an exhaust port that must be history’s greatest design flaw—I don’t think I’d be angry with the way he felt back then. But I’d tell him it wasn’t always going to be that easy. Because the Empire’s obviously still out there. A huge victory for us was only an inconvenience for them. They still kill and enslave people—well, I don’t need to remind you of that. We’re hiding in the Outer Rim like the vermin the Empire says we are, and running missions like this
one where we don’t know if it will make a difference or not, or if anything we do really matters.”
“Oh, it matters, Luke,” Nakari said. When I turned to look at her she had a crease between her eyes and was regarding me intensely. “We are the thorn that pricks the Emperor’s finger when he looks at the galaxy as his personal garden. And you know who he punishes every time we get away with something? Vader.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“Because poodoo rolls downhill and Vader’s not at the top. He passes it on to everyone beneath him, for sure, but he gets it first every time the Emperor is displeased. And the fact that we are still out here displeases him plenty, I bet.”
“You want Vader to get what’s coming to him, eh?”
“Sure. I mean, it’s not all I want. But I wouldn’t pass up a chance to take a shot at him if the opportunity presented itself. He took my mom from me and betrayed your dad. Don’t you want him dead?”
“I want him defeated.”
“Dead qualifies as defeated,” Nakari pointed out.
“Yeah, but I guess I’d like to know how he became the thing that he is so I would know what not to do. You can’t get answers from a dead man.”
“Hold on. You think you could turn all evil like that? You think you have that inside you?”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. Ben said he’d been seduced by the dark side of the Force, almost like he didn’t have a choice. I need to know more.”
Nakari’s voice deepened along with the crease between her eyes. “He chose to send my mother to the spice mines and let her die there, Luke. It wasn’t some metaphysical dark side that made him do it. He chose to do that, just like everything else he’s chosen to do. He’s not helpless. He’s responsible.”
Seeing my mistake, I hastened to reassure her. “Yes, he is, absolutely. I’m not saying I agree with Ben—I simply don’t know what he meant. There are mysteries about the Force to which Vader might know the answers.”