For the first time in years, Harkness couldn’t stand the silence.
He had two options: he could lie with his good eye open and think, or he could lie with his good eye shut and think. It didn’t matter either way, because the cell was pitch black and the only indication that he wasn’t having a strange dream was the smell of something dead or dying in the same room.
Maybe it was him. All during the interrogation, Harkness had kept his focus away from the pain and the questions, and where he had put his focus he could not remember, but he wasn’t required to do it anymore. It hurt to breathe; it hurt to be wearing clothes; it hurt to swallow. The nicest thing the Imperials had done for him was not to put his boots back on his stinging feet.
Moreover, there was a humming sound in his head. It could have been something to do with where he had placed his focus, or it could have been an after-effect of the drugs. Which brought to mind the image of the round, black interrogator droid that had administered them. Which, in turn, had left him with a vision of sickly colors, distorted sounds, and a sensation similar to that of having needles in his brain and his eyes and the whole inside of his head. That thought, coupled with the humming sound, sent him into a near panic, and he decided to drown both elements out entirely.
“Hey!” he said. His voice was hoarse and thick, but it echoed and that made him feel better. At least he wasn’t floating in some infinite vacuum. “Hey, yeah. This is great. Way to be, Harkness.”
He thought about all the stories he had heard about prisoners who had been locked up alone for decades and gone insane. He had expected that any time in solitary confinement would be paradise, but now he could see himself in two years, drooling, talking to himself all the time. People would look at him funny and whisper about him. On the other hand, wasn’t that their normal practice anyway? Harkness decided he would probably be fine as long as he never answered himself.
“Well,” he said. “Maybe it could be worse.”
“I doubt it.”
Harkness froze. He had been answered by a female voice a short distance away.
“Hello?” he said tentatively.
“Yeah?” said the woman. Her voice was raw, and its thick, nasal quality suggested that she had a broken nose; but her tone was steady. The sound of a person in the comfortable situation of things not being able to become worse.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
She slurred her words together, and It took a moment for Harkness to extrapolate what she had actually said: “Master Sergeant Jai Raventhorn, Alliance Infiltrators.”
Harkness absorbed that. “I thought High Command dissolved the Infiltrators,” he said.
“Rub it in, why don’t you,” said the woman.
“Hah!” said Harkness. It wasn’t a real laugh, but it was the only positive response he could come up with. Raventhorn’s voice carried the depth of the numbness, the pain, the humiliation, and the relief that was in Harkness right then, and he dismissed the automatic assumption that she was some COMPNOR agent planted in the cell to get him to talk casually.
It also sounded as though she were shivering, as Harkness was. Most likely she had been done exactly the same way he had, and that made him furious. But he didn’t want to tell her that because she might think he was being patronizing.
“So what do you do now instead, Sergeant Raventhorn?” he asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“Harkness.”
“Harkness what?”
It suddenly occurred to him that he couldn’t recall his first name. If he had one at all.
“Harkness what?” Jai asked again.
“I…think it’s just Harkness,” he said. More enthusiastically, he added, “I’m a mercenary.”
“A merc. Really. I don’t think that’s what I am.”
“Try to remember. We’re just experiencing the after-effects of the mind-probe.”
This was just a guess on Harkness’ part. But it made him feel better, and Jai evidently believed it because she took a few moments to think. Finally she said, “Oh, wait—I work in Intel now.”
“lntel? Were you with Red Team Five?”
“l think so. Yeah, I was,” she said, and there was no trace of pride in her voice on admitting that. But then came a sudden spark of interest. “Are you one of the mercs who tipped us off about this place?”
“No, but guess what?”
“What?”
“I think there might be an Imperial garrison here on Zelos.”
She gave a half-amused snort. “You think?”
“Is the rest of your team around here?”
“They’re dead,” said Jai.
“Oh,” Harkness said. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” She gave a heavy sigh. “I don’t suppose you told them anything.”
“Who?” asked Harkness. He was feeling confused. His lips had started to feel numb.
“The Imperials.”
“No,” said Harkness, and then he was struck anew. “Hey—”
“What?”
“I didn’t tell them anything!” He had completely shut it out of his mind, but his interrogators had realized that mind-probing him was useless and therefore the Interrogation was a failure, and they had tortured him just to make themselves feel better. Suddenly Harkness felt positively warm inside. It was the ultimate test and he had passed it. He could actually feel himself grinning. There was not a lower place that could possibly exist, and his situation could only improve if they had him killed now. He didn’t remember ever feeling so secure in his life.
“Yeah,” said Raventhorn, “I heard you the first time.”
“How about you?” he asked. “You tell them anything?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah, good for me,” she said unenthusiastically.
“Doesn’t that make you feel great?”
“Not especially.”
“You know how many people can’t make it through interrogations like that? If they don’t talk, they usually just die from the physical punishment.”
“I know.”
“My point is, the Imperials could have done worse things. They could have run a catheter straight up your nasal cavity into your brain. If you didn’t die you’d be jelly.”
“You’re a lot of fun to have around,” said Jai.
“I’m serious!” Harkness said, although he didn’t know what exactly he was feeling. It was almost giddiness. “Listen, you can go back home and tell everyone you didn’t crack, and they’ll give you a medal or something.”
“Yeah, they would,” Jai said in complete disgust. “That’s what’s wrong with the New Republic.”
“What is?”
“Medals. Glory. You know. These days they give stuff out if you remember not to wipe your nose on your sleeve in front of General Madine.”
Jai’s voice was fading and Harkness’ vision seemed to narrow to a pinhole. There was a sensation of a cool, gray fog beginning to permeate his body from underneath him.
“I can’t feel my hands,” said Jai.
“Me neither,” said Harkness. He didn’t want to talk anymore, but he knew the silence would seep into the fog, into his body. And the humming! Why wouldn’t it stop? “Do you know him?” Harkness asked.
“Who?”
“General Madine?”
“Do I?” asked Jai.
“I don’t know,” said Harkness.
It got quiet again. Harkness was finding himself less panic-stricken about it. He was cold all over,
but he was getting comfortable. He knew he should have tried to stay awake, but he hadn’t been so relaxed in a very, very long time. He felt free. He wanted to savor it, even if it meant dying. Especially if it meant dying.
In fact, he would have let himself drift off entirely, except that Jai said, “I wish they would have.”
Her voice seemed to ring, not off the walls but all through Harkness’ head. “Would…what?” he asked.
“I wish they would have turned my brain to jelly.”
Silence. Harkness’ mind immediately cleared itself out.
“Wait a second. What’s that mean?” he asked “I just have this feeling.” Jai said.
“Like what?”
“Like there’s nobody waiting for me to come back.”
“What is up with this place?” said Platt for what was about the third time in fifteen minutes.
Tru’eb glanced up from the information console. “I said I don’t know,” he told her irritably, although he could understand what Platt was talking about. Passengers and flight crews were roaming throughout the starport, checking their cargo specs at public maintenance terminals, slumped in chairs still waiting for their ships to pass muster, rushing to catch the next shuttle. Perfectly normal. But the locals—the maintenance people, the desk personnel, and the green-eyed humans—all had a raw, shaky look about them. Tru’eb usually associated expressions like those, and the scent they gave off, with sheer terror barely held in check.
“I mean we’ve been waiting for four hours now and nobody knows anything. Dirk could be dead somewhere.”
“Harkness strikes me as rather resilient,” said Tru’eb. “I doubt he ran into any serious opposition.”
“Like what? That Imperial garrison nobody knows anything about?”
Tru’eb didn’t answer. The whole point of the mission had been relatively simple; there was a stash of Imperial-issue weapons being transported in, disguised as ship parts. Platt, Tru’eb, and Harkness had planned on liberating the weapons for their own personal use. Platt had a couple of smuggler friends who were only too happy to provide a distraction. At a place like this, with the starport personnel totally clouded over by fear or whatever, nobody saw Tru’eb and his friends take custody of the alleged ship parts. Or nobody cared.
The hitch in the plan came with Harkness, after they had the weapons. Platt and Tru’eb hadn’t worked with Harkness for very long, but it wasn’t hard to gather that he had some sort of personal vendetta against the Empire. Where Platt and Tru’eb would not have bothered to ask where the weapons came from (as long as they turned a fair profit), Harkness had to know. Which had led them to some of his contacts within New Republic Intel, and somebody leaked him the information that there was currently a team investigating a probable hidden Imperial garrison on Zelos. While Platt and Tru’eb were discussing terms with an arms dealer at the south end of town, Harkness had rented a repulsorlift vehicle and told them he would be right back. That was four days ago.
“He’s crazy, but he’s a good man,” Platt said. “I like working with him. Despite the vendetta thing.”
“I agree, but I was hoping this trip wouldn’t be—”
“Excuse me, folks?” somebody said. Tru’eb and Platt turned around; standing behind Platt was a green-eyed starport official in a light-green uniform, holding a datapad.
“I’ve got the—right here, here’s the—” He held out the datapad.
“Oh, right, you’re the guy I talked to earlier,” said Platt.
“Yes…about the information you requested? First of all, I’m sorry that took so long.”
“Don’t worry about it. Although I wouldn’t have thought skiff rentals would be that hard to track down,” said Platt.
“Well, we’ve had security problems before…there was a shipjacking about four years ago, and some crime lords got involved—”
“What did you find?” asked Tru’eb.
The man swallowed and held his datapad close to his chest. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said.
Platt and Tru’eb exchanged glances. “What?” said Platt. “The skiff blew up? What?”
“No, but there’s been a….”
“A what? Tell us!”
“A—a mistake. On the readout.”
Platt visibly restrained herself from striking the man.
“What do you mean?” asked Tru’eb, reaching up and putting a hand on Platt’s shoulder.
“Well, it says here that the gentleman you’re looking for rented a starport skiff which he took out past the badlands… all the way north, into the mountains.”
“So what?” said Platt.
“It’s impossible. Nobody goes out there. Ever.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated. After looking over his shoulder a couple of times, he drew himself in close toward Platt and Tru’eb, who drew in close toward him. Their heads were almost touching.
“There,” he said in a low voice, “is where the dead can walk.”
A week earlier, Jai had been sitting in the communications tent at a flimsy metal table, with the comm unit placed in front of her, when her C.O.’s voice came over the channel.
“Raventhorn?” he said. “We’re in Sector Three now. Looks like there’s a couple of scout troopers guarding a bunker.”
Jai put down her protein stick and swallowed. “Well, whatever you do, sir, don’t—”
“Moving in to attack.”
She put a hand over her face. Her C.O. was a Rodian lieutenant who had somehow slipped past Officer’s Candidate School during the New Republic’s post-Endor barrage of promotions. The rest of her teammates had little or no field experience—just training. Great. Three hundred and twenty-seven combat missions, and I never got a splinter. I move to Intel and these idiots are going to get me killed on the first day. “Sir, Negative! You shouldn’t compromise your position, is that clear? It’s probably an—”
A shout came over the comm channel, but it wasn’t directed at Jai. “This one’s for Mon Mothma, guys!”
There were faint rallying shouts from the other team members. Jai could actually hear the blaster-fire, quick little shots being fired off somewhere off in the distance. Then there was a louder shot, followed by an explosion.
After that, the exploding never stopped; within minutes, the Imperials had moved in and surrounded the command post.
Jai ran outside Into the cold, wet mountain air. A flickering glow lit up the sky in the distance.
—ambush.
Seconds later a massive blaster bolt, artillery-grade, slammed into the tent where Jai’s remaining team members were sleeping. The whole thing was immediately swept into flames and took the munitions tent with it.
Jai didn’t hear the explosion. She just felt herself rising up in the air, and then a numb sensation shot through her body. She never remembered hitting the ground, but suddenly she was lying on her stomach, blinking furiously and spitting out dirt. When she looked up again, there was a bright, artificial light shining into her streaming eyes.
“Get up.”
A gray shape stood over her. His voice was muffled, and the rest of what he said was lost to the ringing in Jai’s ears. She could feel an unbearable heat coming from the burning tents, but the gray-clad person stayed where he was. Several moments later there were about twenty of him all around her. She was jerked to her feet.
“Hands over your head. Do it now.”
Jai had never been cornered before. She should have lunged for somebody, should have made them kill her right then and there—because if there was one cardinal rule about being an Infiltrator, if there was one thing you made absolutely sure that you did, it was to die before you got taken into custody.
But a face flashed into her memory, and she hesitated. Before she had a chance to register who she was thinking of, or to change her mind, one of her captors took a fast step toward her, the butt of his blaster rifle swinging at her face.
Suddenly Harkness shouted her name, and sh
e started.
“What?” she cried. “What is it?”
“Are you still there?” Harkness said.
“Where would I go, idiot?” she said, annoyed.
“I’ve been calling your name for twenty minutes here!”
“Really?”
“Yes! What happened to you?”
“I was just thinking.”
“Well, you could have answered me!” Harkness sounded almost furious.
“Hey, look, I didn’t do it to spite you! I just got to thinking. I’m trying to remember stuff.”
Harkness backed off. “Well…but…I was just—” He floundered for a second. “Okay. As long as you’re not dying of shock over there.”
“Only when you yell real loud like that.”
“What were you thinking about?” Harkness asked.
“Just stuff,” said Jai. “Did it get warmer in here?”
“No,” he said. “Listen—mind if I ask you something?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t care about your team. You don’t seem to care about the Rebellion anymore.”
“I do care about the Rebellion. It’s the New Republic I hate.”
“And you say you can’t remember if you have any family.”
“Are you taking notes or something?”
“I’m just curious as to what made you resist interrogation.”
“Look, just because I don’t like what happened to the Alliance doesn’t mean I’m willing to turn on it.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he said. “What did you focus on?”
“I focused on not telling anybody anything.”
Harkness gave a terse sigh. “Sarge—”
“What is your problem?”
“You are not listening to me.” Harkness slowed his voice down. “In that moment… in the interrogation room… when the drugs had worn off… and you tried to feel sorry for your interrogators… and you tried to hyperventilate yourself into a trance… and you realized that it didn’t matter what you did, because those Imperials were living out their lifelong dream of making an Infiltrator scream, and they were having so much fun they might never stop…”
Jai stared at where she thought Dirk’s face probably was.
Star Wars - Gathering Shadows - The Origin of the Black Curs - Unpublished Page 1