Saving Jai, on the other hand—that was the part he feared he couldn’t do anything about.
“Radlin?” said the taller of the guards, thoughtfully giving the E-Web a final wipe and sticking the rag in his back pocket. His voice echoed off the mountainside. “Radlin, I’m bored.”
“I guessed,” said Radlin, still sitting and waggling his foot.
“I mean really bored. Really really. What are we even here for? There’s no more Rebels.”
Radlin said. “It’s procedure. Procedure is this thing you do where you follow orders so you get that promotion thing we talked about?”
“I’m just saying we should think up something to do.”
“You’re just all antsy ’cause that merc guy showed up looking for the Rebels.”
“You’re just all mad ’cause we weren’t the ones who caught him. Look, Rad, let’s just go hunting or something. Pick off some more of those Walking Dead Rebels.”
Behind a nearby tree, Tru’eb caught his breath when he heard them mention the Walking Dead. But it was too late—right on cue, Platt came stumbling up the hill toward the guards. She was trying to imitate the Sullustan’s jerky walk and his glazed expression, but her steps were exaggerated and her tongue was hanging out of her mouth. Tru’eb put a hand to his face and shook his head.
Nevertheless, Radlin leaped up, knocked over his chair and stumbled backwards. When the tall one turned around and saw Platt, he visibly tensed, but he gave a terse, macho laugh. “Radlin, you want this one?”
Platt stopped when the guards’ ledge was at her chest-level. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back. “Is this the way to the spice mines of Kessel?”
Radlin gave a shriek and opened fire.
“Honestly, Platt,” Tru’eb said, as Platt put on Radlin’s camouflage jacket, “I don’t know how you talked me into that. You know there’s nothing more dangerous than a blaster being handled by someone in a panic.”
“Yeah, but there’s nobody more fun to pick off than somebody in a panic, either.” Platt surveyed the area. “You think there’s any more patrols roaming around?”
“Yes. So let’s be quick about this.”
The dugout was actually situated in front of a deep, man-made fissure that ran straight through the cliff and out the other side. Tru’eb and Platt were pleased to discover that this end of the fissure gave way to a relatively flat area of the forest.
For twenty minutes they made their way over fallen trees and scrub and large rocks. Platt was becoming increasingly nervous. From what she had seen, this end of Zelos didn’t really have dusk; the sun just seemed to wink out in the evening. Moreover, the fog was still thick enough that she could see no more than two meters in front of her at a time.
“What are we even going to do,” she said, stepping in front of Tru’eb and walking backwards, “if we don’t find the garrison before nightfall I don’t think that cheap survival shelter has another nights worth of—”
Tru’eb stopped. “Just a moment,” he said. “Do you hear that?”
“No. What?”
“Almost a rumbling noise.”
“I didn’t—” Platt said, and then the ground underneath her disappeared.
She felt herself falling, tried to scream through a dry mouth and clenched lungs, felt a violent surge of blind panic shooting through her entire body—and then a yanking sensation through her right arm as she stopped and dangled where she was. Tru’eb had her by the wrist.
“What… what was… what just happened?” she said when Tru’eb had hauled her back up and she was on her knees on solid ground. “Did I just fall off the… how come I didn’t see… Tru’eb, what happened?”
Tru’eb didn’t answer; he was staring over her shoulder, awed. Platt turned around just in time to see a black TIE fighter come whooshing up out of the ground about four meters in front of them.
Both of them fell back in a shower of dirt and leaves, the deafening sound of the TIE roaring overhead, and Platt thought the sheer momentum of the thing might blast her into the mountainside. Then, just as abruptly, everything went quiet.
They looked up. The TIE fighter sailed just above tree-level and then disappeared.
When the pounding in Platt’s head subsided, she looked at what she had stepped off of. The ground ahead looked like an overgrown clearing. But now Platt saw that she had walked right off the edge of a sheer rock face that descended hundreds, perhaps even thousands of meters.
Tru’eb was next to her, staring into the gorge. It was impossible to make out the bottom of the valley, a dark well with layers of fog drifting above it. Plunging down into the darkness, the cliff wall was a marbled gray with steplike ridges naturally chiseled into it. There were also outcroppings along the way, so heavily overgrown that the plants and trees hung precariously out over the valley: and waterfalls poured out of the rock face in a number of places. After several dozen meters everything disappeared into a bluish-gray soup.
Far below, winking on and off through the fog, there was a small blue light. And another, and another, and a hundred, neatly lined up. Platt shut her eyes and then looked again.
“Running lights,” she said. amazed. “But it’s too dark to make out the garrison.”
“Hence, the Valley of Umbra,” Tru’eb said.
“Yeah, I get it. Look at the waterfalls. Twenty credits says that’s a leaky aqueduct.”
“Look there,” Tru’eb said. “Do you see that? There, and over there—all around.”
Platt looked. Weaving in and out of the cliff was a series of metal ladders and walkways, probably leading to maintenance ducts hidden in the rock face.
Tru’eb took her macros. “Six hundred meters down.” He looked up. “And the distance across is twice that. I suppose we can safely say we know where Harkness is.”
Mist oozed up over the edge of the valley. Platt wasn’t sure whether she should be excited or appalled at knowing where Harkness was.
“There must be a turbolift or a flatbed loader leading down,” Tru’eb said. “You have code cylinders in that uniform, correct?”
“Yes, but I’m not keen on explaining why we’re not at our post. Or why one of us grew head-tails and fangs and the other decided he was much freer as a woman.”
Tru’eb shrugged. “Then it’s straight down.”
“How?”
“We’ll take the maintenance ladder wells. They must eventually lead all the way to the bottom.”
“Suppose somebody’s working on them, genius?”
“Why would they? They have repulsors.”
“Yes, but I’m trying to delay this as long as possible.” She looked at him. “I really don’t want to go down there.”
“But you will.”
“But I will.” She sighed and slid down on her belly, wedged her foot into the cliff face and hoisted herself down. The nearest ladder was about five meters below, according to the macros, but it wasn’t hard to get a foothold on the crags. Before long the two smugglers were standing on a solid, grassy boulder that jutted out over the valley. One of the rusty maintenance ladders, dripping with moisture, stuck out of the rock face nearby.
“I’ll go first,” said Tru’eb, dusting up his hands with dirt and taking a step toward the ladder.
Platt grabbed his shoulder. “Tru’eb.”
“Yes, Platt.”
“Why are we doing this?”
“Harkness is our friend.”
“So what? We have lots of friends.”
Tru’eb stepped onto the ladder. “No, we don’t.”
Before Morgan had died, Jai had experienced several incidents in which she had forgotten who she was.
The most prominent of them had happened about eighteen months ago, when she led a five-man Infiltrator team to Bevell Three on a supposedly well-planned assignment. They were supposed to capture four Imperial agents, but somebody had tipped off the Empire; a squadron of TIE bombers appeared out of nowhere and razed the area. Eve
rybody fell, except for Jai, who walked away without even a bruise. As usual, she got everybody out. But for the first and only time in her SpecForces career, she didn’t get somebody out alive; Leong, the team’s comm specialist, died en route to the medical frigate.
Jai went through the next week completely numb, not responding much to anything or having any sort of recognizable emotion. High Command promoted her to master sergeant and she didn’t object, even though she knew it was a propaganda tool. No Infiltrator assignment should ever have garnered that much attention, but this one had, and on her watch. Still, she accepted the promotion and went on about her routine business.
Then, one day, rummaging through her locker, she found one of Leong’s gloves and her heart shattered into a million pieces.
Now, lying on the floor in the dark, Jai recalled that moment with a great deal of distance. As if it had happened to somebody else. The memory was vivid, and she could access the sounds and smells and visions of the time with clarity. No matter how hard she tried, however, she couldn’t access the emotion.
What would Leong say if he could see that Jai had let the Imperials take her? Surely he’d be disappointed. But after two months of feeling nothing, suddenly there had been an onslaught of pain, rage, fear, shame—every bit of which was preferable to numbness. For a couple of blissful days, her brain had been so ravaged by the interrogation that she had forgotten to be numb. And now she was back in the same old rut, wishing the pain across her back, the dried blood on her face, the memory of the Imperial soldier swinging the butt of his blaster rifle at her face, any of it would jar her back into emotion.
“I’m starting to wonder if we’ve been forgotten. Personally I’m kind of hungry.”
Harkness’ voice, coming out of another world. Jai had to mentally adjust herself. “Huh?”
“I said I’m kind of hungry,” he said.
“Hmm,” she said dully.
“And that maybe they forgot about us.”
That got Jai’s attention. “What—you think they left us to rot?”
Rotting away, that was something that wouldn’t grant any real emotion, either. Her thoughts drifted back to Bevell Three.
Several minutes later, there was a scraping sound next to Jai’s head. Harkness let out a quick, pained gasp.
“What?” asked Jai.
“Sorry. That hurt my eye,” he said.
“I don’t get what you—”
“Didn’t you see the light?”
Jai hadn’t seen anything.
“The hatch by the door. It opened for a second—” said Harkness.
“I’m not facing the door,” Jai told him.
“But you’re near the door?”
“Yeah.”
“I think somebody slid something in here,” he said.
Jai lifted a sore arm and felt around where she thought she had heard the scraping noise. After a moment she touched something soft and wet. Burrowing her finger down into it, she touched metal.
“I think it’s food,” said Jai. “On a tray.”
“Taste it,” said Harkness.
Jai licked her lips; they were metallic and salty with dried blood. “I won’t be able to. Anyway, I bet it’s drugged.”
“You think?”
“You’re the prison veteran here. Maybe they want us doped up for some reason.”
“For what—another interrogation? They don’t need to sneak us drugs for that, not in our condition. They could just come in and—”
Harkness stopped.
“And what?”
“Is it me, or did that food come awfully quickly?”
He was right. It came as if he’d asked for it.
“Oh, great,” said Jai. “We’ve been monitored.”
How could they have overlooked that? She tried to think whether she had told Harkness anything about her past missions, or where she was stationed, or anything at all that could be of use to the Imperials. While she was still racking her brains, she heard the door open, and then footsteps vibrating through the floor, right next to her head. Light flooded into the room, and Jai shut her eyes.
Somebody grabbed her by the hair, hoisted her under her arms to a near-standing position.
“Get up, Rebels,” said a man’s voice.
It was familiar, but Jai couldn’t place it, even as she was dragged from the room, even as Harkness began shouting, and his voice trailed off behind her.
Platt and Tru’eb came straggling across the valley floor some time close to 0600 Standard, Tru’eb estimated. Somewhere beyond the fog and the overhangs he thought he could see the sky turning pink.
Working their way down the cliff had taken the entire night, although everything had blended together in the end; Tru’eb didn’t really remember what the journey had felt like or even looked like. They had just pressed on and on, barely speaking to each other, and when they thought they just couldn’t take another step, they’d do it anyway. Then one more. And one after that. And another. Most of the night had been eaten up in that fashion, and now that the climb was over, Tru’eb felt dazed and dreamy.
He looked to Platt, clambering unsteadily over the rocky ground in her oversized Imperial Army boots; she was covered in dirt and white rock dust, and her face was almost gray with exhaustion. Getting across the valley floor was no less difficult than the trip down, as the ground was covered with small, wet rocky crags.
Platt caught him looking and gave him a wink. Tru’eb smiled back; Platt’s eyes were tired, but clear. The approach of morning was making both of them feel sharper. Moreover, they were both filled with wonder and a sense of brilliant accomplishment. If they didn’t have a greater mission in mind, they would have considered the climb alone to be story fodder for years to come.
Right, let’s not blow it now, Tru’eb thought as he heard a loud, raw voice echoing across the valley. He grabbed Platt’s sleeve and pulled her behind a boulder. A few minutes later the yelling got louder; a squadron of drilling Imperial soldiers came crunching by, the sergeant screaming out cadence. His voice rang off the canyon walls and floor and disappeared way, way overhead.
His men marched on, yelling back in unison. They clambered easily over the rocks, past Tru’eb and Platt, across the deep stream where the waterfalls let out, and finally the troops jogged underneath a landing platform and disappeared around a corner. On a distant cliff wall, a massive flatbed lift sat with an AT-AT on top of it. Two army grunts stood off to the side giving hand-signals to the pilots. Standing in the base’s weak spotlights, they were a sickly yellow color.
“Small operation,” Tru’eb said.
“Pathetic operation.” Platt indicated the landing platform. “If this is a standard garrison, there should be a droid maintenance hatch near there.”
“Will the droids give us any trouble?”
“No. They’re maintenance droids.”
“And the humans?”
“We shouldn’t have any real trouble finding an unmanned security station. This Sergeant Radlin guy should have enough clearance to at least get a look at a prison roster.”
“And then?”
“No idea.”
Tru’eb sighed.
“Don’t fade out on me now, Tru’eb. You’re the one who made us start down the cliff.”
“I know. Come along.”
They made their way over the rocks and across the stream with considerably less grace than the soldiers had done. But it wasn’t long before the landing platform glowed blue over their heads, and Platt struggled to get a code cylinder out of her jacket sleeve with her numb fingers.
The only light source they had had throughout the journey down the mountain was one glow rod, which had gone out shortly before dawn. With the platform overhead, it was almost pitch-black where they were. Platt felt around the wall for what seemed like an incredibly long time before she found a slot and inserted the code cylinder.
As Tru’eb’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he began to see a weak seam of light where th
e door was located.
Something suddenly occurred to him. “I say, Platt—”
“Oh, yessss,” Platt said happily, as a swishing noise heralded their way into the garrison. “Let’s hear it for the servants’ entrance.”
“—Don’t you think this door is a bit large for just a—”
Both of them winced as the garrison’s blinding light shot out of the doorway; Tru’eb was just starting to see again when he heard somebody yell, “Hey! Who’s out there?”
Tru’eb’s entire body tightened. There was a long silence as he focused on who was speaking: a man in a green Imperial uniform, like Platt’s. Beyond him, there were two rows of what looked like a patrol, maybe ten or twelve men, standing in a small docking bay. Beyond them were speeder bikes, neatly lined up and resting on maintenance cradles.
“Um… coming through,” Platt said, stepping inside and pushing past the soldier nearest to the door. Tru’eb followed, his head down. He knew that was completely pointless. There was no way they hadn’t been made already, and yet the troopers were shocked into indecision for a moment as Platt made her way past them with stunning audacity.
Finally one of them grabbed her by the arm and said. “I don’t think so.”
“Run!” Tru’eb shouted, charging ahead. The Imperials around him were still confused, but the ones by Platt were already drawing their blasters. Platt jerked free, right out of Radlin’s jacket, and stumbled forward. When she had gotten her bearings enough to run at a decent clip, she started kicking the speeder bikes off their perches.
Tru’eb followed suit. Blaster-fire spattered behind them, over their heads, into the speeder bikes. The soldiers who had gathered enough sense to run after Tru’eb and Platt came roaring blindly across the docking bay and tripped over the vehicles in their paths. This really is a pathetic operation. Tru’eb thought as he ducked behind a bike and fired a couple of shots.
Star Wars - Gathering Shadows - The Origin of the Black Curs - Unpublished Page 3