by Greg Rucka
“If you worked for me,” she said, “I’d have fired you already.”
“If I worked for you, lady, I’d have quit.” Solo crossed his arms, certain he had, for the moment, claimed the last word.
The princess remained motionless for a moment, using a glare that had once, he imagined, reduced her opponents in the now-dissolved Imperial Senate to tears. One of the rebel soldiers busy dismantling the control room edged past, her arms full of equipment, carefully avoiding eye contact. During the battle, the room had been cluttered with displays tracking the Death Star’s relentless approach to the Yavin moon, monitors broadcasting the pilot chatter as fighter after fighter had been lost, downed by anti-starship fire or the precision work of their TIE opponents. The base, as Solo understood it, had been set up in a temple to the gods of the long-forgotten and long-dead people of Yavin 4. The rebels had found it and made it the heart of their operations. Now it would again be what it was, a legacy to those lost and forgotten.
A battered service droid whined its way past carrying one of the monitors, and Leia took that as an excuse to break their staring contest, turning away in barely disguised disgust. She was angry and not afraid to show it, and Solo had to admit he took a certain pleasure in winding her up. Her buttons were so easy to press. She was, undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful women he had ever met, and coming from Han Solo that actually meant something, because he’d seen a lot of the galaxy and his share of beautiful women. That she was smart, brave—perhaps, given her position in the Rebellion, suicidally so—and gave as good as she got only made her more attractive to him. She was also as stubborn as a gundark, and he appreciated that, too. In fact, he kinda liked her, especially with all they had recently been through together with the kid and the old man.
But there was absolutely no way he was going to tell her that, especially when she was trying to guilt him into maybe dying for a cause he had no part in and wanted no part of.
One of the doors into the makeshift, and now diminishing, control room opened, and a trio of soldiers carted more equipment out as Chewbacca ducked his head to step inside. Solo caught his partner’s eye, and the Wookiee nodded slightly in greeting.
Princess Leia watched the Wookiee’s approach, tracking him to Solo’s side, then turned fully to face the smuggler again.
“People will die.” She said it simply, a statement of truth, looking at him with those brown eyes that seemed to see everything.
“I don’t know them,” Solo said.
For an instant—just an instant—he saw the disappointment on her face and felt something dangerously close to guilt.
“Let me ask you something,” Leia said to the Wookiee. She jerked a thumb in Solo’s direction. “Is there actually a heart beating in there, or just a safe where he keeps his credits?”
Chewbacca snorted, then looked to Solo, canting his head. He barked.
“Oh, no, no,” Solo said. “You haven’t heard what it is she wants us to do, Chewie. Go ahead, Your Shining Royalness, tell him about this little suicide mission you’ve got up your sleeve.”
“It’s not a suicide mission, not if you follow the plan.” Leia tapped the control on the main battle display, one of the only pieces of equipment still remaining and powered, and only because it would take the help of another half dozen droids to move it. The display illuminated, showing a map of the galaxy. She tapped the console again, this time working quickly, and together Solo and Chewbacca watched as the map zoomed down, rescaling itself over and over again, to center on a section of the Outer Rim. With a final press of a button the map froze, displaying a system of six planets.
“Cyrkon, in the Outer Rim, on the edge of Hutt Space,” Leia said, indicating the second planet from the system’s star. “Outside the Imperial sphere, so it gets a lot of traffic from people like you.”
Chewbacca snuffed.
“She means smugglers,” Solo said.
“No, I mean criminals,” Leia said.
Chewbacca raised an eyebrow.
“The problem with being a rebellion is that we don’t have resources,” Leia said, staring at the projection. “And what we do have is never enough. We have to stay on the move. We’re dealing with it now, with this evacuation—you see it all around you. The Empire has everything, all of the resources, all of the troops, all of the spies. For us to survive, we have to plan not just one move or three moves but five moves ahead. We have to have contingencies. Not just where we’re going next, but where we might be going if that location is compromised, if it falls through. We have to have options.”
“If you’re planning on hiding your rebellion on Cyrkon, it’s going to be a short one,” Solo said. “Too close to the Hutts—they’ll sell you out in a second.”
She looked from the map long enough to shoot Solo another withering glare. “Thank you, Captain, for that brilliant strategic insight.” She motioned to the map. “Cyrkon isn’t the location of the next rebel base.”
“You’re smarter than you act.”
She ignored him, tapping the controls again. The map shifted to the side, and a new image sprang into place. A holo of a human male, roughly twenty standard years old. Solo didn’t recognize him.
“This is Lieutenant Ematt, leader of the Shrikes.” Leia paused, staring at the holo. “The Shrikes are special recon for the Rebellion. It’s a small team, and their mission is very simple. They’re responsible for identifying, securing, and preparing new locations for the Rebellion. They compile the list. They pick the rendezvous points. They explore all the options.”
“That’s a lot of very sensitive information for one man to be carrying,” Solo said.
“Yes. It’s also one of the only ways for us to remain secure. The fewer people who know a secret, the fewer who can give it away.”
Chewie rumbled agreement.
“But he knows, Han, do you understand? Ematt knows not only where we’re going, but where we might be going. He knows the rendezvous points. He knows where we’ve hidden weapons, food, medicine. He knows all of it.”
Solo nodded. Something was turning sour in his stomach, as if he’d eaten a meal he maybe shouldn’t have. He had a bad feeling about this.
“The Shrikes were ambushed by the Imperial Security Bureau on Taanab,” the princess said. “Ematt escaped the ambush, but the rest of his team were killed. He managed to get a burst transmission to us, letting us know what happened, letting us know that he’s made it off-planet, on his way to Cyrkon. But the ISB is on his trail, he’s alone, and he’s exposed.”
Chewie huffed softly, under his voice. He and Solo both could see this coming.
“The Falcon is the only ship fast enough to reach Cyrkon in time.” She pressed the controls on the map once more and the images winked out. She turned to look at them—first Chewie, then Han. “If the ISB captures Ematt, they’ll get everything. They’ll torture him. They’ll drug him. They’ll get everything. It will be the end of the Rebellion.”
She wasn’t angry anymore. She wasn’t pleading, she wasn’t begging. She was just looking at them, at Solo and his friend and partner, waiting. She’d made her argument.
Solo preferred it when she was angry.
Chewbacca growled, a short string of barks that ended in a heavy rumble.
Solo looked at him in amazement. “Think this one through, Chewie.”
The Wookiee snuffed.
Solo shook his head. “You’re supposed to back me up, not side with her!”
The Wookiee snuffed again.
Solo couldn’t believe this. “She’s asking us to fly into a system on the edge of Hutt Space to rescue a guy who maybe is already dead, never mind that the ISB is after him! Never mind that Cyrkon is teeming with the worst scum this galaxy has to offer. Never mind that Jabba’s got bounty hunters taking numbers to come after us, if he hasn’t sent them already—”
Chewbacca grunted and barked.
“I know it’s the Outer Rim! I know it’s on the way, but even if we succeed we�
��ll have to take him to the rendezvous point, or else it’s not much of a rescue! This isn’t our fight, pal!”
This time the Wookiee remained silent, just looking at Solo with those blue eyes.
Leia was looking at him, too.
Solo sighed. Some fights, he thought, you just can’t win.
“We’re going to need the pass phrase, whatever it is, so Ematt will recognize us,” Solo said. He tried not to sound petulant.
Leia smiled as if she’d known all along he’d say yes. Solo scowled.
“And I expect to be paid for this,” he added.
COMMANDER ALECIA BECK was, as far as she was concerned, a very good officer for the Imperial Security Bureau. She didn’t have a choice. Never mind that she was a woman—and there were very few of those holding high ranks in the Empire—hers was a job that did not tolerate failure. For the Empire to work, loyalty had to be ensured. For the Empire to thrive, everyone had to do their part. For the Empire to endure, its enemies had to be hunted down and destroyed.
Relentlessly.
She was glad to do this. She took pride in doing this, the same way she took pride in the perfect condition of her jet-black uniform and the gleam of the rank insignia on her left breast. She even took pride in the scar that ran in an almost straight line from just below her hairline—blond hair in a perfect regulation cut, of course—and down her left cheek. The same way she took pride in the artificial eye that had replaced her ruined left one. It was proof of her loyalty, and her commitment, and she knew the agents and stormtroopers who served under her command told the story to every new recruit who came aboard. How Commander Beck, during her first tour with the ISB, had caught her training officer selling secrets for credits. How she had confronted him, he a full captain and she only a lieutenant, in the maintenance bay aboard the Vehement. How he had tried to kill her with a laser cutter from the nearby workbench.
How they had fought. How she had won.
She’d received a promotion and a commendation for that.
So, yes, she was proud.
“Search the bodies,” Beck ordered.
The stormtrooper sergeant at her side, designation TX-828, came to rigid attention. “Yes, ma’am.”
She watched him peel off, directing the eight members of the troop as she had ordered. They moved briskly, efficiently, precisely as they had been trained. She turned her attention to the body at her feet, a female Rodian lying in a pool of her own green blood. Beck shifted the vision in her cybernetic eye and let it scroll through different spectrums, infrared showing heat leaving the corpse. The woman was dressed as a commoner: low-class, filthy clothes. Beck pushed the body with her foot, rolling the woman onto her back. One of her arms flopped to the side. Suction-tipped fingers released the long-barreled sporting blaster the Rodian had held as she died.
Beck flicked her vision to ultraviolet, her eye making a soft, audible click, then lowered herself to one knee and took hold of the woman’s wrist. She made a face as she did this. She didn’t like most aliens, but this Rodian, in particular, made her angry even in death. She yanked back the woman’s cuff, exposing her forearm. There, visible in the UV spectrum, was the marking Beck hoped she would find—the spread wings of a bird of prey—a shrike. She released her hold and returned to her feet, frowning to herself.
She had been correct, then.
She looked at the ship the rebels had been trying to escape in, a small, ugly transport that looked barely capable of reaching hyperspace, let alone staying there.
“Sergeant, with me,” Beck said.
“Ma’am.”
They made their way aboard.
Part of the pleasure Beck took in her job was that it let her be smart. There were parts of the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy where being smart was a liability. Seeing too much, hearing too much, or asking the wrong questions could get you into a lot of trouble. In the ISB the rules were much the same, in truth, but with a difference: you could be smart, if you were smart at your job. Beck, who as a child had wanted to be a detective, found this part of the work especially enjoyable. Rooting out traitors to the Empire was just solving another kind of mystery.
She forced herself to go slowly through the transport, moving from the cockpit to the cargo hold, checking each of the small berths as she went, even though she knew time was of the essence. Whatever had happened in the Yavin system she didn’t know, but the rumors were flying, and that morning’s communiqué from Coruscant had been very clear to all ISB commands.
BY ORDER OF THE EMPEROR
To: All Imperial Security Bureau Senior Commanders
PRIORITY ONE
The Emperor commands that all known and suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers affiliated with the self-named Rebel Alliance be immediately arrested and detained for interrogation on the charge of treason.
This directive supersedes any ongoing operations.
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
This meant, whatever had happened in the Yavin system, it had been bad for the Empire. It also meant that Beck’s very careful tracking of this particular rebel cell was at an end. She had hoped to keep them under surveillance until they could lead her back to even bigger fish, perhaps even the Rebellion’s high command itself, but the directive had been unequivocal: she was to move on them, and to move on them now.
Beck thought once more of the Rodian woman, dead in the bay outside of the ship, and felt herself growing angry again. When Beck and her squad had arrived in the hangar bay here on Taanab they’d found the transport in preflight preparations, four of the crew of rebels disconnecting the fuel lines and loading equipment. She hadn’t gotten as far as shouting, “Stop, you’re all under arrest!” before the shooting had started. If the rebels had had an ounce of sense, they would’ve surrendered, but no, they had to fight, and despite the stormtroopers’ setting their E-11 blaster rifles to stun, not one rebel had been taken alive.
It had been a furious, if brief, firefight—over in less than ten seconds—with not one of Beck’s men wounded and the four rebels laid out on the ground, stunned. Beck had ordered the sergeant to put the binders to them when, from the roof of the transport, she’d spotted motion and drawn her blaster. There had been the Rodian atop the ship. Before Beck or any of the stormtroopers could react, the alien had opened fire. But she hadn’t shot at them.
She had shot each of Beck’s prisoners.
One after the other, the Rodian had put a blaster bolt into men and women who must’ve been her friends, her comrades-in-arms. Before the stormtroopers could bring their rifles up, it was already over. In an instant, Beck had gone from four prisoners to no prisoners.
“Stop!” Beck had shouted.
The Rodian had looked at Beck with those enormous eyes, then put her blaster to her own temple.
Beck could do nothing but watch her fall.
She should have had five prisoners for interrogation. Instead she had none.
Whatever they knew, the Rodian had been willing both to kill and die to protect it. Beck was certain it was important. So she took her time walking through the transport, taking in the details, and when she’d done it once, she did it a second time. The bodies had been removed from the bay by the time she exited the ship, and the sergeant immediately came to attention at her side.
“There’s one missing,” Beck said.
“All the rebels are accounted for, ma’am.”
Beck didn’t bother to correct him. She knew what she knew. The transport was an EE-730, made by Kuat, equipped to berth six passengers and crew total. All six beds had shown signs of occupants. Five bodies had been taken away. One, therefore, was missing.
“Land ten more squads from Vehement immediately. I want a sweep of all the landing bays, all the local cantinas, the normal drill. No ships are to take off or land until I give the word.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And send a scanning crew aboard with a data retrieval team immediately. I want everything from the computers, especia
lly from the navicomputer, as well as the hyperspace logs. Have them sent to my office aboard Vehement.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She headed out of the bay but stopped before she’d taken two steps, her eyes falling to the pool of drying blood, what remained to mark the Rodian’s death. Some people, Beck thought, would’ve thought the Rodian brave. Some people might even have used words like self-sacrifice and noble to describe what the alien had done. Beck thought those people were idiots, perhaps even traitors. She smeared the toe of her boot in the blood, feeling that anger again.
“Fool,” she said.
“We are not a blockade ship,” Captain Hove said. “We are not equipped to interdict flights to and from Taanab.”
“Find a way,” Beck said.
“I take this to mean the operation was not as successful as you might’ve hoped?”
“There was an unexpected complication.” Beck moved past him, into her office aboard the Vehement, and settled behind her desk. At her back, the wide porthole showed a view of Taanab turning beneath them, framed by a limitless field of stars stretching out toward infinity beyond. She turned her seat to admire the view, but further to avoid Hove’s gaze. While the Star Destroyer Vehement was technically his command, falling under the umbrella of the Imperial Navy, there was no doubt as to which of them was truly in charge. For that reason, among others—chief of them being Hove’s terror at doing anything Beck might feel the need to report to the ISB high command as suspicious or even treasonous—he did not like her, and their relationship was defined by a cordial, and cool, formality.
“Admiral Ozzel has issued a communiqué to the fleet ordering us to battle readiness,” Hove said. “If you have information that you aren’t sharing with me, I’d ask, for the good of this vessel, that you reconsider.”
Beck arched an eyebrow. Outside, a two-ship element of TIE fighters swooped past, flying sentry in perfect parallel formation.