Shield of Lies

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  “Because the moment is premature. Because he knew that the petition would not carry, even with his vote,” said Behn-kihl-nahm. “The outcome was foreordained, long before you were called in.”

  “How?”

  “By the outcome of the vote on who would chair the meeting. When Fey’lya saw that Praget would not get to run the session, he knew that this was not the day.”

  “Would it violate the secrecy of the proceedings to tell me who raised that issue?”

  A hint of a smile tugged tellingly at the corner of Behn-kihl-nahm’s mouth. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty.”

  Leia’s answering smile was broad and affectionate. “Whoever it was, Bennie, please thank him for me.”

  “I’m sure he would not think that necessary. I’m certain he would say he was acting for the good of the Republic.”

  “Thank him anyway,” Leia said. “So what happens now?”

  “You have a little time. But not so much as you would like, or probably as much as is required,” said the chairman. “When the air is saturated with fear, it needs only a seed around which it can begin to coalesce. The same is true of ambition. This is only the beginning of the challenges, Leia. And if nothing changes, the next time you may not survive.”

  Viceroy Nil Spaar’s newly expanded breedery on the top level of the palace quarters now had sixteen alcoves. All but one of them contained a birth-cask, supple and fertile, or a maturing nesting, bulging and fecund.

  The empty space had once been occupied by the mara-nas of Kei, who had been his first. Her birth-cask had brought forth two handsome nitakka and a strong marasi before succumbing to the gray death. He had left that alcove open to respect Kei’s place as darna of his family, and to give her some comfort against her envy of his younger mates.

  By design and custom, the breedery was a quiet, private place. But Nil Spaar had chosen to have his visitor brought to him there.

  “So you are Tal Fraan,” he said.

  “Yes, darama,” the young proctor said, kneeling in submission.

  “Rise,” Nil Spaar said. “I am told you are the architect of the rout of the vermin at Preza.”

  “I am honored by the darama’s notice,” Tal Fraan said, his glance jumping past the viceroy to the alcoves beyond. “But the opportunity for success was created by the darama, with the aid of our shipbuilders, who have given us such splendid weapons.”

  “Excessive modesty betrays calculation, and begs for excessive attention,” said Nil Spaar. “Remember that and be guided by it, if you hope to continue your speedy advance.”

  “I wish only to serve the darama in reclaiming the All for the Pure—” Tal Fraan began.

  Nil Spaar raised a warning finger. “You were not so eager to refuse credit when the primate of Glory advanced you to your new rank. Do you think that I surround myself with talentless flatterers? I have far more use for cleverness. You are clever, aren’t you, Proctor Tal Fraan?”

  “I try not to allow opportunities to escape me, Viceroy.”

  Showing an approving nod at being addressed directly, Nil Spaar turned and began to walk slowly along the line of alcoves. Both blood-scent and breeding-scent were bracingly strong in the air. “And how came you to the device which served so well against the vermin?”

  “The directive sent by the vermin spoke of prisoners,” said Tal Fraan, following a step or two behind. “That gave me cause to believe that their actions could be steered by seizing that concern.”

  “You risked much in surrendering the advantage over the blockade force in the hope of drawing out their reserves,” Nil Spaar said, stopping and running his fingers lightly over the surface of a nesting that was nearly at term. “This device, this matter of regard for the fate of prisoners—it would not have stopped Yevetha. If it had failed, your entire force could have been lost.”

  “The vermin are not strong about death,” Tal Fraan said. “I knew it would not fail.”

  “Ah! Then you feel you have pierced their habits so well that you would commit ten thousand lives to the proof?”

  “The primate committed them, Viceroy.”

  “An incautious answer, Tal Fraan,” said the viceroy, turning. “Would you commit your life on your confidence?”

  The young proctor twitched, then shook his head to lift his crests. “Yes, Viceroy.”

  “Good,” Nil Spaar said. “I can have no respect for one who will not gamble his own blood.”

  A breedery assistant had been discreetly keeping his distance throughout the meeting. Now Nil Spaar signaled to him, and he disappeared into the anteroom. He returned moments later, leading a nitakka prepared for the sacrifice.

  “Wait,” Nil Spaar said to Tal Fraan, and walked to where the nitakka stood on the grate above the drain pit.

  The young male met Nil Spaar’s eyes without fear. “I ask for your blood for my children,” the viceroy said softly.

  “The darama honors me,” said the nitakka, dropping to his knees. “I offer my blood as a gift.”

  “I accept your gift,” said Nil Spaar. His killing claws appeared and slashed air and flesh with silent precision. As the sacrifice collapsed to the grating, the viceroy turned away to rejoin his now pale visitor.

  “I have pierced your habits, Tal Fraan,” he said. “They are familiar to me. You look at what I have, and you see yourself. No, I have warned you already—do not deny it. I respect cleverness, and courage, and most of all success. I will keep you here, close by, to serve me. If you understand the opportunity, you can expect to profit from it.” Nil Spaar smiled. “And if you err, you can expect to serve my new children instead.”

  “Yes,” Lieutenant Davith Sconn said, and blew a puff of smoke from his hoat-stick. The brisk breeze blowing across the north yard of the Jagg Island Detention Center carried the acrid scent away. “I’ve been to N’zoth.”

  “I’ve read the deposition you gave to the Intelligence examiner a few months ago,” Leia said. “His evaluation says that in his judgment, you were just trying to earn favors by making something up—that you knew we didn’t have any way to confirm or refute what you said.”

  “Then there’s obviously a shortage of intelligence at Intelligence,” Sconn said, turning toward where she sat. His gaze flicked past her to The Sniffer and The Shooter. “You must be someone pretty important. I’ve never seen them let a weapon in here before. What if one of us dangerous war criminals got that firestick away from him and took you hostage?”

  Leia smiled sweetly. “I do think they’d enjoy it if someone tried. It’s been more than a year since the last time a fool gave my bodyguards a chance to use deadly force.”

  “There ain’t no justice in this galaxy,” Sconn said, and came to sit opposite her. “They get paid for the same thing I’m getting punished for. So who are you? You look a little like Princess Leia, only older.”

  She ignored his gibe. “Lieutenant Sconn—”

  “Davith,” he corrected. “I was forcibly retired from the Imperial Navy, you know.”

  “I’ve also reviewed your trial record, Davith Sconn,” Leia said evenly. “You were the executive officer of the Star Destroyer Forger when it suppressed a rebellion on Gra Ploven by creating steam clouds which boiled alive two hundred thousand Ploven in three coastal cities.”

  “On the orders of Grand Moff Dureya,” Sconn said. “For some reason, people are always leaving that part out. Don’t you Rebels believe in discipline? I still can’t figure out how you managed to defeat us.”

  Despite herself, she let him goad her into a reply. “Perhaps it has something to do with having the freedom to refuse immoral orders.”

  “Immoral? The little finbacks had refused to pay their defense assessments, making the Grand Moff rather cranky.” Sconn drew hard on his hoat-stick and held the smoke for long seconds. “But, then, that was late in the day for the Empire, and Grand Moff Dureya was cranky rather a lot of the time.”

  “Was it with Forger that you visited N’zoth?”


  “Oh, no. I was on Moff Weblin—second watch bridge commander of a Fleet tender,” he said, hooking one leg over the other. “Why should I talk to you about N’zoth?”

  “Why did you talk to the NRI?”

  “Because it didn’t matter,” Sconn said, shrugging. “Because it was a novelty. Because Agent Ralls was such a clueless young tad that I thought I might have fun shocking him with tales of my travels with Papa Vader.” He leaned forward in his chair. “You’re different. You matter. For some reason, you really care about what I know. And you’re not going to be any fun at all to shock. So I’m afraid you’ll have to show me a little more consideration than Ralls was able to.”

  “But you forget, Sconn—I already have the deposition,” Leia said. “You don’t have much left to sell.”

  “Oh, but you don’t know what I left out—”

  “Sconn, I ought to warn you that I’m already way over my quota of self-serving lies for the year,” Leia said, her gaze intent. “If you want consideration, you give me something first. I have some questions about N’zoth—about what you told Agent Ralls. Answer my questions honestly, to the best of your ability, without games, and then I’ll tell you how much what you’ve said is worth to me.”

  Sconn sat back in his chair. “I have no reason to trust you,” he said. “Or, when it comes to that, to help you.”

  It took all the self-control Leia had not to reach across the space separating them with her thoughts and slide in behind his smugness with the full power of the Force, looking for some fragile place to grab and twist until something snapped. Instead, she gathered the folds of her robe in her hands and stood.

  “Even in prison, Sconn, you always have choices,” she said. “If that’s yours, so be it.”

  She turned and started to go, fully expecting that he would let her.

  “Wait,” Sconn said quickly. “Look, can you find us someplace more private to talk? Somewhere away from here. We’re in the middle of the yard, for gaol’s sake. I can’t be seen cooperating with the keepers. Especially not with you.”

  “The war is over, you know.”

  “Not in here,” he said. “Never in here. Have them send me to isolation, as though I’m being punished for giving you a hard time. They can take me out from there without anyone knowing.”

  “You want us to take you off Jagg Island?” Leia asked, her eyebrow cocked skeptically. “Tell me, do I look particularly gullible today?”

  “That’s all I really want. That’s all I was going to ask for, anyway. Just a few hours out.”

  “So you can try that escape plan you’ve been working on, no doubt.”

  “Much as I hate to say it, your blue-hats don’t seem prone to losing track of us,” Sconn said. “Stang, they can take me out in a stun-box, if you want. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Any particular place you had in mind to go?”

  “Since you’re asking—” Sconn’s head twitched skyward. “How about three hundred klicks straight up, with a view that goes the rest of the way?”

  “Stop—please.”

  His wrists cross-bound against his chest, Davith Sconn stared out the cutter’s viewport at the sunrise racing toward them.

  “In twenty-four years in the navy, the longest I was ever dirtside was forty days’ forced leave on Trif one year,” he said, blinking away tears that came freely but silently. “I never found a good enough reason not to go right back out. Now I’ve been tied down on that rock for twelve years, and I’ve gotten a lot closer to crazy than I ever wanted to on account of it. You wouldn’t think you could, but I was starting to forget. I’d forgotten almost everything but the feeling—this feeling.”

  Sconn turned back to Leia. “Sit me where I can look out,” he said. “I’ll answer whatever questions I can.”

  With a broad sweep of her hand, Leia guided Admiral Ackbar to a chair in the President’s briefing room.

  “This is the part I thought you should see,” she said, and started the holoprojector.

  “Black Fifteen was used mostly for new construction and finish work, not as a repair depot. But it had a reputation for the tightest work in the whole sector. Any captain who had a choice put in there. We took Moff Weblin in there for a rebuild on a blown number four power cell.

  “That’s not an overnight in any yard, so the captain told me to look into shore leave. The station morale officer laid out the rules: enlisted restricted to the yard and the station, officers permitted but discouraged from going down to the planet.

  “I asked him what was up, since Black Fifteen had been there for three years at that point, and it didn’t usually take the troopers that long to bring the locals in line. He told me that one out of two Imperial personnel on the planet was a stormtrooper.

  “‘There’s been very little trouble for a few months now, but I don’t trust them,’ he said. ‘They’re crazy,’ he told me. ‘More blood than rain fell in the streets before we got here, and it will again when we leave.’”

  Leia heard her own voice asking, “What did he mean by that?”

  “That’s what I asked him. But it turned out he wasn’t trying to show off his metaphors. He meant it just like he said it. More blood than rain.”

  “There’s that much fighting among the Yevetha?”

  “No, they hardly fight at all with each other—not what we’d call fighting, anyway. I got in with a security captain who fancied himself a xenobiologist, a fellow who’d been down on the surface a lot. He told me about dominance killing, blood sacrifice, and some weird ideas he had about blood and Yevethan reproduction.”

  “Dominance killing?”

  “The way he told it, the only killing the Yevetha consider murder is when a lower-status male kills a higher-status male. The other way around, it’s expected. You offer your neck every time you approach someone higher up the ladder than you, and you’d better really mean it; they have every right to take what you’re offering and rip you open with those claws of theirs. And there’s something about doing it well that adds to your status.”

  “Claws?” Leia winced as she heard the surprise in her voice. “What are you talking about? Nil Spaar didn’t have any claws—”

  Sconn rubbed his wrists together. “Right here. One big curved claw above each hand, on the inside. This I saw with my own eyes—all the males have them. They retract down to a bump, come out backward—it looked backward to me, anyway—for slashing and grabbing on. That’s why none of the males wear long sleeves, I guess. It would just get in the way.”

  “Nil Spaar wore a long-sleeved tunic to our sessions,” Leia remembered. “And gloves.”

  “There you go,” said Sconn. “After I heard all this, I had to go down to the surface myself and see. There were Yevetha all over the yard, and no sign of any of this. The yard boss told the captain they were hard workers—especially since they’d figured out we weren’t leaving soon.”

  “So did you spend some time on N’zoth, then?”

  “About five days, all together, in three trips.” Sconn dropped his eyes and drew a deep breath. “I saw one male put his hands on another’s shoulders, drive those claws through, and lift that screaming devil right off the ground. I saw what they call the proctor—means kind of like mayor, I guess—of Giat Nor nearly take off the head of a nitakka who was a little slow to take the knee. There must have been fifty Yevetha who witnessed that one. Not one of them said a word, or even showed any surprise.”

  Sconn shook his head. “When the yard started losing Yevethan workers to this stuff, having to retrain new ones all the time, I guess the Imperial governor told the troopers to try to put a stop to it. But they never really managed to, unless it happened after Moff Weblin left. And I ended up the only one of my crew to go down. After he heard my report, the captain restricted the officers to the base.”

  “Make sure you don’t miss this part,” Leia said to Ackbar.

  “Is there anything else you can think of that might be useful?” she asked Sconn.

>   “Just the other thing that the morale officer warned me about my first day in,” Sconn said. “‘They’re crazy, but smart. Don’t show them anything you don’t want them to start building for themselves.’

  “You see, the quality ratings for Black Fifteen had nothing to do with the engineering staff or the foremen and everything to do with the Yevethan guildsmen. They’ve got the gift of understanding how a thing is put together practically on a first glance. Then they draw it from memory the next day, and by the third they’ve figured out everything that’s wrong about it and started making you a better one.”

  Oh, my stars, Leia thought, hearing it for the second time. The droids at the Imperial factory farm—

  “Did you see that for yourself, too?”

  Sconn nodded. “That number four power cell we were in for? It was replaced by one the Yevetha had rebuilt—and the replacement ran twenty percent over rated capacity at a hundred degrees below the redline, with absolutely no start-up surge. The chief engineer used to say that he expected it’d still be running when the rest of the ship was rust dust.”

  “Did the Yevethan conscripts work on every part of the ships in the yard?”

  “No, of course not,” Sconn said. “The Empire was very fond of secrets. Stang, there were systems on board the Moff Weblin that I wasn’t cleared to know the details of. Conscript workers were never let near anything on the secure list—that was true anywhere. And the yard boss at Black Fifteen was especially careful about not letting the Yevetha near the sensitive stuff—hyperdrives, turbolasers, shield generators, reactors.”

  Then Sconn smiled with wry amusement. “At least, you’d better hope he was. If you end up having to fight the Yevetha, and what they have looks anything like what we had—well, all I can say is I wish I was going to be there to see it. Nothing personal, mind you,” he added. “Just an old rooting interest I haven’t quite managed to shed.”

  “General A’baht.”

  The Dornean’s gaze was level. “Madame President.”