Tales From the New Republic

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Tales From the New Republic Page 16

by Peter Schweighofer


  "I understand," Karrde said quietly. "It is a crushing responsibility

  sometimes." He cocked an eyebrow. "Fortunately, like all good employers, I've

  come up with a possible solution. How would you like to go into business for

  yourself?"

  Mara frowned. "Are you throwing me out?"

  "Oh no," Karrde assured her. "Certainly not unless you yourself want to

  leave. I was talking about setting you up with a small trading company of your

  own for a while. A totally legitimate one, of course, which should help keep

  opportunists like Ja Bardrin off your back. You'd get a chance to relax away

  from the perennial intrigues and back-blading of the fringe, get some

  experience with small-business management, and possibly even gain a little

  more respect among the high-noses on Coruscant."

  "That last one's pretty low on my list," Mara said, glowering down at her

  lightsaber. "What do you get out of it?"

  Karrde waved a hand casually. "Oh, just the satisfaction of helping out a

  loyal and trusted colleague. And, of course, getting back a more experienced

  and relaxed lieutenant when you return to the organization."

  "And if I decide not to come back?"

  A muscle in Karrde's cheek twitched. "I would hate to lose you, Mara," he

  said quietly. "But I would also never try to hold on to you if you truly

  didn't want to stay. That's not how I do things."

  Mara fingered her lightsaber. Freedom. Real, genuine freedom... "I

  suppose I could try it for a while," she said at last. "Where would we pull

  the start-up money and resources from?"

  "From Sansia Bardrin, of course," Karrde said. "She still owes me, after

  all. And now that she has an effective veto over the family's business

  decisions, her father can hardly do anything to block it."

  Mara shook her head in disbelief. "I really would have expected her to do

  a lot more to him than just appropriate some of his stock," she said.

  "Certainly given the way she was looking at him when we left."

  "They're business people," Karrde pointed out. "That's what warfare looks

  like in those circles. And of course, you already have a ship. The Winning

  Gamble."

  Mara blinked. "I thought that was the organization's."

  "Sansia gave it to you, not the organization," Karrde reminded her. "And

  you're certainly not going to make a case that you didn't earn it."

  "No," Mara murmured, an odd feeling trickling through her. She'd never

  owned her own ship before. Never. Even when she was the Emperor's Hand, all

  the ships and equipment she used were Imperial issue and property. Her own

  ship...

  "Anyway, start thinking about what exactly you'll want and we can work

  out the details later," Karrde said, standing up. "I'll let you get back to

  your exercises now." He headed for the door-

  "Karrde?" Dankin's voice came over the exercise room intercom. "You

  there?"

  "Yes," Karrde called toward the speaker. "What is it?"

  "We've got an incoming transmission from Luke Sky walker," Dankin said.

  "He reports the New Republic raid on Praysh's fortress is over and all the

  slaves have been rescued unharmed. He wants to thank you for sending him the

  defense array data, and to discuss your fee for it."

  "Thank you," Karrde said. "Congratulate him, and tell him I'll be right

  there."

  The intercom clicked off. "You sent Luke the data?" Mara asked. It didn't

  seem like the sort of thing a Jedi Master would get personally involved in.

  "I thought he'd be able to move on it faster than if I tried going

  through the New Republic command structure," Karrde said. "Apparently, I was

  right."

  "It must be terrible to be right so often," Mara murmured.

  "It is a heavy burden," Karrde agreed with a smile. "One just has to

  learn to live with it. I'll see you later."

  He left. Wiping her face again, Mara tossed the towel aside and ignited

  her lightsaber. A new job-even if it was only temporary-and her own ship. Her

  very own ship.

  Though of course she would have to change its name. Winning Gamble

  sounded more like something Solo or Calrissian would use. No, she needed

  something more personal, something that would hearken back to what she'd gone

  through to earn it. The Jade's Whip, perhaps, or the Jade's Sting.

  No. She smiled. The Jade's Fire.

  Keying on the practice remote, feeling more relaxed than she had in

  weeks, she settled in! - bat stance and lifted her lightsaber. Yes, this was

  going to be interesting. Very interesting, indeed.

  Gathering Shadows

  by Kathy Burdette

  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, Hark ness 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

  aftereffect 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."

  "luoubtit."

  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 tor />
  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. Ra venthorn'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 Hark ness 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."

  "Harknesswhat?"

  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 mere. Really. I don't think that's what I am."

  "Try to remember. We're just experiencing the aftereffects of the mind-

  probe."

  This was just a guess on Harkness's 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."

  "Intel? were you with Red Team Five?"

  "I 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 meres who tipped us off about this place?"

  "No, but guess what?"

  "What?"

  "I think there might be an Imperial garrison here on Zeios."

  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-was

  "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," saidJai.

  "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's 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's

  head. "Would... what?" he asked.

  "I wish they would have turned my brain to jelly."

  Silence. Harkness's 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 spaceport, 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 spaceport personnel totally clouded over by fear or whatever, nobody saw

  Tru'eb and his friends take custo
dy 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 Zeios. 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."

 

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