"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 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. 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."
Tales From the New Republic Page 16