Tales From the New Republic Read online

  provide electrical stimulation to the brain of a dead host. So this fellow may

  be biologically deceased, but there are artificial signals going out to his

  body."

  Platt turned around. "Get outta here."

  "Do you have a better explanation?"

  "Worms operating a complex bioelectrical system? You're making that up."

  "All right, so I'm just guessing. But you know," said Tru'eb, studying a

  worm perched on the tip of his index finger, "I have actually heard about a

  similar incident. Do you remember when I was working on Big Quince's ship?"

  Platt rolled her eyes. "You think I could ever forget?"

  "This was before I met you. I was not privy to a great deal of

  information, of course, but I recall a story that was going around. Apparently

  some Imperial friends of

  Big Quince's were quite traumatized after seeing a squadron of dead

  stormtroopers stagger across a battlefield. At the time I assumed that the

  storytellers were spiced. Now I wonder."

  Worms inside your armor. Platt felt her entire body start to pucker.

  "Supposedly," Tru'eb went on, "each corpse walked around aimlessly for a

  while, then went back to the place where it had been killed."

  "And this guy here was walking toward the Green Boys over there."

  "That does not necessarily mean he died there."

  "No, but something's definitely up with those guys," Platt said. "I mean,

  look at them. If it weren't for the fog, they'd have the best vantage point in

  the whole mountain range. You wanna tell me they're just sitting around

  guarding nothing?"

  Tru'eb held up his hands. "Furthest thing from my mind."

  Platt looked at the Sullustan again. For a moment she thought she was

  going to vomit again. But instead, she stopped herself and broke into a slow

  grin.

  "Hold on just a second," she said. "I have an idea."

  When Harkness opened his eyes this time, it was still dark, but his body

  felt almost weightless. Not dizzy and thick, not drugged; just light. It was

  because there was less pain in his body now.

  He didn't feel as though he could sit up yet, but at least the

  possibility of moving didn't fill him with trepidation anymore. And the

  humming sound lingered at the back of his head in a muted, almost pleasant

  way. He entertained the idea that it might be a fraction of a song Chessa used

  to sing; she had been on his mind for what seemed like hours now, although he

  couldn't remember her ever singing in front of him.

  "Hey," he said. His voice was stronger, clearer. "Hey, Sarge."

  "What?" said Jai, still across the room.

  "How you feeling?"

  "Better, I guess," she said.

  "Me too. I don't know why."

  "How long have we been here?"

  "Dunno. A few days. Maybe a week."

  "Maybe an hour."

  "Maybe."

  "Has this... uh... ever happened to you before?" she asked.

  "Getting captured? Yes," he said. The memory of it appeared out of

  nowhere and surprised him; nothing about his current ordeal had seemed

  familiar until now.

  "Oh," she said.

  He expected her to ask if that was how he had lost his eye, and then

  remembered that she still couldn't see his face. In all the time they had been

  there, their eyes still had not adjusted to the darkness.

  "Did they work you over that time?" she asked.

  "Yeah. Worse than this."

  "Can't imagine that."

  "Well, maybe not by much," he said. "Is that what you were thinking about

  over there? My prison record?"

  Suddenly he recalled something he had said earlier, regarding the gray

  boys in the interrogation room. Living their lifelong dream of making an

  Infiltrator scream. Maybe Jai had been done the same way as he had, and then

  again-

  "Jai?" he said tentatively. "Do you-still have both eyes?"

  "Huh?"

  "I mean... did they put your eyes out?"

  Jai laughed, a surprising, loud, sardonic cackle. It took her a couple of

  minutes to rein it in, and then she said, "Hey, Dirk-whicho can tell?"

  Harkness felt his lips twitch slightly.

  Then he heard more laughter, both of their voices, ringing off the walls,

  choking through the pain, and eventually dying down to a few stuttering gasps.

  When it was over, his ribs ached and his throat hurt, but he felt an

  unfamiliar satisfaction.

  "Why'd you ask me that, anyway?" asked Jai around a final chuckle.

  "Forget it. Long story."

  "Oh, well, you better not get started. I have to be somewhere in ten

  minutes."

  "Yeah, I have a date myself."

  It occurred to Harkness that he did have someplace to be, and people to

  be with. But where, and with whom? When the walls stopped ringing, the humming

  came back.

  "Is that what you've been thinking about?" asked Jai. "My eyes? If it

  makes you feel better, Harkness, I'm told they're stunning."

  "No," said Harkness, and he sobered. "I was actually thinking about

  Chessa."

  "Who's that?"

  "My girl." Harkness thought about her face the last time he had seen her.

  It was a nice, normal day, full of routines, loading the ship, the two of them

  flirting over the cargo load. But he had known, somewhere on the odd fringes

  of his mind, that she was about to die. He always knew when somebody was about

  to die. There was a softness to his or her features on those days. He would

  see it all through his stint in the Alliance, and he saw it for the first time

  in Chessa, standing there in the docking bay.

  "Do you think about her a lot?" Jai asked.

  "She's dead," said Harkness in his usual blunt, conversation-ending tone.

  Dirk, how's Chessa doing these days? She's dead. Oh. They always changed the

  subject after that.

  But not Jai. "I know," she said.

  "No, you didn't."

  "Yes, I did. It's the way you said her name."

  Harkness didn't know how to respond to that. Jai had spoken with such

  confidence, and he hated it when people thought they could dissect him. Like

  all those Alliance counselors he never wanted to go to.

  "How did I say her name?"

  "Like it was sacred."

  "So what? That's how you said your sister's name."

  "Yeah, but-was

  Jai broke off, so abruptly that Harkness thought she had disappeared alt.

  In her place Harkness imagined a deep black hole generating silence,

  threatening to suck him through, too. Harkness could actually hear it,

  ringing, clouding his ears.

  Then his mind cleared out and he realized what he had said. And what it

  had meant.

  "Sarge?" he said.

  "Yeah." Her voice took on a heavy, listless resignation that was very

  familiar to Harkness. He wished that she had the energy to crawl across the

  floor and smack him across the face. Or that he had the energy to do it for

  her.

  "When?" he asked.

  "Two months ago."

  Endor. No wonder the name had sounded familiar. Harkness remembered

  briefly meeting a tall, dark-haired officer named Morgan Raventhorn shortly

  before the battle. A kid, really. He imagined that girl lying on the floor

 
across from him, with a slightly older face.

  Jai remained quiet, but her breathing hadn't changed. She wasn't crying.

  He wondered whether she had cried over her sister at all, and if not, whether

  she would anytime soon. That idea puzzled him; up until that moment, he had

  guessed that Jai's mind worked much the way his did, and that their

  experiences were similar. But he had never been so numb he couldn't mourn.

  Harkness's usual course, as a practiced loner, was to give other loners a

  fairly wide berth. If they wanted to be left alone, he knew it, and he would

  honor it. But Jai was different. Certainly Harkness had lost his faith in the

  New Republic, had lost his faith in love, and sometimes had lost faith in

  himself and his purpose. But he couldn't imagine what you did when you lost

  your faith in everything all at once.

  "Chessa was killed by a bunch of stormtroopers," he told her. "All she

  was doing was loading crates, but they started a firelight with her. They knew

  she was a Rebel sympathizer."

  Jai was silent. Harkness went on, "I had been thinking about marriage at

  the time. I was an idiot, you know; I was young, I thought I could have

  everything."

  "I had a fiance myself," she said.

  "What was his name?"

  "Krul."

  She said it the way she had said Morgan's name.

  Harkness didn't think he should say anything else after that. He felt

  embarrassed at having told Jai so much about himself. Even after four years in

  the Alliance, among people he trusted without question, he had not told anyone

  about Chessa. To those who had known her, he never talked about what she meant

  to him.

  The silence seemed to fill up all around him like some invisible snow,

  and he thought about the absolute last time he had seen Chessa. Pasty,

  bleeding. Not even a person, really. Some dead people looked like they were

  sleeping; Chessa's expression was frozen, her eyes staring up at the docking

  bay ceiling, surprised and horrified. He shook that image away and pictured

  her alive and healthy. Then he pictured her lying in a dark cell with a bloody

  nose and nothing to live for.

  At that moment, Harkness came across a part of himself that he did not

  like to acknowledge, and his stomach tightened. It was the part that had

  already begun to dissolve the security of his prison, and his sense of

  unparalleled freedom. It was the entire reason the interrogation officers had

  seen fit to beat him. He had yet again discovered, to his dismay, the part of

  himself that wanted to survive. Whole. Undefeated.

  Harkness sighed heavily. Well, it was cozy while it lasted. He shut his

  eyes and took a few deep breaths, willing his body to heal itself, willing the

  pain to stop. It wasn't that he had any flair for manipulating the Force or

  anything like that; he just knew that the reason he had survived all the

  injuries and setbacks and impossible missions that had marked his military

  career was because he had willed it. And that was why he wasn't going to die

  in this cold, rank little cell. Just by wanting to heal, willing himself to

  live, he'd find some way to save himself from whatever the Imperials had

  planned for him.

  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 mere guy showed up looking for the

  Rebels." was 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 t. 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 Zeios 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 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 night's worth of-was

  Tru'eb stopped. "Just a moment," he said. "Do you hear that?"

  "No. What?"

  "Almost a rumbling noise."

  "I didn't-was 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 x. There were also outcroppings along

  the way, so heavily overgrown that the plants and trees hung precariously out

  over the valley; waterfalls poured out of the rock face in a number of places.