The Wrong Side of Right 10

The shuttle came down on the small landing pad with a rough bump. The officer at the helm did not have an easy touch with her. I sighed as I watched him shut the engine down and then add a landing lock code on the consol computer. It made me smile a little, Jyrki had taught me all about basic locking codes and the one the Imperials generally used were simple to undo.

I unbuckled myself from the seat and stood up, pushing the blaster that the pinch faced officer still held to my head away from my face with the back of my hand.

“Relax; I am not going any where.” I said coldly. I augmented this with a not so subtle force suggestion that he might want to put the gun away before it blew up in his face. It seemed to work and he holstered the weapon slowly, as if in a dream.

“How long do you intend to keep me here?” I asked calmly.

“Until my orders state other wise, little girl.” He spat. He wasn’t happy about being on guard duty.

“Well then, can I at least get something to drink?” I asked, ignoring his insult. “I’m not going anyplace and you have the gun.”

The man looked at his companion, who simply shrugged. “She’s just a girl what can she do, like she said, Sijac, you’re the one with the blaster.” He said and unbuckled the straps as he got up from the pilot’s seat. “I could use a drink myself.” He added glaring at me, “Babysitting is thirsty work.”

We left the cockpit and made for the small galley. On the way I feigned nausea and begged to open the main ramp for fresh air. I planted a subtle suggestion in both men’s minds that being covered in my vomit would not make the Emperor happy. Fifteen minutes later, a cup of tea in hand I sat on the bottom of the Sigiri’s ramp watching the sky above. The guard named Sijac was pacing restlessly on the ground in front of me. He did not like waiting and he was unhappy with this particular assignment. The other, whose name was Egann, was calmer, more stoic and like me had taken a seat to drink his tea.

I sat with my hands cupped around the mug staring out at the view. This moon was lush and green, beautiful in an untouched sort of way. It was completely different to my own home world but there was something oddly familiar, as though I had been here before. As I tried to understand why this was, I suddenly had to fight from choking on the mouthful of tea I had taken as I gasped in surprise. I had felt a tremor in the force, a very subtle shifting of power. It rippled about the galaxy the way wind plays with a gauzy curtain and felt for all the world like a cold caress on the back of my neck. I shivered and wished I could see what was happening above the moon on the space station. What ever it was it didn’t feel good.

The beta site was several kilometres away from the alpha post and was little more than a small secondary landing site with an automated monitoring station. We had landed on the further most landing pad, on top of a small hill which allowed me to look over the valley below. There wasn’t much to see, except forest and over in the distance the generator dish that kept the Battle station’s shield in place. I could hear scattered shots of blaster fire off in the distance. The fighting had begun. I sighed as I stood up. The sensation that I had been here before nagged at the edge of my mind and I couldn’t shake it but I could not place it either.

“There is supposed to be a big space battle, do you mind if I turn on the comm to hear the chatter?” I asked.

Neither men objected, nor, as I had hoped did they follow me into the shuttle. I was reasonably sure that Egann, the one who had piloted us down and put the lock code on the console had no idea of my pilot and slicer skills. He wasn’t worried about me trying to take off without them because he was certain I couldn’t. It made me smile when people underestimated me.

Once in the cockpit I dug out my satchel from under the pilot’s seat and slung it over my shoulder. I also took a few minutes to get a look at what kind of land lock I was dealing with. I smiled at the simplicity of it but left it in place. I didn’t want to give either of the two men a reason to distrust me or want to either lock me up in a cabin or secure me somehow. Undoing Egann’s work would take only a few minutes once I had dealt with the two of them. I turned on the comm to listen to the chatter, loud enough that the two officers could hear it from outside. There was surprisingly little being said. It was as if the entire fleet were holding its breath waiting for a signal, the Emperor’s signal. His plan was to give the rebels enough rope to hang themselves then pull the noose even tighter laughing as he did so.

I desperately wanted to reach Lord Vader but even calm and clear headed I could not break through his silence. He knew I was there, reaching out to him but he was busy, his mind was elsewhere. There was nothing else to do except wait. I just did not know what I was waiting for. After a few minutes I went back outside, with the wrap slung about my shoulders my satchel was hidden. Both men glanced at me, they were bored, if they noticed anything different about me they didn’t mark it as unusual.

I went back to sitting on the ramp.

“So, you hear anything?” Egann asked.

I shook my head. “The comm is quiet. I guess the Emperor ordered radio silence.” I replied.

“Gonna be a slaughter for the rebs!” Sijac snorted. “Good thing too!”

I simply nodded. Each death was like a pinprick on my soul, I was glad I wasn’t close enough to feel it or see it happen. Our heads turned when blaster fire sounded closer now. I could hear shouting and the sounds of AT STs and AT ATs tromping about the forest below. There were screams not all of them human. I shivered and pulled my wrap closer about my shoulders.

In my lessons with Master Kjestyll we had often discussed fighting and battle techniques. One of the questions that had been first and foremost on my mind was timing. How did one know when the time was right to strike? I had asked.

“Some people never know, they do not tend to live long.” He had replied, “But others, like you have an instinct. You listen to your inner voice and you simply know. It is a moment when everything aligns and you see the path before you clearly, you see the moment to act. It is then you either do or do not. In that singular point in time and space all is decided, life or death. You will know.” He had reassured, then added with a sly grin, “Or you will die. Either way, the choice is made and the outcome known. It is the waiting that drives men mad.”

I didn’t mind the waiting part as much as I probably should have. I had refilled my cup on the way out the shuttle and for all appearances seemed calm, content to sit and sip tea while all around us a battle waged. It was very surreal. I knew that Egann did not mind being here with me too much, but his companion, who was impatient and angry, itched to be in the thick of things and resented the task he had been given of watching over a stupid girl. I ignored him and spoke to Egann instead, engaging him in light conversation, asking about his life. Most people are only too happy to talk about themselves and he was no exception. In the half an hour that we sat there I learned he had a wife and two daughters. That he enjoyed his job and was content to make his way slowly through the ranks until he retired. He had trained as a TIE pilot but his eyesight was not perfect and so he had been placed elsewhere.

Through him and Sijac’s interruptions I learned enough to know who I needed to take out first now all I needed was the perfect moment in time. It came when the shield generator blew up, the explosion rocking the ground around us. None of us had been expecting this but I took advantage of it and slipped my lightsaber from my satchel. I would only get one chance so it had to be perfect. As the fighting in the distance drew closer, both of the men, sent to watch over me, forgot I was there and had turned their attentions to the forest.

“We should go down and see what’s going on!” Sijac said.

“And do what?” Egann had asked.

I got up quietly and walked to where they stood, at the edge of the landing pad trying to se the battle below. They didn’t notice me move, Master Kjestyll had trained me well. I struck Sijac first, hitting him hard at the base of the skull with the butt of my lightsaber. I heard bone crack and I wasn’t sure if I had actually killed him but I didn’t have time to see because Egann had turned around, whipped out his blaster and had it trained on me. What stopped him from simply shooting first and asking questions later I will never know, but in that split second hesitation he had lost. In the seconds between his hesitation and then action, I ignited the lightsaber and deflected the blaster bolt that came at me back to him without even thinking about it. It hit him squarely on the right shoulder and he went down in agony. It was almost too easy. I stood over him and put my foot on his chest.

“You have a family; do you think they want to see you dead?” I asked as I pointed the lightsaber’s tip near Egann’s throat. He gritted his teeth against the pain of the blaster burn and shook his head. He didn’t need to be told to toss away his gun.

“I’m leaving now.” I told Egann. “I expect that eventually someone will find you both or you can go and get help, but the rebels blew up the Death Star’s shield generator so some part of the plan to trap them has gone very wrong. If I were you I’d start thinking up a story, one that uses the word rebel rather than little girl.”

“Who are you?” Egann asked.

I just smiled. “Lord Vader’s personal assistant.”

He gave me a look of utter disbelief and grunted in pain. The blaster burn to his shoulder was bad but not life threatening. I reached over and, as my uncle had once shown me, put pressure on a certain spot on his neck.

“Wha…?” Egann began but his eyes rolled backwards into his head before he could ask his question and he lost consciousness. I reasoned it was better to have him unconcious than to leave him lying in pain and this way I didn’t have to worry about him trying to stop me while I undid his handy work.

I bent down to Sijac’s side and touched my fingers to his neck, there was a pulse. Some small part of me was grateful I had not killed but another part of me, the part that was still angry and wanted revenge, wasn’t. I didn’t need to kill, I just needed to get away.

I went inside the Sigiri, hitting the ramp switch to close and made my way to the cockpit. If Egann had thought his lock out would stop me he was wrong. In a matter of moments I had helm control and as the engines began to whine in warm up I strapped myself in. Though it only took a few minutes before I was lifting the shuttle off the landing pad, it felt like an eternity. I flew away from where the bulk of the fighting seemed to be taking place and set the ship’s shields to maximum. The last thing I wanted was to be blown out of the sky by stray fire, enemy or friendly. I set course for the Death Star.

Darth Vader had to be warned about the Emperor’s treachery and since I could not reach him through our usual, unconventional communication channels I would go the conventional route and show up in person.

As I began to clear the moon’s surface, sweeping low over the beta command post I could see the flashes of battle being fought on the ground below. I set my system and adjusted the instrument panel so that I could see the battle which h was being waged in the space above me as well. It was strangely contained. The rebellion had moved in close to where the fleet was stationed and the dog fighting was tight between x-wings and TIEs. I frowned when I realised that none of the command ships were firing at all but when a sudden burst of brilliant green light shot from the battle station I understood why. They did not need to fire their weapons; the Death Star would do that for them. I was still too far away to see any live details, but the blips of light that vanished on my screen as ships exploded caught my breath and made me queasy.

Despite her fast engines and all my extra tinkering, no prayers or wishing would make the Sigiri faster than she was, trying gain altitude and break from the clutches of the moon’s gravitational pull. She rattled and shook as she flew through the upper atmosphere and only when a sudden silence engulfed me did I know that I was flying free in space. When I saw the battle and how uneven it was, even from as far away as I was, I gasped. The Emperor’s plan was a bold one and I shivered involuntarily. He had not meant to simply beat the rebellion at their own game he meant to wipe them all out. I caught my breath and fought to stay calm. I needed to reach Lord Vader and warn him. I opened my self up to the force, feeling its strange warmth flow through me, around me and in its wake I felt Lord Vader’s presence, mingled with that of the Emperor’s and a third touch which I could only assume was Luke Skywalker’s. It was a strange thing to feel their presence and know that up on that terrible unfinished ball of destruction someone’s life hung in the balance. I mentally called to Lord Vader but either I was just too far away to be heard or he was deliberately blocking me.

All around I felt conflict and agony. As I drew closer I began to see the shape of things and I felt that shift in the force again, this time not so subtle. I also felt surprise ripple through me but the surprise was not my own. I didn’t understand it but I knew urgency when I felt it and cursed the fact that no matter how hard I pushed her, the Sigiri was not going to be any faster.

It has been said that a single misstep can change the fate of a man from fortuitous to disastrous and so it was in this instance. Even though I did not see what happened, I sensed it. A great wave of sorrow washed over me and something else, anger hatred and a sudden release of fear. There was an astonishing shift in power as though a great spring which had been pushed as tightly as it could go had suddenly snapped back shattering everything in its path as it did so. Something in the force broke. I clutched at my chest and gasped at the pain of it, an invisible shockwave spun out all around us with the battle station at its epicentre. Something had happened, something in the force had shattered, something that would change the face of the Empire forever. The terrible ever present power of the Emperor had suddenly vanished.

I had to force myself to take a deep breath, willing my nerves to be steady. Even at my ship's top speed I was too far away from the battle station to make any difference so when the Executor plunged into the battle station I was dumbfounded by the sight of it. Still heading toward the Death Star some part of my shocked brain registered what I was seeing and I changed course. At that very moment I felt a presence touch my mind.

Lord Vader. I whispered both out loud and in my head.

I had never felt him so strongly before and something had changed. There was no more anger.

Go! He said telepathically. Go now!

My Lord, it’s a trap… the Emperor…

Too late for warnings now, girl. His words echoed in my head, sounding strange almost calm.

My lord, I can help, I am coming!

I felt his smile even from such a distance, I felt it. I release you from my service, Merlyn Gabriel; now go before you also die here, go! His voice in my head was full of peace but before I could say anything back to him I felt him sever the tie that had bound us for over four years.

I felt his life force ebb and then vanish. In that moment I understood he was dead but I could not comprehend it. There was a terrible tearing of my soul, a physical pain that hurt as nothing else ever had. I know I screamed in denial but my voice was drowned as the comm channel exploded with frantic voices screaming that the battle station was about to explode. Rebels and Imperials alike scrambled to clear the immediate area and I was no exception.

I swung the shuttle around, heading away from the Death Star so that when it blew up I was mostly ready for it and half the calculations for a hyperspace jump had already been computed. The blast and the light from the explosion were beyond anything I had ever seen, but I didn’t feel that. What I felt was death, the Emperor’s, Lord Vader’s and a part of my soul. The Sigiri lurched and rocked violently, if I had not been strapped in, I would have been flung across the cockpit. My instrument panel went wild and alarms screamed at me. Years of training took over and I numbly went through the motions to fix the problems and sort out the damage the explosion’s shock wave had done to my ship. As fast as I could, I got out of the planet’s gravity well and hit the hyperspace jump switch. I had no idea where I was headed I only knew I had to leave.

Go! Lord Vader had said. It was the last order he would ever give me and because there was nothing else for me to do, I obeyed him one final time.