30: Fallout

DANTOOINE, FOURTH PLANET OF THE DANTOOINE SYSTEM

THE CITY OF QUESHIK

REBEL ALLIANCE BLACK SITE “NEW DAWN”

Four days after the “Bespin Incident,” as it was being called, Director Eeja of the Alliance Intelligence Network walked into a small, dark room, carrying a single datapad and accompanied only by a black and shimmering protocol droid. In this dark room, there were only two tables, one for Mon Mothma each of six other high-ranking Alliance members, and one for Eeja himself. Eeja unbuttoned his jacket, took a seat, and placed his datapad on the table. “Good evening, my friends. Good to see you all.”

“Good to see you, as well, Director,” Mon Mothma said. “I hope you have some good news for us.”

Eeja looked at the assembly. Four of them were kept in shadow, their identities not known to even him. But Eeja could guess they were probably politicians of some kind that were ostensibly loyal to the Empire, but secretly working for the Rebel Alliance.

“Mixed news, ma’am,” he said, pulling on his vision-enhancing goggles. “Some good, some bad, some…uncertain at the moment.” He smiled briefly and tapped the datapad and did a brief perusal of his notes before Mon Mothma began the proceedings.

“Let the record show that Director Eeja is alone to make his presentation,” she said. Of course, the “record” was just a turn of phrase—no records were ever kept of these proceedings, and never would be. Mon Mothma added, “I was hoping Commander Fera would accompany you today. I would much like to hear her personal insight on this matter.”

“Commander Fera is on assignment, I’m afraid,” Eeja said. “So it falls on me to give you the full rundown, as best I can.”

“It’s been only four days since Alliance fleets rendezvoused. Four days since the Bespin Incident. And you’ve already placed Commander Fera on another assignment, when it seems she and her team barely survived this one?”

“The Empire does not sleep, my lady. So neither can we, I’m afraid. That is the reason you put me in charge of AIN, if I’m not mistaken. I’m a taskmaster to my people, but a fair one.”

Mon Mothma nodded in her usual slow manner that said she was satisfied with that answer. Marginally satisfied. “Please speak freely, Director.”

“Thank you, ma’am. As you know, four days ago in the Anoat system there was an operation run by Commander Fera and her team, one that I authorized several days before when she set out for the Hoth system on a lead to secure and retrieve a member of the Imperial Intelligence Service’s special ops group known as the Kingdom, sometimes referred to by their original name, the Nest. We were able to secure this asset, known as Ageless Void, who in turn helped us to catch a bigger fish, that being Commander Hej Zumter of the IIS. As one of the chief architects of the Kingdom, Zumter was seen as the bigger prize, and Commander Fera and myself felt it was worth to risk to put Ageless into play, under our strict supervision,” he emphasized. “The operation was then conducted on Cloud City, and happened to coincide with the escape of three of our Rebel allies—those, of course, being Princess Leia, Commander Skywalker, and Chewbacca. Captain Solo was lost, but we are working to locate him and retrieve him.”

“But it was your call,” Mon Mothma clarified. “Your call to trust Ageless Void to bring in Zumter.”

Eeja nodded solemnly. “It was.”

“And now he has vanished. Gone into the vacuum. No sign of him. Is that right?”

Eeja sighed heavily. “Yes, that’s right, ma’am.”

“I see. And do you have any leads on his whereabouts at this time?”

“No, ma’am, we don’t.”

“I see.” Mon Mothma tapped a single finger on the table thoughtfully. Her calm, unblinking stare sometimes rattled Eeja, just as it had rattled many strong persons before him. But the woman was not prone to fits of rage—indeed, he had never met anyone that could claim to have heard her raise her voice. She spoke with reserve, almost sadness, but her tone was never obviously reproving, which made it impossible to know when one had displeased her. At last, Mon Mothma said, “Have you been able to glean any meaningful intel from Hej Zumter?”

“We are interrogating him twice daily, ma’am. Carefully. We have the best interrogators working on him. It is a slow process, he has been trained to resist such methods, but we are breaking him down. Already we have one or two leads we may be able to work with. One in particular has to do with an operation happening near Phaeda, and another happening in the Endor system. We have assets in play to learn more.”

Another single tap of her finger. Mon Mothma looked left and right at her colleagues. “This Council is glad of your commitment, Director Eeja,” she said softly. “Your knowledge and diligence have led our cause to many victories, and I shudder to think what would have happened if you had not been placed in charge of the AIN.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“But in the future,” she chided lightly, “it would be preferable to this Council if you would come to us before making decisions with such monumental stakes. Having Ageless Void in our hands was a great boon, and using one windfall in a sort of wager to try and increase to another, bigger windfall smacks of gambling. Are you a gambler, Director Eeja?”

“Not in sabacc, ma’am, no. But every day in the intelligence world we gamble with lives—our own, and our subordinates’. They risk a great deal by even thinking to join our ranks, and they suffer daily for their decision to work in the field.”

Mon Mothma made no sign of whether that heightened or mollified her fears. She asked, “And what of the agent…eh…” She checked her notes. “Mordenta. One of your Zero Souls. Tell me, is this asset returned yet to service?”

Eeja nodded. No one besides Eeja and Fera knew the gender or the species of Mordenta. As a Zero Soul, Namyr Abjura was as essential to the Rebellion’s success as the Kingdom had been to the Empire’s, and it was imperative her identity never be known to any besides the director himself and Commander Fera. Not even her name was written on any paper, or filed in any computer anywhere. “Mordenta has already been retasked, ma’am, yes.”

“In what pursuit?”

“To use what intel we are gathering from Zumter to track down other members of the Kingdom—which, we’ve recently learned, is soon to be shut down. The Empire is folding it up, starting over from scratch with a new agent program. Agents like Ageless Void and Horizon Lost are likely scattering to the wind. That is our prediction, at any rate. They will fear their identities have been compromised, and that the Rebel Alliance will seek retribution. Mordenta is actually looking for Abaca, the erstwhile director of the IIS. He’s on the run somewhere and the Empire seems to be looking for him, as well. Mordenta means to catch him first.”

“I see. Ghosts chasing ghosts.” She gave a faint smile.

“Yes, ma’am.” Just the way it’s always been, he thought.

“Very well. With that matter resolved, shall we get to other business? What have you for us today, Director?”

Eeja nodded and brought up a file on his datapad and sent it to all their datapads. “This is a new operation we’re presently evolving in the Cademimu sector,” he said. “Somewhere in all that space is a secret station, one we believe is hiding inside of a hollowed-out comet sailing through space. We believe the Empire may be developing a biological agent so deadly it needs to be cut off from all biomes. This intel comes to us from…” He continued on, already having forgotten about Mordenta, Ageless Void, Zumter, and Commander Fera.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

They all forgot about it.

That was the way of it. In the intelligence world, one received few public accolades, and rarely got any real appreciation even behind closed doors. Operations were necessarily secret, and so were their outcomes. No need to talk about them once they were done. Time to move on, having learned lessons from previous failures and successes, and applying those lessons to the future of the spy game.

Director Eeja was used to this. Had to be. The job he had was not the sort one took for the applause. One had to be dedicated to secrecy, to the clandestine nature of the work, and then move on, putting each failure and success away, like a book placed on the shelf, possibly dog-eared, possibly for reference later, but likely forever at the back of one’s mind.

He outlined a new operation for them all, and at the end, they all marked the “Bespin Incident” file down as CLOSED, with a tiny addendum that allowed it to be opened and referenced again, should Ageless Void ever pop back up on the grid.

* * *

CORUSCANT

SIXTY KILOMETERS EAST OF THE MANARAI MOUNTAINS

Changwa Hastra sat one-and-a-half kilometers below the Manarai Mountains, the only mountains left on all of Coruscant. After the Bespin Incident, she had received orders from AIN to relocate her operation to another area. All safehouses on Cloud City were blown, and all her local contacts had scattered like olooc flies in a hot Kashyyyk summer. So she sat in her new operational center, located in a former Jedi bunker left over from the Clone Wars, where the Republic’s leadership were meant to retreat to if the planet was ever invaded. Most of it had been raided by clonetroopers who blew up the place and caved in its corridors decades ago. Or, at least, most of the corridors.

Changwa was just getting her computers up and running when she already started receiving coded messages from Imperials, encrypted messages sent from Star Destroyers in orbit down to leadership in Imperial Center, and basic HoloNet conversations from Coruscant’s citizens. Her antenna array was situated in the forests on top of the Manarai Mountains, disguised with the latest camo-tech from AIN’s wizards.

This bunker had been found by luck when a number of Rebel spies had fled here at the very start of the Rebellion, and they had been sitting on this little secret for ages now, trying to think when best to exploit it. Changwa was just getting cozy and sipping a joffa when a new message sent up a red flag in her system.

Uh oh.

She started to panic, thinking they may have already been blown. But she was soon relieved when the message that came in appeared to be red-flagged only because it was using an old Imperial code. “Old” as in it hadn’t been used in at least a week. Dead encryptions were not an unusual thing, Imperials switched it up all the time, and for good reason.

So why isn’t this one changing it up? she thought. And why is it using an Imperial code that was already discovered on Hoth just a week ago…?

Yes, it was the exact same code the Imperial probe droid that Han Solo destroyed had used. So that made it easier to crack. Soon, Changwa had opened the file and was surprised it contained instructions.

Instructions on where to find someone named Horizon Lost. Apparently, he was tied up on Hoth, inside the remnants of Echo Base, just waiting for the Rebels to come pick him up.

* * *

THE ECUMENOPOLIS PLANET OF DENON

ONE MONTH LATER…

Besides a few base differences in architectural styles, the world-city planet of Denon looked almost identical to Coruscant, Kevv mused. He sat parked in his innocuous Y-S109 airspeeder, waiting for the signal from Mordenta. He wasn’t crazy about having been recruited by the Alliance Intelligence Network, but they seemed to think he was reliable enough in a speeder chase or a quick getaway from a planet, and that he had shown enough of an ability to adapt to clandestine work during that whole Bespin Incident, and they had more or less forced the transfer onto him.

The Alliance has plenty of good pilots, Commander Fera had said to him. But wars are won on intelligence. You could help bring us the intel we need so more pilots don’t have to die.

When put like that, it made it difficult to say no.

He sat in his seat eating a ration bar, and watching the air traffic flow all around him like Corellian ozzelfish finding their way in an invisible current. Kevv had docked his airspeeder on a platform a hundred stories up, looking over at the gothic-style building where Namyr had walked into an hour ago.

Checked his chronometer. Late. That made him antsy. He knew the protocol now. He had been given a crash course in what to do if an agent was blown, and he was preparing to switch on the airspeeder and leave when he saw her emerge from a side door. Kevv spotted her through his microbinoculars, and waited for her signal. She had a shopping bag in hand, and hung it over her right shoulder: the signal that she was in the black, she wasn’t being followed.

Kevv cued up the engines and lifted off, then waited to accept a route from Denon’s air-traffic controllers before swooping around to pick her up.

“How’d it go?” he said once she was inside. He was already gaining altitude and looking for a higher skylane. Number eighty-three looked open, so he took it. They soared over glimmering white buildings and wove through lanes of shuttles bringing supplies down from orbit.

“They’re definitely in there,” she said. Namyr was elegantly dressed, her legend that of a wealthy woman of Serenno nobility come to Denon looking for investors in a new startup company. “Imperials. It’s supposed to be a furniture import company, but it has all the markings that Zumter told us to look out for. Two armed guards by most doors, and their security company name has only been registered with the Denon government for a little over a year now. Too new for something this upscale.” She added, “There’s also a lot of radio interference, which probably means they’re using radio-saturation devices to block acoustic electronic surveillance.”

“So, it’s a shell company for them to push through slush funds for their intelligence operatives to use,” Kevv guessed. “Maybe to pay off street-level informants? Or even big-timers like the Hutts?”

“That,” Namyr shrugged, “or else it’s just a front company for IIS’s covert operations here on Denon. Either way, this is big. We need three teams sitting on this place, watching from those buildings there, there, and there,” she said, pointing to the three tallest office buildings that surrounded the furniture importers. “We can have some agents out here in a day or two, renting office space and setting up shop. It needs to be around-the-clock surveillance. We need picts and vids of anyone that comes in or out of that place. We’ll start a file and start building up a plan.”

“Want to contact Fera? Let her know?”

“We’ll wait till we’re away. This close to the building, we may still be in their surveillance bubble. Drop me off at a few more places to shop.”

Kevv smiled. “So, I’m supposed to look like your chauffer, and you’re the rich lady ordering me around?”

“That’s it. Now you’re getting it. Welcome to the world of clandestine work. Lots of boring stuff like this.”

“I’ll take this kind of boring over the Bespin Incident any day.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

The Duros snorted out a laugh. “You’re right. I’m anxious to get back out there.”

“You will. Someday. I have that feeling.” She sighed. “But for now, let’s do a little shopping.”

Namyr sounded relieved, but as they flew, Kevv glanced over at her and noticed a strange tension in her. Something had changed in her. He had not known her before meeting her on Hoth, and yet he knew the Human was somehow changed from the events that happened on Hoth and Bespin. Was it the meeting of Ageless Void? Was it realizing the Imperials all had faces, names, histories similar to her own? A Zabrak defending a racist, specist government like the Galactic Empire had to have been strange for her to witness. Not just a paid informant, but a committed agent, a vassal dedicated to defending the Empire’s dominion over all life in the galaxy.

But it was more than that, and Kevv felt it, too. There was always the question: Where did he go? What is Ageless doing right now?

They had been three divergent souls—a pilot, and two assassins from opposing sides—and yet in the week they had known each other it had bonded them in a strange way. Kevv was still working it out.

It was something they never talked about. First, because Kevv had been told that in the intelligence world you never gaze back too much, you never stew on the past, you never dwell on failures or successes. You learn from both, and you move on. But secondly, just talking about Ageless could get them both killed, especially now that they both had new legends, new identities, and were deep into enemy territory.

Loose lips sink ships, he thought.

And so, they didn’t talk about it. But they were both thinking about him. Always thinking about him.

* * *

That night, when she returned to the hotel room rented in her legend’s name, Namyr found a note on her door. Its efficient handwriting said it had been written by a droid, and it said there was a message for her down at the front desk. When she went to retrieve it, a Twi’lek clerk brought her a flimsiplast envelope, and inside it was a datachit.

Namyr walked out of the hotel and performed a surveillance-detection run for an hour before she was sure she was in the black, and then she stepped into a cantina called Olomonn’s Stop, where she knew the proprietor had a small room in the back you could pay extra for privacy. The guy was also a Rebel sympathizer and a slicer, and he loaned his untraceable computer in the back to local Rebel operatives.

After she plugged in the datachit to the terminal, Namyr took a moment to decrypt it, and then read the message quickly.

She smiled.

The commlink was in her hand before she exited Olomonn’s Stop, and it was linking her up to Commander Fera. “He’s on Navarro,” she said. “And he’s got something for us.”