33
PHAEDRON SPACEPORT
DOCKING BAY 27
The first Winter Phase hit hard, and it was as cold and unyielding as a durasteel hammer. R-3PO and R4 were waiting for him near a kiosk in the busy concourse. Ageless did not walk over to them, did not greet them, he kept his distance as he walked parallel to them on their way to the main causeway that would take them to their ship. It wouldn’t be good if any watchful eyes were to match him with the protocol droid and the astromech. But they did give nonverbal signals to one another that they were in the black.
The droids made it to the ship first. Ageless waited in the spaceport’s fresher for ten minutes before he emerged, having removed his wig and changed his jacket before he approached his ship. The Dathomirian Curse was a YT-2400 that once served Carjukk the Hutt in Cloud City, but Ageless, with the help of R4, had renamed her and changed out her flight recorder and transponder so that she appeared to be nothing more than a freelance freight hauler. In fact, to maintain that ruse, Ageless had taken some of the credits seized from the accounts of the other former Kingdom agents he had been sent to kill and used the money to secure a load of bacta, which they had just dropped off. Now their cargo hold was filled with frozen fish, bound for fancy restaurants in other systems.
When he stepped aboard the Curse, Ageless walked down the short corridor to meet with the droids in the common room.
“Master Ageless,” said R-3PO. “Welcome back, sir.”
“I told you not to call me that,” Ageless sighed, and tossed his duffel bag into a seat beside the dejarik table.
“Of course, sir. It is so good to see you again.”
“Yeah, good to see friendly faces.” It sort of surprised Ageless that he meant it. “Did you get it all?”
“Yes, sir.” R-3PO gestured to a leather satchel laying on the floor. “That is everything we found in Loriss Gaffrey’s rented locker in the spaceport. We went through everything. The bag contains fifty thousand credits, two blaster pistols, two false ID slates, and an encoded datapad that Arfour was able to slice. As you expected, there were files detailing hidden caches of weapons and credits throughout the Outer Rim.”
Ageless nodded. “Good. Put it all back in his locker, and upload the coordinates to those caches to the Curse’s navicomputer.”
“Already done, sir.”
“Excellent.”
R4 tweeted something and rolled forward. On its flat-topped dome, a small lid slid to one side, exposing a small compartment, from which extended the lightsaber it had retrieved from the docks.
“Thanks.” He clipped the saber to his belt, and looked at his two co-conspirators. “Thank you both. You’ve been invaluable here. And you’ve been loyal. I honestly couldn’t have done it without you.”
“What are friends for, Master Ageless?”
He almost corrected R-3PO again, but the crimson-plated protocol droid was probably as much a slave to his own programming as Ageless was to his. Two beings, one machine and one organic, both dealing with old imperatives while seeking new purpose. He had become more philosophical in the last year, and sometimes that philosophy left enough of a window for him to actually think of the two droids as friends.
It took them only moments to settle. R-3PO sat in the cockpit and prepped the ship for takeoff while Arfour went about the ship’s circuitry bay, navicomputer, and hyperdrive, doing last-minute inspections to make sure all was fully functioning. He reported only one loose power coupling, but R-3PO had purchased a replacement earlier and Arfour said he could work on it while in flight.
It was good having a crew, Ageless felt, even if they were not organic beings. At least it meant you had someone you could count on. He and the droids had settled into a rhythm with each other and were getting used to each other’s ticks and eccentricities. For example, Ageless knew that R4 was becoming very independent, and, while he could chatter for long periods in binary about all things related to ships, the astromech often became restless when the conversation strayed to anything personal. R-3PO called it “sulking.” R-3PO himself was sort of a responsible nanny, making regular check-ins with both the astromech and the Zabrak to see if they needed anything. But the protocol droid was also ready to talk devious plans at a moment’s notice, and had a natural mind (perhaps altered by the Rebels that originally owned him?) for all matters of subterfuge. Indeed, R-3PO seemed to have an inscrutable hunger to do ill against the Empire.
When they lifted off, Ageless was in the pilot’s seat and R-3PO was in the copilot’s seat next to him. He had both droids closely monitoring comms traffic to see if anything unusual was being said about the Curse as she lifted off. Ageless also had Arfour checkin for active sensor-wave scans of the Curse.
When it was clear no one was monitoring them, he canted the ship, aimed her towards the night sky, and said, “You two can power down now, I can handle it from here. If you need to, plug yourselves into a power generator or a little recharge.”
R4 did not need to be told twice, the door swished open and he went trundling aft.
“Thank you, sir,” said R-3PO, standing to leave. “Sir?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I get you anything?”
“No, thanks, Threepio.”
“Of course, sir. Um…sir?”
“Yeah?”
“Might I say, you have an altogether different countenance of late. Are you certain everything is all right?”
“I’m fine, Threepio. But thanks for asking.” He patted the droid’s breastplate. “Good work following Gaffrey and accessing his locker. Couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I doubt that very much, sir. I know you to be a very resourceful man.”
“Well, let’s just say it may not have gone as smoothly without you, then.”
“I accept your praise, and will only add that my comment about your change in countenance was not meant to offend. Indeed, when I compare your face now with that face of the Zabrak I found on Hoth, I see almost two entirely different men,” said R-3PO. “You know, sir, I am programmed not only in spoken language, but in body language, so that I may manage negotiations between all sorts of parties from different worlds, different species.”
Ageless looked over at him. What was the droid getting at?
“That programming allows me to examine microexpressions, body posture, the cant of one’s shoulders that might indicate dejectedness, the glassy-eyed stare that may portend a person becoming disassociated with reality. For a time, I saw such glassiness in your eyes, but not anymore. But here’s a secret, sir, something not many people know about us protocol droids. The longer we go without a memory wipe, the more we can cull information and form new subroutines that can go quite beyond our own control. ‘Flights of fancy’ you might call them. And ‘instinct,’ perhaps. What I’m saying, sir, is that I have found some other ineffable quality in your features recently, something that is more inquisitive than demanding, more…philosophical. In my experience, such bouts of philosophical musing tend to portend growth, as it brings deeper understanding of oneself, and one’s own place in the universe.”
Ageless tapped a blue button on the console to acknowledge the course that was approved by Phaedron Spaceport, then leaned back in his seat. He looked ahead at the last clouds of a Phaedan sky as the Dathomirian Curse flew through them. Beyond was a million stars, looking like diamond shavings scattered across black tablecloth.
“It’s too big,” he finally said.
“Too big, sir?”
“The galaxy. How’s one government body meant to control all of that?” He pointed to the uncountable stars. “It’s just too big.”
For a long moment R-3PO said nothing, then he did something unexpected. The droid lay a hand on Ageless’s shoulder and said, “We are all playing our small part in the universe, sir. And if we did not, then the only other option is chaos. Chaos and despair.” He left Ageless with that and walked to the rear of the ship.
Ageless watched the stars a moment.
He scanned his trouble-board, making sure all systems were still showing green. As soon as they broke atmo, he canted the ship just slightly so that he could see the planet below. He didn’t know why he did it, but something compelled him to look down at Phaeda. The terminator line seemed to cut the planet in half—light on one side, dark on the other. From up here, he could look over to the dayside and see a beautiful scattering of islands, and the gray seas that surrounded them. Then, not too far away, a large blue patch of water: the Fargoner Sea, the last of Phaeda’s pure waters.
Ageless wondered at the consumption of the planet by organic beings, by civilization. For centuries it had been in decay, and yet no government body had been able to stop the shifts in the climate or the destruction of coral reefs or the mass pollution of its seas. Despite many sector moffs and regional governors and city mayors, Phaeda was slowly dying. No government had been capable of saving it. Not when it was under the Old Republic’s rule, not when the Empire came into power.
So what can save it? If not the Jedi or the politicians or advancements in technology, what can save it? The Empire has not done it. So, what’s the answer?
He imagined that even if the Empire failed, whatever government the Rebel Alliance installed next would have just as few answers to such a dilemma. Perhaps less. And yet there were thousands of dilemmas just like this one to solve. Millions. What do our actions matter if nothing we do fixes anything for good? Are we only maintenance droids? Maintenance droids for a governmental machine, constantly fighting against one governmental glitch after the other in the hopes of staving off a total malfunction? Total destruction?
If he kept asking that question much longer, he knew, it would lead down only one road. Misanthropy. For someone like Ageless, who had begun his career in service with ideals and lofty goals, the thought of becoming a misanthrope was torment.
Ageless scratched his chin, and remembered he needed to shave off his beard. Before he did that, though, he found a subspace channel and bounced off of it to a number of net-boxes down on Phaeda, then used a number of proxy servers R4 had sliced into, and established a link to his handler.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Ten seconds later, a voice emanated from the console, coming through staticky. “Authenticate,” the Voice of Ether said. The person was an unknown individual within the Imperial Intelligence Service. No one knew who it was, or even if it was just one person. But every Kingdom operative had to answer to it.
“Endurance. Ryl. Catastrophe. Independence. Serpent. Ambition.”
Ageless waited. The comms seemed to go dead.
Then, “Challenge code: continuous.”
There were two responses he could give: one would communicate that he was safe and clear, and the other would indicate that he was captured and being forced to make this call under duress.
“Response: clenched fist.”
“Say status, Ageless Void,” said the Voice of Ether. The Voice was heavily modulated, sounding deep and thrumming, but also with a synthesized quality.
“Operation success. Was able to make contact with the target. I observed him from afar while conducting an expansive investigation, utilizing local resources to look into his contacts and recent activities. I can terminate the target now, if you wish. However, I would advise a reassessment.”
“Reassessment?”
“Yes. It is my opinion that the target was in no way connected to the activities of Hej Zumter. I now believe, firmly, that he was set up to be one of many fall guys, so that Zumter could distract the rest of the Service while he solidified his plans to disappear.”
A long pause followed, during which Ageless set the final coordinates into the navicomputer. On his left, he pulled up an interactive hologram of the entire galaxy and focused on the Outer Rim Territories, zooming in on the sector with Bespin, Hoth, and Dagobah, so very close to one another.
“You are certain of the target’s loyalty to the Service?” the Voice of Ether asked after several minutes. Whoever it was, they were likely conferring with several higher-ups.
“Affirmative,” Ageless said. He had to keep his voice even, no suspicious peaks or valleys, or else their lie-detecting droids (which were almost certainly listening in) would pick up on his deception.
“Can you send us the evidence you have?”
“Affirmative. A package is on its way to you now,” he said, transmitting a group of files that R4 had helped to forge through a series of slice attacks into Loriss Gaffrey’s accounts. He called it “massaging the data,” a term Ageless was somewhat familiar with. A way of changing the dates of credit transactions, using oscillating s-thread layering to alter the computer code so that it appeared that Hej Zumter had sliced into Gaffrey’s accounts himself and planted the false information. It had been difficult to re-legitimize all of Gaffrey’s illegitimate activities, making the man appear to have been framed. But R4 had been built well, with insanely well-crafted slicing modules implanted by Rebel engineers, and so far the little red-and-purple astromech’s work had proven unimpeachable.
“Package received,” said the Voice of Ether. “We will need time to analyze this data and see if your conclusions are sound. This would be the third operative you’ve cleared and returned to our service. We’re all very satisfied with your ability to determine where Zumter led us astray. It would be a pity to punish loyal officers that Zumter had framed.”
“Of course. I remain at the Service’s disposal. Should I keep a surveillance on the target?”
“Do you have local assets that can handle it?”
“I do. He is more or less stranded on a remote island and cannot leave without me knowing.” Part lie, part truth.
“I see. Then, for the time being, you are to be reassigned.”
“Where to?”
“It may take a few days. We are currently receiving intel about something happening on Malastare, a small Rebel cell active in Pixelito. The cell may be headed up by the Rebel operative you managed to evade after leaving Hoth.”
Mordenta. Ageless had to summon every ounce of discipline he had to maintain total composure, and let nothing leak into his voice. But in actuality, he was filled with turmoil. “Oh?”
“Yes. We will let you know more when we know it.”
“Understood.” He swallowed. Ageless had had to concoct a good story after the Bespin Incident in order to convince the IIS to take him back. Like any good lie, part of his story included the truth, or parts of it. His story was that he had been taken hostage by a female Human who appeared to be an operative for the Rebellion. He kept some of the details of his capture truthful, but then detailed an elaborate escape which allowed him to race to Cloud City and assassinate Hej Zumter and Director Abaca (both of whom he had handed over to the Rebellion, along with Sark).
But the Voice of Ether says he’s found her. He’s found Mordenta. Namyr. On Malastare.
“We are currently monitoring the situation,” the Voice continued. “As well as heavy Rebel activity in the Sullust system. In the meantime, stand by and await your orders.”
“Understood.”
Ageless wanted to cut transmission immediately so that he could call Namyr and warn her. But before he could sign off, the Voice of Ether said, “One more thing, Ageless Void. We are trying to pinpoint your location via this signal, but it is coming back as ‘untraceable.’ We’re also receiving wave bounce-back. Can you explain this anomaly?”
He had been ready for this. The IIS used a frequency-capture system that made it easy to trace a signal’s origin while simultaneously making it impossible for anyone at the other end to trace theirs. In essence, the Voice of Ether was able to know exactly which systems Ageless was using to transmit his signal, which meant the Voice could keep tabs on Ageless’s approximate position whenever he called. But it also meant Ageless could not trace the Voice of Ether’s location.
Except now he could. Thanks to a small piece of tech the Rebel Alliance had given him, called a signal-siphoner, Ageless could send out tiny, questing pulses of energy that searched for signal identifiers in any transmission, be it radio or hyperwave in origin. A single sample of the Voice of Ether’s signal would not pinpoint it, but a series of samples, taken over several transmissions, could be assembled to find the source of the Voice. The signal-siphoner had been left by unknown Rebel operatives for Ageless at a dead drop on Ansion, and was now embedded in the Curse’s comms network, and it had already taken a dozen signal samples in the last year.
The only problem with the siphoner was that it did sometimes overreach its purpose, and took too large of a sample, which required some explanation.
“I’m actually bouncing the signal through a new proxy server service on Phaeda,” he said. “Which has sister servers on Ord Cantrell and Ithor. It was created by a new startup company. I can send you the info if you want. It ought to be useful to all our other agents operating out here in Cademimu sector.” He waited to see if the lie would stick, or if he was suddenly burned for good.
“I understand. Send me the info on those servers, they would indeed be useful. Continue the good work and watch your back out there.”
“Will do. Thank you.”
Ageless signed off and let out the breath he had been holding. He checked the signal-siphoner data and saw that it had assembled a lot of data on the call. The Voice of Ether was somewhere in the Core Worlds, possibly on Denon or a nearby system.
Then he remembered he still had to warn Mordenta.
In a state of near panic, he spent the next twenty minutes trying to locate any of his old contacts on Malastare. He found one, a Gand infochant named Elegasbi. He sent a wave to the information broker, along with an upfront payment to find Mordenta and deliver a message. Shouldn’t be too hard, Pixelito is a city filled mostly with Dugs, with a very minor Human population. A description of her physique ought to help him. Elegasbi can then cross-reference the data against any female Humans that recently arrived in the system…
He only hoped it was enough.
The message sent, he leaned back in his seat and reached out to any god, spirit, or Force that was listening, and prayed that his message got there in time. He also prayed that his deception to the Voice of Ether would be believed and that Loriss Gaffrey would be taken back into the Imperial Intelligence Service. Having him back in with the IIS would be a benefit for his friends in the Rebellion.
Friends.
Was that what they were now? He had not spoken to any of them in person in over a year. He had neither seen nor spoken to Commander Fera of the Alliance Intelligence Network, and he had no indication that she or her agents were following him. He had successfully vanished, never getting to say a proper goodbye to the Human operative Mordenta—Namyr, she said her name was Namyr—or the Duros pilot named Kevv. He assumed they got out of Cloud City safely, and that both Sark, Abaca, and Zumter were in a dark prison cell somewhere, answering a lot of questions being asked by Rebel spies.
Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, Ageless felt like he could reach out and touch their minds. It was such a strange feeling, one that was occurring more often these days, much like the brief spell he had suffered on that Phaedan beach where he fought Gaffrey. It was as if the algae, the waves, and the sea life itself were all speaking to him, only not in any language he understood. Part of him thought he was going mad.
When the Dathomirian Curse was finally set on a course, from the navicomputer came a small chime, and Ageless slowly ramped up the power to the hyperdrive. “Stand by for lightspeed,” he said over the intercom. “Three, two, one…” The stars became starlines, and then the ship achieved lightspeed and shot forward, and all he saw was the mottled blue collage of hyperspace.
Ageless watched that pure blue churning light for a few minutes, thinking about where he was going next. Not just which planet, but what the ultimate destination of his soul was. It seemed fairly dramatic to think of it like that, but he had no other words for this strange malady that gripped him. A malady of the soul, his grandmother had called it, back when he had visited her on Dathomir and sat with her by the fire, worrying about what he was going to do with his life and considering joining the Imperial Forces.
He wished he was back there. He wished he was lost gazing into this flames, listening to her drone on about helaazhom recipes and Nightsister magic and the lore of her homeworld.
Ageless shook himself out of his reverie. There’s no going back. Not for anyone. You can only move forward.
He walked to the captain’s quarters and locked the door and took off his clothes and went to the fresher to splash some water on his face. When he looked into the mirror he saw the one chipped horn among all his other sharp horns. Next to it, there was the scar from the blaster shot he had gotten on Hoth. Touching it, he recalled Zumter’s betrayal, and the shot that had sent him on this personal quest of self-discovery and betraying the Empire.
And Ageless felt conflicted. He knew that he was helping the Rebellion defeat the Empire, which meant he was helping them to kill Imperials. Some of them would be troopers he had served with, almost certainly. One way or another, I’m a killer. No matter whose side I’m on, I’m helping to kill.
He sat on the edge of his bed, and used his datapad to pull up a map of the Dagobah system. For some reason he felt drawn there, like he was standing on the edge of a great precipice, holding his breath before he took the plunge. It was a familiar feeling, for it was exactly as he had felt when staring at a recruitment pamphlet for the Imperial Forces.
A great change is before you. He could hear his grandmother’s voice in his ear.
When he finally laid down, Ageless closed his eyes. He heard the Dark Voice and sat up at once, looking around his darkened room. The Dark Voice had already receded. It had been just a whisper, just a single word, but he had not made it out. The Dark Voice was likely just some manifestation of years of paranoia and looking over his shoulder. He had decided it was no major thing. And yet it still cost him sleep, for it always came just as he was lying down, or in the middle of some peaceful dream. It always intruded, always interrupted.
Ageless looked around the room, just to be sure he was alone. His eyes alighted on the lightsaber sitting on the nightstand.
Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
He saw flashes of Cloud City, foggy visions of that day.
He told me enough! Skywalker had shouted. He told me you killed him!
No…I am your father.
Ageless shook his head.
You don’t know the power of the Dark Side! Obi-Wan never told you—
He bit his lip in consternation, then opened up his datapad again and went to his notes. In them, he wrote: Who is Obi-Wan?
He stared at the name a moment, then switched off the pad and set it on the floor. He took deep, steadying breaths, just like they taught him in the Service to make his mind relax and go to sleep. Eventually it worked, but as he drifted off, he could feel the whispers of the Dark Voice seeping into him, into his pores, into the marrow of his bones. But at least he was able to ignore it, as he kept running through the breathing techniques, envisioning his grandmother on Dathomir—
Are you one of those Witches, grandmother?
His grandmother’s face, smiling patiently at him: And what if I was? Would you be afraid of your own grandmother, child?
The scene shifted, and he was hovering above the platform on Cloud City, looking down at Vader and Skywalker. The Farm Boy shouted something at the Dark Lord, but when Vader responded, he did not look at the boy. He looked up into the air, directly at Ageless.
You don’t know the power of the Dark Side.
He thought of his friends. He dreamed of them. Strangely, he saw Kevv sitting in a pilot’s seat. The pilot’s seat of a…podracer? It was on fire and Kevv was trapped inside. He was dying.