Canon divergence: In the GWE timeline, the A-77 station came directly after the Gauntlet mission.
Somehow this got to 7000 words
*
Three hundred Republic POWs at Asteroid-77. Assisting with the escape team was none other than Ava Jaxo. Major Fadreleth tossed her a playful salute for the briefing.
Then they parted, and Fade raced to the control center, where a Mon Calamari technician seemed eager to cooperate with anybody who wouldn’t hurt him.
The first shock nearly knocked Fade off her feet.
The holo spat to life, and Fade got a face to put to the Imperial, General Rakton. It was a trap. Imperial warships were bombarding the whole place, Havoc included.
Fade kicked at the holotransmitter after he vanished. “This place has shields, right?”
The Mon Calamari was busy at the console. “Yes. They’re taking damage. I can shore them up, I just have to vent the systems level.”
Fade had kept an open line to Jaxo. Now Jaxo spoke up. “Who is this idiot? I’m on the systems level!”
No go, then. Fade said, “Can we get survival gear to her?”
The Mon Calamari wrung his fishy hands. “Not in time.”
Jaxo came back, faster. “You have to get me out of here, Major. I can’t die here.”
The Mon Cal wouldn’t shut up. “We have less than half a minute before collapse.”
The line was getting staticky, but Jaxo’s voice couldn’t be mistaken. “Fade! You said we were like sisters! You said you’d do anything for me! I don’t care how drunk you were, you meant it! I just need—” her voice broke— “time!”
Fade made up her mind. “They’ll just have to risk it for another sixty seconds. Forex, go bring her home.”
“Gladly, sir!” The platform creaked as the war droid galloped away.
Forex got her to a transport. A few dozen Republic prisoners got there with her, and they leaped to safety under Jaxo’s competent management while Forex raced to rejoin the squad. Fade just got her squad out of there. Behind them, the bombardment raged raggedly, and the moans of the battered prison rose to shrieks of distressed metal. The other prisoners, trapped in cells without outer shielding, were as dead as they’d always been in Imperial custody.
Fade’s teeth were still rattling as she directed the ship to Coruscant.
*
In hyperspace she drafted her report, ready to deliver it the moment she got in system. She felt shaky, but good, too. Rakton would have slaughtered every person on that station if she hadn’t intervened.
Nobody was in the common area when she looked. She checked the armory. Jorgan sat in the cramped space, counting components and wiping them off one by one.
“Hey,” she said.
“Sir.” He didn’t look at her.
“Am I still feeling?” She said it lightly, flirtatiously. The crisis was past. They were okay.
Jorgan seemed to drag his gaze up to meet hers, like it was almost too heavy to lift. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
That could be good. Right? “Always.”
“I'll tell you what I don’t see you feeling: concern. I know you had to make a hard call on zero notice, but I don’t see that in you. Hundreds of people just died as a direct result of your commands. And you're acting like you didn't even need to think before those commands came out.”
“I didn't leave one of ours behind,” she clarified.
“They were all ours!”
It was a slap in the face. “Aren't you happy Ava lived?”
“What do you think is going to happen when she learns about the price?”
She would be happy that her friend had looked out for her. “I had limited time and imperfect information. I saved a good soldier. And I'll accept the consequences. What I won't do is keep a numerical score, like Ava's life is worth n but not n plus one.”
“It wasn't plus one. It wasn’t even plus fifty.”
“Jorgan, I’d do the same for you.”
His hand slipped. The metal casing skidded and clattered into the nearest locker, a sound like distant firing. His yellow eyes sought her again, and his gaze hit like a punch. “Don’t.”
The flirting was over. Strained and hurt, she went to her quarters and tried to rest.
*
The reports went out as the ship left hyperspace. MPs were waiting for the Havoc Go Fast on Coruscant. Dorne wasn’t there; Fade would have to visit her in the hospital later.
“Major.” One of them saluted. “We are under orders to take you to Trask Base.”
Fade swallowed. “Didn’t waste any time, did you?”
“Please, sir. This way.”
“I’m coming with you,” Jorgan said sharply. He hadn’t made eye contact with her since their conversation, but he was showing up now.
“This I have to see,” said Tanno Vik. “I mean, I’m with him.”
“Yuun will help prevent one path,” Yuun said quietly. “If Yuun can.”
“I must conjecture that Major Fade’s reward for stymying General Rakton’s dastardly trap has been prepared at Trask Base,” Forex said, not exactly pleasantly. “I will of course provide an honor guard.”
“None of that’s necessary,” said the taller MP, a woman in a brown cloth uniform that seemed like soft tissue relative to Havoc’s carapaces. It was the uniform General Garza wore for her business on Coruscant. Business like telling Havoc where to go and what to do. “Major, please.”
Fade walked with them, head held high. “Have we heard from Sergeant Jaxo? I want to be put in contact with Sergeant Jaxo.”
“Major. General Garza’s orders.”
Fade stiffened. “She should have the latest. Lead on.”
The party had the feeling of a funeral cortege. They walked through the spaceport, drawing stares. Drawing whispers—some people knew Havoc’s badge. But no one interfered. No one stopped anyone.
And outside the spaceport, General Garza waited, outlined sharply against the blur of traffic.
“Major,” she said, and acknowledged the snap of salutes with a perfunctory one of her own. “You won’t be needing the honor guard.”
Three people and a droid started talking at once.
“Sir,” said Jorgan, louder than the others. “She’s been through a lot.”
Garza raised a hand. “I have your report. You’re all dismissed.”
Fade felt Vik’s abortive inhalation and thought, Don’t. Don’t make it harder for yourself. Although, it meant something that he breathed.
The MPs, and Garza, and Fade left the assembly. They took a shuttle down sector to the hulking superstructure of Trask Base, Coruscant. They walked in silence down one long edge into a long cool tunnel lit by merciless orange overhead lights.
Garza walked past a low thick barred door and stopped. The MPs opened that door and showed Fade into the room.
A cell. A cell, with a bunk and a closet refresher.
“Dismissed,” Garza said quietly. “Your sidearm, Major.”
Fade handed it over. There went most of her power. Not that she would ever use it against the Republic. Not even for this.
Garza did not close the door between them.
“There’s been a lot of chatter,” Garza said, “and relatively little of it from the people who were there. I have, however, assembled a reasonably comprehensive report. Major. Do you recall your orders on the A-77 op?”
“Reach the A-77 prison facility and evacuate all Republic personnel.”
“Did your mission succeed?”
Simple questions. Normal questions. “No, sir. General Rakton sent Imperial forces in an ambush. I saved thirty-one, I think. Forex will have the exact count.”
“What happened to the others?”
“It was a trap, sir. Imperial vessels closed in and started bombarding both Havoc’s vessel and the evacuation vessels.”
“There were shields on the prison, correct?”
“Yes, sir. But they were knocked out early.”
Simple questions. Questions like knives. “They could have been reinforced.”
“By venting a level where one of our people was working. I couldn’t let that happen, sir.”
“One of our people? Versus two hundred seventy exposed by the downed shield? When your orders were on those two hundred seventy?”
“I saved every soldier I could with the resources available. I believed there would be an opportunity without sacrificing Sergeant Jaxo.”
“You had a responsibility to the Republic military and your commanders. You knew exactly what you were doing when you disobeyed those orders in favor of evacuating Sergeant Jaxo.”
Fade didn’t bother repeating that she had saved Jaxo. Garza was impossible to move once she’d bitten down. And if Garza was in a biting mood…“What does that mean now, sir? Dishonorable discharge?”
“I’d be within my rights, Fade. You disobeyed orders and got nearly three hundred Republic servicepeople killed. For a drinking buddy.”
“Is she okay? Stars. Tare. Is Tare okay?” The entire point was to save her for him.
“You’ll receive any appropriate correspondence after it’s been through the censors. Just like any other prisoner. And while Lieutenant Tareleth will likely have a lot to say, I doubt Jaxo will. She is receiving all possible psychological support. What happened wasn’t her decision.”
This was wrong. It was wrong. “She begged me, sir. You must’ve heard the recording. She begged for her life and I saved it. I never gave up on our people.”
“And if I weren’t sending out two hundred seventy black-bordered transmissions I might consider your action noble. I’m not here to be swayed by your side of the story, Major. You willfully failed to evacuate the A-77 station. Under considerable pressure; no one is debating that. The pressure is officially off. Your mission is hereby suspended. I will transfer command of Havoc Squad to an officer of my choosing. You are in prison pending my determination of dereliction of duty.”
Fade felt it like a slap in the face. She had balanced her duty and saved thirty-one people. “I didn’t know Rakton would have a trap set on that prison, sir.”
“That will be noted in your file.”
“File?” Files were cold. Files sat in cabinets and got forgotten. Garza was turning to go. “Court-martial, sir?”
Garza’s eyes were as cold in person as on holo. “You just got yours.”
*
Time without the HoloNet didn’t feel like time at all. It was grainy and dull. Fade got a meal from a silent MP, and ate it slowly, pretending as she had when she was a child that she was drawing every last nutrient out of the indifferent mush.
When she was a child. With Tare. There was no way she could have faced Tare with “I personally and specifically ordered your lover’s death.”
She lay down and thought about Sergeant Jaxo’s voice. What kind of person would she be if she’d just thrown Jaxo to the void of space the first time things got dicey? A second solution might have presented itself. Fade had willed a second solution to appear, with all the power at her disposal…and gotten nothing.
She might not even be a soldier, this time tomorrow. Or whenever General Garza made her decision.
Sleep, and meals. Several passed. Garza might have been serious about that conversation being her only trial.
She surged out of an uneasy sleep when an unusually hurried step rang down the long hallway. Fade came to her feet, anxious to see what would relieve the boredom. The boredom and the thinking. The thinking about how right she’d been.
Tare walked into the hallway. He was wearing civilian clothes and looking deeply anxious.
“Tare!” she said, running to grab the bars. “They let you in?”
“No.” He touched a card to her cell door and it opened. He stood in the doorway, upright, crisp, terribly still.
Fade rushed to him. Not to escape, just to stand and clasp his forearms. “I saved her. I saved her, Tare.”
Her little brother looked haunted. “She won’t talk to me. She won’t look at me. She just talks about their families, their kids. I can’t even say I blame her.”
“I didn’t give up on her. You have to believe me. She asked me to get her out of there and I did. I kept my promise. She’s safe now.”
“You saved her,” Tare said tiredly. “But I don’t think we get to keep her.”
“No. You love her. You had nothing to do with what happened, that’s not—it’s not fair!”
“Lieutenant? Lieutenant.” It was a harsh voice from down the hall. Fade jumped back and slammed the door between them shut so there was no evidence Tare had been slicing prison cells.
The MP stalking toward them said, “Don’t bother. We were told to watch Lieutenant Tareleth.”
Also unfair. Tare spoke quickly. “Fade, we’ll figure something out. You need to talk to somebody. You need to talk to a professional. I understand what you did, Fade, just let them tell you it was wrong and they can move past it—”
The MP, broad, ugly, Human, said, “I’m to let you go, Lieutenant. The Major, on the other hand…if you can’t stay under control here, you’re getting a transfer.”
“Where?” said Tare.
The MP stared at Fade. “Don’t know. Maybe you can ask the pilot.” He pulled out a holo.
But the form that came up wasn’t a pilot at all. “Fade,” General Garza said annoyedly, “you only lasted two and a half weeks? And your brother is slicing Republic property again?”
“I made him. It’s not his fault.”
“Spare me. The Senate wants ‘Rakton’s speed bump’ to stay incarcerated, and you obviously can’t be left under minimal security. You’re going to Belsavis.”
“Bel what?”
“Lieutenant Tareleth, we’ll deal with you separately. Private, please escort the Major to the spaceport. By then everything will be arranged.”
“They can’t do that,” Tare said. “They can’t. I’ll find out where Belsavis is. I’ll get you out. There’s no place so isolated a good slicer can’t get in.”
“Don’t get yourself in trouble helping me. They’ve got parole, they have to. If we behave it’ll all blow over.” Though, the speed bump jab had hurt.
His dark slate eyes fixed on her silver. “Fade…I love you. You know that, right?”
“I never loved anything else in my life but you. I’ll be in touch.”
*
Jorgan had a package waiting in the marketplace on the Republic Fleet. Strange. His extensive family would just wait until he visited them on Rendili. Not many other people had any reason to send him anything.
The package was no more than a thick envelope of rough brown flimsi. Inside, a chain. A pendant. Three numbers written in a precise, blocky hand. He raced back to the Havoc Go Fast—Annalax hadn’t changed that yet—and started messing with the navicomputer.
But it came up with nothing.
Fade probably wasn’t supposed to be sending mail, and if General Garza realized one had gotten through, Jorgan would be punished for receiving it. He could deal with that…but the other bridge was already thoroughly burned. He reported like he was supposed to.
Garza got back to him two long hours later. “Yes, Captain Jorgan? Major Annalax isn’t going anywhere.”
“Understood, sir. I got a message from Fade, sir.” She’d sent him the pendant he’d given her, back when everything was different. It had come with numbers. “It was formatted like coordinates, but they were nonsense.”
“That’s because none of her correspondence gets literal numbers in and out,” said Garza. “Unless I badly miss my guess, she was trying to pass on the last known coordinates of the Deadeyes, as decrypted by the SIS.”
“Sir?”
“I have the unredacted copy. It’s yours. I expect you to respect Command’s authority in your comings and goings. Garza out.”
Jorgan sat down hard on the bench that Hod had installed to replace the lounge chairs. He let the silver chain slip between his fingers until the dusky sparkling pendant caught on his palm. He didn’t want to be grateful to Fade. He didn’t want to think of her sitting in a cell, deciding to give up the one memento she’d kept of Havoc. Of him.
She was saying they had no more connection. It wasn’t like her, to ask him to accept something he hated.
*
Fade had been in prison less than a month when Garza reactivated Havoc Squad.
Jorgan and the team met with General Garza in her office in the Senate Tower. She stood with a tall, narrowly built green Duros in olive fatigues. His red compound eyes seemed to be slitted all the time.
“Captain Jorgan, good. At ease, all of you. This is Major Hod Annalax. He will be assuming leadership of Havoc Squad.”
No promotion from within. Jorgan was instantly certain of one thing: Garza thought she could control Major Annalax more closely than she could Aric Jorgan. Jorgan had built a reputation of slight danger under Fade’s leadership. Maybe he understood being passed over.
Dorne was the first to salute. “Sir. Lieutenant Elara Dorne.”
“I have all your files, soldier.” Hod’s voice was deep and raspy, like smoke from a dying fire. Smoldering in wait for a chance to burn again. He released her salute. “Captain Jorgan, I hope you’ll consider remaining as executive officer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t intend to change the squad around,” he said. “I do intend to make us the leanest, most aggressive spec ops team in the galaxy. You’re all experts. Turn up evidence to that effect and we’ll get along. I’ll get out of your hair, General.”
“I’ll be watching your progress,” Garza said matter-of-factly. “Dismissed.”
They didn’t go far. Major Annalax commandeered one of the numerous side rooms in the ground floor of the Senate tower.
Forex followed him in. “Sir! I must be allowed to express my delight at the appointment of such a decorated officer as yourself to the leadership of Havoc Squad!”
Annalax looked at Jorgan. “He’s talkative.”
“Yes, sir.”
“M1-4X, you may speak when I request, or when your sensors detect a threat. Is that clear?”
“Sir.” Forex sounded confused.
Annalax just looked at the organics. “I sent you all the brief on our upcoming op.”
Tanno Vik shifted. “We were supposed to read that?”
The Gand covered the awkward pause. “Yuun can summarize afterward.”
“No need,” Annalax said gruffly. “Vik’s eyes work. I assume, Specialist.”
Anybody could read the danger in Vik’s careful, “No problem here, sir.”
“I’ll reiterate the main points. This time. Belsavis is Class Two on the Shadow List. Moderate sentient development, high sentient volatility, and not to be acknowledged on the Prime List. Nobody gets off that planet except veteran guards and Senate inspectors. Even prisoners’ children don’t leave.”
Dorne had been looking greener and greener. “The Republic keeps a generational prison, sir?”
“We aren’t here to ask why the Republic operates, Lieutenant. Belsavis’s location and purpose are top secret and outside our scope. Our orders are to extract Dagger Wing and get out.”
“Who’s—”
“Don’t waste our time catching up, Specialist. Yuun, Forex, Vik, you’ll land with me. Dorne, Jorgan, you’ll do whatever it takes to smooth our mission over with Control down there. We have General Garza’s order, but the movers and shakers here are Senators. You’ve dealt with Senators before, Captain Jorgan.”
“That I have, sir.” Just not without Fade. He felt sick having her name in his mind. He’d never done it without Fade.
“Fine. Finish up your errands on Coruscant. We leave at eighteen hundred hours.”
*
Fade was given a stinking shower and several shots in the featureless transfer station. She struggled to lean toward what might have been a window, just behind a corner. A uniformed Republic soldier elbowed her back onto a slightly worn path.
She was given a soft brown tunic and pocketless pants. She got socks, but not shoes. She caught a glimpse of a scabrous-looking ice planet pocked with green circles before she got shoved into the shuttle.
They landed in one of those green pockets. The guard conferred in a low voice with a uniformed guard from the wide low prison administration building.
“Well, I can’t take her back,” the orbital guard said, sounding exasperated.
“The women’s section of Minsec hasn’t been hit yet. She looks tough. It’ll have to do.”
“What the hell does that mean?” said Fade.
“Shut up,” said the surface guard.
They put her in a windowless pod as a sidecar to an ancient-looking speeder. They rode for maybe half an hour. They stopped and she was let out into a courtyard surrounded on all four sides by high metal walls. As if being stuck on the planet wasn’t bad enough, apparently she would be corralled. Was this a labor camp? She hadn’t even asked.
She hadn’t seen a single console or holo. How long would it take Tare to get in?
That thought dogged her as she was pushed into an underground bunker, and into a cell therein.
*
Havoc Squad raced to hyperspace. Dorne went to the bridge, where Annalax had buried his head in a holo of some sort.
“Permission to speak, sir?”
He looked up dispassionately. She badly wanted to know how to read Duros emotions. His uniform fit on him like hers did on her; they were the same in what mattered. But she couldn’t read him. He said, “Go on.”
“Yuun and I are organizing the latest requisitions of medical supplies. We were wondering whether you’d like to join us.”
“Does it take three?” he said dryly. “For that matter, does it take two?”
“It’s been something of a social exercise, sir.” Fade would take armloads off of Forex’s hands and chatter while placing them. Even Jorgan and Vik sometimes loitered around in the process. Or they had, anyway.
“My questions stand. I expect you to be ready when the mission calls for you. Dismissed.”
“Sir.” Slightly disappointed, she left for the medbay. Yuun would be there, and though they hadn’t known one another long, he did know exactly where everything belonged.
*
Fade had a cellmate.
It was a woman wearing the same shapeless brown rags that Fade had. She was an Abyssin, hairless, one-eyed. She was crouched in a corner staring out as Fade entered. A yellow forcefield sprang up, locking them in.
“Hi,” said Fade. “I’m new here.”
The Abyssin peered up. “I’m Deiadesidora. People call me Threedi. I’ve been here for nine years.” She leaned forward, and her one eye, big, golden, unsettling, seemed intent. “Have you heard from the prison administrators? Is it true Imperials are freeing prisoners?”
“I have no idea.”
“Imps aren’t supposed to know about this planet. No one but high-ranking Republic personnel should. If the Imps are offering a way off this rock…well, I’d kill the rest of this cell block for that.”
“I’m not here to pick a fight.” Fade sat down on one of two slabs sticking out of the wall. “I’m just tired.”
But a roar woke her up, only a few hours later. She ran to the forcefield and could only see more cells along the wall.
All at once, the yellow force fields went away.
A closer roar came up from the women of the cell block. Then people were running, screaming, crying.
Fade sprinted for the surface.
Half a dozen Republic guards were in the middle of the square, firing hopelessly at waves of prisoners. Fade watched for her chance, and charged behind a larger woman who was bullrushing toward the guards.
They took that woman down. Fade got close enough to wrench one guard’s wrist and pull his blaster rifle free.
Of the other five, two took blaster bolts to the head before they turned. Two had to be bludgeoned with the rifle before she could step back and shoot them. The fifth actually grappled, but by that time two women had picked up blasters and both discharged them into the guard’s head.
“Hi,” Fade said again. “I’m new here.”
Everyone seemed to know what direction the shuttle would be in.
Toward evening, the mass started to slow. A dozen women had formed a guard around Fade, or formed a circle for Fade to protect. She was the only armed person.
“I’ll watch,” she said. No way was she going to sleep around this many people the Republic was terrified of.
“Be careful,” said a lean, vulpine Chiss. “I heard the Imps thawed out a block of serial killers.”
Was that possible? “Noted.”
The night in Belsavis was lightless. Possibly because the electricity was out. Someone scuffed a foot carelessly at the edge of Fade’s vision.
“I heard the girls were out,” came a singsong voice. “All you ladies, and none of them armed?” A very tall, very broad Weequay stepped into view carrying a blaster pistol.
“You want to talk?” Fade said loudly. “Drop your weapon and give your name. You have the count of three. One.”
“I can protect you,” the Weequay wheedled.
“Two.”
“Bitch. Drop your weapon or you die slowest.”
“Three.” She shot him. One clean shot to the head.
Threedi sat up beside Fade. “Why…?”
“He didn’t give his name.” And she had a feeling others had been listening to the whole exchange. She had to be hard, and she could be.
Threedi nodded. “If an Abyssin comes, it could be my mate. Let me know.”
“Well…sure. What are you in for, anyway?”
“We killed a family. Self-defense at first, just to watch ‘em die by the end. I figure they were all guilty one way or another.”
“Oh.”
Fade didn’t sleep at all.
*
Tanno Vik was very good at what he did. Which was blowing things up. On the wild surface of Belsavis, he opened paths that rioting prisoners weren’t guarding.
And once Major Anal Acts realized it, he sent Vik further and further afield, alone, to open routes to the fortifications where Dagger Wing had taken up crowd control. Vik could do these things. It just sucked relative to doing it with the squad.
Vik knew he wasn’t the only one. Dorne had been pinned at the landing site, forced to play diplomat, probably just because she was a woman. Jorgan was deployed to keep his distance, holding a bead on any Dagger Wing personnel Anal had to talk to. Forex and Yuun scouted, and Vik heard them talking busily as soon as they were outside Anal’s cone of silence.
After a long day, they retreated to one of Dagger Wing’s shelters. Anal Acts gruffly took status reports from the squad and emitted a dribble of praise. They would have the whole unit in a day and a half, unless the deep prison was bigger than anticipated.
Vik left the row of sleeping bags because the local Wing leaders sat around a fire just outside, talking.
He strolled into the light. “So I know why I’ve been to prison. What’s your story?”
In low voices they explained how Dagger Wing had gotten bad orders, bombed civilians, and been sacrificed to the Belsavis prison.
“So, wait, you did nothing?”
“We killed hundreds of civilians. That’s a war crime, even if they were Imps.”
“But zero responsibility. I’m not surprised Garza would do that, but it’s still a raw deal. Good thing we’re busting you out.”
“Good thing.”
One of them raised a flask. Vik took it and took a swig of something that tasted like paint thinner. “Woof. Consider installing a wine cellar, my friends.”
That’s when he realized Jorgan was standing beyond the fire’s light. His yellow eyes gleamed. He must have heard everything.
And Aric Jorgan had an excess of honor. No wonder Garza didn’t want him commanding this mission. He might free the pilots and let them go, or something stupider.
Vik looked into the shadows. Anal might still be awake. Conversation wouldn’t be safe. He caught Jorgan’s eye and nodded, once. Dagger Wing’s entombment was Wrong, by any measure, and they wouldn’t forget what their superiors had done.
*
Fade didn’t abandon the knot of women who had been attracted to her rifle. She shot guards. She shot fellow prisoners. She kept her party going, inexorably, toward the prison administration center and its shuttle.
The second Weequay was a total shock. “Hold your fire,” she snapped, and trotted toward Tanno Vik. “What the hell? How did you get here?”
“Boss? How did you get here?” His shock turned to an almost flappy cheer. “They put you away?”
“Badly. Is everyone else here? Why?”
“Busting out some people Command screwed over. Come on, you have to meet the Major.”
Fade nodded to a suspicious-looking Threedi. “Be careful down here,” she said. “Find your mate. You can't ride with me.”
"Just like that?" she said in a low voice.
"There's space enough here. And I'm going with the armed guy."
*
Major Annalax was less than gracious about an escaped prisoner on his ship. The squad, however, floated her right back to the Senate Tower, to General Garza.
“Sir,” Fade said dryly.
Garza radiated tension. “I see you refuse to let a closed door stay closed, Major. You’re returning to custody here, and if you act out again your brother is getting charged with thirteen counts that we know about of unauthorized access to Army systems. You can protect him. By staying where you’re put. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” Honestly, better than she’d expected. Going back to boring prison didn’t sound so bad.
*
Fade received a letter through the censors, and wondered how. It was Ava Jaxo, fragmented, hysterical. She talked about falling apart near other soldiers, filing for psych treatment. Leaving before the treatment could start. She was shattered. She was shattered and she took it out on Tare when Tare was half the reason Fade had done this in the first place. It was impossible to be angry with Jaxo. She’d gone through hell because no backup solution had presented itself. Because Fade had trusted they could do anything, and been summarily denied. The lack of options was no one’s fault.
She could’ve ordered the murder of her brother’s lover. She could have done that, and then Jaxo wouldn’t write at all. But that was wrong. It was wrong, and Fade would never do it. The doctor who visited Fade next asked questions so pointed, she must have read Jaxo’s letter first. Well, let her. Fade’s answer could never change.
*
The squad was just walking through the alien district of Voss City. There were few Voss natives here; Jorgan got the impression they didn’t like to get their retinas dirty with foreigners.
One woman, tall, speckled, brightly colored, and wearing complicated bronze-tone robes, came right for them.
“You. Alien. I have seen a vision.”
Major Annalax slowed. “You speak Basic?”
“You will die to a gun dark. I have not asked an Interpreter. But I assure you, it is truth.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said, but she was walking away. He turned to his squad. “I bet they don’t even have gundarks here. I’m sure she likes to frighten foreigners.”
Their task brought them to the Shrine of Healing, a vast temple worked of darkly patterned brown stone. The Voss didn’t have a lot in the way of city or control over this planet, but some things were old and religiously maintained.
Securing their objective would require getting something tangible out of these people. “Sir,” Jorgan said, though he felt nervous. “We’ll get more cooperation if we pay dues to their traditions. I can do the vision ritual.”
“Yuun will as well,” the Gand said simply. “Perhaps Voss see pathways as we do.”
Annalax, sitting with poor grace next to where Dorne was still elevating her wounded and kolto-basted leg after he’d sent her alone to steal a Gormak transmitter, now nodded. “Go.”
The vision quest instantly turned too weird for Jorgan’s taste, but Yuun beside him answered questions, stared down monsters, navigated the impossible tunnels. He was already as pure as Voss required. Jorgan tagged along until they reached a little orange room where two tablets stood, waiting for something.
He touched one and was instantly somewhere else. Looking up at a holo of a young woman, lean and frowning.
“I want more time,” she said in a hard voice with a quivering edge to it. Her eyes locked on his, a blue that wasn’t washed out. “You are kind and brave and clever and responsible and sweet and funny and so, so good, and by the time love came up, the only thing I got to say to you was goodbye. I want you to get over what we could have had, because it isn’t going to happen now. I’m carting around a god and I don’t have the power to make it happen.” She punched her thigh. Her words fell hard and fast like a hailstorm. “Fall in love again. Love her like you don't know what tomorrow will do to you. We never do. Goodbye, Aric Jorgan.” For a second, before the image cut, her lips were small and full and…and what? The moment slipped away.
Jorgan staggered backwards in a room suddenly dull, barely lit. That woman was pretty. She was tough. She loved him. But how did a Voss mystery cult know a name he’d never given them? Who was she? When was she? Was this really going to happen?
“Yuun?” he said. He had to clear his throat. “What did you see?”
“A distant path,” Yuun said. “Perhaps, in time, Yuun will find its first step.”
Major Annalax was pacing the front hall. Dorne was composing something on her holo. Both looked up when Jorgan and Yuun walked in.
“Well?” said Annalax. “Will they cooperate with us?”
Dorne looked at their faces before speaking. “Did you see anything actionable?”
Jorgan shook his head. “No. I don’t even think it was true.”
*
Major Annalax had a big plan for cornering the Sith they had to kill. Jorgan couldn’t hold back on the technique Fade had used for Darth Lachris: use Forex to manage the edges, and strike as a group.
Annalax opted for a seven-step plan involving sending Tanno Vik around the long way to blow in a wall, keeping Yuun back slicing (the only specialized skill Annalax seemed interested in), holding Jorgan back with a sniper rifle, and bursting in behind Forex.
Yuun’s signal worked. Vik’s explosives brought down a wall. The Sith Force shoved Forex aside and took Annalax’s head off with a lightsaber just before Jorgan placed a blaster bolt in his forehead. Havoc reunited, and that…that was that.
It seemed that the prophecy was false.
Yuun stooped to touch something. “This man wore a badge.”
“Anything we recognize?” said Jorgan, struggling to frame himself as the guy in charge.
Dorne looked baffled. “A gundark.”
*
Jorgan reported the Major’s death and received instructions to finish Havoc’s mission and get off Voss. The second he was in orbit he gave everyone a rest, and made a call.
The Cathar who answered looked much like Aric Jorgan, but with more hair on his head and maybe a few traces of gray in the fur. He quirked one eyebrow and leaned back on something. “Captain Jorgan.”
“Captain Jorgan. How’s GROPO life treating you?”
“Well, it’s no spec ops, but it’s a paycheck.” Elwin Jorgan chuckled and adjusted his brown uniform shirt. “What are you doing, holoing me like this? Isn’t Havoc saving the galaxy?”
“A little at a time. Elwin, there’s…a problem. Right at this moment, I’m commanding Havoc.”
That seemed to stun Elwin, but only for a second. He rarely took more than a second to process anything. “By the look on your face, not by choice. Stars, man, lead with that. What happened?”
“You heard about Fade.”
“Fucked up an op. I didn’t hear anything about a discharge. Is she enjoying penal hospitality?”
“As far as I know. We’ve had no contact.”
“That bother you?”
It crackled out before Jorgan could stop it: “Captain! You’re out of line!”
Elwin put up warding hands. “All right, all right. But if you’d been promoted into her place, you’d have told us. Ma and Pa, at least, and they wouldn’t let anyone forget it.”
“Major Hod Annalax took over. Garza brought him in after Fade’s op failed.” Those three words felt like a betrayal, but then, Elwin seemed to already know. “Stick in the ass, thought we should all be a squad of one while he moved us out of backup range from everyone else. Said that was his way of respecting our abilities.”
“You’ve spent three days lying on a tarp by yourself to get a shot. How is this different?”
“It…it just is. Fade used us as a unit, and we did a damn good job with it.”
“What’s your next move?”
“If Garza doesn’t bring in another commander, I’m taking the squad to Corellia. It’s street to street fighting there. We can’t afford the smallest hiccup in coordination.”
“Do you think your squad can handle it?”
Jorgan scoffed. “Yes. They are individually and collectively completely prepared for this.”
“Then you don’t have to holo me. Trust your people. And—this is important—don’t look back.”
“I wasn’t looking…” Elwin waited as if coiled to pounce… “I was. How do I stop? Fade was my CO for a year, the craziest whirlwind year I’ve ever had. I hear her voice when I give a hard order.”
“Did you love her?”
“Damn it, Elwin.” Elwin, uncharacteristically, sat still and said nothing. “I could have, before what she did at A-77. She killed two hundred seventy people as a personal favor, to save one favored life. Can you imagine getting mixed up in that? She would burn planets if her lover came under threat, and Havoc is under threat every day. I’m not happy she’s in prison. Honestly, if we could just go back to the status quo…but at least in prison she can’t punish the galaxy for hurting the chosen few.”
“Do you think Garza wants someone pliable to command Havoc? You’re a lot of things, but ‘unwilling to disobey immoral orders’ is not one of them.”
“I have to lead until she appoints a replacement.”
“You can, you know.”
Aric looked off to one side. “Yeah. Well, if even you think so, it might be true.”
“Believe it. You’re a stubborn bastard and stars know you have opinions on what everyone is supposed to be doing. You’ve been in this outfit a while. You know what it’s like to work together. I guess you know what it’s like to work apart. You know which side to take.”
Aric shrugged uncomfortably. “I hope so.”
“Captain. Do this well enough, you will get your promotion. Possibly before I do, since there is no justice in the galaxy. Go on. You don’t need Fade and you don’t need me. But I think we’re both cheering for you.”
*
Fade had stopped listening for footsteps in the hallway weeks ago. She woke up, washed, and alternated reading, knitting, and calisthenics. Professionals came to talk to her and she defended her actions. The concept of admitting fault now, of breaking down because an imperfect situation had had a horrifying cost after she gave the order…no. She wouldn’t admit it. She fully expected to get out only after she’d died and rotted, because she wasn’t going to tell these people she’d been wrong.
“Major Fadreleth.” The voice hit Fade like a hammer. She snapped to her feet and saluted.
Through the grate, General Garza gave her an appraising look.
“Sir?” said Fade.
“You’re loyal. No one can deny that, after all this time. So I’m willing to make a deal. I’m offering you partial release on condition that you implement my orders. Do you think you can do that? Given our previous conversation about your brother, and given the debt incurred by letting you go?”
Garza had never been an easy commander, but anything beat being here. “Where would I serve?”
“Leading Havoc, of course.”
“Jorgan should have that post.”
“Captain Jorgan has difficulty restraining his indignation at certain orders. You will belong to me. I will decline to indict your brother. And I will give you the stars back. Do I make myself clear?”
Fade’s heart pounded harder than any in-cell exercise could force. “My record, sir?”
“You were never court martialed, much less convicted. Any related details will be cleaned once you leave the service with an honorable discharge. Not before.”
“General, I will never be sorry Jaxo lived.”
“I'm aware.” Garza could out-dry a desert.
Fade knew what she had to say, even though she wasn't sure she meant it. “But I can't do that for one person again.”
“I'm glad you've gained that perspective, Major. Tell your squad. It may serve to restore trust.”
“They all knew what to trust me for.”
“Tell them anyway.”
*
What did you say to your team after that?
Fade faced them all in Garza’s office in the Senate Tower on Coruscant.
“Troops…I didn’t know General Garza was going to do this.”
Heavy Trooper Storyline spoilers in the art beneath the cut! Do not proceed if you haven't finished mission A-77 (or do, but i highly reccomend you don't)
So....that decision, huh. I genuinely had to log off and think about it before i made that decision - in the end I did choose to save the rest of the prisoners. My trooper was...not ok after this one. I love thinking about how much Chapter 3 specifically impacted her- being so targeted by General Rakton was bad enough alone, but going to A-77 to help Jaxo who was a very good friend to her at that time and then having to kill her....definitely broke something inside her.
SWTOR Headcanon Prompt: What is your OC’s guiltiest ‘story’ moment?
I saw @swtorpadawan create this and thought "Yes, this is a good question for an Imperial Agent and a Trooper, nothing bad can come of this".
Oh boy.
What is your OC’s guiltiest moment from the class stories?
For Tenku'lohi, this is really a "Do you want the short list, or the long" sort of question. But the one decision that still haunts her was at the end of Chapter Two, when she had Ardun Kothe's team cornered in that factory on Quesh...
Tenku'lohi was terrified all through Chapter Two that she was going to stay under the mental conditioning that Imperial Intelligence had put her under. At first she was furious at Kothe for using it, thinking he'd done something to her, but upon learning it was Keeper (then Minister) who had put that codeword into her brain...it severely screwed up her faith in the Empire. When she reached Quest she was floating in a space of not being sure if she wanted to stay a part of the Empire at all anymore. When her conditioning was finally broken, though, the only people around for her to get revenge on for using said conditioning were Kothe and his crew.
She didn't kill all of them. She'd spared Chance on Hoth, and when she had a shot at Wheel and Saber she chose not to take it. But when she reached Ardun Kothe she didn't make the same decision. She engaged him in a fight, managed to beat him, and when she had him on the ropes she had three choices: capture him, kill him, or...join him, for real this time. To actually be a double-agent on the Empire for the Republic.
She was already unbalanced, already doubting the Empire and now desperately wanting to fight off the leash of Imperial Intelligence. This was a chance to get back at them for the conditioning.
But she didn't take it. She was still too angry at Ardun Kothe for using the mental conditioning, even if he hadn't been the one to plant it in her in the first place. She decided to bring him in instead. Ardun Kothe tried to flee, got locked in a room full of automatic turrets, and died.
Tenku'lohi thinks back on that choice a lot--especially throughout the her time leading the Alliance--and knows she fucked up. She had a chance to actually break from the Empire and do something good, and she didn't because she was blinded by anger.
In a way, she acted at her most Imperial then and there, choosing anger over all else.
Not her wisest choice. And as for Rezhek...well...three hundred lives against one.
While she doesn't regret it, she'll always feel guilty for it.
