Star Wars: Moving Target
Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2018 5:24 am
From a novel taking place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Princess Leia steals the uniform of a female Imperial captain. (Sorry about the bad formatting.)
When the stormtroopers led
them down the ramp into the
Shieldmaiden’s landing bay,
Leia expected Captain
Khione to be waiting. But the
officer at the foot of the ramp
was a young lieutenant, who
simply verified that they’d
been disarmed and ordered
them taken to a detention
block.
“We haven’t jumped to
hyperspace,
” Nien whispered
to Leia. “I would have felt it.”
“They must be waiting in
hopes of catching more
ships,
” Leia replied grimly.
“No talking,
” a
stormtrooper said, jabbing
Leia in the small of the back
with his rifle.
They threw Leia in a
detention cell and shut the
door. She scanned the cell in
despair—it was the standard
Imperial model, down to the
hard slab of a bunk and the
tiny pop-out washbasin. Her
cell aboard the Death Star had
been identical, and she’d
come to know every
centimeter of it.
I should have had Antrot
blow the ship, she thought,
hating the idea of Kidi’s
pleading with her captors, of
Antrot’s trying to reason with
tormenters who would never
listen. She hoped she
wouldn’t be able to hear their
interrogations when they
reached the worst parts, the
ones that Leia remembered
only in nightmares.
The light inside the
detention cells never
changed, so it was easy to
lose track of time—a tactic
the Empire used to disorient
prisoners. But eventually the
door to her cell slid into the
wall and an officer walked in,
two stormtroopers taking up
positions in the corridor
behind her.
“Princess Leia Organa,
”
Captain Khione said. “We
have a lot to discuss.”
She tapped a button on a
control unit attached to her
belt. Leia heard an awful
warble outside, and then the
black bulb of an Imperial
interrogation droid floated
into the cell, moving with a
slowness she remembered all
too well. Her eyes inventoried
its grim instruments—pincers
and prods and needles. She
knew them all, and how they
were used.
“I’m impressed you do
your own dirty work,
Khione,
” Leia said. “Most
captains would leave it to the
Imperial Security Bureau.”
“I enforce the Emperor’s
will in this sector,
” Khione
said. “When things go wrong,
I put them right myself.
Anyone who knows my name
ought to know that, too.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,
but until a few days ago I’d
never heard your name,
” Leia
said. “I’d barely heard of
your sector.”
Khione just smiled.
“Within a few days
everyone in the Empire will
know my name,
” she said.
“But for now, it’s your name
that matters. And Kidi’s, and
Nien’s, and Antrot’s, and
Lokmarcha’s. We’ll discuss
them first, and then we’ll
move on to other names.
Names of admirals, and
starships, and planets.”
“I’m not going to tell you
anything,
” Leia said. “No
matter what you do to me.”
“Speaking of names,
there’s something I’ve always
found interesting about this
model of interrogation droid,
”
Khione said. “It typically
isn’t programmed to know
anything about a prisoner. All
it knows is that you’re the
one in the cell—and that
means you must be the
interview subject. I’ve had
prisoners break when no
one’s there to listen. They
think they’re talking to the
droid, but it doesn’t hear
them. You can tell it anything
and it doesn’t care. It’ll just
keep working on you until
someone tells it to stop.”
And then, to Leia’s
surprise, Khione left, the door
shutting behind her. The
interrogation droid floated
into the center of the cell, its
repulsorlifts filling the
enclosed space with that
hideous cycling warble.
Leia jumped the first time
it moved, expecting it to dart
at her with one of its
instruments raised. But it
merely moved sideways and
then began to hover again.
She thought of attacking it
but knew that would do no
good. It would shock her, or
retreat to the ceiling and
summon the stormtroopers.
She sat down on the hard
bunk, eyeing the droid. Her
hands had begun to shake,
she noticed, and she wedged
them under her legs, angry at
her loss of control. The droid
extended one of its probes,
and she instinctively retreated
into the corner of the cell.
Then the probe retracted and
the droid was still again. Still
and silent, except for the
sound that was crawling little
by little into her skull.
She wondered if Khione
was watching. Watching and
waiting for her to crack.
When the door opened
Leia didn’t know how much
time had passed. Two
stormtroopers entered,
dragging Lokmarcha between
them. He was in binders. His
yellow eyes leapt to the black
bulbous droid, and his hands
began to shake.
Khione walked into the
cell, her steps unhurried. It
was all Leia could do not to
spring at her. At a word from
her, the stormtroopers exited
the cell, leaving the door
open behind them.
The Imperial captain
wanted Kidi, Nien, and
Antrot to be able to hear what
would happen next, Leia
realized.
“This one’s admirably
loyal,
” Khione said.
“Promised to tell me
everything if only I let him
see his princess again first.
But I don’t think he has
anything important to say. So
we’re going to do something
else.”
She smiled. “The droid’s
going to work on him, and
you’re going to watch. And
then we’ll repeat the
procedure with the rest of
your friends.”
Khione touched the
control unit on her belt, and
the interrogation droid rotated
away from Leia. It floated
from side to side, scanning
the room, then approached
Lokmarcha.
The commando’s yellow
eyes turned to Leia and he
nodded.
Lokmarcha’s chest
contracted so suddenly Leia
heard his ribs crack. Then his
chest expanded drastically, as
if he’d taken an impossibly
large breath. The hairs on
Leia’s arms rose as
Lokmarcha slumped to the
deck, already dead. The
interrogation droid lurched to
one side, dipped, then tried to
rise. In the corridor outside,
the stormtroopers clutched at
their helmets, knees buckling.
Electromagnetic pulse,
Leia realized. Lokmarcha had
been carrying some kind of
pulse bomb in his chest, one
powerful enough to shut
down a good chunk of a Star
Destroyer. That had been his
plan B.
Khione looked up in
shock as Leia sprang at her.
The captain raised her arms,
but it was too late—Leia
seized the interrogation droid,
trying to get a grip on the
machine’s slick surface, and
slammed it into Khione’s
head. The captain crumpled
to the deck, unconscious, the
interrogation droid lying
motionless between her and
Lokmarcha’s body.
Leia looked sadly down at
the Dressellian. She didn’t
want to think about what he’d
endured to maneuver Khione
into the only situation that
would give Leia a chance.
I do have a chance—
thanks to you, Lok. And I’m
not going to waste it.
She hurried out of the
cell, snatching a blaster from
one of the fallen
stormtroopers. Behind her,
the lights in the cell flickered
and died. She heard the cough
and zing of blaster fire and
ran down the corridor, stolen
rifle raised.
A shape came toward her
out of the darkness and she
almost fired—then was glad
she hadn’t. It was Nien,
holding a stormtrooper’s
blaster, with Antrot and Kidi
behind him.
“The guards?” she asked.
“Not a problem
anymore,
” Nien said grimly.
“Where’s Lok?” Kidi
asked frantically.
Leia shook her head
sadly. Kidi stared at the floor
and began to rock back and
forth.
“He sacrificed himself for
us,
” Leia said. “If we give
into our grief now, he’ll have
done so for nothing. Antrot,
do you still have your
detonator?”
“I started putting it back
together already,
” the
Abednedo tinkerer said. “But
it’s not working because of
the electromagnetic pulse.”
“It will soon enough,
”
Nien said.
“And so will everything
else,
” Leia said. “We don’t
have much time.”
The Shieldmaiden shook
around them.
“What was that?” Kidi
asked.
Leia looked at Nien and
saw that he looked baffled,
too. The Imperial warship
shuddered again and klaxons
began to blare.
“They’re under attack!”
Nien said. “If we can get to
the docking bay—”
“We can and we will,
”
Leia said. “I’ve got a plan.
Nien, you and Kidi collect
three pairs of binders from
the guard station. Antrot, I
need you to hot-wire a cell
door. But wait here a minute
—I need to change clothes.”
She hurried back to her
cell, stepping over the two
stormtroopers, blaster raised
in case either the droid or
Khione showed signs of
stirring. But both were still on
the deck. One of the
stormtroopers groaned and
Leia stunned both of them,
then fired a stun bolt into the
fallen captain for good
measure. Moving quickly, she
stepped into the cell and set
down the blaster, then
stripped off her tunic and
trousers before yanking
Khione’s uniform off. It was
too big, and she tried to cram
the extra material of the
trousers into the tops of the
boots.
The Star Destroyer shook
again. Leia wondered who
was attacking the Imperials.
Had Mothma or Ackbar sent
a task force after her?
She turned, adjusting
Khione’s cap, and saw Antrot
standing in the doorway,
looking uncomfortable.
“How long have you—oh,
never mind,
” Leia said.
“Shove the troopers in here
and get the door locked.
Quickly!”
“Does a minute count as
quickly?” the tinkerer asked.
It didn’t even take half
that long. The door shut with
a groan and a flash of
sparking wires. Antrot gave
her a thumbs-up.
Nien returned with Kidi
and the items Leia had
requested. Leia fit the binders
loosely around her friends’
wrists, checking to see that
they appeared closed from a
distance.
The Shieldmaiden
shuddered again, and lights
started to blink on in the
detention block.
As they exited the
detention level, Leia
wondered if she heard a faint
warble. Or perhaps it had
only been her imagination, an
illusion conjured by a wisp of
unpleasant memory.
“It’ll just work on you
until someone tells it to stop,
”
she murmured.
“What did you say?” Nien
asked.
“Nothing. Come on.”
When the stormtroopers led
them down the ramp into the
Shieldmaiden’s landing bay,
Leia expected Captain
Khione to be waiting. But the
officer at the foot of the ramp
was a young lieutenant, who
simply verified that they’d
been disarmed and ordered
them taken to a detention
block.
“We haven’t jumped to
hyperspace,
” Nien whispered
to Leia. “I would have felt it.”
“They must be waiting in
hopes of catching more
ships,
” Leia replied grimly.
“No talking,
” a
stormtrooper said, jabbing
Leia in the small of the back
with his rifle.
They threw Leia in a
detention cell and shut the
door. She scanned the cell in
despair—it was the standard
Imperial model, down to the
hard slab of a bunk and the
tiny pop-out washbasin. Her
cell aboard the Death Star had
been identical, and she’d
come to know every
centimeter of it.
I should have had Antrot
blow the ship, she thought,
hating the idea of Kidi’s
pleading with her captors, of
Antrot’s trying to reason with
tormenters who would never
listen. She hoped she
wouldn’t be able to hear their
interrogations when they
reached the worst parts, the
ones that Leia remembered
only in nightmares.
The light inside the
detention cells never
changed, so it was easy to
lose track of time—a tactic
the Empire used to disorient
prisoners. But eventually the
door to her cell slid into the
wall and an officer walked in,
two stormtroopers taking up
positions in the corridor
behind her.
“Princess Leia Organa,
”
Captain Khione said. “We
have a lot to discuss.”
She tapped a button on a
control unit attached to her
belt. Leia heard an awful
warble outside, and then the
black bulb of an Imperial
interrogation droid floated
into the cell, moving with a
slowness she remembered all
too well. Her eyes inventoried
its grim instruments—pincers
and prods and needles. She
knew them all, and how they
were used.
“I’m impressed you do
your own dirty work,
Khione,
” Leia said. “Most
captains would leave it to the
Imperial Security Bureau.”
“I enforce the Emperor’s
will in this sector,
” Khione
said. “When things go wrong,
I put them right myself.
Anyone who knows my name
ought to know that, too.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,
but until a few days ago I’d
never heard your name,
” Leia
said. “I’d barely heard of
your sector.”
Khione just smiled.
“Within a few days
everyone in the Empire will
know my name,
” she said.
“But for now, it’s your name
that matters. And Kidi’s, and
Nien’s, and Antrot’s, and
Lokmarcha’s. We’ll discuss
them first, and then we’ll
move on to other names.
Names of admirals, and
starships, and planets.”
“I’m not going to tell you
anything,
” Leia said. “No
matter what you do to me.”
“Speaking of names,
there’s something I’ve always
found interesting about this
model of interrogation droid,
”
Khione said. “It typically
isn’t programmed to know
anything about a prisoner. All
it knows is that you’re the
one in the cell—and that
means you must be the
interview subject. I’ve had
prisoners break when no
one’s there to listen. They
think they’re talking to the
droid, but it doesn’t hear
them. You can tell it anything
and it doesn’t care. It’ll just
keep working on you until
someone tells it to stop.”
And then, to Leia’s
surprise, Khione left, the door
shutting behind her. The
interrogation droid floated
into the center of the cell, its
repulsorlifts filling the
enclosed space with that
hideous cycling warble.
Leia jumped the first time
it moved, expecting it to dart
at her with one of its
instruments raised. But it
merely moved sideways and
then began to hover again.
She thought of attacking it
but knew that would do no
good. It would shock her, or
retreat to the ceiling and
summon the stormtroopers.
She sat down on the hard
bunk, eyeing the droid. Her
hands had begun to shake,
she noticed, and she wedged
them under her legs, angry at
her loss of control. The droid
extended one of its probes,
and she instinctively retreated
into the corner of the cell.
Then the probe retracted and
the droid was still again. Still
and silent, except for the
sound that was crawling little
by little into her skull.
She wondered if Khione
was watching. Watching and
waiting for her to crack.
When the door opened
Leia didn’t know how much
time had passed. Two
stormtroopers entered,
dragging Lokmarcha between
them. He was in binders. His
yellow eyes leapt to the black
bulbous droid, and his hands
began to shake.
Khione walked into the
cell, her steps unhurried. It
was all Leia could do not to
spring at her. At a word from
her, the stormtroopers exited
the cell, leaving the door
open behind them.
The Imperial captain
wanted Kidi, Nien, and
Antrot to be able to hear what
would happen next, Leia
realized.
“This one’s admirably
loyal,
” Khione said.
“Promised to tell me
everything if only I let him
see his princess again first.
But I don’t think he has
anything important to say. So
we’re going to do something
else.”
She smiled. “The droid’s
going to work on him, and
you’re going to watch. And
then we’ll repeat the
procedure with the rest of
your friends.”
Khione touched the
control unit on her belt, and
the interrogation droid rotated
away from Leia. It floated
from side to side, scanning
the room, then approached
Lokmarcha.
The commando’s yellow
eyes turned to Leia and he
nodded.
Lokmarcha’s chest
contracted so suddenly Leia
heard his ribs crack. Then his
chest expanded drastically, as
if he’d taken an impossibly
large breath. The hairs on
Leia’s arms rose as
Lokmarcha slumped to the
deck, already dead. The
interrogation droid lurched to
one side, dipped, then tried to
rise. In the corridor outside,
the stormtroopers clutched at
their helmets, knees buckling.
Electromagnetic pulse,
Leia realized. Lokmarcha had
been carrying some kind of
pulse bomb in his chest, one
powerful enough to shut
down a good chunk of a Star
Destroyer. That had been his
plan B.
Khione looked up in
shock as Leia sprang at her.
The captain raised her arms,
but it was too late—Leia
seized the interrogation droid,
trying to get a grip on the
machine’s slick surface, and
slammed it into Khione’s
head. The captain crumpled
to the deck, unconscious, the
interrogation droid lying
motionless between her and
Lokmarcha’s body.
Leia looked sadly down at
the Dressellian. She didn’t
want to think about what he’d
endured to maneuver Khione
into the only situation that
would give Leia a chance.
I do have a chance—
thanks to you, Lok. And I’m
not going to waste it.
She hurried out of the
cell, snatching a blaster from
one of the fallen
stormtroopers. Behind her,
the lights in the cell flickered
and died. She heard the cough
and zing of blaster fire and
ran down the corridor, stolen
rifle raised.
A shape came toward her
out of the darkness and she
almost fired—then was glad
she hadn’t. It was Nien,
holding a stormtrooper’s
blaster, with Antrot and Kidi
behind him.
“The guards?” she asked.
“Not a problem
anymore,
” Nien said grimly.
“Where’s Lok?” Kidi
asked frantically.
Leia shook her head
sadly. Kidi stared at the floor
and began to rock back and
forth.
“He sacrificed himself for
us,
” Leia said. “If we give
into our grief now, he’ll have
done so for nothing. Antrot,
do you still have your
detonator?”
“I started putting it back
together already,
” the
Abednedo tinkerer said. “But
it’s not working because of
the electromagnetic pulse.”
“It will soon enough,
”
Nien said.
“And so will everything
else,
” Leia said. “We don’t
have much time.”
The Shieldmaiden shook
around them.
“What was that?” Kidi
asked.
Leia looked at Nien and
saw that he looked baffled,
too. The Imperial warship
shuddered again and klaxons
began to blare.
“They’re under attack!”
Nien said. “If we can get to
the docking bay—”
“We can and we will,
”
Leia said. “I’ve got a plan.
Nien, you and Kidi collect
three pairs of binders from
the guard station. Antrot, I
need you to hot-wire a cell
door. But wait here a minute
—I need to change clothes.”
She hurried back to her
cell, stepping over the two
stormtroopers, blaster raised
in case either the droid or
Khione showed signs of
stirring. But both were still on
the deck. One of the
stormtroopers groaned and
Leia stunned both of them,
then fired a stun bolt into the
fallen captain for good
measure. Moving quickly, she
stepped into the cell and set
down the blaster, then
stripped off her tunic and
trousers before yanking
Khione’s uniform off. It was
too big, and she tried to cram
the extra material of the
trousers into the tops of the
boots.
The Star Destroyer shook
again. Leia wondered who
was attacking the Imperials.
Had Mothma or Ackbar sent
a task force after her?
She turned, adjusting
Khione’s cap, and saw Antrot
standing in the doorway,
looking uncomfortable.
“How long have you—oh,
never mind,
” Leia said.
“Shove the troopers in here
and get the door locked.
Quickly!”
“Does a minute count as
quickly?” the tinkerer asked.
It didn’t even take half
that long. The door shut with
a groan and a flash of
sparking wires. Antrot gave
her a thumbs-up.
Nien returned with Kidi
and the items Leia had
requested. Leia fit the binders
loosely around her friends’
wrists, checking to see that
they appeared closed from a
distance.
The Shieldmaiden
shuddered again, and lights
started to blink on in the
detention block.
As they exited the
detention level, Leia
wondered if she heard a faint
warble. Or perhaps it had
only been her imagination, an
illusion conjured by a wisp of
unpleasant memory.
“It’ll just work on you
until someone tells it to stop,
”
she murmured.
“What did you say?” Nien
asked.
“Nothing. Come on.”