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Heert was up to something.
He probably thought he was being clever, but imagination had never been his strong suit. He was a glorified analyst, someone best suited to combing through data and passing on the results to someone who knew what they were doing. And he was a terrible liar. Oh, he'd pretended that he didn't mind handing the Axis file back to her when she'd reclaimed it from his incompetence after Ghorman. Rattled off a little pious speech about seeking the good of the Empire, not individual accomplishment. But she knew him. He resented it, having to give it back up to her who had once been his superior officer.
She always had been superior to him. Ghorman had proved that. No one else could have done what she'd done, orchestrated the operation with such precision that it played out according to her design. Even the one unexpected factor had not been wholly a disaster. Syril had been a loose end by the end. Worse, he had made her soft. Compromised her focus. Of course, she would not have chosen to terminate him. A discrete severance combined with a cushy promotion to keep him quietly pushing pencils for the rest of his life would have been desirable.
But she had always been able to adapt. And it had not affected her standing as much as it might have. Had perhaps even enhanced it. The officer who had been personally impacted by the terrorism on Ghorman and yet who had continued to execute her duties with distinction, without compromise.
She executed her duties once more with distinction, without compromise, when she confronted Heert and his ally, that weaselly Jung, in the quiet hallway where Jung was passing off a file to him that made Heert look around nervously, guiltily. He really had not been the same since terrorists assassinated Dr. Gorst on his watch. It was clear that he could not be trusted with important things. Wresting the Axis file back from him had been easy even without the power that Ghorman had given her.
"What's this?" she said, standing forwards in Heert's space as he tried to press the file to his chest. He looked pathetic doing so.
"Nothing," he lied badly. "Just a report on some rebel activity on Lothal."
Rebel activity on Lothal? Really? She was embarrassed for him. It was everyone's excuse. I was going to finish my quarterly budget but some urgent intel on the Lothal rebels came in. Unfortunately my informant was targeted by rebels from Lothal. I haven't visited my sector for three years because rebel activity based out of Lothal has been disrupting the hyperspace lanes. Partagaz had once sarcastically inquired if he ought not to take over direct management of Lothal itself since it was causing such trouble for his supervisors.
"We'll see," she said, and held out a hand. "Show it to me."
Heert hesitated. If he had any wits at all, he would have known that she did not yet have grounds to demand the surrender of another supervisor's intel, not without proof that it really was about Axis. Jung was not so stupid, but she had the measure of him too. He liked to stay everyone's friend, or at least not be anyone's enemy, and so he would not challenge her. She was the top supervisor at the Bureau, the most powerful after Partagaz. It would not do, to get on her bad side.
She looked at Heert's guilty face and took a calculated swing.
"If this is related to Axis, then you know the file is no longer yours," she said, and was grimly vindicated by the quiver of his chin. "Give it to me."
"It's nothing," he tried to protest. "Just some stray radio signals that one of Supervisor Jung's monitors caught, it's probably nothing to do with Axis-"
"I'll be the judge of that," she said. "Give. It. To. Me."
Under the force of her will, Heert buckled. She spared one last warning glare for Jung -she'd deal with him later- and went back to her office to review the report.
It was Axis.
She knew it.
"And you believe this to be the same communications on Ferrix?" Partagaz said dismissively.
He said most things dismissively. It was not a bad tactic for putting people on the defensive. They either had to defend their position or else confess to wasting time. Either way, they were always explaining themselves to him. She could never do it herself in his position, of course. They would only say that she was so incompetent that she needed everything laid out for her. Still, there was merit in the strategy. When she took over, she could perhaps consider a more aggressive version. Put every thesis to trial with herself as the judge.
"It's the same frequency which was used by Axis' contact there," she said. "We know from interrogation that the channel is encrypted. No one else could access it, and certainly not by accident."
"And what is being said on it now?"
She clenched her fingers behind her back.
"It's not a conversation," she said. "It's a pulse code. Pre-arranged signals. Checking in, confirmation, set inquiries and requests. I have a team working on cross-referencing the patterns with recent rebel activity to decode the signals, but it is the right frequency. This is Axis, sir, I know it."
"A pulse code," Partagaz said skeptically, though his eyes were sharp. "A few noises on a radio. It's hardly a mastermind network."
She took a deep breath. Reminded herself that he was saying this because he expected the best from her. She wasn't Blevin, content to throw his weight around in his sector, or Jung, living in perpetual mediocrity. She was a professional. A surgeon. The galaxy was sick and it was her job to find the illness and cut it out.
"We found a trace of the signal here, on Coruscant," she said. "A shop in the Imperial City. Level 5127. An antiques dealer."
"I presume this is going somewhere?" Partagaz said, with the first note of real warning in his voice. Finally, down to business.
"Yes sir," she said. "An antiques dealer with links to Mon Mothma. She used to patronize him often, according to her old surveillance reports. And he went to her daughter's wedding. Not just a favourite store keep, I shouldn't think."
"That is interesting," said Partagaz, giving up the pretense of impartiality at the mention of Mothma. It had been one of their greatest failures, eclipsing by far any errors she had made on Ferrix, and the consequences had been immediate and indiscriminate. She'd still been on her way back from Ghorman so she'd escaped the worst of it, but many went around the Bureau for weeks afterwards with high collars. The Emperor had authorized Inquisitors to conduct an audit of the ISB and they had been excessively thorough. There hadn't been enough of Lagret left to fit inside a message tube.
"I want to drill down on the dealer," she said. "Luthen Rael. All the evidence says he's involved. He knows something. He may even be Axis himself."
"Let's not put the cart before the fathier," Partagaz said. Even with the potential of taking out one of Mothma's circle, he was not careless. "You're right, let's focus on this Rael. Do we have a file on him? Why was he not on our radar after Mothma's little stunt?"
She tapped her pad and transferred the short file to him immediately.
"He's kept a very average profile," she said. "Too average. Some black market dealings, connections to gangsters like Davo Sculdun, but nothing you wouldn't expect from a dealer in rare artifacts. He was assessed after the Senate incident but was not deemed a promising candidate for active surveillance."
"Put him under surveillance now," said Partagaz. "I want evidence before we move this time, Dedra. I don't want another incident like Ferrix. We have fallen in the Emperor's esteem. It's the last thing we can afford right now.
It was what she had expected, but it was enough. She nodded.
"Sir."
Rael was clever.
He covered his tracks well. Never said anything where the bugs could hear, never toed a foot out of line in front of the surveillance team. After a week, she was sure that he was aware of the team watching him. In every holo, he was angled just so towards the hidden cameras, always with a disarming smile and a spark of amusement in his eye. He was never nervous, as someone who knew they were being watched might be. Nor did he panic. He seemed to be enjoying it all.
That told her everything she needed to know. But she had learned from Ferrix. She could not afford to go in on the basis of her instinct and logic alone. She needed more.
That was fine. She had been chasing Axis for five years. She could wait a little longer.
Rael finally slipped up after a month and a half. He sent his assistant -a cool, composed human woman with little patience for her employer's eccentricities- home early, claiming he had a private meeting with a client who wished for complete discretion. She had hardly gone when the so-called client came in the front door, bold and open as brass.
Mothma's husband.
Rael tried to usher him into the back, where they had not been able to plant a bug yet, but Fertha was not having it. He demanded to speak with his wife. He was unhappy with her. He was under house arrest, as was their daughter with her useless husband. He knew that Rael knew where she was, that he'd been in contact with her, and if Rael wasn't willing to set up a meeting, the least he could do was pass on a message.
It was everything she needed and more. Rael's token denials that he was not in contact with Mothma rang forced, hollow. He saw Fertha off with a vague statement about also wishing to speak with Mothma over an unsettled tab, but he cursed low and furious the moment the doors swung shut.
He knew what had just happened. She had little time to act. If it had been her, she'd have shot the husband dead and been out the back door already.
No more questions. No more evidence. It was time.
They did not have to go through the charade of knocking on the door.
Rael met them at the threshold, dressed for travel in a dark cloak. If he had been planning to make a break for it, there was no trace of it in his demeanor. He cracked the door open, made a show of looking over her and the elite troopers she had requisitioned, and broke into a wide smile.
"Supervisor Meero!" he said, every inch the benevolent grandfather. A surge of loathing welled up in her stomach that she swallowed back. She could loathe him all she liked when he was safely arrested. "I'm honoured to have such a distinguished visitor from the ISB. How can I help you this fine evening?"
"Luthen Rael?" she said. It was a formality to confirm the identity of the suspect, but she relished it all the same.
"That's what some call me," Rael said with a chuckle, as if it were all some kind of grand joke. He was too comfortable, too cocksure of himself. It was time to change that.
"They call you many names, don't they?" she said. "Rafe Hamel. Beel Sherdan. Yaakov Asco. But I prefer Axis."
Rael's eyes glinted.
"Axis!" he said. "There's something you don't hear every day. I think you'd better come in."
She should not. He was not in charge here, she was. But she also knew this sort of man. Clever, but also convinced of their own cleverness. He was the sort of man who needed to grandstand, to show the world just how smart he was and just how stupid the rest of them were. He was also clever enough to plan for the possibility of being caught. With Gorst gone, they would get little out of him in interrogation that he did not wish to give.
This was the best moment to question him, find out what he knew. When he felt safe, in control, in his own territory. She had listened to clever men drone on and on about their own importance before. She had listened carefully, and when the time was right, she had used what she had learned.
Rael led them into the main storefront. She surveyed it without letting her eye linger on any of the overpriced scraps from dead worlds being passed off as rare relics for the rich and sentimental. A glorified junk shop, that was what this was. It was insulting that Rael had gotten away with the front for so long. At her nod, the troopers fanned out to cover the exits. One at the door, two at the openings that led to the elusive backroom, one at her back. A security grate had lowered over the windows but there was no sign of bags, of packing, of haste, despite Rael's clothing. If he had intended to try and flee, he had been too slow.
"I suppose I can't offer you anything to drink?" Rael said, still going through the facade of civility. "Normally I don't allow customers to eat and drink in the showroom, but I think you can be trusted not to spill on the Alderaanian moss painting!"
His arrogance, his ego, was astonishing even now. She smiled thinly at him.
"I will speak plainly," she said. "Two months ago, this shop received transmissions from a rebel frequency."
"Did it?" said Rael facetiously.
"You will of course be aware that communication with terrorists carries an automatic ten-year sentence in a correctional labour facility."
Rael spread his hands, smooth and manicured, with a look of innocence.
"Yes, I remember hearing something about that on the news a few years ago. What was it, that Public Order Resentencing Directive? Yes, I do recall that now."
"And concealing information from the authorities regarding known terrorists is considered an act of collusion and high treason against the Emperor."
"That sounds serious," said Rael, pulling a false face of concern. "You'll forgive me, I don't see how this all relates to me. It's true, I own a radio. It's something of a hobby of mine. I'm not very good, I'm afraid. I keep adjusting the signal but I can never pick up anything. What did you say, some kind of rebel frequency at this shop? I can't even hear half the things that come through sometimes."
She had expected this, but it still annoyed her.
"So you deny being in contact with the traitor Mon Mothma?" she said. "She used to be quite a close friend, didn't she? You two were as thick as thieves by all accounts."
Rael was good enough not to deny it.
"She was a regular client," he said. "I was of course shocked to hear the news. To think that anyone could go into the middle of the Senate, the very heart of the Empire, and say such things about the Emperor! It came as a surprise to me, I don't mind saying."
Her hands clenched before she could stop them. He was still toying with her. He knew very well why she was here. Was waiting for them to arrive, had addressed her by name. He could only be doing this to get a rise out of her, to get her to lose control. Well, he'd soon learn. She had long ago learned to refine her anger and use it.
She picked up an small, ugly bowl of painted clay and considered it. Rael watched her with keen, careful eyes. She set the bowl back down on its small pedestal with care.
"I wonder if your assistant was just as surprised as you were," she said, and felt the satisfying clench of victory in her chest as something dark and furious flashed in Rael's eyes. "We'll ask her after we finish here. She would have to be very stupid to not know anything about your...hobbies and your friends."
A direct hit. The smile fell from Rael's face. At last.
"Oh, I don't know," he said coldly. "If I really were this rebel that you seem to be suggesting, I hope I'd be clever enough not to let my employees know what I'm doing. Which, forgive me, is why this is all rather absurd. If I had some secret Rebel radio, why would I use it in a place where everyone knows I work?"
She leaned in. Let her disdain finally show.
"Perhaps you aren't as clever as you think you are."
Rael looked at her. The genial grandfather had vanished. His eyes were sharp and his mouth flattened into a thin line.
"Perhaps not," he said. "Of course, what does that make you? It's been, what, five years since you've opened this file? Five years where this Axis has had free reign to do whatever he likes."
He was doing this to provoke her, now that the kindly shopkeeper act had fallen through. She would not allow herself to be provoked.
"Axis is sloppy," she countered, pacing around a cracked vase on a stand. "Axis was careless enough to go to Ferrix himself, just to meet a low-level thief. Axis barely escaped from a direct firefight with a Corpo squadron. Axis had the arrogance to flaunt his relationship with the traitor Mon Mothma in the open. Axis is not as subtle as he believes."
"Interesting," Rael said. "Some might say the same about Supervisor Meero of the ISB. Supervisor Meero was careless enough to go to Ferrix herself, just to catch a mere thief, and she didn’t even catch the thief. Supervisor Meero barely escaped from a street riot. Supervisor Meero had the arrogance to flaunt her case in front of a suspect before even making an arrest. Is it possible, Supervisor Meero, that you are not as subtle as you believe?"
She gritted her teeth. Reminded herself that it was just more of Axis' games.
"I am not the one under suspicion here."
"Are you sure?" Rael quipped. "You must realize by now that no one is safe. Everyone is always under suspicion. It's why people obey. Not because they believe in the great and bountiful Empire, but because they fear the day it comes for them."
Here it was, the great political theory. The most annoying, most self-righteous rebels always had them.
"No effective government has ever ruled without fear," she said. "The Empire is merely honest about it. People are weak and easily led. Left to themselves, they'd choose their own destruction every time. The Empire makes the choice simpler. They can live under the Empire's peace or they can die."
Rael inclined his head at her.
"I see," he said. "The Empire saves us from ourselves, from our worst instincts, is that so? I wonder what that says about you and me. If this is us at our best, I shudder to think what we'd be in a galaxy without the Empire. And I think you do too."
The Empire had given her everything. Without the Empire, she'd have nothing. Worse than nothing, she'd be no one. Just another crawling, grasping nobody amidst an uneducated, mindless, dirty horde of nobodies. Yes, she feared the galaxy without the Empire. It would be a worse place without law, without order, without a reason to live.
Syril had been the only other person who'd ever come close to understanding that, even if he hadn’t understood her in the end. It would be a fitting tribute to his memory for her to take down Axis. Perhaps Axis might even give up Andor, if she pressed the right buttons. Syril would have liked that.
"Enough with the games," she said. "You are the rebel agent known as Axis. For years, you have coordinated an underground network to steal top-secret Imperial technology, provoke insurrection, and undermine the stability of the Empire. Do you deny it?"
There was the flicker of a smile on Rael's face. It was not the smile he had put on for show before. It was something real, something full of fierce delight and pride. She was right. He'd been longing for recognition, for a chance to stand in the light and boast about his accomplishments. He had wanted to announce himself for a very long time, and now at last here was his moment.
"It doesn't matter if I deny it," he said. "If you’re here, there's nothing I can say which would convince you otherwise."
It was the first really clever thing he'd said. She allowed herself a grim smile.
"You're right," she said. "There isn't."
Rael gave her another, appraising look.
"It won't do any good," he said. "You're wasting your time."
Really? She was a little disappointed. Surely he did not intend to keep up the pretense even now.
"I never waste time."
"I'm sure you don't," said Rael, and coughed delicately into his fist. "I'm afraid I'm the one without much time to waste. A few weeks, or so they tell me."
She stared at him.
"You're bluffing."
Rael chuckled. It was both bitter and amused all at once.
"I'm undecided whether it's a tragedy or a comedy," he said. "For me and for you. All those years of work, chasing down ghosts in the shadow of some greater good, and this is how it ends. Not with a last stand for the history books. Not even the decency of a quick, efficient end in service to a higher cause. It's unfair, isn't it? This isn't how the story's supposed to go."
There was no story. No such thing as fate or destiny or a grand plan. You played with the cards you were dealt and replaced the dealer if they'd done a poor job. This was unfortunate, provided it was true, but she could adapt.
"That's a shame," she said. "We'll have to focus on that assistant of yours instead. What was her name, Kleya? I'm sure she'll be able to tell us all about her late employer."
Again, the glint of anger in Rael's eyes. Obviously a weak point for him. They were always going to arrest the assistant as an accomplice but now she made a mental note to prioritize her. She was clearly the key to breaking Rael.
"She'd have a lot of things to say about me, no doubt," said Rael, with tremendous effort at neutrality. "I was never a very good boss. Too lackadaisical. Not taking the work as seriously as I should have."
She was getting bored with his deflections. The very worst thing he could do right now was bore her.
"The work of treason?" she said. "Of rebellion? You're right. All your work has been for nothing. The Rebellion will fall. It's only a shame that you won't be around to see it."
Rael sighed. He sounded convincingly tired. She almost might have believed it.
"I don't suppose I will," he said. "But I am glad it was you. I was worried it might be one of your slower-minded colleagues. Or your boss. I knew him you know, back in the day. Partagaz is a capable administrator, I'll grant him that, but let's be honest. He's been in the office for too long. His best days in counter-Intelligence are behind him now. You, on the other hand..."
She felt her lips curl.
"Do you honestly believe that flattery will save you?" she said.
Rael held up his hands innocently, disarmingly.
"Flattery? You mistake me, Supervisor Meero. It's not flattery to acknowledge the caliber of one's opponent. You got very close to me. Closer than anyone's ever gotten. You nearly had me on Ferrix. If you'd been a little more patient, Andor would have walked right into your hands and that would have been that."
It was frustrating to feel once more the sting of that failure, and to have it confirmed that she had been right about everything. It was even more frustrating to hear it from Axis' own lips.
She took another deep breath. This was all just distraction. That was all it was. She had won but he would not accept it. She raised her hand. The troopers around the room stood at attention and leveled their weapons at Rael.
"Luthen Rael," she said. "I am arresting you under the authority of the Imperial Security Bureau for high treason, espionage, and theft. More charges will follow as the full scope of your crimes becomes clearer."
Rael shook his head. He looked almost disappointed.
"Come now," he said, looking at the troopers. "There's no need for this. I'm unarmed. What do you think I'm about to do, talk you to death?"
And he laughed, as if this were all some great joke. Even now, he laughed! Her lips curled into a sneer.
"Gag him," she said to the trooper nearest her. "I don't want to hear another word from him until he's in a cell."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that," said Rael pleasantly. "Now's your last chance to get anything out of me. I won't be saying a word when I leave."
She scoffed.
"We'll see about that."
"I hardly think so," Rael said, and let a bit of teeth show in his smile. "Not with the good Dr. Gorst dead and gone. And you have no leverage over me. I have no family to threaten, no career or reputation that means anything. You spoke of Kleya earlier, but surely you must realize by now that I would never have risked that. She's on her way off-planet as we speak. The fact is that you have nothing to use over me. All you have is my willing cooperation. I'm a simple old man. I've grown fond of this place. I want to leave her with some dignity, not bound and chained like a common criminal."
He dared to bargain? The worst thing was that he was right. He had no family. No friends. She doubted that the assistant was actually off-planet, but she had doubtless gone to ground and it would cost valuable time to find her. And if Rael was to be believed, he was dying, though of course they would have to verify that. There was always torture, but she had no doubt he had prepared for that eventuality. Anything he gave up would be useless or suspect.
She ground her teeth and motioned for the approaching trooper to stop.
"That entirely depends on your level of cooperation," she said. "Give me Andor, and I might consider letting you walk out of here instead of being dragged."
"Andor?" Rael looked surprised. "Don't tell me you're still looking for him. No one's heard hide nor hair of him in years. If he's still alive, I'd be very surprised."
She curled her lip.
"This is cooperation?" she said. "Andor was seen in the Senate last year, after your senator friend's little stunt. A man matching his description was described by multiple witnesses and the security footage as helping her escape."
Rael tsked.
"Yes, that was a mess, wasn't it?" he said. "But it was an extraordinary situation. And there are some risks you have to take. Like you, for example. Coming here was a risk, but you took it. And now, thanks to you, the Empire will be able to stop looking for Axis. You've done a thorough job. Compiled all the evidence. Painted a very compelling picture. No one could look at your case and doubt that you've uncovered Axis at last."
There was something about the way he said that, some mocking undercurrent to his obsequious words, that prickled her instincts with a sense of wrongness. She must have failed to suppress the realization in time because Rael smiled crookedly at her.
"It's the usual problem with rebellions," Rael went on. "I'm sure you know this. Most of them collapse once you cut off the head. They're directionless, useless, without a leader. Perhaps one in a thousand have the collective clarity of purpose and the will to hold together. It doesn't matter where they go, how far they scatter. They'll carry that unity with them wherever they are."
His network. Axis' network. The assumption had been a loose collection of petty criminals and suppliers, feeding stolen tech to the top. What Rael was implying was far more dangerous. A network of spies and operatives, possibly trained by Rael himself, capable of building their own sub-networks across the galaxy. This was rebel activity at an unthinkable level, a coordinated system operating half between the shadows and light to undermine everything the Empire stood for.
"You will give me the names of your associates," she hissed, too furious at her own lack of foresight to control her anger. "You will give them all to me now, or I will have you flayed alive and your skin nailed to the door of your precious shop."
Rael smiled. Too happily. The prickling in the back of her mind crawled underneath her skin.
"Oh, gladly," he said. "Here are two of them right now."
He gestured behind her. Without thinking, she turned around.
She did not understand at first. No, that was not right. She understood the images she saw through the barred windows, but they made no sense put together. The two troopers she had left outside to guard the speeder were gone. A human woman with short blonde hair was in the driver's seat and the engine was running. Another woman stepped into full view in front of the door. Long dark hair, nondescript clothes, and a face that threatened to tickle something in her memory. There was a chain in her hands which she threaded through the door handles.
Everything happened in very slow motion. The trooper nearest the door cursed and fired his weapon at the closed door. Idiot. There must have been some sort of hidden metal reinforcing the frame because the shot rebounded, catching the trooper in the shoulder and dropping him. The familiar woman stepped back from the door and looked up at her, square in the face. Drawn brows, frown, nothing but contempt oozing out of her. She had freckles across her nose, and it suddenly came to her where she had seen this woman before.
Ferrix. Andor's associate. The one who had confirmed Axis' existence under Dr. Gorst's efforts.
The woman looked at her a moment more. There was disgust on her face, and anger, and grim satisfaction. The woman ignored the troopers in the store pointing their blasters at her. She seemed to have eyes only for her, for Dedra herself. She held up something in her hand. A small metal tube. A small metal tube with a button on top.
A laugh distracted her from the woman. She whirled around as the troopers fired, their shots cracking but not shattering the windows. Reinforced transparisteel, supplied the part of her brain not frozen in shock. Rael was still standing where he had been before, but he looked different. His grey curls were in his hands- a wig, supplied the same analytical voice in her brain. His real hair was close-cropped, utilitarian. There was a gloating, triumphant smile on his face.
"We're a lot alike, you know," he said, dark gaze fixed on her, completely ignoring the shouts and threats of the troopers as they moved towards the door in attack pattern. "We're both saviors, you and I. We long to save the galaxy from itself. From its vices and corruption and selfishness. Not because we love it, or because we believe in some cause. That's just what we tell ourselves so that we can sleep at night."
The sound of shattering glass. A second later, a scream and a crash. One of the troopers crumbled onto the floor with a smoking hole in his breastplate. A spray of blood stained the antique wooden mask behind him.
"The truth is that we crave it," said Rael, exulting in his moment. "The recognition, the applause! After all these years, the unsung heroes working tirelessly for the greater good finally getting their hour in the light."
The troop leader was shouting at her, demanding orders, answers. Blasterfire shrieked and whined, but none of it touched her. A roar of engines, from somewhere outside. Banging, and cursing, the thump of armoured fists and rifle butts against the windows.
She was transfixed by Axis. Could not tear her attention away from him. Here, before her, unmasked. He looked at her kindly, with pity that she almost believed.
"But you know there is no light," Axis said, as though he knew her, as though he saw her, as though he understood her. "Not in the shadows where we belong. What we're really after is a mirror. A pale reflection to show us whatever meagre light we tell ourselves is still within us. If we can see ourselves in another face, then our self is not yet vanished forever into the void. There is still hope for the hopeless, pity for the pitiless."
His words struck her like body blows, though they were nonsense. The babbling of a madman about to die. She should pay them no mind and kill him now. Silence him once and for all. She drew her blaster from its holster and aimed it Rael. But she did not fire. Rael looked at her, or through her. She hated it suddenly. His eyes were pale and they shone with pride and satisfaction and emptiness. There was nothing in them. They were dead eyes on a dead man.
"Forgive me," said Axis, and shook his head. "You said you do not waste time and I am wasting it for you. Let's make this quick. We have, oh, twenty more seconds, I should say. If you’d like to kill me yourself, you still have time."
Dull clanging, as the troopers set to kicking down the door, the grate over the window. She knew with sudden certainty that they would not. Axis had known all along that they'd be coming. Had planned this. His glorious last stand. And she'd walked right into it. But how had he known-
"You have someone on the inside," she breathed as the last piece suddenly fell into terrible place. "All along. You've been inside all along, you were spying on us."
A grin crept onto Axis' face that almost reached his pale, lifeless eyes.
"What can I say?" he said, spreading his arms wide. "In the end, that's the difference between you and me, Supervisor Meero. Neither of us have any family. No kindness or kinship or love. But I have my consolations. I have friends in many places."
He opened his hand. A comms piece blinked in his palm. For a moment, she thought she could hear singing. A faint, tinny voice beneath the rumble of a motor, chanting words she did not understand but had heard once in her life before, on that last day on Ghorman.
Axis was still smiling as he crumbled to the floor, chest smoking from her shaking -sloppy!- shot. That awful grimace was more alive now than it had ever been. Her hands trembled but she did not flee. She would not. She could not. She understood it in that instant. Her failure. Her arrogance. Every miscalculation that had brought her here, on the cusp of victory but in reality never further from it. There was not even the satisfaction of knowing that she had been right about Axis. Her chest, her stomach, her head twisted with a dull, hollow ache that echoed bitterly with the magnitude of her folly.
The burning light, when it finally came, was a relief.
No one stuck around after the funeral.
It had been a shock, to be sure. Supervisors were sometimes lost in the line of duty. A transit accident on route to their sector or a pre-existing health condition that they had unwisely tried to conceal. But it never happened like this. Truth be told, no one had even expected Axis to be real, much less that he would be so unstable, so audacious, to blow up both himself and an ISB supervisor in the middle of Coruscant.
Even Supervisor Meero's greatest detractors had to admit that there was no possible way to have foreseen this. They could and did murmur other criticisms -her aggressiveness, her lack of propriety, her unpleasantness- but even they could not argue that she ought to have predicted such a reckless, destructive act.
Partagaz was a broken man, to all who knew the signs to look for. He had kept his hands behind his back to hide the trembling as he delivered the eulogy, and his face was drawn and tired even though his voice remained forceful as he praised Meero’s meticulous work ethic. It was commonly suspected that as he grew older and plans for succession began to be laid, Meero had been his preferred candidate. Now, the field was wide open.
Blevin was already making overtures, cozying up to Yularen's office. He might actually get it too, but it was a bit early and coming out as a front-runner so soon only meant that his enemies would have longer to plot against him. Anyways, Partagaz wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. He might be shaken by the loss of his protégé, but he had gotten his position by being very good at putting duty and responsibility first. He would not leave until he was assured that his successor was the best for the job.
He himself was not in any kind of contention, serious or otherwise. Oh, he'd put in his name when the time came, as he'd be expected to do so that he did not seem unambitious. But he was no one's idea of a boss. As Lagret had once joked to him long ago, if he became Major Jung, they might have to start disliking him and nobody wanted to do that.
Lagret was dead now, like Meero. It had taken some careful handling to make sure that bumbling, panicking Lagret had been on time for his supervisory shift in broadcast operations. If it had been anyone more competent, they might have soused out a way to shut down the live feed or given instruction to their inside agent on Organa’s team not to reveal herself too soon. Poor Lagret had been exactly the man for the job and he was sorry for it. Not because he had particularly liked Lagret. But it wasn't necessary to like someone to find their death brutal and pointless. Meero's, at least, had had a point. She had been getting closer, and threatening to upturn other assets in her relentless hunt. With both her and Axis gone, the ISB would focus their attentions elsewhere.
No one was watching him as he made his way down to the lower levels, but he took his time all the same. Luthen would never have forgiven him for throwing away his costly cover because of overconfidence. The elevator ride down felt shorter than usual, though he knew from his chrono that it was not. In the earpiece, Kleya's voice was clipped and emotionless. If she was grieving the loss of Luthen, she did not show it. Both of them knew what Luthen would have wanted them to do.
"This had better be good," she said, when the lift doors opened. She was stood in Luthen's usual place on the bridge, the fumes of the undercity whipping the hem of her coat about her ankles. Her hood was down and her face was heavily painted, especially around the eyes. No one could look at that mask and suspect cracked lips, drawn cheeks, puffy red eyes..
"They're still looking for you," he said by way of greeting. "You're wanted for questioning."
Fortunately, Meero had kept most of her findings about Kleya to herself. From her notes, it seemed that she thought Kleya more an assistant to Luthen's activities instead of a co-conspirator in her own right. It had been easy to tweak those files, suggest that Dedra's suspicions towards Kleya lay in Luthen’s connection to the black market rather than Axis' network. She was still of interest to the investigation of course, but not as any kind of serious rebel.
"Noted," Kleya said flatly. He left it there. She could probably take care of herself better than he could. "What do you have?"
Straight to business. Best not to linger. He cleared his throat.
"I cleaned out her office," he said. No one had so much batted an eye when he volunteered to do it, sparing Heert the expectation as her former attendant. Heert had not been the same since the explosion. He believed that it was his fault, that the trap had been meant for him. It had not been meant for him and it was only partially his fault. Meero wouldn't have believed the intel coming from anyone else. "I found something."
"There are many things you could find in an ISB supervisor's office," said Kleya, but she had stiffened and there was an intense, urgent interest in her voice.
"It's about Ghorman," he said. "I know why she was there."
"Ghorman's old news," Kleya said cautiously. "What relevance does this have?"
"Everything." He shook his head. "The assignment didn't come from us. It came from above. From Tarkin's office, from the Research and Development division. There was something they wanted on Ghorman, a rare mineral in the crust, for a secret project that no one knows about."
He took a deep breath. Kleya’s painted eyes, flashing dull red and sharp black lines, bored into him with furious anticipation, desperate for the intel to be worth everything it had cost.
"I think they're building a weapon."