But does he really understand? Ferus thought. Ferus thought. Or is he just pretending, the way Or is he just pretending, the way Anakin used to? Biding his time? Anakin used to? Biding his time?
Ferus reminded himself that these were extreme circumstances. He understood Luke's desperation, because he shared it.
He shut his doubts out of his mind and let the Force flow through him. He didn't suppress his fear, he embraced it, accepted it as a necessary reaction to events, then let it go. He imagined himself as the eye of the storm, peaceful and serene, then let that calm flow through his body and into Kiro Chen. "Your loss has been great, my friend. Your sorrow beyond measure," he said soothingly, letting his voice rise and fall like the lapping river. The words weren't as important as the emotion they carried. Ferus could sense that Kiro was a good man. He wanted to help. But he was locked inside his grief. "You think your life is empty. Frozen, because how can it move forward? How can it survive this?
How can you? you? " "
As he spoke, Ferus allowed himself to remember all the losses he'd tried too hard to forget. The names and faces who haunted his nightmares. "But you did did survive," he said. survive," he said.
"And by accepting that, you honor her sacrifice."
"It wasn't her fault," Kiro said. "She did what she thought was right. I tried to talk her out of it, but she never listened to anyone. She was always so certain, and this time..."
"If you don't help us, more will die," Ferus said quietly. "Princess Leia will die."
Kiro took a deep, shuddering breath. "I don't know where the Imperials took her."
Ferus exchanged a glance with Luke. The same hopeless frustration was painted across both their faces.
Until Kiro spoke again. "But I know someone who will."
Deputy Minister Var Lyonn liked to work late. And he liked to work alone. It meant he could focus on his tasks without any distractions. It also meant that when two men blasted through his office door, then aimed their weapons at his head, there was no one to hear him scream.
He screamed quite a bit.
"Give it a rest," Han snapped. Time was running out. And he was getting a headache.
"We're not here to kill you."
Lyonn reached for a switch on the corner of his desk. A laserbolt shot across the room, blowing a hole in the expensive wood. Lyonn yanked his hand back. "No need to call in reinforcements," Fess said calmly. "You'll be gone by the time they get here."
"And just where am I going?" Lyonn said, trying and failing to sound like he was in control of himself or anything else.
"You're going to take us to wherever the Empire has stashed the princess."
Var Lyonn went white. "The princess is...missing?
"She is," Fess said. "Thanks in part to you."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Another laserbolt whizzed by, this one blasting a hole in the wall just behind Lyonn's left ear. "Try again," Fess growled.
"You can't blame me!" Var Lyonn squeaked. "I had to do what was best for Delaya!
We have enough problems of our own, without all these survivors sapping our resources.
The Empire promised to help!"
"In return for giving them Leia." Han was glad that they'd agreed Fess would do all the blasting. Han would have been too tempted to blow a hole straight through this skrag. "So you did it. And now you're going to help us get her back."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
There were no Imperial guards posted outside the deserted medcenter, but the place had a sinister feel. Maybe it was the boarded up windows, or the sentry droids hovering at the perimeter, but Han was certain this was the place.
You only needed to look at Var Lyonn to know he'd told the truth. He stood at the lone entrance of the medcenter, legs trembling, sweat bleeding through his shirt. He banged on the door again. "Let me in!" he shouted in a high, quivering voice.
"Stop shaking!" Han hissed from his hiding place in the bushes. "If they suspect you've betrayed them, they'll kill you."
"Is that supposed to make him feel better? better? " Luke asked. " Luke asked.
Fess shushed them both.
With the addition of Elad, there were five of them. Although Luke was still hit-or-miss with a blaster, and the old man was...well, an old man. Then there were the droids, who Han refused to count at all. If Lyonn could get them inside, it just might be enough-or not. They had no idea how many Imperials they were facing, or where Leia was being held. More time might have allowed them to make a better plan.
But who knew how much time Leia had left?
The door slid open. Two stormtroopers stood in the entrance.
"Just a few more steps, fellas," Han muttered, waiting impatiently for a clear shot.
Lyonn was supposed to get the guards to step out of the building. Han and Luke would take them down, then don their armor. Dressed as stormtroopers, they'd infiltrate the facility, find the princess, and get her out. It was a crazy plan-but it had worked before.
Mostly.
"I need to see your lieutenant," Lyonn said loudly. Then he leaned toward the stormtroopers, saying something Han was too far away to hear.
"Blast it!" Han swore. "I knew this would happen."
"What?" Luke asked, just as one of the stormtroopers raised his comlink. The other raised a blaster, taking aim for the bushes.
"Go!" Han shouted. They scattered. A barrage of laserbolts slammed into the foliage, sending billowing plumes of dirt into the air. Han darted through the cloud, firing at one of the stormtroopers. He went down.
"Watch out!" Luke shouted, knocking Han out of the way just in time to avoid another laserbolt which whizzed past.
Chewbacca roared, charging the door with his Ryk blade held high. The stormtrooper fired wildly, sending a blast straight into Var Lyonn, who shrieked and dropped to the ground. Before the stormtrooper could reload, Chewbacca had grabbed his blaster and twisted it out of his hands-then he set to work twisting the stormtrooper.
"Oh dear, Artoo, where do you think you're going?" C-3PO cried from his hiding spot.
But the little astromech droid ignored him, rolling steadily toward the door. He positioned himself in its path, just as it was sliding shut.
C-3PO dodged the laserbolts flying all around him to join his stubborn counterpart.
"You simply must get out of there," he insisted. "You're a droid, not a doorstop."
R2-D2 beeped indignantly.
"Why I'm most certainly doing something to help," C-3PO protested. "I'm offering my opinion on how things should proceed." He turned toward the battle, shaking his golden arms in the air. "Uh, I suggest you shoot at that stormtrooper, Captain Solo. Oh, dear, Master Luke, you might want to get out of the way!"
"Stop wasting my time and let's go find the princess!" Han shouted, knocking out the last stormtrooper. The melted, carbon-scored plasteel armor would be no use as a disguise now. But that likely didn't matter, since the stormtroopers had called for reinforcements.
They'd lost the element of surprise.
He vaulted over R2-D2 and sailed through the open door. "Good job, little guy," he called back to the droid, as the others hurtled through the opening.
"Why, thank you, sir," C-3PO answered for both of them. "We live to serve."
"Find the nearest computer terminal," Han ordered the droids. "See if you can get some information for us." But he didn't have much hope. If the Imperials were just using this as a temporary base, there was little chance they'd upload the location of their prisoner into the computer system. Still, he'd try anything. He could already hear the drumbeat of armored boots thudding down the hail, straight for them. Things were about to get very dangerous, very fast.
They strapped her to a flat slab of durasteel. Leia didn't struggle-she didn't want to waste her strength. She suspected she would need everything she had for what was to come.
She had been tortured before, and survived.
Even if there were moments when, torn apart by the pain, she'd wished that she hadn't.
Stun cuffs pinned her wrists and ankles to the durasteel. The stormtroopers snapped another set of binders across her chest, her waist, and her neck. She was completely immobilized.
No fear, she reminded herself.
Whatever they did to her, she would never betray the Rebel Alliance. Never Never.
Once she was immobilized, the stormtroopers marched out, their feet pounding the floor in unison. She was left in a silence broken only by her ragged breathing.
Then, footsteps. A Pau'an, with a gaunt, gray face, clawed hands, and a long black robe. He smiled. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Princess Leia."
She spit in his face.
The Pau'an jerked away, swiping the gob of saliva away with the back of his hand. She allowed herself a small moment of satisfaction.
"You'll tell me what I want to know, Princess," the Pau'an said in a pinched voice.
"I'm surprised to see a Pau'an working for the Emperor," Leia replied calmly, as if they were having a polite chat. "Given that he's turned your world into a planet of Imperial slaves."
"Not slaves, Your Highness," the alien hissed. "Willing servants of our Imperial masters. True, the Emperor prefers to fill out his ranks with human officers...but some of you humans tend to get rather squeamish about torture. Whereas I'll do anything to get the information I desire. And, just between you and me-I'll enjoy it."
The binder restraining her neck was tight enough that she couldn't turn her head. So she closed her eyes. Rough thumbs pressed against her lids, dragging them open. "Look at me," he ordered.
As if she had a choice.
"First: The name of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star. Next: Everything you know about the Rebel Alliance. Everything Everything."
"I'm not telling you anything, scum," Leia spit out. "Do whatever you want. You can't make me talk."
"Incorrect." The Pau'an pulled a thick black handle out of his cloak. A thin strand of wire dangled from one end; he brushed it across her face. "Have you ever seen a neuronic whip, Princess? With the press of a switch, a high voltage charge of electricity will shoot through this wire-and into anything it touches."
He glided the whip across her cheekbone...down her jawline...his finger straying toward the activation switch. Leia tried not to flinch. "One lash is enough to cause debilitating pain, neurological overload. Repeated lashings usually result in permanent brain damage. Very useful on my planet for keeping the slaves in line."
"I thought you said they were willing servants," Leia said through gritted teeth.
"At a certain point, one is willing willing to do anything to make the pain stop," he said coldly. "Do you know much about pain, Princess?" to do anything to make the pain stop," he said coldly. "Do you know much about pain, Princess?"
More than you can imagine, you Imperial slime.
He bared his teeth, and moved the whip beyond her field of vision. A moment later, she felt the cold wire brush her neck. "So many kinds of pain." He traced invisible designs in her skin. "Infinite variations." She forced herself not to shiver as the wire ran across her forehead, her temple, over her lips, along her chin. If he activated the charge...
"How much pain can you handle?" he asked. "How much before you break?"
"I'll never break," she snapped. No fear No fear, she told herself again. It should have helped, the knowledge that she'd been tortured before and knew what was coming. She'd carved out a dark, quiet space for herself in the corner of her mind, and curled up until the pain disappeared. But even when the pain had gone, it hadn't been easy to find her way out again. If she had to retreat into the shadows once again, would she ever find her way back?
Still: "Do what you want," she said coldly. "You'll get nothing from me."
"I know," he said abruptly, dropping the whip. It clattered to the floor. "You'll break,"
he said. "Everyone breaks. Even the strongest have their limits. It's only a matter of how much. Pain will destroy you-either your body, or your mind. I could hurt you, Princess."
He leaned over her face, his breath misting her forehead. "I could hurt you quite efficiently."
He let out a hissing sigh of irritation. "But I've seen your file. You'd die before you talked-or the pain would drive you to madness, trapping you inside your head forever.
You'd be of no use to us then. Fortunately, I've been provided with a third option."
Once again, he held something over her face for her to see. An injector. "One dose of this, and you'll tell me anything I want to know," he boasted. "It bores holes in your brain, burrowing straight through all those troublesome little walls you've erected around the truth. No more secrets, Princess. Not from me, and not from the Empire."
Now Leia knew that she hadn't been afraid before, really.
Because this was fear. Ice pulsing through her veins. Not for herself, not for her own life-but for the Alliance. If the Empire could get inside her brain, they could learn anything.
Names. Bases. Access codes.
All her friends would be in danger, their hopes destroyed.
All because of her. Again.
"Look on the bright side," he said, smirking down at her. "The serum is in the experimental stage-we're still refining the formula."
So maybe it won't work, Leia thought desperately.
"Oh, it gets the job done," the Pau'an said pleasantly. "But only one of our test subjects has survived. She's doing a lot better these days-at least according to the poor sap we pay to mop up her drool. I'm told soon she might even be allowed to feed herself again, if they can teach her to stop stabbing herself in the face with the fork." He shrugged. "Either way, once we're done here, I doubt you'll be in any position to feel guilty about the secrets you've revealed."
Leia felt herself beginning to crumble. She'd always believed she could fight anything.
But what if she couldn't fight this?