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“You’re wrong!” Brierly Ronan snapped, eyeing the datapad as if the Lieutenant Commander was holding a venomous viper. “That’s impossible. You’ve obviously mistranslated the report or mucked up the decryption in some way!”
“I didn’t mistranslate anything,” Vanto said. His voice was irritatingly calm. “Look, it’s here if you want to read it, otherwise…”
Vanto moved to set the datapad on a nearby chair, but Ronan snatched it.
“When did it arrive?”
“Just now. I thought you’d want to see it first.”
Ronan didn’t reply. He barely heard Vanto. None of this seemed real, some cruel joke played by the holonet, by the Ascendancy, by Vanto himself.
It cannot be.
But there it was, buried among the bland blocked text of a typical ISB-issued bulletin.
Director Krennic is confirmed to be among the dead.
“He died...on Scarif…” The words fell from Ronan’s slack jaw, quiet and broken. “And they dare call it a ‘successful single-ignition weapon’s test’? Successful?! When it turned its maker to ashes?! Who do they think they are?”
If this was his own datapad he would have thrown it across his quarters.
Sadly, it was not. It was Vanto’s property and even in a time of grief, he respected that.
He resigned to sit in the only chair in the room, a room that was now home to him, a third the size of the quarters of an Assistant Director and decisively less decorated.
He missed the lap of luxury he once nestled himself in every night.
The Chiss Defense Fleet was cold, the Chiss colder, and Vanto was the only human interaction he had, and even then it often ended in argument.
Vanto, meanwhile, continued to stand, though truly there was nowhere else for him to sit. If they had been in Ronan’s old quarters, they would both be sitting in plush leather chairs, a small table between them with fresh caf. Vanto instead leaned against the wall, hands tucked behind him.
Reading and rereading the report did nothing to ease Ronan’s conscience about the whole endeavor. Director Krennic was alone on Scarif.
Yes he had his Death Troopers and Scarif’s personnel surrounding him, but...in the end...he was alone.
He was alone because Ronan was not there with him.
“I should have been there…I was supposed to be there.”
“I know what you mean,” Vanto said, the graveness in his voice drawing Ronan’s attention.
Vanto looked shaken, his gaze drawn inward.
Oh, yes, of course…
Thrawn’s sudden disappearance had also come down the line a few days ago. The entirety of the Steadfast felt the weight of Thrawn’s loss, the grief being suppressed by a stiff upper-lip by most.
Many of the Navigators, those whose lives Thrawn had personally touched, had wept.
Ronan was disappointed as well. Though, vanishing did not mean dead, and to him, unless there was proof of death, there was hope.
There was no hope for Director Krennic, however. He was dead and that was the end of it.
“Tarkin did this,” Ronan spat. “Oh how gleefully he must have pressed that big red button. I hope he finds himself on the other end of the laser one day himself.”
The anger felt forced, but he would rather curse Tarkin’s name than grieve for Krennic’s.
“Were you n’ Krennic particularly close?”
“What sort of question is that?” Ronan balked. “He was my superior officer.”
“Yeah?” Vanto asked, but the question didn’t leave his face. “So...were you?”
“Well...I…” Ronan sputtered. “We were...we worked very closely...it was…”
The question twisted Ronan’s grief into a confused knot in his gut.
“I...don’t know really.” Ronan’s face flushed at the confession. “We worked together so much. We shared many of the same galactic views. I stood at his side during victories and defeats. I proofread all his speeches. He sent me on the most important missions…”
Ronan’s voice faded away.
Were they close? What did that even mean? They both were passionately devoted to the Empire, Ronan was confident in that. And Ronan’s loyalty to Director Krennic surpassed any sort of emotion he had ever felt in his life for another being.
Perhaps we could have been close. One day...Perhaps he would have even let me call him Orson.
“No. I suppose we were not, but that is the way of things: Mentor and Student, Director and Assistant Director. But I was very in synch with him. At first it felt as if we could reach each other’s minds, though I suppose now looking back on it…”
“...he could read your mind, but his was still a kriffin’ mystery?” Vanto interrupted.
Ronan shook his head. “No, actually. It felt like I knew everything he was thinking and he...well, he was too busy to worry about my thoughts.”
“Oh.” Vanto dropped his gaze and for a moment Ronan wondered if perhaps Vanto was speaking more to his own relationship with the Chiss Grand Admiral.
The report silently scrolled at a steady pace down the datapad screen. It was an unreasonably lengthy report for saying nothing at all.
“They talk so much about the security breach, but treat Krennic’s death as some sort of footnote. He deserves better than that.”
“That’s the Empire for ya,” Vanto sighed.
“What do you know of it, deserter,” Ronan bristled.
“You really want to do this now?” Vanto bristled back.
Ronan’s shoulders sagged. “No, I don’t.”
The majority of Vanto and Ronan’s conversations always ended in a fight. Whether it was over nuances in the overly complicated language of Cheunh, or over whom had a better handle of Grysk philosophy and motivations during their daily meetings with Admiral Ar’alani.
But Ronan was tired of the fighting.
He was tired of a great many things.
And with Director Krennic gone, he felt very much alone in the universe. Vanto was his only connection to his old life, and a life line in this new one. And he was far from Ronan’s favorite person.
“What about you?” Ronan ventured to ask.
“What about me what?” Vanto asked, sourly.
“Were you two particularly close?”
The laugh that came from Vanto wasn’t prompted from humor or even incredulousness. It seemed...tired.
“Maybe. As much as anyone could be, I guess. In all my years of knowing him I never got the impression he really wanted to be close to people. He was always focused on what needed to be done and the greater good of it all. But he’s done right by me, and Faro, seeing potential in us that we didn’t see in ourselves. So that counts for somethin’.”
A small surge of warmth flooded Ronan, dousing the cold, unfamiliar knot of uncertainty in his gut.
“I would like to think the same of the Director. I was not always an Assistant Director you know. My beginnings in the Empire were...unconventional at best.”
Ronan quickly waved away Vanto’s questioning look.
“Another tale for another time. My point,” he continued, “is that Director Krennic gave me a chance when no one else did. Perhaps he saw something of himself in me. Neither of us came from money, or power, or even from a Core World. He did his climbing up the ladder on his own, but he helped me step on that first rung. I will always be grateful for that.”
Vanto seemed to be digesting this, a thoughtful expression coming in the form of chewing on his lip. Then finally: “I am sorry for your loss. I know I didn’t really like the guy, but I know what it’s like to lose a mentor. Kinda makes you feel…”
“...adrift,” Ronan finished.
“Yeah...adrift.”
They were quiet for a moment. Ronan thought of searching the holonet for some sort of eulogy for Director Krennic, but he did not have the heart to look. And he was not ready to see the Director’s noble visage across his screen. Not yet.
“Me n’ Vah’nya are going to sneak into the confiscated food stuffs from that Dro’trak tribe and get some more of those triangle biscuits. Do you want to come?”
“What?” Ronan gasped. “You want to steal from the CDF evidence locker?”
“It ain’t stealin’. They’re just gonna incinerate all the junk food. We’re just gonna help ourselves to it before that.”
Ronan lifted a pointed finger, something he had adopted from Krennic himself when he wished to make a strong point. “CDF Guidelines clearly state under Statute 6534.5(b) that if food items are not beneficial to Chiss or Human members then-”
Ronan hesitated.
Did...Eli Vanto just ask me to join him in a...a...social engagement?!
“I…”
He lowered his pointed finger.
“Yes, actually. I suppose I am rather hungry.”
He wasn’t. He wasn’t sure if he would ever have an appetite again.
“Alright, c’mon then,” Eli said, pushing himself off the wall. “Grandma always said cookies make everything better. I know that ain’t always true, but...let’s give it a try.”
Vanto smiled.
Ronan frowned.
“You’ve never been this nice to me before.”
Now Vanto frowned.
“Well considering our history, you and I don’t exactly got a lot of common goals. But...” He rubbed his neck. “...we both lost someone recently, and I know what it’s like to be the new alien on a Chiss ship. Plus, I guess you ain’t all that bad.”
“Aren’t I?” Ronan squinted.
“Look, I’m makin’ an effort here.”
Ronan rose from his chair, lifting his chin and sniffing haughtily. “Well I suppose I’ll have to come with you. After all, if we are caught, I doubt your flimsy ‘I am the new Nightswan’ ploy will work on the Chiss.”
Vanto rolled his eyes. “That was one time.”
Ronan put a hand over his heart and botched out a terrible Wild Space Accent. “‘I deal with the Hutts all the time. We are best friends, me and the Hutts!’”
“That ain’t how it happened n’ you know it!”
Ronan was the first to laugh. A soft, snickering laugh that perhaps for the first time in a very long time, was not mocking or cruel or for the benefit of anyone else.
He just...laughed.
“C’mon, Vah’nya’s waitin’.”
“After you.”
Ronan’s hand paused over the light switch.
His eyes drifted over to the object, hung reverently over his bed.
Despite never being worn again, Ronan would never part with his uniform. It was folded in a neat shadowbox, and beside it was his beloved cape.
It was the cape that had seen the rise of Director Krennic.
It had saved the life of Grand Admiral Thrawn.
It was also a relic of a time that would never return, but one that would never see a wrinkle of on its fabric or in his memory.
“Good night, Director,” he whispered, turning the lights low. “Thank you for everything.”
-----
“Brierly Ronan,” The blue-eyed imperial officer says, reading off of his datapad. “It says here you were a ‘street performer’?”
“That’s right.” Ronan shifts uncomfortably in his binders.
His nose itches, but he decides not to ask for assistance with that.
“And you decided to take your ‘performances’ to the galas of the Upper Echelon in the Empire? To do what precisely? Rub elbows with the elite and free them of their credits? You seem more than a simple pickpocket.”
Ronan knows better than to respond to that.
“Would you like to know why you are here now?”
“I had assumed my luck had finally run out,” Ronan said, lightly.
“On the contrary,” The officer says this with a shrewd sneer. “Your luck is about to be replenished indefinitely. Tell me, Mr. Ronan, can you keep a secret?”
Ronan lifts his chin, putting on the fearless air of the aristocrat he pretended to be earlier that evening, rather than the terrified street rat he would be when this night is over. “I am, in fact, the embodiment of secrets, Mr...”
“Lieutenant Commander Krennic,” Krennic corrects. “You and I are going to get along very well, provided from here on out you follow my lead and the commands of the Empire. It is, after all, the establishment that is saving you from the gallows.”
The binders are free.
“Well then,” Ronan smiles as he rubs his raw wrists. “Long live the Empire.”