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One by one the people trickled out of their small base of operations nestled into Raider’s Cove. En route to Yavin 4, another impossible mission, another suicide run. The Emperor was back, or would be back soon enough, of course, of course it all would lead back to the Sith in the end. Sometimes Cirin wondered if she ever really got the independence she wanted, time and time again she’s still dragged back in to clean up behind the Dark Council and its disciples, just like old times .
She didn’t look up for a very long time, instead studying some trivial, altogether irrelevant report about the remaining Revanites regrouping and leaving orbit. They’ll be long gone before anyone would arrive on site to stop them . Cirin knew she should prepare to do the same, get to the shuttle and leave this loud, obnoxious planet of would-be pirates and third rate gangsters, instead she waited, waited until she couldn’t hear any more footsteps outside and was sure they were alone.
Lana stood leaning on a nearby table, her face a frustrating mask of indifference Cirin had learned to know all too well. And just like that the spell was broken, as if it were the sign Lana had been waiting for she took a few calculated steps towards Cirin.
“If you would just let me explain,” tentatively, Lana placed a hand on Cirin’s arm, she felt herself flinch under the touch. Lana stepped back.
“Don’t. Just… just don’t, Lana.” Cirin found herself longing to read that report again, however boring it may be, it was preferable to the bundle of rage that was coiling in her stomach and seemed to only grow the longer she spent on this backwater planet. “You want to know what the worst part about all this is? It’s not that you knowingly let Theron be captured by an enemy we barely know anything about, it’s not that he could’ve easily been killed because you didn’t think it was important enough to tell me, it’s not even that you didn’t tell him and proved everything right he believed you to be from day one. No, the worst thing is that I really wanted to believe that you’d be different, you’d think I’d have lost that bit of childish naivety by now, but here we are.”
The carefully maintained mask on Lana’s face began to crack just a little with each word that left Cirin’s mouth. “It did what was necessary!” Lana argued. “There was no other way to guarantee that the plan’s success if I had involved anyone else. It was the safest, the most rational solution for the problem at hand. It worked, didn’t it? Theron’s alive, we know where we have to go and what awaits us.”
“Involved ?” Cirin almost laughed. “Fuck, Lana, read the room, we’ve all been involved since Manaan, and until now I thought we were in this together. But I forgot, you’re Sith, we’re just stepping stones for you, people like Theron and I, aren’t we? Jadus, Zhorrid, Malgus, Arkous. Used, discarded, and replaced - that’s how it goes. What would you have done if they killed Theron, instead? What if they decided to play it safe and eliminate a threat while they still can? Who would’ve been the next pawn in your little ploy? Jakarro? Or me?”
“I would never-” there was anger on Lana’s face, anger and… and something else, shock? Cirin couldn’t be sure. “Cirin, you have to believe me that I would never-”
“Wouldn’t you? Because you’ll excuse me if I find that a little hard to believe right now.” it was only now that Cirin noticed that she was clenching her fists, the blue skin around her knuckles having long turned white. “You have no idea what it’s like, do you? What the Sith do to people like us. What they can do because everyone’s too afraid to stand up to them. What your colleagues on the Dark Council did to Intelligence, what they did to me and anyone else that stopped groveling, to guarantee that their plans succeed, because they found their measures rational and safe and necessary . Because the alternative wouldn’t give them complete and utter control.”
“Everything I did I did for the mission, for the Empire, for the galaxy!” Lana had long stopped trying to hide what she really felt underneath; she was angry, furious, even. “I made a hard choice because no one else would, I didn’t see an alternative because there was none.”
“Then we find one! We could’ve helped you, Lana.” Cirin felt tired, the same sort of tiredness she felt every time Intelligence had hidden behind half-truths and only given her enough information to make sure she didn’t know too much, knowing too much meant she was dangerous. “If you had, for even a second, thought about telling us about your plan. Theron would’ve volunteered, you know he would, and I could’ve made sure things didn’t get out of hand. Instead this is where we are, with the only person I can even consider trusting being a former SIS-Agent who’ll choose the Republic over… over whatever this is the first chance he’ll get.”
Lana was about to say something when the alarm in her datapad rang through the room; the shuttle to Yavin was about to leave the docks.
“There’s a ship waiting for us, we’ve wasted enough time already.” Cirin said, giving the room one last look before making for the door. “The sooner we dismember that cult the sooner this’ll all be over.”