Chapter Text
It was supposed to be just another covert mission. Infiltrate Imperial Intelligence, gather information about Operation Krenth, get extracted by the SIS. She’s done it a thousand times before - her mother used to say that all Garzas are born with a blaster in hand, after all. Hutt Cartel, Exchange, Black Sun, blast, even the Sith Academy. She’s survived them all, her devotion to the Republic growing fiercer with every assignment. It was gruesome work, but she liked it. It made Dee feel invincible when she gambled with her life and won. Better than a night at the Star Cluster Casino on Nar Shaddaa, she’d tell you.
This time, things are different. This time, the SIS went on radio silence after getting the necessary information out of her, leaving her stranded on the Imperial capital. That was 3 days ago. There will be no extraction. There will be no victory. Not this time.
Dee used to joke about her work, saying she took out the Republic’s trash for a living. She’d never imagined she’d live long enough to become the trash.
Dee counts the hours on the first day.
She knows it’s only a matter of time before she’s found out. In her shocked, panicked state, she does what she was always taught by the seasoned SIS agent who’d trained her – she reverted to the first undercover lesson beaten into her. Act inconspicuous. Cover your tracks. And above all, watch for any and all opportunities. Her chance of getting out thins with every passing second, and it’s painful to resist glancing at her chronometer as she uses up her last minutes. Stars, I never thought I’d go out in this blasted Imp armour and its stupid bucket of a helmet, she thinks as she walks across the Citadel towards the taxi pad, all forced tranquillity, casual steps and feigned respect when passing by a Sith. Dee’s seen loth cats with more discipline than some of these so called lords, but she won’t string a civilisation up for worshipping its apex predators. The Republic isn’t all that different, despite its claims.
The barracks are tidy but not exactly spacious, and a few glares are enough to make the other recruits shut up. She’s not here to make friends with Imperials, but… she doesn’t know why she’s here anymore. She repeats all she had to learn about Operation Krenth for the SIS over and over in her head until she can’t think straight anymore. Dee is homesick, utter desperation heavy on her chest as her panic melts into sadness. If the SIS wanted her dead, she would have preferred being lined up to a wall and shot. That is clean. That is fair. She won’t pretend to be a saint, won’t pretend to have followed every order to the letter, to have never worked for her own benefit on the side. But she did what the other agents couldn’t, and she did it well. Her stomach twists when she realises she’s just as expandable as the other agents, the ones she knew the SIS only employed until they outlived their usefulness, the ones she was tasked countless times to dispose of in creative ways. But when she thinks of her mother, she straight up becomes sick to the stomach.
General Garza was no doubt informed beforehand. And all she had to do to turn it around was to say no.
But she let it happen to her daughter anyway.
Dee stops looking over her shoulder after the first month. The only mistake the SIS did when they sent her on this suicide mission was giving her too good a cover. They should have known she’d use it. So when she catches the attention of Keeper, she only works harder. Edging slowly inside, earning their trust favour by favour, mission by mission. She’s too good an opportunity to be passed up, even though she knows the old man suspects something. They both have a nose for trouble, a keen sense of survival that has kept them both alive and going all this time.
When the mission to Hutta is outlined, an unspoken truce is made between the two. Friend or foe, honesty or lies, they need each other. Imperial Intelligence needs her to infiltrate a Hutt’s palace – child’s play for an agent of Dee’s calibre. In return, she needs them to trust her enough so she might get close to Operation Krenth from the Imperial side.
A small voice in the back of her head tells her it’s only so she could get home, to the Republic. That by ensuring a Republic victory, she’d be forgiven. But with every single day she spends in the heart of the Empire, she knows the inevitability of her revenge. She has the upper hand – she remembers all the SIS security codes, the secure channel decryptions, the standard operating procedures, the preferred tactics. In the Imperial helmet, Dee is just another infantryman, just another number, just another body to be dropped. Which is why she is in the perfect position to remind them why you must put down a rabid kath hound, why you must cauterise a wound before it festers.
“Welcome to Operation Krenth, Agent.”
Keeper’s voice is undecipherable. Dee wouldn’t put it past him to know. It would be the perfect test of loyalty. She clicks her heels together and stands at attention, the prospect of payback momentarily soothing the constant pain of betrayal in her chest. Betrayal and abandonment for a sin she wasn’t even deemed worthy to know by her old superiors.
“I’ll make you proud, sir.”
“Total mission failure, General. I’m telling you, they have a mole in our ranks! They knew every move we’d make before we did them!”
“Calm yourself, Lieutenant Jorgan,” Garza replies as she forces herself to be still and tranquil despite the catastrophic outcome of Operation Krenth. Instead of ensuring the Empire’s defeat, they only doubled their own by trying to stop an Imperial stealth mission on Ringo Vinda, losing a key Republic shipyard in the process. A devastating blow, considering the resource and material that went into cracking Operation Krenth.
“With all due respect, how can you say that, sir?” the Cathar seethes as he rounds the holotable, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Your own daughter died giving us intel on the Imps.”
“I don’t need to be reminded what we lost during our campaign, Lieutenant,” she barks, tone sharper than intended. Not a day passes without Garza thinking about Dee, and how the SIS was forced to abandon her on Dromund Kaas. It’s as good a fate as death for a spy, and to mount a rescue op of that scale would not be supported by the GAR. Her rationale knows this. But there are days when she just wants to commandeer a shuttle, sling a rifle over her shoulder and blast her way into the damned Dark Council chamber to demand her daughter back. Elin Garza knows Dee is dead, she can feel it in her bones. She knows her demands are empty, childish threats; her hopes naive and otherworldly. There’s not a thing she can do or say to undo the damage that’s already been caused.
It doesn’t mean she can forgive herself just yet.
“That… was out of line. I’m sorry, General,” Aric says, his head sinking between his shoulders in defeat, anger, anguish. “I just… keep going over the mission in my head, constantly. Thinking what I’ve done wrong, what piece of intel I might have misinterpreted.”
“It’s impossible to tell. Maybe we simply waited too long. Let the intel grow stale.”
“We did everything by the book. It was supposed to be one of the easy ops. Now, I’ve lost two Havoc men, more regulars than I could count, the second largest Rep shipyard on Ringo Vinda… Something doesn’t add up,” Jorgan sighs as he places his hands on the holotable and leans forward, letting his eyes search the holoimage of the destroyed shipyard as if his own failure was written in the debris.
“Rest, Lieutenant. Recharge. Fill the gaps in Havoc squad’s ranks.”
Garza is already behind her desk, eyes trained on the incoming reports on her datapad. Aric Jorgan knows his general better than to try and say anything more. Her attention is already elsewhere, far away from what she has been saying just minutes ago. So he mutters a “yes, sir” and grabs his helmet, fingers gripping the plastoid so hard he could snap it in half. Dee might have been an SIS agent when she disappeared, but she was a rookie under his leadership a few years before that, and such emotional ties are not easily broken. He might not have had anything to do with the mission that was her downfall, but that doesn’t mean he will not keep feeling responsible. Like it was his fault somehow. Like he could have prevented it in any way. And the fact that he cannot investigate without Garza’s blessing doesn’t exactly help soothe the Cathar’s nerves.
Just as he’s halfway through the door, Elin’s voice halts him. She does not look up, her concentration is not once broken. But her intentions have never been clearer.
“Once you do that, I want you to report back to me, Jorgan. You will take Havoc squad and unravel the real reasons behind this defeat. Learn all you can and keep HQ and the SIS updated on the situation. We must avoid incidents like this in the future. And more importantly, I won’t allow my daughter’s death to have been in vain.”
It’s been a long time since Aric stood at attention willingly, unironically, without being told to do so. He finds himself doing just that now anyway.
“I’ll make you proud, sir.”