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Second Lieutenant Jane Corey has no idea how she was captured. She and her troops (only a dozen for now, but a dozen she’s kept safe for over six months) retreated from a skirmish two days ago, and she’d thought they lost the little band of rebels. Even if they hadn’t, the rebels should have been too wounded to follow.
Protocol would have had her kill them. But as she’d looked at their faces, not one of them older than herself, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to. This was one of her first real fights since she graduated from the military academy, and even if she’s spent years learning of the rebellion’s brutality, she hadn’t been prepared to actually look their child soldiers in the eye. She’d ordered her troops to wound them, disarm them, and leave them in the rocky wilderness for their people to find. Hopefully they could still be saved from whatever horrible misguidance had brought them there. No matter what, they shouldn’t have been a threat again.
But several hours ago, only a day’s march from the main encampment, they’d been attacked by a much larger group. She lost at least a few of her people, and she herself was dragged into a stolen ground transport, bound and blindfolded, and taken away.
She thinks she’s indoors now, in some rebellion hideaway, probably. The air is cold and still. Her heart has been pounding for hours. She’s tied to a chair, arms bound to the armrests and feet to the legs, but she hasn’t heard anyone since they left her here. She’s spent all the time since her capture trying to calm herself, to breathe and keep her wits about her. Whatever’s about to come, she’ll need all her strength to endure. She doesn’t know many Crown secrets, but she will protect what she has. She will not betray her empire, no matter how the terrorists who seek to destroy it try to break her.
Behind her, a door opens. She hears heavy booted footsteps and the tap of a cane. Her blood runs cold as she realizes that whatever they intend to do to her, it’s time.
Someone yanks the blindfold off, none too gently, jerking her neck painfully in the process. As she blinks against the sudden light, a figure walks in front of her. Jane’s eyes widen as her eyes adjust enough to make out details of the figure. She’s younger than Jane thought she would be, probably only in her early thirties. Her hair is already graying, pulled back into a tight bun, and the scars across her face are worse than they look in the grainy, blurry photos. Still, everyone in the galaxy knows the face of the woman who calls herself General White.
The room is empty except for them, nothing but cold gray brick and a bare lightbulb. Jane is alone.
What the hell did she do to get the leader of the rebellion herself looking down at her, cold as ice?
“You recognize me,” she says in a rough voice that’s higher than Jane expects.
“Of course I do. You’re the most wanted woman in the galaxy. You’re His Majesty’s greatest enemy,” she spits.
Her lips twist into a smile, one side drooping a bit. “I’m pleased to hear that. I do try.”
“To be a terrorist? To slaughter innocents? To destroy the peace and prosperity of the Empire?”
“You assume there ever was peace under Cole.” Jane starts to protest, but General White cuts her off. “But I am not here to discuss politics with you, or indeed to educate you. I am here because you have created a rather large problem for me.”
Jane racks her mind for what she might mean. She didn’t do anything but wound a few teenagers. “I wish I had, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
General White draws a pistol, flicks the safety off, and settles it against Jane’s hand. She shudders, stomach turning. She can’t pull it away with the restraints. If she fires, it will shatter every bone in that hand. “Please, I really don’t know–”
“Silence,” General White snaps. “What is your name, girl?”
She hesitates. But what harm can her name do, especially compared to a bullet through her hand? “Second Lieutenant Jane Corey.” She adds quickly, “I’ll be missed– my mother is a major–”
“I do not give a single damn who your mother is. What I care about is what you know, and what you have passed along to your superiors. If you wish to see your mother again, you will hush and answer my questions.” She presses the gun deeper into her hand, hard enough now to hurt. All Jane can do is stare up at her. She wasn’t trained for this. She never thought she’d ever even catch a glimpse of General White.
“Better. Now, what were you doing patrolling where you were?”
“It was a routine patrol,” she says. “I swear, we didn’t expect it to be anything. I’m sorry about your soldiers, but we had to wound them to retreat–”
General White lifts the gun, twists it, and slams the butt down on her hand, making her hiss in pain. But thank all the stars, it isn’t a bullet. It won’t ruin her hand forever. “You are telling me you just happened to be patrolling near our largest base on the planet, and allowed a unit of our fighters to escape and flee, presumably toward it, by chance?”
“What?” she asks, voice high. “Your largest– is that where you took me?”
“Do not lie. I am not a fool, Miss Corey. There is a reason you changed your patrol route.”
“I didn’t!” she pleads. “Please, sir, I swear to you I was just following my orders.” She shouldn’t call an enemy of the Crown 'sir', but she has some desperate hope it will appease her. “I was told to change the patrol route, so I did. I don’t know anything. I won’t tell anyone, please just let me go–”
She pistol-whips her across the face. Jane bites down on her tongue hard enough to taste blood. Her head spins, tears springing to her eyes. General White says, “Just following orders, and yet you spared a unit of my soldiers, one you could have easily destroyed.”
“Because they were children!” she explodes. “You may be happy to kill innocents and youths, but I’m not. They deserve a chance to escape your war.”
General White settles the pistol at her temple. “Cole’s soldiers are not known for their mercy. You really claim that all this was the result of coincidence and foolishness?”
Jane swallows, but keeps looking into her eye. Her heart feels like a rabbit thumping its foot against her ribs. “I’m telling the truth. Just because you have no mercy doesn’t mean King Cole doesn’t, or that I won’t.’”
All is quiet for a moment.
Then General White laughs– a harsh, awful, bitter sound. She steps back and holsters her gun, turning away. “God,” she says. “You’re nothing but a naive fool.” There’s almost an edge of hysteria in her voice. “You know nothing. You’re practically a child yourself.”
Jane feels the barest hint of relief. Condescending as she’s being, General White seems to believe her now. “I’m not a danger to you, I swear. Send me away, blindfold me and leave me where my comrades can find me. I won’t be able to lead them here. Please just let me go.”
Her laughter has subsided, her face settling back into its grimness. “I cannot. You are far too great a risk now. That’s my mistake, I suppose, as much as yours.”
“I let your soldiers live– surely that’s worth something, isn’t it?”
“It’s what doomed you. Had you had the stomach to end them, I’d never have found you.”
“But–”
“Be silent,” she snaps. “Spare me your self-righteousness, spare me your ideals. You understand nothing of the world. You understand nothing of war, or of want. You believe yourself to be a good person, don’t you? That your good deed should be repaid in kind?”
Jane doesn’t dare say anything. Not when General White is looking at her like that. She can’t stop a few tears from falling as she realizes with a deep, sickening certainty that the woman somehow hates her personally.
“This is not a storybook, Miss Corey. It’s a shame this is how you learn. When lives are in your hands, when you fight for the fate of a galaxy, the only ‘mercy’ you can afford is a quick kill. Aside from that?” She draws her gun again, taking in her tearful face, the way she’s trembling now.
“You think me a monster. You think me heartless.” Her gaze is intense as she steps closer, her voice quiet as she says, “I am. I have made myself that way. I tore the damned thing from my chest and cauterized my own wound, because that is what my task demanded.”
“Please,” Jane says softly, breath catching. “I don’t want to die.”
“No. But you will. Because you failed to do as I have. This is the price. Perhaps the next lieutenant I speak to will at least understand ruthlessness.” She levels the gun against Jane’s head and pulls the trigger. Jane barely even feels herself die.
A quick kill, as she said.
A mercy.