Chapter Text
Kleya paced the kitchen of the safe house apartment, just for her body to have something to do. This did not stop her from keeping her eyes affixed on the red light of the rusty old radio sitting atop the counter of the grimy kitchen – unblinking, silent. It was as if by walking up and down, she tried to will it to jump to life, signaling that someone was out there. Someone else on her side. Normally, she was the one who was listening. All these years in the back of Luthen’s shop, every free minute she that she had, she listened into her allies and foes like a spider tugging the strings of its web, searching for movement. But now, as her whole body tensed up from the information she so desperately wanted to pass on, she needed someone else to do the listening. Here she was, a fly trapped in the web of a city as expansive and yet devastatingly empty of friends like Coruscant, risking everything to catch the attention of whoever may have been out there.
The fly cannot hear the spider coming for her.
---
Only about three meters below the circle her restless feet outlined, supervisor Heert stood in the kitchen of a confused older couple. They clutched each other in embrace, holding their breaths in so as though the imperial strike force before them might forget about their presence. Heert held up a hexagonal transmitter, its two prongs sticking out the top like a wishbone. Gently but controlled, he held it outstretched at eye level before him, its screen flashing at a steady pace. He directed his arm through the air, carefully, avoiding any sudden movements that might disturb the calm of the device as if it extended his willpower to find his target. Heert was animated with the ambition of a man on the verge of a big break and one at the edge of a deep chasm at the same time; he was determined not to let this project be his downfall, as it had been for Dedra Meero.
Just as he reminded himself to breathe, the flashes picked up in frequency. He allowed himself a quiet gasp of relief, then continued his transmitter upwards, a one-man orchestra stretching for the sky. The device started blinking red, buzzing with anticipation.
“The radio is right above us,” Heert concluded, raising his chin to look up at the ceiling of the couple’s home he just marched into. He squinted his eyes, almost as if he could see through the plaster to lock eyes onto his target.
“Right, let’s move,” the Sergeant – his name was Gharial – barked, leading his way for the squadron to follow, with Heert at their heels. Heert welcomed the Sergeant’s forwardness – he appeared to be a competent leader with a no-nonsense attitude, absorbing each of Heert’s commands and efficiently relaying them to his team. Heert considered himself a leader, but not in the field. He was a bureaucrat, a man who pulled strings rather than implement action. Therefore, he could appreciate men like Sergeant Gharial, who could take requests and efficiently put them into achievement.
They left the apartment with the door open, and the older couple allowed itself to shakily exhale in relief. After waiting for just a moment longer to not appear too hasty, the man leapt towards the entrance, pressing the button that let the mechanical door slide shut and reinstate their privacy, blissfully unaware of what the imperial strike team was after.
---
Above them, Kleya tried one more time, sending her mayday by compression cipher on a frequency she could not even be sure to share with anyone but ghosts. Luthen’s network had shrunken dramatically over time as one by one their pawns traded the shadows for the sunny jungles of Yavin. Vel had left them for good after the tragedy on Ghorman – not the massacre of its helpless population, but the first blood that was drawn the night she lost Cinta. That night, the rebellion had lost its most formidable warrior, the one who had anchored Chandrila’s undercover rebel into Luthen’s arsenal.
One year later, and the next-best piece on the board left the game as Ghorman finally fell to the clutches of the empire. Cassian Andor had wanted to make his own choices. Already he had stashed Bix away on Yavin, out of reach from Luthen and Kleya’s persuasive whispers. Wilmon was critically injured, urgently requiring the unbiased medical care only Yavin could offer at that moment. In another world, he might have been able to stop Cassian from making what she considered the gravest mistake of his life.
Yavin. She almost scoffed out loud. Kleya doubted that her plea would reach anyone over there. The signal would have probably been intercepted and then debated to death by a council of ex-senators and wannabe-admirals before anyone listened to its actual words. Her mind wandered. Even if someone like Saw Gerrera intercepted the signal, he would rather sacrifice a thousand like-minded allies than fly somewhere he did not know would profit him.
She shut her eyes and quickly shook her head as if to disperse these thoughts like flies, angry at her momentary loss of discipline. Thinking of her options out only made the reality of her solitude clearer. She had always had Luthen. Yet now that he was gone, it seemed to dawn on her just how many bridges the two of them had burned across the galaxy. The chasm before her widened. The ground crumbled before her feet.
She resumed her pacing, ever so slightly more hectic than before. It was busy outside the curtainless windows as a stream of air traffic wound between the buildings in the distance. Bizarrely, it was midday in Coruscant – daylight poured into the room, illuminating the grime of the apartment that had been out of use for so long. Life went on as normal for the Coruscanti beyond the window, and yet here she was, feeling as though darkness was enveloping her. She wanted to shout, shake the passersby at their shoulders. They did not have the burden of knowledge that she had to bear.
Kleya paused. What if they did know? She had spent so much time on this planet that she had almost forgotten who her so-called neighbors were. They did not know about some righteous rebellion out there. The Empire had spoon-fed them lies over all these years. Even if they were served the truth on a silver platter, they would turn up their noses because they had acquired a distaste for it. There was no uproar after Ghorman. They were not affected by the upheaval after Aldhani. Nestled so close to the bosom of the Empire, surely a weapon of catastrophic implications would not irk them. Them, who had never known the fear, hardship, and terror of the truth of what was going on out there.
The walls seemed to inch closer. It would have done no difference if she had shouted her warning from the rooftops. It needed to reach the right people, far off this planet. And right now, she felt holed in, further from the sky as she could be. Kleya stepped back towards the kitchen counter and tried the fractal radio one more time, fueled by a dangerous mix of hope and panic.
---
The elevator doors opened. Sergeant Gharial stepped out, flanked by three members of his team. He had positioned others on the ground floor of the apartment complex for back-up. Supervisor Heert was huddled between them, his eyes affixed on the screen of the device in his hand. Its rapid blinking affirmed him in his step, buzzing with the impending success of a mission quickly planned but neatly executed.
“It’s at the very end,” he said to the Sergeant, nodding his chin towards the end of a long corridor. The walls were lined with tarps. Drops of what he hoped was water echoed in the silence of the team assessing the situation. Heert’s lips curled with disgust. This level of the building was no comparison to the one below. He doubted that all the flats were occupied – no one in their right mind would willingly stay in this dump. He took a step sideways to evade a trickle of drops that threatened to stain his immaculate, pressed uniform. No wonder that rebels were hiding here.
He took a mental note to arrange a building-wide inspection after today. It was certainly not his jurisdiction or responsibility, but he was brimming with initiative. All these years working with Dedra Meero taught him a thing or two about where he could risk stepping over the line. One could not get ahead without crossing it a few times in their career, within reason. And now he felt that he could get used to the sport of hunting down rebels.
The group moved forward, their weapons held close to their sides in anticipation. It was just one woman they were hunting for, but one could never know how many rebels had nested themselves in the heart of their city. Step-by-step they closed in on their target, the tarps around them gently rustling as they moved past them.
A door opened and a man froze in its frame at their sight.
“Stay inside,” the Sergeant barked, pushing him back into his apartment. They could not afford any distractions from civilians caught in the crossfire. Heert gave the door a quick, mildly interested look – so people did willingly live in this dump – before turning to face back to his target. They were just a few doors away now.
“You can tuck in, sir,” the Sergeant said over his shoulder, his eyes not leaving the end of the corridor.
Heert gladly accepted the suggestion and took cover behind the wall jutting out beside one of the apartment doors. With one last look, he checked his transmitter. There was no doubt. A door led to the last apartment in the corridor, just around a short corner. He smirked. Good, there was enough coverage. As the door was not facing the corridor directly, they could not be seen by any spyhole or the like.
“I need her alive,” he whispered to the advancing team. They gave affirmative grunts. It was the third time he had reminded them, but he could not risk this mission going sideways.
Heert was certain that Rael’s assistant, or daughter – whoever she was – knew whatever it was that Supervisor Jung had managed to scavenge from Meero’s files. It was still hard for him to believe that someone he had considered a friend was dead – and apparently a traitor in addition to that. The blur of recent events had prevented him from properly reflecting on Lonni Jung. For now, he had more questions than answers, but his focus was demanded elsewhere. For now, he needed to do everything in his power to trace the path that Jung’s information had taken before it spread like wildfire. The girl was diseased and needed to be contained. Jung had spread the viral information to Rael, who surely told her – why else would she risk everything to infiltrate the hospital and end the life of the man she had spent so many years working for? Killed her own father, perhaps?
But what if she was not the last piece of the chain? What if she had already spread the disease? After all, they were tracking her location through her radio activity. It was through an old, surely not very busy frequency. Yet while Heert could track the radio, he could not know how, and to what success, it was being used.
That was his mission. He was so close to her; he could feel it. But he needed to know whether there was anyone else to take care of. He was near to completing his mission. Had she succeeded in hers?
Sergeant Gharial raised his fist to the door, looking back to Heert for affirmation. Heert nodded, shifting the weight of his body in anticipation, like a cat ready to pounce. The Sergeant locked eyes with each member of his team as they gave quick nods to another, signaling their readiness.
The Sergeant knocked on the apartment’s mechanic door, the raps echoing amid the dripping of water in the corridor.