Star Wars: Death Troopers

Chapter 5 Word

Jareth Sartoris made his way down the narrow gangway outside the guards' quarters, massaging his temples as he walked. He had a headache, nothing new there, but this one was something special, a vise grip across his temporal lobes that made him feel like he'd been gassed with some kind of low-grade neurotoxin in his sleep. The greasy smear of breakfast down the back of his throat hadn't helped.

He'd been awake even before the warden's summons came through. After working third shift last night, he'd toppled into his bunk early this morning and lapsed into restless unconsciousness, but two hours later the abrupt silence had awakened him, the feeling of his tightly coiled world spinning off its axis. They were seven standard days out. So why had the engines fallen silent? Sartoris had gotten dressed, grabbed some lukewarm caf and a reheated bantha patty from the mess, and headed down the hall toward the warden's office, hoping to build up enough mindless momentum to keep him going as far as he needed.

To his right the turbolift doors opened. Three other guards- Vesek, Austin, and some pompadoured newbie-came out, falling into step behind him. They had to walk single-file to fit comfortably down the hall. Sartoris didn't break stride or even glance back at them.

"Me and the guys, Cap," Austin's voice piped up, after a respectful pause, "we were, you know, wondering if you could shed a little light on what's going on."

Sartoris shook his head, still not looking back. "What's that?"

"I heard we blew out both thrusters completely," Vesek put in. "Word is we're just sitting here somewhere outside the Unknown Regions, waiting for a tow."

Austin sniggered. "Barge full of stranded convicts, I'm sure we're top priority for the Empire."

"Stang," Vesek said. "Maybe they'll just decide to leave us drifting out here, right?"

"Ask the rook." Austin poked the pompadoured guard walking in front of him. "Hey, Armitage, you think they'll rescue us?" He sniggered, not waiting for the kid to respond. "He'd probably like it. Suits his artistic temperament, right, Armitage?"

The newbie just ignored him and kept walking.

"How long did you spend on your hair this morning, rook? You hoping Dr. Cody's taken an interest?"

"All right." Sartoris snapped a glance up at them. "Belay that noise, understand?"

Nobody spoke the rest of the way to the warden's office.

* * *

Kloth's office had been tricked out to look larger than it actually was- light colors, holomurals, and a colossal rectilinear viewscreen facing out the star-strewn expanse-but Sartoris had always found the effect paradoxically oppressive. Some time ago, he'd noticed a blown voxel in the corner of the desert landscape above Kloth's desk, a missed stitch in the digital fabric. Ever since then, something about the secondhand technology seemed to be pushing in on him, and now his eyes always felt as if they were being tricked, lulled into a false sense of openness.

"First the bad news," Kloth said. He was standing in his usual position, hands clasped behind his back, looking out the viewscreen. "Our thrusters are seriously damaged-probably beyond repair. And as I'm sure you know, we're still seven standard days out from our destination."

One of the other guards, the rookie probably, let out a nearly inaudible groan. Sartoris only heard it because he was standing next to him.

"However," the warden continued. "There is a positive side."

Kloth turned slowly to face them. Upon first glance, his face was the usual blunt bureaucratic hatchet, slightly curved and angular upper lip, gray-rimmed eyes, and bluish silver bags of freshly shaven cheeks. Only after spending a certain amount of time with the man did you come to know the soft thing residing within that calculated outer shell, a spineless, gelatinous creature that exuded nothing so much as the tremulous anxiety of being drawn out and exposed.

"It seems the navicomputer has identified an Imperial vessel," Kloth said, "a Star Destroyer actually, within this same system. While our attempts to make contact have met with no reply, we do have enough power to make our approach."

He paused here, apparently in anticipation of applause or at least a round of relieved sighs, but Sartoris and the others just looked at him.

"A Destroyer?" Austin asked. "And they're not responding to our call?"

Kloth didn't answer for a moment. He touched his chin, fingering it thoughtfully, a pompous and disaffected gesture Sartoris had seen a thousand times and had come to loathe in his own special way. "There's more to it than that," he said. "According to our bioscans, there's only a handful of life-forms on board."

"How many's a handful?" Vesek wanted to know.

"Ten, perhaps twelve."

"Ten or twelve?" Vesek shook his head. "Sounds like a scanner issue. Destroyers can carry a crew often thousand or more."

"Thank you," Kloth said drily. "I'm well aware of the standard Imperial specs."

"Sorry, sir. It's just, either our equipment is undergoing some serious malfunction, or.»

"Or there's something else going on up there." It was the first time Sartoris had spoken in the office, and he was surprised at the hoarseness in his voice. "Something that we don't want any part of."

The others all turned to look at him. For what felt like a long time after that, no one spoke. Then the warden cleared his throat. "What are you saying, Captain?"

"There's no reason the Empire would just abandon an entire Star Destroyer out here in the middle of nowhere without a good reason."

"He's right," Austin said. "Maybe…"

"Internal atmosphere diagnostics show no sign of any known toxin or contamination," Kloth said. "Of course it's always possible that our instruments are misreading how many life-forms are on board. We screen for numerous variables, electrical brain activity, pulse, motion, any number of those things could skew the reading. In any case. " He smiled-a wholly unconvincing dramatization that ought to have involved invisible wires and hooks on either side of his mouth. "The most critical factor is that we may be able to salvage equipment for our thrusters and get back on course before we're completely behind schedule. To that end, I'll be sending a scouting party up-Captain Sartoris, along with ICOs Austin, Vesek, and Armitage and the mechanical engineers, to see what they can salvage. We anticipate docking within the hour. Questions?"

There were none, and Kloth dismissed them in the usual fashion, by turning his back and letting them find their own way out. Sartoris was about to follow them when the warden's voice stopped him.

"Captain?"

Stopping in the doorway, Sartoris drew a breath and felt the ache in his head become a deeper, more impacted pounding, like a gargantuan infected tooth somewhere in his frontal sinus. The door closed behind him, and it was just the two of them in what felt like an increasingly shrunken space.

"Am I making a mistake, sending you up with these men?"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Sir." Kloth's smile rematerialized, a wisp of its former self. "Now, that's a word I haven't heard from you in a long time, Captain."

"We haven't seen each other much lately."

"I'm aware that this voyage has been particularly. challenging for you personally," Kloth said, and Sartoris found himself hoping fervently that the warden wouldn't start stroking his chin again. If he did, Sartoris wasn't sure he could rein in the urge to punch him straight in his pompous and disaffected face. "After what happened two weeks ago, in many ways I expected your resignation right alongside Dr. Cody's"

"Why?"

"She saw you kill an inmate in cold blood."

"It was her word against mine."

"Your antiquated interrogation techniques aren't appropriate any-more, Captain. You're costing the Empire more information than you're retrieving."

"All due respect, sir, Longo was a nobody, a grifter…"

"We'll never know now, will we?"

Sartoris felt his fists clenching at his sides until his nails burrowed into his palms, delivering stinging pain deep into the skin. "You want me off your boat, Warden? You just say the word."

''On the contrary. You may consider this mission an opportunity to redeem yourself. If not in my eyes, then certainly in the eyes of the Empire to which we both owe so very much. Is that understood?" "Yes, sir."

Kloth turned and scrutinized him as if for any sign of sarcasm or mockery. In his decades of service, Jareth Sartoris had been to the very edges of the galaxy, living under conditions he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy. He'd had to sleep in places and commit unspeakable deeds that he would've given entire body organs to forget. That simple yes, sir didn't taste any worse than any of the rest of it.

"So we're clear, then?" Kloth asked.

"Crystal," Sartoris replied, and when Kloth turned to show him his back, it wasn't a moment too soon. The warden's office was bigger than any other on the barge but it was still too small for Sartoris, and as the cooler air of the outer corridor hit him he realized he'd sweated through the armpits of his uniform completely.