Tell the Truth, Kaist/Chapter Two

Chapter Two

"Imperial commoners are no more hateful of outsiders than any other people. However, in the case of the Novans, the past four decades of galactic warfare and politics has instilled in already exclusivist culture a firm notion that foreigners are malevolent at the worst and meddling at the best. This in turn has cultivated a certitude among Novans in all walks of life: “No, we’re not always good, but at least we’re right.”"

- HNN Novan People and Culture file

One of the men near Nadali growled and muttered something unintelligible to his companions. The journalist would not grace him with her attention, but she knew his angst was directed at her. Yes, the soldiers of the 1658th Legion would not reject her presence outright, but neither would they grant her tangible welcome. If this were any other unit, well, she would ascribe it to the unease whenever an outsider was thrust into an established group.

But this was the 1658th Legion, the 1658th.

Eurlak II... None quite knew what happened there, only that now it was wasteland. Once populous cities were ravaged shells in which survivors, destitute in the truest sense, relied on the New Republic Relief Corps for survival.

History receded and time resumed when the man directly behind Nadali grew impatient. He pushed her a little forward. “Come on, woman, keep the line moving.”

Dutifully admonished, Nadali unenthusiastically accepted her food from a glowering kitchen hand. She scanned the mess hall for an available table and saw none. Through some bureaucratic mishap Army Command had failed its troops. Normal camps held their thousands, but there were eleven divisions at Getchirig’s Camp Wullen. Although undermanned their combined number was around 100,000. Or, to use another unit of measurement, 100,000 bellies to feed. Necessary supplies were quickly diverted, and this was the reason for Nadali’s poor enthusiasm: the food looked awful.

Despite its location as rearward as possible in an interstellar war, Camp Wullen took no advantage of better supply lines. Fresh food, real food, could have been found, but it was not for fear of upsetting rationing. The processed greasy mess awarded the brave defenders of Novan nation and Imperial honor was far from appetizing. It was, Nadali decided, either local cuisine or else the Imperial Dominion knew hitherto unknown nutritional facts about spoiled meat.

Nadali joined Shiridis, a woman whose curious blue hair marked less-than-Novan heritage, on the floor. They had met earlier in barracks. Surprised to find a woman in the Stormtrooper Corps, the journalist had said so. Shiridis had laughed. Old traditions die hard, she said, and few women met the standards set for the Corps. Fewer still wanted to.

Shiridis nodded in greeting. Her comrades remained dismissive but uncomfortable, behavior doubtless fostered by propaganda and an unhealthy dose of reality. Fortunately, Nadali’s citizenship of the New Republic remained secret per Ardel’s monition.

Fear of the unknown, thought the journalist, uncharacteristically impressed with the insight, is the death of understanding.

As she chewed the unidentifiable flesh substance and its supposedly vegetable companions, Nadali was unsurprised to find them foul indeed. Popular humor opined stormtroopers were such brave soldiers because death in battle was better than facing their next meal. She was now inclined to agree.

“So, Kaist, how do you like our slice of the galactic disk? Are we evil enough or should I go murder some aliens first?” Shiridis spoke laughingly, but her words were not wholly jest. Novans could not resist challenging Nadali’s suspected preconceptions.

Nadali smiled. “Well, I haven’t seen much of it yet, but it’s different than I expected. Too militaristic for my tastes. But each to their own, I suppose.” It was an honest answer and, much better, neutral.

Not neutral enough it seemed.

One of the N-Erzaks, a big grizzled man whose face was not so much hewed rudely from unyielding stone as it was blasted from a craggy mountain with demolition charges, coughed. “Yes,” he rumbled putting down his fork, his voice deliberately loud enough to be heard. “That means HNN can mind its own business and stop harassing us.”

To Nadali’s surprise and gratitude Shiridis rose to her defense.

“Oh, go kriff a murglak, Glirv,” the Novan woman snapped. “I didn’t ask that. Be nice for once. She’s a writer, not a Relief Corps activist.”

“You’re a nujer, Shiridis,” the man, Glirv, retorted using a Novan term Nadali was unfamiliar with. “Your lot just doesn’t get it. Look at me. I fought five wars for the Empire.”

“Yes, I know. You mention it daily. Did you win the Senate Guard Medal, too?” Shiridis’ riposte drew chuckles from the others despite themselves. For Novans their ineffectual Senate Guard was a running joke because of its ceremonial status. To win the Senate Guard Medal was to have sat out a campaign in the rear.

If the suggestion angered Glirv, it did not show. “Laugh,” he told Shiridis, “but she,” and he pointed to Nadali, “is still media, and that makes her dangerous. Forgive me if I don’t volunteer as her tour guide.”

“While you’re not at it, do me a favor and fetch two passes so we can drop in on COMPNOR,” countered Shiridis sarcastically referencing the defunct victim of conspiracy theorists still blamed for every galactic misfortune since the Brainrot Plague.

Impending escalation was stopped by the timely interruption, perhaps intentional, of a third party. “So it is our unlamented unionist brothers in COMPNOR? This makes fine table talk indeed... if there were a table. Might I join you troopers?”

Nadali looked up to see a Novan in stormtrooper fatigues, unshaven stubble peppered grey on his chin, standing with tray in hand. She searched her mind and found a match. Sergeant Maglin was before conscription a seminarian of some kind and now the regiment’s unofficial holy man by popular acclaim. Her mouth twitched. Novans were perhaps the most religiously erratic nation ever. According to a popular comedian, nothing proved this more than their periodic fits of devotion. Nadali was inclined to agree. Most folk had enough dignity to leave metaphysics to esoteric cults like the Jedi.

The former seminarian looked at her, one eyebrow lifted slightly, his expression mildly reproving as if having heard her thoughts and now suggesting she be less presumptuous. Nadali blushed and looked aside.

The welcome Maglin received from his fellow troopers evinced thorough fondness for the amiable devotee, enough fondness to ease the unease at Nadali’s presence. Even Glirv visibly relaxed.

“Aha, enter the monk! Pull up a floor, sergeant.”

“Yeah, or conjure up a chair.”

Maglin smiled as he sat, a beatific crescent rendering him impossible to dislike. “I’m no monk... yet, and, Lander, have a little faith.” Obligatory banter complete, he turned to Nadali. “So, you are the writer.”

“Yes,” she said. “At least that’s what I do&mdash;write, I mean.”

The sergeant’s brow furrowed as he studied her for a long while. He almost seemed judging her net worth, eliciting a sensation Nadali found physically unsettling. Finally, he nodded. “You will do well with us, I think.”

Nadali blinked, unsure how to answer. Seeing this, Shiridis interrupted again.

“Maglin, ease up on the cryptic bit. You’re going to scare the woman like that.”

Maglin’s smile reappeared. “Allow an old man his eccentricities.”

“You’re not that old, you doddering old bantha.”

Maglin laughed. Turning again to Nadali he added, “Nonetheless, welcome to Eskhar, such as it is... such as we are.”

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

He watched her, studied her from afar. She did not look dangerous, this outlander, this foreigner, nor was she. No, Nadali Kaist of HoloNet News was not dangerous at all. But what she represented was: facts.

Facts were troubling things, almost as troubling as truth. Truth could be changed. Facts could not. Facts beget strife. Thus, for the good of everyone, some facts were better left unknown, abandoned to drift vagrantly through the immaterial abstraction of possibility. It was his job to ensure this. His was a career able to drag the conscience kicking and screaming out of a man and stab it to death with a hydrospanner. But unlike his coworkers, he ignored politics, or rather he ignored impassioned ideologies. All politicians were meddling liars, thus it mattered not at all which ones held power. A good system kept them in line. A good system being one wherein dissension and backstabbing prevented dangerous concentrations of power. But politicians were also careless, and someone had to clean up after them. He liked to think of himself as a one-man containment squad.

Jaq Puillis served ESCO, the secret service of the Imperial Dominion of Eskhar. ESCO existed because the Ubiqtorate remained loyal to Bastion, as did the remains of ISB. It existed because COMPNOR was dead. It existed because the Secret Order was gone: no Emperor, no Order. It existed because, as an Imperial warlord now murdered once said, “No state can exist without spies and agents to handle its cloak-and-dagger needs.”

But ESCO, Puillis knew, was no more apolitical than its predecessors. Although doing so defied their mission, the Directors chose sides, pledging themselves to one or another faction holding or seeking power. Variables like himself were seen with ambivalence, frowned upon and barred from promotion while simultaneously exploited for chancy missions. Like this one.

Puillis glanced at the chrono on his wrist noting once again the furtive thread of emotion that invariable resulted. His grandfather’s chronometer. If there remained a heart in Puillis, at least of the kind others understood, then it still felt for his grandfather. From him Puillis had learned the true meaning of empire. Empire was control. Control was order. Order was harmony. Harmony was peace. Empire is peace.

He grimaced. Enough reminiscing. It was time to go.

As he left the dining hall, weaving through the chattering, seething mass of soldiers, Puillis allowed himself to review his mission. It was a definite oddity. Objectives were provided but planning and execution remained agent responsibility. Obviously, top brass wished to avoid implication. On a strategic level this made the job reckless and failure-prone. Possibly they wished this, too. You never could tell with Novan politics. But fortune favored the bold, it was said. For Puillis this translated into the deliciously banal witticism, ''When all else fails, do something stupid. It usually works.''

Correspondingly, his plan was decidedly stupid. But more importantly it amused him. Never could it be said Jaq Puillis had no sense of humor.

He reached his destination, the recreation hall within Barracks Dorn. Going to a holobooth, he keyed his identification number. Not his real ID, of course, but one labeling him Raynar Gottoch&mdash;a distressingly unoriginal Novan name&mdash;trooper of the 1658th. Satisfied his unit was permitted free time, but as a machine unable to marvel that a member of so veteran a formation would deign use simulators, the command screen changed to read:

''Welcome, GG-8881-4040-1658. Please choose your simulation, then hit EXECUTE.''

Puillis chose Wraith-Gold’s Intrusion V: Stealth Ops version 8.41.

''Loading... Complete... Is this your first time playing? Would you like to view a tutorial?''

Smiling a smile with no trace of mirth, Puillis chose negative. Yes, he had played before, years before. In fact, Intrusion V first inspired a certain impressionable teenager to pursue a career with the secret service. He remembered those days with ambivalence. Life was complex and Intrusion V was not. In reality, good and evil were seldom delineated.

Do you have a saved game you wish to load?

Puillis chose affirmative.

Please upload file and enter decryption password.

Puillis complied.

''Loading... Complete...''

As the holobooth closed around him, he took the simulation visor in hand, pondering it momentarily before wearing it. It was an arcane bit of tech that registered brain signals to expedite gaming experience. Old technology, actually, but this model only commercialized within the past fifty years. Trust militaries to overlook financial opportunities.

He blinked... and was in another world.

''He was on a space station, or so the transparisteel window with a panoramic view of stars and one of a Telgorn Corporation XQ5’s three docking platforms informed him. He was standing in a corridor. Uniformed men strode past, badges on their jackets proclaiming them ISB. Behind him two Navy troopers stood guard by a door.''

''Puillis suppressed a chuckle because it was so unlike what he knew, portraying a nonexistent past of inter-service cooperation. ISB had employed Navy troopers, yes, but never for base security. That was for ISB stormtroopers, fanatical goons used to infiltrate the reputedly incorruptible Stormtrooper Corps. As the long dead Emperor brilliantly perceived, competing departments with overlapping jurisdictions precluded coordinated opposition. How Puillis wished he had met the man, that devious mind that could harness the cynicism and apathy of modern society for a singular goal.''

''Puillis followed the corridor until it reached the training ground, a collection of obstacle courses and target ranges for players to familiarize themselves with the game before attempting campaign missions. He went to a computer console where, ostensibly, the player registered his character for scoring purposes. This was the part so amusing to Puillis. Thanks to the special program patch provided him by ESCO he could now slice into the real world from within a holo-sim! He did not pretend understanding the cyber-tech involved, but ESCO technicians assured him it worked and perfectly masked his infiltration. He need only enter his password to enable it.''

Puillis entered his password and hit EXECUTE.

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

After mess Maglin excused himself. Shiridis stayed with Nadali, much to Glirv’s visible angst. Nadali, however, remained unfazed by their divergent behaviors. She was not dealing with normal people, she knew. As if there were normal people. And by most standards, the Imperial Dominion was itself abnormal. Being unrepentantly Imperial, it had to be. To quote a colleague’s understatement of the century, “Zey ain’t like uz at all.”

Then there was the 1658th...

Nadali knew here embedment with the legion was not, could not be, accidental. There were hundreds of millions of men and women in Eskhar’s armed forces. Together they made countless thousands of units. She was with the 1658th, the 1658th. It stood to reason, therefore, that someone, somewhere, desired so. Whatever the reason, it would be complex, perhaps even insidious. But whatever it was, she was determined to learn it.

She glanced at Shiridis who trod beside her, gait loping and aggressive like a Manka cat, as they made their return to barracks. Shiridis did not look like a murderer of billions. Of course, considering the casualties the 1658th suffered there it was unlikely any of the perpetrators still lived.

Yet they did and Nadali walked among them...

Eventually, the corridor they traversed intersected another, and at this intersection several Army soldiers, part of the garrison, lounged. One of them, a man with a long brown scar across his cheek, saw Nadali. Upon noticing her lack of uniform, his face soured with recognition.

“Hey, Rowjen, look,” he grumbled. “Figures they’d send her to the Nez, the kriffers.”

One of his comrades, maybe Rowjen, sniffed and muttered something unintelligible under her breath. Shiridis replied, calling out in another dialect and laughing when Rowjen flushed angrily.

The man with the scar shifted his glare to Shiridis, evidently the real focus of his displeasure. “Watch your mouth, Nez. Just because you wear black don’t make you better than the rest of us.”

Shiridis shrugged unperturbed.

“Neijagin,” Scars spat at her.

At this the Stormtrooper stiffened and stopped. Nadali was several steps ahead before she realized it. She turned just in time to see Shiridis, pivoting on one foot, reach Scars and spit full in his face.

Very slowly, Scars wiped the spittle off with his sleeve, but neither he nor his friends made a move. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he growled. “I’ll see you on report for this, I promise.”

A voice quiet, wholly alien to its owner, deadly: “Like hell, ash-back. You aren’t an officer. Besides, nothing happened. Unless it’s not me you’re insulting?” Slowly, almost reverently, Shiridis lifted her hand and touched her divisional badge questioningly.

Rowjen’s eyes widened with startled recognition. Gripping his arm, she whispered something to her comrade. The blood actually drained from Scar’s face.

“You’re right,” he stammered. “Nothing happened. Friendly banter, that’s all.”

“That was unprofessional, Shiridis,” said Nadali when it was over, noting with astonishment and extreme discomfort the near-religious deference the 1658th’s emblem could inspire. “What ever happened to that famous Stormtrooper discipline?”

Shiridis glanced over, her anger already dissipating. “You mean where’d the unfazed automaton act go? It’s still around, trust me. Just never stuck with me, that’s all. If there weren’t a war on, I’d be drummed out of the service so fast it wouldn’t be funny.”

Nadali laughed and decided she liked Shiridis. The woman’s irreverence for the norm was delightful. “Still, spitting on the man wasn’t the best course of action.”

“Oh, he’ll get over it. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Nadali’s smile broadened. A good idea at the time? “So did the Death Stars,” she quipped, “and look what happened there.”

She was given a pained look. “C’mon, Kaist, how old is that one?”

“Young enough for another decade or two, I should think.”

“Huh, I had a grandfather who died on the second Death Star.”

Nadali, taken aback, apologized. “Don’t,” she was told. “He was a bas... uh, one of those paranoid Human High Culture fanatics. No one liked him.”

For future reference, around who should she take special care to watch her tongue, asked the journalist. Glirv, for one, said Shiridis. He and his friends were old guard. What about Maglin? Maglin was just Maglin. He had been in the Stormtrooper Corps since forever. He was just a kindly man of whom no one could fathom how he managed to take lives. There were a lot of stories there. Purtoz, Elleaq, Oblakoniw, sergeants Thresher and Xaphel, Diacodes, Gelk, Mambandu, and specialists Lasikita, Ajishi and Zeluk were a different matter. They were nalunder, children of refugees from former Imperial systems. As such Nadali should watch herself around them.

“What about Rulph Obrikien?” Nadali asked.

Shiridis’ eyes narrowed and she looked strangely at the journalist. “Why? What about him?”

“Curiosity. He’s in charge of this outfit after all.”

Relaxation, an easing of suddenly taut muscles. “Oh. Well, don’t worry about him,” said Shiridis. “He not much of a talker anyway.”

They reached the barracks, dodging some exiting Navy troopers as they entered. Nadali’s room was small and quite bare. It held a computer, desk, chair, bed, footlocker, but nothing else. She had known better. She had also known worse. Upon arrival, she went in first, kicking aside a spare pair of trousers on the floor. Not being a soldier, she was entitled to a bit of untidiness.

Looking around, Shiridis commented, “You travel light.”

“Yes,” agreed Nadali placing her hands on her hips. “We’ve some time until lights go out. What shall we do until then?”

“Well,” drawled Shiridis amusedly, folding her arms, “my dear comrades, good folk though they are, all seem afraid of you. I’m the only one you can talk to, so I guess we talk. Anything particular you want to know?”

Nadali smiled. “Lots. Though most you won’t want to talk about.”

“Hah! Try me.”

Before Nadali could answer, the whole room suffered a preliminary convulsion, a shudder. Then an explosion, a concussive, roaring explosion, that erupted from the bedside wall. Heat. Pain. Piercing heat, an instant searing into her flesh by rapidly expanding gases. Driven by the blast, the wall’s sheet metal paneling hurtled towards her.

Positioned between the journalist and the bed, Shiridis caught most of the blast. Only because the metal had twisted rather than fragmented, and its miraculously contacting face first, did the Imperial survive the impact. It threw her into the air, knocking an already flung Nadali completely over, and sending them both tumbling back out into the hallway.

Horrified shouts came from the other denizens of the barracks. Feet pounded towards them. Hands dragged them free of the burning room. The call for a medic was raised. Pain. Blood. And within Nadali an irrationally unperturbed thread of cognizance commenting, “So that’s what a bomb feels like...”