Tales from the New Republic (23 page)

Born into a prominent bloodline and class, Jovan Vharing attended the Imperial Naval Academy, a decision made for him by traditional family dictates rather than of his own accord. But there were no regrets to that course, and he delved deeply into the best of himself to impress mentors and superior officers alike. For his concentrated efforts in detail and accuracy, he graduated in the top two percent of his class—a distinguishing achievement. Newly commissioned as a lieutenant, he went on to a prestigious posting as senior tracking officer aboard a
Victory
-class Star Destroyer.

His ambition and eye for competent and cost-effective action made an early reputation for him—then a newly graduated officer, serving in the desolate Outer Rim, in the area of space commonly referred to as the wild frontier. And while it was no auspicious duty for an officer of his caliber, it was to be a short-lived tenure with many notable accomplishments that would earn him the sympathetic eye of Captain Nolaan. Having also served on the Outer Rim as a junior officer, Nolaan took an instant liking to Vharing. To spite several of his junior officers, Nolaan called in several favors and arranged for Vharing’s transfer—to the bridge of the
Interrogator
, where he made no attempts to shield his partiality.

Within one year, Vharing would live up to the high expectations set for him by his ill-fated mentor. After Nolaan’s untimely execution, Vharing became one of the youngest men to achieve the rank of captain. As such, he would be one of the youngest officers to ever receive command of an Imperial II Star Destroyer. And with it, he inherited the burden of Tremayne’s exacting demands and the resentment of every Imperial officer on the bridge.

Death was a shadowy cloak surrounding the captaincy of the
Interrogator
. Promotion was by succession—the kind of succession one sees in a toppling house of sabacc cards. Vharing’s promotion to captain was simply a complicated ploy by his executive colleagues to stay well out of Lord Tremayne’s omniscient shadow. Vharing, as did his predecessor, would serve as a buffer. When the next blunder surfaced, when the next inaccuracy arose, his would be the name spoken by Tremayne and his would be the neck crushed by the wrath of the High Inquisitor.

So, as with all things, Vharing threw himself, mentally and physically, into the endless pursuit of perfection. His was the highest efficiency rating in the fleet and his men the most steadfast and loyal. At a formal dinner for the executive staff of the
Interrogator
, Vharing was forced to fend off the curious inquiries of his fellow officers, who for the last six months had stood by and gawked in envy of his ability to motivate men and support staff, even under the most extreme circumstances. When asked what was his single, greatest achievement, Vharing replied, “Serving under High Inquisitor Tremayne.”

A moment of quiet met the comment; the jovial atmosphere usurped by a darker, fearsome mood. Staring at each other and then at Vharing in turn, the assembled Imperial officers were speechless and deferred to the talents of their more outspoken members.

“Are you insane, Vharing?” General Parnet whispered. The disgruntled officer glanced over his shoulders, as if expecting High Inquisitor Tremayne to be nearby in the shadows, listening.

“Oh, come, gentlemen,” Vharing scolded, raising his goblet in a toast. “The man is not so dreadful as all that—oppressive, demanding, unforgiving. He’s no different than our drill mentors back at the Academy or any of the superior officers under whom we served before our grand appointments to executive commission.”

“And there’s your mistake, Vharing,” Parnet said evenly. His cruel, handsome face was as expressionless as the shadows flanking the corners of the room. “Failure at the Academy was expulsion. Failure in the line of duty oft times means reassignment to some shameful task, demotion, perhaps court-martial in the worst cases. Here—” He put his goblet down to candidly decline the toast to Tremayne. “Here the penalty for failure is death. And that my friend, is the longest fall any man can take—alone or with his friends.” Parnet paused and glanced around the table at each of his colleagues in turn, waiting for a consensus from the group.

“Well spoken,” Lieutenant Uland concurred. He swallowed the entire portion of his wine and set the goblet aside as the first warm charge rushed through him, warding off the intoxicating chill brought on by Tremayne’s name.

Vharing met Parnet’s statement with a thin smile, marveling at the black mockery of fear behind the General’s insipid eyes. “Then to Death, gentlemen,” he raised his goblet, “the longest fall.”

As Vharing’s face met the cold embrace of the deck floor, he was as a dead man. Hot surges of agonizing sensation lanced through his battered skull, and he awoke from that desperate state—alive by every indication of the pain that swept through his heightened senses.

With a child’s wondrous delight, he experienced the sharp agonies of living—the nagging aches and stiffness of his joints, the twisted pinch of his uniform, chafing uncomfortably at his skin. One of his insignia pins had broken in the fall and was piercing the muscle of his chest.
Dead men do not bleed
, he thought to himself, feeling the warm adhesive of his blood against the fabric of his uniform.

There was a dull roaring in his ears as his physical faculties returned. A momentary stab of pain confessed itself to be a separated rib, possibly two, suffered in the fall to the waiting-room floor. His right index finger would not move on command and any effort to coerce it brought a secondary wave of sensory anguish. And there was more. Something was terribly wrong—he could not breathe.

In desperation, Vharing searched the room, his lethargic eyes slow to focus on his surroundings. The delay in his vision brought terrifying images back to his bewildered brain, making the few objects in the immediate area seem gigantic in comparison to his frail, battered body. This appalling effect redoubled his terror, prolonging the agony of his asphyxiation.

Why doesn’t he finish it!
Vharing demanded in his mind, unable to speak. His throat was on fire. The salted aftertaste of blood repulsed him and caused him to gag, aggravating his desperate circumstances.

Then as his will to survive conquered the army of dull sensations numbing his brain, Vharing opened his mouth. The frigid chill of the waiting room sliced at his tongue as he took his first gasp of air. The experience was a miserable agony to endure; the icy sting swept through his mouth and then into his nostrils.

Vharing coughed, continuing to wheeze as his lungs began to function. “Alive?” he rasped, startled by the hoarse growl of his voice.
Had Tremayne left him for dead? Impossible
.

Slowly rising from the floor, Vharing swallowed with deliberate caution. He closed his eyes, near fainting, as the agony in the back of his neck intensified. There was undoubtedly some damage caused by Tremayne’s wrath, but nothing the surgeon droids in the
Interrogator
’s sick bay could not fathom. Spreading his fingers wide and wiggling his toes inside the hardened leather of his boots, Vharing grinned and turned for the door.

Pausing momentarily, he stared at his reflection in the observation glass, noticing the thin trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth and from one nostril. Quickly pulling the handkerchief from his pocket, he moistened the corner and dabbed at the wound. The injury at his chin would bruise by morning, but he was not worried. He would wear the bruise as a mark of distinction among his colleagues.

Hurrying through the bulkhead door, Vharing stepped into the corridor and abruptly fell back against the wall. The overhead illumination grids were blinding to him. Hands shielding his eyes, the young captain blinked back painful tears and quickly made his way through the wide passage. His heart was pounding frantically in beat to the patriotic cant that still lingered in his memory.

Everything was so poignantly clear. The detail of the deck plates, an organized mosaic of tiles along the corridor floor. Though indiscernible to the preoccupied mind, he could see the variations in shade and texture. The illumination grid panels troubling him from overhead were spaced exactly one and one half meters apart, two meters in the corners where the corridors intersected, and three meters where the passage led off to the enormous labyrinth of the officers’ quarters. A sanitizing chemical taint rose in the air, stinging his nostrils for the first time as his heightened senses allowed him to experience, with fullness, the world around him.

Yes, everything was exquisitely clear to him, including his plans for Lieutenant Leeds! He would call a complete escort of Imperial stormtroopers to accompany him to the bridge. Then he would head directly to the command center and he would arrest the ambitious lieutenant in front of everyone. And at the expense of several favors of his own, he would oversee the court-martial procedures himself. Admiral Hennat, as yet a keen friend of his, would gladly preside over the entire affair, insuring a judgment of gross negligence against the lieutenant. Leeds would become the scapegoat, buried in a list of charges ranging from murder to treason, while Vharing’s own record remained perfectly clean and clear.

After snapping the restraints on Leeds’s wrists himself, the young captain would summon his com-scan officer, Lieutenant Waleran front and center. With great ceremony, befitting a field promotion in combat, he would advocate the industrious young officer to the rank of senior lieutenant in front of the entire bridge crew. And as Nolaan had done for him, Vharing would take Waleran under his wing, insuring him a place on the executive staff as his personal military aide.

At the end of the corridor, the turbolift was situated between an auxiliary maintenance shaft and a small storage room. Closing his eyes, Vharing rubbed at his neck, barely able to tolerate the excruciating pain, which seemed to intensify as he moved closer to the turbolift. His hands gently caressed the area under his throat and he felt the disfigured swelling of his larynx and the distended glands along the sides of his neck.

Nothing the medical droids can’t see to
, he told himself. His tongue was also swollen, all but blocking the airway to his lungs. Vharing paused, leaning against a heavy equipment chest. Loosening the collar of his uniform, he swallowed a cool draft of air, in the hopes that the chill might alleviate some of his discomfort.

Puzzled that he had not yet reached the turbolift, the captain fought off a bout of panic. His heart quickened as he opened his eyes. For every step he had taken, it appeared as if the lift entrance had moved three steps beyond him. Vharing closed his eyes again, rubbing the sensation back into them as the numbing cold of Tremayne’s waiting room prevailed over his senses.

“Delirium,” he whispered, willing the tension and anxiety to leave him.

When Vharing again opened his eyes, he was standing on the bridge of the
Interrogator
. What a breathtaking sight she was—a tribute to the perfection and dedication of the Imperial technicians that created her! Lieutenant Leeds was nowhere on the flight bridge. Vharing smiled with conceited satisfaction, reminding himself to pay a visit to the destitute officer, if only to offer a few choices as to his next career, as foreman in one of the Emperor’s spice mines.

Vharing nearly laughed aloud at the thought. Brushing his hand reflectively over his lips, he took a deep breath and clasped his hands behind his back. He swayed rhythmically back and forth on his heels, conscious of the habit but too intrigued with the rapture of living to care.

Across from him, Lieutenant Waleran was speaking with the navigation team. A set of new insignias adorned his uniformed breast, casting a steady, proud glare over the dramatic gray of his formal command appointments. It pleased Vharing to see the newly promoted Senior Lieutenant so fully engaged in his work and enjoying it. He seemed well at ease on the bridge and from the atmosphere, the crew was at ease with him, too.

Ahead of them, the nebula was breaking up into fragmented sections of discernible stars and distant planets. The bridge crew was preparing to leave this sector, bracing themselves for the jump into hyperspace. When had the order been given? Shrugging off that uncertainty, Vharing straightened his broad shoulders. He wanted to pose for the crew to show his complete confidence in the new bridge officer. In his absence, Waleran must have received the orders and was prepared to carry them out.

Vharing raised his chin with a measure of pride. The action caused a crippling streak of pain to shoot through him. There was a literal explosion of sensory information at the base of his skull as his brain shuddered in agony. Gritting his teeth against the anguish, the captain forced his body into a rigid pose. Once he had given the order for the jump into hyperspace, he would officially turn the bridge over to Waleran and would retire immediately to the medical bay for a complete physical examination.

As the pilots signaled the all clear for the jump to hyperspace, Vharing opened his mouth to give the command—a loud, tortured wheezing escaped his throat. He tried to swallow but the tightness in his throat would not give. Lieutenant Waleran turned to him, as if looking through him, and then turned back to the pilots’ station. Straightening his shoulders in a haughty imitation of his commanding officer, Waleran nodded to his subordinate and gave the order for the jump to hyperspace.

Vharing winced beneath the onslaught of the hyperdrive engines as the shriek of the motivators jarred his bones, right down to his teeth. There was a secondary explosion of light and color as the telltale points of stars elongated and stretched across the viewscreen, becoming the seamless fabric of hyperspace. As the radiant glow intensified, Vharing squinted, desperately afraid to close his eyes against the brilliance. For to close them would mean never to open them, never to see this world, or exist within it again. But the glare was too intense, the pressure at the base of his skull too powerful. He was forced to escape into a world where there was no light, no sound-just blackness.

Neck broken, his spinal cord pulverized at the base of his skull, Captain Jovan Vharing was dead. His head swung listlessly back and forth from his shoulders as two stormtroopers dragged his corpse from High Inquisitor Tremayne’s waiting room.