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 ajunior 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-was 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 observati
on
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 courtmartial
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
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 - com 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 int
o 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.
***
Conflict of Interest
By Laurie Burns
Standing on the steps of the Verkuylian Imperial Governor's Hall waiting
to present her fake credentials to the stormtrooper at the door, SelbyJarrad
took another swipe at the sweat trickling down her temples and wished she'd
been warned about the blasted stink.
Just another "minor" detail Intelligence had neglected to mention during
the mission briefing, she thought. The city-the whole sweltering planet-reeked
of alazhi being stripped, pulped and simmered for refinement into bacta. Of
all the attacks that the New Republic team might face while helping Verkuyl's
rebelling native workers oust the Empire, this obnoxious olfactory assault had
never come up.
She slanted a glance at the tall, dark-skinned man beside her. Before
landing, the stiff, formal collar of Major Cobb Vartos's business suit had
been crisp and clean, but it had long since wilted in the suffocating heat.
Grimy marks showed where he'd pried it away from his perspiring neck. Selby
didn't even want to know what she looked like. Her own suit clung to her, and
the thick auburn hair piled atop her head felt hot and heavy.
"I'm not sure which is worse," Vartos murmured to her, hooking a finger
in his collar and giving it another yank. "Breathing through my nose and
smelling the blasted stuff, or breathing through my mouth and tasting it."