Red Queen
Feb 13th, 2014, 01:34:38 PM
Her earliest memory was looking up at the stars.
It had always been a strange memory: the sky over Coruscant, where she had spent most of her childhood, was too polluted and stained by the ambient light of the ecumenopolis to make out anything but the few faintest pinpricks, and yet she vividly remembered standing in almost total darkness, staring up at a sky utterly bursting with stars. It was a souvenir that Naboo had sent away with her; a vision of natural beauty to remember her home by. It was a sight she had returned for, years later; and a sight she had once again been forced to leave behind. She never forgot though: that sight, that memory, was burned everlasting into her mind.
The stars she saw now were different; someone else's stars, lacking the patterns and configurations that she always found so reassuring. Her rational mind told her that she was merely seeing the same stars from a different angle, a quarter of the way further around the disc of the galaxy, close to what had been declared the border with the new Alliance of Free Planets. Her rational mind thought it preposterous to even spare more than half a thought to the situation; and yet, she couldn't shake the discomfort of looking out of the viewport of her shuttle and seeing someone else's stars.
Distracting herself, she focused on the controls, adjusting her heading to begin her final approach towards the Knight-General's command ship. The Fury was as unremarkable as any other Imperial Star Destroyer; a mile of seeming sleek and smooth perfection that transformed into a pitted and broken surface once placed under close enough scrutiny. It was almost a parallel to the Empire itself in a way; from a distance, you couldn't see the turbolaser turrets of Stormtrooper standing sentry; couldn't distinguish between the dull grey working parts of Navy officers and the slightly whiter sensor modules of the Imperial Security Bureau who watched and recorded everything. You couldn't see the scuffs, scars, and performance deviations that made one laser array unique by comparison to the seemingly identical one directly beside it. The Empire worked so hard to preserve it's pristine whitewashed veneer; no wonder the galaxy couldn't distinguish between what crimes belonged to which of them.
That was the truth of it, deep down: every soul in the Empire, from ruling tyrant to complicit subject was guilty of something. Tolerance; obedience; ignorance. They would argue that they were left with no choice, but there was always a choice; death was always an option, unfavourable as it might be. The difference was that while some Imperials deluded themselves with beliefs of innocence, others embraced their guilt and accepted it; they understood that sometimes doing the wrong thing was the right choice, and they found a way to live with that.
For the Red Queen, the motivation for her continued loyalty to the Empire had justified a great many unspeakable things.
The autopilot engaged as her shuttle sailed into the Fury's landing bay: one of the few overbearing Imperial Navy procedures that she found passably acceptable. As soon as she disembarked, technicians would swarm the craft; all but three she presumed would genuinely engage in the necessary post-flight scrutiny, providing ample justification and distraction for the computer technicians to attempt to ferret out secrets from her ship's computer. They were welcome to try, and she certainly did not blame them for it; Imperial Intelligence was notoriously secretive far beyond what was appropriate, and any Imperial Officer with even an ounce of ambition would surely order an attempt to glean even a shred of information that might prove useful later. Frankly, she would have been more disappointed if they didn't try, futile as the attempt was destined to be. It was not a matter of arrogance placed in her security measures, but rather knowledge that there simply were no secrets to be found: the shuttle was borrowed from a convenient outpost, and it's data core was utterly clean.
She waited with total patience as the boarding ramp descended; urgency had never seemed to her like a justification to rush, and so it was with absolute calm that she strode from her shuttle and onto the flight deck. It was an essential component of the image she worked to cultivate, as was her appearance: the tight fitting slacks with what was almost a blood stripe; the tailored jacket that was almost Stormtrooper uniform, but not quite; the wild cascade of deep red hair that was half heartedly tied up in almost a parody of Naval regulations. It was all by intention, all by design; not some outsider that could be rejected for not fitting in, and yet not some generic that would blend in either.
Her gaze settled on the man she was here to see; the architect and archon of the Imperial Knights. It was unusual for a man of his standing to greet visitors in person rather than sending some proxy; but then, that was exactly what she had hoped her lack of subtly and the fanfare towards her Imptel status would result in. Her time and patience were in plentiful supply; she simply had no particular desire to deal with underlings.
"Lord Atrapes." She offered a smile that was polite, but perhaps not quite genuine. "I am honoured to be received in person."
It had always been a strange memory: the sky over Coruscant, where she had spent most of her childhood, was too polluted and stained by the ambient light of the ecumenopolis to make out anything but the few faintest pinpricks, and yet she vividly remembered standing in almost total darkness, staring up at a sky utterly bursting with stars. It was a souvenir that Naboo had sent away with her; a vision of natural beauty to remember her home by. It was a sight she had returned for, years later; and a sight she had once again been forced to leave behind. She never forgot though: that sight, that memory, was burned everlasting into her mind.
The stars she saw now were different; someone else's stars, lacking the patterns and configurations that she always found so reassuring. Her rational mind told her that she was merely seeing the same stars from a different angle, a quarter of the way further around the disc of the galaxy, close to what had been declared the border with the new Alliance of Free Planets. Her rational mind thought it preposterous to even spare more than half a thought to the situation; and yet, she couldn't shake the discomfort of looking out of the viewport of her shuttle and seeing someone else's stars.
Distracting herself, she focused on the controls, adjusting her heading to begin her final approach towards the Knight-General's command ship. The Fury was as unremarkable as any other Imperial Star Destroyer; a mile of seeming sleek and smooth perfection that transformed into a pitted and broken surface once placed under close enough scrutiny. It was almost a parallel to the Empire itself in a way; from a distance, you couldn't see the turbolaser turrets of Stormtrooper standing sentry; couldn't distinguish between the dull grey working parts of Navy officers and the slightly whiter sensor modules of the Imperial Security Bureau who watched and recorded everything. You couldn't see the scuffs, scars, and performance deviations that made one laser array unique by comparison to the seemingly identical one directly beside it. The Empire worked so hard to preserve it's pristine whitewashed veneer; no wonder the galaxy couldn't distinguish between what crimes belonged to which of them.
That was the truth of it, deep down: every soul in the Empire, from ruling tyrant to complicit subject was guilty of something. Tolerance; obedience; ignorance. They would argue that they were left with no choice, but there was always a choice; death was always an option, unfavourable as it might be. The difference was that while some Imperials deluded themselves with beliefs of innocence, others embraced their guilt and accepted it; they understood that sometimes doing the wrong thing was the right choice, and they found a way to live with that.
For the Red Queen, the motivation for her continued loyalty to the Empire had justified a great many unspeakable things.
The autopilot engaged as her shuttle sailed into the Fury's landing bay: one of the few overbearing Imperial Navy procedures that she found passably acceptable. As soon as she disembarked, technicians would swarm the craft; all but three she presumed would genuinely engage in the necessary post-flight scrutiny, providing ample justification and distraction for the computer technicians to attempt to ferret out secrets from her ship's computer. They were welcome to try, and she certainly did not blame them for it; Imperial Intelligence was notoriously secretive far beyond what was appropriate, and any Imperial Officer with even an ounce of ambition would surely order an attempt to glean even a shred of information that might prove useful later. Frankly, she would have been more disappointed if they didn't try, futile as the attempt was destined to be. It was not a matter of arrogance placed in her security measures, but rather knowledge that there simply were no secrets to be found: the shuttle was borrowed from a convenient outpost, and it's data core was utterly clean.
She waited with total patience as the boarding ramp descended; urgency had never seemed to her like a justification to rush, and so it was with absolute calm that she strode from her shuttle and onto the flight deck. It was an essential component of the image she worked to cultivate, as was her appearance: the tight fitting slacks with what was almost a blood stripe; the tailored jacket that was almost Stormtrooper uniform, but not quite; the wild cascade of deep red hair that was half heartedly tied up in almost a parody of Naval regulations. It was all by intention, all by design; not some outsider that could be rejected for not fitting in, and yet not some generic that would blend in either.
Her gaze settled on the man she was here to see; the architect and archon of the Imperial Knights. It was unusual for a man of his standing to greet visitors in person rather than sending some proxy; but then, that was exactly what she had hoped her lack of subtly and the fanfare towards her Imptel status would result in. Her time and patience were in plentiful supply; she simply had no particular desire to deal with underlings.
"Lord Atrapes." She offered a smile that was polite, but perhaps not quite genuine. "I am honoured to be received in person."