Assassin

A Star Wars Story by DarkVoid608

Rain pattered down on the trees above, the leaves making a soothing sound which contrasted greatly from your situation. You sat down on a log, having been allowed to take shelter beneath the trees shortly after the storm had started. According to your captors, you were still over two days away from their 'base', the place where you would almost certainly meet your end. Honestly you were surprised at how sympathetic they were acting with you, regularly checking if you needed any food or drink and making sure that you had the energy to keep marching. You guessed they had no need for a dead prisoner at this point, that gave you hope. One of them strolled over to you, keeping a firm grip on her DH-17 all the while.

"Everything alright over here? You need anything? We can get you out of that heavy armour if you want, there are some spare clothes in our supplies which should fit you" she said in a soft tone. This all seemed so irregular, whenever you had captured any of the enemy, they had not been treated so kindly, why would the enemy do this for you? Especially considering what your original mission had been...

Your canopy was constructed largely of leaves, no time to create a proper metal structure. If you were going to complete the mission in time then you had to be quick, your target would soon land. You triple checked your DLT-19X, you were only going to get a single shot at this and you could not fail. You had not failed before, that was why your superiors had selected you for this task. An elite, to kill someone equally dangerous, in her own way. A senator, or at least a former senator, in the Imperial Court who supported the rebel cause. You could not quite recall her name as you lay crouched in your nest, but knew that she was a major danger to the security of the Empire. And therefore, she had to be eliminated.

"No I do not require clothes, my armour keeps me dry enough" you answered bluntly, this scum may have been acting kindly with you but that did not mean you had to return the favour. Besides, in truth your armour was not filtering out the chill in the air very well, its heating systems had been damaged when you had taken a blaster shot a little while ago.

"You could at least remove your helmet, don't you ever feel cooped up in there? I've always wondered...still, I doubt there is any humanity left behind that glass. What kind of a person could murder so many innocents and still reject our attempts at peace?" the soldier asked herself aloud, shaking her head at your silence and turning away in disappointment. A pang of something entered your heart, could it be? No, you were not feeling guilty, you were an assassin for the Empire, a silent bearer of a great cause. She was the one in the wrong, the rebellion was nothing more than an insurrection, they were the ones hurting people! And yet, something compelled you. You raised your tightly bound hands and struggled with your helmet, unlocking its tight grasp around your head with a slight hissing noise, a sound which gathered the attention of the rebel. She turned and saw your struggling, letting off what you could have sworn was a brief smile. She then walked over and used her free hand to lift the helmet away, placing it carefully on a nearby crate and taking this rare opportunity to look into your eyes. For the first time in a long time you felt the wind hit your face, and closed your eyes in a moment of vulnerability, relishing its chill against your skin. This was a luxury unheard of. The soldier still stood above you but you ignored her for a little, instead turning and staring at your helmet, a variant of the standard scout one except it was painted black with a white visor. That helmet had witnessed all of your kills, at this point it was as if the armour defined you, you began to wonder what sort of a person you really were, beneath all of the death tools. You shook this thought ahead quickly, what were you doing? To think these things, was traitorous, you had served as an elite among the Imperials for as long as you could remember, you had no other life, you knew no other life.

"Do you have a name?" the soldier asked suddenly, snapping you back into reality. You had not noticed her sit on a crate beside you, too distracted by your dreams and delusions.

"The Empire cares not for names and titles, they lead to arrogance and freedom which can ultimately lead to...rebellion. We only have numbers, my number is GN-3145 though" you replied freely, if you were forced to speak to this terrorist then you may as well make a pleasant conversation out of it. There was nothing you could do to change your fate now anyway...

The target was landing, long had you awaited a mission of such calibre. To eliminate an enemy this...impressive, well it would most certainly elevate you to a position of vast authority and influence within the Empire. The GR-75's engines growled a little as it set down in the clearing, steam hissing from its landing gears. Command had not informed you very much information on this particular situation, but apparently the target was meeting with other senators in this place to discuss their plans to topple the Empire. According to your superiors, they could not do so at their base for fear of you tracking them, you guessed they had done that correctly then. Still, you could use this opportunity to kill the senator and remove a grave thorn from the Emperor's side. The rear cargo bay doors of the shuttle opened outwards and enveloped the area in a cloud of steam and smoke. It was then that she stepped out, all dressed in white in her typical manner apparently, and you lined your reticule up with her head, fully committed to taking the shot.

"No name? Surely that just limits your independence, do you not want to be able to make your own decisions? To stare out at a free horizon and know that you have limitless possibilities?" she asked curiously. You supposed she wanted to find out why you fought as you did, to her you must have seemed like blank sentinels, showing no emotion within the armour you wore. That was not true though, was it?

"From my point of view I am trying to defend a secure society, to me you are the villains, threatening the peace and killing people I would call friends in your bid for so called freedom. Long have I fought your little rebellion, and many good people I have lost to it. You speak to me of independence, but what of safety?" you retorted, feelings of bitterness rising as you remembered the many times those supposedly emotionless stormtroopers who stood bravely at your side had fallen in a volley of laserfire. That was the problem with these rebels, they saw you as evil but were not willing to admit their own foul deeds. This was the effect of war.

"I..I never thought of it that way, when we're shooting at stormtroopers we only see the armour. Truthfully you are the first trooper to speak to me in a normal conversation, let alone remove your helmet" she admitted, her voice cracking a little as she thought over what you had said. At least you were having an effect. The rain was falling heavier now, this planet, there always seemed something foul about it. The shrubs had a mind of their own, growing as far as the eye could see, there was no control in any of it.

"But, if you do have all these feelings as you say, then what runs through your head when you are murdering us?" she asked in sincerity.

Your excitement was heating up now, the moment before a kill was always the one most filled with adrenaline. Your visor recalibrated, adjusting for wind speeds and your rifle reacted with a new targeting solution. Within you, your heart pumped through your chest as your fingers tightened their way around the trigger. However, out of sheer curiosity, you waited, just long enough to see how the senator would first react upon disembarking her ship. Her face carried no jovial smile, or boundless enthusiasm as you had been taught that all rebels possessed. There was no hope in it, only a grim look of defeat. Beside her was a man, ageing and withered but still with some former strength, another senator like her. You could tell from the way they reacted to one another that they were friends, sharing their emotions and feelings without the need for words. For some reason, you could not explain why, their faces made you instinctively reach away from the trigger. You moved your eye out of the scope and looked on through your visor as the senators spoke beneath the cover of their ships, each consoling one another on their losses. This was not how an Imperial meeting would go after a defeat, men would be killed if they carried blame, or made to carry out some worse punishments. But these rebels, they...comforted one another.

"Once it was a vain excitement, the sense of adrenaline that anything dangerous gives you. But after a while I lost pride in it all, it was murder even if it was of terrorists. I only jumped at this chance because of the rewards it could have yielded, and even then I delayed. Had I any scrap of my former self I would have killed your senator the moment she stepped off that ship, but I didn't. And here I am paying the price for it" you explained, sadness and disappointment filling your words. You were angry, not at the rebels or the senator but at yourself, confusion clouded your every move and now even you could not tell what you were supposed to think anymore.

"Do not see this as a punishment then, see it as a step in the right direction. Do you really think that we would bring you all this way just to kill you? Your journey isn't over" the soldier stated.

"No, you'll interrogate me and torture me until you have every last ounce of information I know. And then you'll auction me off, deciding whether to throw me in the garbage or sell me to some slaver for a small profit. Perhaps the money you make on me will buy you a new Y-wing" you ranted, standing up suddenly and taking a few steps away. Your future was certain, it was dark and short, you could not believe that you'd let yourself believe this rebel's light and soft words for even a second. This was no fairy-tale, it was real life, and you knew exactly what fate awaited you.

"This isn't an Imperial encampment! You're not a prisoner in the hands of the Emperor! All you have seen is what you were allowed to see, here prisoners are given mercy, a second chance, but you're too blind to see it!" the rebel shouted, out of character for how you'd gotten to know her in the last few minutes.

"Mercy? You're telling me the fate I just explained is not similar to the one that awaits me?" you asked, unbelieving in her ideas of mercy.

"The rebel leaders will ask a few questions, not with torture methods but with words of truth and kindness. Many among us hate the Imperials, in fact most do for us to be fighting at all. But we all know that the Emperor has you on a leash, you may not admit it but the galaxy you see is very different to the galaxy that actually exists. Where you see security, there is dictatorship and death. Where you see peace, there is fear. And where you see an insurgency, there exists a last bastion of hope in the bitter war against darkness. Twenty years ago, there was a Republic, there were Jedi, there was light. All the rebellion wants is to bring the peace that once was back, surely you can see that" she explained, your heart warming at her words. Every thought in your head told you to pay no attention, that she was lying to win you over and make you spill information to the interrogators more easily.

But right now your mind was switched off, for the first time in your life you were following your heart, and your heart said no. No more assassinations, no more ideas about 'crushing the rebellion'. You could see at last. You thought back to all the missions you had run, the consequences of every one, and the end result was always the same, stabilizing the Emperor's grip over the galaxy. The rebellion had done many foul things, that much was certain, but the lies of the Empire and the many deaths you had caused in their name far outweighed that. All you had wanted in your life was to fight for the right cause, and now you realised that you had found it, as a result of opening your eyes. For once. You stared up at the rebel and smiled, not a cruel smile or a sarcastic smile but a genuine one. She was taken aback but quickly returned it, and here you formed the first of many friendships in the family that the rebellion had given you. You would go on to help many integral victories in the Imperial Civil War, providing intelligence on enemy base locations and eliminating Imperial officers. But never, not once, did you question the morals behind what you were doing. Now you had found a cause worth fighting for, now you had found a reason for being an assassin...