Chapter Text
The Empire left little room for memories. This was something that ISB Oversight Officer Armanacc had once, upon enlistment, feared accepting and had now grown resignedly grateful for. In the little time she was given for herself, she had to do nothing but sleep and eat (both of which she no longer had to worry about on a day-to-day basis), and when she was finally alone and something in her gut (instinct, as she labeled it internally) told her she would be alone for a long while, she lifted up a panel in her flooring, opened a box she had hidden there, and pulled out the radio that had lately been bringing her immense luck — as she removed it, she deliberately ignored everything else she’d left in the box.
She set the radio down on her desk quietly. If patrols heard anything louder than a blaster being set down – gently – they would knock and pry and ensure that everything was alright. After hiding the radio and replacing the panel on her floor, she would chat and smile with the troopers who sometimes enjoyed her company when she wasn’t on duty. Then she would often remember how many civilians she’d watched them round up that day, and excuse herself on the basis of tiredness, at which point they’d say their goodnights and continue on their patrols. Other times she would look at their helmets for too long and be reminded of the clone helmets she used to idolize, then she’d quickly remind herself she had no time for these memories (she was here to ensure that – it’s part of the reason she’d stayed for so long). So tonight, she set the radio down especially quietly so she wouldn’t have to combat any unwanted resentment or self-pity.
This radio had become a way to dispel the aching guilt that she felt any time she put on her uniform, attached her rank to her chest, or issued a command. It was an outlet for her anger at the Empire that she took advantage of for its protection, in turn becoming a part of the creature that had ended her life eleven years prior. Yes, she was a part of it, and a reasonably respected part of it at that; but this radio made it so that she was part of something else, too. In her mind, that made her existence completely neutral – mercifully inconsequential.
She locked the door to her room, picked up the trooper helmet she’d snagged off a body a few years prior, and shoved it down over her head as she held down a button on the radio. “This is TK-66.” The helmet didn’t make her sound exactly like a stormtrooper, but it distorted her real voice to the point of acceptable anonymity. Her code name was silly, and if it were meant to serve any purpose other than fill in a gap where her name would go, she would have changed it years prior; its two digits instantly gave away that it wasn’t a real trooper operating number and “66” was still very conspicuously connoted even all these years later, but it had been the first number she’d thought of when Saw Gerrera had asked what he should call her, if she wouldn’t tell him who she really was. “This is—” she began to repeat, but was interrupted.
“What do you have for me?” Responded a gruff, distant voice.
And then began the purging ritual: heavy weaponry shipments, when, where, how many. How many patrols were circling the Imperial Palace. Any and every plan for Imperial expansion on Coruscant (which was slowing, since not much more grasp could be established on the Imperial capital planet). The plans to dig into Kashyyyk’s forestry under the guise of needing some natural fuel. Current investigations; a terrorist spotted on multiple planets upending Imperial plots. Supposedly working alone, labeled very dangerous. More expansion.
Usually this outpour of information took nearly an hour. Because she couldn’t deny that she was working for the Empire, she felt the need to give every single thing she learned to those who were doing something to fight against it. In doing so, she excused her work here. It was how she survived. After she had said everything, she waited. She heard shuffling from the other side of the radio. “Is this everything?”
“For now. They’re scared.”
For the first time, she heard Saw Gerrera laugh. “They’ve always been scared.”
Something similar to pride swelled in her chest, but she pulled the trooper helmet off of her head and the sound of radio silence pushed the dangerous feeling away. She picked up the radio to return it to its hiding place, and her fingers brushed against something in the box wrapped in cloth. In a place with no time for memories, she absentmindedly glanced down at it, a glint of black and silver peeking out from under the fabric reminding her exactly why she kept it obscured. She covered it once again, closed the box, and returned her floor paneling to its home.
And now, after she’d used her time to do good, or at least to counteract her own part in the galaxy-wide Imperial expansion, she usually found sleep — and although she hated to admit it, it was finally consistent and reliable under her Imperial position. But something about tonight, in a room too small and dark and hateful for memories, they seeped through the cracks in her floor. She slept on her bed flush against the wall, her forehead pressed against the cool metal wall and her arms wrapped around her torso, but still the visions persisted.
Memories of laughter, hers and a friend’s, echoing through the halls of a ship or a compound. His face, although it’s blurred. Joy, and excitement, and hope, and determination, all wound up and pressed into her dreams of what the future would look like. The fear that came and killed her.
Something deep within the dream, a sound, a static. A beeping. A radio. She didn’t remember this memory. And soon she realized she was awake, kneeling, in front of the removable metal panel in her flooring. The beeping was coming from within. She rushed to open the box, pull out the radio, and lunge for the trooper helmet to alter her voice before responding to the call.
“You cannot call me. They’ll hear and they’ll kill me.”
Gerrera didn’t seem to care. “They’ve taken one of my men. A very important asset to me. Find out where he’s being held, when they are planning to interrogate him, and if they plan to relocate him.”
Her heart sank. “The terrorist?” she asked before she could think.
“He’s a lot more dangerous than that.”
She tried to sound unfazed. “Tomorrow first thing, I will look into it. Tomorrow night, you’ll hear from me.”
“No later.”
“No later.”
Saw Gerrera was gone.
She tried to sleep the rest of the night away, but was met with nothing but those memories she had thought wouldn’t fit in this cramped room, stronger and almost visual now. Hands, running, trees, light. Images of things she could associate with nothing but the past she tried to ignore. The deafening Imperial wake up alarm was a welcome attack the next morning.