Star Wars: Heir to the Sith (Part 2)

Chapter 07: "I am a princess of the Elder Houses."

"She's waking!"

Tayre opened her eyes and stared into a blurred world in bright light. Two figures stood at her side: an Imperial captain and a blue medical droid. She dimly recollected the captain from her previous waking. Hadn't he warned her about something? Or had he told her something?

She couldn't remember.

"W-where . . . where am I?" she mouthed.

"You are aboard my ship, the Reaver. You were injured on Farsalt after a . . . a battle, and brought here. I have given your father my word that I will protect you." The man glanced nervously toward the door. Then he leaned in close. "I will do that, but I will need your help. If you don't help me, I can't protect you!"

He grabbed her arm and gave it a hard squeeze. Tayre drew a pained breath.

"Your name," he said. "I know you are not Princess Ella Malquet. Who are you?"

Tayre didn't answer. A tiny part of brain cautioned her with an ever growing shout, telling her she was standing on shifting sands and that the wrong step would finish her.

"Damn it answer me!" the captain seethed. "It's the only way you will survive. When Assayer Neerada comes she'll subject you to severe interrogation if you don't give her what she wants!"

Tayre struggled to order her memories. She couldn't remember how she had ended up here. What had happened on Farsalt? The Reaver had come to the system, Ella and her had sneaked out on their bikes. But what then?

She looked at the Captain again and blinked away the moisture from her eyes. As the image cleared she decided to make a choice.

"I am Princess Tayre Garrand," she said. "Heir to Farsalt, and Princess Ella Malquet is my adoptive sister. What happened to her? What happened to Farsalt and my family?"

The captain stepped away and looked aside.

"Your planet has been occupied by the Empire," he muttered. "That is all I know for certain, aside from your sister who escaped." He looked back at her suddenly. "But how do you feel?"

Tayre shook her head. "Numb. I've never felt so weak."

"I could administer a stimulant, Captain Pina?" the medical droid offered. "It will improve her concentration and strengthen her."

"Do it," the Captain ordered. "When the Assayer comes, it will help if you are in command of your faculties."

A tiny needle emerged from the droid's palm and pressed into the surface of Tayre's left arm. She felt a burning itch erupt under the surface of her skin.

Her heart beat faster. Her limbs felt stronger, her hand clenched with a strength that had before been lacking.

She sat up in the capsule in one swift movement.

"My planet. What happened?"

"The HoloNet is currently disabled," Pina replied. "The galaxy is rife with rumours of the Emperor's death and the defeat of the Imperial fleet at Endor. There are so many–"

"The Emperor is dead?" she said. Could that be true? She knew he was an old man, but even so . . . what would that mean for the galaxy?

"Perhaps," Pina said. "No one beyond Endor knows the truth, but there are rumours, strong rumours, that he has been killed, along with Lord Vader." He sighed, and for the first time Tayre saw how exhausted he looked. He wasn't an old man by any stretch, yet at the corner of his eyes there were stress marks that never seemed to go away. And yet those same eyes were filled with doubt.