She ignored his gibe. “Lieutenant Sconn—” “Davith,” he corrected. “I was forcibly retired from the Imperial Navy, you know.”
“I’ve also reviewed your trial record, Davith Sconn,” Leia said evenly.
“You were the executive officer of the Star Destroyer Forger when it suppressed a rebellion on Gra Ploven by creating steam clouds which boiled alive two hundred thousand Ploven in three coastal cities.”
“On the orders of Grand Moff Dureya,” Sconn said. “For some reason, people are always leaving that part out. Don’t you Rebels believe in discipline? I still can’t figure out how you managed to defeat us.”
Despite herself, she let him goad her into a reply.
“Perhaps it has something to do with having the freedom to refuse immoral orders.”
“Immoral? The little finbacks had refused to pay
their
defense assessments, making the Grand Moff rather cranky.” Sconn drew hard on his hoat-stick and held the smoke for long seconds. “But, then, that was late in the day for the Empire, and Grand Moff Dureya was cranky rather a lot of the time.”
“Was it with Forger that you visited N’zoth?”
“Oh, no. I was on Moff Weblin—second watch bridge commander of a Fleet tender,” he said, hooking one leg over the other. “Why should I talk to you about N’zoth?”
“Why did you talk to the NRI?”
“Because it didn’t matter,” Sconn said, shrugging.
“Because it was a novelty. Because Agent Ralls was such a clueless young tad that I thought I might have fun shocking him with tales of my travels with Papa Vader.”
He leaned forward in his chair. “You’re different. You matter. For some reason, you really care about what I know. And you’re not going to be any fun at all to shock. So I’m afraid you’ll have to show me a little more consideration than Ralls was able to.”
“But you forget, Sconn—I already have the deposition,” Leia said.
“You don’t have much left to sell.”
“Oh, but you don’t know what I left out—” “Sconn, I ought to warn you that I’m already way over my quota of self-serving lies for the year,” Leia said, her gaze intent. “If you want consideration, you give me something first. I have some questions about N’zoth-about what you told Agent Ralls. Answer my questions honestly, to the best of your ability, without games, and then I’ll tell you how much what you’ve said is worth to me.”
Sconn sat back in his chair. “I have no reason to trust you,” he said.
“Or, when it comes to that, to help you.”
It took all the self-control Leia had not to reach across the space separating them with her thoughts and slide in behind his smugness with the full power of the Force, looking for some fragile place to grab and twist until something snapped. Instead, she gathered the folds of her robe in her hands and stood.
“Even in prison, Sconn, you always have choices,” she said. “If that’s yours, so be it.”
She turned and started to go, fully expecting that he would let her.
“Wait,” Sconn said quickly. “Look, can you find us someplace more private to talk? Somewhere away from here. We’re in the middle of the yard, for gaol’s sake. I can’t be seen cooperating with the keepers.
Especially not with you.”
“The war is over, you know.”
“Not in here,” he said. “Never in here. Have them send me to isolation, as though I’m being punished for giving you a hard time.
They can take me out from there without anyone knowing.”
“You want us to take you off Jagg Island?” Leia asked, her eyebrow cocked skeptically. “Tell me, do I look particularly gullible today?”
“That’s all I really want. That’s all I was going to ask for, anyway.
Just a few hours out.”
“So you can try that escape plan you’ve been working on, no doubt.”
“Much as I hate to say it, your blue-hats don’t seem prone to losing track of us,” Sconn said. “Stang, they can take me out in a stun-box, if you want. It doesn’t matter.”
“Any particular place you had in mind to go?”
“Since you’re asking—” Sconn’s head twitched skyward.
“How about three hundred klicks straight up, with a view that goes the rest of the way?”
“Stop—please.”
His wrists cross-bound against his chest, Davith Sconn stared out the cutter’s viewport at the sunrise racing toward them.
“In twenty-four years in the navy, the longest I was ever dirtside was forty days’ forced leave on Trif one year,” he said, blinking away tears that came freely but silently. “I never found a good enough reason not to go right back out. Now I’ve been tied down on that rock for twelve years, and I’ve gotten a lot closer to crazy than I ever wanted to on account of it. You wouldn’t think you could, but I was starting to forget. I’d forgotten almost everything but the feeling—this feeling.”