Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [95]
Madine wandered across the auxiliary command chamber. There were no windows to stare through, only status screens. The secondary bridge was designed to function as an alternate bridge if the Star Cruiser’s main forward compartments were somehow put out of commission.
Madine paced restlessly, anxious to do something. A driven man, he had given his utmost strength and imagination to the New Republic for the past nine years, ever since he had defected from the Imperial military. He felt good to be working with the Rebel Alliance, a cause he could believe in—and the more he devoted himself to serving the New Republic, the more Madine could distract himself from the lingering guilt that still had not gone away.
Long ago he had given an oath to uphold Palpatine’s New Order and to serve the Emperor, and he had meant it. Crix Madine did not give oaths lightly, nor had he ever broken one before his defection. He hoped he never had to make such a conscience-rending decision again.
At one time his future had seemed golden with the Empire. His rank increased on a fast track, indicating important things to come. Madine had been given heavy responsibilities, remarkable accolades, medals, and citations. The Emperor himself had commented upon his brilliance and impeccable service.
He had been deeply in love with the daughter of an important ambassador; they were going to be married. His fiancée, Karreio, was devoted to the New Order, spouting propaganda about the frailties of the Old Republic, but blind to the excesses of the Empire. In his military service Madine had seen and done much that would have revolted her—such as using his elite storm commandos to plant the seeds of Candorian Plague on the uncooperative world of Dentaal.
That last horrendous mission had nearly twisted and pulled free the underpinnings of Madine’s moral character, and he had chosen to sacrifice everything rather than give up his own beliefs. Such vicious retaliation was wrong. He had discarded his bright, guaranteed future. He had tossed aside his own rank, telling Karreio nothing of his plans, because that would have made her an accomplice to his treachery, and she would have been forced either to report him or to suffer a traitor’s fate.
During wilderness exercises on Dentaal, leading his team of storm commandos, Madine had just … vanished into a series of caves. Later, after a week of hard survival in the jungle, he had made it back to the temporary Imperial base and commandeered a shuttle, stealing archives filled with Imperial encryption schemes, classified data, secret plans.
He had fled into the starry sky of the Mid-Rim without the least idea of where he was going. He simply hoped that he could track down a representative of the Rebel Alliance before the Imperial headhunters found him.
In all the time since, he had never dared to send a message back to Karreio, never attempted to see her again. He hoped that she had survived without him … hoped that she believed the stories branding him a betrayer of the Empire—and that she had found someone else to love.
When the Rebels did indeed recapture Coruscant after a long and bloody battle, Madine had haunted the personnel archives, searching the records to find Karreio, to make certain that she was safe. Instead, he learned that she had died in the attack, an unnoticed name on a long list paired with ID numbers and casualty descriptions. So many civilians had been killed in the battle that only the letter D for “deceased” burned beside Karreio’s name.
Crix Madine had much to feel guilty for. One of his first missions after defecting to the Rebel Alliance had been to plan the successful commando raid on Endor that took out the shield generator and allowed the Rebel fleet to destroy the second Death Star. Thus Madine’s own actions had resulted in the death of Emperor Palpatine, the man who had once issued him a citation for his exemplary service and commendable loyalty.