Work Text:
He had taken up smoking again.
The major took a long drag of his cigarette, eying the dull handful of stars above him. Traffic rumbled somewhere beyond the walkway; the plaza behind him was still. In his peripheral vision, the black mirrors of the ISB tilted inwards like a half-closed eye.
Behind him, footsteps clicked against tile. The major did not turn around, but he tracked the figure’s movement until the clicking faded—more, admittedly, because it was a preventable threat than a probable one. He had visibility from the street lamp and the watchful gaze of three security cameras, not to mention the blaster in his coat; who would even dare? But it might have been precisely that kind of arrogance that got them into this mess to begin with. Jung, of course, had been shot in broad daylight.
The major had granted himself ten minutes to make a decision, but he still could not consider the problem directly. He was thinking about Lonni. The unthinkable ramifications of what had happened to Lonni. The man had been reasonably bright. Useful, if uncommunicative. Their line of work included some occupational hazards; even so, the major liked to think that he looked after his people, and shielded them from the worst of the consequences, and so on. Though most of his protégés ultimately disappointed him.
All of them, in fact.
He removed his cigarette, watching the orange glow creep towards his fingertips as he exhaled. He brought it back to his mouth. If an agent could be murdered here, on Coruscant, hardly a kilometer from ISB headquarters, then the cancer had entered the bloodstream. It had entered the ISB. Partagaz was a preventative doctor, but this was not a problem that could be diagnosed and quietly disposed of. There was, also, the chaos in High Command, which he had nothing to do with but could certainly be held accountable for.
The only recourse at this point was aggressive eradication of the tumor. The system had been stretched to its breaking point, and his own leniency was partly to blame. He could no longer afford to distinguish between rule-bending and rebellion, disagreement and dissent; the cracks were spreading below his feet, and the slightest deviation from established order now threatened to destabilize the entire structure. More importantly, he didn’t have the time. If he could successfully amputate… Perhaps. Perhaps. The major exhaled. He never did like the way smoking constricted his airways.
His hand went to stub out the cigarette on the railing but missed.
“Lieutenant,” he greeted after he had wiped the ash from his hands, and combed back his hair, and completed the long slow march through the doors and up the elevator. He took the datapad from Heert, who had been waiting for him.
Identification, passcode, continue, repeat. The last document included a photo in the corner. His hand stalled for a fraction of a second.
“The warrant is active,” he said at last, handing back the datapad. “Notify me if she resists.”