Azimut
Author: Wilfrid Lupano
Date: 2012-05-09 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Bande Dessinée; Comics; Fantasy; Graphic Novels; Steampunk; Humor
Description: This Crayon d'Or prize-winning graphic novel is an incredible Terry Gilliam-esque fantasy tale, penned by the award-winning author of the acclaimed Valerian spin-off. Azimut features a host of quirky characters in a colourful fantasy world whose lives are turned upside down when the magnetic North pole simply disappears! Time and death are not what they seem in this world - old professor Aristide Breloquinte spends his time studying the peculiarities on his laboratory ship, fearful of the dreaded Time Snatcher! The beautiful Manie Ganza, who seems convinced that time is money, daringly robs an
Publisher: Titan Comics

“Seddia Chaan,” the guard said, repeating the name on my identification papers.

“Yes,” I lied.

He handed the papers back, nodded his massive green-grey head, and stepped aside. I tried for the cool, polite smile I imagined a high-level arms manufacturer would spare to a doorman and walked into the club. After the heat and humidity, stepping into the cool, dry air was like arriving on another world. Oolan was a barge city on an open sea, it’s buildings linked by bridges and separated by canals in a constantly shifting architecture. This month, the currents had taken it north, almost to the planetary equator. Next, it might drift south until blue-green ice pounded against the buildings’ foundations and frost covered the bridges’ handrails. By then, I planned to be back with the rebel fleet, deliveries made and my latest false-self a fading memory. If I was still in Oolan tomorrow, it would mean something unexpected had happened.

Given my track record, it could go either way.

The private club was built as a single wide circular room with windows three meters high at the outer edge. At the center, a hub of black made up the private meeting rooms and lifts to the upper levels. A recording of Bith harp music filled the air, the reproduction so clean the notes felt like they had edges. Outside the great windows, the city curved up, shifted, fell away, then curved up again, carried by the ocean swell. A dozen brightly colored skimmers buzzed along the canal, the human and Quarren drivers seemingly in competition to see who could be the most reckless. I tugged down on the hem of my jacket and looked around casually at the dozen or so club members lounging at tables and couches. The man I was looking for was human, older, and I’d only seen pictures and holograms of him. Trying to seem nonchalant, I touched my comlink.

“Elfour?”

“Ma’am,” the droids deep, gravelly voice came.

“How sure are we that hes here?”

“Ninety-six percent certainty.”

“Okay, so run down that last four percent for me.”

“The general might have been discovered, and the individual who rode his flyer down from the orbital base might have been an impostor,” my lookout droid said. Trouble inside, ma’am?”

“Just trying to find him. Let me take another pass,” I said, and dropped the connection. Seddia Chaan, security engineer for the Salantech Cooperative, would have marched around the room with the crisp, studied movement and impassive expression of the ex-military operative that she was. Since I was playing her, I faked it. A serving droid floated over to me and asked in a carefully designed voice whether it could bring me anything to drink. Seddia Chaan didn’t use intoxicants, so I asked for tea. The men and women at the tables and couches glanced at me and then away, polite and distant in a way that would have told me I was at the heart of the Empire even if I’d woken up there with my mind blanked.

I’d started the operation months before, following a rumor that the warden of an Imperial political prison might have been growing sympathetic to some of his prisoners. It had taken weeks to run down, since it wasn’t an Imperial warden, there wasn’t a prison involved, and General Cascaan didn’t actually have much sympathy for the rebellion. But apart from every single bit of information being wrong, things had gone pretty well. I’d tracked Cascaan to the Entiia system, found his clandestine lover in Oolan, and opened negotiations. The whole process had been about as safe and certain as balancing a Verdorian fire rat on my nose, but I’d managed it, all except the last part. The actual meeting and exchange.

I was on my third pass around the room and almost done with my cup of tea when I recognized him. He was sitting alone at a small, high table almost against the window. His hand was pressed to his mouth, his gaze fixed on the glittering crystal-and-silver of the complex across the canal from us. Once I spotted him, I could forgive myself for not recognizing him at once. All the pictures I’d seen had been of a straight-backed, high-chinned man with bright black eyes and a challenging glare. The man at the table was slumped over. His dark skin had an ashen tone, and his eyes were wet and rheumy. When he shifted in his seat, I could see the physical power in his body, but when he was still, he looked like someone’s grandpa.

In my work, I’d seen the whole spectrum of betrayers, from the ones who were afraid of getting caught to those who were excited by being naughty to others for whom it was just business. The man at the table wasn’t any of those. He looked sickened by it. That was bad. I put on Seddia Chaans cool smile and started over.

“Ma’am?” L4-3P0 said.

“It’s all right, I found him.”

“We have another problem. A flyer has landed on the towers upper pad. Registration identifies it as the private craft of Nuuian Sulannis.”

“Maybe he’s a club member,” I said, not breaking stride.

“The chances of the Imperial interrogator who has been investigating the general arriving at the meeting by coincidence are —”

“I was joking, sweetie. Thank you for the warning. Talk to the club’s computer system if you can, and try to slow him down. I’ll be quick.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I slid into the chair across from Cascaan. He looked up, and for a moment surprise registered in his eyes. Then a slow, rueful smile. “Your’e Hark, then?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“I was expecting a man.”

“That’s a common prejudice,” I said. “I won’t take it personally.”

I plucked the credit chit out of my jacket pocket and placed it on the table. The black tabletop made the silver chit seem brighter than it was. The general scowled at it and took a red-enameled memory crystal from his pocket. I waited, forcing my body to stay relaxed and calm while the sense of the chief interrogator landing his ship five levels above me crawled up my spine.

“I take it those are the plans we discussed?” I said, trying to make it sound casual and still keep the ball rolling.

The general scowled and nodded at the same time. The grip of his finger and thumb on the memory crystal didn’t relax. I had the sense that if I’d reached out for it, he’d pluck it away from me. When he spoke, his voice was low and precise.

“Have you ever betrayed something?”

I felt my heart drop into my belly. Last-minute changes of heart were always a hazard in this kind of operation. Usually, I could budget a few hours to get the target drunk and maudlin, sing a few songs about glory and lost love, and pretty much provide whatever handholding and consolation they needed to make the exchange. This was not one of those times. If he decided to turn me down, the plans for the next-generation Star Destroyers would fade away from me like smoke in a fist. Also, I’d probably get killed. Not the outcomes I was aiming for.

“I have, but not lightly,” I said. “I always had my reasons.”

“Do you regret them? Your betrayals?”

“No.”

He dropped the memory crystal into his palm and closed his fist around it. There were tears in his eyes. In other circumstances, I would have found the gesture less frustrating. “I have been a loyal subject of the Emperor. I have followed the orders of my commanders. I told myself we were bringing order to the galaxy because that was what they told us. Who was I to disagree?”

I leaned forward and put my hand gently on his wrist. “I understand,” I said.

“If we do this thing,” Cascaan said, “I will be responsible for the deaths of thousands of soldiers.”

“And if we don’t? How many people will die if we call the whole thing off? And will they be soldiers, or innocent people who happen to live on worlds the Emperor has decided don’t pay him enough respect?”

“No one else has access to these. When they get out, it will be known that I have turned against them. They will slaughter me for this.”

His fingers didn’t loosen their grip. I switched tack, taking my hand off his and tapping the silver chit. “There is enough money on this to make you safe. You’ll be able to fade into the Rim, find a quiet spot, a new name. A new face. You’ll be all right.”

“Will I, Hark? Does my conscience count for nothing?”

Don’t rush him, I told myself. He’s already halfway to spooked, and if you hurry him, he’s just going to freeze up. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, made my shoulders relax and my expression soften. The serving droid hissed up to my left with a fresh cup of tea. The city outside the windows rose and fell.

I had maybe two minutes.

“Of course it counts,” I said. “I’m getting the sense, sir, that there’s something you want to tell me.”

“You know I commanded the assault on Buruunin.”

“I do,” I said. “I lost people I cared about in that attack.”

“The cities were undefended,” he said. “As soon as we received the order for the bombardment, I knew I would have to betray my Emperor. My Empire. Those deaths brought no order. Only fear. They were wrong.

“Didn’t call off the attack, though,” I said, more sharply than I should have. He didn’t flinch or tighten his grip on the plans.

“It would have made no difference. I would have been executed, and my second in command would have given the order. Insubordination is a fools way to die. I have my honor, but I am not a fool.”

I had maybe a minute and a half. This wasn’t going well.

“Afterward,” General Cascaan said, “there were any number of collaborators. They came to every outpost we made, mewling and crying, telling us that they had information for sale. Where the rebels were hiding, who had aided them, where their caches of weapons were. For a few credits, they would have informed on their mothers.”

“They were desperate,” I said. “They were afraid.”

He turned to look at me straight on. I hadn’t realized until now that he’d been avoiding my eyes. There was a pain in his expression that took my breath away. I’d been working underground for a long time, and somewhere along the way, I’d let Cascaan and men like him turn into a kind of faceless enemy to me. Well, here was his face, and the foursquare leader of soldiers wasn’t in him.

“I am desperate,” he said softly. “I am afraid. Those people I despised — and I despised them, Hark —  I have now become. I am selling the trust I have been given for money. For safety. For the beautiful lie that I can be a better man by making this devils bargain.”

“They were refugees of a planet-wide military attack. You’re one of the most powerful men in the Empire,” I said. “Seems to me, you’re in a kind of a different position.”

“And does that speak better of me? Or worse?”

“Better,” I said, mostly because it seemed like the answer most likely to get him to open his fingers. I wondered, if I lunged for him, if I’d be able to get the plans and run out the door before anyone tackled me. It didn’t seem likely. And if I told him we were both about to get arrested by the Empire, I didn’t like my chances for moving the process forward.

“I disagree,” the general said. “This trade is ignoble. It leaves me no better than them. I cannot take your money.”

He was backing out. My comlink chimed. Grimacing, I touched it. “Bad time, Elfour. Kind of in the middle of something.”

“Ma’am, I have done all that I could. That… situation will require your attention.”

Cascaan had opened his grip. The red enamel caught the light from the window, shining in his palm like he was cupping a handful of blood. I looked over to the dark wall of private rooms and lifts at the club’s center.

Time for plan C.

“Can you hold that thought?” I said, holding up a finger. “I’ll be right back.”

I walked toward the lifts, thinking through all the ways this could go and how I could affect which one actually happened. The serving droid swooped in to see if I wanted something for my tea, and I waved it away. I couldn’t tell if my unsteadiness was the adrenaline or if the city had hit some bigger waves than usual.

“Elfour,” I said to my comlink. “Do we know where he is?”

“Interrogator Sulannis is in the lift, coming toward the main floor, ma’am.”

“Can we shut down the lift?”

“I have already done so once, ma’am. He is using his security override. I am locked out.”

A whole host of solutions crumbled and died. On the one hand, less to think about. On the other, they were the ones I liked best. I was over halfway to the center. Which lift is he in?

To my right, a lift door slid open and an older Quarren woman stepped out. Not Sulannis.

“Elfour, which lift is he in?”

“Querying, ma’am.”

“Sooner’s better.”

“Six.”

I angled off to my left, not running but walking faster. My choices were getting thin quickly. The coppery taste of panic filled my mouth, and I ignored it.

The lift doors were black enamel and smooth as a mirror. I made my reflection look calm, prim, maybe a little bored. The difference between safe and too late was going be seconds. The doors shuddered and slid open. Nuuian Sulannis stood in the lift car, the light seeming to fall into his black uniform like it was woven out of black holes. He started to step out, and I faked my way in front of him, then corrected when he did, making it into a little dance of awkwardness and social misstep. His scowl could have peeled the shell off a Keeb beetle.

“Sorry,” I said. And then, “Aren’t you Interrogator Sulannis?”

He had time to register surprise and I planted a straight kick just above his pelvis. The blow was designed to stagger him back, and it worked. The lift doors slid closed and I slipped between them as he regained his balance. I pushed the controls for the landing pad.

Close quarters fighting, especially when the opponent was so much bigger than me, meant grappling techniques. I started with an elbow lock, but he shrugged it off through equal part luck and brute strength. He hit me twice in the ribs, but the cramped lift car made it hard to get much power behind the blows, giving me the opportunity for a leg sweep that took him down. Once I got my arm around his neck, it was over, but the choke took long, terrible seconds to take effect. When he finally went limp under me, we were already at the landing pad. I hit the controls to take me back down before anyone could see a disheveled weapons engineer straddling the unconscious body of an Imperial interrogator.

I had one dose of sedative left in my shoe. I used it on him, stopped the car on the third level, dragged Sulannis to the womens room and propped him in a stall. All in all, it took less than five minutes.

On the way back down, I tugged my costume back into place, smoothing out the wrinkles while I tried to think how to coax the general back into making the trade. As soon as the lift doors opened, I knew it was over. The little table wed been sitting at was empty. Cascaan was nowhere I could see. Little wisps of steam wafted from my cup of tea as I came close. The sinking in my gut was disappointment and anger and frustration, but there was something else, too. Some part of my mind that told me I was missing something. This wasn’t what it looked like.

“Ma’am?” L4-3P0 said on my comlink. “Is all well?”

On the black table, the silver chit with Cascaans payment glowed. Beside it, the bright red of the memory crystal. He’d left the plans and the payment too. He was going to get caught, and he knew it, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. When I looked up, he was there. Outside the window, walking across the canal bridge and away from me. His back was straight and proud, his head high. It was the first time hed seemed like the man from the holograms. A warrior, ready to fight. Ready to die.

I scooped up silver and red and put them in my pocket before I touched my comlink. “Time to go. Get the skimmer warmed up, and lets get back to the ship. We need to be out of here before Sulannis wakes up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the droid said. “May I ask whether you got what you came for?”

“I did,” I said.

“And the general?”

Cascaan reached the other side of the bridge, turned right, and stepped out of my line of sight.

“He did too.”

EXPANDED UNIVERSE

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From Insider 148 (04-2014)

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