In Time Gone By...

~ 11 ~

"I want to talk to him." 

The general stopped when Bailee cornered him almost as soon as he stepped into the office, taken aback by her forwardness. "Excuse me?" 

"Elliott," she said, following him to his desk with almost pleading eyes, standing before him when he sat down to get on with things. "I want to talk to him." 

"And why on earth would you want to do that," he muttered, looking at his monitor. "The man's insufferable." 

"I know." She sat opposite him. "I know, I just...since he turned up here, since I saw him, I've hardly been able to stop thinking about him." He raised his eyebrows at this. "I need closure, sir. I need to know...why. Because for four years I have just...I've spent so long thinking about it, every possible thing I could have said or done that caused it. I want to know...Wouldn't you?" 

He tapped a pen a couple of times, spinning a little in his chair. "I suppose I would." 

"So...can I?" 

He sat thinking for a moment. "He's a dangerous man, Latt. We've been tracking him for some time, he's...crazy." 

"But I know him." 

"You do, sort of...but he hates you. The man tried to have you killed, tried to kill you himself, and he is still pissed off that you lived. I don't really want to imagine what he might do if he had you alone again." He stood, looking through some files in the cabinet against one wall. 

"I wouldn't be alone, though. You'd be there, at the very least troopers."

"He's a very different man to when you knew him, far more powerful." He threw a file down in front of her, taking a seat again. "If you ever really knew him..." 

She looked at him for a moment then pulled the file toward her, Elliott's picture inside making her a little sick. Still, she turned the many pages, more and more of a frown forming as she read through his recent history, the attacks and battles and commands he had led. Whoever the First Order informant was on the inside was doing an excellent job of tracking his gradual rise to power. 

But what caught her attention when she turned the page were the photos of a burned out forest, the trees black and smoking as troopers surveyed the area. It was littered with ash and even embers still burning. Close ups of the burned out Resistance logo stamped onto a piece of shattered wing solidified what she was looking at. 

"This is...Arkanis... This is the site." she muttered, turning to the page to a picture of her clipped to it. "Where did you get these pictures?" 

"First Order scouts regularly patrol Arkanis. Despite technically belonging to the Republic it is, let's just say, contested." 

"I know...that's why we couldn't land in the cities. You knew about this when it happed?" 

"We did, and its possible links to him, but of course not yours then... You still want to talk to him?" 

"More than ever, sir." 

***

In the depths of the ship where the cells lay, the cold reached its peak, the shiny floors blacker than black owing to there being less light down there. She had never been there before and the quiet was astonishing, the whole place so empty, though of course it wasn't really. 

Bailee walked alongside the general, taking the place in, their footsteps echoing loudly against the walls. She shivered as she walked, imagining everyone who could possibly be behind each of the doors, what they had done.