***30 January 2005 –Last hours

 

My head hurt, my whole body ached. I couldn’t keep the little amount of food that I got in my stomach. Everything was spinning in circles around myself, it was difficult for me to keep myself standing. My hands, foot and head were bandaged. I was lying on the bed and cried.. I betrayed my friends..

And soon I would die. I heard footsteps approaching and instinctively hid myself under the blankets, as if that would make any difference. If they had decided to interrogate me again, they would drag me there. I could do nothing against it. The forcefield of my cell was deactivated and I heard two people coming inside the cell. I peeped at them from under the blanket: it was one stormtrooper and a woman, dressed in some black uniform.

“What do you want from me?”, I asked.

“Getting you ready for the execution.”, the woman answered.

“When will that happen?”

“In three hours.”

Three hours.. only three hours left..

“It is time to get you ready, prisoner.”, she continued, “Give her a shower.”

“Yes ma’am.”

A third person entered the cell and I recognized the Imperial officer that had done my first interrogation. The man that had beaten me up and crushed my hands..

“I.. I don’t want a @#% shower!”, I yelled, “I don’t want to be patched up.. let the public see what you’ve done to me!”

“I’m ordered to give you a shower.”, the man said, “So I’ll give you one.”

He waited for me to get up, but I didn’t move.

“Oh one other thing.. don’t you try to escape. I know about your family. If you escape, they will die.”, he said with a cold voice.

As if I had any chance to escape..

“But I was ordered to give you a shower.”

He waited but I still didn’t say anything or move.

“Ok then I’ll drag you to the showers.”, he said and he approached me.

“BACK OFF!”, I screamed before he could touch me, “Ok I’ll go to your @#$ showers, I’ll walk myself don’t touch me!”

We walked outside the building, for the first time in days I saw the suns of Tatooine again. And in three hours I would be dead.. I watched the base, looked at the buildings and such. We entered some big barracks building, the living quarters of the Imperials. In the cellar there were bedrooms and at the end of the corridor a big room with showers.

“Cozy in here.”, I remarked, “May I ask you a question? How is it like serving the Empire?”

“The Empire owns me.”, he answered.

“Do you like that?”

“That is not important. I just do what they tell me to.”

I limped under one of the showers, a sensor detected this and the water streamed out of it. My last shower..

“Why have you joined them?”, I continued.

“I wanted to be a part of something.”

I laughed.

“I’m a part of something too, and nobody owns me.”, I said, “And I like that!”

“You are going to die tonight.”

“I think they brainwashed you.”, I continued, “They try to brainwash all of us, via the Holonet, at school..”

“Brainwashing is part of the program.”, the man said.

I think I was beginning to understand this guy a bit.. he had turned off his feelings completely, like all of them. They were totally brainwashed. It made my shiver.

“Don’t you have any feelings? Don’t you think for yourself?”, I continued the conversation, while leaning against the wall.

“No, why would I?”, he replied with the same voice like all of them: without any emotion.

“I guess you must hate me now. You must hate all of us.”, he then said.

“I think you are a normal person just like me, but they brainwashed you..”, I said, “I feel pity for you.. and what I hate is your system, not you individuals..”

“Don’t you hate me because I interrogated you?”, he asked, and for the first time I traced a sign of emotion in his voice: amazement.

“Yeah I hate what you’d done to me, but if you hadn’t done it, others would have.”, I said, “You Imperials are horrible.. how can you do things like this.”

“That’s how it works..”, he answered with again no emotion, “The system will always hate some.”

“As long as it keeps existing.”, I said in a bitter tone.

I was talking with a normal person, from the enemy. It was the first time in my life that I really had a talk with one of them, and now it didn’t matter much anymore because I was going to die within a few hours.

“What do you think of me?”, I then asked.

After a few seconds he replied: “I think you are a girl, unlucky enough to have joined the rebels… and therefore you must die.”

“Are you finished showering?”

 

Some minutes later I was sitting in my cell again, shivering because I felt cold. The shower had made my body feel better, but did it make any difference? I was going to die..

After about half an hour some Imperials entered the cell again, a cadet and a stormtrooper.

“I’m here to get you fit for tonight prisoner.”, the stormtrooper said and rudely he changed my bandages.

I didn’t feel any fear anymore, I was about to die anyway there was nothing I could lose anymore..

“You hypocrites. First you mutilate me and now I got to look good for the masses. If they would know what kind of things you are really doing.. you are @#$ hypocrites..”, I said angrily, “A lot of people like me are getting imprisoned, tortured and executed.. but one day.. your regime will fall! You know why..?”

Another stormtrooper had entered the room, grabbed my hair and punched me in the face.

I fell back, feeling a lot of pain. A tooth fell out of my mouth, my nose bled.

“Mind your manners rebel.”, he said.

I think because I suffered so much pain the last days, that I was getting used to it. And also because I was going to die very soon.. it was like I didn’t feel it anymore, as I didn’t care anymore.

“Violence.. that is all what you use..”, I said bitterly. Then I just.. laughed.

The stormtrooper approached me again.

“Yeah hit me again, beat me up.. if you want to have anything left to execute you better be a bit careful!”

The other stormtrooper stopped him from hitting me again and he left the room, to come back with a bit injection needle and a little pot with some fluid in it.

I gasped.

“Open your mouth rebel!”, he ordered.

I didn’t open my mouth. Then he put a hand before my nose so that I couldn’t breathe through it.

“OPEN IT!”, he yelled.

I almost choked then I had to open my mouth because I didn’t have any air left. He put the needle in my tongue and injected fluid into it, it hurt like hell.

“You won’t be able to talk for the coming hours.”, he said after he was finished.

So I couldn’t even say a last word before I died.. this felt sad. I had created a slogan in my mind that I could have shouted before they would kill me.. but now.. maybe I had better not told these things..

Tears came out of my eyes.

“Do you think we would have let you be able to talk at the execution? We are not stupid!”, I heard one of them saying, “Now put this on.”

I got some prison suit and put it on, after which they left the cell. Soon they would take me out of here, take me to Entha, to Vesper Square. Soon I would die, and I couldn’t even say a last word.

After a while, which felt like ages, two people, cadets, came to the cell entrance and removed the forcefield.

“Stand up.”

I felt like a robot, maybe I felt a bit the same like them?

“Walk five steps to the door, then turn around and put your hands in your neck.”

I walked five steps to the door while staring at the two men, turned around and put my hands in my neck.

They cuffed me and took me into the elevator. I would leave this base and never come back.

I grinned. I, a little girl, crippled, cuffed, unable to say a word, got a complete escort of Imperials with heavy weapons.

It was also weird, those two cadets looked almost my own age. Maybe under different circumstances we would be drinking brandy together in the local cantina or something like that.. but now they were my guards. That was such a pity, sometimes I really would like to have a boyfriend but almost all boys from my age were with the Empire. They try to recruit all young people, join the Imperial Academy, you get a future! I had seen this on Bespin too.. a lot of people didn’t seem to care, didn’t seem to think for themselves. Were I and the other rebels the only people that hadn’t got brainwashed, that were thinking for themselves? And in the meanwhile most young people disappeared, joined the Imperial Academy of Cloud City.

Outside we had to wait for the transport to arrive, I had to kneel and I looked at the stars. So many I could see.. the rest of the Galaxy with a lot of planets with people on it. Some dots were moving: spacecrafts. And in the middle of the sky I saw the Star Destroyers hanging, silent, threatening. It was a cold night, I shivered. Tears dropped from my eyes, this was my last night.

Then the escort arrived and we left the base, heading towards Mos Entha..