To Be Made Whole Again - 9.170

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

How many times could he read the same holomag? Yes, Sorosuub XT-17 plasma injectors were the new hotness. Yes, they outperformed Koensayr-Meorrrei and Rothana SpaceWorks models of the same cubic centimeter per second class at less cost per unit. Every time Cirrsseeto read it, he got a little more frustrated at the stale story, the biased "test" they laid out, and the unrealistic scenarios they used to compare the models. He set the holo aside on his bedside table, stacked with pounds of hyperspace theory textbooks, engine parts catalogs, and action item reports from the fleet.

One holomag lay unread, sitting ominously separate from the rest he'd flipped through to pass the time. It was a medical journal titled The Tomorrow of Prosthetics. As Cirr fished through the stack to read another thing he'd managed to read five times over, he kept looking at the cover of The Tomorrow of Prosthetics. It showed a man enjoying a cocktail on the beach, shirtless and unblemished until you tried to look for the uncanny valley of artificial arm that started at mid shoulder and brought the drink to his lips.

The headaches started again, and the felinoid reached automatically for the bottle of pain pills next to the utterly unappetizing "nutrition drink" which he was ordered to finish three helpings of a day. Opting to avoid the viscous chalky & fruity abomination, he instead found a water bottle to swallow down his medicine.

He was moody and irritated already. The headache just made it worse. He was supposed to have a visitor by now. They were late.

[John Glayde]

Anger cloyed and clawed at the back of Glayde's mind. Everything about this situation enraged him. With Captain Quez - he had to remind himself of the correct surname - out of action, it had fallen to Commander Glayde to bear the burden of Alliance scrutiny over the Novgorod's encounter with what they had learned to call Ssi-Ruuk. Even while his crew lay bleeding in medical bays, and floated barely conscious in bacta tanks all across Dac, the Alliance High Command dissected each and every action, each and every decision, ad nauseum, all the while urging Glayde to allow the blame to settle on the shoulders of one specific person. Could they blame the Imperials, so many of whom had sacrificed themselves in order to see their shared mission through? Could they blame anyone amongst the dead, so that the living could escape culpability at the expense of some hero's memory? Could they blame the Captain, too badly injured to be present to defend himself in person, and yet perfectly poised to take the fall?

This was what the Alliance did, Glayde had learned. When a situation went wrong, they sought out a scapegoat, utterly destroyed the life of the one to save the consciences and reputations of the many. At Sullust, they had blamed the Admiral who'd died in action, rather than admit their own failure at defending one of the Alliance's key homeworlds. In the top secret convoy of Jedi refugees that Glayde wasn't even supposed to know about, they had blamed Charlotte Tur'enne for the traumatic violation of body and mind that she had endured, rather than admit to their own woefully insufficient security measures. Here, they wanted to place their blame on the one man who they had no right to ask to sacrifice anything more.

His fist collided with the nearest wall; he felt the ceramic tile crack beneath his knuckles. A stab of pain darted up his arm; it helped, piercing the anger enough to let his usually unshakeable calm reassert itself.

Though it didn't feel like it, he had won a victory this time. The Alliance had concealed Charlotte's court martial from him, rendering him utterly powerless to save her from the unjust fate that High Command had chosen; he had refused to allow them to do the same to another friend. Every waking moment had been spent fighting back, learning the tactics of bureaucracy so that he could defeat them at their own game. He hadn't fought alone - were it not for the unwavering dedication of Lieutenant Altink and the rest of the surviving crew, he would have buckled beneath the weight of responsibilities without having even an ounce of strength to battle on their Captain's behalf. A list of recommended commendations and promotions was already drafted and waiting on his desk, not that it mattered: those men and women were already Admirals in his eyes; certainly more deserving of the title than most of the others Glayde had been forced to encounter these past weeks.

Glayde released a breath, smoothing the front of his uniform as he resumed his strides in the hopes it would help restore the illusion composure. The last corner was rounded, the waiting room reached. Coming to a smart halt, Glayde snapped to attention; reflex more than anything. It took a lot of willpower to stop himself from saluting.

"Sorry I'm late, sir."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Yeah."

It was a non-response, and Cirr sighed restlessly as his second entered the room. He tore the bedsheets off his body, and carefully slid down into a waiting hoverchair. He wore a hospital gown that would have probably been the proper bagginess if worn by anyone other than a man with his hefty proportions. As it was, the gown bunched and clung uncomfortably without a constant tug and shift, which Captain Quez was mindful to do as he settled into his humiliating means of conveyance. One barefooted leg caught purchase on the metal footrest, while the other leg ended above the knee in a mass of bacta patches that were nearly finished knitting together what could be saved of the Cizerack's severed leg. Cirr exhaled raggedly as he sat, the shifting blood flow causing a throb that careened in his ears. The moment he was situated, the Captain was off - accelerating towards the window of his hospital room to what passed for his desk. Another mass of datapads stood ready to be sorted and dealt with, and Cirr plucked a half dozen, which he passed to Glayde gruffly as he brought his hover chair around for a pass in his direction.

"jI've rrevjiewed yourr perrsonnel rreplacement rrequests. These arre apprroved."

He took a portion of the datapads, pressing them brusquely towards his XO. He held one in reserve, glancing down at it with a frown.

"The non-comms werre denjied. All rrouted for Bothawuji, perr command. jI need ejight morre names, Glayde. Ejight names."

Captain Quez impatiently drummed the rejected ledger on his lap, and again took off for his desk.

"Brrass won't apprrove these no matterr how many tjimes jI sjign off. Pjick someone else, orr fjind someone to prromote. We need a full rrosterr."

[John Glayde]

Glayde didn't move. Others might have; others might have done the walking, the fetching, the carrying to spare their invalid Captain from having to wrestle with his disability. Those people were likely to have been shot, or at the very least to have earned a more concentrated blast of ire than the collateral dose that everyone who passed within sight or mind of Cirrsseeto was already getting. More than that though, Glayde knew that the Captain needed to be the one making the motions. He needed to feel that he was making a worthwhile contribution. He needed to prove to himself that disabled wasn't the same as unable.

The Commander knew that Captain Quez was pouring frustrations from elsewhere into the situation at hand; but the restoration of the Novgorod was more manageable somehow. Their ship was a machine, and Cirrsseeto understood those. The cause was a quantifiable enemy, and Cirrsseeto had looked them square in the eyes. The obstacles were bureaucratic, familiar, and made for an oh so inviting target. It was the same dance as ever on a larger stage; Cirrsseeto knew all the steps, and he knew he wasn't the one flubbing the moves and ruining the routine. His medical circumstances were something else entirely: a foreign field; abstract obstacles; reasonings and logic that he didn't necessarily comprehend and agree with.

Anger towards plasti-pushing desk jockeys was easy to rationalise; anger towards the doctors who had just saved your life was something else.

"I'll see that it's handled, sir. And Tink has the repairs well in hand. The Novgorod will be ready to get back out there -"

He hesitated for a fraction of a moment, his mind straying back to his vague conversations with Lieutenant Quez. There were things you said; things you didn't say; and things you didn't have to say. That Lyanie was concerned about her new husband fell firmly into the latter. Cirrsseeto was fine every time that Glayde had enquired; he had to respect her dedication to preaching the party line, and no one could have blamed her for the fact that Glayde didn't believe a word of it. Even without her inferred input, Glayde had known enough soldiers who'd gone through similar circumstances to realise that his Captain was trending below the curve as far as coping was concerned.

But you're not a soldier, are you, sir?

It was easy to forget; grow accustomed enough to seeing a uniform on someone, and you could very easily lose the ability to see past it. Underneath though, Cirrsseeto was an engineer, a mechanic: someone who solved problems, fixed faults, and whose fate was either life or death and none of the grey shades in between. He had a flair for command that was undeniable, but he hadn't risen through the ranks on a warship or a battlefield; he hadn't been hardened and reinforced against these possibilities by years of exposure the way that Glayde had.

He almost didn't ask. Almost let sympathy concede the point, and leave Cirrsseeto to his own ineffective methods of coping. But that wasn't why he was here; that wasn't what he was for. Loathe the role or not, he was Cirrsseeto's executive officer; it was his responsibility to challenge the Captain into making the right choices, even when that meant advocating for the devil.

"- as soon as you are," he finished. He kept his eyes on the datapads, his stance as casual as his training would allow. "Any word yet on when that will be, Captain?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Captain Quez looked away, jawline tightening in impotent frustration as he tried to glance over a report he'd already read twice. He was scared, and above all else, that was what rooted his anger so deeply.

"jI get..."

His words paused as his lips tried to size up the ridiculous term suitable.

"...fjitted. Tomorrrow."

Cirr could feel the dull ache, even through the pain medication which did the double disservice of making him feel a cadence too slow. Too slow to find the words. Too slow to move. He knew hesitation oh-so-intimately. He knew the way that decisions couched in a moment of terror gnawed at your stomach. Once again he was faced with a decision and John Glayde was there to impel him through the crucible.

Slowly, Captain Quez righted his hoverchair, coming about so that he could travel to his beside. Coming to a stop, he looked at that neglected brochure. The arm on the cover, so smartly-designed, so thoughtful in smoothing over the appearance of what was at the heart of the matter. He was incomplete. Not quite himself. And he'd never be that way again.

A fitting metaphor for the Novgorod. Never mind a million dead on Karallon. Never mind the five thousand-or-so souls blown to the afterlife on a whisper from his own lips. One hundred seventeen names he knew as friends succumbed to the void of deep space, or were torn asunder by fire, war, and maelstrom. There were a lot of faces he wouldn't be seeing again. He didn't even get the good dignity to bury his brothers and sisters. They found whatever peace they could get while he writhed in a tank of bacta. One of the lucky few.

A careful hand reached out for the catalog and Cirr pulled it into his lap. He licked dry lips that were parched by sterile hospital air. And as much as he hated - hated the impostor arm staring back at him, he was above all else, scared.

"jI want out of thjis chajirr."

[John Glayde]

Glayde sucked on his teeth, the only way to hold a grimace at bay. It wasn't a reaction to seeing his Captain that way; but rather the reluctance of his own barriers, and their refusal to be lowered. There were those who could be open, with their emotions and with themselves; John Glayde was not one of those people. His past was something that he kept buried and barricaded, and not without good reason. Those rare instances when the vault door opened were so infrequent that even the fleeting thought of it triggered alarms throughout his mind. But there were times when it was necessary; times when his duty as an officer - and a friend - demanded it.

Humanity had a painfully ironic term for it. Heart to heart.

"You know my record, s-" With a great deal of effort, he muscled his way past the reflexive sir. "- Cirr."

That was a lie, and a truth, both at the same time. The Rebel Alliance had obtained the official portion of Glayde's personnel file, but several years before he had joined the cause, his file stopped; terminated by his reported death. When his medical file with Alliance SpecForce began, there were notable differences, but no one had ever queried the missing years or his alleged demise with any real scrutiny. That was the beauty of the Alliance to Restore the Republic: revenge against the Empire, no questions asked.

"I used to be a Jump Trooper. My last mission was on Cato Neimoidia; suppressing a group of rebels before the Alliance even existed. I got hit; caught in the edge of a thermal detonator blast; tore up my jump pack, and sent a shard of shrapnel through my chest from behind. Tore my insides up pretty good, and when I hit the ground and stopped moving, well -"

A ghost of laughter escaped.

"Can't really blame anyone for assuming I was dead. The medical unit that picked me up was civilian, not military; by the time anyone got around to the paperwork, I was KIA, and Command felt like they could make better use of me if they left it that way. Ghosts make pretty good recruits for the Storm Commandos, it turns out."

He frowned, attention focusing on the floor, marvelling for a moment the way the ceramic surface had been treated to echo the swirling textures of the corals he'd seen here on Dac, the last time he'd allowed himself to admire the scenery. It was a stall tactic, for the benefit of his own mind; a reprieve to let himself muster the right words.

His fingertips tapped against his breastbone, the metallic click of the dog tags beneath his uniform twisting something in his gut.

"The Neimoidians put me back together, but they didn't quite find all the pieces. I don't have a heart any more; I have a pump. I have a cybernetic prosthesis that does the same job, as good or maybe even better than the original; and most people will never even know, or notice; but I can feel it, that hole in there where a piece of me is missing."

His eyes rose to his Captain.

"You are never going to forget that it's gone. You are going to feel less than yourself; and think less of yourself. You are going to lie awake at night and question your decisions; wonder if you made the right choice; wonder if the outcome was worth it. But in the face of that, you are going to adapt; and you are going to accept; for one very simple reason -"

He squared his shoulders, straightened his stance; inside of one instant, Commander John Glayde's unwavering resolve settled back into place, power to his shields restored. His eyes strayed from his Captain, and stared dead ahead once again.

"There are too many people in your life who will refuse to let you do anything but."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

He'd never known. And he wasn't sure anyone else did. Glayde appreciated having cultured mystique to him, and this was a completely unexpected revelation. Captain Quez wondered how hard the man had to wrestle in his own mind to let that secret out. There were more than a few cultures that imbued the heart as the real root of a person's essence. The sum of their hopes, dreams, desires, and loves. What made them who they were. Even if science clearly demonstrated that such notions were a matter of the brain, there remained deep spiritual meaning behind the perception. And to lose that was a price to pay far dearer than the sum of the parts.

Cirr's blue eyes again looked down to the prosthetics brochure, and tapped the button to open the document, thumbing through each piece of information with a swipe. He didn't look up at Glayde again. He simply took the man's advice for what it was, banishing fear for some other day.

"That wjill be all, Commanderr."

As Glayde turned to leave, something against his better judgment caused Captain Quez to look up again.

"John..."

Cirr didn't want to ask, because he didn't have the strength to. So instead, he commanded.

"...come back tomorrrow. Keep me jinforrmed of ourr prrogrresss."

[John Glayde]

Tomorrow. As if he'd even needed to ask.

Out of reflex, the Commander offered a curt nod; but while that was usual, familiar, and expected, it didn't quite seem like enough. Some sentients wore their emotions on their sleeve; for the Cizerack, or for Cirrsseeto at least, it seemed to be worn on the ears, and something very heavy was weighing in Cirr's. Reassurance wasn't something that Glayde was awfully proficient in offering; he mustered the best approximation that he could.

A second attempt at familiarity and the nickname didn't succeed in sounding any less like a respectful address to a senior officer; but then, Glayde supposed, deep down that's what it still was.

"Aye-aye, Cirr."


* * *

Glayde shuffled uncomfortably. It was a sad sign of the man he was that he'd actually needed to go out and actively purchase civilian clothes, and on Dac there wasn't much demand for fashions of a non-aquatic variety, nor for clothes tailored to sentients with human body proportions. It wasn't that Glayde owned nothing other than his uniform, but at the same time he had always felt more at home in clothing with a more military slant: pants with pockets; shirts with epaulettes; outfits that were a holster and a tac vest away from being field ready if needed. By contrast, civilian clothes made him feel unprepared; like he was lowering his guard, and inviting fate to spring unexpected dangers on him.

Today though, it was important. Today, it was a gesture. His normal civilian garb might have seemed disrespectful or inappropriately casual; but the few uncomfortable items he'd mustered together made one thing abundantly clear. Today he wasn't a soldier. Today he wasn't here for orders. Today wasn't about duty to the Alliance; it was about loyalty to a friend.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd deliberately dressed civilian, and then he did; memories of dinner and Charlotte flooded his mind on the back of an entirely different wave of frustration. He loathed the fact that there was a queue, an order of precedence in which he had to tackle his obligations; but there was nothing that could be done for now, beyond what Xander was already doing. Yet another crisis beyond his ability to resolve; yet another situation standing on the sidelines to wait, and watch.

His attention returned to Cirrsseeto; Glayde had abandoned his usual preference for standing, and had claimed ownership of a not particularly comfortable seat in an out of the way but still visible corner of the Captain's room. His gaze peered up from one of the magazines that the medical staff had provided for Cirr's entertainment; Glayde had chosen poorly, and now knew far too much about the appearance and distribution of Cizerack nipples.

"You lost me at lateral flux injector," he admitted, a gesture flicking the magazine closed. "Are you sure you don't just want me to get Tink on the comm so you can explain directly, without the technologically inept middle-man?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

His hospital bed was now sat up fully upright, allowing Captain Quez to have company with a modicum of dignity. While he would prefer to be in his hoverchair at the present, they were waiting on the doctors to arrive with...it.

Still, Glayde had come as he'd ordered. He wasn't in uniform, which annoyed him slightly. Not that he didn't entertain the notion of fraternizing off duty, he'd just hoped that he'd be able to keep up appearances. They both knew why he was really here today, at any rate.

"Thjink of jit ljike thjis..." Cirr leaned forward gingerly on his bed, arms held slightly wide for emphasis, "you have an entjirre powerr shjifft on the brreak jinto rrealspace. That means yourr corre jis operratjing at nearr capacjity. The brreak happens beforre the powerr downshjift."

He shrugged slightly.

"jIt's a pojint zerro two second delay, but jif you let that enerrgy jinto heat sjinks, you'rre wastjing what can verry well go djirrectly to the deflectorr cojil orr any otherr system."

It still wasn't having an effect. Cirr sighed. And no, he didn't want Tink to have any banter in the matter because he'd kvetch endlessly of the unpredictable life cycle of an injector of that class handling that kind of workload. And then Cirr would explain that's what coolant shunts were for, and then Tink would come back with the hypochondriac woes of a systemic coolant pressure fluctuation, and then Cirr would find his hands around the Stewjonian's throat, and...

"jIf he rresjists, shoot hjim." Cirr brightened at the macabre slightly. If he couldn't get in the engines himself and shove Regan's face into the exact compartment he was talking about to make him understand, he'd settle for rule by dictatorial decree.

The mood turned a little as the door opened, and a pair of medical staff in white jackets entered, followed by a hoversled containing a box with "Made in Polis Massa" stamped on the side.

"Cirr..se..satto? Quez?"

Cirr looked at the Zabrak physician and his human counterpart and nodded. Looking past them, he again glanced at the box.

"jIs that jit?"

"Yes sir, that would be the XJ-465 model antepatellan prosthesis unit. We're ready to install if you are."

Cirr reached over for his glass of water at the bedside, and again took two pain tabs with it. Swallowing, his eyes met Glayde's, and he steeled his resolve. He looked to the doctors again.

"jI want to see jit."

The doctors opened the box, pulling out a mass that was cocooned in foam wrap. Carefully they freed the prosthetic from the packing material, easing it onto the now-cleaned grav sled. It was a mass of black and gunmetal internals with large swathes of non-skid polymer plates to act as an outer layer to shield the rest of the writhing mass of cables and servos from sight. It was as if some machine god was asked to create a living thing and offered up a wholly-lacking approximation. The shape was right, from the tapering edge of a thigh, to a knee, to the contours of a calf down to an ankle and into a foot. It simply didn't try to look any further like the real thing.

Compared to the near-perfect example on the brochure cover, Cirrsseeto had chosen an option that wouldn't bother trying to fool anyone else.

"Alright Captain, if you're ready. Let's get these covers off."

The doctors pulled the sheets free from the bed, and at last the remnants of Cirrsseeto's right leg could be seen. Severed two inches above the knee, the thigh tapered into an ugly and graceless thing, the bacta ironically helping to ease the healing so convincingly that it looked as if Cirrsseeto had simply been born without the common courtesy of his second leg.

The medical technicians pulled the prosthetic onto the bed, opening a series of levers that allowed for a socket on its terminus to widen. It would receive Cirr's leg at the upper thigh, and secure it further from there.

[John Glayde]

Cirrsseeto had been guarded about his selection; he'd confirmed that he'd made one when Glayde had asked, but hadn't volunteered any further information, and the Commander hadn't felt he had the right to pry. Now that he saw the choice in the flesh, so to speak, he understood why: it wasn't the kind of seamless prosthesis he'd encountered in others, whose hands he'd shaken without ever realising they had a skeleton of steel instead of bone; it was inescapably mechanical, undeniably artificial. Cirr would never forget that it was false, but he had chosen to make sure that no one else ever would, either.

Guilt manifested in the black of Glayde's mind for the conclusions he'd drawn the day before. He'd dismissed Cirrsseeto as not a soldier because of the experiences he lacked; but had failed to realise that he was still a warrior because of the resolve he possessed. This was the bold choice of a man prepared to display his battle scars, because they were a piece of who he was.

He wasn't sure if pride was the correct word for what he felt; but he felt it anyway.

"Do you need some privacy, sir?"

It was an unexpectedly self-conscious question, and it disguised another more pressing one.

Are you sure you don't want Lyanie here?

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

In a moment, Cirrsseeto looked vulnerable and even fearful. That look passed when Cirr averted his eyes from Glayde, staring down at where his knee should have been.

Half a man. What good are you?

"No. jI thjink jyou'rre the only perrson jI'm okay wjith seejing thjis, John."

Still, shame wasn't so easy to dispel. His fingers knit nervously together in his lap before Cirrsseeto willed them to clasp and keep still there. He still couldn't look at Glayde. He wasn't sure how he'd be able to do the same to Lyanie. Not right now. Not like this. She deserved more than he had right now.

When Cirr's eyes raised once again, he'd found enough determination to get to the next marker down this hardscrabble road.

"Let's do thjis."

The orderlies began working, priming the prosthetic to the correct specifications. Height and weight were factored, and carefully the prosthetic's aperture was maneuvered around Cirr's thigh. Blissfully there weren't any cold metal interfaces with skin here. The material in the socket was breathable, and some kind of nanopolymer high impact foam that could memory bind to his leg's countours.

"Okay Captain, we're going to start to tighten the prosthetic. You're going to feel pressure and that's normal. We need you to keep us informed on pain. If there's pain, let us know on a scale of one to ten, got it?"

Cirr, grim-faced, nodded in affirmation as he watched the outer surfaces of the socket start to lock and overlap. The black foam underneath compressed, and a grimace formed on the Cizerack's face.

"Fourr...fjive. Between fourr and fjive."

Sighing, Cirr wanted nothing more than to shift his weight to counterbalance the pressure he was feeling, but a quick set of hands on him brought that to a halt.

"Captain, let's keep still. You're gonna feel uncomfortable at first, we're gonna fix that. Just hold still."

[John Glayde]

This was why Glayde hated doctors. He had no qualms about needles, injections, blood samples, or any of the typical stuff. He didn't have the breed of hypochondria that made him fear the worst every time he found himself in front of them. He wasn't the kind to suffer an injury to avoid treatment: when focused on him, medical professionals were a welcome encounter. It was when they were focused on someone else that was the problem: it was when Glayde was forced to stand there and watch, utterly helpless to intervene, utterly lacking in the knowledge or skill to provide a beneficial contribution.

It was the worst part of command: something that had driven itself home with sickening effect these last few days. John could make the hard choices, the tough decisions. He could take the risks, and he could order others to take those risks - sometimes the ultimate risk - in his stead. He could order men into a firefight. He had issued orders where many weren't expected to, and hadn't, returned. It was this he struggled to suffer through: these instances where he felt the blame lay in full or in part on his shoulders, and yet found himself with no means to make amends. What had happened to Cirrsseeto was undeniably an accident; yet it was an accident that John - that Cirr's XO - should never have allowed him to be exposed to. He had allowed their sacred division of labour to be ignored: he should have fought, disagreed, challenged, something any plan that involved his Captain stepping off his ship, no matter the reason. That was it, the worst part of command: not when you were forced to live with the consequences of your decisions and actions, but when someone else was.

He stepped forward, slipping in amongst the nurses and orderlies, adding his own hands and weight to the efforts to keep the Captain still and steady.

"We've got a problem, sir."

There was more of an edge in his voice than normal; not enough to seem stern, but enough to demand attention, enough emphasis on the formality of his words to insist upon the Captain's attention. Perhaps he couldn't help with the medicine here, but a distraction was something else entirely: that was tactical, and tactics he could do.

"There's been an issue with the promotions we forwarded to command: it seems that Lieutenant Altink isn't all that happy about the idea of being Lieutenant Commander Altink. He has asked me to convey a formal protest."

The smile that Glayde mustered was faint and grim, but it was a smile none the less.

"He feels that if we'd truly wanted to reward him for his actions, we'd have found a way that wouldn't have burdened him with quite so much additional responsibility and paperwork."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Through his discomforted expression, Cirr's grimace turned smile at Glayde's words. Maybe it was the grown-up method of giving a lollipop to a child just before a shot, but the premise of distraction was sound.

"Tell hjim jit could always be worrse. He could be command staff."

The second round of pressure came, and Cirrsseeto ground his teeth, but still laughed.

"Captain, we've got the bracing set. We're going to adjust the form molding now."

Engineering of a sort he was useless to intervene in. The pain didn't come sharp, only a dull throb. Cirrsseeto made it a point to reign in his movements, lacing his hands together in his lap. The claws of his fingertips were fully extended, however.

"Any more bellyachjing jI should attend to, Commanderr?"