Ours Are The Furies: Together Alone

[Vansen Tyree]

Last time (http://theholo.net/forum/showthread.php?56003-Erinyes) on Star Wars: Jovan Station. And now, the continuation...


The glass fell, shattering against the deck.

Vansen paid it no mind, nor thought any about the wasted contents that were now soaking into the carpeted floor: his hands were needed for a different purpose. Proving that age had done little to hamper the former pilot's reflexes, in an instant his arms were thrown around Taataani, dragging her from her feet with surprising strength and pulling them both into a crouch that pressed them both against the outer hull, as far from the viewport as Vansen could conceivably get them in a few quick strides.

You didn't spend your entire life on starships without learning to recognise that sound, that feel, that shift in the deck, that rumble through the bulkhead. Close proximity detonation. Explosive decompression. They were sensations burned into his memory from as long ago as the Clone Wars; he still vividly remembered the feeling as the Challenger had been slowly crippled, all those years ago in orbit of Bothawui. Just like then, his first instinct was to run, to burst out of the room he was in and sprint to the launch bay; to get himself in a cockpit; to do something, anything to feel like he had the power to make a positive change in this situation. It could have meant anything, from an accident at a docking port to an attack by the Empire; either way, he was of no use to anyone here in his guest quarters.

Except to Taataani. His reflexes had kicked in, and no matter what the cause of the rumblings through the station, he knew that he and the Senator needed to be as low as possible, braced for decompression as far from the vulnerable viewport as they could get.

Seconds passed, the vibrations slowly subsiding. He shifted his arms, peering beneath the protective barrier that he had turned his body into at the woman sheltered beneath.

"You okay?" he asked quietly, his voice carrying more softness and concern than it's usual gruff tone was used to.

[Taataani Meorrrei]

How funny.

She'd just been muttering something in the full throes of self-pity and doldrums about lamenting the threats of peace. Now something more prescient and violent had reared it's head to show her folly. Were she a religious person, she might utter a prayer ward against Traanjirra the Trickster Goddess. As it were, judging from Vansen's take-charge approach, she probably didn't have the luxury of further introspection and uselessness.

You okay?

His voice was calm, if not with some tension underneath. That he was cool as a sip of water made her heed his words and actually take stock of her own situation, which was well-jostled, lightly doused in whisky, and with a bit of a bump on the back of her head. On any other day, a travesty. Today...

"jI'm okajy."

She nodded along as if to punctuate her reply for extra reassurance. Now came the trouble, following after the initial wave of adrenaline like a poltergeist.

"Vanssen, what wass that?"

[Vansen Tyree]

"An explosion."

The instant Taataani had confirmed she was alright, Vansen's attention had shifted elsewhere: not ignoring her, simply peering off in search of the answers that he wanted just as much as she did.

"Explosions," he corrected. He was fairly confident of that. From the way the objects strewn about the guest quarters had been rattled, from the fact that the deck hadn't lurched in any single discernible direction, and from the fact that they were still feeling the slight rumble of aftershocks as they translated their way around the circumference of the hull, it seemed reasonable to conclude that the station had been rocked by multiple locations in at least two locations: at least one close by, and at least one far enough across the station that the vibrations straight through the heart of Jovan had reached them faster than the equivalents coursing around the outside. That was a bad sign: an isolated incident wouldn't have struck dispersed locations like that; not in such a synchronized way. The absence of an Imperial fleet or the rapidly moving glimmer of starfighters outside the viewport suggested that they weren't dealing with an attack either; not unless their attackers were making a deliberate effort to conceal themselves. That led only a handful of very bad possibilities.

Vansen's mind strayed to the jacket on the back of his chair, the badge of office that he'd discarded and yet found himself badly needing and wanting. Perhaps it was simply a crutch, a comfort blanket to make him feel a shred more prepared than he currently did. Perhaps it was just about feeling unprepared for the clearly dire situation they had found themselves in; unmatching the pillar of authority that the situation would no doubt need him to be. Perhaps it was just Taataani being so close to him, not enough layers or barriers between them anymore.

He fought the urge to move though, not ready to neglect Taataani just yet. Fumbling at his belt, he tugged loose his comlink, bringing it closer before flicking it on. "Tyree to operations." Nothing but static replied. "Command deck, do you copy?"

Still nothing. His expression soured. He was broadcasting in the clear on an open channel; if no one was paying enough attention to the comms to respond to their visiting Admiral, either things were very bad, or the comms were down. Or both, his thoughts carefully offered. He considered his options; there were ships outside the station, but his handheld comlink didn't have enough power to beam out a signal through a hull that was designed to shield against radiation and withstand micro-meteor impacts. With direct line of sight and a little tinkering, maybe, but for now they were shut in. The crew was no doubt already at work resolving whatever was going on, but even so -

"- I can't stay here," Vansen uttered quietly, finishing his thought aloud. His attention shifted, his gaze fixing on Taataani, deep, penetrating, and questioning. "I can't stay hidden in here while something is going on. Not unless -" His empty hand shifted, carefully finding it's way down Taataani's arm to wrap gently around her fingers. "- you need me to."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Taataani slowly gained her footing, taking stock of the dire prognosis the Admiral had given. Explosions. More than one. She didn't have to understand intricate details to know that an incident like that in plural didn't lend itself to coincidence. Jovan Station wasn't a backwater. It was the jutting patrician nose of the Alliance peering at the heart of the Empire. It made a tempting thing to bloody, were one so inclined to swing for it.

"Admjirral."

Taataani's posture straightened as she addressed him by his title in the aristocratic lilt he'd heard when they first met.

"Mjy daughterr jiss aboarrd thjiss sstatjion. jI need to know sshe jiss ssafe."

Which, in fewer words meant that she'd be damned if he was charging into this without her.

[Vansen Tyree]

And that was it, then: the one word that brought their amicable bonding to an end, and reset everything back to the professional tone that the situation demanded. Vansen's expression hardened instantly, his posture straightening. The jacket was back, even though he wasn't wearing it, the weight of all the responsibility and obligation, the required roles and required responses that came with it pressing down on his shoulders once more.

"Then we should find her, Senator," he replied, formality obscuring the slight note of disappointment that snuck it's way inexplicably into his voice.

He contemplated their situation for a moment, considered the path it had taken to reach his temporary quarters earlier that day. If there was any amount of damage, they couldn't rely on the turbolifts to be operational; wisdom meanwhile suggested they move as far into the interior of the station as possible, as far away from vulnerable viewports and hull plates as possible. A small amount of solace came from the fact that the core of the station was where T'yeellaa was most likely to be.

One other small notion crossed Vansen's mind, though.

"Are you armed, Senator? We can't be sure what happened... the station's corridors may not be entirely safe."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Taataani opened her small handbag, producing a Vespr DDX. Ultracompact and slender, it's frame was plated silver with intricate metalworking in the etching, with a lustrous cocobo knurled grip. The hold-out weapon looked more like a fashion accessory than a practical application of violence. It was a purchase she'd reluctantly made shortly after Taurrifar died. Equal parts security blanket and a statement of never again. With a familiarity to the sidearm Vansen may not have expected, Taataani checked the tibanna magazine, primed it, and toggled the single action down.

"A Ssenatorr prreparress herrsself forr aggrresssjive negotjiatjions, Admjirral."

Despite the bravado, Taataani had no illusions about her situation. Her pistol was suited well enough for pressing into the belly of an attacker, but if Vansen was expecting a threat on the station tied to synchronized explosions, the order of the day may very well be to be in a place where she wouldn't have to use the gun at all. The halting pace of her swaying tail betrayed insecurities that the normally-unflappable Senator was famous for hiding.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen offered a small, wordless nod as he watched Taataani ready herself. For a moment, he'd hoped that the Senator would have said no: that she lived an existence where an ever-present blaster was not a necessary consideration for a Galactic Senator. Sadly, if such a situation existed in this galaxy, it was not on any world that Vansen knew of.

A moment more passed before Vansen withdrew, swift strides carrying him to his desk. A quick code was entered, and a locked drawer slid open, an Imperial issue blaster bundled together with a belt and holster was withdrawn and carefully attached to his waist. His eye lingered on his jacket, then glanced back to Taataani for a moment, an almost desperate plea cast out to the ether to let him avoid being the Admiral for just a little longer. Vansen already knew though that the galaxy would not be so accommodating. He had made his mistakes, he had worn his uniform too often; and not only had it cost him everything he held dear, his unending penance was to never be free of it ever again; a hell of his own making, to remind him of his past foolishness.

Shrugging the jacket onto his shoulders, he spent a few moments securing all of the fastenings, and making himself at least partially presentable for the sake of anyone they came across, before advancing across his quarters to the waiting door. Leaning against the frame, and lifting his blaster free and ready, he turned his gaze to his companion once more.

"Taa-"

He stopped himself, correcting mid syllable, a painful reverse of his usual mistake.

"- Senator, I'm going to need you to stay behind me. We will make our way to your daughter if we can, but my absolute priority is ensuring your safety. No heroics, are we clear on that?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Taataani nodded. False gallantry would be tacky here, and Taataani understood the nature of what she did, juxtaposed against what Vansen's duty was. But even thinking that made her feel cold. He wasn't some soldier or pawn. There was the beginning of affection, and she knew the feeling intimately. She wasn't going to let him jump in front of a blaster shot, and erase himself from her life.

"Prromjisse me the ssame."

Beyond the door, Taataani could faintly hear voices in passing. There was confusion all around.

[Vansen Tyree]

"Shame," Vansen muttered back. "Here I was hoping to use this opportunity to impress you."

They were words that Vansen was surprised to hear himself say. A few decades ago perhaps, when he was young, and impetuous, shooting his mouth off at that insolent Padawan s'Ilancy, getting into all kinds of trouble; but not now. The Empire and the War and his wife had beaten that spark out of him, stamped it down into the dirt and then left it to be slowly covered over by the dust of ages. But now, this? Some small part of him felt like that young Vansen again; like Tyrant, fighter pilot extraordinaire. Perhaps not physically - his bones still ached, and his joints didn't move nearly as fast as they used to - but in his mind, something old, no, something young had awakened. For once, Vansen didn't find himself trapped on a bridge in the middle of a crisis, standing idle and helpless while hundreds or thousands of subordinates risked their lives on the basis of nothing other than his orders. It might say Admiral on his uniform, but for now he was just a single soldier with a single mission.

Falling silent, and holding his blaster ready, he silently counted down with his fingers before triggering the door mechanism, and leading the way out into the chaos beyond. Instantly he flinched as a ruptured power conduit above send down a sputtering spray of sparks, accented by a whiff of either smoke or coolant. Beneath it, the station's civilian populace stampeded around like a herd of undomesticated equines; without any transmissions from Ops to reassure them, they had fallen into a blind panic.

Vansen grimaced; there wasn't time for this, and yet these people needed to be attended to, needed to be calmed and contained before anyone got hurt. If only there was -

"Ensign!" he bellowed, spying an Alliance uniform moving through the crowd.

The young woman turned, startled and shell-shocked eyes looking in Vansen's direction. As he fought his way through the crowd towards her, her gaze seemed to settle on his rank insignia, a wave of relief washing across her expression. "I can't contact anyone," she uttered, a slight tremble in her voice. "I don't- I don't know what's going on, sir."

Vansen placed a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder, choosing one of her eyes and fixating on it. He even mustered a rare flicker of an almost paternal smile. "Neither do I, Ensign. But we're not going to let us let a little mystery stand in the way of us doing our jobs, are we?"

"N-no, sir." The young woman tried her utmost to muster a smile of her own, straightening a little as if somehow that would flood her system with more confidence than she currently had available. "No, sir, we are not," she tried again, far more emphatically.

Vansen offered a proud and appreciative nod. "What's your name, Ensign?"

She seemed to need to think about that for a moment before she mustered another reply. "Kelsky, sir. Evyamin Kelsky."

"Listen up!" Vansen suddenly bellowed, loud enough to snare the attention of everyone within earshot, he turned, making sure that everyone got a good look of his grizzled and determined features. "We have an emergency situation here, and we are not going to fix it by running about like a bunch of feckless drunken Rodians. Ensign Kelsky here -" He patted her shoulder for emphasis. "- is going to lead you, in an orderly fashion, to the nearest secure communal area: where you will wait calmly until someone arrives to tell you otherwise. Anyone who does not comply with this will be knocked unconscious, and locked in the nearest storage closet until they come to their senses."

A sea of eyes focused on him; a sea of panic, of questions, of people frightened beyond the limits of their capability. Now wasn't the time to be nice: that wasn't what they needed right now. They needed certainty. They needed something immutable to cling onto; clear instructions to obey while their minds were too overwhelmed to think of logical actions for themselves. Vansen allowed a moment of silence, one last glance cast across the group before he spoke again.

"You heard me. Move!"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

It was one of the few moments Taataani had experienced where she was the background, and not the object of focus. She watched Vansen speak to the shocked and confused throng. He pounced upon chaos, bringing it to ground with a predator's assurance, and as he spoke, he could see the way his words impacted the group. Ensign Kelsky went from being a casualty of panic to a part of the solution, and it was this transformative change that Taataani knew. The unsaid, unquantifiable characteristics of leadership. Distilled into it's purest, it was a thing that couldn't be taught or imitated or faked. It was a birthright. Some tremendous gift often sealed up in someone until they were thrown into a crucial moment for it to awaken. It wasn't a result of the Admiral bars or the years of service or the battles he had joined in younger years. Those were just the catalysts to make Vansen Tyree show his true form.

Still in the background, Taataani said nothing. She only nodded an unseen nod, holding her blaster close. The moment called for a leader, and they had one.

They pressed on, heading through the corridors of the executive habitation section. The place of dignitaries and persons of note and of influence. The pair rounded a corner, and as they passed a junction something caught Taataani's eye. At first it seemed like a piece of floatsam, just debris from whatever had shaken loose only minutes before.

"Admjirral." she'd stopped in her tracks, staring down at the B1 battle droid crumpled at her feet.

[Vansen Tyree]

For a moment, Vansen wondered if his remaining eye was failing, or if his mind had somehow chosen this moment to compensate for his missing one by flashing visions of his past in front of his gaze. That seemed the only explanation: some fractured insanity of his mind brought on by the situation, plaguing him with flashbacks from a war that had ended thirty years ago.

Yet the Senator had seen it too. Seen it first, in fact. Vansen crouched down over it, inspecting the damaged chassis with practiced skills he had never expected would need dredging up again. There was carbon scoring on the headpiece; a rookie mistake. Soldiers accustomed to fighting sentients were used to a headshot being the epitome of accuracy: the most efficient way to fell an opponent swiftly and decisively. For Battle Droids such as this though, that was far from the case. On a B1 droid such as this, the headpiece was just optics and a vocabulator; most of the operating systems were within the torso, close to the tranciever that allowed the droids to be controlled remotely from a control ship. Cut off the head, and the body would still continue to fire; though with a lot less accuracy of course. Truncate them at the waist, and not only would the upper body continue to operate, in some cases the legs would even keep working. They were incredibly redundant despite their somewhat simplistic coding: a trait that had contributed to them being such a problematic adversary for the Republic's elite clone troopers. Someone seemed to have worked that out eventually, if the blaster pockmarks on the chest plate were anything to go by.

Still though, it made no sense. "These were all deactivated and scrapped by executive order," he mused with a heavy frown. He'd heard of certain companies refurbishing damaged units, cobbling together functional droids from broken bits of salvage, but those were in the hands of collectors, not in active use. Not the kind of thing you'd want to use in an attack on a space station - not one lone unit, at least. More then? A genuine droid strike force? Vansen's frown deepened further.

"Who the hell would have an army of battle droids in this day and age?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Taataani didn't have a ready answer to Vansen's musings. Instead, she simply watched him pick at the destroyed droid. As he turned over the parts in his hand, something caught her eye.

"Wajit."

There, on the chest piece, below one of the scorch marks. Her eyes had previously panned past it with all the battle damage, but it was something written in Cizeri glyph.

"Rou'taai'o Automaatoa."

Her eyes widened, and the Senator bent down to inspect closer. A thumb smeared away black carbon on the carapace, unearthing skeletons of the past.

"Keppaa Brens."

She looked up at Vansen with an expression of shock and concern on her face.

[Vansen Tyree]

Rou'taai'o wasn't a name or turn with which Vansen was familiar, but there was no mistaking the words that followed: Keppaa Brens, one of the most significant and valuable worlds in the Carshoulis Cluster, and the one that Taataani herself represented in the Galactic Senate.

That new fact yielded far more questions than it provided answers to. Like many non-human cultures, the Cizerack had sided with the Separatists during the Clone Wars, a fact that Vansen managed for the most part to avoid dwelling upon. Various Separatist holdouts had clung on to their droid armies after the War, but Vansen couldn't recall ever being aware if the Cizerack was one of those. The mention of Automaatoa had him wondering if perhaps these weren't remnants of the Confederacy at all, but rather new builds to old specifications, illegally constructed in the Cluster - to what end? A misguided coup against the Alliance? An attack against a station that the bureaucrats had branded a beacon of cooperation between the races? Or was the station merely collateral, part of a much more targeted strike?

"Senator -"

Vansen's mouth drew into a thin line. The Senator for Keppaa Brens shows up on the station, and soon after droids from her homeworld are implicated in a string of explosions? Quite the coincidence, that.

"How many people know that you're here?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Had she made a mistake? An error of omission somewhere in her calculus? Taataani rose slowly to her feet, her mind moving faster than her body as she drew her hands together at her chest.

"Mjy ajide, Kallum..."

Who despite his dubious beginnings was somehow beyond suspicion. He might steal from her if ever he thought he could, but no, nothing at all like this.

"...Aleeha, Taaliaala..."

Her middle daughters were capable-if-unimaginative businesswomen, and even if they weren't, they were family. Out of the question.

"Mjy bodjygua..."

Taataani's voice trailed off. No, not her bodyguard. He'd said he'd been sent from the High Mother, but those were his words. Kosa! She had been so...so stupid!

"All of thjiss...to get to me?"

That couldn't be right. If her bodyguard wasn't who he said he was, he could have disposed with her easily. No explosions, no battle droids. No one else in the crossfire. There was a message here, still not translated. And before Taataani could work to understand any of it, a voice called out down the hall.

"Rrou'a, Arr'o. Arre jyou okajy?"

A Cizerack Jaani'saarri had turned the corner. He was tall and lean, with dark Naala'in tones and a cropped shock of blonde hair sitting high and tight on his head.

"jIt jissn't ssafe herre. Come wjith me."

He gestured ahead with his hand.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen's grip tightened around his blaster, thumb loitering over the switch that would toggle between lethal blasts and stun ones. He recognised the uniform of the Cizerack Marine, but and in this situation, with battle droids of apparent Cizerack origin getting shot up in the halls, something as simple as a uniform didn't offer all that much reassurance.

His gaze shifted to Taataani - carefully, reflexes still readied to dispatch the Marine if he so much as moved funny - with a questioning look.

"It isn't safe on the whole damn station, Senator." He hesitated, a slight grimace as his thoughts strayed back to the droid. "But this seems like Cizerack business here, and you're the expert. Can we trust anyone?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

What's trust? It was the cream of cynical thought to rise to the top, and Taataani gave her one-eyed companion a look as if he'd asked for a book and she was holding a library. They walked under the aegis of their newfound protector, and the Senator stole a glance in his direction as well. Nothing seemed out of place. The uniform was the genuine article, and though a member of the Baroness Oligarchy rarely mingled with the common sort that often joined the military, he seemed no more different than the untold horde that kissed the High Mother's du'arri and took her oath.

"We'rre not Hapanss." she sniffed, shoulders back with indignation. "Ourr jintrrjiguess arre done wjith worrdss. Ssangujine affajirrss arre forr the djinnerr table."

It was largely the truth. Violence was a tool of the state, and even then the High Mother rarely used it among other Cizerack. Still, Taataani's mind was fixed on the destroyed battle droid, and of the bits of history it represented. Her personal hand-wringing over what were proper social mores was merely a stodgy stalling tactic that ignored the absurd reality of now.

And that reality was that Taataani was completely blindsided.

"That drrojid jiss frrom the home guarrd legjion. Frrom durrjing the warr."

She needn't be specific here. They both knew exactly what war she was referring to.

"We werren't an jImperrjial holdjing afterr the Confederrate ssurrrenderr. The Empjirre wass merreljy ssatjissfjied to know that ourr drrojidss werre deactjivated and put awajy, and that we werre wjilljing to trrade wjith the vjictorrss."

The Jaanni'saari guard paused at a junction, holding a hand up for his charges to hold position. He peered carefully around the corner, leading with his rifle, before moving ahead once again.

"The drrojid warrehoussess that held the legjion had a token guarrd at besst."

Carelessness born out of assumption. Clearly someone had decided to make violence a political tool, and they were putting on a clinic at present.

"jI have no sshorrtage of enemjiess, Admjirral, and jI frreeljy admjit jit. But thejy'rre enemjiess that sscheme to rrojil mjy housse jin sscandal orr rrujin me fjinancjialljy. Cjivjiljized sschemess."

And yet the blood was on the wall. A testament to Taataani's myopia.

"But to do thjiss? Ssomeone wantss to do farr morre than desstrrojy me. Thejy arre afterr the Prrjide jitsself."

It was supposition, but the Senator didn't waver from it for lack of a smoking gun. It was the only thing that made political sense. If you could not change the system through intrigue, then you sharpened a knife.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen sneered out a small sigh of frustration. It was the fundamental difference between himself and Taataani; between the soldier breed, and the politician. They found glory in subterfuge, in subtlety, in manipulation and circumvention. He saw no honour in that; not really. Such was the way of politics, and you evolved to suit the battlefield you found yourself on, true, but stabbing backs and undoing people with nothing but words and exploited legislation felt wrong somehow. It was success, but not victory; or if it was, then the victory was hollow, stolen rather than won.

People joined the military for mostly benevolent reasons: there might be a desire for personal glory perhaps, but at the core of it they sought to serve the greater good, the state, a cause larger than themselves. People entered politics for the opposite reasons: a few might want to make the world a better place, but most sought only wealth and power and personal gain.

He respected politicians, the same way he respected a python in the grass, unable to deny that it excelled at what he did; but he had more respect for the predator who overcame adversary to chase down it's victories than for the serpent who lay around waiting for a moment of weakness and then let their venom do all the work.

And yet, was this not exactly what his rationale led to? Destroying the Pride, Taataani had said. Whoever she spoke of, whoever she presumed these people to be, clearly they had cast aside the subtleties of covert toxins and resorted to more brute-headed tactics; a soldier's approach, a military approach. This was how the Empire had done business, resolving their issues down the barrel of a blaster, and look how that had turned out. Politician or soldier, it didn't seem to matter: every victory seemed to be reached by clambering over bodies and rubble. Perhaps they were all doing it wrong. Perhaps there really was no way to win.

Or perhaps we should stop trying to win, and not make a contest of everything.

"Why do I get the feeling there's more to this than you're telling me?" Vansen muttered, mostly to himself.

Because you're a Senator, he mused, answering is own question. There's always something you're not telling me.

With the hand that held his blaster, Vansen scrubbed the back of his wrist against an eyebrow, trying to assuage a persistent itch. He forced his mind to think about this tactically: to look behind the obvious, and think his way through the rationale that might lead someone to this resort. A token force, she had said, guarding the disabled droid legion back in Cizerack space. Not a difficult process to liberate them, then - or at least, not something requiring significant numbers. Then with the droids themselves, an instant army. A small movement, then? A powerless force resorting to these tactics, because no others were available to them?

"What would a Cizerack gain by destroying the Pride?" he said aloud, though quietly enough that only Taataani would here, and not their ambiguously reliable escort. Vansen kept his blaster trained on him, just to be sure. "That's not the move of someone making a grab for power. Attacking this station sends a message, perhaps, but the actual harm to the Pride and the Pride Mother is minimal. So why attack here, and not something higher profile, closer to home?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

"jIt'ss a ssjymbol, and ssjymbolss arre powerr."

The Cizerack Marine pointed down the next junction. "Thjiss wajy, carrefulljy." Taataani obeyed, unsure where they were being led.

"Jovan rreprressentss ourr tjime jin the ssun, Admjirral. Rrarreljy have we everr made ssuch efforrtss to embrrace the galaxjy bejyond. Ssome would quesstjion whjy we would need to at all. Afterr all, we arre the chjildrren of Saanjarra. Ssuperrjiorr."

Taataani glanced at Tyree with the taut lips of a skeptic at that last demonstrative boast.

"Otherrss majy fjind the hjypocrrjissjy of ourr ssocjietjy sset agajinsst ssuch opennesss to be unbearrable. That we jojin an Alljiance of Frree Planetss whjile frreedom eludess manjy of ourr own people."

To this notion, Taataani seemed somewhat less skeptical. If the expression carried anything, it was a modicum of discomfort. The marine leading the two VIP's seemed to slow at Taataani's words, glancing back at the two inscrutably.

"Sso when jI ssajy thesse terrrorrjisstss wjissh to desstrrojy the Prrjide, sstarrtjing at ejitherr pojint would ljikeljy fjind jyou at the hearrt of the matterr."

[Vansen Tyree]

As controversial issues went, what Taataani alluded to was perhaps the ultimate representation. What made it so significant was that it was a dilemma wrestled with since the very dawn of the Republic and of civilisation, and that it was still wrestled with, still unresolved to this very day. The Republic had always prided itself on it's pledge to promote a common community that embraced morality and equality above all other things. Yet, despite the outlaw of slavery in Republic space, the slave-based cultures of Trandosha, Zygerria, and Hutta continued to thrive. Despite the premise that all races were equal, ever since the Pius Dea Crusades the galaxy had been divided into the us and them of human and non-human, a divide that the Clone Wars and the New Order had only served to reinforce. When it came to the genders, the only balance that seemed to exist was that the galaxy compensated for it's abundant patriarchy with a handful of extreme matriarchies like the Cizerack and Hapans represented.

The Alliance struggled with it more than any government before it, because despite the lofty aspirations of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, the simple truth was that the Republic was a broken model, a faulty template for how the galaxy should be. The Confederacy of Independent Systems had gained so much traction three decades ago, not because the dark side had conjured conflict out of thin air, but because the underlying cracks and fissures within the Republic were already there, just waiting for the right nudge to begin crumbling into pieces. Non-human races so sick and tired of the humanocentric homogenization that the Republic brought with it clung to their traditions and ideals all the more tightly, and those oppressed and repressed by those traditional regimes were forced to stand and watch as other races danced around in freedom right outside their door.

Wealth and gender were the Cizerack's two biggest points of social contention, and that was an alarming thing to realise in this situation. The women became richer, and wielded all the power; the men were pressed into service, as labourers, lackeys -

Soldiers.

Suddenly the protection of a Cizerack Marine felt even less reassuring than it had a moment before. Instead of a baseline distrust of anyone, Vansen now found himself with an explicit reason to hold the Marine under greater scrutiny.

"Still sounds like a stupid plan to me," Vansen countered, ensuring his voice was loud enough that the no doubt eavesdropping Marine could hear him easily. "Out here in the big wide galaxy, the Cizerack get exposure. Those serving on this station get exposure to the way that other races and other cultures treat their citizens, and it makes it that much harder for the rest of the Alliance to ignore the inequalities in your culture if you're out here shoving it in their faces." He shook his head, a dismissive half-sigh, half-growl escaping his throat. "All they gain from attacking Jovan is forcing the Pride back behind it's borders: fortified, consolidated, and that much less likely to ever change."

His voice transformed into a disappointed grumble. "Idiots don't have a damn clue what they're doing. This is child logic, not strategy."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Taataani wasn't so quick to condemn, and her eyes were distant and thoughtful.

"Dessperratjion brreedss jirrratjionaljitjy. jIf that werre jindeed thejirr motjive, then perrhap-"

"Ta'u saai Fey'danna kaiheessa!"

Everything changed in an instant, and Taataani saw too late the hand swatting her to the ground. Claws tore at the shoulder of her garment, shredding it bare and bringing two lines of crimson to the fore as she fell to the deck. Her blaster snapped up to fire, but was off the mark in the tumult as the Jaanni'saari aimed his weapon at his intended target:

Admiral Tyree.

[Vansen Tyree]

Mistake number one.

The Marine was fast, Vansen had to grant him that, but he was sloppy. Angry. Smart man would have stayed where he was and aimed his gun: enough distance to fire off a shoot before the Admiral had time to react; enough of an element of surprise to make a reaction utterly worthless. But no. His anger had made him lash out against the Senator first, throwing her aside in some dramatic gesture to show Vansen just how agitated he was by the goading words.

Mistake number two.

The Marine thought too much of himself, and too little of Vansen Tyree. There were a few instances where the old man was glad of that sort of thing, and now was one of them. The Marine thought he had time to assail the Senator before he had to worry about the Admiral. He thought aiming a gun at him would frighten the old one-eyed bastard. He thought shouting in languages he couldn't understand, brandishing, posturing; he thought that would do him a lick of good. It would not.

Vansen was already in motion as the Marine turned his attention to him. The Cizerack had sign posted his intentions too well, and as the rifle came to bear towards him Vansen was already stepping forward, a surprisingly strong hand wrapping around the body of the rifle and twisting it away - not enough to rip it from the Cizerack's grip, but certainly enough to keep it aimed well away from anything that a discharge could harm. His second hand swung up with the blaster he'd been carrying, cracking it across the side of the Marine's skull with enough force to breach the skin and provoke an angry trickle of crimson down the side of his face. In the same moment Vansen twisted more, wrenching the rifle from the Marine's grip, letting the strap still slung over the Cizerack's neck and shoulder yank him off balance, pulling him into the knuckles of the pistol-holding hand that hammer-swung towards the bridge of the Cizerack's nose. The Marine staggered back, and Vansen released his grip on the rifle completely; his pistol aimed and spat out a wave of stun energy, dumping the Marine unceremoniously to the floor.

The Admiral quickly stepped over to the fallen Marine, unhooking the rifle from him and adjusting it into his grip, the pistol tucked back into the holster on his hip. With a nudge of his foot to ensure that the Cizerack weren't somehow immune to stun weapons or something deeply inconvenient like that, he paced backwards to the Senator's side, and dropped into a crouch.

Mistake number three.

Protective concern was thick in Vansen's voice as he placed a hand gently against Taataani's arm. "Are you alright?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Taataani was slow to right herself, feeling instantly the heat on her shoulder where the marine had drawn her blood. The lacerations were deep, but not life threatening. Still, for a woman who had seldom been in a position to have her life threatened before, the violence rendered unto Senator Meorrrei had a profoundly sobering effect.

"jI'm...fjine."

Her voice was distant, as if she was only vaguely aware of the conversation taking place. Taataani kept her eyes on the prone form of the Jaani'saarri, not because she doubted Admiral Tyree's handiwork, but because the words he'd uttered had revealed which one of the Senator's theories were correct.

"Ta'u saai Fey'danna kaiheessa."

She looked up at Vansen with a troubled expression.

"Rrememberr the marrtjyrrss of Fey'dann."

[Vansen Tyree]

"Fey'dann."

Vansen's frown settled into it's comfortable place across his brow as he puzzled over that word. Something lurked on the edges of his mind like shadows just beyond the reach of a floodlight, but whether it was because his focus was elsewhere or just a matter of the addles of age, Vansen couldn't quite manage to grasp hold of it well enough to recall. It was a planet, that much he was sure of.

"A planet in the Cluster?" he mused aloud. That was a guess, but an educated one. Despite certain interests that Vansen had in the Cizerack, their space lay beyond his purview, their defense the responsibility of some other Admiral. In his younger days, Vansen would have made a point of knowing every star, every planet, and every moon in the Alliance by heart, just to prove that he could; nowadays his mind was unfortunately committed to storing necessary but unsatisfying knowledge about the Alliance bureaucracy.

The look in Taataani's eyes spoke of far more to this story than Vansen's military was willing to provide. A subconscious impulse moved the hand on Taataani's arm, a few inches of extra altitude, as if that would somehow offer greater comfort. "I'm not going to like finding out what happened there, am I?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

The Senator busied herself with pulling free one of the decorative silk ribbons which held her outer mantle in place. Wincing, she draped the fabric over her wounded shoulder, negotiating the ends clumsily to align them together so that she could tie them. Already, the silk began to seep with her blood. She'd had worse on hunting expeditions, but that was the extent of her experience with injury. Her charmed existence had shielded herself from that - until now.

"Fey'dann jiss one of the motherr worrldss," she confirmed, nodding. "A grreat ssavannah wherre ourr food jiss rrajissed. The people therre arre poorr, but prroud."

But that was just the start of it, and explained little.

"The people therre have alwajyss been jissolated jin ssome wajy frrom otherrss. The wajy thejy drress, the wajy thejy talk. But that jissolatjion held them togetherr. Nowherre elsse jin the Prrjide have men and women carrjied the wejight sso..."

The Senator's eyes met the Admiral's. He likely could complete her thought from where she'd led.

[Vansen Tyree]

Politics.

Vansen loathed it. Detested it. He hated the way that it operated; but most of all he hated the stupid concepts upon which it was built. The Republic had celebrated diversity. Thrived on it. Each to their own. The Empire had done things differently, trying to impose through force a consistent attitude to make the whole galaxy the same. It was supposed to be objectively, undeniably evil. That meddling in the private affairs of sovereign races was something that the Alliance strove with every fibre to avoid.

But now that the Alliance found itself in a position of governance, things became hazy. It wasn't even that the Empire's black and white had faded into shades of grey: it had turned into a muddy, conflicted brown. The Cizerack fiercely guarded their society's right to impose it's values on everyone within it's dominion. The Hapans did the same, their entire culture propped up by institutionalised matriarchy. But that was different, the politicians insisted, from the sexism and racism that the Empire had perpetrated. Imperial prejudice was something to be condemned, but Cizerack prejudice was a right to be defended, and fiercely.

Taataani Meorrrei had always commanded a significant amount of respect from Vansen Tyree; her intelligence, her cunning, her dedication. Now though, he saw a glimpse of the kind of policies and politics that served as a foundation for her importance and prestige. He saw a flicker of the darker secrets of the culture that had allowed her to rise to the heights that she had. His steel gaze swept across her features, silently wondering if she felt the same guilt that he did, knowing that his veteran status was earned from decades spent with an Imperial uniform hanging from his shoulders.

"Just how decisively did the Pride try and remidy Fey'dann of it's..." He trailed off, struggling to find a way to dance around the facts as well as Taataani had. "...differences?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

"Sstrrenuoussljy."

It was a single word spoken softly, but with the finality of a sounded gavel, or a headman's axe falling. Taataani's blank expression wasn't for lack of emotion. Fey'dann burned through emotions with greed and intensity. It was a coal fire, burning just out of sight - forever.

"When jI wass jyoung, therre wass an uprrjissjing. A declarratjion."

New pain revealed itself in dull aches as Taataani worked to tie her makeshift bandage. It complemented the pain she was now to dredge up.

"The ssonss and daughterrss of Fey'dann sstand asss one. On equal footjing. Thejy would no longerr feed the mouth that condemned them. Sso thejy rrevolted agajinsst everrjythjing we have been forr overr a thoussand jyearrss."

And inside, Taataani knew that it wasn't simply doomed and romantic. It was right. She'd known it then, and she knew it with Cirrsseeto. What separated a man and a woman, it was merely anatomy. Could a man not have a say for himself? Could a woman not allow herself to show vulnerability? This wasn't just about freedom for males. It was everyone.

And it was doomed.

"The Hjigh Motherr made an example of the jinssurrrectjion. Sshe butcherred entjirre famjiljiess morre thorroughljy than Emperrorr Palpatjine could jimagjine possjible."

[Vansen Tyree]

There wasn't room for anger, or for judgement. It was an event, a revelation that was bigger than now; bigger than Vansen; bigger than what he had any interest in trying to comprehend. That was how it was for men like him. This was how it was with the Empire's atrocities. Vansen may have retired when Alderaan died, but that was not the first sin committed under Palpatine's rule. The Empire had blood on it's hands, and guilt on it's shoulders, but only a mere fraction of it's soldiers had the moral substance to perceive them. It was that guilt that had driven them into Rebellion; that shame over what had been done by a government acting in their name; what had been done by a regime that they helped to support. That same guilt was what swallowed them whole, that consumed people until there was nothing left but the desire to sacrifice all to dislodge a little of that inherited guilt.

Vansen had no time for it. He was not immune to it's effects, not indifferent to the suffering caused; he simply did not have time. Not now. Not ever. There were times, guilty and private moments, where he allowed his mind to turn towards such thoughts. He drowned in it. Sank beneath it until nothing but blackness surrounded him. He stayed until the light had faded, until his breath was almost gone; and then he surged back to the surface, spluttered for breath, and tossed another double of whiskey down his throat. There was no time to wallow in guilt, because there was so much to be made amends for. So much to undo. So much to repair. It was that momentum, that drive, that kept him in service to the Alliance military far beyond his expiration date. It was that drive and momentum that would keep him in service until the day he died. His body would fail, his senses would falter, but he would push; he would stagger forward. He would endure until all he could do was stamp papers in a clerk's office if he had to; because if he stopped, that would be the end of it. All hope for redemption would be halted, and he would not have the strength to force it back into motion again.

He looked to Taataani, to the same familiar guilt that weighed upon her shoulders, on her ears, on her usually proud and defiant form. There was no time for any of that, either.

Vansen's hand gently closed around Taataani's, halting her efforts to attend to her bandage. "The galaxy is full of those who do the wrong thing for the right reasons," he offered gently; not a reassurance, not a comfort, but a verbal offered hand to help Taataani's focus back to it's feet. "Just as it is full of who do the right thing for the wrong reasons. The task of determining which is which belongs to history, not to us."

A crooked finger gently nudged beneath Taataani's chin, tilting her gaze upwards to meet Vansen's.

"Today, here, now, they have crossed a line. Their grievance is with the Pride, but they have brought war to my Alliance; our Alliance; to a station full of innocent bystanders that we are sworn to protect. A head full of politics and guilt cannot help them, but there is more to you than that. I have seen it before, and I see it in your eyes now."

The hand shifted, softly placed upon her shoulder.

"Leave the Senator and the Baroness behind. Find a quiet corner, and shut them away. A soldier, a strategist, a General is what this fight needs. Can you be that for me, Taataani?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

That same leadership trait, applied so smartly. Even against Taataani Meorrrei, it could cast aside stalling introspection and moral exhaustion.

She looked at her protector - no. Her partner. That was what he was, clearly. They were both far too adult for chivalry. Too old for platitudes. Sometimes it felt good to shut up.

Senator Meorrrei reached down to retrieve her pistol, grunting with pain as it irritated her lacerations. Nevertheless, she had the object well in hand, bringing it back up between herself and Vansen. The snub-nosed blaster was carefully pointed away from each of them, and Taataani looked up at Tyree as she tapped the muzzle with a claw.

"jIt'ss sstjill 'pojint thjiss end at the bad gujyss', jissn't jit?"

[Vansen Tyree]

A subtle smile shouldered it's way through the crowd of grim and gruff on Vansen's features, just enough to be seen.

"And keep pulling the trigger until they stop moving," he agreed, with as much reassurance as he could muster.

Most people might have described this as the sort of situation that made you feel young again. Vansen didn't have the patience for that kind of redundant sentimentality. Nothing about him felt young. Everything that always ached still ached. Everything that seized and protested when you tried to move it still did all of those things. It didn't make him feel alive, either. But there was still something about it. Something clear. Something pure. A sense of focus; a brief respite from all of the other factors that came from being able to fixate yourself purely on the path directly ahead. It was that, Vansen supposed, that men like him missed when circumstances conspired to drag them from their cockpits, and their trenches, and their maintenance crawlspaces and force them into clean uniforms and behind desks.

Vansen didn't feel young, or alive. He felt useful again.

"You might have to shoot at some bad girls as well," Vansen pointed out, as he readied his commandeered blaster and began to lead their advance down the corridors. Force smile upon whatever mechanic or technician had spent the time painting stencilled lettering onto the walls of the various intersections, Aurebesh phrases helping to guide the station's inhabitants through it's labyrinthine interior. The grim, trench humour that settled into Vansen's voice was part crutch, part muscle memory left over from decades ago, when events like this would have seemed like an ordinary day. "These are equality terrorists after all."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

The Senator pursed her lips slightly in a matter of fact expression.

"Forrtunateljy mjy tjime jin the Ssenate has made me an accomodatjing egaljitarrjian."

Her mind was moving faster than her feet. Cizerack droids. Cizerack terrorists. Explosions all at once, and no comms.

"We'rre not gojing to do much good sstumbljing jin the darrk. We need to fjind a wajy to communjicate."

Expectant eyes probed Vansen in anticipation of a plan. He was a career military man, even spanning service into the years of the Galactic Empire at one time. This used to be an Imperial station.

[Vansen Tyree]

There were options, but each one came with limitations. There were maintenance shafts, utility crawlspaces, air ducts; a maze of hidden passageways that wove through facilities like this. For any other officer, they'd present an expedient path to at least get close to where they needed to be. For a septuagenarian Admiral though, and a Senator whose wardrobe was dubiously practical? There were only so many vertical shafts and access ladders that he could handle while still remaining useful at the other end. But what alternative did they have? Walk the corridors out in the open? Take out every enemy checkpoint one by one, working their way through -

Through. Why was Vansen trying to lead them through the station? The explosions the Cizerack had set off had come from the docking pylons as best he could tell, but there were landing bays nestled between, filled with shuttles, defence fighters, maintenance craft. If the terrorists had disabled the pylons to keep reinforcements out, if they were relying on their droids and soldiers to keep the station population contained, then maybe there was a ghost of a chance. Get to a bay. Steal a ship. Find one of the external ships - the Novgorod perhaps, or s'Ilancy's ship. At worst, he'd be able to provide intel, and relay it back to the Alliance. At best, perhaps they'd be able to help him correct this mess.

The moment of silence was brief, but it still took longer to formulate than Vansen would have liked. "This way," he said finally, gesturing back down the corridor. "We need to get to a -"

The sentence never finished. Vansen felt it, a split second before he heard the whine: burning, tearing it's way through the small of his back; an all too familiar sensation. He stumbled, catching himself against the wall, a whiff of ozone and charred flesh rising to his nostrils. He tried to turn, tried to raise his gun, tried to snap off a shot down the corridor behind him; it went wide of the mark, glancing harmlessly off the droid's synthetic shell. It's retaliation caught him square in the gut, and the Admiral crumpled completely.

Vansen watched in stunned confusion as shock began to rob hid body of function, skin rapidly turning pale, a dark and angry charred crater now gracing the front of his uniform. About time, he found himself thinking, his blurring vision settling on the sight of the uncomfortably familiar droid. It had been thirty years since the Clone Wars; thirty years since a machine like this had last tried to kill him. It seemed fitting somehow, that after all this time a relic just like him would manage to survive and finish the job.

What took you so damn long?

[Taataani Meorrrei]

"Vanssen!"

The shrill of a confederate-era blaster shrilled in Taataani's ears as she watched him fall, but that was the only shot she heard. Everything happened fast, but Senator Meorrrei's fight or flight response had put her fate decidedly on fixed rails. She saw the droid ahead, then the split second of red light to her left as it's blaster bolt pushed just off it's target. Her gun felt weightless in her grasp even as she seemed to be moving slowly through treacle with the hum of pulsing blood in her ears. Eyes tried to find the recessed sights on her weapon like she'd been taught to do, but in her haste she pushed to pale blue bolts to the right of her target. Her focus shifted. The rear sights blurred. The droid fell into focus.

Taataani fired, severing the gun hand at the elbow. She fired again. Again. Again. Each time with a purposeful step as she took the B1 droid apart with nothing but a belly gun and a tank of adrenaline.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen watched in misty slow motion as Taataani Meorrrei turned avenger on his behalf. It felt wrong, somehow: an idle thought nudging at the back of his mind; the wrong person; the lack of a lightsaber. At least he'd been right, though. There was a warrior under all that silk and lace. Good to know that his motivational speech hadn't been wasted.

Part of him wished she'd waited though; let the droid finish the job, rather than forcing him to make the journey to the great beyond the slow and painful way. He tried to move; his insides protested, searing pain mixed with churning nausea as his organs stretched and shifted against the charred edges of his punctured flesh. The sensations threatened to overwhelm him, so intense that he felt his head swim, stumbling dizzily towards the end of consciousness. He fought against it, ignored it, long enough to drag himself and his apparently useless blaster closer to the wall he'd fallen beside. His gut screamed like a slaughtered pig, folding in on itself as he tried to sit up; it ended up more as a slump, the chilled skin of his forehead pressed up against the durasteel.

Struggling for breath, his voice reedy and feeble, he mumbled out the only question that seemed to matter in the moment.

"Taataani... are you okay?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

The adrenaline ebbed.

The gun which had felt weightless in her grasp a moment ago now fell free from Taataani's hand to the floor. It felt heavier. So much heavier now. Her own trivial injury forgotten, Taataani fell against the wall at the human's side, nurturing instincts compelling her where medical knowledge couldn't. She eased a hand between the old man's neck and the wall. Gently, the Senator cradled the Admiral's head as she gently maneuvered him into a sitting position, mindful of seemingly-small movements that may be excruciating. Her blue eyes fixed to his pallid face, which suddenly glistened with a sheen of cold perspiration.

And he had the gall to ask if she was okay, with the stink of his own cremated flesh angrily offending her nose. She had a mind to rebuke him in nasty form for what she perceived to be a species of foolish and misplaced chivalry. The only thing that stayed her was that the last few heartbeats of action were beginning to flood back into the part of her brain that was rational. Taataani brushed a hand against her own cheek, the warmth of the near-fatal bolt that missed her a phantom sensation.

Taataani...are you okay?

An inch closer, and she'd never have the opportunity to answer. Old dark thoughts came back. Taurrifar languishing in the cold. Her struggles to save him - too long and too late. Oh, she'd had so much time since then to fear the mortality of everyone she loved.

Never once had she stopped to consider her own mortality.

Taataani...are you okay?

She was alive.

Was she okay?

Taataani lied with a nod of her head as she cradled Vansen protectively.

[Vansen Tyree]

You didn't need two eyes to see a fake nod when you saw one. Damned woman was being strong for him, or something foolish like that. Then again, hadn't he just told her as much? Not the intended context, but still.

As Vansen so often did, he fell back on humour, the defense mechanism that had served him so well over the last forty years or so. When your wits and skills weren't enough, when the odds were against you and the situation was grim, you deflected. You made light of the situation. Gallows humour they called it, though it had been millennia since anything even remotely resembling a gallows had existed on any of the worlds where the phrase was used. Vansen wasn't really even sure why he did it any more. In days of yore, perhaps it had been a reassurance for the men under his command; was that what he was doing now, trying to somehow set Taataani at ease even though she would see through it in an instant?

"If I had known," he forced out, voice notably more feeble than usual and a little shaky, his gut loudly protesting any kind of movement of any part of his body, lungs included. "That a shot to the gut was all it'd take to end up in your arms, I'd have mustered up a firing squad months ago."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Vansen was in pain, that was plain to see. Taataani placed a hand over his that cradled his blaster shot. With her other hand, she caressed his face. It was cool to the touch, with a trace of new perspiration. He looked like he so rarely did - vulnerable. She'd schemed for some time at disarming him. This wasn't quite how she imagined it would be.

"jIf jI'd known all along that jyou werre jusst wajitjing forr the rrjight woman to rresscue jyou, jI would have come wjith an arrmjy."

She kissed him on the cheek tenderly, cradling him close. The fear was there all along, but it was boiling to leave behind crystalized determination.

"Can jyou sstand? jIt jissn't ssafe herre."

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen couldn't recall ever feeling so reluctant to move, and yet the desire to let a few centuries slip by in the arms of a woman clashed with the pain that riddled him, and with her query. A foolhardy attempt at motion sent a sickening wave through him, that squeezed a faint grunt of discomfort from his lungs. He ignored it, tried again, fumbled his hand free from Taataani's so that it could cradle his abdomen while the other fumbled at the wall for purchase. He managed to struggle a knee beneath him, burned skin tugging and tearing with every movement; a stumbled surge and he managed to almost fall onto his feet, hunched over and leaning heavily against the wall.

"Not far," he admitted, feeling all of reality begin to swim and swirl around him, blood frustratingly absent from his head as it invested all it's efforts into finding somewhere to leak from. Taataani was there beside him, waiting to be leaned on, waiting to provide him with the support he needed. How long had she been waiting to do that, he wondered? And why, even now, was his stubborn pride fighting to avoid it?

With all the effort he could muster, he forced his spine a little straighter, and allowed his arm to drape across her shoulders. The former hurt more, but the latter was far more difficult. "We should find cover," he grunted out, trying and failing to sound like his normal self. "Somewhere quiet, so I can bleed out in peace."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

His words ran down her spine like ice. Taataani turned to Vansen's face. The face that had turned ashen and grave with the labors of enduring pain and walking. He faced death staring him down the corridor just as Taurrifar had. Not a sudden snuffing of existence like the one Taataani had dodged without knowing. But a threat of a knife already plunged inside, and with no knowledge if it would travel far enough to finish you. Taurrifar had faced that end as selflessly as he'd loved her. Vansen Tyree was looking at death like he was company at the door that he'd always expected.

Not today. He wouldn't darken that door.

Senator Meorrrei's grasp on the collar of Vansen's jacket tightened enough for him to know she was getting his attention.

"Now jyou ljissten to me, Vanssen Tjyrree..." Taataani's voice evaporated it's patrician notes of status. In it's place was a voice that sounded older. A voice with a foundation of iron. The core of a woman who never suffered a refusal in peace. "No one djiess todajy. jI won't negotjiate orr barrterr down wjith Death, and jyou'rre not forr ssale. jYou arre comjing wjith me, and jyou arre gojing to ssurrvjive."

[Vansen Tyree]

"Or what? You'll have my guts for garters?"

A reedy, sputtering cough of a laugh wheezed it's way out of Vansen's lungs, a faint peppering of breathless chuckles in it's wake.

"Wait another minute or two, and I think they'll have fallen out on the deck for you. Save you any undue rummaging around."

It wasn't funny; but it was, and that was a worry. He'd seen this happen on battlefields before: soldiers so wounded that nothing mattered, shrugging off all other thoughts to great their end with a laugh and a smile. Perhaps it was some instinctive reflex. They said that laughter was the best medicine; perhaps that was true, even in death. From the way the edges of his vision had already begun to corrode into blackness though, Vansen doubted he'd ever find himself in a position to compare and find out.

He forced himself to focus, one step before the other, each yard travelled it's own minor victory. He fixed on the next goal, the next minor milestone. Just one more step. And then just one more; and then another. A cascade of broken promises to himself that it was almost over; an avalanche of one last efforts to convey him onwards until his body failed, or his life did. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't like the last leg of a marathon, where narrow vision could help you push on to the end. Each laboured breath, each staggered pace, they rattled around in a void, disconnected and distant, like surfaces felt through too many layers of thermal gloves. The ache and the wrenching in his gut was still there, but between it stretched a vast expanse of faintness, as if he was being pulled backwards and away from everything his body was being required to do.

"I think -"

He struggled out a word, forced himself to reach out through the dark fog, grasp hold of his senses with the very tips of strained fingers. He needed something else for focus, something else as an anchor, something else that his mind had no choice but to focus on.

"I think you should -" He struggled with the words, his mouth dry and parched, a sensation that slowly spread down his throat. It was a shame the shot had been so low, he idly mused; coughing up a little blood from a damaged lung might be quite handy about now. "- that stance on not, on not selling me to Death." He mustered a smile, and a brief moment of eye contact. "Clearly this Admiral is defective. You should at least -" A pained grimace. "- at least try and recoup your losses. Ask for a refund. See if you can exchange me for -" A laugh this time. "- a newer model."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

She was shouldering more and more of the weight, guiding him with steadfast steps toward the end of the corridor. Ahead lay a lift, and at least the illusory promise of safe harbor. Something grim and unbreakable that always existed under the niceties spurred the Senator on. She kept a firm hold on her Admiral, a hold that was more than physical, but supported his spirit.

"Clearrljy jyou've neverr sshopped forr antjiquess beforre. Thejirr age trransslatess jinto beautjy, and thejy capturre aessthetjicss sseldom sseen jin the contemporrarrjy - and thosse that trrjy lack the authentjicjitjy."

Her cheek brushed against his palid temple, and Taataani allowed herself a smile he could only feel and not see for himself.

"jYou won't talk me out of jyou, Vanssen. jYourr sstubborrnnesss hass an equal."

Arriving at the lift, Taataani slapped the recall switch, waiting the arduous seconds as the car rallied to their location. Only now did she ease him against the wall, cupping a hand to his cheek.

"Forrget bejing noble. Be sselfjissh. What do jyou want? Darre to ljive. Demand jit."

[Vansen Tyree]

Beauty? Of all the words that had been applied to him, im metaphor or otherwise, that was the most absurd.

He understood the sentiment. It was the lament of the veteran, gazing upon the latest crop of starships and starfighters. The technophobe, fumbling at new technology over their dismay of change. They don't make them like they used to. It was true, Vansen supposed. He was a dying breed. A pre-Imperial dog of war, rare even in the peaceful times of their hayday. The Empire inherited but didn't want their style of conscientious patriotism, and the Alliance merely scattered them through the upper echelons like museum relics on display. Such a shame that Taataani and he, two of a kind in that regard, had found themselves placed on different shelves, and not beside each other. Then again, a rusted arrowhead and a priceless vase hardly deserved to be viewed with the same gaze.

Taataani's talk of stubbornness filtered through his mind like a challenge. He grasped at it, wrapped his arms around it tightly, urging himself to exceed and surpass. Too stubborn to die: that he could strive for. That sounded like him. He wasn't going to make it, but he'd stumble and crawl as close as he could. That eould be how he'd be remembered and lamented: not his death, but the fact he hadn't quite survived. What Vansen wanted, what Taataani willed him to strive for, that was too far beyond reach to even consider. But at the very least, he could select a least worst legacy from the handful available.

"What I want -" he replied, mustering his dedication for seven more paces. Six. Five. The elevator doorway loomed. A few more steps. A feebly outstretched arm. A palid vice grip wrapped around the frame, every muscle he could muster colaborating with gravity to drag him inside and slump against the lift wall. "- is a kriffing drink."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Taataani pulled him the rest of the way, clearing the threshold as they both dropped to the floor. She leaned over him to access the controls, closing the door and entering the selection for the command deck. The computer buzzed in a negative tone, indicating that command level access had been locked out. The Senator glowered at the screen, looking to the closest thing to the summit that they were allowed - Deck Six.

She took the option. The door glided closed on it's hemispherical track, and they began to ascend.

It gave Taataani a moment needed to assess the situation. Vansen lay on the floor, still losing blood. That the shot hadn't simply cauterized hinted to the possibility of a major blood vessel being struck. He wasn't pooling out on the floor yet, but the slick of his clothes told the tale. He was going to need medical attention soon.

All of this seemed familiar. It forced Taataani to go back to that fateful day with Captain Merasska and Taurrifar, when she had to learn to do grim things in order to survive. It was a bitter lesson to return to, because she'd done everything right during the crisis and still come up short. Faced with a dilemma she couldn't charm, bully, or spend her way out of. The ugly specter of powerlessness could be felt over her shoulder.

A kriffing drink.

She gave her charge a lopsided smile, turning back again to the access hatch marked below the control console. A recessed handle was reached for, and with the twist of her wrist, the latch came free, opening an emergency cubby that included a fire suppressor tank and a basic first aid kit. Taataani pulled the latter free, clattering it on the floor alongside Vansen.

"A drrjink, huh?"

She slid along the floor next to him, opening the case.

"Don't thjink thejy packed one jin herre, but jI'll let jyou know jif jI fjind a drram of jIsslajy."

He was cool to her touch, and that worried the Senator. She dared not to let that vulnerability show as she found a pair of medical shears.

"Orr a flassk of Gau'eih. jYou mjight jusst meet jyourr match therre."

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen let out a grunt. "The state I'm in, I'd settle for medical ethanol." A cough suddenly cascaded it's way up from inside him, made worse by the reflexive wince as his innards tugged and shifted around the charred hull breach in his gut. The hand that had risen to cover his mouth came away speckled with red. He'd have turned a shade paler, if his complexion weren't already riding the bottom line.

It was a stupid design flaw in human evolution. No redundancy. No back-up. When the human body was injured enough to go into shock, blood rushed to the critical systems; but when those systems were the source of the problem, it hardly helped. It was like pumping reactor fuel into breached generators: all it did was make space a little bit less of a vacuum as futility wasted your vital reserves away. Starship designers worked around it. Back-up generators. Auxiliary conduits. Batteries to keep the lights on even if the main reactor went down; oxygen reserves to make sure that things kept breathing, even without life support. Evolution had that too: decentralised nervous systems, bicardial circulation, regenerative immune responses; a veritable R&D collection of experimented options. None for humans, though. Perhaps that was the real reason that human superiority had so aggressively dominated so many eras of galactic history: the realisation that, if humanity did not keep the rest of sentient life suppressed, human inferiority would become obvious, and their extinction would be assured.

Another cough rippled through Vansen's entire body, reinforcements close behind, the onslaught leaving him with nothing but wheezing empty lungs. He could feel the void where his breaths were no longer reaching; partially collapsed lung at a guess. One of the shots must have ruptured his internal piping, and made a fist-sized lump of his chest pretty much useless. He struggled to make his eyes focus on Taataani, wondering what gifts and coping mechanisms evolution had graced her with for a situation such as this. A faint ghost of a smile managed to form on his lips, glad the Force had seen fit to orient their roles this way, rather than the alternative. Taataani Meorrrei was a vital organ for the Alliance; essential for whatever lay ahead for the galaxy. A relic of the past versus the face of the future: an easy sacrifice to accept.

Only now did Vansen register the hand resting atop Taatani's. Feeling was fading from his extremities. Power failing on the lower decks. Not a good sign. "Right now," he mustered, few traces of how he was meant to sound remaining, "I'd settle for a shot of that fire suppressant."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

So the shot looked bad. That was the Senator's unqualified opinion, but the fact that the point of impact cremation was still seeping blood hinted at more than just visceral trauma. The shot may have hit a major vein or artery. Taataani quickly tore the antiseptic swab from it's seal, thickly applying a layer of yellow smear against the bloody epicenter. Next came a kolto patch, applied with pressure that she maintained with one hand, while cradling the Admiral's head with the other. She ran fingers soothingly along the thin crop of white hair, keeping his eye on her face and away from any worry of the wound.

"jYou sshouldn't ssettle forr lesss than the besst, Vanssen. Thjiss wjill passs. jYou'll be back on jyourr feet ssoon."

She'd say it until it was reality, because that is what a rrou'fai did. Taataani held him close.

"Do jyou hunt?" She asked, turning the topic away from matters of finality. "jI have a rranch on Fey'dann. Two mjilljion hectarress of unsspojiled naturre."

[Vansen Tyree]

"I spent my life in space."

Another time he might have found it undignified, might have tried to pull himself away from Taataani's gently soothing display of affection, might have locked his answers and memories in the same vault that always safeguarded him. But now, the world felt too dim and distant to care, the end looming too close at hand for evasive secrecy.

"I joined the -" A grimace of pain. "- Judicial Fleet looking for adventure. Fighter pilot on a Customs Frigate. Chasing pirates. Smugglers. Closest to hunting I ever really got."

He tried to shift, tried to make himself an iota more comfortable. His body protested, legs completely refusing to allow themselves to be moved at all.

"I was married to the job. Engaged to the uniform, that's what Grace called it."

A laugh. A cough. A moment of sombre silence. Grace. There were some people you spent a lifetime trying to remember; others you spent a lifetime trying to forget. With Grace, Vansen had the misfortune of both. He'd already been a seasoned veteran by the time they'd first met; already losing his hair; already grim and grizzled, certain that his future was destined to be a lonely one, and utterly resigned to that fact. And then he had met her. So gentle. So peaceful. The opposite of everything he was, and knew. She became his anchor, his something to come home to, drawing him back into the world after every voyage into the murky depths of space.

The Clone Wars had torn them apart. Vansen was a young man from Rendili. The Navy was in his blood. If there was a war to wage, he wanted to be part of it. Needed to be. Grace had said that she understood; she knew that Vansen had to be true to who he was. She would have waited, if he'd only asked. He never had the heart. It was a regret he tried to reconcile: as soon as the war was over he found her again, but time had changed them both. The love was still there, but there was a distance; an obstacle between them; something broken in disassembly that couldn't quite be put back together again. Their marriage was exactly what it needed to be, blissful and happy for the times they were together, but Grace did not agonise over his absence; didn't suffer during the long periods her husband sent sailing the stars. It was more than Vansen deserved, he knew that; and year by year the anchor slipped, Vansen drifting further and further out to see.

Her death didn't just break the chain on the anchor: it tore the mount clear off the hull of his heart, leaving nothing but a void. He drifted, untethered, into the lonely future he'd known was awaiting him all along.

And yet something was different. Something was wrong. Here he was at the end, and here came the darkness and silence; but against all predictions, all expectations, he wasn't alone. Taataani was here. A friend, at the least; perhaps more, though he'd never know. He'd thought himself resigned and accepting of how his end would come, but now it was here, now that it closed around him and dragged away all the light and colour from the world, he was glad to face it with an ally.

Mustering all the effort he could, a feeble hand shifted, resting atop the one that cradled his bleeding wound.

"I don't want to die," he said softly. The words were weak, whispered; too late. "I don't -"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Words she'd heard a lifetime ago, but not so long ago that Taataani couldn't feel the chill of snow on her skin. Her first love. Her Moon-Sent. Her treasured Arr'fai. Was this her fate again? To play death's handmaiden to a better man than to deserve the fate? Did she pray to the Goddess for Vansen's soul? The same Goddess who'd taken Taurrifar, would She be more merciful to a forrda that self-righteous fools said wasn't worthy of Her grace? If that was Saanjarra's law, then She was no Goddess at all. Taataani had never been a pious woman, but she was born with the secularism of the privileged. Was this simply her punishment, yet again, for being worldly? What punishment did she deserve? What about Taurrifar? What of Vansen?

"jIf jit'ss me jYou want, Goddesss," Taataani whispered, looking at the ceiling of the lift as she cradled Vansen closer, "then jYou trruljy have poorr ajim."

She smoothed over the the hair on Vansen's head.

"jI'm not hjidjing frrom jYou and jI neverr have. jYou can make an example of me wheneverr jYou pleasse, but jYou go jinsstead afterr everrjyone who doessn't desserrve jit."

Taa blinked away a hot tear, her lower lip quavering on a face otherwise fixed in anger.

"Don't jYou darre take frrom me agajin ljike thjiss, jYou vjindjictjive cowarrd."

[Arnan Jsorra]

* * *

Hours Later...

Jovan Station was in disarray. Carnage. Chaos. Damage control teams wrestled frantically to suture haemorrhaging conduits, weld splints onto fractured bulkheads, and keep the station's vital innards, fluids, and everything else from bleeding out into the harsh vacuum of space. Alliance soldiers and Cizerack Marines roamed the halls like white blood cells, attacking every pocket of battle droid infection that they came across. Triage teams rushed from bio-sign to bio-sign, convoys of orderlies, soldiers, and conscripted volunteers carrying the still-living to the nearest clinics and medbays. What happened to the rest, Arnan Jsorra wasn't sure. Perhaps they were simply left were they were, a lesser crisis to be dealt with when matters were less pressing. Perhaps they were ferried out of sight, rooms of bodies lined up side by side, or stacked up in storage closets, or whatever it was the military did with the dead. Neither option was reassuring, and the more moments spent dwelling on it, the worse the alternatives became.

Arnan escaped by burying himself in his work.Perhaps that was a misnomer: playing field medic was hardly part of his job description; but needs must, and right now Jovan Station needed all medically-trained hands on deck. Someone with an unexpected iota of foresight had sent him here: a severe trauma ward, filled with those worst affected by the attack; somewhere that his skills as a psychologist and pharmacologist might do some good. Drugs and words: for many of these patients, one or the other was about all their doctors could offer.

Some were still clad in torn and scorched Alliance uniforms, cut away in places as their physicians wrestled to reach the most pressing injuries; but an uncomfortable number were not. Many were unsuspecting civilians, caught in the crossfire of a cancerous political dispute that had metastasised to a place it didn't belong. He wondered why each of them had found their way to Jovan Station. How many wives and husbands of the officers assigned here? How many refugees, driven from their homes by the Empire, here by necessity because there was no where else to go? How many merchants and travellers, people just passing through on their way to the galaxy's far corners, simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Arnan glanced at the datapad in his hands: the next person in need of some comforting words. From the clashing cacophony of consonants and vowels, a Cizerack seemed like a likely guess; and she was hard to miss, her battle-worn attire no less eye-catching amid the bleak and dreary surroundings of the medbay.

"Excuse me," Arnan said softly, softness and sympathy wrapped like a bandage around his painfully Core Worlds accent. "Taataani?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Her head swiveled quickly, ears raised at the sound of her name. Taataani's expression a moment ago had been one of listless searching, uncertainty, worry. The worry remained, piqued at her own invocation, but it was a complicated expression she wore. Something more ambivalent, with an undercurrent of hope.

That disarray she conveyed in a moment was a sum of her condition head to toe. Her wig, disheveled but still seated and betraying nothing. Her makeup ruined, invaded by soot, a trace streak of dried blood, mascara that had long ago run and dried in place. A designer dress destined to never be worn again, torn to serve as a kind of gauze. Yet even in disarray, the harried Baroness wore the squalor of a warzone with gravitas. Her shoulders didn't slouch with gravity. She did not glimpse the deck. Telltale signs of an upbringing that stressed the importance of never showing the deepest wounds in public, and to always be the name they called you.

Taataani looked to the man in the white coat, not fully comprehending it was her name that he'd called. She'd been listening for someone else's, hoping to glean a shred of good news.

[Arnan Jsorra]

Arnan knew that look; knew those eyes. It didn't matter that he was barely eight chapters into his reading on Cizerack mannerisms and psychology: some reactions, some looks, some emotions were universal. Not everyone agreed, especially within Imperial circles; but Arnan was a firm believer in the idea that no matter the race or species, no matter the differences and variations, there was something common and unified beneath it all - something that made every living soul in the galaxy fundamentally the same. Whether it was the Force, or the manda, or whatever other term could be applied to it, Arnan didn't know or care: all he knew, and all that mattered, was that living things were all equally capable of the same basics; they could all laugh, and love, and lose, and suffer.

He softened his expression as best as he could, but the expression faltered for an instant as he glanced at the datapad again. His attention had been to find the right title, and to determine her relationship to the patient in question. Terms like Senator and Admiral didn't help in that regard, but it certainly amended his understanding of the situation.

"Senator Meorrrei, I -"

He stopped himself, pausing before he abandoned his own philosophy. It didn't take a degree in psychology to see that Taataani was too rattled by her experiences to still be here if the Admiral was a mere colleague. Whether they were friends, or more, or less, or something else entirely; it didn't matter. She was here, and she was waiting; that meant that Vansen Tyree mattered.

"I have news about the Admiral."

Arnan's words were carefully chosen, as was the tone. He kept things clear, and factual, but a long way from clinical. The last thing a person needed at a moment such as this was someone cold and withdrawn; they wanted warmth, they wanted hope, and that was something Arnan could provide. It was why he was here, and not some droid.

"It isn't the best news, but it is positive. Vansen is stable. His vitals are weak, but they aren't fading. The bacta is keeping him with us, for now."

He let that sentiment hang for a moment, let the information settle in, watching for Taataani's reaction to play out across her face. The faintest ghost of a grimace tugged at his lips.

"That's not a long term solution though. We can only keep him in the tank for so long, and he's lost a lot of blood."

The pause was much shorter this time: just enough to let the facts be understood, without giving follow-on worries an opportunity to take root.

"We already have an analysis droid processing his blood work, and scrubbing through our medical records for a potential match. We're cross-checking against everyone on the station, and all the ships within range have transmitted their files as well. If there is a viable donor within a lightyear, we'll find them."

A furrow tugged at Arnan's brow.

"What we can't do is access Admiral Tyree's records directly. Our long range transceiver is down, so we can't contact Bothawui to find out if he has any pre-existing conditions, allergies, religious or cultural limitations on what treatments are allowed -"

He trailed off, his point more than made.

"We've submitted a request to one of the nearby ships to try and source that information for us, but we have a lot of patients and not necessarily a lot of time. I was hoping you might be able to help provide some of that information for us. Do you know the Admiral well?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

It galled Taataani that there were problems still in the galaxy that couldn't be overtopped or overwhelmed by either money or her force of will or both. But that was the situation presented to her now. The Doctor (she assumed, he wore a white jacket after all) was giving her good news with the bad. But she'd made that sales pitch before and knew that on balance, it was bad. A long shot for a donor, and few ways to find the source of the right sort of blood.

She'd fished a cigarette halfway from her case before realizing that there was no smoking in the med bay. Instead, she merely rolled the filter between thumb and forefinger as a tactile comfort.

"We'rre acquajinted prrofesssjionalljy."

Taataani could hear her own voice creak with hoarse tones. She didn't make eye contact with the doctor.

"He'ss a veterran frrom the warr - the Clone Warr," she amended, noting now the Doctor's young face, that she may have to clarify the point.

"He'ss fond of Sstewjon Whjisskjy and hatess poljitjicss, doessn't mjince worrdss but guarrdss hjiss emotjionss. He'ss a wjidowerr."

So too was she, to some degree. Taa looked down at the crushed filter of her cigarette.

"jI don't know hjim well. But jI wass sstarrtjing to thjink jI'd have the chance."

[Arnan Jsorra]

A doctor knew how to read between the lines, especially when it came to extracting information from patients or next of kin that was reluctantly given. Even in a crisis such as this, no one wanted to paint themselves or a loved one in anything but the best light possible, regardless of how vital honesty could be. Ask someone how much they drank, or smoked, or what their drug use was like, and you'd hear the answer that was closest to socially acceptable. Ask someone how much they cared, and they'd tell you the answer that made them sound the strongest, deflecting the doctor's concern back to the patient where it was needed most.

Acquainted professionally. That made sense for an Admiral and a Senator. But they clearly worked together: she knew his tastes, and knew the way he handled himself; not merely some uniform she passed in the corridor, then. That was good, better a familiar face than a stranger, if and when the Admiral woke up. From the sound of it, a familiar face was likely the closest thing to a next of kin they might be able to find. And then there were those final words, delivered in a quiet tone that made Arnan's heart ache.

A hand still clutching his datapad, the other reached out to rest gently against Senator Meorrrei's forearm, the gesture clearly in view of her downturned eyes. "We're doing everything we can," he assured, with as much earnest sincerity as he could muster. "None of us are giving up, and if Vansen is going to pull through this, he's going to need the same from you."

A soft flicker of a smile tugged at Arnan's lips, a faint sliver of medicinal humour applied.

"For starters, he's going to need a drink when he wakes up to watch the bacta taste out of his mouth, and I wouldn't know a Stewjon Whisky if it came up and punched me in the face."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

He was good. Taataani's eyes momentarily met his, and she knew exactly that sort of social manipulation. Sure, it was a completely different circumstance, but the skills to read someone and know exactly how to incentivize them to work to your purpose wasn't a small thing.

He needed her to leave. She desperately wanted to feel useful and to make a difference. There really wasn't anything else to say. Who cared if half the station was smashed and she'd probably never find the proper tipple needed to toast his recuperation.

"jI thjink jI know jusst the one." Taataani nodded, draping a hand over the Doctor's own hand to give it a pat.

She rose from her seat with a grunt, suddenly aware of the aches and pains she'd accumulated over the ordeal. It was short-lived. She gave a glance to Vansen in the distance, serene yet pallid, then turned back to the Doctor.

She wanted to say thank you, but it was still premature. She simply nodded.

[Vansen Tyree]

* * *

Your life was supposed to flash before your eyes. Was that not how this was supposed to work? Images of childhood. Memories of happier days. Loves found. Loves lost. Family. Milestones. Regrets. Death was supposed to provide a sense of clarity of who you were, something that you could embrace or change if you were lucky enough to survive. Vansen Tyree saw only a stranger.

He watched a young boy, sickly and unsure, beaten and stamped into the specific mould that his father had chosen for him. He watched him comply, watched him rebel, watched him learn that what he did was of no consequence: his path was set, and there could be no deviation from it. He watched an uncle intervene, his warm and insightful Jedi ways a gentle temper to the father's attempts to forge the boy into steel. He watched the seed of something planted in the boy's mind: potential, optimism, aspiration. He watched the boy surrender to his father's wishes, not in submission but in exploitation. He watched as the blacksmith's hammer drove him onwards with new resolve, The grating personality of his old man sharpening his edges and his instincts. He watched those edges used to cut the boy free, liberating him onto a path of his own choosing.

He watched the old man wither away, sickness shrinking him into something feeble and frail that the boy felt ashamed to still resent.

Before his perception, the boy transformed into a man, though perhaps not quite as quickly as the boy believed. He watched as those sharp edges made him confident, then cocky, then arrogant, far too sure of himself and his skill. He watched him use himself as a lever, prying open opportunities wherever he could find them. He watched him advance through open doorways, climbing up the ladder of authority; and also through doorways that led to strangers' bed after strangers' bed, a string of nameless and faceless encounters where his heart was shrugged aside as casually as his clothes. Then he watched it change, the one unexpected face that stole his heart and hid it away, a tether that drew him back time and again, far more for his benefit than for hers.

He watched as the man's fortune changed, The tide of history splintering the blade in half, leaving him blunted and shortened. He watched the man lament and wallow, a broken broadsword no longer long enough to reach the fight; and slowly he watched a mentor, a brother, trim off the splintered edges and sharpen the blade back into something that could still get the job done. He watched the man's attitudes change, no longer the sweeping elegant strokes of a broadsword, but the brutal and decisive punch of a dagger. He watched the man find his place, and root himself; and ached to see how far away he had rooted himself from the face that held his heart. The tether stretched and strained, growing ropey and frayed; as a result the rooted man withered, starved of joy and drained of purpose, left only with the echoed husk of obligation. He watched as the tether finally broke, the face fading, and his heart lost from sight along with it.

The rooted man grew gnarled and twisted, aging and withering into a chilling reminder of the old man he resented so much. He watched him stand alone, a wilted tree on a lonely hilltop, casting a shadow across nothing but graves. He felt the chill of eternity gust over him, the shadow of death looming on the horizon. But as he peered closer, he spotted tiny flecks of green: the faintest glimmer of new growth amid the twisted branches. Looking closer still, the leaves stared back with familiar faces. Adonis. Carré. Kelly. Leela. Jaden. Regan. Cirrsseeto. John. More leaves budded open; soon there were squadrons of them, a fresh and verdant canopy draped across the withered tree. A blossom even began to slowly open, it's opulent silks and sparkling eyes utterly unmistakable. The more he watched, the more he saw; and as he managed to pry his attention away from the field of graves, he saw the meadows, and forests, and towns and cities that stretched out towards the horizon in all directions. An Alliance of people, a galaxy of life, all beneath the withered tree's watchful gaze.

He felt a tug, a weight on his branches, a sensation that slowly shifted and transformed into the gentle grip of a hand around his. He felt his perception stir, The sky fading into night above him, and yet somehow a sunset remained, burning on the horizon. His brow flickered, and the sunset stretched, piercing through the closed eyelid of his one good eye. It tore itself open, blinking to restore his vision; but where his stolen eye usually perceived only darkness, the faint after image of the sunset tree remained.

Vansen moved the slightest amount, and immediately regretted it. A faint, muffled groan heralded his consciousness, his gaze settling on the hand of Senator Meorrrei wrapped around his, sitting vigil at his bedside. A tired but contented grunt escaped him as his eye closed once more, body sinking back into the padding and pillows of his medical bed.

"Sorry Senator," he offered in a raspy voice that carried with it the bitter taste of bacta. "I think I got blood on your dress."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

"Thjink nothjing of jit, Admjirral. jI have a grreat manjy."

It had been days. In their wake, the station had taken steps to pull itself together. To heal the visible wounds, as well as the ones that survived first inspection. It had been time enough for Taataani to banish the signs of disarray from her person. As she said, now she wore a new dress of patterned and embroidered white. Even her hair was different - arrayed as a mane of blonde ringlets that cascaded over her shoulders. Even in the artificial cool white light of the infirmary, it framed the illumination in a golden hue.

What a pitiable face he was. Taataani smoothed her hand against his cheek.

"Do jyou want ssomethjing to drrjink? jI have cjitrruss waterr."

[Vansen Tyree]

It had been his own fault: he had called her Senator, and she had merely followed his lead. Even so, hearing that formality hurt, stabbing like a knife to his gut which bacta had barely finished stitching back together. Something felt different, some sort of change that Vansen could not quite fathom, and it left those words from her voice sounding wrong. She shouldn't be calling him Admiral: not now, not after everything, not here at his bedside. It was a word he had become accustomed to hearing and acknowledging as simply another name for himself; but he wanted something different, wanted to hear the way her accent wrestled with his Rendili vowels, wanted to hear the cadence of familiarity and fondness that she'd smuggled into those two simple syllables.

He ignored her question, his free hand rising gently to play with one of the Golden ringlets that framed her face. It came perilously close to brushing against her cheek, but not quite; not yet. Perhaps not ever. "You did something with your hair."

It was a foolish statement. His second in a row. It was the best he could muster, fighting against the blanket of numbness that the abating medication had draped across his mind. The hand fell back, settling into place against his chest. His eye closed again for a long moment, deliberate effort taken behind the closed lid to organise his thoughts into some sort of rational order. A somber note crept into his thin and weary voice. "I thought I was -"

Over. That was the word that struck like a hammer blow. Not dead, but over. The idea that he would die some day was a contant consideration for a man with a career such as this. A few decades ago he'd faced it every day; less so during his years with the Empire, but more again with the Rebellion. Every pirate encounter, every convoy skirmish, every patrol and battle and routine three hour reconnaissance could have been the final step on the path towards the end of his life. It had never affected him until now, not really. Even in this moment, it wasn't death that scared him: there would be peace in that, and there was an honour in giving his life for a cause that was worth it. Until today however, he'd always felt ready; content that the possibility existed. In some ways, he almost welcomed it: a fitting end to a veteran career. Today however, Vansen's world felt unfinished. His life felt unfinished. Beyond service, beyond duty, there were things worth living for: things that had always been there, but he'd apparently lacked the requisite eyes to see them.

The first was Taataani Meorrrei. She was here. A station in disarray. A Senator for the Alliance of Free Planets. A mother and matriarch. A baroness and businesswoman. Far more than just merely those. She surely had better things to be doing, more important places to be, and yet that was an assessment she had rejected. She was here, at his side, waiting. It was not something that Vansen could quite grasp or define, and yet that simple fact did more to soothe the pain and discomfort he felt than any of the medications pumping through his veins.

Weakly, he squeezed her hand an iota tighter.

"I'm glad you're here, Taataani."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

That simple statement was as sure a sign of life as breath and pulse. Taataani's smile grew, dimpling slightly at the margins. She leaned toward him, closing the distance they shared. Distance unfit for an Admiral and a Senator, but a hearthstone for Vansen and Taataani. She turned her hand over against his cheek, cupping his pallid skin with marbled cocoa. He was cool to the touch, and she gladly gave him warmth.

"jI'm glad jyou came back, Vanssen. jYou made the chojice. jI don't know how, but jI beljieve jit. Whetherr jit'ss a ljight calljing jyourr name, a Goddesss Above and a Goddesss Below pulljing jyou. jI don't know. jI don't want to know. But jyou came back forr a powerrful rreasson."

The Senator drew in a careful breath and let it out in slow release. Her limpid blue eyes stared into his own.

"jI'm not sso prroud asss to not admjit that jI hope jit wass forr me."

[Vansen Tyree]

It would have been so easy to say that it was. A lie perhaps, or a partial truth at least, but one that could have accomplished so much. For a moment Vansen felt the words forming in his throat. Did he not deserve this opportunity, a chance for victory without the battle, just this once? Perhaps he did, but Taataani deserved better. These were old habits, old mistakes, old techniques employed by the man Vansen had stopped being not long after the Republic died. The Vansen of now was different, and whiile mistakes would surely be made, Taataani deserved her own bespoke set of new mistakes, not errors and blunders of a recycled vintage.

"I came back," Vansen answered, managing to soldier his way past the struggles of his throat, mustering some degree of strength and certainty in his voice, "Because old and weary as I am... when I saw the end, I realised I wasn't ready. I have too much. Too much to lose. Too much to do. Too much left unfinished, too much left unstead. Too much -"

His voice faltered, and he realised that his gaze had been elsewhere. An Admiral's habit, a necessary injection of distance between you and those receiving your orders. One that would be hard to break, but that needed to be. He focused on his hands for a moment, adjusting the way they rested atop Taataani's, moving her fingers to rest atop his chest, and the soft but steady heartbeat. Next he found her eyes, brilliant and blue as always. Perhaps that was why his gaze avoided them: for fear of becoming lost.

"- that hasn't yet had a chance to be."

There was a flicker of something that almost seemed like a smile, utterly alien to his grizzled Rendili lips.

"Was it for you?" He struggled with the question, struggled to find an answer he was comfortable with and confident in. "No, and yes, and I'm not sure. But I -"

He stifled a cough, refusing to let the frailty of his body impede on a moment such as this.

"I hope I will have the chance to find out."

[Taataani Meorrrei]

The litany of fears that kept Vansen from surrendering to death sounded familiar to her. To a woman who'd spent her entire life expanding her empire - all ultimately to ensure that she'd never fail those nearest to her. There were cold and cynical days when she wondered if that was just an excuse. Had she sharpened her ambition, cunning, and ruthlessness because those things were their own ends? On the ramparts, it was sometimes hard to see the little house on the hill that everything was built to protect.

Taataani needed reminding from time to time. It renewed her. It made her feel young.

"Herre'ss to the chance."

Ever so gently, Taataani leaned in close. Her lips pressed softly against his cheek. A moment to share. A moment to consider.

[Vansen Tyree]

It was like a knife wound when that moment came to a reluctant end, Vansen wishing from his core that it might have lasted a while longer. When you were alone for so long, you convinced yourself that you didn't miss it: that being close to someone wasn't all it was cracked up to be, that you'd grown beyond the need for such things. When it came to the major factors, perhaps that was even true; but it was the little things that got you, the tiny moments and gestures, the looks, the smiles, the private jokes, the turns of phrase that they never quite let go of, the small reminders that your existence mattered to someone outside of just yourself.

It was like real gravity, or fresh air: you could get used to existing without them, but the instant you set foot back on solid ground, you remembered what it was you were evolved for, and after so many years alone among the stars it felt just the smallest bit like coming home.

"Much as I'm happy to take all the credit -"

The words came out a little closer to normal, and Vansen's lungs regretted it, just as his body regretted the unthinking reflex movement that tried to shift him an inch or so closer to a comfortable sitting position. He grimaced at the momentary increase of pain, and then grimaced at the grimace, several seconds passing before he managed to unravel his expression and restore all the hard work that had gone into that microscopic smile.

"I'm pretty sure I was dragged back as much as I chose it."

His eye peered at his surroundings, the medication slowly beginning to clear enough for his senses to begin registering useful things. They were still on the station: the decor was undeniably Imperial, but efforts had been made to soften the harshness of the hard lines and greys with paint and plants and clutter. It was certainly the station rather than a repurposed starship, too: spend enough time in the Fleet, and the rumble of drive systems, the subtle shifts of artificial gravity trying to compensate for inertia and motion, and even the way the bottled atmosphere changed it's taste and scent based on how it was circulated all conspired to form a latent sixth sense about such things.

Curiosity tugged at Vansen's brow; the last thing he remembered was losing consciousness in Taataani's arms, a few half-conscious flickers of submersion in a bacta tank not withstanding. His gaze shifted back to the Senator, wondering just what lengths she had taken to secure his survival.

"How did I even get here, and who do I have to thank for patching up my hull breaches?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

"A doctorr bjy the name of..."

The normally-unflappable Senator paused, her smile dimming as she glanced into space.

"...funnjy. jI neverr actualljy got hjiss name. jYoung humanjoid, rratherr attrractjive."

Her ears rose. She hadn't considered Vansen to be the jealous sort, and he'd likely find no harm in innocent looking-about. But that was hardly worth dwelling on. He'd broached a subject that he didn't quite understand. It was time to bring him up to speed. Taataani found the Admiral's cold hand on his chest, and she held it gently with both of hers as she talked.

"Vanssen, therre'ss ssomethjing jyou sshould know. jYou losst a lot of blood. The sstaff had to worrk harrd to fjind a ssujitable donorr, and wjith the sstatjion on lockdown, therre arre verrjy few wjith jyourr blood tjype."

[Vansen Tyree]

"Bet you didn't realise I was a one in a billion sort of human, eh?"

That in itself wasn't news. He'd had the same conversation with every Chief Medical Officer he'd ever served with, heard the lectures about how damned inconvenient it was to reprogram the blood synthesis machines on starships that had them, opened up a vein periodically to build up a stockpile of his own blood on ships that hadn't. Perhaps that had been a small silver lining when his career had begun to move away from combat command to strategic command: Admirals at fleet headquarters didn't need to go to such lengths to ready themselves for danger or injury. He wasn't supposed to be getting shot at these days. That he'd not brought a supply with him on this visit to Jovan Station was perhaps an oversight; even without whatever attack had transpired here, being this close to the border should have flagged a potential risk that he should have considered. Live and learn. Fortunately, he had the opportunity to.

One word stuck out in his mind. Donor. His particular blood time was an odd quirk of divergent evolution among the human population on Rendili. No other planet in the galaxy had that particular string of extra antigens, and even on Rendili it was incredibly rare. Scientists and historians had traced it back through the generations to a particular geographic region; and while they were confident there was no single common ancestor, the leading theory was some sort of exposure during the early days of colonization, or perhaps even aboard one of the sleeper ships that had first brought humanity to Rendili eons ago.

Regardless of the specifics, it all meant one thing: Vansen was incredibly lucky. He was hardly the only person from Rendili in the Alliance, but one whose ancestors hailed from that same tiny region of the homeworld, finding themselves in this tiny corner of the Alliance, on the far side of the galaxy, exactly when he needed it? Vansen wasn't some Force skeptic, he'd seen Jedi first hand and knew what the Force could allow them to do; but he'd always been confident and comfortable in the knowledge that whatever the Force was, it didn't give a rats ass about him. Now, evidence seemed to be pointing to the contrary, and Vansen wasn't sure if he felt more willing to accept that this was mystical intervention, or just random chance.

He looked down at himself, frowning a little as he felt strangle tingles and sensations moving through his body. He knew it was psychosomatic; he knew there was no way his mind could perceive the presence of foreign blood in his veins, and yet it tried to convince him that they could. It wasn't unwelcome - quite the contrary, since the damned stuff was busy keeping him alive - but it was strange. Not something he'd ever had to wrestle with before; any transfusion he'd received in the past had either been synthetic, or his own.

Slowly, he flexed the hand he found himself staring at.

"I guess that narrows down the list of people to thank," he half-muttered, half-grumbled, though the words were good natured, affected only by the grizzled lilt his voice always carried. A faint flicker of curiosity got the better of him. "So whose the unfortunate soul whose blood I've stolen?"

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Taataani squeezed Vansen's hand gently, lending her presence and her warmth to him. He needed to hear this, but there was something in her that questioned whether it ought to come from her. Why was she better suited than the Doctor from before? But rather than feeling standoffish or reluctant, she was honored. Deeply so.

"Therre'ss no jill forrtune at all. The donorr...sshe'ss jyourr daughterr."