As accurate a summation as she could have given. And a depressing one. Rai'faani continued to chew at her jeeta, kneading away it's euphoric sap to offset her persistent cynical ennui.
"Loveljy. Well, now that jI'm concerrned about the trragjic downfall of mjy famjiljy jI'm ssurrprrjissjingljy no longerr horrnjy. A pjitjy. jI don't ssupposse mjy darrljing ssjissterr hass gjiven jyou herr rroom clearrance sso jI can leave thesse bagss jin herr quarrterrss?"
He watched with a small bit of curiosity as she chewed the leaf, but it was a careful curiosity.
A last look to the crowds around them, and the rangy blonde gave a slow nod. Which, with such a small act, seemed to earn him most of the load as Rai'faani handed over each bag. There were more than he'd originally thought, and both hands had to come out of his pockets to hold them all.
Blinking, Dage gave a sideways tilt of his head, his eyes looking in the direction they'd need to start moving.
"Come on, then."
On the other side of the habitation section
Was it serendipity or a distraction? Maybe both in some way. Senator Meorrrei had worked out the identity of another high-profile person aboard her daughter's space station. With the notion of confronting T'yeellaa postponed due to some manufactured reason, Taataani instead sought out a challenge of a different sort. One that didn't bear the portent of delivering bad news she hadn't quite figured out how to address.
A pity there were no proper humidors on Jovan. Taataani knew well enough to never arrive empty handed to a social engagement, no matter how private it may be. Unfortunately, there simply wasn't a cigar worthy of selection on the entire space station. She wasn't even certain if he'd taken a shine to the one's she'd originally gifted to him, but Admiral Tyree had taste in whisky. It would fit the man so well to make an afficionado of him. The whisky was an artful guess. Stewjon Highland Single Malt. Some guttural gibberish name no decent tongue out to try and pronounce. The shop owner tried, and she wore the result. Suffice to say she didn't pay full price and had the good fortune to sample from another bottle ahead of time. It was smoky and coarse and almost climbed out of the glass without a spot of water to keep it in place. Her tastes tended more to the subtle and sublime of Lantillian Extra Reserve, but this wasn't about her. She knew her audience well. It was an expensive way to cajole a conversation in passing and perhaps more, but Taataani had an eye for appraisal. There were many eyes that would pass over Vansen Tyree without a pause. Not hers.
She pressed the chime to his door.
Vansen let out a grunt, and then blinked, glancing around himself in mild confusion. The surroundings were unfamiliar. This wasn't his desk, wasn't his office; wasn't his quarters, even. It took a moment of memory and a glance down at the datapad that had fallen to rest against his chest to recall the events of the last forty-eight hours. He'd arrived on Jovan Station under the auspices of an inspection by the Alliance Navy's point man for Joint Operations, but in reality it had been a mix of curiosity and the frustrated desire to escape from Bothawui for a few days that had carried him here. There was very little about being an Admiral that he actually enjoyed: being a Captain for the last several decades had been bad enough, but at least he'd grown accustomed to being on a bridge instead of a cockpit; he hoped desperately that the endless meetings and bickering would never become comfortable or familiar to him. Maneuvering and strategy were second nature to him, but the political battlefield was not something he wanted to become a veteran of.
His Admiral stars did at least grant some small benefits though, and Vansen exploited the opportunity to use "inspections" as a code word to facilitate his desire to see things in person, stick his nose in, and meddle. As far as Jovan Station was concerned, he had no particular desire to interfere in Kes Akiena's command; but it was one thing to read the reports about the teething difficulties and myriad obstacles that the Station faced, and another entirely to witness it for yourself. This was an effort that Vansen believed in strongly: not just a strong border outpost, but a haven for cooperation between the races; though having a substantial staging point so close to Imperial Space was not an insignificant advantage either. It was difficult though, to stand there and fight Jovan's corner against the bureaucrats and politicians of Bothawui, when everything about it was just names on a page. He had to be here; had to witness it with his own eye, feel it's decks beneath his boots. Just being here in person, even if only for a day or two, had made the station real.
Alas, fleeing Bothawui did not allow him to evade his responsibilities entirely. From the look of things he'd fallen asleep reading deployment reports and funding reviews, again. He rubbed a hand across the empty socket where an eye had once been, his eyepatch discarded on the desk in front of him to spare his skull from having to wear it any longer than necessary. It took a moment to comprehend what it was that had roused him from his administrative slumber; a chime from the door.
"Hang on," he grunted, stiffly pushing the chair out from the desk and heaving his aching bones to standing. He glanced at the uniform jacket hanging on the back of the chair, before uttering a "Bah," and waving his hand at it dismissively. If someone wanted to come pester him, they'd just have to tolerate finding him half out of uniform. He did at least snag the eyepatch as he passed; with a stifled yawn and a scratch at the layered undershirts over his chest, he jabbed a finger to release the locking mechanism on the door, and began to settle his eyepatch back into place.
Surprise crossed his features as he instantly recognised the figure waiting for him beyond the threshold. "Sen-" He caught himself, waiting a beat before making the correction that Senator Meorrrei would insist upon. "Taataani."
Suddenly, Vansen found himself very self-conscious about the uniform jacket he'd neglected. Taataani was not like other Senators, thank the gods, and his respect for her was personal and earned, rather than merely inherited by her title. Never the less, respect it was, and Vansen was too unsure of how the Senator defined their relationship to feel entirely comfortable not having made himself presentable for her. The invitation to call her by her first name was one thing, but Taataani Meorrrei was a shrewd politician almost without equal: how much this was genuine fondness and friendship, and how much was just softening the resolve of a potentially useful political asset, Vansen wasn't entirely sure.
"I had no idea you were on the station," he apologized, stepping back from the doorway and gesturing to invite her inside rather than leave her loitering in the corridor any longer. "I would have met you at the airlock if I'd known you were arriving."
"Vanssen."
She served up Tyree's familiar name with honey. He seemed to be a man who guarded it zealously as she did with her own name. Dispensing with titles and families brought a prosaic intimacy to the nature of their rapport. Had she slipped past his armor? Taataani's blue eyes drifted to his unadorned chest for the briefest moment, returning to his unexpecting face. Without bars on his chest, he felt so vulnerable. So assuredly masculine.
True to his masculinity, Vansen turned to self-flagellation, dressing down his lack of foresight and dereliction of gentlemanly virtue. The Senator stayed him with a hand, even as he invited her into his parlor.
"jI'm cerrtajin jyou would. Parrdon mjy crrueltjy jin denjyjing uss the mutual pleassurre. Ljivjing on a worrld of sspjiess hass gjiven me a perrverrsse affjinjitjy forr the clandesstjine, and mjy jinvjisjibjiljitjy wass jintentjional."
Taataani's ears buoyed by the smallest of degrees as her eyes brightened. She eased the bottle of whisky onto the Admiral's desk, lest it form an unnecessary barrier between them.
"Untjil jI ssaw the guesst ljisst, that jiss."
There were two kinds of politician, Vansen had decided: there was the bad kind, and then there was the kind that brought you whiskey.
Thus far, Taataani was the only Alliance politician who had managed to earn her way into that prestigious second category, and Vansen was under no illusions that her gifts came without ulterior motives, but there was something strangely comfortable and noble about the arrangement, like some unspoken political tradition that he had stumbled into the middle of. Most of the Alliance Senators approached him with demands. Those that didn't approached him seeking a compromise, a favour exchanged for a favour. It was an ugly business, and Vansen resented it: duty was duty, the right thing to do was the right thing to do, and any bickering over the specifics grated on his nerves. This though? The way that Taataani Meorrrei approached their interactions with sugar and a smile? Neither were under any illusions that their business was usually a political transaction; and yet they found no need to be abrupt about it, no need to make a battle out of something that could just as easily be pleasant and amicable.
Then again, from the way that Taataani presented it, this was merely a social visit: there was no agenda directly at play here. Granted, remaining in Vansen's good graces was no doubt the political equivalent of store credit; but it was nice. It was nice to be treated as a facilitator rather than an obstacle. It was nice to be addressed as a friend and not an adversary.
Or perhaps Vansen was simply a lonely, weary old man, and a pleasant conversation with an amiable woman helped him to forget that from time to time.
"Well perhaps next time, we should coordinate our schedules a little better," he found himself saying, as surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth as anyone else might have been. There was something strange too, something about the permanent scowl that seemed to have lifted a little, something around the wrinkles of his remaining eye that took on a rare scrunch that had nothing to do with scowling. "It's a long voyage from Bothawui, and my droid makes for terrible company."
"Then next tjime, we can leave jyourr drrojid wjith the sspjy the Hjigh Motherr ssent asss mjy bodjyguarrd."
This was nice, she'd concluded as her smile showed the white of her teeth. He had charm. Not in the salon sense of the word like courtesans knew. Charm in candor. He probably didn't say all he meant, as only a fool did. But he said enough. Enough to allow Taataani license to put away the unpleasant reasons she'd come to Jovan. It was delusion, but for once, the Rrou'fai wished to be deluded. For a few hours at least.
The Senator tended to the dispensing of her gift, finding serviceable glassware in a utility hutch. A measure of water in each glass from an available carafe sealed the ritual, and she offered a glass to Vansen, opting to watch him in it's reception rather than immediately tending to her own refreshment. As her hand retreated from his glass, she couldn't help but brush against his common shirt, a trapping not intended for others to see.
"jI don't jimagjine manjy have the forrtune to ssee the man wjithout the jacket. When the Admjirral becomess Vanssen. Do jyou hang jyourr burrdenss on the rrack wjith jit?"
The Cizerack were a tactile people. That was the way that Vansen rationalised it - the surprisingly common moments when the Senator accidentally brushed contact against him. It was a felinoid thing, some subconscious way of marking territory or putting others in their proper place, some inescapable subconscious aspect of her society that the Senator simply couldn't avoid. Here though, now, something felt different. Gone was the pretense of formality, the obscuring mist of objectives and goals, replaced in entirety by small talk and friendly conversation. If there was no mission statement that inspired Taataani's feline efforts to assert her dominance, then what exactly was her objective in doing so now?
Vansen was glad of the drink that she placed in his hands, but even that was something he began to question now. Was it some gift for him that she had obtained on the station after learning he was here? Was it merely the first item grabbed from an abundantly stocked bar on her private yacht? Or was it a gift intended for him all along, that she had been carrying with her far in advance of a likely opportunity to see him? It certainly fit his tastes, he discovered, as he let a sip flow back across his tongue and warm it's way down his throat: a satisfying smokey roughness to it, the elegant roasted high notes you would expect from something distilled on Alderaan or Rendili, rather than the cloying sweetness of the lowest common denominator swill that Corellia churned out. It was a whiskey that tasted the way that he felt: a little rough at the edges, a little gruff and abrupt, but mellow and patient once you got past the initial taste, with a flavour that endured far longer than anyone would reasonably expect until it finally faded away into the background. What was this gift, then? What meaning should he infer?
Still wrestling with those thoughts, he let out a single note of laughter in response to Taataani's question. "My burdens are woven into my bones. At best, all hanging up the jacket does is discourage people from arriving to burden me with more." He mustered a small smile: an effort that he rarely went to for anyone, let alone a politician. "I could probably stand to learn a thing or two from you. You seem far better at remembering to enjoy the finer things in life than I am."
A claw tip clinked against the rim of her glass, marking time. Conversation, good conversation, moved to it. A waltz. Three quarter time, each beat in microcosm stunted and succinct, naked without the words that followed to sweep them up in motion.
"jI wass borrn jinto fjinerrjy, asss wass mjy motherr and herr motherr beforre. jIf jI djidn't pausse to enjojy ssome of jit, jit would feel too much ljike mannjing the rramparrtss. Majintajinjing the Empjirre."
The metaphor may well have accompanied the whisky. Jarring. Imposing. He'd given her a measure of his vulnerability and she reciprocated, even if the ability to relate had to be as cultivated as an affinity for Stewjon spirit. Heavy may be the head that wore the crown, but who had the stomach for sympathies for the rich? Taataani's hand guided Vansen's shoulder to turn as she did, regarding the viewport that peered into unbroken deep space. No planet to frame the scenery. A cosmic abyss. Only now at the threshold of that expanse did Taataani drink.
"jI can apprrecjiate the need to put burrdenss on hold, no matterr what rrjitual that entajilss. Bessjidess, we'rre both too jyoung to rretjirre. jIt would be a sspecjiess of rretrreat. Sso jinsstead, we absscond to thjiss unljikeljy place."
The Senator traded her view of space for a stolen look at him. A chance to read his unique face like prophetic tea leaves in her cup.
"jIss therre a Mrrss. Tjyrree wajitjing forr jyou out therre?"
It wasn't an unreasonable question, it wasn't uncommon, or rare, or unnecessarily prying; yet no matter how many times Vansen found himself caught off guard by such an inquiry, he never seemed to have an answer prepared. He never seemed to be braced against it. His thoughts strayed to her, and every time it was like a knife to the chest, a claw to the gut; like finding out all over again.
Vansen's glass lowered, no longer held to drink but simply just held, resting idle beside him as he began to contemplate the twin abyss that Taataani had presented him with: the infinity of space beneath his gaze; and the infinity of sorrow beneath his perpetual scowl.
"There used to be," he replied quietly. There was a time when such a thought would have made him drain his glass in a single swig; drain a whole bottle in just a few more. He'd learned that the alcohol didn't help: it didn't numb the pain, and the ache persisted regardless. "I allowed my career to come between us, and by the time I realised the gravity of that mistake, it was too late. She was already gone."
He grunted out a bitter laugh. "It's ironic really. She used to call herself a Star Destroyer widow. Thought the Empire was going to get me killed."
An aching silence fell as he stared off into the eternal night of space. "I was never supposed to find out how it would feel to live on without her."
In her zeal, she had opened a wound. A wound that she knew from experience never really healed to begin with. Undone with a word, open and bleeding in some share of it's original anguish. Vansen's revelation demanded emotional context to deal with, and as the Senator turned inward to find it, she re-opened her own wound in self-inflicted carelessness. Taurrifar's reassurances and pleas in the cold. His absence in every unspeakable way. The pain wasn't there in seeing his body on the funeral pyre. It was in little moments. When she'd turn around in a room, expecting him to be a step away. Waking up in the middle of the night with something she wanted to tell him. The vacuum created by Taurrifar's absence in her life hadn't been filled. There was no equilibrium. The wound might close for a while, but it never healed.
"jIt wass a fooljissh thjing forr me to assk." she averted her face, feigning interest in some bland piece of art that hung in the dignitary quarters. Taataani took her measure of whisky by half, no longer interested in it's nuance. The smoke took her without ceasing. A pyre's smoke.
The very thought of I'm sorry banished from her mind. She'd heard it before.
Why had she come here? It wasn't about the power or the politics. Vansen Tyree could be enthralled to her orbit without effort if it were only that. Taataani needed something else that she'd not quite understood, and if she didn't do right in this moment, she might never get. Moving her glass into her right hand, she watched for the moment that he did the same to his left.
She reached to take his hand. To lend her presence to him in a way beyond I'm sorry. Not in the manner in which she needed, but maybe in the way he did.
Vansen's hand evaded Taataani's, but not out of a desire to avoid the contact. Instead it sought out different terrain, a fleeting brush against her cheek to ensure that her gaze focused on his, before his hand settled into place against her upper arm. He was gentle, and yet the contact was resolute and determined, sure enough to prove that it wasn't some accidental thing. He could feel the painful empathy that radiated from Taataani. He knew the look of someone who could relate all too well to his sadness.
"It was not," Vansen countered gently. The small smile that tugged almost imperceptibly against his lips wasn't a reflex, nor anything to do with happiness: it was all about effort, all about going to the lengths of an expression he seldom used, for the sake of someone who deserved such effort. "You dd not know," he continued, the faintest of shrugs rolling off his shoulders. "What use do I have for a friend who does not know me?"
He let silence fall for a moment, but only for a moment. If it lasted any longer, the two of them would stand in silence with their private sorrows, and never speak to each other again. "She was never happy about me joining the Imperial Navy after the Clone Wars ended. A Star Destroyer is no place for a family, and that was something that she wanted and that I just wasn't ready to provide. I had a duty to perform. I was so proud of my Captain's bars, and I let that pride come between us. We tried to make it work, but I was away too long and too often. We separated amicably but... not willingly. Not on my part."
It was strange, how easy this was to say. For so long his pain had powered deflector shields, his scowl the Starkiller deterrent that discouraged anyone from trying to get too friendly; from trying to get to know him too well. But Taataani? By all accounts, she was the sort of person he should have been able to relate to the least, and been the least comfortable around. Yet here they were.
"When I retired, we found each other again. I thought perhaps I could undo two decades of mistakes, and finally have the happiness that I had denied the both of us. Instead, all I was able to do was care for her as she slowly deteriorated. Incurable sickness. Nothing anyone could have done. All those years of doing what I thought was right, and in the end I neglected the only duty that should have mattered."
"And this?" His eye gestured upwards, indicating not just the station, but the Alliance as a whole; his new duty; his new life. "Everyone assumes that an old dog like me must have some noble reason for fighting the Empire, but I don't. I was sad, I was angry, and I was alone. A Captain was all I knew how to be, and I wanted to hurt the Empire where I'd wasted the years that I should have spent with my wife."
His gaze fell, a shrinking hunch creeping into his shoulders, the weight of it all pressing down on his weary frame. "To be honest, this Treaty has me terrified. If we ever achieve a lasting peace, if we ever restore the Republic to the way it was before... I'm not sure I am capable of being the kind of man that belongs in a world like that."
What use do I have for a friend who does not know me?
There was something terrifying in his earnest words. Vansen had let the cantankerous facade slip, and revealed the thoughtful and vulnerable within to her. Not just the pain of his mate's parting and passing, but the self-inflicted wounds of pride. And here she was, this brute of a creature still a slave to the sort of imperious certainty only pride could create. What could she give to him? Taataani knew well how to be warm and how to love. But it was the cold terror of letting others see you bleed that Taataani feared most. Ben Merasska had seen it, and the glimpse of vulnerability had given him casus belli to flee from all her splendor and graces. He'd glimpsed the solitary thread in the tapestry, and knew it would come loose if pulled.
She'd come to Vansen to have him close to her, and to find brief shelter from her fears. While he was now closer to her than ever, Taataani realized she hadn't escaped the dread. She was going to have to confront it.
"jI am a veterran of peace, Vanssen. jYou'rre rrjight to be worrrjied."
"Cirrsseeto!"
T'yeellaa hadn't stopped to think. She'd ran all the way from the concourse to the lifts, and to the outer ring access to Spire H's junction. The umbilical had extended fully to support the smaller frame of her brother's ship, the Novgorod. She'd scarcely given it a glance out the viewport as she finally slowed to a halt. Only now did she realize she didn't exactly know where to begin with her little arr'uhai when he wasn't little anymore, and was something so lofty and unapproachable.
She watched him at the airlock tending to his baggage as he spoke to a junior officer. His eyes turned up to meet.
The cargo manifest was forgotten the moment he heard her voice. Captain Quez looked up at his older rrou'ehi. The jacket of her uniform had gotten heavier since he'd last seen it, weighed down with rank and accolade, but she looked like she'd barely changed otherwise.
Cirrsseeto eased the datapad back to the warrant officer, excusing himself with a slight nod. He closed the distance slowly, betraying his initial desire to sweep her up in a hug. The same barriers existed that came through in the tinny vocal recrations of the voxcomm. He wasn't the same person he'd been when he left home, and try as he might, he may not be able to put all the good things back in place without the bad.
"jI've mjissed you, sjisterr."
He reached for her hand. It was less than the full embrace he wanted, but it was a place to start. T'yeellaa too reached out, and for the first time in fifteen years, he was reunited.
Just as the world around him fell apart.
Cirrsseeto's ears barely registered the explosion behind him that sheared the docking umbilical at nearly the airlock periphery. He only heard the gale-force howl as the vacuum roared to devour everything it could in a moment. Beyond, every stick of cargo and every crewman standing at the periphery were sucked into space. Cirrsseeto and T'yeellaa were thrown from their feet, and in a blind act of desperation, Captain Quez reached out to grasp a pneumatic line fixed to the wall. The sudden change in inertia nearly wrenched his shoulder out as he felt a sharp pain in his other hand. It was T'yeellaa. Her grasp in his own, each holding with everything they had including claws to prevent the eternity of space from swallowing her. In a daze, Cirrsseeto looked back to see his sister screaming words he couldn't hear even at such close distance. He could only scream back and hope she heard.
"HANG ON!!! T'YEELLAA!!!!"
TO BE CONTINUED
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