Reckoning

Though time was difficult to determine from within the cell, the absence of light that could be seen through the small cracks in the walls indicated that it was probably nighttime. Overhead, the room lights were dim and flickered every now and then. In one corner of the room, Myiari sat next to the wall, standing sentinel over the prone form of the Senator, her head tilted towards a larger crack as she idly listens to the chirping of the nocturnal insects outside.

Tokoga had spent most of whatever time they'd had alone since earlier sleeping and recovering. Treated for just about every symptom of his wounds except the pain, it unfortunately hasn't been particularly restful sleep for the Mon Calamari. As a particularly potent surge breaks the Senator's respite again, he twitches slightly and opens his eyes, raising his head as if to check if they were still where they were the last time he had fallen asleep.

Myiari notices Tokoga stirring and glances over in his direction, though her expression remains a mixture of neutral tiredness and gloom. "Hey," she murmurs. "You're up. How's your leg?" She nods her head at the bandage wrapped tightly around the affected limb.

"Been better," Tokoga mutters, letting his head rest back down onto the cushion underneath it. "If they still operate the way they used to, they're keeping it treated just well enough to keep infection at bay."

"Actually," the medic starts, her voice dull and reflecting the same tiredness and resignation displayed on her face. "I was the one who treated it. Someone came in while you were unconscious and let me use their first aid kit to fix you up. There was enough bacta in there to undo the damage from that burn, so it should be fine now."

"How wonderfully gracious of them." Tokoga answers, closing his eyes again. "I suppose I owe you my gratitude, then. How long has it been?"

Myiari tilts her head back in the direction of the crack, listening to the noises outside once more. "A few hours ago, maybe. I don't know." The medic falls silent for a while, staring at nothing, the quiet broken only by the soft chirping of insects, and the faint hum of the room lights. "He took off his helmet," she says after a time, sighing. "I had been hoping it wasn't him. That I had imagined it all..."

"Is that what's bothering you?" Tokoga seems to change his mind about laying down and gets back up, sitting on the edge of whatever he had been laying on. "That man doesn't exist, Myiari. A falsehood, a construction. For all intents and purposes, you may just as well have imagined it."

Myiari bristles slightly at the response, though her reaction fades almost as quickly as it comes. "It felt real to me..." she mumbles, drawing in a breath. "But I guess that's what makes it hurt even more. At the same time...some of the things he said...He had a point."

"I...I know," Tokoga answers with a sigh after a brief pause. "But that's what the war with the Empire is. The alternative is a great deal worse. Brave men die everyday to ensure it doesn't become a reality, and people appreciate that. In the same way, the Imperials feel the same way about us their troops and what they die for that we do. That doesn't change what they do."

"Remember what I told you on Delar? Its the same thing: from their standpoint, they're doing what's just and right."

"I know," Myiari echoes, tucking her hair behind her ear only to have her bangs fall loose and cover her eyes again. "I was an Imperial citizen for a while after they occupied Commenor. It was only a year or so, but still... I was seventeen. I didn't particularly like the Empire even back then, but at the time I thought that if I kept my head down and my family just minded their own business, we'd be alright, and that was all that mattered." Her expression hardens briefly and she turns bodily away, leaning her shoulder against the wall. "And that's about when everything changed."

"What happened?" Tokoga asks, that particular facet of history not familiar to him. Searching through the his coat pockets, he locates his cigarra case and withdraws one of its contents--fortunately he had filled it just before the trip out here. "What did they do?"

"I used to have three brothers," she explains, continuing. "Galvin and Brendan left for New Republic space to join the military not long after the Empire took over, but my eldest brother, Rixar, stayed behind to look after me while I finished school. He was coming back on a shuttle from a business trip he'd gone on for my dad, but that day the Empire was chasing a bunch of smugglers and pirates in-system. The shuttle got caught in the chase and was ripped apart by stray laser fire. Later they tried to cover it up, saying that the shuttle was filled with pirates and the like." She clenches her fists, her eyes narrowing. "It was an accident, but they didn't want to take responsibility for it, and tried to make themselves look like heroes instead."

Tokoga stays silent for some time after Myiari finishes, puffing on the cigarra that he had extracted; Myiari's own story makes a better point than he could. "Reflecting on that, what do you think about what Brek said now?"

"I can't forgive the Empire for what it did to my brother, or what it did to me personally, but...at the same time I know not everyone in it is a complete monster. Now I can't help but wonder how many of them were lied to, or what they might've been threatened with. Or if any of them felt the same way I did and were too scared to leave." Her voice trails off and she says nothing for a while, letting out a shuddering sob before burying her face into her arms. "Like those Stormtroopers I killed on Delar... How many of them might've actually been nice people? Or if they had families. Or if they even really believed in what they were doing."

"It's just like how it is at the Emergency Medical Unit. The things you think about when somebody dies..."

"They made their choice, and you had to make yours. It was either you or them." Tokoga answers simply. "There's nothing else you could have done."

"I know," Myiari replies quietly, letting out another soft sigh. "I just... I just wish things would make sense to me for once. Nothing ever does." She lifts her head, mustering a bitter laugh. "It felt like I had everything figured out back then when I decided to leave. Just get out of reach of the Empire and everything would be okay. And look where I am now. I got charmed by a Stormtrooper, captured by the Empire and stuck in a cell, and probably scheduled for termination eventually."

"Eugh," Tokoga groans at Myiari's choice of words, "Don't call it that, you're starting to sound like them." Extinguishing the butt of the cigarra and tossing it into some nearby receptacle, he sighs and looks around the room again for some kind of inspiration in how to get out of this alive. "When Rainier got angry...what was it that you had done?"

Myiari tilts her head towards the Senator, a calm expression on her face, her mood suddenly seeming less bleak. "Oh, that. I was intentionally setting off security flags in the New Republic's security network and trying to get around their slicer to get a message out to...someone," she replies casually, as if it were nothing. "If someone were able to pick up that the system was being hacked, they'd probably try to trace it, and if they did, it'd lead them here. Unfortunately, their slicer's a whole lot better than me; he caught what I was trying to do, and he was probably able to cover up my attempts."

"Maybe we'll get lucky." Tokoga says blearily, not sounding too optimistic about the possibility himself. "Did they stop trying to slice the system after that, or are they still trying?"

The medic shrugs helplessly. "I don't know. After my last attempt at getting around their slicer, they tossed me back in here along with you. They weren't too happy about the whole thing. If I had to guess, they're probably still trying to get in." Myiari manages a faint smile, staring at the Senator from behind a curtain of blonde bangs. "I wasn't much of a slicer anyway. Most I've ever done is program medical equipment."

"That's good. The longer they keep at it, the more likely someone will notice." Tokoga frowns. "I really need to stop getting myself in these situations," he adds offhandedly, checking the image of his face in the nearest reflective surface to see what kind of damage had been left by Rainier's strikes to his face.

"You should," Myiari grumbles, folding her arms and seeking solace in the soft chirping of the insects that can be heard through the gap in the wall near her head. "There's only so many times I'm willing to play bodyguard for you if you keep -dismissing your real ones-. I'm a medic, Tokoga, not a soldier. I shouldn't have to be killing people and I already have the blood of at least a dozen people on my hands. Maybe more."

"I didn't want to seem like I didn't trust them," he offers as explanation, putting back the shiny cigarra case he had been looking in his reflection in. "You shouldn't have followed me, though I appreciate the gesture..."

"After I ran into him in the park with Brek, something about Rainier felt...off. I kind of figured you'd be way more trusting. I just wish I'd realized the same about Brek way sooner..." The woman falls silent for a while, seemingly unwilling to talk about the matter further before she speaks up again. "You looked out for me back during that whole thing with the Sith. It wasn't much, but it meant a lot to me. I wanted to return the favor."

"He had me completely convinced," Tokoga says, shaking his head. "I didn't doubt him for a moment..." Maybe he's a lot worse at this than he thinks he is.

"At least you didn't date him," Myiari comments, a mildly disgusted look on her face visible behind her hair. "I spent the better part of a month around him, told him a lot of things I probably shouldn't have, and now everyone probably thinks he's my boyfriend. And I bought into everything. Whatever you feel about the whole situation, I feel probably a hundred times worse."

"I'm sure that you do," the Mon Calamari says. "And I'm sorry. It can't be easy. If it'll help, I'll ask Rainier to a candlelit dinner next time he stops by," he adds jokingly.

The woman offers another shrug. "I doubt it'd help. Even if you did that, I'd probably end up having to bail you out if he tried to pull something. In case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty decent with or without a blaster. Could probably fight my way out of here if I could find the chance."

"You're probably right." Tokoga grins slightly, then pauses to consider the rest of the young medics' words. Rainier hadn't had the sense to put them in bonds yet--maybe he didn't think an old Senator and a young medic would put up much resistance.

"How sure are you of that? Assuming we find the right chance?"

Myiari raises an eyebrow at that, though she seems to catch onto what the Senator is implying. "Pretty sure, I guess. I managed to hold my own against Brek for a while. If it wasn't for that stun baton, I probably could've beaten him. Same goes for when I followed you into that alley." She frowns briefly, pressing her lips into a thin line, appearing suddenly uncertain. "But I don't know. Brek's pretty good himself, and I took a few hits before I was able to land any myself. And there's not much I can do against Stormtrooper armor; physically, anyway. And if he brings friends, and they're given orders to shoot to kill, we'd be in trouble."

"You have to control their body through their joints," Tokoga suggests. It had worked well enough during the occupation, it'd probably work here, too. "And, of course, we'd have to all be alone. After that, at least we'd be armed..."

Desperate? Definitely. But what other choice did they really have?

"Are you suggesting that I flirt with the next Stormtrooper to walk in here, disarm him, knock him out, take his weapons, and then bust out of here guns blazing?" Myiari asks, a note of incredulity in her voice. "Well, I could probably do all that, but it's a lot to ask for. And there's no guarantee that either of us will get out of here alive, not that there is if we do nothing anyway."

"You said it, not me," Tokoga shrugs. The flirting was a nice touch, not exactly something the Senator normally would have thought of. "The only certainty is that we're probably going to die if we stay here. They've made their choice, now we have to make ours.

Myiari nods with a degree of finality, though the look she bears exudes very little confidence. "Whenever we do make our move, just be sure you're able to run, stay close, and let me do all the hard work." She glances to the Senator, offering a faint smile. "And if we do manage to get out of this alive? I'd better get a medal for all my trouble," she adds jokingly.

"I'll see what I can do," Tokoga chuckles, returning Myiari's smile.

"You should probably rest or something, Tokoga," the young medic says after a while, returning to listening to the nighttime noises. "You're still injured, and you'll probably need all the strength you can muster. I'll...be alright. I'm tougher than I look."

"Alright, but don't let anything happen without me." Tokoga lays back down where he had been before, letting his eyes rest once again. "Wouldn't want to miss it."