Companion Tale the Soldier

**Location:  Unknown Regions, CDF Cruiser Endurance (19 aby)**

N’diru collapsed against a wall and slid down into the dark blood pooled underneath her.  Around her the bright bursts of light and shrieks of blaster fire were dulled and muted to a level where they became a surreal stage show to the Chiss’s glowing red eyes.  The Ebruchi had been far more efficient in their brutality than the CDF had expected. They were going to win this battle. N’diru was going to die here in this blood-soaked hallway surrounded by the ever-growing body piles of her comrades.  The blaster fire ceased, though the ringing in her head did not. As hurried footsteps approached her position, their gait sounding wholly alien, she closed her eyes and drooped her head

She tried to call on her training for oxygen deprivations; small shallow breaths, relaxed muscles, meditation to relax the mind and slow the heartbeat.  She hoped the effect would make her appear dead or at least on her last breaths. That they would dismiss her and move on further down the hallway to the bridge.  It was the only way she was getting out of this alive. The footsteps withdrew past her though it was two more minutes before she cracked one of her eyes open. The hallway was clear save for the dull red eyes of her squamates staring at her accusingly from the ground.  She bit her lower lip and shook her head at them. She wouldn’t apologize for surviving. With her wounds it was the most that could be asked of her.

Speaking of the wounds, they needed treating immediately.  She reached to her side unclipping the small spray can of bacta attached to her belt.  The wounds would have been any easy fix if they had used plasma weaponry like most in the galaxy, but of course, the Ebruchi choose to use magnetically propelled ballistic weaponry.  They weren’t out to be efficient. They were making a statement to the whole Ascendency: “You are not safe. This battle will not be civilized. We will be the ones to defy your control over these territories and you will die in slow and painful ways.”

Now she was left to deal with open un-cauterized wounds and shrapnel pieces embedded inside her.  She would need to remove them before sealing the wounds or they would work their way deeper. Taking a steading breath, and wishing her utility packs including an anesthetic, she dug her slim blue fingers into the hole.  Her body armor had been effective up to a point and the shrapnel wasn’t buried too deep, just entering the muscle rather than penetrating her organs. It still made her vision blur and her body shake with pain as she drew out a small jagged piece of metal, her fingers covered in blood.  She kept going gathering pieces from the three thin leaking holes in her stomach, breast, and side respectively. She was unable to stop the groans of pain escaping through her clenched teeth, but she kept them as quiet as she was able. Lost to autonomous motions and concentration on sound suppression, it took her several precious moments to realize she was done.

She sprayed her body down with bacta, wincing as the disinfected sealing went to work on her wounds, and forced herself up off the wet floor.  Her legs were shaky. She wasn’t sure how much blood loss had occurred, but it was enough that she felt light headed and drowsy. She needed to move now, while she still could.  Her limbs tingled with each careful step around the bodies scattered down the length of the bright hallways. She was halfway to the back of the cruiser when she stopped cold in realization.  Commander El’ver’n was still in the infirmary. He’d been knocked out cold by one of initial missile strikes of the Ebruchi’s surprise assault. Ver was still there. It made her heart pound and her stomach turn.  It was unlikely the invaders had bothered with the med bay yet as they concentrated on the contested bridge, but they would check it soon. She had to get there first.

With new energy filling her she made her way, calm and measured, portside toward the med bay, her blaster rifle held up in front of her with only a slight tremor in her arms reminding her how weak she was.  If she ran into anything she’d shoot first and identify later. She just hoped her aim would remain true. She couldn’t afford to lose any more blood. Luckily for her, and unlucky for her crewmates, the Ebruchi were being quite thorough, cutting a swath of death across one area of the ship and moving on to the next.  She ran into no living beings before reaching the solid door of the med bay. Entering her security code with trembling burgundy stained fingers she heard the soft chime of the door sliding open before her. There sat several wounded Chiss crew members and a relieved looking doctor and nurse. She nodded reassuringly to them her eyes sliding away from them to the face of Ver.  He looked grim, his sharp features looking even more angular, and his lips compressed.

“Lietenant N’diru’n what are you doing here,” he asked his voice groggy, he must have come to quite recently.

“Sir.  The ship is lost.  I was in the process of evacuation when I recalled— the wounded.”

Their gazes met each other.  Non-Chiss often had trouble reading emotion in the seemingly uniform glowing red of their eyes, but to a natural born Chiss it was much easier.  Beneath the film, the eye was much like any human’s, but it took their own enhanced visions to notice the subtle variations in shade. Her eyes were wide, her pupils enlarged, communicating sincerity, acceptance… love.  His eyes on the hand were narrowed, his pupils also enlarged but darkened, communicating suspicion and disappointment.”

“You should be fighting to take back our ship.” he stated.

“I’m too injured.  The best I can do is to get you-- get us all out of here alive.” Ndiru replied, matching the cool tone of his voice.

“That isn’t—”

“Sir!  The ship is taken if we spend any more time arguing we will be too.  Someone needs to report back to command.” she interrupted, her voice firm, but her eyes imploring.

“Lieutenant, I am ordering you to—”

“Get down!” she yelled, as she heard a telltale clicking sound of a gun’s safety coming off.

Following her own advice, she immediately dove into cover behind one of the medical carts.  A high-pitched shot rang out through the still open door, an accelerated piece of meatal driving through the space she’d been standing and into the doctor instead with a sickening shattering of bone; which Ndiru was glad to not be looking at.  She took a deep steadying breath before she popped up and fired back at the assailant. The shot went wide despite her best efforts and she ducked back quickly, just as the top contents of the cart when flying in all directions from the grazing ballistic return fire.  This cover wasn’t going to last. She needed to move quick before stray shots killed more of the rooms innocent occupants. Springing out of cover she charged toward the wall to the right side of the open door. She kept her fingers pumping steadily on the trigger of her riffle, hoping the sporadic suppressive fire would keep the enemy from managing an accurate counter shot.  She crashed her shoulder into the wall, thankful to have made the reckless advance without additional injury.

Now what?  She looked around the room desperately for something to make a strategic difference.  Her eyes fell on table near the back corner where the weaponry of the injured had been placed.  Following her gaze Ver scrambled toward the back of the room keeping his body close to the ground as he could manage.  More shots were fired into the cramped cot covered room, but everyone capable of movement was into some semblance of cover and the only fatality was that of an unconscious Chiss in the back of the room.  Ver tossed the round metallic ball to her in a careful underhand. She caught it and immediately pulled the pin, only counting as far as two before blindly lobbing it as hard as she could into the hallway.  The roaring blast two breaths later was accompanied with a desperate hissing scream from the alien attacker.

She jerked her head out to peer through the doorway.  It hadn’t been a clean kill. The grenade had shredded the alien’s lower half, but the large headed torso was still twitching.  On the plus side, the fact that no one took off her head during her observational check spoke to his lone presence here. Though, with the volume of the blast, that would not last long.  They needed to move out now while it was still an option. She spun back to address the room.

“We need to move!”

“The patients…” the nurse began.

“If they can’t move on their own we have to leave them or none of us are making it out of this.” N’diru replied, trying to focus only on what needed to be said and done, rather than what she would prefer.  To that end, she hoped she wouldn’t have to use the item she just pocketed from the medical supplies.

They moved down the hallway as a group, the soldiers checking corners, and the civilians and those too wounded to reliably handle a blaster setting pace in the middle.  Ahead of her Ver came to a halt, turning to her he said, “I have to go back. Get the wounded to safety, but this is my ship. I won’t abandon her.”

N’diru nodded sadly.  There’d be no talking him out of this.  When she drew him into a hug she only felt the briefest sparks of guilt as she drove the syringe into his neck.   He pushed away from her with a gasp the syringe landing empty on the floor between them.

“That sedative is going to kick in within three minutes.  If you want to die in vain go for it but you won’t do any good before collapsing.  The only option that makes any difference in the time you have is escorting us all out of here,” N’diru explained.

The way he stared at her was like a cold-steel dagger to the heart, but she only turned and picked up the pace into the hanger.  She knew he would follow, just as she knew this argument wasn’t over, but they stood a chance now. A few more kills in the hanger netted them an escape shuttle which they boarded in a small stampede, Ver only just able to get himself inside before collapsing against the bulkhead.  Pushing through the wobbling masses she eased herself into the pilot seat and started the engines. The high pitch clangs of metal on metal told her the other Ebruchi had finally caught up. Ndiru wasted no time in engaging thrusters, lifting them jerkily into the air, and rocketing them out of the hanger and into the void beyond.

**Location: Unknown Regions, Chiss Shuttle, 19 aby.**

Ver’s eyes were finally opening as they neared the half way mark on their exodus back to Ascendency space.  Ndiru stepped carefully around the exhausted collapsed bodies filling the small shuttle and knelt over her commander.

“Ver,” she whispered, her voice tense with worry.

“Diru how… how could you do this.” he voiced wearily.

“We couldn’t have—”

“You didn’t even try.” he hissed.  “You abandoned your duties and forced me to abandon mine.”

“We would have died,” she said firmly. “No one would benefit from that.”

“You weren’t being tactical,” he accused.

“Of course, I wa—”

“You came for me because of your emotional connection to me.  Because I mistakenly took you to my bed. You sacrificed the ship for me on basis of personal sentiment.”  The accusation tore at her chest. She felt anger swell. She wanted to slap sense into him and then kiss him so hard he forgot his own name.  She looked away from him.

“I love you,” she admitted.

“I’m married.  You knew that going in.  I thought we could be adults about this, have some passionate moments together without it affecting our working relationship.  Clearly, I was wrong to trust you in that.”

A handful of breaths taken was all it took to relocate her anger from herself to him.

“Fuck you.  We’re alive and I’m not going to apologize for that.”

She stood and stomped away from him toward the cockpit.  There was clearly nothing further to discuss.

**Location: Csilla, CDF Headquarters, 19 aby.**

N’diru heard the words directed toward her, but it was if they came through a second source.  Fictional characters explaining things to the star of a holo-vid and only incidentally to the audience.  Accused dereliction of duty, fraternization unbecoming of an officer, and purposeful dismissal of procedure on basis of personal gains.  Those were her charges, or at least the ones directed at the fictionalized version of herself.

She’d been naïve to think he wouldn’t report her for sake of his own dignity.  Hallel’ver’nuruodo was officer through and through. As a man of principles and respect for procedure he had felt obligated to inform their superiors despite the personal career damage.  From his perspective he, her, and their relationship, was the cause of the Endurance’s loss, mitigating factors be damned. It was stupid. This whole thing was stupid. She’d done the right thing given the circumstances, the only thing possible to keep Chiss citizens alive.  Who really cared what her motivations had been.

In retrospect Ver wasn’t wrong about who was most responsible for the complications between them.  She had always been the one driving for their intimacy, though it had seemed so mutual at the time.  She had led him astray from his marriage and duties. She had needed him, needed something for herself in the repetitive cycles that had dominated her life up to this point.  He had wanted her yes, she had ample evidence of that, but he needed nothing save his command. That ship had been his true love and he hadn’t been able to save her, nor die honorably upon her decks.   And in the end, she had denied him even the choice.

“My sentence?” she asked in a detached voice.

Admiral V’iri’n answered the question in her usual matter of fact tone.  “Look, I think you made the right call out there to be honest. The odds were strongly against you, but…”

“But…” N’diru echoed smiling sardonically.

“But, given the unprofessional circumstances surrounding this incident and the politics involved we have no choice but to expel you from active service at this time.  I understand your family is a very dedicated line of military personnel, have no fear, this will be treated as honorable discharge.”

It took all the effort N’diru had left in her to stop herself from laughing hysterically.  Like the phrasing of her discharge would save her reputation when word got out or help her in getting alternative employment in a field remotely linked with her skill set.  Her family would be disgusted with her actions, seeing them as tarnishing a long line of military excellence. Her life was, for lack of any better term, fucked.

“Thank you for your time, Admiral.” N’diru said calmly as she applied her signature to the release form and spun to march out the door.   She did not look back at the stares both accusing and sympathetic from the court martial committee.

When she finally managed to extract herself from the building the sun had already begun to set thanks to the winter season.  The skies of Csillia were a dark grey and small crystalline snow flakes were just begging to waft down to stick to the ice coated ground.  The streets would be a slippery mess soon N’diru knew, she should get a taxi and go… where exactly? Not to her family surely, she wouldn’t be able to stomach their disappointment not with the blame she was already burdening herself.  A bar maybe, somewhere to desensitize herself and make some fresh mistakes to distract from the ones haunting her.

“Kirn’diru’klocea,” an unknown voice sliced through her thoughts.

The unexpected utterance of her full name, accurately altered away from military association, caused her to turn her head to the left.  There sat a charcoal colored hover car and a short Chiss man in a black business styled suit opening the back door and gesturing her over.  Her feet followed of their own accord. She didn’t know what was going on, but things couldn’t very well get worse for her. She stepped into the back seat and the man slid in beside her shifting her into position behind the silent driver.

“Who are you?” she asked finally as the car began to move.

The man didn’t answer for a while, but N’diru didn’t really care as she gazed ahead out the tinted front viewport.  Their momentum picked up accelerating through the heavy falling flakes until they flashed by in mesmerizing horizontal lines reminding her achingly of that first beautiful lurching leap into hyperspace.

When they had already traveled several kilometers the man finally spoke.

“I want to make you an offer.”

“What kind of offer?  I’m not quite to prostitution levels of desperation yet.”

The corners of his mouth twitched.  Good. He wasn’t without a sense of humor whoever he was.  It made her relax a bit more into this unknown situation.

“What’s the job.”

“Private Militia,” he answered.  “Specialty assignments. I can’t tell you much more than that and the man who can is a couple systems away.  If you feel up to it, we can take you to him. If not, we can drop you off wherever you prefer.”

Her heart hammered slightly.  Traveling blindly with these men was sketchy, reputationally risky, and potentially dangerous.  For all she knew they were slavers or worse, using insider knowledge to press a desperate former marine into unwilling servitude.  Or maybe they were a legit albeit secretive military service and this was her one chance to turn around from the self-destructive pit that seemed to dominate her horizon.  But above all these concerns she once again felt her apathy most keenly. She could use a disappearance right about now and if there were consequences to this choice… she was too tired to really care about them.

**Location: Unknown, 19 aby.**

The Chiss sitting in front of her was a good decade older than her at least, his skin a dark wrinkled aqua, and his fiery red eyes were deep set and calculating.  They stood a dozen breaths sizing each other up, in quiet analysis. One warrior to another. After almost two days of uncertainty, her patience broke first.

“I recognize you.  You’re Aristicra Formbi.  Or, the former I suppose. They said you were dead.”

The man merely nodded.

“A necessary ploy at the time and later one that was enforced on me by Ascendency high command.”

“The rumors were true then.  You were a traitor.”

“Yes,” he replied dryly his candor shocking her.  “I have been for longer than most people know, though for different reasons than most infer.  I took over the life of Formbi several years back when I had the need, but that is not who I am.”

“Who are you then.”

“I was known for most of my life in the ascendency under the name Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

Her heart hammered in her chest.  Thrawn. The most prolific strategist the Ascendency had ever produced.  A young officer from a humble background who rose quickly in the ranks of the CDF thanks to his creative thinking and pure ambitious drive.  A golden icon of Chiss spirit, until he broke the most sacred rules of engagement. Until he had been exiled and then joined a foreign empire seeking to cement totalitarian rule across the galaxy.  Thrawn was a war criminal to cultures and governments across known space and beyond. A representation of the Chiss legacy, now soiled in full view of the galaxy at large.

N’diru spat at his feet.  She then raised her gaze to boldly stare him down.

Thrawn didn’t even blink.

“There are many tales of me I know.  But whatever you may have been told. Everything I have ever done was to protect and support my people.  Sometimes people need saving from their own actions and attitudes, and other times they are incapable of asking for the help most needed.  I filled those voids.”

His voice was measured, confident, and plain.  It made N’diru shiver. This was a man who had already untangled many mysteries, and made you ache longingly to share in the answers.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, annoyed by the breathlessness in her voice.

“I have a job for you.  A private one, that will not work against the Chiss people and only impede on your moral compass as far as you feel comfortable,” his words were bare and honest, either that or he was the greatest actor she had ever seen.

“What would I have to do.”

“Our people shut themselves away from the greater galaxy.  Seeking to only concern themselves with what is happening in their own backyards.  There are new threats rising in the rest of the galaxy and new resistances forming to combat them.  I’d like you to assist them. The Chiss need so

meone to protect them, to fight the battles our people won’t.”

He was telling the truth.  It was a different truth than she was used to, but it made a lot of sense.  It melded with the dark thoughts she had been having since the day of the attack.  Her people had watched the growing threat of the Ebruchi for many years, but first strikes went against ancient Chiss laws, and the Ascendency wouldn’t risk tarnishing their diplomatic reputation.  Even more so, they had believed that the threat was negligible, in the bigger scheme of things. That the Ascendency, as representation of true order and peace, would stand against any adversity. But she couldn’t help but see the dead faces of her comrades taken by surprise from an enemy finally calling their bluff.  Massacred for the sake of tradition and pride. Then her casual dismissal from the military she’d dedicated her life to for the same.

“Why me?” she asked, the only real question that remained important to her.

“I need a soldier who follows her own counsel rather than blindly following the precedents of the past.  Someone who will do the right thing for the Chiss people above all else. You are that soldier. After this meeting, I am sure of it.  The only question remaining is if you are up for it?”

A single breath this time was the only delay.  She’d already known what she would answer, as she suspected, did he.

“Yes, I am that soldier.”