#no18

“Oh no,” he said miserably.

“Hm?” Karlach muttered.

“Tav’s gotten himself into trouble. Again. And it just had to be in the middle of the bloody night.”

Karlach got right up and kicked Gale, who had slept through the barking. “Up! Tav’s gone!”

Scratch reached them, whining and barking as he danced around them anxiously. He went right up to Astarion, lowering his head and whining.

Astarion knew Tav sometimes went out for walks just outside of camp when he couldn’t sleep at night. Scratch would occasionally follow along to keep him company.

“Was he taken?” Astarion asked.

Scratch barked, tail wagging. Karlach got up, dragging Astarion and Gale with her.

“We’ve got a friend to save,” she said, pulling them along.

“Don’t touch me,” Astarion said, shaking his arm free. “Scratch?”

Scratch barked and ran forward, looking back to make sure they were following him. They took a moment to grab their weapons and packs before following after him, knowing they didn’t have time to properly dress. 

Scratch led them outside of the camp, into a set of trees. It was dark out, but the moon reflected off a stream flowing alongside the path enough to make the ground visible. Astarion smelled Tav’s blood before he saw it sprayed against the ground.

Scratch whined at it, pawing the ground and looking up to the others. Karlach knelt down before him, scratching behind his ears.

“We’ll find him, boy,” she promised. “Can you help?”

Scratch whined and sniffed at the ground. He practically pressed his nose to the dirt as he began to walk along, nose working overtime to find his friend.

“Which of our many enemies is it this time?” Astarion said, stretching.

“Don’t act like you’re not worried,” Karlach said, shooting him a look.

“I’m tired,” Astarion corrected, refusing to admit he was worried. Of course he was; Tav could be a bit naive but he wasn’t oblivious or weak. Taking him by surprise and dragging him away would take a skilled enemy to accomplish. 

They fell silent, going on alert as Scratch led them further through the trees and away from camp. They probably should’ve woken the others up for reinforcement, but it was too late to worry about that now.

Scratch suddenly stopped, growling low in his throat, his whole body going tense. Astarion slipped past him and moved stealthily through the trees until a small camp came into view. He signaled at the others to stay back while he observed what they were up against. 

The first thing he realized was that Tav was tightly bound to a chair, bruised and bloody. He’d clearly been beaten in the time it took them to find him.

The second thing he realized was that Tav was surrounded by five Gur. One, the apparent leader, towered over him, a knife in hand. She pressed it to his throat.

“Be a shame if the bard lost his voice,” she said, the flames from the small fire in their camp glinting off the blade. 

“A loss to the world,” Tav said weakly, but didn’t flinch back as she pressed it just hard enough to draw a thin line of blood.

“Tell us where the monster is,” she snarled, grabbing his hand. “Or I will hear you scream once more and then take your voice from you forever.”

Tav dragged his gaze up, one of his eyes nearly swollen shut and coated with blood. He met her eyes with a hard look.

“I will never tell you where Astarion is,” he said simply. “Do your worst.”

She placed his hand on the chair and held her hand out. One of the others handed her a mallet, and Astarion felt rage pour through his as she slammed it down on his hand.

Tav clenched his teeth together, throwing his head back at the audible break of his hand. He squirmed in his bindings, but refused to give them the satisfaction of his screams of pain.

“You would suffer for that monster?” she demanded. 

“I would suffer for that man, again and again,” Tav said, his voice strained with pain. “I will not tell you where he is.” 

“Then you will die slowly in his place,” she said, taking the knife into her hand again.

Astarion had forgotten the others waiting for his signal. He had forgotten everything but the man below, enduring pain just to keep Astarion safe. Protecting Astarion, even knowing that Astarion had only pursued him originally for that very thing. 

But it had grown beyond that. Tav was unlike anyone Astarion had ever met, and he proved it again even now without knowing it. He was loyal to a fault; it was going to get him killed.

But not today. Not right now. Astarion refused to watch Tav suffer another moment.

Audra is shaking, sweating. Sometimes she’s not sure what does it, but this time, she knows exactly what triggered this flashback: the lights flickering on the bridge. Beatrice is so good at what she does that they rarely have issues with any of the ship’s systems, but something about the electrical field of wherever the hell they are—she can’t remember anymore and the positioning system and scanners are still rebooting—took out the power for just a moment. 

“Captain Quinn?” someone calls. It’s one of the command techs, she knows that much, but she can’t focus her vision enough to make out which one. Whomever it is who asks, she brushes them off without even acknowledging them. “Captain, I think you should sit down.” It’s then that she realizes why they’re trying to soothe her, because she’s standing in the middle of the bridge looking terrified. She can feel her body trembling and though it’s annoying and embarrassing, she can’t control it, nor can she stop the sweat that’s forming on her forehead or the dryness of her mouth that prevents her from objecting when a warm hand takes her by the shoulders and sits her gently down in the command chair. She can’t breathe. That thing is out there and it’s going to kill everyone she reluctantly cares about once again, all the people she loves so distantly that they can’t even see her, so thinly that it’s sheer and nearly invisible. And she can’t stop it. Not last time or this time or—

“Hey,” someone says, and she manages to pull her focus in between her eyes enough to see that it’s Beatrice. “Everything is okay now. I checked.” 

She doesn’t like being talked to like she’s a child, but she has to admit that she wasn’t going to calm down until she heard it from someone. Everything is fine. She wills that sentiment to starve the flames of the panic that’s bubbled its way up from her stomach to her mouth. Suddenly, Beatrice reaches out to take her hand and she swats her away. She can’t overcome the instinct to pull away from warmth before it burns you.

“I’m fine,” she snaps, but it comes out shaky and nearly petulant. When she glances around the room, she realizes with great embarrassment that most of the crew, specifically the command techs, are staring at her. Everything is quiet when she comes back to herself, and maybe that’s by design. 

“Nothing is happening to the ship, okay? Our power flickered. That’s all.” 

She has a million questions about the uninterrupted backup equipment is working or how to manage to put every single system back online with the exact same programs they’d been running before, but all she does is nod. Now that it’s not the end of their world, literally, she’s able to take a step back and see it for what it was: a momentary power failure. Still, she can’t help but watch the universe pass by through the glass ahead of her. 

“I’m fine,” she reiterates unconvincingly. “As you were.” 

“Audra, maybe you should take a break. You seem—”

“No,” she says firmly. Now more than ever, she needs to watch for the monster. The scanners are going to be back online for a few minutes, since Bea is going to have to work on each one individually because she’s the only one who can perform calibrations. They’re vulnerable. They won’t know danger until they fly right into it, just as she had 25 years ago. Her hands are still trembling as she reaches out for her tablet, scouring over each offline machine until it reconnects with the network. 

“It’s okay to be upset,” Bea says, and Audra pointedly ignores her. Just because the rest of them are calm on the outside, doesn’t mean that they’re not upset. And even if they’re not, they should be. They’ve lost a precious hour to this outage, and that means that they’d lost any ability to predict a disaster before it happened. Even their shields are down. 

“Just do your job,” she commands, realizing that it’s mean and condescending before she even says it and not letting it stop her from hurting Beatrice’s feelings. 

3.7.10, sunset

Under other circumstances, the mountains of Alderaan might have seemed beautiful, if austere; in the middle of a civil war, they were simply a lonely place to die.

Republic Medical Officer Aril’ree’s lekku wrapped tighter around her neck as she trudged through the bloody snow, looking for survivors of the battle. The temperature was dropping already, and any soldiers left alive overnight wouldn’t be by morning. The Alderaanian troops would hold the position, but Aril’ree doubted they’d have much time to search the battlefield.

House Ulgo’s troops had retreated, leaving their dead and injured scattered among those of House Organa and House Alde. Aril’ree had already had several arguments with Organa medics regarding the extraction of injured enemy combatants.

That was Alderaanian honor. Fight where you can see the enemy, and the enemy can see you, because that’s The Way War Is Done, but leave your fallen enemies to bleed out or freeze to death because… loss is dishonorable? …enemies have no honor? …honor was a terrible replacement for actual laws of warfare.

She knew her fellow Republic soldiers sometimes broke those laws—she’d seen it herself—but at least there were laws. Not archaic conventions that were followed when they cost more lives and broken when they cost more lives.

Her handheld medical scanner picked up vital signs. Another living casualty. No, two. She commed their location.

“Sir, that one’s House—” The Alde soldier broke off at her look. “Yes, sir,” he finished instead.

It was twilight when the last of the medical evac units lifted off the mountain, heading for an Organa stronghold, with her and the last of the casualties she’d found on it. With her team, and the stronghold’s medical staff, most of the casualties would make it. Whatever that was worth.

The Alderaanian civil war had been raging for ten years, since just after the Treaty of Coruscant was signed. The soldiers she saved would simply go back into battle again, fighting a futile war for the throne and the allegiance of Alderaan.

Not that she was any different, she thought as she checked a fluid drip. She’d been all but ground zero for the Sacking of Coruscant, her residency ending in that horrifying mass casualty event, and she’d traded in her planned future in civilian medicine and signed up with the Republic Army Medical Corps. To make a difference.

Perhaps she belonged on Alderaan, planet of futile wars. She could battle death while they battled for their throne.

Perhaps she needed a meal and rest, or at least a ration bar and a cup of caf. Her battle wouldn’t seem half as futile to the solders as theirs seemed to her.