Big Brother is always watching. [Linna]

[Sarge Potteiger]

Sarge found the speeder and began panning the scope around, until he saw something peculiar. The Doctor, crawling forward. But... the Admiral... blinking, he pulls his eye away from the scope and squints to try and see who's out there.

He didn't see red. Wait a gorram minute. Settling back in, rifle up to his shoulder, he moves his field of vision a bit ahead of her. "You're clear to the edge of the camp... Admiral." This time, he didn't sound so sure of her title.

This was so confusing.

 

[Linna Beorht]

Ohfrellohfrellohfrell

She crawled straight ahead, trusting the voice in her ear. She clicked her teeth twice in acknowledgement and slipped her head under the edge of a tent. The tent was empty; through the open front flap, she watched Tuskens roasting meat around a fire. A couple of them were situated so as to be looking her way. She slipped the sonic servodriver under the edge, focused it just so, and engaged it. The bits of tech on a tusken's person began malfunctioning at ridiculous levels. Distraction to the max.

With the distraction, she shimmied under the tent flap-

And found an actual, and thoroughly unexpected, prisoner.

Feth.

She had no knife to cut the straps. With a grimace, she dug out her ryll kor pipe and crushed it under her foot. The sharp ceramic edge bit into the leather, and she dragged the bloody woman down, knowing that any second the Tuskens could spot her.

"ROAR."

Feth.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Following her progress until she disappeared, he scanned onward and around the camp to get an accurate count on how many Tusken's there were. Thankfully, this seemed to be a small band. Twelve. Twelve that he could see, that is.

Memorizing their positions quickly, he eyes the distraction curiously before the characteristic roar of a Raider spotting a target is heard. The one roaring, a brute standing by the fire and looking into the tent, was silenced as half his throat was blown out.

What followed next was characteristic of the man known as Sarge.

In nine seconds, 11 Tusken's were dead. The successive barks of his high caliber rifle rolling into one large noise that swept across the camp shortly after the firing died down. There were still two more though. One was in the tent with Linna and the prisoner; Sarge couldn't see that one.

The other was a scout who was just now coming back - he lost his head pretty quickly. "You clear?", he asks quietly.

 

[Linna Beorht]

Nine seconds from first death to second-last. Second-last, because the Tusken who had just stumbled into the tent with her had to die.

No question about it.

With that, of course, her options crystallized. Cause and effect, possibilities and probabilities, formed her only barrier between fear and function, between death and self-control.

The sonic servodriver clicked through eighteen settings and whined. The lenses over his eyes shattered, and she drove the butt of the sonic into the right lens. Broken glass lacerated everything in and around his eye. A gaffi stick bruised and cut her, and she ripped at his weapon, seeking to drag it away as he fell.

The stick settled into her hands. It rose and fell, almost of its own accord. The last Tusken died.

She spared a moment to vomit, then pulled a knife from the Tusken's belt and sawed the unconscious prisoner free. She stumbled out into the silent night.

"All clear," she said.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"Affirmative. On my way down." Standing and leaving the empty weapon where it lay for the moment - he could pick it up on his way back - he makes his way down and towards the camp. As he got closer, he spied the Admiral [Doctor?] and the prisoner.

Nodding his head to the Admiral he wraps an arm around the prisoner and helps to support her weight. "So, how you want to get 'er out of here?" They were a bit too far away for him to notice the other dead body in the tent, but he certainly smelled... vomit?

No way.

Death. That's what he smelled. No one around here had vomited. Then he sniffed again; definitely vomit. Death had a smell all it's own, but vomit had one nearly as pungent; especially when someone vomited out of disgust. And the prisoner certainly didn't look like they'd had enough to eat to wretch anything up.

Yeah. Definitely not the Admiral.

"Mind explaining why you look like the Admiral, Doctor?"

The scope never lied.

 

[Linna Beorht]

It was so nonchalant of him that Linna almost didn't recognize the substance of his comment at first. She kept plodding along as her chest constricted.

"If I'm looking like the Admiral...Angel...it's not because of me, Sarge. I've never met her; not even the same species. I'd say someone's screwing with your head."

She helped him carry the insensate woman in the direction of the speeder bike.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"Impossible.", he states flatly. You couldn't screw with someone's head that specifically unless you were using the Force; and the Force was something that didn't affect him. "I'm a Blank.", he explains cautiously. Once they were to the speeder bike, he set the woman on the back but paused momentarily.

He stopped her from getting on the bike, since she no doubt would, and raises a hand slightly as though wishing to caress her cheek. "Humor me for a moment...?" At this range, the look of sheer sorrow in his eyes was unavoidable, and perhaps there was more to this hallucination than just how old the ghost seemed to be.

 

[Linna Beorht]

Blank. Well, that explained a lot. She'd met Vong before -- sometimes in more friendly or intimate circumstances than one might suspect -- and now she could finally put a feeling on that slight feeling of unsettlement. As she helped tie the rescued woman to the speeder bike, Linna pondered life. She went to get on the bike, and he stopped her.

His hand settled against her cheek.

For once, she didn't have a joke.

"Do what you have to do," she said, "as long as I'm her. Double meaning intentional."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He gave a slow, remorseful grimace of a smile, and placed the barest of kisses upon her lips - he let it linger, but didn't do anything more. It was cathartic, in a way. Just barely. Going further would have ruined the illusion more than the act of kissing.

Or the fact that hearing Angel say 'do what you have to do' in any manner other than 'murder' didn't ring true to him.

"Thank you.", he whispers quietly. "She meant the galaxy to me. A shame she was married." The way he said 'married' did little to not imply that perhaps the feelings had been mutual. "You've given an old soul some measure of closure, perhaps. When we drop off the girl, we'll find somewhere quiet - I'm sure you have questions. Meet me outside the hangar."

And with that, he was gone. A ghost off to walk the lonely path he always had; the path of the outcast.

 

[Linna Beorht]

The fear ended long after he walked away, while she and the speeder bike crossed the desert. She handed the woman off to such authorities as might be around. She allowed the perfect amount of adulation to get her a bottle and Omega Pyre some local happiness, then sauntered off to meet the ghost.

"That was...a long night, Sarge. I hope you didn't mind that I had to play along. Had to lie under pressure -- but, well, that's sort of my life, when I dabble in applied rather than theoretical.

"How old are you? And if you really are as old as I think you are...why aren't you in charge?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

The man was in his habitual place: the shadows. "Indeed it was.", is the absent response. There was rueful chuckle for a moment as his gaze lingered on the ground, the roundness of his face pronounced in the hangar lights.

He simply looked too young to be as old as he simply had to be. "That's the worst kept secret of all of mine. I'm about five centuries old, unadjusted. Perhaps a little more. I'm 23 adjusted, though. Spent a lot of time asleep."

Head lifting, he fixes her with the sort of gaze that implied a target lock; but he had no other look usually. "I'm not in charge because I've always been a weapon." Not that it was hard to see why. He was terrifyingly good at what he did.

 

[Linna Beorht]

"Twenty-three years subjective time. Feth, son, you're my age. Too old for our faces. Guess I can appreciate the lot of that -- I'm a tool, a specialized one. I'm no leader.

"So what happens now? Is this the last time you're awake? In fifty years, will you be an old man in a grave or a young face in an icebox?"

Straightforward.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"I hope I'm old; although I doubt I'll be dead by then if I lived that long. I figure I'll die in a fight long before then. But that's up to the boss, really. If he feels I need to sleep, he'll put me to sleep. We helped each other survive the Darkness, and we help each other survive now."

He shrugs a single shoulder. "He was always the leader. I can lead small units, but I've rarely had the head for bigger things unless they were large scale military engagements."

Again, a shimmer of a smile at her words. "Yes, not very old all things considered. But all I've known for the past five years... I wouldn't wish them on anyone; knowing all your friends and loved ones will die before you, knowing your purpose in life is to murder, being alone. I guess it's finally caught up to me."

 

[Linna Beorht]

"I never had purpose," said Linna. "Not some great overriding thing that consumed my life. Sure, I worked my posterior off to be this young and this accredited. I am to books and ideas and theories and criticism what you are to guns and knives. But it was all just out of...boredom. The search for a challenge that's worthy of me. Now, there's a half-decent chance that I'll find that, helping the Pyre turn into a legitimate government. I might - might - be finding purpose. How're you feeling in that regard?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"I returned to Dathomir recently, to find an old friend - really old - see how she'd managed. It's serene. Untouched. I'd like to keep it that way. Sometime soon I think I'll take to watching over the forests there; the sort of woodland protector that fluctuates from angel to demon as readily as the wind changes direction."

He chuckled, genuinely amused. "The reason I'm in Cira's hair so much is boredom. I'm underutilized. I've got nothing to do."

"I haven't read in too long. It used to be what I did every waking moment of the day; should pick it up again."

 

[Linna Beorht]

"Dathomir could use a protector. I'm not the only one to see the potential for a trilateral neutral alliance, but Sith Empire warmongers could easily drag Mandalore back into the fight, and that means Sith versus Dathomir. And I think you could handle all manner of Sith, couldn't you.

"In the meantime...well, if you ever need a book, I have a few."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"I might be able to. I've never much had the chance to fight any of them; other than Avicus. We both know how that turned out." He nodded a muted thanks to her, "I'll stop by your place sometime; yes I know where it is.", he adds, knowing it was unneccessary but doing it out of reflex anyway.

Slightly creepy, but given what he normally did for OP... not so much.

"I need some whiskey; should probably get a room around here. Leave tomorrow." There was a pause as he seemed to remember something. "And... thank you, if I haven't already."

 

[Linna Beorht]

She tossed him the bottle. "Might not be your favorite, but should be good enough. Sleep well, Sarge."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He wagged the bottle at her, bowed slightly at the waist and sauntered off. Or, at least, she could imagine he did.