"If a natural disaster strikes your community, reach out to your friends, neighbors, and complete strangers. Lend a helping hand."
Marsha Blackburn
Location: Atrisia
There was something about a disaster that shone a light on a person, that exposed who they were at their core. Exposed the truth of them, free of masks, of the self-image that everyone wrapped around themselves like a cloak, to protect themselves from the eyes of the universe. No-one wanted to be so exposed, to be forced to face the truth of who they were, to be forced to face the fact that people they had known all their lives might not be who they thought they were. That they themselves were not truly who they thought they had been.
It was a truth that could shake you down to the bones, or it could build you up. It was the truth that could make or break you…lift you as an angel or leave you nothing more than a monster. Dark eyes glanced down at a metallic hand, the prosthetic fingers silently curling up into a fist. John only had to close his eyes and the flames were right there. Never far, licking at his flesh, the heat like a solid wall trying to drive him back. For a moment the man was far away, lost in his memories, lost in reliving the day he’d been turned into the monster that he was now, the amalgamation of metal and flesh.
An accident, a single wire that was faulty, it could have happened anywhere, to anyone. A single spark, a singly blown plug. But that was enough. Enough to start a fire, to leave a factory burning. Enough to bring down walls and ceilings. He could still hear the crackle of the flames, the desperate screams. It had been his fault, a disaster of his making, his responsibility. Into the factory, again and again, John couldn’t even remember how many times he’d thrown himself into the flames. Just the never-ending heat hammering at him, the sweat running down his face, the smell of burning cloth and hair. The moment he’d woken up in the hospital, his arms already amputated, on the life support machines.
It had been like walking into a nightmare, his entire body a mass of agony that tore into his soul with every conscious moment. Dark eyes flicked open, dismissing the memories that had wrapped around him like a cloak as the breath flowed out of his lungs in a long sigh. The man’s head leaned back, resting against his chair’s headrest, eyes dancing to the window, watching the grass outside roll past. The truth was that if he was given the chance to go back, to redo history then he wouldn’t change a thing. There were people who had needed his help, how could he not help? The price though…the price had been heavy. A hand uncurled, a breath escaped him as a sigh, it had been heavy but one he was happy to pay.
A small wry smile touched John’s lips as he rolled his head to the side, dark eyes settling on the face of the woman leaning against his side, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. They’d spent hours, what felt like days at the med camp, hours during which the cyborg had watched Gianna give more and more of herself to help the patients who had been gathered. The Jedi gave and gave until there was nothing left, no reserves and then she dug and gave even more. Only, how could John argue, how could he ask her to stop when he’d done the same.
A find smile touched the man’s lips, watching the slumbering woman, the small twitches of her face as she dreamed. To give everything of yourself to help others, that wasn’t something he could ever ask her not to do, not when it was a part of her, a part of him. She reminded him of that, reminded him of that better part of himself, the part he’d thought lost. The light shone on everyone, with no exceptions, not even for him. All the masks were torn away, even those he’d wrapped around himself, minister, admiral and executive. Leaving the man just who he was, just John. Just the man who’d wanted to build droids in a little workshop in the middle of a city. Just the man who wanted to help people.
Dark eyes closed, the man’s breathing steadying as his head dropped down, resting on top of Gia’s, feeling the touch of sleep reaching up for him, pulling him into its warm embrace. Letting sleep wash over the cabin as the transport sped on, rumbling back to the city.
It was ideal.
It couldn’t last.
Nothing so good, so comforting could last. The first sound of alert, filling his commlink, the man coming awake with a start. His eyes remained closed, his head still resting on Gia’s but every trace of sleep, of the calm that had settled over him like a cloak vanishing. An attack of some kind? No, nothing like that…it was an alert, a hostile contact at Jar’Kai on the other side of the planet. The man’s body stiffened in shock, no, no it was more than that, reports poured across his vision, alerts from the other main cities. Tales of sickness, of terror in the streets.
The man’s lips didn’t move, his thoughts made into voice went speeding through his commlink, spreading across the whole planet. Across all confederacy channels.
“All Confederacy forces, this is Minister Locke on Atrisia issuing a priority alert. We have a situation developing on the planet, a sickness of some kind has been unleashed on the planet.”
In so many places, all at once. This couldn’t be a coincidence, this couldn’t be just a random sickness flaring up. This had to be something more, something worse.
“At this time we have no choice but to believe that this is an attack against the planet. All Confederacy forces in the area are hereby ordered to proceed towards the planet with maximum haste, all forces on the ground please report in. Our first priority is to prevent the spread of this virus, whatever it is. At the current time, I am issuing a quarantine order. Lockdown the cities, the communities. Until we know what’s going on until we know what the situation on the planet is we can’t risk this spreading. Take maximum precautions to protect yourself.”
What went unsaid, what would never be said aloud was that no-one on the ground could be allowed to leave the planet until they knew what was going on. Until they had identified the threat. The members of the CIS would live and die with the citizens of Atrisia, they would figure this out or all die together.
A quick breath, a review of the forces that were already reporting in as John constructed a mental picture in his head.
“BX-72967, take your forces to try to meet up with the Night mother to protect her from threats while she attempts to breach the protection around Jar’kai.”
He had to trust the night mother knew what she was doing, that she was acting with a purpose and provide her with what support could be spared.
“All other CDF and Knight Obsidian units on the planets, we’re getting reports of chaos in the cities, of sickness and terror of some sort. Move-in cautiously and establish Order, try to find out what’s going on and evacuate any civilians you can. Once we have an idea of what we’re dealing with we’ll use the medical camps we’ve already set up as safe locations to funnel refugees to.”
They would need supplies, a lot of supplies and food. But first and foremost they had to get control of the situation, they had to figure out just what was going on. One last message, a direct message to Xam’chi, to the Commonwealth. A request for access to their surveillance equipment and the city systems. If they were going to help, if they were going to combat this then they’d need all the information they could get.
The man sagged back in his seat, the transport still rolling on as his eyes flicked rapidly behind closed eyes, data streaming across his vision as he moved supplies and troops, as he reached for the systems on board his ship, using the comms to link the strands of the CIS communications into one large network, offloading the job of managing that to EX while he went back to his map, to the responses coming in, trying to construct the best picture of what was going on.
Once more into the fire.