Everything Or Nothing

[Connor Harrison]

Shaking his head at how she was being – understandable, admittedly – he moved to the makeshift desk where her gear and armor sat, a few feet from her bunk and the chair she sat on. He watched her obviously avoid eye contact.

"What would you do were you in my position."

Her words hurt, and anger and upset was a dangerous emotion, but this wasn’t something he was doing by choice.

"I know the Republic means more to you than anything. I have nothing except you and the Republic. I don’t want to lose either of them. I don’t want to see you hurt, and I didn’t ASK for this to come to me. I am doing my job."

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, knowing the words weren’t really helping.

"I am sure this will be alright. I won’t stop until I find out what’s going on. I just…I have to do this or I may as well turn my back on the only way of life I’ve known and give up on you. On us."

He looked back down at her. He wanted to say something but didn’t have the words.

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

The words she spoke in response were fast, harsh, and although she was speaking to him directly, her sight would be kept away from him.

"What would I do Fixx? I would come to you with evidence. Not word of mouth, not a list of names, not speculation. Evidence. Which, judging by what you've told me thus far, and your little secret conversation, you have nothing. You know why you have nothing? I will make it simple, because I've done nothing. Whatever it is you think you have is incorrect, it's falsified or manipulated to look like something it isn't. You've already claimed I was at Manaan and I was not. So I know your intel is wrong. What I would do is clearly not what you've done. That much is certain."

She shook her head, her eyes rolled and she scoffed. "Us."

[member="Fixx Kearney"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Fixx shook his head and suddenly lost interest in talking to her as if she was going to be adult about what he was trying to do.

"I have my orders – to keep you here or bring you in. Your choice, but stop being so pathetic. I don’t doubt there is something wrong here, but I have my orders."

He looked at his wrist com, the signal was active and he had readings of others around his position, but he was in the heart of a Republic stronghold so all was normal.

With a heavy sigh, he crossed his boots as he leant back and rested his chin on his chest. How had things gone so wrong – for her being labelled as a traitor. And for him to be the one to bring her in.

"Kayleigh, tell me what you what you were doing next after securing Attahox. Did you have a pre-planned destination, another planet or joining a fleet or anything?"

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

"Right. I'm pathetic." She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm pathetic because I would have at least given you the faith I thought you deserved, come to you with something more than someone's guesswork. I suppose we don't think the same."

"Onderon." Kayleigh said bluntly. Followed only by a long pause while she contemplated giving him anything else. "To wait on the Senate to cast their decision as to which planet would be necessary to secure next. Or maybe while I was losing control of my pathetic self I slept a few drunk nights around. You know it's so hard to remember my actions in this forgetful blonde head." While she meant nothing of the latter portion of her statement, the bitterness stemming from this entire ordeal was beginning to poison her words. "Anything else, Agent Kearney?"

[member="Fixx Kearney"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Fixx listened, ignoring the words coming from the irrational anger she felt. Onderon. The Senate. He pulled up his wrist com and keyed in the words that would go back to his agent on the other side.

"Thank you, Admiral Tyven."

A little while longer, and then he would check for results. He let the silence hang. This was worse than anything he'd done before in a long time...maybe all of his career. His targets were objects, lifeless and dangerous. Now his target was the women he loved.

"Will you come quietly with me and get off Attahox? You've got 5 more minutes and then you're leaving with me."

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

"I don't have much choice now do I?" She stood up from the chair and contacted Captain Rovins. "Captain, you are in command of the operation until you are otherwise relieved."

She looked over to Fixx as she tossed the comm onto the desk and took her personal belongings. "Let's go Agent Kearney, but do not think to put your hands on me."

Kayleigh leaned against the wall just beside the door and waited for him to lead her towards wherever they were going.

[member="Fixx Kearney"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

He watched her move, and noted the name. Rovins. She was stronger than he'd ever seen her now, a new woman. Still Kayleigh, but this was one side of her he wanted to stand beside fighting, not in front of.

"I need to ask you to leave your belongings here. Your weapon, mostly."

He held out his hand and walked forward a couple of steps to where she stood.

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

"Fine."

With a frustrated sigh she dropped the bag full of her personal affects. The collision with the ground forced the items to spill all over the floor in front of him. Money, photographs of her family and of herself and Fixx, her military ID, along with various smaller items for personal hygiene and appearance. Turning she stepped back to where her firearm laid on the floor, releasing the power cell and racked the chamber, dropping the weapon into his hand before looking blankly at him through glassy eyes.

"Anything else? Sir."

[member="Fixx Kearney"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

His eyes followed the bag crashing down, contents spilling out. He wasn’t going to react. She professionally made safe her weapon, dropping it and the cell in his hand. He pocketed the call and tucked the weapon in his waistline, below his own sidearm.

"Come on."

Fixx pushed the door open, leaning past her and nodded with his head for her to move. He didn’t touch her at her request, but stayed close, glancing back at the room as he left into the warm daylight.

There standing as a couple was more known in the Republic now, so it wasn’t strange for others seeing them together, but it was strange seeing how ice cold both looked; too professional and distant.

Fixx rose his com.

"Kearney bringing in Tyven. Attahox Sector D-3. 5 minutes."

The small transport would come down from the shuttle above the planet waiting for them, and take them away from here and to what, Fixx prayed, would be to answers and not the isolation and arrest of Kayleigh Tven.

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

Kayleigh walked slowly along with him as directed, ignoring the greetings of those passing by as she kept the majority of her vision on the ground, save for the glances up and around to see where she was going. As the transport landed she stepped up and inside, making not a single noise as she sat down and looked out to survey the planet before it lifted off.

Her eyes never looked back to his, feeling it best to simply pretend she didn't know him, that he was just another nameless face in the crowd. Any words he might try to speak to her would be met with nothing more than a passing eyeshot followed by silence as she looked back out.

The tension between the two was nearly overbearing. She just wanted to be done with this and away from him, wherever away happened to be.

[member="Fixx Kearney"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Fixx leant through the cockpit door, taking note of the young pilot, wearing full gear and a helmet, acknowledging his prisoner and to get them back to the shuttle above the planet.

Moving back to sit opposite Kayleigh, he held his seat as the transport rumbled gently away from the city where they had walked from and started a gently bank and rise up into the sky. The exterior of the shuttle rumbled gently and shook as it hit the atmosphere.

"Kayleigh please don’t hate me for doing this. I will not stop until I find the truth. I’m only doing this because I have been told to and I can’t disobey the Republic command."

Fixx didn’t take his eyes off her face.

His wrist-com started to chime softly.

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

A deep breath in was followed by a long sighed exhale. She wished he would just stop talking. She wanted to tell him to just be quiet and leave her alone. But that would only serve to antagonize him into speaking to her even more than he already was.

Instead she remained quiet, determined not to look him in the eyes. Even if he didn't mean for things to end up this way, that's the way they had gone. It had just been too convenient for him to have been the one that was sent to pick her up, rather than letting the job fall to someone less likely to cause such strife between the two. It was as if he had volunteered for the job.

Ignoring his statement entirely she simply laid her head back against the cold durasteel behind her and closed her eyes. Today needs to end.

[member="Fixx Kearney"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Only the ship provided something to listen to in a series of low groans and rumbles from the engine below them in the silence that bled through. That and his wrist-com again. He wanted to ignore it but that wouldn’t be helpful to anyone. He brought it up and activated it.

”Fixx, shuttle is now on planet and requesting you board.“

His blue eyes were the only thing to move, immediately to Kayleigh. His body went cold and rigid, muscles ready to spring.

"Will do," came his monotonous reply, standing as he did.

Moving back to the cockpit slowly, he moved the patrician and leant in.

"Excuse me, is Major Rovins of the Intelligence Unit aware of the situation?"

”Yes sir.”

"Thank you."

Fixx pulled his sidearm from his holster and pushed it against the nape of the pilot’s neck.

"You take this ship down RIGHT now "

The com chimed. ”Fixx, is everything alright? “

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik9VK_jkgjI

The pilot pushed forward on the yoke of the transport, sending Fixx crashing forward into the control deck, gun falling from his grip and receiving a fist into the chest as the ship began a sharp descent back towards the planet.

Bringing over his right leg, Fixx cracked the side of the mans helmet with his boot and pulled his body up, clawing at the seat and pushed back on the yoke to try and level the ship, now in a descent that was too fast and too erratic to steady.

The rogue pilot grunted and pushed his hand against Fixx’s throat, both fighting each other and for control of the transport. An alarm started to sound from the control deck and the ships thrusters automatically turned off, slowing the ship sharply to prevent as much damage as possible in a forced landing, as this was evidently becoming.

Orange and green streaks came into view as they headed to the surface, and wrapping his arm around the pilots neck, Fixx pulled back as hard as he could on the controls as the ship struck the soil, shaking everything around him violently, throwing them into a delirious spin as the ship bounced across the surface of the planet becoming coming sharply to a stop.

A small hissing and the sound of the alarm was all that could be hard, with little else movement apart from a few sparks and wisps of black smoke from the crippled ship embedded in the charred soil somewhere on Attahox.

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

Kayleigh's eyes snapped open as a scuffle erupted towards the front of the ship. What the feth is going on?! She leaned forward and looked as a number of verbal exchanges followed physical ones. The sound of Fixx's gun dropping to the floor raised her concern. She had no idea what was going on, nor whose side she should be on. Which of them was trying to kill her? The agent? Or the pilot? Before she had an opportunity to act the ship radically shifted directions and began a rapid descent toward the planet's surface.

The admiral knew this feeling all too well. She struggled for a few moments as she shifted her weight to the rear of the vessel and braced herself for the impact that would shortly follow the ever present alarm. It was too late to stop the ship's crash course at this point. She would have to wait and hope for the best. As the ship hit the dirt the contents of the vessel erupted from everywhere and anywhere, and though she prepped herself for the crash, the blonde's legs buckled with the force of the impact, and she was forced forward, her arms outstretched as she made contact with the opposite side of the vessel. A sudden burst of speed followed by a gasp of air and a sharp pain would be her final memory as the light around her fell dark, slipping into a quiet unconsciousness as her head collided with the durasteel transport wall, her body falling limp against the floor.

[member="Fixx Kearney"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

With a start, he came back to reality - the lifeless body of the pilot in his arms, neck snapped, helmet lolling to the side. Fixx blinked and looked around to get his bearings quickly. The ship was on it's side, the smoke was thin and grey, but starting to get thick with black from the fuel.

Gritting his teeth, Fixx moved quickly to pull himself up and over the seat, and crawled over the door into the bay of the small ship, and saw Kayleigh strewn between a number of discarded weapons from the storage bays all smashed open and med-kits, seeping precious bacta. He didn't waste time and watched his footing, walking on what was the side of the ship and over a number of lights and pipes to reach her unconscious body.

He swept over her body, checking her pulse which was stable and her breathing normal. There was no sign of injury, but her hand was splattered with blood. He moved to the back of the transport and mangeed to get the door open with electronics still working, but still live which was a danger. The ramp moved down to the right, whih would have been ok were they on the right side.

Wasting no time as a shower of sparks cracked from the cockpit, Fixx pulled her arm over his shoulder and raised himself, scooping her legs with his free arm and ,holding her across his body, moved to the rear. Sidling out onto the churned up black soil carefully through the toxic smoke, Fixx breathed hard as he carried her away from the ship, away from danger and laid her down as far away as he could make it before he had to drop her.

The ship was a good distance away, and looking around he saw nothing but black and orange mounds of what looked like minerals, sand, coal and garbage. They were in one of the many mining facilities on the planet, which meant they could be anywhere. Looking up, distant shipyards and drilling rigs were suspended in the atmosphere. It was like a makeshift desert out of debris, dunes canyons and minerals.

The ship was now starting to seep flames from the cockpit.

Fixx looked down to Kayleigh and swept her hair from her dirty face, supporting her neck with his hand.

"Kayleigh....KAYLEIGH."

Looking at his wrist-com, the signal dipped in and out of activity.

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

What.....What is that noise? That incessant ringing? It's pounding at my head.

Muffled sounds and a piercing high pitched ring were all that the woman could hear through her subconscious. Am I dying? No. I can feel pain. Open your eyes. Kayleigh...KAYLEIGH.

The girls eyes snapped open as she heard Fixx's voice. For a moment she had thought this ordeal was just one huge nightmare. The blonde looked around to see she was on the ground and he was calling her. He was dirty, with a few cuts and scrapes. Her head began to pulsate with waves of pain from the sudden jolt of the crash and whatever had fallen on top of her. She slowly moved her feet and hands to make sure she could still feel them.

She felt pain in her hand, but it was mild and not unbearable. She was breathing heavily, more so than any typical person would. The smoke from the crash had taken a bit of a toll on her single lung, and she coughed a few times to try and clear her airways. She wanted to say something, to ask what happened, but she couldn't muster the oxygen between breaths to speak. Each breath was labored to keep herself from passing out again. A minute or two would pass before she was able to slide herself up a bit, though she felt an immense pain on the right side of her chest, causing her to lay back down on to the ground and moan unwillingly.

Her fingers moved gently and slowly along the side of her body, pressing lightly in several areas to determine the cause of the pain before pressing on the root of the cause. She'd broken a rib in the crash. Another groan would force its' way out of her lips before she dropped her head back down to the dirt. Her hands clenched into fists as she looked up into the sky, the smell of burning metal and fuel filling the air and her nose.

Kayleigh turned her head slightly and looked at Fixx, a pain filled smile mixed with the filth of the dirt and smoke graced her face. "I'm guessing this wasn't part of your plan?" Her eyes would blink slowly, a bit of laughter escaped, interchanging slightly with a cough or two before settling back into the dirt bed she laid in. It was comfortable, soft, perhaps she could rest here for a while. Eyes closed slowly, consciousness teetering on the brink.

[member="Fixx Kearney"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

A relieved sigh escaped his lips as Kayleigh stirred and came back. Fixx supported her head and let her make sure she was alright. The crack and pop of the ships electronics bursting from the flame could be heard as the gentle roar of fire became louder, smoke now drifting away up into the sky. As she spoke, he rolled his eyes lightly.

"No, not really what I had in mind."

Noticing she was drifting away, he couldn’t let her – they had to move.

”F..x, come in – what’s g..n. o.?“

"Kayleigh, come on – we have to go, we’re not safe."

He maintained a hold of her, trying to ease her up without forcing a broken body too fast. His wrist-com crackled with a transmission, and he switched hands holding Kayleigh as he brought his com up.

"We’re down on the surface. The transport for us wasn’t a transport at all – and now the pilot is dead after trying to kill us. Find out who that was in the Republic ship, no ID tag – just track the ships that came into the city."


Fixx shifted his position, and brought up Kayleigh’s head to rest on his thigh as he knelt beside her.

”I’l. .ind ou. .ll I can – kee. .oving and get to sa.ety.“

"Admiral Tyven is injured – this whole thing has been about her. It’s an assassination attempt and we’ve been the ones to lead them straight to her."

Angrily, he clicked off and looked back down at the Admiral.

"Come on – Kayleigh."

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

Looking up through slow blinking eyes Kayleigh would hear him warn her that they needed to move, though her hand would lift up to touch his face, while the other would shift, her index finger covering her lips. "Shh...Just a few minutes to rest." The crackling of his comm and the static filled message would catch her ears, along with their following brief exchange of words. A short, raspy, cough-induced laugh is all she had the energy to muster as her head lay in his lap. "I don't suppose now is the time to say I told you so?"

Her head shifted about to look at their surroundings before her eyes would meet his again. "We're in the middle of nowhere." Her words were broken up between her shortness of breath. "I'm not gonna be able to go far." A blood filled cough was spat on to the ground aside the pair.

[member="Fixx Kearney"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Fixx looked at the blood on the floor, crimson against the harsh black soil. His eyes met hers, and a wave of fear crept over him.

"No no, don’t speak. Take it easy."

Without waiting, he looped his arm under her waist and one arm around her neck and gently rose her up from the ground. She winced, she moaned, she doubled over, but he had to move away from the danger zone.

"Short, steady breaths – stay with me. You’ll be alright."

She would be alright – for now.

"I need to get in touch with the Service and open our position, but it will leave us exposed to whoever was in charge of that ship."

His hand closed around hers a little tighter.

"I think I know what this is all about, but you need to keep your eyes peeled with me. Look for cover, a barrack, anything. We’re in one of the mines on the planet so there should be som-"

A noise overhead caught his attention and he snapped his head back to look. There was nothing, except the orbital shipyards. An eye closed slightly as he scanned the horizon, black mounds of dirt and scree could only be seen beyond the flaming wreckage.

"Come on."

[member="Kayleigh Tyven"]

 

[Mariya Pyne]

The sudden lift off of the ground was enough to elicit a screeching yelp from her. A stinging sensation in her eye gave way to the formation of a few tears. It had been a long time since she had felt any kind of physical pain even remotely close to this. The pain of her prior sprain reminded her that it was still present, though nowhere near the same level of soreness that her side was presenting her with as he forced her shuffled movements. Walking made her feel a bit dizzy, and her breathing was quick in pace and light with each inhale. She gritted her teeth as he continued with her arm around him.

"Just....Sit me down Fixx. I can't. Go and find a clearing to call your people. You'll be faster without me, and I have no comm, no gun, no ID. I'm of no use right now. Just let me sit, and go."

[member="Fixx Kearney"]