Lost and Found

[MoreThanSane]

Aelianus slept a dreamless sleep.

Time had passed, that was all he knew for certain as he drifted slowly back to consciousness. Days had passed. Days since... what? Days since... images flashed through his mind -- blood, screams, flashes, more blood, clanging, a deafening roar, so much blood. His own hands, so bloody. His own blood.

Aelianus crossed the final distance between him and consciousness in an instant, eyes snapping open to find himself lying in a hospital bed in a room that was uncomfortably reminiscent of some of the more run-down wartime infirmaries he'd had the displeasure of visiting during the war. The traditional bleached-white of medical facilities across the galaxy was nowhere to be found, the walls instead grey and dusty and the floor pocked and scraped and thoroughly worn. Medical equipment and instruments, however, were organized neatly and logically along with other beds and associated seating.

"I feel like hell," he croaked between parched lips, not even bothering to analyze the implications of his surrounding. There would be time for that later. If there was one thing he'd learned over the last several years it was patience. He spotted TP, the younger man scowling intently at a datapad. Aelianus cleared his throat and grimaced. "Pearot," TP suddenly looked up from his pad, "water would be fantastic."

 

[Cassanova]

The reports on the datapad were, unduly and wholly depressing. The Rebellion had grown nearly one hundred percent unto itself since TP had conjured up his transmission. They now had enough men and women to man a planetary defense force. Not hardly enough to even upgrade ourselves to a thorn in Andraste's side he mused himself into a lull. By the time he had the displeasure of reading the report three more had arrived in his digital inbox causing the former Special Forces soldier to roll his eyes, dismissively tossing the datapad onto the console.

"I feel like hell. Pearot," TP's attention perked up at the sound of Aelianus' voice. "Water would be fantastic."

Nodding in agreement, TP moved swiftly to a small cart which was home to a jug of water and some food - all in varying flavours of gross, disgusting or bland. From an ugly tan coloured pitcher, TP poured a cup of water to about three-quarters capacity, and carried it towards Aelianus, handing it to him, but staying close at hand for the first sign of any need for assistance.

Once Aelianus had settled, TP grasped the back of a chair and placed it at the edge of the bed. Climbing over the chair, and utilising the backrest as an armrest, TP spoke softly, and clearly. "Well, status report. You've been out for just under three days. You're going to hurt like hell for a few weeks... and you're about half a galaxy away from where we found you," TP nodded to the walls surrounding them, "You're on Ord Pardron - edge of the mid Rim, not too far from Tatooine."

TP smiled weakly, knowing this next part of conversation was going to be unnessecarily hard, "I checked the files. You've been declared KIA for twelve years, six months, and eight days... you must have some questions..."

 

[MoreThanSane]

Twelve years, six months, eight days.

Aelianus shook his head.

Twelve years, six months, eight days.

Any other person would have at the vary least taken a brief moment to mourn wasted time. Aelianus didn't even consider it. Such grief was a waste of more time, energy and simply irrational. Instead, despite his condition, Aelianus simply allowed himself a short moment to rejoice. He was alive. Twelve years, six months, eight days spent on an alien world without a shred of civilization. He'd survived a disastrous mission, a disastrous crash, and plenty of plain old disaster in those years. He was alive.

Now it was back to work.

His moment of rejoicing over, Aelianus steeled himself. It was time to ask questions he wasn't certain he wanted answers to.

He held up three fingers, ticked them off one by one. "The war, why the kriff am I not soaking in bacta, Pearot, and... Jedi Juno Armstrong?"

 

[Cassanova]

TP shrugged apologetically, "The war hasn't been kind to us, Lieutenant. I suppose you could say we lost." He frowned, not knowing how else to phrase it. "The past six years have been ever harder with affairs between Bothans and the Hutt Cartels at boiling point. Each one of them controls Bacta or Kolto. Neither are selling to the likes of us."

Knowing there is no better place to start than at the start, TP gently gave the details of the events that led to the fall of the Alliance. "The twenty second version of the story. The Mandalorians took down our sensor net aroud the core. The Imperials pushed in from the east, the Chiss pushed in from the west, and the Mandalorians pushed in from the South. Alsakan, Endor and Coruscant all fell like dominos. I think it was only three or four months from the point they started the push to the core until the point we got whatever boots we had left off of Coruscant." TP frowned, he wasn't proud of the failures that had transpired during his tenure within the Alliance, but he wasn't stupid enough to take blame either. "Hutt Cartels took power from the bankrupted Chiss, Mandalorian clans fractured. We had a dozen ships left, and barely enough men to man them. The Alliance was done after the battle on Manaan. Completely."

Reciting the history made him regret the past even more, but also reminded him why he was on a mid-rim world with several thousand like minded men and women from all walks of life. "After Manaan, I gathered what I could from what was left of the Alliance and came here. We have an arrangement with the local populace. And a few months ago I came up with the idea to let the galaxy know we were still here. I'm assuming thats your transmission was in response to mine..."

Failing to mention the Jedi once was no small accident... That was another story entirely.

 

[MoreThanSane]

Aelianus gave a small nod. He couldn't say it was at all a surprise.

"It was. I managed to cobble together the most awful looking hyperspace transmitter -- quite honestly I wish we could have salvaged it, a rather brilliant invention -- and I came across your transmission during the rough forty seconds it was functioning. I piggybacked my code onto the signal and that was that. Two weeks ago, give or take a little. I've spent many sleepless nights considering how the war might've gone or was going. After I heard your transmission I knew... well, I knew it hadn't gone well.

"Two weeks of wondering and I got about what you said figured out. I didn't expect it to have taken so long for a Rebellion like this to have organized, and I certainly didn't expect to find Terrsyn Pearot at the helm." Aelianus allowed his lips to curve into a grim smile. "Yet here you are, old and scarred and stiffer than me, and it looks to me like you're doing as good a job as can be expected."

The smile vanished, his face darkened. "Jedi Juno Armstrong, Pearot -- I'm not stupid and I am persistent, you should at least remember enough about me to know that. Is she dead?"

 

[Cassanova]

"Is she dead?"

TP fell silence, his face grim. Not in the remorseful sorry-your-best-friend died way, but it was bigger... far more consuming than that. "Before I answer you that, let me tell you why we lost the war, Atratinus. Why the Galactic Alliance has fallen from its seat on Coruscant." Any man with any sense of human emotion at all would have seen the daggers tearing at the inside of Terrsyn's throat. You could see that he wanted to curse someone's name from the top of the tallest building and see to it that their bones forever burned in hellfire.

"The Jedi started the war with the Imperium, Jhon Cordatus - Jedi. History 101 in boot. It was worded differently, but it was him who started it. That diplomatic lot who tried to negotiate with the Mandalorians, but ended up declaring war - Jedi. The Jedi... who less than twenty four hours before the Battle of Coruscant started, simply left the Alliance in a state of war with the combined largest military force the galaxy has ever seen. The Jedi abandoned us, Aelianus. They tucked their pathetic collective tail between their legs and ran like hell. They ran like hell leaving me and billions of innocent civilians on coruscant to fend for ourselves. For a war they started."

TP's brow furrowed, his steely eyes would have been quite the change for Aelianus to see - twelve years ago TP was a cheerful efficient, but quiet soldier. These days, TP had become a General in his own right, and was putting his boot down for what he believed, and thousands upon thousands of men and women followed him willingly. "So when you ask me if a Jedi is dead. You have to ask yourself this question - Do I care?"

Truth be told, it was no secret that Aelianus had a thing with the Armstrong girl. Everyone knew it. No one had the gonads to ever say anything about it, of course. Aelianus had a reputation of being remarkably unforgiving to even the most light-hearted of taunts. "The best I can give you is that she was aboard the Light of the Force when it was attacked when it was en route to Triton. The ship, and presumably she, escaped after sustaining heavy damage..." He eyed Aelianus, undecided whether to judge the former 5 regimenter for his open affections for the unreliable, untrustworthy Jedi Orer, or to not hold it against him -- he couldn't have known, but then again - TP held the Jedi as much responsible as the Sith for the destruction of his homeworld. "Haven't heard anything specific about her since."

 

[MoreThanSane]

Aelianus processed the information remarkably slow. Aelianus Atratinus had once been known as one of the brightest young minds in the galaxy, yet now he failed to comprehend even this simple narrative. Perhaps it was the complete shock at the Jedi's cowardice.

Perhaps it was his mind devoting all its strength to keeping the hot rage within his chest from bursting out in a screaming inferno of carnage and violence.

Had Aelianus been a healthy man the next two minutes would've been host to one of the most deadly and explosive hand-to-hand fights of the decade. As it was, Aelianus simply groaned as he slowly sat up, nearly passing out with the effort. He sat straight up for a moment, swaying gently, then, with as much speed and precision as he could manage, he lashed out at TP. His fist connected with the other's jaw, bouncing harmlessly off and falling back to his side. Despite the heat of his anger, Aelianus was smart enough not to attempt the strike again.

He locked eyes with TP, green eyes burning like twin turbolasers. "You know full well, Pearot, that if I wasn't in this condition one of us would be dead right now. You insult the Jedi all you want -- I never cared especially for their philosophical drivel either -- but I don't care what happened, Juno Armstrong is not a coward. So you'll think about your speech, or when this hand stops shaking," eyes flashed dangerously as he lifted a pale, tremor-wracked hand, "I'll kill you."

 

[Cassanova]

TP smiled and touched his lip, not quite split, but definitely would swell up in the next ten minutes or so, "Noted." He rolled his neck for a moment, and adjusted his chair absentmindedly. "You're not going anywhere for another week or so, Atratinus, so you've got a choice to make and plenty of time to think on it."

"You can join us here in the fight. There's no pay, no health care, no benefits, crappy food and high risk. But we'll see the job done," He nodded. "Or one of my pilots can drop you off anywhere in the sector for you to go about your business."

He stood up and frowned, sliding the chair back to its original place, "You're not the only one who fell for a Jedi, Atratinus. You're just lucky enough to not have felt the sting of them not being there for you when you needed it most... He then sighed, and tapped the edge of the bed and prepared to leave the room.

 

[MoreThanSane]

Aelianus lowered his body slowly backward to rest on the soft bed, fierce scowl deepened the lines creasing his weathered face. He had already forgotten his anger -- TP had responded acceptably to the blow and the threat.

Prior to his disappearance, the large majority of the beings who interacted with Aelianus accused him of being unable to feel or understand the emotions or psychology of "normal people". During his days as a professor that may have been mostly true, but once he'd embarked upon his first journey to the war front and seen the things he'd seen and experienced the experiences he'd experienced, Aelianus' understanding had begun to grow. After his falling in love with Juno -- that wonderfully compassionate woman -- his understanding had flourished.

And so even now, twelve years since his last human contact, Aelianus could easily read the conflict of emotions playing out behind TP's hard eyes.

Empathy, however, was not a quality Aelianus had developed even to the slightest extent.

TP turned to leave the room and, without hesitation, Aelianus asked simply, "Who was she?"

 

[Cassanova]

TP furrowed his brow. He knew he couldn't call out something as harsh as he did on another man's love-interest, and fail to answer a single question about his own. His eyes, never meeting Aelianus', TP closed the door to ensure their privacy. Slow and heavy, his emotion-laiden footsteps carried him slowly to leaning against one of the cabinets propped against a wall. Minutes passed as TP gathered the strength, emotional fortitude, or even just the simple will to speak of her again...

"I met her on an escort operation. Picking up some lost puppy of a Padawan who had ended up on Corellia or something..." he rubbed his forehead, a subconcious manoeuvre, trying to get his brain to rattle together the truth of the situation. Trying to massage his words into something that didn't sound like the musings of a heartbroken teenager. "I haven't seen her for nearly as long as I haven't seen you. Haloburner Lamb, Jedi Knight." The very tone of his words when speaking her name would have broken the hearts of even the most cheerful of songbirds. This was a man who had seen his heart torn from his chest, watched it get smashed to pieces, and then watched as it slowly burned in the coals and ash of the wonderful planet-city that was once called Coruscant.

"I haven't heard from her since the first attack on the Jedi temples took place, but I've received no information regarding her current location," TP eyed Aelianus off, "You had an accident, Lieutenant. You weren't left to die." His words became soft, sullen, and barely audible as he trailed off, his eyes still fiercly staring at the floor. TP clearly hadn't had the luxury of taking the time to address the issue he had with the Jedi Order, nor his love-interest -- It showed as he was a man still grieving in the seconds that he could, when he was not dedicating his every waking hour to the protection and guidance of a Rebellion.

 

[MoreThanSane]

Aelianus rubbed a pale, rough hand over his face and sighed. That, he thought with more than a hint of worry, is quite an enormous amount of emotional baggage. He considered TP for a long moment, the younger man still avoiding his eyes. This Rebellion was young -- only a fledgling movement, really -- and it needed the most stable, determined and intelligent leaders possible to have any chance of success. TP was intelligent and determined, surely, but the man was emotionally compromised. Deeply.

Yet perhaps it wasn't stability that the Rebellion required. Perhaps it was this fire, this deep yet bridled emotion that seemed to have forged TP into the epitome of soldiery. Perhaps TP had simply discovered within himself a different sort of stability, one that allowed him not only to transform into a pillar of leadership and inspiration, but also let him tap into that bottomless well of grief and hatred.

Aelianus nodded, half to himself, half to the brooding man across the room. The other's feelings were well-founded, as far as he could tell. There was certainly another side to the story -- Juno Armstrong wouldn't have abandoned the Galactic Alliance and the people she'd sworn to serve. Somehow the Jedi retreat had been intended as a method of assisting the citizens their Order was meant to protect, Aelianus knew that immediately. An ancient, galaxy-spanning organization doesn't change their entire code of ethics over night, but TP knew that already. Aelianus had no doubt of the younger man's intelligence, and any being with half a mind could've followed that line of reasoning. Yet emotion was a powerful blind, and TP was as emotional as they came.

"I'm sorry, TP," Aelianus was surprised at himself -- he couldn't recall apologizing to anyone but Juno and his mother. "I really am. Just keep something in mind: however much you hate them, the Jedi are a powerful tool. If you can stomach wielding them, wield them." He considered saying more, as there was much more he would've liked to say. He was tired, though, and from the looks of him TP couldn't handle much more internal conflict. "If you can stomach it," he let his eyes droop. "I need to get some rest. I'll consider your offer, and... well, thank you, Pearot."