trans_9 | A Really Bad Week

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A Really Bad Week

There was something different about the tavern. Typically, the mood in it was cheerful, almost homey; for the past few days, however, it had been... solemn.

It could have been blamed on a number of things. Because of the recent strike against GLaDOS, people were remembering those that had been repodded, and Hisk, the previous helper, was among that group. Kawalsky, Cassie, and two of the people in the pods had been killed. And lastly, though it was public knowledge by that point that Hiccup and Rose had been hurt, it wasn't yet known exactly what had happened or how bad it was.

Kang knew, though.

All of that combined equaled a somewhat mopey draconian behind the bar.

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"I don't really blame them. Were they humans, or another race altogether?" Kang asked.

"No, not human," Trudy said. "Around ten feet tall, blue, looked kinda catlike. Glowed in the dark a bit, but then the whole damn jungle glowed in the dark. Didn't have much in the way of technology, nothin' really to trade with us. If the rocks hadn't been there, we prob'ly would have left the planet alone, since the air's toxic and you gotta wear a respirator."

"Anyway, I flew a surface transport with SecOps- that's the security company I was with there, after I got out of the Marines back on Earth. Mercenaries, you'd call us. Always did think there were a lot of guns goin' into the jungle if we were just there to get rocks, first year. Second year things started gettin' really tense - more raids from the locals, closer to the base."

"What happened after that?"

Wedge's attention on the conversation didn't escape Kang, but he didn't say or do anything to point him out to Trudy.

"Avatar program really took off - bunch of our scientists had figured out a way to make a Na'vi body, some kinda neural uplink put a human's consciousness into it, like walkin' around in a big clonesuit. Quaritch was tryin' to get 'em to convince the natives to move off the site of their clan center, 'cause that's where the richest deposit was or some shit." Trudy shrugged her shoulder. It was obvious that she was dismissing some of the complexities because she wanted to distance herself from what had happened - she understood more about the situation than she said.

"Quaritch had enough at that point an' he decided that if the blue monkeys weren't gonna move, well, he'd just go blow 'em up and make 'em. So he did. Pulled every pilot from the base and flew to Hometree and blew it up. I was there-"

She had been there. She'd seen the smoke rising from the great tree into the sky, seen Na'vi running in all directions - kids, women, whatever. She took a long sip of her beer. "Didn't fire, for what it's worth. Sat there for a minute deciding, had my finger on the button, in the end I turned the chopper around." Her face got blank, and hard at the same time. "Wasn't gonna give up my honor as a Marine for that pig-headed bigoted shit."

Kang was extremely glad he'd been reading up on technology. If he hadn't, he would have been clueless about what Trudy was talking about.

"He would have fit right in, in the Dragonarmies," he frowned.

Trudy just grunted. It seemed like now that she'd gotten the story out, she didn't want to say much else. "You'd be welcome to him. Bastard demoted me over it. Said I disobeyed orders and went AWOL. Damn sure hope Jake blew him up."

She shook her head. "Just... makes me wish I knew he was a bastard two years ago, so I wouldn't've signed up. Or a year ago, so I coulda stopped flyin' for him then."

"He would've been killed off quick by some other power-hungry bastard. And remember, you can't change the past. You just learn from it," Kang pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah," Trudy said, swirling the ale from her second drink down in the bottom of her glass. "Doesn't mean I'm any less responsible for shit that happened while I was busy lookin' the other way, though. I knew what was goin' on, I just cared more about the paycheck."

Kang shrugged. "At least now you know better. That's the important thing."

She drained the last of her tankard and slid it back over the bar in silence.

"You sound like you know a lot about this kinda bullshit," she said. Her words were starting to run together a little.

"Fought in a war a long time ago," Kang snorted. "It's a long story."

"So was that one," she said. If he still put her off, she'd let it go, but... hell, she'd spilled her guts, it was his turn.

Kang shook his head, "Point. Refill before I begin?"

"Jesus Christ yes," she said, shoving her tankard over to his side of the bar. She felt like she needed to get plastered into next week after sharing that little story.

"We were created for this war, from dragon eggs. From the moment we hatched, they made us fight and kill each other for food, and taught us to hate elves and Solamnics," Kang said, after getting Trudy a refill and settling himself on the bar. Might as well give her all the details. "The humans treated us like shit. We were just dumb lizardmen, only good for digging latrines and serving as infantry."

He snorted. "I'm not all that upset we lost. The officers and highlords lied, cheated and backstabbed each other to gain more power, and made mistake after mistake. We managed to capture the general in charge of the entire opposing army, and instead of killing her, they paraded her around like a damn trophy. It wasn't exactly a surprise when she got rescued, and when Neraka fell, the officers told all of us to cover their asses while they ran away, safe."

Trudy nodded like Kang had nodded during her story, even though - like him - some of the specifics evaded her. "Rat bastards," she said, although it wasn't clear exactly which one of the many who had wronged Kang's people she was referring to.

Kang's tail twitched. "Of course, they never gave us any assistance when the victors began hunting us down and killing us after the war. Most went to banditry or mercenary work since it was all we really knew. I took my regiment up in the mountains where we could live in relative peace for however long our life spans were; we were told they'd never created females, to better control us. We shared a valley with a village of hill dwarves for almost 30 years, raiding each other back and forth. A game, of a sort.

"Then, we found out about a new army having been formed. I was reluctant to join up at first, but this time it seemed like they were actually focused on fighting a damn war! Of course, after offering our services as engineers, we were relegated to latrine duty. Nothing had really changed. We left."

He smiled to himself. "It's a good thing we did, though, or we'd never have found out about the female eggs that had been kept secret, hidden away. We found them, and raised them, moving out of the valley."

"Once bitten, twice shy," Trudy agreed, about them leaving the second war. "And fuck them very much for thinking they could control any of you. That's a damn stupid way to try and make sure your troops don't run out on you. Case in point." She gestured to Kang with the tankard before taking a swig of it.

"It gets worse. While we were on the move, we were being hounded by goblins. Didn't find out for a little over a year that they'd been hired by the Dark Knights, the ones I'd mentioned before, to wipe us all out; they knew about the females, and didn't like that they couldn't control us anymore," Kang snorted, pointing at the mural along the one wall of the tavern. "We did manage to fight them off, though, as well as take care of a crazy aurak that would have killed us all, too."

Trudy twisted to look back at the mural, taking in the scene. "Never told me you were famous on your world," she said. "Buncha people tryin' to screw you over, Legartijo - don't surprise me a bit y' beat 'em all off."

That was... about the same time that her eyes tracked over the rest of the bar and saw Wedge sitting at one of the tables - close enough to the bar that he'd probably heard the whole thing. She turned around again, but she'd made eye contact by now and there was no pretending he hadn't seen her. "Sonovabitch," she swore, taking a gulp of her ale. She felt cold - she had never wanted another CO to hear about her mistakes on Pandora. Especially not this CO, one she actually liked and respected.

"Sounds like bad situations all around." Wedge said quietly. He got to his feet and approached the bar. No use sitting off to the side now that he'd been noticed. He took a seat, nodded at Kang.

"If I could get one of those?" He wasn't smiling--but he wasn't exactly in a towering rage, either.

"Pandora sounds like it was pretty rough." There's nothing in his voice indicating a judgement either way. Yet. "I didn't know you did private security work."

Kang shrugged, "I'm not really one for praise. I did what I had to do, and I wasn't the only one that fought that day." He paused briefly, knowing he was going to screw up the word. "Legartijo?"

Oh. She hadn't wanted Wedge to know. Shaking his head slightly, he set a tankard in front of the man. "We're not the only ones on this ship."

Trudy laughed a little, shaking her head. "Stacy didn't translate that piece? Huh. Kinda glad. Wouldn't've liked the thought that nobody'd hear my language for what it is again." Dammit Kang, this conversation was getting philosophical fast. She turned to Wedge, glanced around the bar, and didn't see anyone else from their unit. For right now, this was the officer's club.

"Hey Wedge," she said, tipping her head. "Nothin' personal, just don't like talkin' about Pandora much. Pulled a lot of dumb bullshit there."

Sorry Wedge, she's kind of getting on the path to roaring drunk.

Wedge took a sip from his own ale, looking calmly at Trudy.

"We all pull something dumb once in our lives, at least. We wouldn't be pilots otherwise." He grinned, trying to be reassuring and put his new lieutenant at ease.

"Besides, you did the right thing in the end, it sounds like."

"Or just plain people," Kang pointed out to Wedge, chuckling. "And, I understand the language thing. I speak fluent Common, what you call English, but I don't like the idea of having Nerakese disappear."

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fieldpromoted - 2010-09-11 05:13 (UTC) - Expand

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A Really Bad Week

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Apologies for the late.

<3

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