Log:Resistance: Last Call
Last Call
OOC Date: December 13, 2019
Location: Rori
Participants: Oran Arcantael, Percy, Ambrosia Greystorm
The Brig - Rori Command Tower - Beacon Outpost, Rori
From the outside, all that marks this blocky, modular building for what it is are the lack of windows, and the lettering painted on the door reading BRIG. An intercom panel is set beside the doorframe. The door only opens when the magnetic lock is released from inside, where a security officer monitors those coming and going from a reception desk. Someone has tracked down a banner displaying the emblem of the New Republic and hung it on the wall behind the desk. Those approved to visit pass through a second secured door and past the rooms set aside for questioning. At the back of the building in a row of containment cells, each provided with a bunk, and a primitive but functional refresher unit.
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[Oran Arcantael]
Oran looks a lot less docile in the cell with his black robes back on, saber in reach on his belt.
It's likely that no small amount of fuss has been stirred up by the fact that General Leia gave the Knight his tools of the trade back --- guards were there, they talk, and it was an extraordinary decision on Leia's part. But perhaps surprisingly, the prisoner himself is exactly where he's always been: cross-legged on the bunk, sitting up straight. Hands on his knees, patiently dropped into some peaceful(?) inner world of meditation while awaiting visitors. Or executioners. Who could blame them?
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
She's back for more - that "ONE" intelligently-brained military person that Oran claims to have encountered. Ask anyone from her formative years as a trooper for the Alliance to restore the Republic, and probably no one would've endorsed the knives-to-a-gunfight Ice Queen for her /brain/. If anyone had informed XO Calrissian that she'd one day command an Army, he'd have interrupted his charming antics to laugh...and then resumed his pursuit of Rebel women.
But these are different times. Age has mellowed some traits and sharpened others, by necessity.
Greystorm's uniform is as sharp as ever, but two things appear different about her person.
1)She seems to have enjoyed a suitable night's sleep. Fresher is the face, gone are some of the puffy hollows adding years to her already extensive numbers (compared to the whippersnappers that make up the bulk of our armed forces). 2) Less time was spent in front of the mirror this morning. Her hair floweth free, for the most part, a cascade of silver and gold to the waist. Coiled locks encricle her crown to hold back the stuff from her eyes. Is it the most stunningly shiny mane in the whole of the Resistance!?! No. But it is soft and that alone turns heads in her wake, for the stark contrast that it is against the rest of her.
The brigadier general's sent word ahead, obviously, because there her chair is waiting. THIS side of that energy field, once more. Her face would read like an impassive slate. Flat. Cold. Were it not for the queer little hint of a smile touching her lips. Outwardly, she oozes 'calm' and that's always the first warning sign that she's anything but - as the guards and all grunts reared under her tutelage know well. Ambrosia eases down onto her perch with a regal leveling of spine and shoulders and forward stare. The cat, returned for more canary TV. If she had a tail, no doubt she'd give it a flick.
[Oran Arcantael]
It's the same as it has been before: A moment spent lifting back out of the meditation, assessing the change in surroundings likely already felt through those unknowable shifts in the unseen landscape of the Force. Oran opens his eyes when Amber sits down in her place upon the chair she stole from some desk-jockey too scared to tell her no, and looks her up-down-up. Then he smiles, and greets, "Ah, you've done something different with your hair."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"Ach," Ambrosia bats away the observation like she's lazily shooing some fly from her airspace. A shrug of a hand, little more. "A small thing, compared to your transformation. The General has rewarded you with a makeover, I see." Her upper lip twitches in the lefthand corner. "Was Private Rais there to serve you biscuits, as well?"
So, yeah, word got around. Possibly as a direct memo though, rather than syllables sdrift on the S.S. Gossip.
[Oran Arcantael]
"Very little has surprised me since I steered Domino, over her protests, to drop the particulars of my life at your feet," Oran replies to Amber, in a thoughtful, measured tone. "There have been some surprises by degree, such as the ratio of questions to philosophy, but overall, the whole affair has been more or less what I expected." A brow lifts. "Until that. Until your General came round with her gifts. /That/ was a complete surprise, and commendations to Organa I suppose, because I still don't properly understand it. Can't complain --- but I don't understand it."
The Knight shrugs. "Regrettably, no biscuits."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"Food for thought," Ambrosia nods and folds one knee over the other. "You're not alone in your confusion. I was roused from my slumber to put down a small but noisy quibble in the barracks concerning her....decision." Synchronous crackling emits from the knuckles of her right hand as she flexes them in a round, tight fist, then relaxes the digits once more. The left hand is less restless. "Apart from a few bloody noses, I trust they were worse for wear but much the wiser, this morning. Their knees'll be sore, come afternoon."
So this is why she slept so well!
"Glad to see you're still here, and the rest of our fine crew with you. I'd be most disappointed if you left without saying goodbye."
[Oran Arcantael]
Oran laughs at the description of Amber putting down a riot in the barracks, and the demonstrative cracking of her knuckles. "You're wasted here, do you know that," he observes. "You're wasted here. I trust that /you/ would have made rather a different recommendation regarding my fate, and I respect that completely." He takes a moment to get up off the cot, wandering over closer to the barrier where he stands with his arms folded. "Of course I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye, perish the thought. If nothing else I'm curious to know why she's done it, and whether anyone else both has a hypothesis and is willing to divulge it. Some kind of power move? For me? For you? Something meant to placate me so I don't wreck anything on my way out? I don't know."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"As matter of fact, I did. Approximately four hours too late," Greystorm mutters softly in response to his initial remarks while he goes on. Not that it would have mattered. His postulation about a power move puts a tiiiny glint of ire in her naturally-endowed, resting bitch face.
"Maybe t'was her way of letting you go with some dignity? Who's to say..." DOES Greystorm even know? She doesn't seem keen on divulging. "But let's say she /does/ release you from your cage. What next? Will your master take you back, or will he view you as spoiled goods? Will he even have noticed your disappearance? Perhaps he's more important things weighing on his mind. Say...a new invention of a way to inflict instantaneous, global demise? Or does he leave such technical details to the Navy on account of being too busy 'meditating' on some inner turmoil?"
Ambrosia unfolds her legs and rises to meet Oran with likewise folded arms. "I've always wondered what it's like."
[Oran Arcantael]
Amber is a little taller. Oran needs to get some lifts in his shoes. "There's always the impromptu mob option, even Organa can't have complete control over that," he offers. "But sounds as though you already nipped that one in the bud in the barracks, more's the pity. They're probably all settled down now, with freeze-packs on their bruises." He just wants to fight a mob. Maybe. See, something else he has in common with the indomitable Ambrosia Greystorm!
A pause lingers for the answer about Kylo, then Oran replies, "He'll take me back. If he's displeased with me, he'll make it known. Don't ask me to guess his mind in any particular detail, General. No one does, no one can, no one should. What have you wondered 'what it's like'? Meditating on inner turmoil? Strange mix of powerful and boring. Kylo Ren? Unsettling at best. General experience of Knighthood? Working out just fine for me so far."
[Percy]
With a rush of movement and energy, the turbo lift doors 'swoosh' open to reveal yet another figure. It's one of the Doctors that the Resistance possesses, and one of the few that has been checking in on the resident prisoner of War during his stay on the moon of Rori. The slender figure of Percy looks a little more weary than usual this afternoon, with his eyelids covering tired looking eyes just a bit more than normal. Nevertheless he strides into the Brig with purpose and poise, clearing his throat casually when reaching for the datapad chart that relates to Oran.
Last he saw, Oran was quite injured! Though Percy had heard that he had subsequently been treated, the Doctor had just no time to come and check on him.
Ambrosia gets a polite nod in greeting. "Good afternoon, General. Good to see you in fine health." A glance goes to Oran, where upon a brow arches in curiosity. "I see black is back in fashion. You look a great deal better than last I saw you, Oran. Eating again?"
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"How do they do it?" The menopausal trooper leans on hip, head tipped to the side with curious furrow to her brow. "The knights, with their recruitment process? Do they roam in search of closeted potential? Or does the fresh meat find their way to them?"
A beat, then she shrugs it off and shakes her head - an end to her brief forray into philosophy(it doesn't suit her anyway) "Are there plans in place for another super weapon?" and gets back to her blunt, old self. "Or is the war machine budget still licking its wounds from our visit to StarKiller?" Her last hurrah in the field. She hadn't anticipated returning with breath in her lungs to talk about it, but...the Force works in mysterious ways? It'd have done her a better favor, just letting her go down for the long sleep.
And then enter in, one sleepy doctor. Stepping aside to make room, Greystorm bows her head. "Little boot-lickers wake you up, too?"
[Oran Arcantael]
"Just so," Oran confirms to Percy about the black robes, without the benefit of additional explanation. He does smile briefly at the food question, however. "Since Cole mended me, yes. Which was something of an exhausting process, and arguably an unpleasant one for Cole, but... she is good at what she does, and I suppose you have her to thank for my survival in general." Lucky Cole. That's gotta be some mixed thanks.
Back to Amber, and Oran raises his brows. "Ren finds us," he explains. "The 'recruitment process' is join him or die on the spot. All the Knights I've met obviously picked the former. If anyone is constructing a super weapon," both hands lift, he shrugs. "They haven't deigned to tell me about it, so I'm quite unable to acquaint you with its flaws or location."
[Percy]
"I wish." Percy drolly replies to Ambrosia, his eyes squinting under a flickering fluorescent light. "You've got to be asleep to get woken up. I've just come off a long shift up at the Medical Station. A couple of Doctors are running down sick lately so we're a bit short on hands. I'm just here to check on our guest, then going to retire for a few hours. I think I'm due back again in..." The man checks his watch, before looking back at the General. "...six hours or so. Wait." Again he turns his wrist to look at the device. "...five and a half, maybe." Entering some details into the datapad, Percy draws a breath. "Are there... any sort of 'boot-lickers' that have woken you up, General?" The man purses his lips. "Bugs or some such? Do I need to call an exterminator in?"
Oran's praise of Doctor Cole earns him a sly smile in response. "I've worked and studied in some of the best schools that money can buy, as I'm sure you already know. In all my time, I've never encountered someone like Doctor Cole." Percy's blue eyes go back down to the datapad. "She could make a fortune running her own business if she wanted to. But instead she's here, right in the guts of it all. Yeah, she's good. She's the best I've ever seen." There is no bitterness in his tone, no sarcasm. It's genuine praise, albeit tired praise given his current condition and lack of much stamina.
The follow-on conversation about Kylo Ren seems to catch him a little off guard. Percy finds himself looking at Oran with a long face of terror. Not having any choice certainly puts a new spin on how he views the 'Knights of Ren'. "Knights indeed." He mutters.
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
Bugs. Percy's innocent query of concern tugs a bark of laughter from Ambrosia's chest like no one has in a long while. For this moment in time she resembles Ambrosia the human - mother, wife, dancer, lover - and less the Brigadier General, General Organa's fist.
And then the moment's gone.
"They've been squashed, Doctor. Some more than others, but I think the entire 'hive' got the message. Some actions are not theirs to contest. Let alone get frisky and riotous over. Barracks are for sleeping." And that's that. Sucking in a deep breath through her nose, she smooths a hand down her tunic's front. "A pity, but it never hurts to ask," Greystorm tips those words toward their prisoner then finds her way back to her chair. To relace a boot.
[Oran Arcantael]
Bugs! Oran's expression to Percy is a lot more chagrined than Amber's is. Like the General, he doesn't bother to explain, but he does add, "How do you survive in the wild?" As though his fellow Coruscanti is a rare and delicate avian, possibly endangered, possibly unsuited in general to its current environs, company, and general habitat. A long pause lingers as he listens to the description of Aryn Cole; if he disagrees, he doesn't voice that, and in the end just comments, "No one here deserves her." Maybe him included. Maybe him especially.
Back to Amber. "Time is running short, General Greystorm. Decisions have been set into motion which cannot now be easily undone, and you know that. If you have more to ask me, before someone slaps you with the indignity of walking me to a tarmac, I suggest that you do."
Percy]
Ambrosia's raucous laughter draws Percy's attention. The Doctor looks positively /worried/ at such a development, though when things begin to simmer and return to normal he breathes a small sigh of relief. "That's... good. I'm happy to hear you've squashed the bugs." Something tells him that he missed a greater point, but he decides not to clarify exactly what that point is. It's probably something he doesn't want to know anyway.
"That would be an extreme development." The Doctor notes about Ambrosia's willingness to just 'ask the question'. "If Oran volunteered such information it would be one of the easiest wins that the Resistance has ever had. You're right though. Never hurts to ask."
Putting the datapad back away, the blue eyes of the Doctor look back to the prisoner with a faint glint of wisdom at his survival skills. "I'm good at treating injuries." Did he just tell a joke? He lacks the social finesse to really deliver such a punchline, so it's sort of hard to tell if it was some sort of quip or a serious answer to a rather valid question.
"If I may be so bold, General. I actually have a question that I would like to ask Oran. While there is still time before he is transferred to... some place. Or before whatever happens to him next." Percy doesn't reply to Oran's comment about the Resistance deserving Aryn. Such an inflammatory remark isn't worth the hassle. Either that or he genuinely agrees.
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"I've no doubt that I could listen to you talk all day," Ambrosia murmurs from over her knee. Her thumb's a bit stiff now and uncooperative after her midnight adventure. "Don't flatter yourself though, it most certainly isn't the accent," a hard look gets thrown over shoulder to Oran. Sorry, Perc. "I reckon if General Organa had any great, burning desire to know things you've not already supplied or she's surmised herself, she'd had left me a memo. So, Doctor, I yield the floor to you. After a mildly off topic query for my own benefit - Mr. Arcantael, have you, in all your comings and goings on errand for the First Order, or in life, ever stumbled across a "Moff Tyruni" - by name or otherwise? I'm supposing not, he'd be further beyond his expiration date than I am, but it's as you say: Time is passing us by."
[Oran Arcantael]
"Bit surprised you haven't asked about Domino's role in this," Oran muses at Amber. "If you think you know the nature and extent of it, you're probably not correct, at least not completely."
He doesn't go on; if she wants to ask, she will, and instead the man turns his attention to Percy. He is polite, correct, but somehow a great deal more unsettling when he's 'dressed for work' than when in civilian clothes, or the tidy, simple clothing that Aryn brought for him early on in the cell. The only people who wear black robes are people with dark work to be done. Nobody brings good into the galaxy in Knight robes. "Ask me anything you like," Oran offers, before a brief side-eye to Amber. "Moff Tyruni? I don't know the name. We don't have much use for old Imperials, though I suppose if I hear about him I can always drop on by." Brows lift. "Again."
[Percy]
"Domino?" Percy repeats, rubbing his chin in thought. "Peaches? From Nar Shaddaa?" Hm. That was a name he had not heard for a while. "What's she got to do with any of this?" If Ambrosia didn't ask the question, it seems that Percy just did. But for quite likely different reasons. His days on Nar Shaddaa feel an eternity ago. It seems strange to consider that someone from those days is mixed up with his current affairs.
"Where did you get those clothes, for one. You look most unsettling in them. Did you go bored of the plain threads that Doctor Cole brought?" Indeed, the Doctor hasn't got the constitution to deal with such an intimidating figure. They were just clothes, but something about them really made his skin itch.
"My other question is about the medical care you receive in the First Order. Are you able to tell me any names you know of? Or names you have heard in passing? Doctors, Nurses... anyone at all." Percy his hands neatly behind his back and stands straight - a habit he learned from his days on Coruscant. "Please."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
"Domino delivered what you needed us to need to collect you. I don't care what the degree of her attachment is to you, be it genuine or shallowly so. Manipulated or willing co-conspirator. It doesn't matter. I can surmise her to be a vile and vain creature and sleep just as well at night as if I'd missed the years I was able to call her my niece and pine away for relations lost. Which I won't." *Knot* "Because they never were." *Double Knot* "Relations. She did us a service by doing you a service. Was her plea of," insert drastic change in vocals here as she uplifts from her typically gravelly sorta contralto to a terrible imitation of Dom's 'sugar daddy' voice, " I don't want to know the details but please, he needs to be stopped. I just want it to stop real?"
A sardonic look almost as dark as the previous one turns over Ambrosia's /other/ shoulder and she straightens up, both boots on floor. "Doubtful. But if it was, well. Good for her. Some of my men would like to take a stab at interrogating the girl, next. But I think we've missed our window of opportunity." Percy receives a vaguely apologetic bob of her head for snipping her way back into convo. "As for my very old friend, I can't say I'd held much hope for a 'yes'. Nobody seems to have had a use for him in a very long time, because I've been looking. A very long time. S'pose a girl can wait a little longer to return a favor long overdue. If nothing else, I'll catch up to him in death. The great, black void, nothingness that it is."
Cause she's been. "Be well, Oran. I imagine you'll need your strength for whatever comes next. Doctor," and then she's off, cadence of her march suggesting she means business. Wherever she had to go to so suddenly.
Might be the mess hall's revenge, entering the ring for round two. Who knows.
[Oran Arcantael]
"This is what I arrived to you in," Oran smiles, spreading both hands to demonstrate --- if one looks closely, there is absolutely a lightsaber slash, or at least a tear that looks suspiciously like it could be caused by that, in the outer surcoat. "Believe they washed all the blood out, that's nice. General Leia Organa was kind enough to give me back my robes, saber, and the arrangement of passage out of here. If you have questions about that curious development, as most do --- me included --- she is the only one who could answer them properly."
The question about medical care prompts a pause, then a brief laugh. "It's far less gentle than what you all do, I can assure you that much. Early in my career, Ren denied me painkiller or anesthesia during a procedure to ---" brief pause, "Teach me a lesson. I assure you it was memorable and I haven't forgotten. You aren't going to know any of our doctors unless trooper designations ring a bell for you, Percival. N-0185 ring any bells?"
Regarding Amber, and what she remembers Dom purported as saying: 'I don't want to know the details but please, he needs to be stopped. I just want it to stop' --- Oran smiles. "Yes," he confirms. "That was real."
No explanation is given and none asked for, so it ends there, with Amber's leaving. "Farewell, general." She's almost to the lift when he adds, "And if you ever should find yourself bored of this lovely, pure side of the war?"
Full on wink. "Call me."
[Percy]
Ambrosia's soliloquy earns a stunned stare from Percy. His gaze follows her out, watching as she disappears into the turbo lift. Slowly yet surely he turns back around to his high-class Coruscanti alum. "Sometimes I forget how small a piece I am in the giant cog of... politics. And schemes. And everything else. Then something like that happens and you are reminded just how insignificant you are." Still seeming a bit bewielded by what just transpires, the pale-skinned man rubs his forehead. "Oh. You were given all your things and now... you're getting passage off? What does that mean exactly?" A small smile tugs at the corner of his face. "I have yet to meet the General, actually. Though if I ever do I will ask her what her reasoning was. But yes, you're quite right: I don't know designations. The numbers and letters mean little. A shame." This does in fact seem to fall a bit flat for the Doctor, who looks up into the ceiling in some idle thought. Rolling his shoulders into a shrug, he begins to assemble a few items on the nearby medical cart. "Given you're healthy now and soon to be discharged, I suppose I will probably not see you again for a long while. I'm... not really a man suited for the front lines. And certainly I don't expect you to be caught in a similar fashion to last time."
[Oran Arcantael]
"We're all little pieces in machines too large to be easily comprehended, Percival." Oran shrugs. "I like my machine, and the aims to which it endeavors, but it's true nonetheless. How many things have they --- well, Greystorm --- asked me that I was obliged to say, I don't know, I don't know? Little cog."
"Apparently," he dryly replies about 'passage off.' "Certainly a far less dramatic exit than what I'd had in mind, and perhaps that was the purpose, though this version... is not without its shadowy corners, at least a few of which I plan to address." He listens as Percy continues, and then lets one corner of his mouth crook into a smile. "Oh, don't be so dour. Step outside the Resistance-protected territory and you're quite likely to run into me, it's a small galaxy. And besides ---" A brow lifts. "Isn't it pleasant to speak to those who fondly recollect home?" Sure. Pleasant.
