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crimson-dxwn · 5 years ago

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At Odds Chapter 5

Summary: Kal gets the shock of a lifetime, Mij Gilamar breaks HIPAA, and Mereel Skirata is serious for once. Ori considers her choices.

Warnings: Mando profanity, pregnancy, SPOILERS for Republic Commando books (all but the last one)

Words: enough (trying not to measure my writing by how many words I can get down on a page these days)

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Keldabe, Northern Mandalore

Imperial Garrison

Summer, 18 BBY

They leave her in a sparse cell. The Empire, ever prepared it seems, has plenty of the tiny rooms built into the west wing of their new garrison. The troopers leave her to her thoughts with no inkling of how long she’ll be imprisoned here. The officer was just some pumped-up kid, there was no way any charges would stick. She was sure those trooper helmets had cameras, too. They’d be able to prove she was innocent. Or someone would find her first - Mij would notice when she didn’t show up for her shift.

The room is large enough for her to pace three steps in each direction, just enough to fit a cot, latrine, and a small sink. And a poorly hidden camera in the upper corner near the door. Her cheekbone throbs and Ori uses the minuscule sink to splash water on the area. It’s lukewarm and does a poor job. But it’s something to do, to focus on instead of the pure panic that she can feel rising from her gut. She’s trapped here. Her comm is gone. She rubs below the cut where she can feel dried blood and the water runs rusty with it.

A knock booms at the door and she flinches, sending a jolt of pain through her face. A sleek- looking droid enters and makes its way towards her.

“I am PH-1477, here to process you into the Imperial prison system. Cooperate and no disciplinary action will be necessary.”

Still dazed, she nods and the droid seems to accept it as an affirmative answer. Her right arm is yanked out in front of her and she feels a prick of pain before she can even register what’s happening. A blue light scans her palms and fingers for prints. Then a full body scan. She gives her full name. And then the droid glides out of the room and she’s left with her thoughts once again. Despite the throb that has migrated from her cheek to the side of her head, Ori decides to try and get some rest, finding that in spite of everything she’s absolutely exhausted. It must be the come-down from the adrenaline.

How could this morning feel so long ago? In the course of twelve hours she’d nearly gotten herself arrested twice, succeeded once, thrown up, passed out and broken quite possibly more than one bone in her face. The worst part about her day is that through the durasteel door, she can hear more cell doors opening and closing and bodies hitting walls, and bodies hitting other bodies. Jumbled words and sounds bounce off the durasteel and into her cell as she finally drifts off into fitful sleep.

She’s small again, that she knows from memory. It’s dark out, and cold. Her hands, even tucked in the fur-lined mittens her mother had given her, are stiff with it. Orla is five, and it’s Munin Ca - Long Night to the aruetii. Her favorite Mandalorian holiday. It’s so cold that the snow under her boots practically squeaks, but it means that the sky is clear and every star in the sky glitters when she lays on her back with her friends making angels in the snow.

Around the fire they tell stories about friends and family who have passed on in the last year. Her buir talks about her ba’buir, his father. Asa Beviin. She’s in her mama’s lap, trying to cry as silently as possible because she misses her ba’buir, so much it hurts. Ori is old enough to understand now that she’ll never see him again. Mama gives her a few sips of her shig and she feels better when her buir tells stories about ba’buir that make the people around them laugh. It hurts a little less knowing that other people miss him too.

Ori is so warm and sleepy from being near the fire, and she tries so hard to keep her eyes open. She’s on ba’buir’s lap now - Asa’s wife - and she carries Ori to their tent to tuck her in. Ba’buir smells like campfire and berry-scented shig and hugs her close to her chest until she falls into a deep sleep.

Finally she wakes, body stiff from lying on the narrow hard cot for what feels like hours. The dream that should have comforted her has only set her off kilter emotionally. She’s ashamed that despair has set in so quickly. But the Empire had shown so far that it was efficient, ruthlessly so, and there wasn’t any guarantee - at least that she was aware of - of a fair trial, let alone a trial at all. They could stand her up against a wall and slot her and nobody would be the wiser. Consuming nausea interrupts her spiraling thoughts as she sits up, barely making it to the commode before she’s retching up pure stomach acid. Her body is rebelling against an empty stomach, she knows, but there’s nothing to fix the problem. She dry heaves.

Paralyzed on the floor, she breathes slowly in and out through her nose. Someone will find her. Mij will know something is wrong and Kal...Kal can find anyone. Or at least that was the rumor around the karyai when she visited. He has a dozen or so ARCs and commandos at his disposal on any given day - the most elite soldiers in the galaxy, trained by one of the most dangerous mercenaries Mandalore has ever produced. They will find her.

———

Keldabe Med Center

Keldabe, Northern Mandalore

Summer, 18 BBY

Kal hurries through the med center doors, careful to check the filters in his helmet before he starts his search for Mij. The chakaar had summoned him down to the med center again, as if he didn’t have enough on his plate. He loved the man like a brother, but damn if he couldn’t have told him whatever it was that was so kriffing urgent two days ago when he was last in town. It makes him twitchy to be out in the open these days, with the Empire openly flaunting what amounts to biological warfare, and with a bounty still on his head.

With the doc going absolutely off the wall on those troopers the other day, he hopes she’s feeling a bit more stable today. He understands. After weeks and weeks of fighting, a little frustration can send you over the edge. She’d had the exact same look in her eye he’d seen a hundred times. Even in his boys. The human body has break points and she’d obviously hit one. Kal doesn’t judge - he’s been there. Thinking back to what was now over a year ago - watching Etain slaughtered in front of Darman - he’d lost it. They were human, and it was only natural.

“Kal!” Mij flags him down in the atrium of the center. The man somehow looks even more haggard than the last time they’d met; he looked like his last meal was weeks ago. And even more concerning, Kal sees panic in the man’s eyes. Not even on Kamino had he seen Doc Gilamar this bad.

“Mij. What the kriff is going on?” The doctor runs his hand over his face, smoothing the lines there briefly before they etched themselves back around his sunken eyes. The bottom half is covered by a mask, like all the staff here. Kal notices the skin above the edge is rubbed raw.

“Have you heard from Dr. Beviin?” He hasn’t. Not since she’d made a spectacle of herself and passed out in the atrium a few days ago. “She didn’t show up for her shift this morning.”

“You could’ve called me with this Mij,” he replies, “I haven’t seen or heard from her for three days.”

“She’s not on a house call at Kyrimorut?”

“No...” Kal was not about to let Mij’s sense of panic bleed into him.

“She’s not one to skip shifts.” Kal’s friend sits in a chair by a room, taking a break from his anxious pacing. There’s blood spray on the top of his scrubs and his neck. “Shab.”

“Spit it out, Gilamar. You look like you need a fucking break. She probably just overslept.” Mij glares daggers at him. They both know she didn’t oversleep. His friend looks like a ghost of himself.

“Fine. You want me to check in on her?” The doc sags with relief in his chair.

“Please...Kal...I shouldn’t even be telling you this but...” Again he runs his hand down his face, rubs at his bloodshot eyes. “You’d find out sooner or later.”

He waits expectantly.

“She’s pregnant.” His stomach drops. Mij’s head is in his hands.

“And you let her work in this?” Dread is rising with his ire. He considers the chaos around them, the spatter on Mij’s scrubs. He doesn’t want to be angry with his friend but is finding it difficult.

“She didn’t disclose it on her forms, I had no idea until the other day. It came back in her bloodwork.” Shab. “She might not have even known.”

That was bantha shit if he’s ever heard it. The woman was on top of everything. In what universe could she not know? He thinks back to watching her sleep, the exhaustion on her features, how her eyes widened when she’d checked her datapad...kriff.

“How far along?” Mij looks up from the cradle of his hands, puzzled.

“Why does that…”

“Just tell me.” The doctor’s eyes narrow. Exhausted as he is, not much gets past the old sargeant.

“Ten weeks.”

Kal’s never been as quick as his boys at figures, not even when they were small. But he’s always accurate. He is already putting a plan in place to find her. Not that it mattered whose kid it was, but his boys had been picking up whispers. Whispers he didn’t like about what the Empire had been getting up to on Mandalore. Mandoade were dying in droves these days and Kal was not about to let doc become one of them.

In all likelihood she was at home, exhausted, and had slept through an alarm. For now at least, he keeps his temper in check. No use getting worked up over nothing.

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Keldabe, Northern Mandalore

Imperial Garrison

Summer, 18 BBY

1 Day later

Durasteel cuffs shine around her wrists in front of her as more troopers usher them to the transport. It has a Mining Guild insignia on the side, and Ori looks for any other identifying marks as a clue to where the Empire is taking them. Nothing.

The stormtrooper wearing a pauldron near the front of the line holds a hand up to his helmet, receiving a transmission. The line of prisoners backs up as he holds up a gloved hand. Distracted, she bumps into the warm body in front of her.

“Halt.”

Chatter is audible through helmets, but nothing clear as the sergeant walks down the line, scanning the prisoners’ arm bands. He stops at her and Ori’s heart drops. He nods at his counterpart. The trooper to her right grasps her upper arm and escorts her away from the silent line of her brothers and sisters. Stripped of their armor, they look naked, ordinary. But not afraid. Never afraid. Armor doesn’t make a Mandalorian, no matter what the Empire may think. She can feel their eyes on her as she’s led away. One of the men speaks up for her and gets a rifle butt to the mouth for his trouble.

Either they’re going to execute me or they know.

When the droid initially processed her, it took a little blood, just a drop. To confirm her identity, she presumed. She hadn’t put up too much of a fight, to do otherwise would have drawn suspicion, but it was obvious they’d run other tests.

The troopers place her back in her cell, where she sits, heart racing for only a few minutes before an Imperial officer enters. This one isn’t familiar to her, at least from the few days she’s been in the cell.

“I suppose congratulations are in order, ma’am.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her tone is too defensive, and she can tell he isn’t fooled.

“Forgive me, I’d assumed considering your former profession that you would know.”

Former profession? So they do know. Well, it’s not getting slotted against a wall. Though by the sounds she’s heard outside her cell the past few days, the Empire doesn’t shy away from more physical methods of information extraction. She also suspects that the walls were made thin for a reason.

“We’re not savages, my dear. You’re being transferred somewhere more suitable.”

With that, he leaves and two troopers step in, and they usher her out a back door to a smaller unmarked transport. She knows that being taken to a second location is going to make her chances of being found vanishingly small, and she tries futilely to resist the hands that push her forwards, sure that they won’t shoot her, now that she so obviously has something they want.

The ship is small, enough to fit the two troopers and herself without much other cargo space, barely a light freighter, if that. She can smell the oil they use to lubricate the joints and machine parts in the engine, acrid, almost smokey.

When she arrives at her destination some hours later, she’s handed a uniform of a sort, more something she would imagine one would wear at a spa, the type that uppity Coruscantis frequent, with hot stone massages and steam rooms and manicurists. Not that she’d know, having never been to one.

It’s a tunic and trousers made of a soft, wicking fabric in a pale celadon. The top is short-sleeved and wraps with ties at the side, hem hitting at the tops of her thighs, while the pants are loosely cut. She slips the separates over the plain white basics they give her. The fabric slips easily between her fingers as she rubs at it.

Her brain is flying in a million directions as to where she is and why she is here. The options range from concerning to terrifying. They’d definitely been in hyperspace, but she couldn’t tell exactly how long they’d been traveling. They could be on Coruscant for all she knows. Whispers have been floating around Keldabe about various work camps where prisoners were sent and never heard from again. Mostly she’s heard about mining guild outposts, but nothing like where she is now. What kind of sick outfit are they run-

The matron raps at the door, signaling that her time to change is up and she exits, arms wrapped around herself defensively, shoulders hunched inwards. The woman looks her up and down, apparently satisfied with her appearance. With a cock of her head, the woman motions for Ori to follow her, ushering her into a bland office space where another woman sits in front of a large datapad. She’s wearing a crisper, piped version of her own spa-ready garments in varying shades of blue. A hand pushes at her shoulder and she sits clumsily.

“Planet of birth?” the woman queries. Orla pauses at her directness.

There isn’t really any benefit to lying. They know who she is, and asking questions about her origins is likely a formality designed to lull her into submitting to questions that they really wanted to know the answers to. Truly, she wasn’t sure exactly what these people thought they were going to learn from her. She knows about the vaccine, sure, but she’d already revealed that. It’s possible they think she knows more.

“Mandalore.”

The woman taps twice on a datapad with her stylus.

“Age?”

“Thirty two.”

Two more taps.

“Any medical conditions?” The woman before her smiles mildly. Ori resists the urge to spit in her perfect face before she can figure out where hell she is.

“That’s not really any of your business.”

“I’m afraid it is,” she retorts, not offering any more explanation.

“None,” Ori bites out, “Where am I?”

“You’re in a rehabilitation center-”

“-but I’m not sick.” Her interruption irritates the placid-faced woman, Ori can tell by a flicker in her eyes and a brief downturn of her lips. Maybe trying the woman’s patience the first day in this dump was ill-advised. But she just felt helpless. Trapped.

“You’re in a rehabilitation center for wayward citizens of the Empire-”

Tired of milk-faced woman’s run-around,she interrupts again. “Why don’t you get to the kriffing point, hutuun?”

She pauses, even more annoyed than before, but keeps her composure. The nametag she wears on her left chest says Technician.

“You committed treason, Ms. Beviin. But your Empire is sensitive to your condition. Sending you to work for the mining guild would be a waste. In your condition, you’d last even less time than the weakest prisoner there. But you can be useful to the Empire in other ways.”

Useful…

“It so happens that many obedient Imperial citizens desire children of their own and are unable to conceive. And with your sordid political history, it would be remiss of us to let your child grow up in such a dangerous home.”

Ori blanches.

“Not to mention your rumored association with the traitor Skirata and his adopted brood. You did ask me to speak plainly, Ms. Beviin.”

“I did.” Her voice comes out as wan as she feels.

“From what I understand, children of Mandalorian parents are quite sought after.” She gives a slight laugh, almost girlish. “Though one would think there would be more of them given your people’s penchant for...” she pauses, searching for the right words, “- loose morality.”

Her tiny bit of courage that she has mustered deflates to nothing. Her tone is light but there is avarice in the technician’s pale blue eyes.

“Now, shall we continue?” All Ori can do is nod weakly. Stealing children. How many of her vode are in this place?

“Nationality of the father?” She shakes her head, unwilling to reveal more. Teeth dig into her lower lip to stop the emotions that rise up. This is insane, it can’t be real.

“It would be to your benefit for you to cooperate with me,” she tuts, “The more we know, the better the placement for your child. Who knows, we may find a place with one of your more loyal countrymen. If you’re especially well-behaved.”

“Mandalorian,” she whispers, “he’s Mandalorian.”

“Good,” the woman praises. Her unnerving pale eyes flick greedily down to her flat abdomen and she quickly moves her top to obscure the area, oddly protective of something that wasn’t even visible yet.

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Keldabe City Center

Keldabe, Northern Mandalore

Summer, 18 BBY

Her apartment is empty. The sheets on the bed are rumpled but clean, and a glass of stale water sits on the night table beside it, next to a half eaten ration bar. There’s no smashed glass, no valuables taken, though Kal notes that the place is sparse, even for a Mandalorian - he’s not sure he’d find valuables even if he looked. The only personal touches he finds are a small Jonah wood figurine and a plain metal band.

The door had been securely locked when he entered. For all intents and purposes she’d gone to work as usual. Normally he’d be comforted, but his findings rankle his instincts. He’s consciously not letting himself think about the fact that he’s most likely going to be a father again. If he starts on that train of thought he’s not going to be able to think clearly anymore. Before he starts to lose it he comms Mereel. He hasn’t felt this way since Etain, since when Ruu was missing. He hates laying his problems on his boys, but there are certain things he can’t do himself.

Mereel picks up on the second ring.

“Buir?”

“Son, I need you to track someone down for me.”

“Sure thing. Who ya got?”

“I need you to check arrest records in Keldabe.” Kal sits at the small dining table, running his hands through his cropped hair, feeling his agitation rise.

“-Jaing get himself into trouble again?”

“Doc Beviin. Mij says she didn’t show up to work this morning.”

There’s silence on the other end as Mereel takes in his request. It’s a bizarre one, he knows, but if there’s anyone that can find a trail on someone it’s his ad’ike. The line quiets as Mereel works. He’s still holding the figurine from Orla’s dresser, worrying it between his hands, smoothing his thumbs over the polished wood. Everything is going up in flames. Somehow it seemed like just weeks ago that he had grand plans for his aliit escaping a Republic that was rotting from the inside out, when in reality it has been much longer.

He waits an hour for Mereel to call back, sitting, sweating alone in her apartment, paralyzed by the thoughts running through his head. Waiting for a call from Mij that she had showed up to work, that she’d stopped for a caf on the way and been waylaid somehow. He lies to himself for a minute or so and then steels himself for the news Mereel is going to give him. It’s moments like this when he feels like little Falin again, if just for a moment, alone and scared and plagued by nightmares of horrible things happening to the people he loves. Before he can sink too far into the past, he’s interrupted by his comm beeping insistently.

“Son?”

“We found footage of her entering the Imperial Garrison on Keldabe two days ago.”

“And leaving?”

The little hologram of Mereel shakes its head. Kal nods. This is his fault. He knows exactly why she’d gone and it was his own shabla fault. How could he have expected someone like her to know the Empire had vaccine and not go after it?

“We need to get into that system.”

“I’m sorry-”

“-It’s not your fault, Mereel. We’ll find another way.” It’s his fault. His own kriffing fault.

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