#how did the federation not notice this happening to their transmissions before though???

[gooperts-gunk]

"the federation will retrieve stranded islanders, thus suspending protocol AB"

so protocol AB was always going to send them to egg island, whatever that is, but the portal was hijacked by the eyeball and took them to purgatory

but when bad, max, and pierre activated protocol AB, that very same day tickets started be given out, firstly to bad

so the eyeball guy had to be hoping and planning on this and they had to have had the resistance's help considering a code disguised as flippa but NOT codeflippa (bad asked codeflippa much later and she didn't know what he was talking about and yeah she could've lied but even so) guided them through the maze

of which took them to a secret communications room, that mentioned a 5 black square name, and they'd press a red button that would eventually take them to the cucurucho picture maze which would take them to the dice room for bad's ticket.

so what im saying is.... those tickets were NEVER the federation's intention or doing... bagi and carre included...

(on another note im NOT over how at the end of the cucurucho picture maze there was dapper's hat on a pedestal. NOT OVER HOW WEIRD THAT WAS FOR BAD. NOT OVER IT!!!!!)

[minithefutureawaits09]

To follow up on an earlier post

Link to AOS:

❤️Absolutely Smitten❤️

- TOS Spirk edition

A/n:

It gets pretty angsty so hold on.

Also know in this Fic, Bones doesn’t know the details about Tarsus IV that info is extremely classified and really, only select people know about it. So it’s really been swept under the carpet in this particular fic.

--

Spock heads down the hallway and to Jim’s quarters. Buzzing in as he always does.

....

No response.

So he tried again.

...

No response.

Now things were getting a little concerning. So when he buzzed for a third time and got no response he types in the override code for Jim’s quarters. Absolutely worried sick, and he realized standing there that...

Spock can’t feel their bond.

That prospect alone sends his heart racing even faster than his normal resting heart rate. Yet he swallows his panic as the doors open with their familiar squeak and he’s engulfed into a warm dark room. The doors squeak again as they closed behind him.

“Jim? My Jim, where are you? Are you alright?”

The worry while he can control it physically, slips into his tone. Eyes already adjusting for the darkness of the room, a small tribute to his Vulcan biology. His eyes adjust much quicker than a humans does.

“Go away Spock.”

Came the sharpest reply the Vulcan’s almost positive he’s ever heard. While the words themselves were not super harmful, the tone punctured.

On the bed was a small heep of blankets, he can only assume that huddled in all of those blankets was his Husband. He allows himself to frown and his brows to furrow. Jim never wanted him to leave whenever he was upset, always wanting him to hold close and not let go. So something, although going through his eidetic memory he doesn’t see anything.

“Jim, My-“

“I said Go. Away. Commander. Consider it an order from your Captain.” 

Something was really wrong then. Yet he would not leave Jim’s side. Whatever it was, he had made a vow until death did they part. He wasn’t leaving.

“Then you will need to fill out the insubordination paperwork shortly.”

He sees the blankets move, and he can only assume he is being looked at.

“I am not leaving K’diwa. I am your bond mate, and I am worried about you. You did not answer your door, I cannot feel our bond, and your tone is enough evidence that there is something bothering you. I vowed to care for you and I intend to get to the bottom of it, so if that means facing insubordination charges then I will.”

More ruffling of sheets and blankets, and now he can see his bond mate. The dark brown hair, and make out his eyes in the darkness. Hand reached out towards him, and the pain is so sharp at the horrible broken voice his beloved uses. Their bond floods open and he can feel all of the jagged edges of self hatred attacking Jim’s mind.

“S-Sp-ock-”

His feet move on their own and in moments flat Spock had Jim in his lap still wrapped in a couple of blankets but held firmly. He sobs begging apologies from his lips and promises to never leave him. Every broken sound that leaves him makes the Vulcan’s heart ache, and wanting to tear apart whoever caused these precious tears to spill.

He assures Jim that he did no wrong, that he did not feel any hurt emotions at his words. That there was nothing there other than his overwhelming concern for the person he values the most. That he will always be there. Always.

He sends all of the pure intense love he feel for the brunette in his lap and reassurance through their bond to Jim. Using their physical proximity as an easy way to tap into his beloved’s head in gentle attempts to soothe the hurt he can feel. Whatever caused this got him good, where it hurt.

Eventually he calmed and Spock whispers gently resting his forehead against his human’s,

“K’diwa, My James, will you tell me now what is wrong?”

... There’s hesitation showing in those hazel eyes staring up at him,

“I promise you, no matter what you say, I will listen to every word.”

...

“Is there a problem with how I eat, Spock?”

What? That was such an odd question. Yet with those hazel eyes hanging onto his every moment for his reply he placed a gentle kiss to his forehead and answered,

“I have never seen it vary from normal that would produce the need for comment or medical intervention.”

...

“Do I hoard food, Spock?”

Spock instead of answering taps into their bond and catches just the thought of one event.

Tarsus IV

“Ha’su, does this have to do with Tarsus IV?”

He asks and Jim looks away ashamed- he knows he’s ashamed because he can’t hide it this close to Spock. Yet using one hand he guides his beautiful hazel gaze back to his own.

“My K’diwa, Tarsus IV is an indescribable horror you had to face at such a young age. I know you have tried your best to heal some of those wounds. I know this trauma will haunt you for the rest of your life, and it will always affect how you eat. A famine and genocide. Yes, I do notice you have a few non-perishable items around your quarters. However, I simply attributed them to the fact Humans need to eat more frequently.”

He runs a hand through those brown locks he loves so, so very much. He watches as those lips, a little swollen from his cries open,

“When food became such a struggle and for so long...I-I just—”

“Shh. You need not explain yourself to me. Your trauma and struggle with food is not invalid. It will never ever. Ever. Be invalid.”

This brings back a smaller wave of tears as his husbands arms wrapped around his neck rather then around his middle as they were originally.

“Did someone bring this up?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Bones. Though he didn’t bring Tarsus itself up, he just made a comment on my eating habits and it well...Lead to an argument. He doesn’t know the full story though. I just haven’t told him yet because I haven’t been ready to. He only knows what my records say. Which isn’t much because the federation wanted to keep it hush hush.”

Spock nodded. So he would have to make a trip to Medbay and have an informative discussion with Dr. McCoy.

“Please don’t be mad at Him. He doesn’t know,”

“I am not mad because he did not know. However, I will be having a conversation with him if you are amenable to that to inform him of it so you will not have to.”

He feels a gentle nod at his words. Agreeing with him

‘I love you, and thank you for not leaving me alone and being willing to talk to Bones for me.’

‘I love you too, my Jim. I am absolutely smitten for thee, and I wish you to never forget that. Sleep now,’

‘I won’t, I promise I will never forget...’

Sleep the brunette does. It’s almost mere moments and he feels their bond gently going dormant. It’s still several moments before he gently rests his husband down and goes to speak with McCoy.

—

(Bonus scenes because I feel like it)

—

“Oh my god,”

Leonard’s hand his over his mouth. He was sitting at his desk as Spock had advised him to do so. Shock and guilt coated over himself.

“I didn’t know, I swear-”

“He informed me of such. I am not mad Dr. McCoy. I simply wished for you to understand.”

“I need to go apologize-”

“He is resting, however I am willing to let you know when he wakes.”

“Yes. Right. Thank you, Spock. I promise, I never would of said anything if I’d known. The only thing in his files says is he’s a Tarsus IV survivor. Nothing more. I never even knew what it was until now.”

“I understand Dr. McCoy.”

And he does.

“I will leave you to process this, and to go attend to Jim when he wakes.”

Leonard nodded as Spock exited.

-

Spock was holding Jim as he yawns and those Hazel eyes open. He doesn’t say anything but he can feel the gentle buzz in his head from seeing that his husband was still here just as he promised he would be.

“Commander Spock to Medbay,”

..

“Medbay here, What is it?”

“The Captain is awake if you wish to see him,”

“Alright. Be up in 15 minutes.”

“Noted. Spock out,”

The transmission was cut.

His partner seemed confused, so Spock relayed the message.

“He wishes to apologize directly, and I said I would inform him of your awakening.”

A simple nod comes from Jim.

...

It was actually less than 15 minutes when Bones shows up. Normally Leonard would say something to get them apart, but given what happened he isn’t going to say a thing about Spock holding Jim.

“Jim?”

The brunette’s head turns to look at his best friend.

“Hey, I wanted to apologize for what I said.”

He sits down on the edge of the bed. Spock watches as those hazel eyes follow him.

“Jim, god. I never, I never would have said any- any of that if I had known. I promise you. I had no idea what sort of demon you deal with every time you go to eat in your head.”

“It’s alright-”

“It’s not though Jim. I shouldn’t have said those things in-”

“Leonard.”

The doctors name makes him fall quiet.

“Leonard, You didn’t know. I hadn’t told you...Yet now that you know, could we schedule an appointment to maybe..do something about it?”

“Maybe try some anti-anxiety medications?”

Jim nodded.

“You got it kiddo. Whenever you’re ready you just let me know alright?”

“Alright.”

Bones gives a nod to Spock who had been silent for this whole time. He knows that means to gently and lovingly encourage him to do so in the near future. He leaves but not before Jim surprised them both by pulling the doctor into a hug. They held on for just a few moments and even Spock could tell the world was alright once more. The doctor then left, and Spock went back to holding his partner. Humming as he gently guided him back to sleep, and shortly drifted off after.

[vermin-disciple]

ok ill bite. galatea

(Random Scenes Ask Meme)

In one of the Interlude chapters in Tell Me You See Me, there's a passage in which Julian reflects on his habit of getting over-invested in certain of his patients:

Ekoria and her unborn child and the incurable blight. Goran’Agar and the tantalizing prospect of freeing the Jem'Hadar from their addiction to Ketracel-white. Odo and the opportunity to defy Section 31. Melora Pazlar, who he’d wanted to love. Jack and Patrick and Lauren and Sarina, and the chance to disprove Federation dogma about augments. And the situation with Sarina Douglas in particular would surely have gotten even more out of hand if Garak had done a better job of masking his jealousy.

(What made that episode even worse was that Miles had been the one to point out Garak’s genuine distress. He’d been so enthralled with Sarina’s progress he hadn’t noticed. Oh, he’d heard a few snide comments, but playacting jealousy was Garak’s idea of foreplay, so he hadn’t paid much attention, and he’d missed the point when the comments stopped, and became something else.)

I wrote the first paragraph, and thought, 'huh, I wonder what the episode Chrysalis looked like in this AU, where Garak and Julian were already together by that point.' Then I scribbled out part of the scene below, and went back and added the parenthetical above. Later I finished the scene, but haven't really decided how I want to use it or expand on it. (There's a lot of flashbacks in this series, so I could use it that way rather than just writing a full Chrysalis AU.)

'Galatea' is a reference to the myth of Pygmalion. In later traditions that was the name of the statue he carved and fell in love with. Note that some of the dialogue below has been borrowed from Chrysalis.

***

“She’s wonderful!” gushed Julian. Next to him, Garak rolled his eyes with such exaggerated exasperation that Miles just managed to hold back a huff of laughter. Julian didn’t notice. (Miles couldn’t have said whether this was deliberate or merely due to inattention.) “I’ve never met anyone like her. She's brilliant, sweet, everything's new to her.”

“Yes, we’re all very impressed with your creation,” said Garak

“I didn’t create her,” said Julian. “I just… brought her out of her cocoon. And now she’s seeing the world for the first time! Being with her is so refreshing. She takes such delight in what she's experiencing. It makes me appreciate things I usually take for granted.”

A cup of coffee materialized in the replicator Miles was in the process of repairing. “Like hot coffee?” he said. When he glanced back, something in Garak’s expression gave him pause. It was a frozen, haunted look that flashed across his face, there for a moment before being suppressed under a mask of careful neutrality. The asperity of a minute ago was gone, and Miles didn’t like the look that replaced it. Julian hadn’t noticed, and this time Miles was quite certain he was genuinely oblivious.

“Like coffee. Music. The way the stars shine.”

Garak failed to supply a caustic remark. Miles turned back the replicator. “What is wrong with this thing?”

“Are you listening to me?” asked Julian.

“Yes. Yeah. Coffee, music, stars,” said Miles, keenly aware of the deafening silence emanating from Garak.

“Well, don't you have anything to say?”

Miles had a great deal to say, including, what the hell do you think you're playing at? and isn’t she still your patient? But he wasn’t sure now was the time, not with Garak hovering around trying not to look stricken.

Miles didn’t particularly like Garak, but they had served together in those long months on the Defiant, and they would continue serving together for the duration of this war. Garak was more or less part of their team. And beyond that, they were also allies on a more personal front, one that revolved around one Julian Bashir.

The war had hit Julian hard. He’d not been himself for months now; he was quieter, withdrawn, brooding and sullen. Miles was concerned, and so was Garak (not that he was capable of saying this outright or in anything approaching a straightforward manner). They were closer to Julian than anyone else on the station, and it wouldn’t do anyone any good if they worked against each other. Instead, they worked on their separate campaigns to bring Julian back to himself. Garak had always had a knack for getting a rise out him.

And while Miles did not think that anyone as morally dodgy as Garak deserved someone as kindhearted as Julian, he did make Julian happy. Moreover, their relationship thus far had proved surprisingly stable. It was the longest romantic relationship Julian had had since he arrived on the station, and the only one built on a foundation of friendship. (Garak had once pointed out, with an unwarranted degree of smugness, that he had liked Julian long before Miles had.)

Sarina seemed a nice enough girl, but Julian hardly knew her. She hardly seemed to know herself.

“What do you want me to say, Julian? She’s a nice girl. I’m glad you were able to help her.”

Julian just seemed exasperated by this response. “I don't think either of you understand what this means to me,” he said. “All these years I've had to hide the fact that my DNA had been resequenced. I'd listen to people talk about the genetically engineered, saying they were all misfits. I used to fantasize about meeting someone who was like me, who could live a normal life. But it never happened. Until Sarina. Don't you see? She’s a person I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”

“I’m sure we’re both very happy for you,” said Garak, flatly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have several new transmissions to decode.”

“See you tonight,” said Julian absently. “Oh, another thing she said to me — what?”

Miles made a point of watching Garak’s retreating back with far more interest than he usually showed. “You’d better go after him and apologize,” he said.

Julian’s brow furrowed in bewilderment. “What? Why?”

“Do you ever listen to the things that come out of your mouth?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Julian, you sound completely infatuated.”

“Huh?” Julian appeared to be mentally reviewing the conversation with mounting horror. “…Oh.” He rubbed his forehead and added, “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You sure about that?”

“Of course!”

“Because Garak looked like a man who thinks he’s about to get dumped, and I can’t say I blame him.”

Julian groaned. “What should I do?”

“If it were Keiko, this would be a flowers and chocolates kind of apology. I’ve never dated a bloke before, though. Or a Cardassian. You may have to adjust your strategy.”

“Garak likes flowers and chocolate,” said Julian. “What sort of apology would you want?”

“Bottle of single malt,” said Miles, promptly. “But I guess you can substitute kanar.”

“Garak doesn’t think much of the kanar Quark’s got in stock,” said Julian. “I think I’ll stick with chocolates. And maybe a blowjob.”

“Too much information, Julian.”

[thebad---catholic]

My problems with AOS

Well here I am, 10 years late with an opinion no one asked for, but I have to write this down and throw into the void so that I can be at peace. I’ve been salty about this film franchise for a very long time now. This will mostly focus on Star Trek (2009) with the other two movies sprinkled in.

1. Starfleet

Honestly where do I even begin? In TOS, Starfleet was modeled after the navy (idk how accurately, but Roddenberry was in the air force so I’m assuming he’d know how all that works). You can get a feel for the chain of command, and everything feels natural with character ages and things like that. There’s a procedure for everything.

AOS Starfleet feels more like a high school club than an interplanetary exploration organization. Jim is supposed to be twenty-five when he gets the rank of captain- after he was almost expelled for cheating. He has no idea how to operate or run a starship. TOS Kirk moved through the ranks of Starfleet and was promoted on merit and leadership skills- he worked for his position.

Why was Jim the only person who knew what was happening when Nero showed up? Was there any requirements to joining to Starfleet other than get on the shuttle? Why did the linguist not know the difference between Vulcan and Romulan when they’re the linguist? How did Pike bypass the chain of command to appoint Jim Kirk as First Officer which was an obvious show of favoritism to someone was about to be thrown out of the academy? Why the fuck was he allowed to keep the title of captain? What the fuck?

Speaking of Jim.

2. Jim Kirk’s Character

I...don’t like Jim’s character in this film. It’s not terrible for a younger version of Kirk, but like I said though, there’s no reason Kirk should be this young. And in this one he’s just kinda a douche.

We know from TOS that Kirk gets around, but he genuinely cares for his exes, and in general respects women. He uses sex appeal as a strategy, but more than anything this comes off as a subversion of the femme fatal trope bc Kirk is a man. In the movie, he’s just a standard action movie protag who has lots of sex just because.

The scene when the Orion woman says she loves him and he replied “that’s so weird” is just...so weird? Like I can’t imagine Kirk doing anything in that situation than backing off and explaining that he doesn’t feel the same way. The scene continues with him hiding under the bed when Uhura walks in. Watching how the camera angle makes Jim out to be a voyeur made me uncomfortable then and it still does. It could be explained that Jim is trying to figure out Uhura’s identity or that he’s listening in and people look at who they’re listening to but like...she was in her underwear. You shouldn’t look at people while they’re getting undressed, especially when they don’t even know you’re there? Is that a hot take? Apparently.

In TOS there’s this really nice scene in This Side of Paradise(S1E24) where the whole crew is high (again) and has abandoned ship, leaving Kirk to tend to things. We see Jim move around the ship with a little clip pad and make the proper checks. This is a captain who knows his stuff. That is the Kirk we should have seen if we’re going to see Jim become captain.

AOS kirk goes through a standard “stop being an asshole” arc commonplace for male protagonists, but this happens well past the point he should stop being an asshole. Either the AOS series should’ve been a prequel with Jim becoming captain at the end of the trilogy, or he should’ve been older with a completely different arc- maybe coming to terms with his rank? Imposter syndrome? Learning to trust his crew and building trust with them? Building a friendship with Spock and McCoy? There’s a lot to work with here.

3. Spock and Uhura’s relationship

Why. Like why. For what. Por Que.

I like giving Uhura a bigger role, I don’t like making her a love interest to do that.

It doesn’t make sense for either of their characters. Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, linguist expert who handles all transmissions to and from the enterprise- an icon of black women’s representation is now demoted to Spock’s nagging girlfriend. This bothers me more than a little bit.

It manages to make even less sense for Spock. A hallmark of Spock’s character is his duality. He struggles to combat his emotions and the human half of him. His repeating character arc in TOS is coming to terms with humanity while upholding the Vulcan way of life. Having him in an established romantic relationship before this arc is supposed to happen just makes for a boring romantic subplot about a relationship that shouldn’t happen and that I don’t care about.

TOS Vulcan culture is kinda shitty. Explicitly patriarchal and stuff, and also kinda racist against humans. The source of Spock’s inner conflict is not himself but a society that views him as lesser for being half human. However, one thing that I can certainly understand from a “logical” (logic in quotations bc racism and sexism is fucking stupid) people is ritualized arranged marriages. It just...makes sense to me that Vulcans would simply have their mates chosen for them and then marry that person and be done with it. Neat. Logical. Conformity.

This makes Spock and Uhura’s relationship even stranger. Why would Spock go so against conformity that he dates someone before he truly comes to terms with himself? Even if they throw out ponfarr and arranged marriage, it still doesn’t work but now it especially doesn’t work.

My personal theory is that Spock and Uhura’s relationship was established purely to make shippers shut up. It’s no secret Spirk is the most popular ship from TOS. I have no doubt they knew this while writing the movie. So to quietly wrap a no homo on Spock and Kirk’s friendship, they use Uhura as a prop to do so.

The teacher/student dynamic should only be relegated to fan fiction and the throwaway line about oral sensitivity makes me cringe. Every. Time.

4. McCoy

Karl Urbans performance is easily my favorite part of this movie. He captures DeForrest Kelley so well it hurts. He made Leonard Nimoy cry. His chemistry with Pine made McKirk go from the most underrated triumvirate ship in TOS to rival Spirks popularity in AOS. His scenes with Zachary Quinto are just *chefs kiss*.

So why doesn’t he have more of a role? The triumvirate is missing a third.

In particular, there’s a scene where Uhura, Kirk, and Spock make their way down to a planet to talk to a Klingon. I can’t remember which movie it was or why, but Spock and Uhura were bickering and Kirk remarks “can we do this later?”

The line was funny. It would’ve been golden if it was McCoy and not Uhura.

A fantastic performance by an underutilized character in a movie where that character should’ve been at the forefront.

5. Representation

I am skeptical of any movie that advertises diversity. Nonetheless, it made me happy to know Sulu was going to be gay. This is Star Trek after all, known for its diversity and large LGBT fan base, and an homage to George Takai who’s a gay man irl. So whatever.

The fact that I wasn’t expecting much says a lot about the current state of LGBT rep in media but this blink-and-you-miss-it shit is really starting to get to me.

I mean he jus- he doesn’t even give his husband a KISS. Like why.

6. Destroying Vulcan

WHY. Oh god why.

This isn’t Star Wars, JJ. We don’t do that here.

Imploding Vulcan was the most god awful shock value bullshit plot device I’ve ever seen in a movie and it was done entirely to make Spock sad. Besides the gaping plot hole of “why did Nero go back in time to destroy Vulcan when he could’ve just saved Romulus” I’m just grasping to find a purpose for this particular event. New fans don’t care at all about Vulcan while I was enraged that they would do Amanda that dirty.

It’s not just that they did that, it’s more that they did it like that. Vulcan’s destruction should’ve caused a federation wide meltdown as the biggest catastrophe in the entire franchise. If they were gonna make the stakes so pointlessly high, they should’ve treated the destruction of Vulcan exactly how they would treat the destruction of earth. There a million ways to treat that event with more gravity and million better plot lines that don’t involve G E N O C I D E

7. Miscellaneous petty bullshit because I’m a baby

-lower the fucking stakes Jesus Christ

-Don’t like the set. It’s bright and white and boring and gives me a headache. You don’t need a remake of the old set but like have fun ya know? Shit looks like an Apple store.

-Christine and I are the same in that we are both soft and are thirsty for Spock. Imagine my surprise to learn she wasn’t fucking there. Same with Janice but I’m more pressed about Christine. I don’t even remember the name of that blonde doctor lady who is Not Christine but i didn’t want her.

-The costumes in AOS look boring but still don’t feel like a uniform either. I deadass think Chris Pines outfit in the SNL skit looked better than the actual movie (minor adjustments needed)

-I didn’t notice this at first but someone pointed out that women’s uniforms don’t signify rank and now I can’t not see it. I don’t...think this movie treats women good? Or McCoy? Or just people who deserve better?

-Lens Flare

-I get why they did it but I don’t like that they misquoted the opening theme to say “no one” instead of “no man”. I probably wouldn’t have even notice except they gave the line to Uhura. Comes off as just a touch too “yay feminism” which is really rich coming from that treated Uhura like an object to be looked at when she wasn’t too busy being Spock’s emotional support gf, and completely cut two women from the main cast.

8. Conclusions

If I could describe these movies in one word it’d be generic. Which sucks because Star Trek far from generic.

They’re fun to watch but not think about. It was nice that I got to see a Star Trek movie in theaters. I just wish it as the same Trek I saw on TV.

[angsty-violet]

Agony - Chapter 10

Agony Masterpost

@whumptober2020

“Bloodletting has always fascinated me. Did you know that? There is something deeply intriguing about a medical technique that actually weakens the body. One that makes it harder to fight illness, recovery for injury, or in my practice, deal with pain. Your body just doesn’t have the resources to expand on something like dealing with pain. It’s just fascinating to me.”

Tuvok’s eyes were clenched tight, and his breaths came in ragged sobs. Each of his arms held small cuts where blood had spilled out. It ran down them and dripped into his eyes, stinging every time it hit. His position of being bound to the ceiling was optimal for limiting how much blood was lost but allowing enough to make him absolutely miserable.

Kell’an stroked his cheek gently. Tuvok believed it was a method to force your mind to focus on the horrible pain being wreaked on your body. A counterpoint to make you realize the torture inflicted upon your nerves.

He was having a hard time ignoring this particular trick.

He usually ignored it because he didn’t care for physical contact. He didn’t want it from his crew, let alone a madman. This session, though, the blood loss clouded his mind. Distracted him from techniques he usually used to help mentally distance himself from what was happening.

It seemed Kell’an was trying to make good on his promise about making Tuvok want death. Kell’an reached up and pressed on the wounds, forcing more blood to run out. Tuvok was nearly coated in his own blood at this point. It ran down his arms into his face and chest, some making it as far as his legs before it dried.

They had been at this for nearly 3 hours, the steady blood loss hadn’t initially bothered him. Now, he was reaching the point where it was making him nauseous. His arms trembled from where they were bound above him, and he had begun to lose feeling in them. His feet were once again suspended over where he couldn’t touch the ground.

Kell’an narrowed his eyes. “I must say, as angry with you as I am over my other subject, I’m still impressed. You are doing an amazing job. Normally the pain and blood loss is enough to make men beg for their lives. Not you though, you truly are an unbelievable specimen. Why did you let them go?” Kell’an pressed a hot piece of metal to Tuvok’s side, the one without his heart, as he asked.

Tuvok breathed deep and spoke. “They didn’t deserve to lose their life to a madman. They had a mate and children they deserved to return to. It was better for you to take me instead.”

“If I remember correctly, you also have a wife and children in another quadrant. You also have a Captain and a crew that rely on you. You could’ve used them as a distraction to get away. Obviously, you can remove the collars. Yet, you chose to allow them to leave while you remained behind as my test subject.”

“I would never have sacrificed another to save my life. I will escape here, and when I do, it will be with a completely clean conscience. No other will be taking my place, I can guarantee it.”

“Such passion. Let’s see how you hold up to more torture and blood loss. I have to say you look exquisite painted in your own blood. It’s such a pretty green against your dark skin. I imagine with your physical strength that you don’t see it very often. That’s alright, this is going to make up for it. I want to see you coated in your own blood.”

He pressed on the other, watching the sluggish bleed speed up. Another press of the burner and Tuvok was gasping in desperation. So far, only the cold had made him beg for it to stop. He was able to rise above physical pain well. Not this time, though.

“Stop! Please stop! I can’t take any more of this.”

“Alright, but only because you begged so prettily for me. You are almost coated in your blood anyway. It is an extremely satisfying sight. You truly are a beautiful thing.”

  “Captain, we’re being hailed by the ship.”

Janeway gestured to the screen. “Open a channel. This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager.”

An alien appeared on the screen. “I am Reinchaln. I have a crucial message. Tuvok is a member of your crew, isn’t he?”

Janeway sat up and took notice. “Yes, he is. Do you have information on his whereabouts?”

“Yes. I met him a few days ago. We had both been taken by the same person. He helped me escape and wanted me to pass on his location to you. He figured it might be hard for you to find the facility he is in, even if you know the planet. We were held very deep underground. I was only there for a few days, but…”

“But what? What was happening to you? What’s happening to him now?”

“The being that took us was set on torturing us until we broke. He said that he was looking for the perfect specimen against torture. I was able to escape because I can fly. He insisted that he would be fine if he stayed behind. I wanted to go back, but I have 3 children. They and my mate need me.”

Janeway held up a hand to forestall the rest of his reasoning. “I understand why you did it. It’s a good thing tool you can hopefully give us a location and some information on where he’s being kept. That is more than we had without you. Please wait for a few moments. We can transport you here. That way, we can have the coordinates and anything else you can tell us.”

“Yes, Captain. Anything I can do to help free him from that madman.”

The transmission ended, and Janeway sighed. Suddenly she felt very old. This information would be what they needed to rescue Tuvok successfully. However, it came with the knowledge that he was currently being tortured.  

[roman-writing]

of all stars the most beautiful

Fandom: Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and FIre / Star Wars

Pairing: N/A

Rating: G

Wordcount: 17,656

Summary: Of all the stars in the galaxy, the blue dwarf of Asar around which Winterfell rotated was the brightest. A Star Wars AU told from Sansa’s perspective following the events of the books.

read it here on AO3 or read it below the cut

“And I am a master of speaking silently -- all my life I’ve spoken silently, and I’ve lived through entire tragedies in silence.”

-The Meek One, Fyodor Dostoevsky

--

“How unlucky,” Cersei said, “that of all the Stark children, we got the dud.”

Sansa had to hide the shaking of her hands by shifting her grip upon the nanosilk fabric draped across her lap. The needle pinched between thumb and forefinger was a trembling sliver of silver. Cersei watched her openly while all the ladies-in-waiting pretended not to. Sansa kept her head lowered, focusing intently upon threading the needle. The patchwork lion was far from taking shape. From this angle, it might have been a housecat.

Cersei lifted a glass of wine to her lips and took a leisurely sip. The drink stained her lips a bloodied red. “You should count yourself fortunate that your traitor family has such a strong history of Force users, little bird. Else we’d have no use for you.”

“I do,” Sansa managed to say. Her eyes flickered up to meet Cersei’s, only briefly, before she lowered them once more. “I count my fortunes every day, Senator.”

There was a pause, during which Sansa did not dare look up; she could feel Cersei’s gaze upon her, heavy and dark. “I heard that Force-sensitives can feel when great disturbances occur in the universe. Tell me: did you feel anything when they cut off your father’s head?”

Sansa’s hand slipped. The needle pricked her finger, and it took all her strength to mask a flinch. Her blood welled up, glittering like one of the ancient crystals that gleamed through the nanosilk threads. Everyone was watching for her reaction. The room was breathless and still, and Sansa could hear the thundering of her own heart in her ears above all else.

She could remember the day her father was beheaded with all the clarity of the holograms that still played it in the streets, as if to remind the general public of what happened to traitors on Coruscant. It was the first public execution since the days of the Mad Emperor, but from what Sansa understood he had preferred to kill traitors with lightning delivered from his own hands.

At least Ned Stark’s death had been quick. At least there had been no blood. His neck had been cauterised by the executioner’s blade, and when his body had slumped to the ground Sansa had felt the world tilt around her. As if everything had been irrevocably thrown out of balance. She had spent the next few days stumbling with every steps as the ground beneath her feet continued to pitch. Sometimes she could still feel it, the universe slanting to one side as though a great weight were pushing down, until it was all she could do to cling upright.

“I felt nothing, Senator,” Sansa lied. “Nothing, save shame for my House’s infidelity to the Republic.”

Cersei sneered around her wine glass. “Just as I thought. A dud like your mother.”

--

The day Myrcella was escorted onto a ship for the starforge of Sunspear, there were riots at the docking bays. The Dornish vessel was sealed shut behind Myrcella’s small figure, and while Cersei wept, Sansa watched the massive docking bay doors behind them. She could hear nothing over the roar of the engines spooling up, like the roar of a hundred throats lifting to the haze-riddled skies of Coruscant.

Cersei’s breath hitched in a sob, and Sansa had to lift a hand to wipe at her own eyes. It must have been from dust kicked up by the engines. The Dornish ship rose into the sky. Cersei stared after it long after Myrcella had gone.

“I’m going back to the Federal District,” Joffrey announced in a bored tone. He was already walking towards the docking bay doors, gold-cloaked Lannister guardsmen marching in his wake. When Cersei, Tyrion, and the others did not immediately follow, Joffrey glanced over his shoulder with a thunderous scowl. “Well?” he snapped, his gaze turning to Sansa. “Are you coming or not?”

He did not wait for a response before stalking off once more. Sansa hesitated for only a moment before gripping her skirts with both fists in order to quicken her step after him. Tyrion tagged along behind her, and Cersei only turned away from the hangar doors after Joffrey had nearly reached the docking bay entrance and was waiting impatiently for the rest of his entourage to catch up. Sandor Clegane, the Hound of Mandalore, towered at Joffrey’s side. His beskar armour was soot-black, and a green cloak hung from one shoulder; the snarling jaws of a dog had been painted across the helmet indicative of his people. The old Mandalorian ways were few and far between these days, and Clan Clegane had only escaped the new Braavosi Mandalore by the skin of their teeth.

The docking bay doors opened. The howl of the engines could still be heard, but the ship had long gone. Outside, guardsmen leveled their blaster rifles at a baying mob. Upon sight of Joffrey and the others, the crowd went frenzied, like hounds scenting the air with blood. Sansa took a tremulous step back at the force of their furor.

When a few broke through the ranks of the guardsmen, Clegane slammed his fist upon the control panel mounted on the wall, and the doors slid shut. One member of the crowd managed to slip through. Another was crushed beneath the descending weight of duralloy. With a casual air, Clegane unholstered his blaster cannon from over his shoulder and shot the one that managed to get through to their side. Sansa started. She swallowed and glanced quickly away, hearing the body fall, dead, to the ground.

“This way, Vice Chair,” Clegane said to Joffrey. His voice was an electronic muffle through the speakers of his helm. He was already striding off towards a side exit.

Joffrey glanced between the body and the Hound before following. “What are they doing? Why are they here?”

“There’s a food shortage thanks to Stannis Baratheon winning over the bread basket of the Western Reaches,” Tyrion said, exasperated. “Don’t you pay attention to anything?”

“I’ll pay attention when I put you before a firing squad,” Joffrey snarled.

Tyrion’s eyebrows rose, but he remained silent. Clegane smacked the side exit’s panel, and the door slid open. He ducked beneath the frame and quickly glanced around outside.

“Is it clear?” Cersei asked.

“Clear enough.” Clegane rested his huge blaster cannon against his shoulder and stepped into the open air.

The Lannister’s guardsmen circled closely around Joffrey, Tyrion, and Cersei, unholstering their blaster rifles. They jostled Sansa. One of them grabbed her by the arm and pushed her after the others when she hesitated. Every nerve in her body was screaming at her to stay within the safe confines of the hangar, to wait out the riots until the mob cleared, but she could do nothing when a guardsmen dragged her along in their wake.

They dodged down side-alleys, staying off the main streets as best they could. Sansa could just make out the hulking form of the Hound’s shoulders over the heads of the others; he led them on their path to safety. After they’d rounded another corner, the guardsman let go of Sansa’s arm to grip his blaster rifle more firmly between both hands.

Just one alley over, she could hear a mass of people. The sound of blaster fire, the stench of burning skin and hair, the roar of anger from a crowd made her flinch.

“Hurry up,” Clegane growled. He grabbed Joffrey by the shoulder and pushed him to one side just as a laser round scorched the air where he had stood not a moment ago.

Joffrey’s face was pale. He had drawn his lightsaber but his hand shook. He pointed a finger down the next alley and yelled, “Shoot at them, already! Shoot them!”

“Don’t be mad -!” Tyrion tried to say, but the guardsmen were already pointing their blaster rifles and opening fire.

Clegane was aiming down his own sights now. Every pull of the trigger on his blaster cannon seared the air with noise. He had placed his body before Joffrey’s. A laser round struck his shoulder, but left only a blackened scuff mark on his armour.

“I am your Vice Chair!” Joffrey was screaming. His face was flushed with rage and fear. “I am -! Just -! Kill them!”

The mob was starting to claw its way into the alley. Sansa could see the mass of bodies encroaching in upon them despite the firepower from Clegane and the guardsmen. She backed away with slow, shaking steps back the way they had come, watching the rest of the group be herded by Clegane into another alleyway running perpendicular to them. The mob gave chase.

Nobody seemed to notice Sansa was no longer among them. Not even the crowd noticed her presence. She did not wait for them to do so. She grasped her long flowing robes between her hands, turned, and ran.

The mob had overwhelmed the hangar by the time she returned, breathing heavily. They were tearing apart one of the docked ships with their bare hands and sets of welders tools taken from the engineering quarters. Others were trying to break into the aircraft control room, which had been barred from within. Through the transparisteel windows, Sansa could see members of the flight control squad barricading the doors with furniture and yelling into their personal transmission devices.

Sansa flinched when members of the crowd began to use a section of the ship as a battering ram. People were milling all about her, and with every violent jostle her hands shook so badly she could not keep them still at her side. She edged her way around the perimeter of the crowded hangar, trying every door handle she came across until she found one that was open.

Slipping into a dark corridor lit only with blue lights along the floor, she shut the door as quietly as she could. Her chest rose and fell with every breath. She tried to keep her steps even as she walked down the corridor, but with every crash of noise through the door behind her, Sansa found her stride lengthening until she was running.

She stumbled on the hems of her robes and had to steady herself against the wall. Pausing to catch her breath, she glanced around furiously when the door crashed open. Eyes wide, Sansa fumbled with a wall at waist-height. It was screwed shut, and no amount of twisting at the corners could convince the panel to loosen.

The sound of booted footsteps and shouting echoed along the corridor, and dark shapes loomed behind her. Sansa scrambled in vain against the wall panel until in a fit of frustration she slammed her open palm against it.

The wall panel fell away to reveal a dark crawlspace. With a gasp, she crouched down and clambered inside. She only just managed to grab the wall panel and fix it in place behind her, when people stormed by her hiding place.

It was a technician’s shaft, terminating less than a few meters deep into the wall, where a single panel of lights blinked intermittently through the darkness. Sansa had to curl her knees to her chest to fit in the crawlspace. She wrapped her hands around her ankles and held fast, burying her face in her knees and shutting her eyes tight. She could still hear the drum of feet outside, the angry voices chanting for action from the Senate; she could feel the hot press of bodies against her own, skin sticky with sweat, the flow of the crowd sweeping her away.

Every second took an age to pass. Every rapid, panting inhalation was acidic with fear. The darkness pressed in all around her, a shadow with a great, cold weight. Sansa shivered. Her back and legs ached from being hunched up for so long. Every time the door rattled from passers-by, she dared not open her eyes. The darkness seemed to clog up her lungs, her mouth, her nose, until all she could focus on was her breathing, desperately trying to slow it down, to decrease the thundering of her own heart.

When the door was wrenched open, Sansa jerked back from the blade of light lancing through the crawlspace. She scrambled deeper into the corner, praying that she would remain unseen.

For a long moment there was silence. And then a familiar rasping voice growled out, “Almost didn’t notice you there, little bird.”

Hesitantly, she lifted her head to find the masked Hound of Clan Clegane holding out his hand. “Come on,” he said. “We haven’t got all day.”

--

There was a wing of the Senate Dome that was always cold. Sansa avoided it as best she could, but some days could not be helped. Today she trailed dutifully after Cersei and her train of attendants, shrugging her shoulders against the chill. Hardly anyone else seemed to ever notice it. She had heard Joffrey complain once that the heaters must have been broken in this wing, and he had backhanded an electrician who insisted that he had triple-checked the HVAC system.

Cersei paused in a particularly well-lit section of the hallway between two massive pillars. Her hair seemed to glitter when she cocked her head and looked down at the floor. Cersei appeared especially severe today in her red and gold-trimmed robes of state. She gestured for Sansa to approach her, and the other attendants stood aside to let Sansa stand beside her.

For a long moment, Cersei simply looked down at a section of the polished floors without saying a word. Sansa was loath to stand too close. This place made her feel greasy, cold, and unclean. Then, Cersei remarked casually, “My father has this place scrubbed by the cleaning droids every other day. He says it always feels dirty.”

Sansa nodded, but said nothing.

At that, Cersei glanced at her sharply. “So, you feel it, do you?”

Sansa shook her head. “No, Senator,” she lied.

“No?” Cersei placed a hand on Sansa’s shoulder and pushed down, hard. “Tell me if the droids have done a decent job. Does this place still feel dirty to you?”

Sansa’s knees hit the floor, and she held back a wince. Cersei’s fingers remained digging into her shoulder, then softened somewhat.

“Well?” Cersei prompted.

Sansa could see her own dim reflection in the polished surface beneath her. It was like looking into a smoke-tinted mirror, the vague impression of herself upon the oil-slick surface. “The floors are as clean as they’ll ever be.”

Cersei’s grip slackened. She smoothed her thumb over Sansa’s shoulder. “It doesn’t feel at all different?”

The floors were hard against Sansa’s knees, and so icy that the cold seeped through layers of Ottegan silk. Her breath misted slightly with every trembling exhalation. Her stomach churned, and she had to swallow back the bile burning in her throat.

“This place is like any other on Coruscant, Senator,” Sansa said, keeping her face meekly downturned.

For some reason that made Cersei laugh. “Here Elia Martell was defiled and cloven in two by the Mountain of Clan Clegane.” She smiled, and though she helped Sansa upright, her hand squeezed Sansa’s too tightly for any real warmth. “But you’re right. Coruscant is filled with places like this.”

Sansa snatched her hand back as quickly as she dared. Cersei’s face hardened, but before she could remark upon it, Sansa spoke. “Every planet has its wealth of ghosts. Especially those as ancient as Coruscant. But I would not know, Senator. The Unknown Regions and Outer Rim Territories do not have such rich histories as the Core Worlds.”

Cersei narrowed her eyes a fraction. For a moment Sansa feared she had said too much, but then Cersei turned away and continued down the hall. “Your idle chatter is going to make us late for the Convocation.”

Sansa ducked her head in a little bow, though Cersei could not see it. “Of course. Please forgive me, Senator.”

She drifted back to her place at the rear of the train of attendants. A few of the others shot her glances both suspicious and envious of the Senator’s attentions. Sansa waited until they were well beyond the wing before slipping away from the group and into a restroom. Nobody saw her go.

It was mercifully empty. Stumbling forward, she pushed open the nearest stall and only just made it in time to vomit into the toilet. She sank to her knees, gripping the bowl as her stomach emptied itself.

Then, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand, Sansa stood. She checked her appearance in the mirrors. She washed her hands and fixed her hair. She snuck into the Senate hall before anyone could notice she had ever been gone.

--

Stannis Baratheon’s warships began their siege of Coruscant on a fine, breezy afternoon. Cersei invited many ladies of name and noble birth to her private balconies to watch as the skies rained down with fire.

Sansa declined a glass of wine that was offered to her, but Cersei noticed. “You look pale, little dove. Come have a drink with me.”

“I -” Sansa started to protest, but quickly shut her mouth. She nodded and a full glass was pushed into her hand by a servant. Cersei watched with unblinking intensity as Sansa took a small sip.

“Not like that. Drink, girl.” Cersei mimed the motion with her own glass.

Sansa drank.

“Why so pale?” Cersei cocked her head. Her voice was soft, and had all the veneer of sounding concerned, though her gaze was as sharp as ever. She wore an infinite variety of masks. Every time Sansa thought she had lifted one away, Cersei would have donned another in its place. “Have you so little faith in our Supreme Chancellor?”

Sansa shook her head. “Of course not, Senator. I am confident Chancellor Tywin will beat back this pretender without any trouble at all.”

The warships were pale shadows looming through the atmosphere miles and miles above the surface of the planet. From here, Sansa could barely make out the smaller fighters let alone the barrage exchange between them.

Cersei did not look up at the sky. Her eyes remained fixed on Sansa. “What were you doing just before?”

Glancing over her shoulder in confusion where she had been sitting in a huddle with some of the other ladies, Sansa confessed, “Leading a prayer.”

“Leading a prayer,” Cersei repeated in a flat tone. Her lip curled. “You really are perfect, aren’t you?”

“Senator?”

Rather than answer, Cersei gestured for Sansa’s glass to be filled again, though it was not yet empty. “Drink.”

Sansa drank.

--

The siege lasted a mere two days. It was two days too long. Sansa listened avidly to the guardsman delivering his report to Cersei in a hushed whisper. How Minister Tyrion had managed to rally the troops after Vice Chair Joffrey had disengaged from the fight. How Chancellor Tywin had swept in from hyperspace with the combined Lannister-Tyrell fleet from Corellia and driven the pretender from the field. Sansa had watched one of Stannis’ enormous battlecruisers burn up in atmo.

When she finally returned to her personal quarters, she was bone weary. Most of all, she wanted a long, hot shower and to change her clothes into something more comfortable than the formal constricting robes she always wore in the presence of others. Even before she opened the door to her quarters however, she knew someone else was waiting for her inside.

She could not say how she knew. Only that she did. And it was with a shaking hand that she pressed the panel on the wall, which read her bio signature with a green light of admittance before the door slid open. A hulking shape stooped in a chair on the opposite side of the room, staring out the windows and into the glittering lights of the planet-wide city at night.

Sansa stepped inside. The doors slid soundlessly shut behind her. “What are you doing here?”

For a moment, Clegane said nothing. His armour was covered in burn marks and blood. The edge of his cloak dripped onto the pale carpet. “I’m not here for long,” he finally rasped. “I’m going.”

“Where?”

His helmed head tilted, but he did not move or look around. “Somewhere that isn’t burning.”

Sansa swallowed. “And why come here? Why come to me?”

With a creak of armour, he rose. Slowly, he turned and crossed the room to stand before her. The city lights beyond glinted across his scarred armour. He reeked of battle, of strong spirits and singed hair. There was a bloodied tooth and some darker unidentifiable matter stuck to one of his broad shoulders. Sansa’s back stiffened, and she retreated a step until she could feel the door behind her. With his blaster cannon strapped across his back, Clegane was barely able to stand in the doorway.

“I can take you with me,” he said. “I can keep you safe. I can take you home.”

The promise of Winterfell rang empty, but still the thought of snow and ice sent a pang of longing racing beneath her skin. A homesickness so strong she felt sick to her stomach. Her gut twisted itself into knots, and she had to blink back a burning in her eyes.

Sansa shook her head. “I will be safe on Coruscant.”

Clegane lifted his hands and pressed hidden latches on the underside of his helmet. A series of clicks followed, and the hissing depressurisation of air. As he removed his helm, Sansa glanced away.

“Look at me.”

Hesitant, Sansa did so. Half of his face was seared away. She could see bits of bone through his oozing skin where the kolto tanks were unable to make him whole again, no matter how many treatments he endured at the hands of the medical droids. Despite his horrible disfigurement -- or perhaps because of it -- some instinct made her reach up and cup his scarred cheek, softly. His eyes widened, and the moment she touched him he jerked back as if she had scored his skin with her fingernails.

Sansa flinched away from the sudden movement. She closed her eyes, waiting for the blow to come, but it never did. She could hear movement -- the creak of armour and synthweave -- and then the Hound’s voice muffled through the speakers of his helm once more. “Move.”

She shuffled from the doorway, her hands clenched into fists. Clegane hit the panel that opened the door, and then he was gone.

--

Minister Baelish arrived at the spaceport with the Tyrells. His robes were as sleek and dark as the rest of him; he stood out like a thorn amongst the leaves. Sansa was present with the Lannister welcoming party. She waited in Cersei’s wake like a shadow while Tywin and Joffrey bowed to their guests.

Most of the time, people’s eyes passed over Sansa, as though she blended into her surroundings. The moment Petyr Baelish had finished bowing to the Lannisters and Tyrells however, his eyes sought her out. One corner of his mouth upturned when he found her, and as the rest of the group headed towards the Dome, he fell into step at Sansa’s side with an easy grace.

“You are looking very well, Lady Sansa.”

She inclined her head as graciously as she knew how. “Thank you, Minister Baelish. I am glad to see you unharmed from the battle.”

He waved her concern away. “Men like me don’t do well in battles. I stay away from them as much as possible.”

“That seems very wise,” Sansa said. Then she added, “Though I hear my brother goes where the fight is thickest.”

“Your brother is a pretender,” Littlefinger pointed out.

“And not very wise,” Sansa agreed.

Secretly, she relished the idea of him cutting down the likes of Joffrey with lightsaber in hand. Robb had always favoured the bluest of crystals found in Ilum’s many kyber caverns. They said his lightsaber shone like a star upon the battlefield. Arya had always been the one to beg him to let her hold it for a time, since she was too young yet to have made one herself. She could often be seen scampering around Winterfell’s courtyards brandishing Robb’s blue lightsaber or Jon’s white-crystal saber while they called after her with laughter.

Sansa had dared not touch one herself, though her father had held out his green lightsaber to her once. She’d always been afraid she would drop it and cut off her own toes.

“What kind of droid is that?” Sansa changed the topic, nodding towards the massive robot striding exactly three paces behind Senator Olenna and Lady Margaery. It clanked with every step from the sheer weight of its armoured plates.

“Ah, so you’ve noticed her, have you?” Littlefinger smiled, but the expression never touched his eyes. “That is BR-3N, a modified battle droid. Highly effective and fully sentient. Might I suggest -” he tilted his head so that he was closer when he spoke, so that she could almost feel the warmth of his cheek against her own. “- that you stay away from that particular hunk of metal? Her loyalties are impossible to buy. It would be a shame if she were to consider you critical to whatever mission parameters she has deemed worthy of her devotion.”

Sansa nodded, but continued to stare at the droid’s towering skeletal figure.

Littlefinger paused. “Might I have a moment in private, my Lady?”

Sansa glanced towards where the rest of the part was continuing on their way towards the elevators. “The others -?”

“We won’t be far behind.”

Uneasily, she nodded and allowed herself to be led aside. Littlefinger did not take her very far, just far enough that they could not be overheard.

“I have good news,” he said once they were alone.

“Good news you could not tell me in the company of others?” Sansa asked, wary. She had to stop herself from leaning away when Littlefinger took a step closer than she would have ordinarily liked. She never could shake the feeling that the air around Minister Baelish was filled with an unpleasant chill, the kind that made her desire a bath. It was an irrational feeling; the man’s presentation and hygiene were always immaculate.

“I thought it best it come from me alone. I am, after all, your most staunch ally in the Core Worlds, though you may not know it yet.” When she said nothing in reply, he continued. “The Tyrells did not turn the tide of the battle for nothing. They have agreed to this alliance upon the condition of a marriage between the Lady Margaery and Vice Chair Joffrey Baratheon.”

A shock of fear twined its way through Sansa’s stomach. “But -?”

“Now, don’t worry. I have arranged that your engagement be broken off without any harm to your or your reputation. You must remain on Coruscant for now, of course, but be ready to leave at a moment’s notice,” he added the last almost as an afterthought, and Sansa felt her gut swoop unpleasantly at the idea of staying on this planet a moment longer.

Still, he was watching her with an expectant expression. At a loss for what to do, Sansa stepped back in order to drop into a deep bow. “Thank you, Minister Baelish. I am in your debt.”

When she did not look up for a time, he tilted her head up with one black-gloved finger beneath her chin. He was smiling, but the sight was somehow sickly. “My dear Lady,” his eyes glittered like dark polished stones, “It was my pleasure.”

--

Sansa woke up from a nightmare, sobbing. She wrenched awake, her legs twisted in the covers, gasping for breath, her cheeks wet with tears. In the night, her room was dark, her windows tinted to keep out the lights of the city.

She wiped at her face and draped one of the covers over her shoulders, wishing it were a wolf pelt from Lothal. With a wave of her hand over an electronic panel beside her bed, she left the windows only partially tinted and huddled on the floor before them. She tucked the covers tightly around herself and sat so close to the windows her breath misted the glass. She whispered an order to the computer, and it brought up a hologram of the galaxy.

“Unknown Regions,” said Sansa in a tone so soft, the computer took a moment to register she had spoken at all.  

The computer zoomed in.

“7G Sector, Ilum.”

The computer zoomed in again. Sansa’s breath caught in her chest.

Of all the stars in the galaxy, the blue dwarf of Asar around which Winterfell rotated was the brightest. It burned cold and blue. From the surface of Ilum, the sun only rose once every nineteen days. Like this, feeling the chill of the air through the windows, wrapped in nothing but a sheet and a shift, Sansa could almost pretend she was there, safe within the walls of Winterfell, looking out at the fields of barren ice beneath a sky of eternal night.

--

The next morning, Joffrey gleefully informed her that her traitor brother and traitor mother were murdered by her uncle on Robb’s wedding day. They stitched his direwolf’s head onto his shoulders and chained his body atop the nose of a cruiser for a whole planet to see.

Sansa balled her hands into fists until her fingers ached. She made not a noise of complaint.

--

Senator Olenna sent a formal droid messenger to invite Sansa to join her in the Reach Consular Gardens for afternoon tea. When Sansa tried to give her acceptance, the messenger droid informed her that no reply was necessary and that Senator Tyrell was expecting her in two hours.

It only took five minutes by tram to reach the Consular Gardens from her personal quarters, but Sansa left with ten minutes to spare. The afternoon sun was bright, and the air warm when Sansa stepped from the tram. Above her the Reach Consular Gardens were a towering complex draped with vines and trees, like an island paradise floating amidst a sea of metal and glass. She walked inside and had to present her hand for a biosecurity scan before being allowed into the building proper.

Nobody but the occasional droid paid her any notice as she ascended to the highest floor, which the Tyrell matriarch had made her personal quarters for the duration of her stay on Coruscant. She passed through the halls without speaking to anyone, until Sansa rounded a corner and caught sight of the tall modified battle droid from the spaceport.

BR-3N stomped right by without pause, though her head twisted around to take inventory of Sansa’s appearance. Sansa wilted somewhat beneath the force of the droid’s scrutiny. Out of force of habit, Sansa stopped to curtsy.

Immediately BR-3N halted and returned the social courtesy with a perfectly executed bow at the waist. “Good day. You are the Lady Sansa Stark, are you not?”

“I - I am,” Sansa stammered, clutching at her robes with one hand.

“I met your mother, Lady Catelyn Stark, not long ago,” BR-3N announced. “She tasked me with bringing you home to her, at your earliest convenience.”

Sansa’s eyes widened. She could scarcely breathe. She stared at the droid, but before she could speak BR-3N continued in the same crisp monotone as before.

“I am afraid that due to her recent demise, the parameters of this mission are no longer possible.” BR-3N bowed again. “Forgive me, my Lady. I much admired your mother. I would have liked to return you to her.”

Sansa’s mouth opened but no words came out. She closed her mouth and swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. She took a deep trembling breath, chewing at her lower lip between her teeth. “That is quite -” She could not bring herself to say it was ‘alright’. Sansa instead said in a shaky voice, “Thank you. I would have liked to have been returned.”

BR-3N straightened. “My indices clearly state that there is still a mission to be completed. Since your mother is dead, I will perform this task for both you and your sister instead.”

“My sister is dead,” Sansa said in a flat tone.

“Then I shall perform this task for you.” BR-3N placed a hand over her chest where her heart would have resided had she been at all human. “What would you have of me, my Lady?”

At that, Sansa blinked. “What do you -? Who owns your devotions now, BR-3N?”

“That question is irreconcilable. Please rephrase.”

“Surely you have a maker? A higher master?”

BR-3N inclined her head a fraction. “I have no master save those I choose, Lady Stark.”

Sansa shuddered. “Please don’t call me that.”

“Forgive me. What should I call you?”

“Just -” she inhaled a deep breath and had to close her eyes for a second. “Just ‘Lady Sansa,’ please.”

“Of course, Lady Sansa. Please inform me of what mission you would have me perform on your behalf.”

The sun above Coruscant glared across every metallic surface of the city, sending streaks of light through the atmosphere. Sansa’s mouth was cotton dry. She could feel a bead of sweat rolling down her spine, making the heavy silk fabric of her robes cling to her skin.

She stared at BR-3N and wondered how far they would get before the Lannisters found them. She weighed the idea in her head. Then, glancing around them, she stepped forward. Sansa gestured for BR-3N to lean down, and the droid did so.

“What are the chances you could take me to Winterfell without us being caught?” Sansa asked in a hushed whisper.

BR-3N only took a split second to answer. “Based on the number of bounty hunters the Lannisters could purchase with their vast reserve of credits alone, my calculations for our probability of success are three-thousand seven-hundred and twenty to one. However,” BR-3N continued when Sansa looked especially crestfallen. “This probability can be increased to seven-hundred and twenty to one, should we be able to acquire a vessel with a hyperdrive.”

Sansa bit down on her lower lip so hard she thought she could taste copper. She did the maths in her head. They did not look pretty.

“Would you like me to acquire a vessel with a hyperdrive, Lady Sansa?”

Feeling dizzy, Sansa shook her head. She took a step back. “No. Thank you, BR-3N. Your services are not required at this time.”

The droid cocked her head at an exact angle before straightening to her full height once more. “Of course. Should you ever have need of me in the future, please know that my devotions are yours to command.”

“I shall remember that,” Sansa murmured. She gestured over her shoulder. “I should go. Senator Olenna is waiting for me. I fear I am already late.”

“Until next we meet, Lady Sansa.”

BR-3N offered another impeccable bow, before striding away.

--

Tea with the Tyrells was like navigating a proximity minefield. Get too close to a conversational topic, and the talk detonated. Senator Olenna was particularly adept at launching barbed missiles; Sansa was a mix of taken aback and thrilled with guilty delight every time the Senator spoke with such contempt of the Lannisters, or Renly, or even her own people.

“Renly was kind and gentle, grandmother,” Margaery admonished. “Father liked him and so did Loras!”

Olenna scoffed. “Loras is very good at doing barrel rolls and what have you in starfighters. That does not make him wise. And you know better than anyone that your father is the worst judge of character.”

To that, Margaery could only relent with a shrug and a nod. The faux guilty look she shot Sansa made Sansa bite her lip to keep a smile at bay.

The rest of the party had been cordoned off in another section of the gardens. The three of them were alone, sheathed from the rest of the world by sheets of impenetrable transparisteel that created a glasshouse effect for the plantlife. Sansa felt overly warm -- more so than she usually did on Coruscant. She longed to remove the formal outer layer of her robes, but instead endured the heat as best she could. The hot floral tea did not help. Once or twice she sipped at her cup gamely, but otherwise left the table of food and drink untouched.

In contrast, Lady Margaery and Senator Olenna lounged with the contentment of people completely in their element. Despite her formal wear, Olenna used one of the spare chairs to irreverently prop up her feet. She balanced a cup of tea between her fingers with a practiced grace, pausing every now and then during their talk to scrape cheese over a slice of bread and eat it. No matter how much she tried to ply both Sansa and Margaery with food, Sansa demurred, and Margaery would only partake in fruit that stained her lips red.

“Now,” Olenna lowered her feet to the ground and leaned forward in her chair, placing her cup of tea aside with a crisp clack of porcelain. “I want you to tell me about this boy, this Vice Chair.” She said the title with the airs of someone who could not believe the words that came out of her own mouth. “Does he do anything of merit? Or is his occupation purely to be a shit little Force-sensitive?”

Sansa’s face froze. She cast about for what to say, but Olenna was pinning her in place with her gaze alone. It felt like being targeted by laser-based paint-stripper. “I - I -” Sansa had to clear the tremor from her voice. “I don’t know why you would ask me, Senator. I’m just -”

“- Just the only living Stark, who survived in the very lion’s den,” Olenna finished for her. “Yes, I’m very much aware of who and what you are. So, tell me.”

Sansa’s mouth worked. Her eyes darted around, but they were well and truly alone. Still, Varys was notorious for his many levels of infiltration devices that he could sneak into any circumstance. She wondered if it would be on a fold of her clothes. Or perhaps hidden in the bowl of fruit.

It was Margaery who spoke next, and her tone was soft. She even reached out and touched Sansa’s hand where it lay on the table. Her fingers were warm. “It’s alright. Do you think we would ask you these questions outright, if we were not sure we wouldn’t be overheard?”

Sansa withdrew both her hands, clasping them together in her lap. “Forgive me for being so bold, Senator, but I did not survive the lion’s den by telling the truth.”

Olenna huffed with laughter. “And yet I’ve never heard truer words.”

Sansa stared down at her hands and said nothing. The last time she had told the truth had been to Cersei. She didn’t realise it until later, but the information she had given had led to her father’s capture and execution. Sometimes she would lie awake at night and contemplate that fact until two of Coruscant’s four moons dwindled away, and a rosy-fingered dawn crept over the horizon.

With a sigh, Olenna reached for her tea once more. She took a sip, then said, “If it’s surveillance you’re worried about, then how about this, hmm? We’ll ask questions, and you needn’t speak at all. Just nod or shake your head.”

Glancing up between the two of them, Sansa slowly nodded.

“Excellent. Would you pour me another cup, my dear?”

For a moment Sansa thought Olenna was referring to her, but it was Margaery who sat forward to grasp the glass teapot and pour a cup.

“Thank you,” Olenna murmured without looking at her; instead she continued to study Sansa, and there was a tiny furrow in her brow, as though Sansa were some great puzzle to be solved. “Is he clever or diligent?”

Sansa gave the smallest shake of her head she could manage.

“Cunning?”

Sansa wrinkled her nose.

“I see.” And indeed, Olenna regarded Sansa over the top of her cup. Leaning back in her seat, she rapped her fingernails against the porcelain base in a contemplative manner. “Kind?”

Sansa sucked in a sharp breath. Her hands shook. She gripped them together to get them to stop. There were three exits in this room. She had taken note of them the moment she walked in; she did not know when this practice began, only that she always did it now. She could distract them, ask to go to the restroom. They wouldn’t know she was gone until she was halfway back to the Dome.

But Margaery was watching her with large hazel eyes. “If I am to be married to him, I should be warned of his nature. Please.”

Sansa shook her head with a jerk, blinking back a burning in her eyes.

Rather than appear angry, Olenna simply rolled her eyes in in disappointment. Neither she nor her grand-daughter seemed surprised in the slightest.

“And so our suspicions are confirmed. Tywin puts too much stock in Force-users, the old ratbag. You should have seen the way he treated young Jaime and Cersei when they were children. Can you imagine? Punishing children for not being Force-sensitive?” Olenna gave a derisive snort. “Contrary to popular belief, sensitivity to the Force does not make or break a family’s fortunes. We put too much stock in the Force and not enough in actual people. You know I’m the only Force-sensitive in my family?” It sounded less like a question and more like a statement.

Sansa shook her head.

“Well, ours is a family descended from the gardens of Telos, before the Sith rained hellfire from the sky. I’m one of the only ones left who still has the gift. And yet the restorations continue. I’m told you haven’t a whit of Force-sensitivity about you, and yet -” Olenna frowned. “- I’ve never met a person more unwilling to be read, trained or untrained. How old did you say you were?”

“I didn’t,” Sansa breathed. “I didn’t say.”

Olenna smiled. “That’s not what I asked.”

“Thi-Thirteen, Senator.”

“Thirteen,” Olenna repeated. She leaned back in her chair and propped her feet upon the spare once more. “So young -- young enough to still grow. You may surprise us yet.” She removed the embossed metallic cover from a plate, and pushed the dish across the table. “Lemon cake?”

--

There were whispers in the endless spires of Coruscant of the Targaryen heir, the last of the fallen Sith Empire. They said she escaped to the Outer Rim Territories. They said she liberated old slave colonies. They said she led an army of Dothraki Zabraks and Unsullied Twi’leks like none the galaxy had seen since the days of the united Empire. They said her eyes glowed golden as any Force-user inclined to the darkness.

Joffrey scoffed. He claimed he and his most august grandfather would have sensed if there was any truth to these tales. He twirled his green lightsaber as he drawled, as if to show off that he had one and could ostensibly use it. Nobody mentioned that his own eyes had started to take on a more tawny hue.

Meanwhile, Sansa watched from the sidelines in silence as Tywin murmured orders to an attendant to inform him of the fleet’s combined numbers in Corellia and the Mid Rim Territories. The attendant scurried off with a bow, and Tywin caught her watching their exchange. Meeting his gaze felt like grabbing the wrong end of a cattle-prod.

Sansa quickly looked away.

--

Years ago, Sansa had learned from the Masters at Winterfell that the Dornish never used any Republic titles but their own. It still came as a surprise when she was introduced not to Senator Oberyn Martell, but to Prince Oberyn Martell.

“You there! Stark girl!”

She froze. She had been about to duck around a corner, but the unfamiliar voice called out before she could meld back into the shadow of the grey domed building arching overhead. Slowly, Sansa turned. The Prince of the Dornish Confederacy of Planets was striding towards her. One of his wrists rested comfortably on the extendable polearm sheathed at his waist. His saffron-coloured nanosilks were long and elegant, and revealed far more of his chest than anyone would have displayed in the Unknown Regions, where the planets were gripped with constant winter.

Sansa bent her knees in a curtsy. She kept her eyes at his feet. “My Lord -? I mean - My -? Your Grace -? My Prince?” she fumbled with how exactly to address him.

Wrinkles creased the corners of his dark eyes when he smiled. “Last I checked, Ilum was not part of Dorne, and I am not your prince.”

“I -” Sansa blinked in confusion at his warm expression. “I’m sorry.”

Oberyn gave a small laugh, coming to a halt before her. “For what?”

“Well, I - I don’t know.”

“I had heard that the people from the Unknown Regions were as blunt and cold as their terrible weather. And yet -” He used both hands to make an expansive gesture at her. “- You apologise when you have nothing to be sorry for?”

She ducked her head in a half bow. “Forgive me. I thought I might have caused offense.”

“We aren’t so thin-skinned as your people are led to believe. I think I can take whatever you have to dish out. Here,” He went to the ground on one knee before her, offering his cheek and miming punching it with his own fist. “Would you like to try?”

At that, Sansa reared back, staring at him in shock.

He swept a hand over his heart as if struck by a physical blow, yet he was grinning up at her. “Ah! So, she does have eyes! And what beautiful eyes they are, too. For a moment there, I thought you might be Miralukan.”

Sansa flushed. She glanced around, half expecting people to leap from behind a pillar and catch her in the act of -- what, exactly? Something that could be used against her, she was sure, though she did not know how.

The smile slowly faded from Oberyn’s face. He watched her now with an expression that could only be described as sombre. “They have you that frightened, do they?”

“I don’t know what you mean, my Lord.”

With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet. “Of course not.” He gestured with one hand and for a moment she was afraid he would touch her, but he did not. “Come! Walk with me a while.”

Dutifully, she did as requested. For a moment Oberyn held out his arm in such a way that she could choose to take it while they ambled together down the halls of the Republic Executive Building. She did not take it, instead clasping her hands in what she hoped was a demure fashion. He lowered his arm, but did not seem to mind at all, if his cheerful expression was any indication.

There was no place in particular Sansa needed to be and nothing she needed to do today, but that did not stop her from glancing over her shoulder every so often to check if she was being followed. Cersei or Joffrey might summon her presence on a whim, and exact punishment for a perceived slight if she arrived late to some meeting or another.

Outside it was raining. Sansa wished it would snow, but it never got cold enough on Coruscant for that. She gazed out the floor to ceiling windows as they walked. “Have you been on Coruscant long, my Lord?”

“I never stay on Coruscant longer than necessary. It’s a shithole planet.” He gave an expansive gesture towards the windows with a grimace. “Too many people. You’ve been here - what? Almost a year now? Don’t you feel claustrophobic here?”

Sansa jerked her eyes down, watching her feet. Fear stirred up in her gut, fear of being caught looking longingly towards the skies. “The Core Worlds are lavish and fanciful beyond imagination,” she said as she always did whenever pressed on the subject. “They are like legends, themselves.”

At that, Oberyn hummed a thoughtful note in the back of his throat. “There are legends about your planets, too. Wolves large enough to ride across fields of ice. And kyber crystal deposits as tall as mountains, catching the light of the stars until they are like stars themselves,” Oberyn said. His eyes sparkled with a youthful kind of glee at the thought. “Is it true? Or are these tales exaggerated?”

Sansa found his enthusiasm too infectious to ignore. She smiled weakly. “They are somewhat exaggerated. But not by much.”

“I would love to visit one day with my girls. Travel broadens your horizons; opens up new opportunities and experiences.” Slowing his steps, he snapped his fingers and pointed at Sansa as if coming to a sudden realisation. “Have you ever been to Dorne?”

She shook her head.

“Then, you should visit us!” Oberyn continued walking, guiding her around the perimeter of the building and away from any would-be eavesdroppers. “Travel is good for the spirit. You would flourish away from this place.”

Sansa dodged that comment. “Is that why you’ve come to Coruscant? To lift your spirits?”

This time his smile was less than pleasant. “In a sense, yes. I’ve come to kill a man.”

A chill walked its way down the length of her spine. Her stride shortened, and Oberyn’s matched her pace so that they continued to walk, side by side. “And why have you sought me out, my Lord?”

“I thought I might present you with a gift of sorts.” He lifted one hand and waggled it in the air. “Call it a ‘new opportunity,’ if you’re so inclined.”

Slowly, Sansa said, “I am not accustomed to receiving gifts. And I’m not sure if it would be proper for me to accept.”

“You think your jailors care about propriety?”

Sansa’s back stiffened. “Vice Chair Joffrey is noble and strong as a lion, and I am lucky to -”

Oberyn came to a stop and waved away her platitudes. “Yes, yes, I’ve heard that old song already. For the record, you are very convincing.”

Lips pursing, Sansa ducked her head. Her heart was beating rapidly in her chest. Adrenaline coursed through her; it was difficult to keep still.

If Oberyn noticed, he gave no indication of it. He made a show of digging through his pockets for something. “Now, where did I -? Ah! Here.”

Sansa had to mask a flinch when he held out something in his hand to her, as though he were offering a hissing snake. When she saw what it was however, she blinked.

It was, for all appearances, a needle. Overly large, perhaps the length of her palm and the width of her littlest finger at its broadest end, it tapered to a narrow point. Its broad end had a loop, as though for a chain, or perhaps a strip of narrow cloth with which to stitch things together.

Hesitant, Sansa took it. She turned it over in her hands. “What is it?”

“A transmission device.” While Oberyn explained, he did not look at her, instead casting his gaze around like a predator scanning the horizon for deer. “With it, you can send a message that is completely untraceable.”

Sansa tapped the narrow point against the pad of her finger. Immediately, a holographic display leapt from either end of the needle -- a small keyboard and screen made of golden light. The cursor blinked intermittently at the top left corner of the screen. There was no field in which to enter an address, only to enter a message.

“Who does this device transmit to?” Sansa asked. “You?”

Oberyn chuckled. “No, no. My paramour: Ellaria. I think she and my daughters should travel more. See other places in the galaxy. The Outer Rim. The Unknown Regions. They could bring friends with them. And they have many friends.”

Sansa gripped the needle tightly in one hand, and the holographic display vanished. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, my Lord. And if I did, it would be treason.”

“Treason to visit friends in their homes?” His smile was warm, almost affectionate, but it had a dangerous lilt to it all the same.

“I cannot invite you or your daughters to Ilum. However,” Sansa said slowly, scarcely believing her own audacity. Clutching the needle in her hand, she swallowed thickly. Then, she tucked the needle safely away in a hidden pocket of her robes. “There are very strict rules about hospitality in the Unknown Regions. If anyone were to appear in Winterfell and beg a seat at my table, I could not refuse them.”

Oberyn's answering grin showed teeth. “I shall keep that in mind.”

This time when he held out his arm, Sansa took it. Though she only allowed the tips of her fingers to rest in the crook of his elbow. He continued to walk with her, looking to any prying eyes like a Prince taking a Lady for a courtly stroll and nothing more.  

“You are not as powerless as you have been led to believe, Lady Sansa.”

“Forgive me, my Lord, but I do not have the power of the Sunspear at my command.”

He laughed, a warm rich sound. “This is true. But then again, a Star Forge is not the only thing that saved Dorne from conquest, you know. Power,” Oberyn said, pointing at where the sun hung in the sky above two of Coruscant’s four moons, “is being able to tell people ‘no’ and them not being able to make you say ‘yes.’”

Sansa frowned. “But what if the Sith had won? What if you had been conquered by Aegon?”

The Prince shrugged his broad shoulders. “Then we would have still not said ‘yes.’”

“But then you would have died,” Sansa pointed out.

“Ah, but don’t you know?” He leaned forward, patted her hand where it lay in the crook of his arm, and lowered his voice as though he were about to share with her a well-earned secret. “All men must die.”

--

As if gazing into the sun, Margaery shielded her eyes with the flat of her hand when she looked up at Sansa. “Have you always been this tall? Only that I could have sworn you were shorter when last we met.”

“I - I think so?” Sansa glanced down at her own feet in confusion.

They were walking along the Reach Consular Gardens. The sun was shining down, bright and hot through the greenhouse glass. This time, Sansa had arrived prepared, and worn lighter silks. It was still too warm. Her skin felt sticky when Margaery linked their arms together.

“I’ve always envied tall girls,” Margaery confessed with a sly twinkle in her eye. “Especially pretty ones like you.”

Sansa could feel her face flush from something that was definitely not the heat. “I try not to be so tall. It’s not very ladylike.”

“Nonsense! You should carry yourself with the dignity you deserve. And you should use height to your advantage.”

Sansa frowned in confusion. “What advantage?”

Clasping one of Sansa’s hands so that their shoulders brushed with every step they took, Margaery twined their fingers together. “A commanding presence. Height helps, but I’d wager you’re a natural at it, if you put your mind to it.”

When Sansa shot her an incredulous look, Margaery laughed. She unhooked their arms and dropped Sansa’s hand, stepping forward and stopping so that they stood face to face. “Come on, then. You don’t believe me?”

“The only thing I’ve ever been able to command was a sewing needle,” Sansa said dryly. Then, she added. “And Lady.”

Margaery’s brow wrinkled. “You commanded a Lady?”

Sansa smiled softly. “No. Lady was my direwolf.”

For a moment Margaery just stared at her. “You owned a direwolf,” she said slowly. “And you named it Lady?”

Sansa was sure that if her face flushed any further, she would be bright as one of the roses that overflowed the gardens. “I was eleven!”

Margaery laughed not unkindly. “It’s a perfect name. It suits the both of you.”

“Now you mock me.”

“I do not! Trust me when I say: you could command the souls of men if you only wished to.”

Sansa’s brow furrowed, skeptical.

“You don’t believe me?” Margaery teased. “I could show you.”

Sansa glanced around. “I’m not sure this is -”

Margaery took her hand and gave a gentle tug. “This way, then.”

She pulled Sansa deeper into the gardens, where the foliage grew thickest, almost wild. The air here was clotted with a mist that beaded upon the leaves. Margaery ducked beneath a branch, and where it brushed against her head it left trails of starry dew in her hair like a crown. That same branch thwacked against Sansa’s shoulder and left a wet mark on her formal robes.

When they were surrounded by dense shrubbery and the trees encloistered them like the walls of a Temple, Margaery stopped. The warm mist swirled at their feet.

“Now, then.” Margaery straightened and looked Sansa dead in the eye with an expression of mock seriousness on her face. “Chin up. Shoulders back but relaxed. No, like this.”

She reached out and smoothed her hands across Sansa’s shoulder, dropping them so that her palms rested against the backs of Sansa’s elbows. “That’s better. Don’t look away. You should maintain eye contact.”

Gathering a deep breath in her lungs, Sansa steeled herself. She drew herself up to her full height and looked down at her with as much gravitas as she could muster. Almost imperceptibly, Margaery’s smile slipped. She withdrew her hands from Sansa’s arms. “Thirteen years old, you said?”

Sansa blinked. “Yes. Why?”

That seemed to break whatever spell had been cast over her, for Margaery brightened to her usual candor once more. Still, she was the first to break eye contact. She hid it well. “I was just wondering -- don’t they start Jedi training quite young?”

“Usually. There’s no hard age; it’s just as soon as a child shows potential in the Force.”

“And you never underwent any training?”

Sansa shook her head. “I take after my mother.”

“Five children are Force-sensitive, and only one isn’t?” Margaery wheedled. “That can’t be right. Have you never tried?”

At that, Sansa shifted her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably. “What would be the point?”

“Won’t you?” Margaery urged. Her eyes were large and brown and bright. “Just the once. Just here. For me. I would love to see it.”

“Haven’t you seen your grandmother use it?”

Margaery rolled her eyes, but her exasperation was clearly aimed at the absent Olenna and not Sansa. “Grandmother doesn’t like to flaunt her abilities. The most I’ve ever seen someone use the Force was when she used it to throw a piece of fruit at my father for being -- and I quote -- ‘a half-witted moof-milker.’”

At that, Sansa could not hold back a snort of laughter. Still smiling, she covered her mouth with one hand. “Yes. There was a lot of that going on, growing up in my family.”

Margaery was watching her fondly. “Your family is so lucky to be so blessed.”

“Maybe your grandmother is right.”

“That my father is a half-witted moof-milker? Yes, I daresay she is “

Sansa huffed with laughter. “No. That the Force isn't everything you need in this world.”

At that, Margaery arched an eyebrow. “Sounds like something only Force-users would say.”

When Sansa shook her head with a nervous and self-deprecating grin, Margaery reached into her pocket. She pulled something out and gestured for Sansa to hold forth her hand. Hesitating for just a moment, Sansa did so, and Margaery dropped a small rosebud encased in a cube of clear epoxy resin into her palm.

Margaery let her fingers trail across Sansa’s wrist for a moment before lowering her hand. “Try.”

For a long moment, Sansa looked at the resin-caged rosebud. She could remember as a child watching all of her siblings learn that they had the gift. Even Bran and Rickon, young as they were. It manifested in each of them differently. The line of Starks was ancient, and the Force strong in their blood. And yet, one by one, they all received training with their Father at their private Temple at Winterfell, a hot spring that welled up beneath the surface of the ice, around which a sacred grove had taken root thousands of years ago. All except Sansa.

Her mother had comforted her in her bitter disappointment. It did not take long for Sansa’s disappointment to curdle into resentment, and then into an air of practiced indifference. She had claimed she did not want such gifts, that she had never wanted it. She whetted her skills on other more noble pursuits, pursuits worthy of a true lady and not of the fallen Knightly order of Jedi, who had been brought to heel by the Targaryen Sith so many generations ago.

She had never been able to lift so much as a snowflake with the Force. She was sure the result would be the same with a rosebud.

Sansa concentrated, but the only thing that seemed to come into focus was Margaery. It were as though all her airs and charms were melting away, as though she had reached up and slid a mask from her face to reveal the expression that lurked beneath. The charismatic young woman vanished, and in her stead a sixteen year old slip of a girl who fiddled with her fingers when she thought nobody was looking.

“You’re nervous,” Sansa murmured. “Though, I don’t know about what. Your wedding?”

Margaery inhaled a small sharp breath. She smiled, but somehow it was like sheer silk -- entirely unconvincing. “What woman wouldn’t be nervous about her upcoming wedding day?”

“I wouldn't know. A happy one, maybe?”

Though her smile remained, Margaery lifted her chin and looked Sansa in the eye. “I wouldn't know,” she echoed.

When the silence extended a little too long, a little too tellingly, she reached out to close Sansa’s hand over the rosebud. The action broke whatever strained tension that lingered in the air, and Sansa blinked.

“Speaking of marriages,” Margaery said. “I have a proposal for you.”

“You want to propose marriage to me?” Sansa repeated, confused.

“Yes.” Then, realising what she had said, Margaery’s eyes widened. “What? No! Not - Not me. Not that I wouldn’t -” Clearing her throat, Margaery straightened her spine. “A proposal on behalf of my eldest brother, Willas.” Margaery clasped both of Sansa’s hands between her own, so that Sansa cupped the rosebud between her palms, the resin warming against her skin. “We could go to the Reaches and be sisters. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Sansa’s mouth felt dry. Margaery’s hands were as warm and soft as her eyes. She thought of Arya, who had never been warm nor soft, but whom she still missed terribly -- like a limb that had been sawn off and now she was haunted by phantom pains. Perhaps that was the ache of longing in her chest when Margaery looked at her like this.

Margaery stroked her thumbs over the back of Sansa’s knuckles. Sansa gave her a tremulous smile. “Yes. I would like that very much.”

“Please know,” Margaery said. “That whatever happens, should you ever need a friend, I am always yours.”

“You are too kind.”

“Not at all. I am exactly as kind as is required.”

Sansa inclined her head. “And I shall not soon forget it.”

“Excellent.” With a last squeeze of her hand, Margaery leaned up on her toes to plant a chaste kiss to Sansa’s cheek before letting her go. “I would hate to be forgotten.”

--

At the end of the long length of the Temple, Tywin Lannister held out his arm to walk Sansa down the aisle on her wedding day. He wore black leather embroidered with red and gold silks, saturnine as a funeral service. It was the first time Sansa had been close enough to touch him, and she hesitated to do so.

“Begging your pardon, Chancellor,” she murmured in a hushed tone. “But what are you doing?”

Tywin cocked his head to regard her. They were eye to eye. She was tall for her age, not yet full grown, and already she stood level with him. “Your father is dead,” he said, as matter-of-fact as ever. “My grandson wished to walk you in his place, but I am the father of the known galaxy. It is only fitting that I be the one to do so.”

For a moment Sansa had no reply. Finally she managed, “You honour me.”

“Yes,” he said gravely. “I do.”

His arm was still waiting for her, not impatient but expectant. As though he knew full well that she would take it, that it was only a matter of time. And she did. Sansa slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. The leather of his jerkin was rich and supple yet cold; but she was used to cold things.

His eyes were pale and button-glass blue. He did not move, and for a moment Sansa could almost feel the way his gaze tried to pry her open, like blunted fingers digging into the rind of fruit. Her shoulders stiffened, but she remembered Margaery’s words and did not look away. Something flickered across his face -- confusion? anger? she could not tell; he kept his emotions more closely guarded than his bank vaults -- and then Tywin looked away.

“Shall we?” he said.

It was not a suggestion.

He led her down the aisle, where Tyrion waited, dressed in the resplendent colours of his House.  As Tywin handed her over to his least-favoured son to be wed in a sham of a marriage, the only thing Sansa could think of was how for so many years as a child she had dreamed of a moment like this: marriage to a prince or lord of wealth and name. Her mother had brushed her hair, and Sansa had read ancient epics on courtly love. Now that it was finally happening, it was Sansa could do to keep herself moving forward, to keep herself from turning and fleeing from the Temple, begging BR-3N, Littlefinger, Olenna, Oberyn -- anybody -- anybody who might take her away.

But every eye in the Temple was upon her, and this time there was nowhere for her to hide.

--

Sansa felt a the hairs rise on the back of her neck when Joffrey lifted a glass of wine to his lips at the wedding feast. It took less than a minute for him to die after the wine touched his lips. Sansa was the first on her feet, chair scraping along the ground as she scrambled back from the banquet table, but nobody paid her any attention.

The wine glass shattered on the ground. Joffrey was clutching his chest, rending at his clothes as though they were too tight, constricting his breath. Margaery’s eyes were wide with genuine surprise, but when she reached out to touch him, Cersei was there to push her aside. Sansa couldn’t remember ever seeing Cersei look so raw; her face was an open wound. She was trying to support Joffrey’s weight, but his knees gave way, and she bore him down to the ground.

“Get a medical droid!” Tywin barked from the sidelines, pointing imperiously.

Joffrey was vomiting blood. A splatter of red mucus stained the edges of Cersei’s gold-of-cloth robes. Margaery covered her mouth with both hands and turned away. Sansa’s eyes were wide. She backed away, barely registering the fact that she had bumped into a pillar behind her.

Everyone was on their feet now. Shocked gasps echoed throughout the hall. Jaime Lannister, Captain of the Chancellor’s Guard, bounded over a table, pushing aside guests and knocking food to the ground in his haste to reach Joffrey and his sister. When he reached them however, Cersei bared her teeth at him like a wild thing.

“Don’t touch him!” she snarled. “Don’t -! Joffrey! Joffrey!”

His body was wracked with spasms. Rivulets of blood streamed from his nose and down the side of his face. The skin of his face was purpling.

By the time the medical droids had swarmed around them, Cersei was rocking his corpse in her lap and pleading to no one, crooning his name over and over like a prayer. When she bowed her head over him and sobbed a broken note against his neck, her cheeks shone with tears, but when she looked up her face was a mask of cold, blind fury.

Sansa nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a hand at her elbow. She whirled around with wide eyes to find Littlefinger directly behind her.

“Come,” he urged, his voice low, eyes fixed upon the scene before them. “Quickly now. We need to leave.”

In a daze, Sansa allowed Littlefinger to grab her by the wrist and pull her from the grand hall. She looked over her shoulder only once. Cersei had her hands around Tyrion’s throat; Jaime was trying to tear her off of him; Tywin stared down at his grandson’s body with a dispassionate gaze; Olenna took a surreptitious sip of her own wine glass.

Littlefinger tugged her around a corner, and hurried her along a long corridor. The world seemed to pass by them in a blur, and suddenly he was pushing her into a private speeder. The door closed behind them, and the vehicle lurched into the air before they had time to put on their seatbelts. Sansa had to steady herself with a hand on the roof. The pilot sat in front of them, a cowled man she did not recognise. He remained utterly silent as they pulled out into traffic and began to race through the atmosphere towards their destination.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Rather than answer immediately, Littlefinger pulled a grey hooded cloak from beneath the seat and draped it across her shoulders. “Away from Coruscant,” he said as he tied the cloak at her throat. His gloved hands brushed her hair back when he pulled the deep cowl over her head to obscure her face. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Swallowing thickly, she nodded.

He continued to play with the hood of her cloak, twitching the cloth so that it settled over her face just so. “Rest easy. The worst has passed. I have a ship with a hyperdrive awaiting us at the nearest spaceport. We’ll be away before the Lannisters can even lock down the planet.”

Her hand was still braced against the roof of the speeder. The vehicle gave another jolt. “This is -” Sansa tapped her finger against the roof. “- all very well planned, Minister Baelish.”

“I like being prepared.”

She turned that simple statement over in her mind, trying to find how all the pieces fit together. “If you killed Joffrey -?”

Littlefinger tilted his head to one side. “Who said I killed Joffrey?”

“Well -” she fumbled for what to say, “- Having well-laid plans around a poisoning sounds like having a hand in the act itself.”

“And yet if you ask anyone, I’ve been in the Namadii Corridor for weeks.”

“The surveillance footage -”

“- Will show nothing,” he finished for her. “Not of me, nor the murder.”

The speeder made a sharp turn, and Sansa was nearly flung sideways, whereas Petyr swayed easily with every jolt of the vehicle.

“If you killed Joffrey,” she repeated, “then what do you gain? Tywin Lannister is still the Supreme Chancellor. Who will the Senate vote in as the next Vice Chair?”

Littlefinger shrugged, but his face was alight. “Who can say? With House Lannister in control, the opposition party is all but nonexistent. Tywin can prop up an empty tin suit, and the Senate would vote for it.” His dark eyes gleamed hungrily, and he leaned in close. “But don’t worry. We have something much better than empty promises.”

Sansa masked the flicker of suspicion that threatened to cross her face. “What do we have, Minister Baelish?”

He grasped her shoulders, and though his gloved hands were warm, his touch was as cold as his smile. “You, my dear girl. We have you.”

When they reached the spaceport, speeder alighting gently in the hangar bay, Littlefinger offered Sansa a gallant hand to help her from the vehicle. Then, turning back towards the speeder, he drew a blaster pistol from beneath his robes and shot the pilot in the back of the head.

--

They said she poisoned Joffrey. They said she throttled the life from him wielding nothing but the Force. They said she shapeshifted into a massive wolf and dragged his carcass through the Senate in her jaws, painting the floors red with him. They said she conspired against the Galactic Republic like her traitor father and traitor brother. They said she fled to the Dornish Confederation of Planets and lived with the Sand Snakes Syndicate.

It only took four nights in hyperspace to reach Eyrie space station. Through every one of those nights, Sansa dreamed of the snowy surfaces of Ilum, and the timeless grey allacrete walls of Winterfell.

--

Before they docked at Eyrie space station, Littlefinger made Sansa dye her hair black. He made her wear robes as dark and sleek and austere as his own. As she tugged the doeskin gloves over her hands, she caught sight of herself in the narrow mirror of her ship’s quarters. She looked like she had been cast from the volcanic glass of Mustafar.

What few things she had been able to bring with her from Coruscant, she now had to leave behind. She chewed her lip as she studied the scant few items she had jammed into her pockets or draped around her shoulders before fleeing the Core Worlds. At the time, Littlefinger had claimed he had packed all her personal effects in a hard-lined case. When she had unlatched the case however, it was to find it filled with an assortment of clothes she did not recognise, but which all fit her perfectly.

A blush-coloured rose encased in a translucent and enduring epoxy resin given to her by Margaery upon the sun-drenched garden rooftops. A dark pelt of wolf’s fur given to her by her mother for her birthday before she left Winterfell -- it seemed like so long ago now. And, of course, the overly-large decorative needle given to her by Prince Oberyn Martell.

The outfit Littlefinger had provided for her to wear upon arriving at Eyrie station had no pockets. Sansa weighed the rose in one hand and the needle in the other. Looking around the room, she placed them both on the bed, and crossed the cramped room. She had to stand on her toes to unhook a chain from the storage compartment. One end unhooked easily, but the other wouldn’t budge. Sansa accidentally ripped it free, but the chain still clung to a black metal attachment which had previously held it to the compartment door.

It would have to do. She walked back over to the bed and clipped the needle onto one end of the chain. The metal attachment she disguised as a bit of unorthodox jewelry around her neck so that the chain hung at her hip like a chatelaine. The pelt she draped across her shoulders. The tickle of warm fur against the skin of her cheek and neck was her sole comfort.

She traced her thumb over the edge of the resin-caged rose. She thought of tucking it beneath one of her long sleeves, but feared it might slip loose and fall to the floor. Before she could change her mind, Sansa left it behind, in the very centre of her pillow, like a forgotten sweet for children.

At the doors of the vessel, Sansa had to brace herself against a wall when they came out of hyperspace with a jolt. She staggered. Littlefinger grabbed her by the shoulder, though she did not need his help. Quickly, she straightened, but refrained from shrugging his hand away.

“You look perfect,” he remarked, and he smoothed his hand down her arm before letting her go. “Dressed just for the occasion.”

Her brow furrowed slightly. “What occasion?”

“A wedding.”

Another one? She was just about sick of weddings these days. Instead, all she said was, “Whose?”

Their ship was slowly drifting into its docking bay. “Mine, of course.”

Though she schooled her face, something must have given her shock away, for he laughed quietly. “Do I not seem the romantic type?”

“I -” Sansa fiddled with the needle at the end of its chain. Littlefinger’s eyes darted to the movement, but he dismissed it as a piece of sombre jewelry. “I do not rightly know, Minister.”

Petyr smiled at her. “Then I shall have to change that.” He pressed a panel on the wall, and the door lowered with a hiss. “Shall we?”

She gripped the needle in her fist, wishing it were a saber.

--

When they met, her Aunt Lysa smiled and held her and pet her hair. Even as Sansa allowed herself to be hugged, she had to hide her aversion by burying her face in Lysa’s shoulder. Something about Lysa felt sick, oil-slick as an engine leak. Sansa pulled away and wished she could wash the grime that seemed to stick to her skin like a film.

The wedding between Petyr Baelish and Lysa Arryn was a private affair. Only a handful of officials attended the ceremony proper, though a number of high ranking Captains of the Corridor Fleet and other people of note attended the banquet afterwards. She was introduced to all of them as Alayne Stone, Littlefinger’s natural born bastard daughter to a dead mother. She bowed, and curtsied, and shook hands, and murmured social pleasantries, and not once did anyone suspect the truth. Everyone knew Sansa Stark had sought refuge in Dorne to escape trial for murder.  

The great hall of Eyrie station was made entirely of transparisteel. No matter where Sansa looked, her stomached swooped with discomfort at the sight of space extending in every direction. Seated at the long banquet table beside little eight-year old Robert Arryn, she tried to eat but ended up merely picking at her full plate instead. Every time she brought the fork to her mouth, she would glanced at the vast expanse of space directly beneath her feet, and immediately set the fork back down.

Outside in the hard vacuum of space, the famed Gates of the Moon seared. The energy field burned a constant violet, strung between the eponymous moon that had been cloven in two during the Conquest. It was a miles-long net of pure light, like a chain strategically cast right across the hyperspace route of the Namadii Corridor, which stopped any travel between Coruscant and the Bilbringi system.

Sansa watched as a bit of debris floated too close -- the wreckage of a pirate ship that had tried its luck and failed. The wedge of the hull hit the energy field, and only a mist emerged on the other side.

To her left, Littlefinger was murmuring something in her Aunt Lysa’s ear. Whatever it was made Lysa smile, and Sansa looked quickly away. To her right, Robert was struggling to cut his food into pieces.

“Alayne, cut my food for me,” he demanded, throwing down his cutlery with a clatter.

Sansa blinked at him in confusion for a moment. She glanced over at Littlefinger, but he was still engaged with Lysa. Resigned to her fate, Sansa pulled his plate over so that she could do as she was told.

“Not like that!” he whined. “Smaller!”

She cut the pieces smaller.

“No! No, you’re doing it all wrong!”

When she held up a full fork to him however, Robert slapped it out of her hands. The fork clanged across the table, and the food it had been holding hit Sansa on the arm. She snatched her hand back, shocked by the sudden urge to slap him. She swallowed her anger down, tempered it, breathed until it dissipated.

Robert slammed his tiny fist atop the table. “Do it again! Do it right this time!”

The others in attendance were pretending that nothing out of the ordinary was happening in the slightest. Or perhaps they were used to this. Even as Robert yelled, his hands began to shake, his shoulders trembling wildly. Lysa’s chair scraped back and she was halfway to standing, when Littlefinger placed his hand over her arm.

“It’s your wedding day,” Petyr said. “Relax. Enjoy yourself. Let my daughter worry about all that for you. The medical droids will be here soon enough.”

Robert’s yells were escalating, growing shrill and wordless. He was gripping the edge of the banquet tablecloth tightly in both hands, his knuckles white and bloodless. Spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth.

Eyes widening, Sansa hesitated for only a moment. She shot to her feet. It took her an age to untangle Robert’s clenched fingers from the tablecloth without ripping half the dishes from the table. As gently as she could, Sansa dragged him to an empty back corner of the hall. He kicked and thrashed the whole way, wild and shrieking.

“Shh!” Sansa hushed him urgently. “Please. Shh.”

She reached out to touch his face, but he recoiled from the cold material of her gloves with a startled wail. Quickly, Sansa removed them and tried again. She pulled Robert close and smoothed a hand over his head and whispered soothing things into his head of dark curls. Gradually his cries lessened to dull whimpers, his thrashing to the occasional twitch of his arms and legs. Until finally his body stilled, and he seemed to rest peacefully in her arms.

She thought of Cersei, cradling Joffrey’s dying body to her chest, half bowed over him, whispering desperate, tearful pleas. And when the medical droids arrived to take Robert away, he went without a fuss, appearing dazed, as if half dead already.

--

Eyrie space station was too large to heat every room. Sansa happened upon a locked door during her explorations through the shadows of the station, when she would escape Lysa’s or Robert’s or Petyr’s attentions to roam the halls, alone. Upon removing her glove and pressing the wall panel a second time, the door had slid open.

The room beyond was sheathed in a sheet of ice. The HVAC system had been shut down for the entire wing. Slowly, Sansa tugged her glove back over her wrist and stepped inside. Her breath misted in plumes like pale feathers from her mouth.

The cold sliced through her fine nanosilk synthweave. She could taste the frost upon the air, the way it lingered at the nape of her neck like a kiss. For a moment, she allowed herself to stand in peaceful silence and dream of home.

“I had wondered where you’d wandered off to.”

As if jerking awake from a reverie, Sansa whirled around to find Littlefinger watching her from the doorway. He stepped inside. His dark boots left footprints in the frost.

“However did you manage to get in here?” he asked, though he did not sound the least bit angry. “I could have sworn this whole wing was locked up tighter than a Tyrell’s corset.”

“It opened for me,” Sansa said.

The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. “Of course it did. Sometimes I think the universe would do anything for you. I know I would.”

She had no reply to that.

“And what was it you hoped to see in this -” he held a hand out towards the ice-clogged vents dripping with rime. “- frozen wasteland?”

Before she could stop herself, Sansa said, “Home.”

For a moment he studied her. Then, he circled ‘round her. He kicked up a bit of soft ice with the tip of his boot as though it were snow. “Home is not so far as you might think.”

“Six days in hyperspace from the Namadii Corridor,” Sansa replied without hesitation. She had traced the route with her fingers across the holographic map of the galaxy more nights than she could count.

“Like the blink of an eye, really.” Littlefinger came to stop before her. Standing this close, she could tell just how short he was; the top of his head barely reached her eyes. “You’ll see it again. I promise you.”

She did not believe him. Not for a second. She could scarcely remember the last time she had truly believed anyone. “When?”

Littlefinger reached up and touched a lock of her dark hair, and his voice was hushed. “When I become Lord of the Corridor. When the Captains of the Eyrie see you for who you really are -- wolf pelt thrown across your shoulders and your hair like Voss in autumn. When they pledge themselves to you. When we storm the Unknown Regions with a fleet to rival Corellia’s, and take back what is yours.”

The chill was settling beneath her skin now. Petyr stood too close, and despite being taller she felt very small. His words were a wine-dark murmur. “All this I’ve orchestrated for you. I’d say that’s worth a kiss, wouldn’t you?”

The word ‘No’ died on her lips as his mouth touched hers. He was cold, cold as a wing of the Senate Dome where she had once knelt. When she felt him cup her cheeks in his hands, Sansa ducked her head to break the kiss.

“Excuse me, Minister Baelish,” she mumbled. “I must - Excuse me.”

Stepping back, she strode away as quickly as her feet could carry. Long after she had escaped the frozen wing of the Eyrie and was safely back in her private quarters, gripping the needle tightly in her quivering fist, Sansa could still feel his eyes upon her, watching.

Sansa toyed nervously with the needle between her hands. The metal slowly warmed beneath her touch. She worried her lower lip between her teeth. As if by accident, she touched the pointed end of the needle, and stared at the holographic keyboard and screen that leapt to life. The cursor blinked back at her, waiting.

With shaking fingers, Sansa typed a message. She had to delete it several times before she was satisfied. And even then, she was half-tempted to crush the needle beneath her heel and forget this whole thing ever existed. Instead, her finger hovered over the send button before she steeled herself with a deep breath and pressed down.

The message was sent. The holographic screen flickered and went dark.

--

“You said you wanted to see me, Aunt Lysa?”

No matter how long Sansa stayed here, the great transparisteel hall of Eyrie station would always make her stomach drop. She lingered at the entrance of the hall, where the floors and walls were good solid durasteel, where she could maintain the illusion that she would not fall away into the vastness of space.

The hall was empty save for Lysa, who stood in the very centre. Her back faced the entrance; she stared down at the round doors at her feet. Below a layer of floor that could slide open with a touch, the only thing keeping the room air pressurised was a small energy field that acted like a well beneath the doors, like a net that kept air in but naught else.

“Come here, child.”

Steeling herself, Sansa did so. It took her nearly forty paces to reach her aunt, and when she did she stopped a steps away. The universe outside was a veil of stars and inky space.

“Eyrie station was constructed millennia ago, but it was the ancient Sith who added this.” Lysa’s voice echoed harshly in this unadorned space despite the softness of her tone. She pointed to the door at her feet, which was indistinguishable from the rest of the floor but for a narrow line of silvery metal that marked its perimeter, and a blinking control panel upon a translucent column of glass. “They made it for public executions. Anyone who committed high treason against the Order was brought here and made an example of. Do you know how they work?” Lysa asked, nodding towards the Gates of the Moon.

Sansa shook her head. “No.”

“They’re modified suspension fields,” Lysa explained. “Originally designed to immobilise and relieve pressure on damaged bones, like those clunky old replar splints.”

Sansa could remember upgraded replar splints being applied to her brother’s legs after his fall. He had screamed when they were applied, but afterwards he only ever showed pain when they were taken off. He could not walk well with them, but her parents had been loath to have his legs amputated and prostheses applied instead. When he came of age, they said, Bran could make that decision for himself. They would not cut off his legs, no matter how useless the limbs had been.

Lysa continued without pause, making flighty gestures with her hands as she gazed out at the Gates. “Instead of holding matter together, they disperse it. The effect is quite chilling. Any mass that attempts to pass through, be it organic or otherwise, is ripped apart at a molecular level. When a person goes through, all that’s left is a -” she fluttered her fingers, “- pink mist.”

After a moment of uneasy silence, Sansa said, “Why have you asked me to -?”

“I know the truth. I know what you’ve done.”

Sansa froze. Her heart pounded in her chest. One of her hands reached for the needle hanging from its chain, and she enclosed it with trembling fingers. “I never should have sent that message, Aunt Lysa, I can explain -”

Lysa rounded on her, face pulled into a rictus snarl. “Don’t be coy with me!” she spat. “You kissed him! You kissed Petyr!”

Taking a half step back, Sansa stammered, “What -? No! I didn’t! You don’t understand -!”

Before she could retreat any further, Lysa snatched Sansa’s arm and hauled her closer. “I saw you! You can’t lie to me! I know what I saw!”

“He kissed me! I didn’t want it!”

“Liar!”

A hand fisted in Sansa’s hair, tearing so violently she could feel some of the roots give way. Lysa pushed down, and Sansa fell to her knees. The air of the hall stirred when Lysa hit the console upon its pedestal, and the doors opened. Sansa tilted forward. She only just caught herself on the edge of the floor, her hands gripping the rim of silver metal as tight as she could. Lysa’s hand was still gripping her hair, the other squeezing her upper arm in a vice-like grip.

“Stop! Please! I didn’t -! I didn’t do anything!”

Lysa was snarling invectives, shoving at Sansa’s shoulder and the back of her neck with all her weight. It was everything Sansa could do to keep herself crouched on the ground and not tumbling through the door into the cold hard vacuum of space. There was nothing outside except an empty, frozen silence. Her arms trembled beneath the strain.

“Lysa!” a voice rang out from the entrance of the great hall. “Let her go!”

Sansa froze. Lysa’s hands remained clutched in Sansa’s hair and on her shoulder. Sansa could not move to see who had entered the hall, but she knew that voice.

When Lysa spoke, the anger had been replaced with a watery tone, as though she were fighting back tears. “You can’t want her. You can’t. She’s a stupid empty-headed little girl. She’ll never love you, Petyr. Not the way I do.”

“There’s no need for tears, my dear.”

“That’s not what you said on Coruscant. You said - You said to put tears in Jon’s wine, and I did. You said to write to Cat and tell her it was the Lannisters, and I did. You said you killed Joffrey, and I gave you safe harbour. You said -”

“I know,” he hushed gently, and his voice sounded closer. “I know what I said.”

“And I told Father of how clever you were! I defended you! Everything I did, I did for you! For us!”

Sansa’s eyes darted until she could just see what was happening in her peripheral vision. Littlefinger moved slowly, as if afraid any movement would startle her into sudden action. “And I am so grateful. I always have been. You’ve always been there for me, believed in me when nobody else would.”

Lysa was nodding furiously; her grip on Sansa slackened. “Always. Always.”

When Sansa twitched in her aunt’s grasp, Lysa’s hands clamped down like manacles on her upper arms. She bit her lower lip to stifle a whimper of pain, and Lysa shook her like a ragdoll. “Then why did you kiss her?” Lysa hissed. “Why? We’re together now, after we’ve waited so long -- why would you want to kiss her? She is a child!”

He was standing only a pace away now. His hands were held out as if in supplication, and he had eyes only for Lysa. “Let her go. She is nothing to me. Nothing at all. I swear it. There is only room in my heart for one. You know that.”

“Yes,” Lysa breathed. “Yes. Yes, of course. Yes.”

“Let her go.”

Lysa’s hands relaxed, and Sansa scrambled back from the edge on her hands and knees, panting. Meanwhile, Littlefinger had pulled Lysa in a stiff hug; she was crying in his arms.

“There, there, now,” he murmured. “Everything will be alright. Shh.”

He pulled back slightly to cup her face in his hands and dry her cheeks. Her face seemed to light up when she looked at him. He smiled. And then he pushed her through the door.

In quiet horror, Sansa watched her aunt’s body drift slowly towards the Gates of the Moon. Littlefinger’s expression was utterly neutral when he tapped the control panel to shut the doors once more. Sansa looked away just before the body could touch the glowing energy field. When she glanced up again, it was to find Littlefinger offering her a hand. With movements far more steady than she could have thought possible -- it must have been shock -- Sansa took it, and rose to her feet.

--

Sansa was embroidering a new nanosilk gown when one of Littlefinger’s spies admitted himself to her quarters. She folded the silk over so that he could not see the snarling sigil of her House threaded into the fabric, and instead busied herself with a bit of innocuous hemwork.

The man dropped a heavy crate onto the floor before her, as if setting a fresh kill at her feet. With a flourish, he opened the crate. “For you, Lady Alayne.”

Leaning forward in her seat, Sansa peered at the crate’s contents. Rich clothes. Fine jewels. Copious amounts of them. All familiar.

“Minister Baelish would like to bestow upon you a gift. These are the belongings of his dearly departed wife,” the man informed her. “She won’t be needing them anymore.”

The thought of wearing anything that had belonged to Lysa made Sansa feel sick to her stomach. “Tell my father that I thank him,” was all she said. “And that he is very thoughtful.”

The man did not leave, despite her dismissive tone. “Minister Baelish also requests your presence for dinner this evening.”

“Of course,” Sansa forced a small smile onto her face. “I look forward to it.”

Finally, the man inclined his head in a bow, and left. Even after he had gone, she continued to work on the hemline. It was not until she was sure he was well and truly gone that she pulled the half-finished wolf’s head back into her lap. She smoothed her hand over the silver thread and angled her head to one side, trying to imagine what it would look like when it was finished.

It would need bigger teeth, she decided, and set herself to task once more.

The needle around her neck chimed softly, a note almost too low to hear. She dropped her work, and fumbled with the chain that hung from her neck. Darting a furtive glance over her shoulder, Sansa turned her back on the door and hunched over the needle.

Breathlessly, she pressed the needle’s tip and read the small holographic message that unscrolled. It was brief, but it made her heart beat quicker all the same.

Lady Sansa,

I hear the Unknown Regions are beautiful during this season. I will bring a bouquet of roses for our gracious host, bound with ribbons of fire and blood.

-Ellaria

The moment she had finished reading, the hologram vanished like smoke. No matter how many times she pressed the tip of the needle, it would not alight.

Another chime, this time from her clock. Sansa glanced over at the luminous display on her bedside table. She folded up her new gown and all the thread with it, before tucking the bundle beneath her bed, where her wolf pelt waited. It would take her another day or two to finish. For now, she had to play the game and attend dinner.

--

They said Robert Arryn died in his sleep. They said the shaking took him in the night, when no medical droids could be called to his aid. They said it was such a shame to lose one so young, but nobody meant it. At least, nobody who said that in Sansa’s presence meant it. They mimed the words and the sorrowful expressions, but their hearts whispered the truth beneath the masks they showed the world.

The day of his funeral was her fourteenth birthday. Sansa wore a long veil of impenetrable black lace to the event. It fell past her waist, and its long train fluttered in her wake with every step so that she appeared to be a bride in mourning. When Littlefinger saw her, his face lit up, and his gaze roamed over her from crown to toe. He offered her his arm as they walked down the length of the great transparisteel hall of Eyrie station.

All the nobles and Captains of the fleet had amassed in the hall to mourn the death of their young ruler, and to hail their new Lord Protector. They were dressed for the occasion in sombre blacks and greys, tabs of rank on their shoulders, caps held over their hearts in respect as the ashes of Robert Arryn were carried to the door in the ground and ritualistically scattered into space by the handful.

From behind the mesh of her veil, Sansa scanned the faces of the crowd. Their heads were bowed. They only donned their caps once the doors were closed, and Robert’s gilded urn placed on a pedestal in the very centre of the hall, where it would remain on display for another week.

Patting her hand and then lifting it away, Littlefinger stepped forward to address the crowd. “Today we mourn the death of one taken too young in life. The universe was harsh to dear sweet Robert. It is a travesty that, for all our technological advances, we could not save him from the illness that plagued him all his life. We -”

“But that’s not what happened at all, is it?”

Littlefinger did a double take. He frowned over his shoulder at Sansa in puzzlement. “What?”

“You killed him,” Sansa said, and the hall was deathly quiet. “You killed Lysa Arryn, too.”

His dark eyes darted from her to the watching crowd. “Alayne, what’s -?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Don’t call you your name?”

Reaching up, she pulled the veil free and let it drop to the floor. Her hair was a rich harvest auburn and bound in a braid over one shoulder, her shoulders draped in a wolf’s pelt from the wintry reaches of Lothal, a direwolf embroidered in silver thread across her chest. “I am the Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and you will refer to me as such.”

Littlefinger was staring at her. The entire amassed congregation was staring at her. She could feel the weight of every gaze upon her shoulders, and she stood straighter.

Petyr glanced about furtively. He ducked his head and his voice lowered to a hiss. “What are you doing?”

Her eyebrows rose. “Is that not obvious? I am exposing you, Minister Baelish. Everyone here thinks I murdered Joffrey Baratheon, but you and I both know it was you.”

He tried to draw himself up, but no matter what he did she towered over him. “There’s no proof.”

“I don’t need proof. You’re going to confess.”

At that, he appeared amused, even relaxing a fraction as though she had just put him at ease with a joke.

Sansa’s hands gripped into fists. She did not need to raise her voice to be heard. Every word echoed throughout the great transparisteel hall. “Confess. Tell me the truth. Tell me why you killed Joffrey Baratheon. Tell me why you killed Jon Arryn. Tell me why you killed Lysa Arryn. Tell me why you killed Robert Arryn. Tell me why you betrayed my father and my mother.”

He shook his head as if in disbelief, but he could not tear his eyes away, as though he were transfixed by the force of her gaze. The entire congregation watched in silence, every Captain holding their tongue to witness this moment.

When Littlefinger tried to open his mouth to speak, Sansa could already sense the lie in the air. Her face went smooth and cold as ice. Something bright as moonlit ice welled up inside her chest and settled in her ribcage. “Tell me the truth.”

Suddenly the air was filled with a liquid silence, a pressure like being submerged in deep water. His mouth dropped open, and a choked noise caught in the back of his throat. Something flickered across Littlefinger’s face, a hybrid of disbelief and pain, but most of all fear. His hand flew to his chest and he gasped for air.

Sansa did not blink. She stepped forward, and he shrank back from her. She did not need to touch him, yet he dropped to his knees at her feet, both hands clutching his neck as though he were strangling himself. When she spoke again, her words were wintry. “You will tell me the truth. Now.”

“Please,” he gasped.

He tried to touch the hem of her gown, but recoiled. The air rippled, and his head whipped back as if he had been physically struck, though Sansa had not moved a muscle. Already a dark bruise gathered beneath the skin of his cheek. With a rattling wheeze, the words seemed to be forced from his mouth as though she were dragging them out, prising them like precious stones, like crystal dug from the earth, syllable by syllable. “I loved your mother. Ever since I was a boy. It should have been me. I did it because it should have been me. Because I wanted her. Because I wanted you.”

The great hall was so quiet, Sansa could hear every rustle of fabric, every pounding of hearts, the barest flutter of a pulse at Petyr’s neck.

“Say it. Say you confess.”

“I -” He choked. “I confess.”

“You said you would do anything for me once,” she murmured softly.  He was staring up at her, and she could see the dawning realisation in his eyes as she pointed to the floor behind him, where Robert Arryn’s body had been ejected into space not moments ago, where Lysa’s body had fallen into the endless black. “Open the Gates, and throw yourself out.”

“Sansa -”

She seemed to hear her own voice as though from a great distance. It sent a shiver through the room’s inhabitants like the winds that whistled over the icy peaks of Ilum beneath the night sky. “You will open the Gates, and throw yourself out.”

Everyone in the hall -- hundreds of battle-hardened Captains and soldiers -- took an abortive half step forward, as if to comply with her command before they could come to their senses. Sansa ignored them. She focused on Littlefinger instead.

He tried to fight it. The struggle warred openly across his face; his cheeks went red, then purple. His dark eyes fluttered, and a vein throbbed on his forehead. Then, with a heaving gasp of air, Littlefinger jerked upright. His limbs worked like they were pulled by invisible strings. With her eyes guiding his every movement, he walked himself over to the Gates of the Moon and pressed the command console.

This time she did not look away. She watched his body drop from the hall and scramble against the absence of gravity. She watched until he hit the energy field, until his molecules were consumed in fire and scattered to the vacuum of space like brumal ash. Only then did she turn to face the congregation.  

One by one, like a great wave, the Captains and members of Court sank to their knees until the every member of the hall was bowing their head. Sansa went to straighten her shoulders only to find that she was already standing tall. Chain wrapped around her fist, she strode towards exit. Not once did she look back towards the Gates.

One of the Captains -- his chest bearing more tabs of rank than the others -- rose to his feet as she passed. He fell into step behind her. She could hear all the others follow.

“Ready the fleet. Leave only a small garrison behind to hold the Corridor in our absence,” Sansa ordered. “We’re leaving.”

“Where to, Lady Stark?”

Outside, the stars glimmered, cold and harsh and distant. She spared them not a glance. “To Winterfell. To claim what is mine.”

[unabashedtastemakersublime]

Politicians Want to Protect us From the Evils of On-Line Gaming Part 1

A mom had finished dressing up her 2 children for college by 5 in the morning. Following this, she'll head for the casino for an amount of some gambling activity.Does it sound such as a also ludicrous to be real situation? Think againToday, gambling looks like a everyday task that folks ignore also easily. But, they don't understand the possible harm being caused for their lives due to gambling.Usually, gambling also known as betting is a form of sport that involves belongings and money being put at risk. All the belongings or money are at a risk whilst the likelihood of wining is really minimal or is completely determined by chance. But, you are able to generally use some kind of wicked ways to get, but nevertheless you are able to never be absolutely sure of winning the game.

Gaming are of several types: one of the types is beatable while one other is unbeatable.The games that will simply be trampled ergo making a statistical good probability through utilization of strategy are called as beatable games. Some of them are poker, even though it could be labeled as sport requiring ability; Pai Gow poker, Tiles, video poker, position devices, horse racing, sports bets.

If nothing of the techniques in the overall game helps the ball player to get the overall game, then it becomes an unbeatable game. Some traditional examples on this type are baccarat, roulette, keno, position devices, craps, casino war, pachinko, faro, 3card poker, 4 card poker, pyramid poker, red dog, Spanish 21, Caribbean stud poker.

Equally unbeatable gambling and beatable gambling is found at the casinos. You can find still additional gambling games that aren't being played in the casinos like mahjong, backgammon, lottery, coin tossing games like head and end, several carnival games such as for example Hanky Pank and The Razzle.Another form of gambling sport could be the repaired chances gambling which may be noticed in functions such as for example football, hors racing, tennis, baseball, tennis and a great many other sports that entice thousands of individuals on betting on the winning team.

Still the exact same, they're all various kinds of gambling which does not have a chance of experiencing continuous wins.In gambling, individuals typically take to to obtain straight back what and all they lost during the span of the game. A few people continue steadily to enjoy the overall game having a opinion that they shouldn't slice the monotony of these luck. As a result, they keep betting and wind up placing them selves at a threat of having a loss rather than gain.

Many individuals who enjoy gambling state that they enjoy only for satisfaction and for a recreation. Numerous others claim that they enjoy it to earn some money and gambling is a very easy way to complete earn money.Since gambling involves plenty of kinds of intellectual task, alongside tension and attitude of champion, it's probable to become hooked on the game. Later on, it might affect the one who is mixed up in sport of gambling.

With all these psychedelic consequences due to gambling, a few people also take part in betting whether a record is fake or correct, or whether an function will need place at a particular time with still another person. That happens typically on scenarios wherever 2 persons debate against each other with solid opinions against each other. Typically, The 2 persons place bets for money and for enjoyment just to create their stage on a certain issue.

Due to the bad aftereffects of gambling, many appropriate jurisdictions choose not to legalize the gambling activities. Because of this, all agreements that have resulted in debts due to any gambling task are taken as unenforceable by law.This is the main reason gambling is a dangerous activity. Those who chance simply do not realize the harm of gambling to them.As informed, never put good money soon after bad money. If by any chance you are involved with gambling, end straight away to devoted any loss on your own side.

If you are one that thinks gambling is a new task that blossomed in Las Vegas in the 20th century, you may want to comb up on your gambling facts. To get advisable of how big the gambling history is, take to going back a couple of thousand years. You'll observe that games centered on chance and the roll of cube have now been always been an integral part of human history.

Not only did the Asian and different populations enjoy gambling and games of chance, many Indigenous American communities employed such activities well before the current casino. Add to this the kinds of gambling carried all over the world by Western explorers and you've a worldwide sensation of problem and excitement. Here is a starter reality - lotteries have also been used to raise resources for community structure projects.

e In the event that you see 100 persons on the street in one day, it's a pretty safe bet that about 65 of these have located a bet or built a wager before year.o By many matters, profits in gambling casinos global add up to $30 million annually. Various studies report that Indigenous American concerns host almost 300 casinos.History of gambling details: The state of Nevada legalized gambling in 1931. New Shirt was the 2nd state to create gambling appropriate (1976). South Dakota and Iowa followed in 1989.o While casinos have operated in Nevada because the 1940s, the state developed its Gambling Commission in 1959.

One fable that seems unwilling to die is that online gambling isn't good to players, due to casino get a grip on, less-than-random figures and so on. Basically, this is false. Safe-gaming application, eCommerce Online Regulation and Confidence (eCOGRA) and various certification nations have removed much of the insecurity and unfair play. The fable might shortly develop into one of the many Internet gambling facts.o Casino fashion games are undoubtedly the most used task online, outnumbering sports betting 2 to 1. Lotteries and pari-mutuel betting are much down the list in percentage of online gambling task, as are real-time online poker rooms.o The Interstate Cord Act, transferred in 1961, is a federal legislation that had the goal of reducing gambling activity. What the law states claims it is illegal in the United Claims to make use of line transmission (such as telephone) to put bets or share gambling information เว็บบอลออนไลน์.

Intriguing Gaming Facts: Sixty % of online gamblers use British as their main language. Second in line is Russian. Germany takes up place number three, in accordance with a study by Inland Activity Corporation. For age, the figures are shut, but these between 26 and 34 enjoy much more than others. One out of each and every five players is over the age of 45.o As well as online casinos, a number of the most used kinds of Web/Internet gambling are lotteries, sports publications (wager on football, rugby, baseball etc.).

e Based on a 2007 history in USA Nowadays, the Venetian Macao casino was the biggest on earth (on the southern hint of China). Foxwoods in Connecticut can also be advertised whilst the world's largest casino.Very Intriguing Gaming Facts: Video slots are often regarded the most used online casino game. Roulette is one of the toughest games to get, while casino poker is usually regarded one of the easiest (with only a little skill). If you can learn how to depend cards, you are able to move blackjack to the top of the "easier" list.

[pentacass]

She of Two Worlds  (Philippa Georgiou, ST: Discovery)

Summary: Post-S1. The Discovery experienced a glitch in the spore drive, and it sent them into a parallel timeline, in the midst of a ship battle where the Shenzhou was eventually destroyed - but not before Michael saved the doomed Captain Georgiou. (Inspired by Voyager’s episode, ‘Deadlock’)

A/N: Just a quick ficlet because I wanted the Captain and Emperor to meet. idk

---

Philippa's awakening was sudden, startling. She shot up in the biobed the instant her eyes snapped open; every muscle in her body was wound tight. Her chest heaved as she took desperate gasps of air, sirens blaring in her ears, her eyes seeing nothing but red, gold, then a blinding white as searing heat scorched through the fabric of her uniform and onto her skin, Michael's voice behind her screaming–

"Philippa!"

Heavy breaths caught in her throat, and she nearly choked as she opened her eyes, which had been screwed shut in the reliving of…

"Philippa," Michael said, voice tight, though the beginnings of a smile curved her lips when Philippa met her gaze. "Philippa, it's okay. You're safe–"

"Michael?" Philippa panted, as her eyes twitched away to look around the sickbay, taking in the sterile, undamaged facility. She glimpsed Saru standing behind Michael – dressed in command colours – before spotting an unfamiliar doctor, who was passing a medical tricorder over her body.

Pollard smiled gently when she noticed Philippa holding herself still to aid the examination. "Relax, Captain. Commander Burnham is right – you're safe. We've managed to heal the wounds you've sustained."

"Wounds?" Philippa echoed, gaze growing distant. That's…right. She was caught in an explosion. Shenzhou had taken a direct hit to its warp core just before…

"Captain," Michael said softly, drawing Philippa's attention. "You might want to lie down–"

"No. My ship–, what happened to the Shenzhou? My crew? Michael, did you manage to get them out?" Philippa's voice grew thick as reality sank in – she had given the evacuation order just seconds too late, and the bridge crew had refused to leave without her. She knew that they were gone, and her gut instinct was confirmed by Michael.

"I'm sorry, Captain." Michael set a hand on her shoulder, as if to hold her steady under the impact of the blow. "You're the only one I managed to save."

Philippa let out a trembling breath, closing her eyes as she bowed her head briefly. She swallowed hard, and compartmentalised – there would be time for grief later. "Michael, what happened?"

"It's a…long story." Michael exchanged glances with Saru, who had come to stand beside her bed when the doctor left. "That's why you might want to lie down."

Philippa nodded blankly and followed Michael's gentle urging, lying back in her biobed.

"I must say, Captain," Saru spoke up. "How very glad I am to see you again."

She cocked her head quizzically. "Saru, you were on the bridge with me. And…" Philippa frowned, looking back at Michael. "You said I was the only one you saved?"

"Long story," Michael repeated with a smile. "And you have no idea just how long, trust me."

"Well, it seems like I have the time." Philippa touched her medical gown. "I'm all ears, Number One."

---

"Klingon vessel en route. ETA 2 hours."

"Good. Contact me when you've commandeered the ship."

"Ma'am?" Davis said quickly, when Philippa moved to cut the connection. "About the Klingon crew – may I request permission to keep some alive? My crew's been howling for some payback…"

Philippa snorted. "Just make sure none of the filth is onboard when I arrive."

"Yes, ma'am." Davis grinned, but Philippa didn't spare him another glance, and ended the transmission. The computer screen went dark at another press of a button, and she stood from the chair, walking over to the other end of her study, where a small number of reinforced crates were stacked by the wall.

Philippa opened the top crate, and her lips curled in disgust. She picked up the Andorian rifle, hefting it this way and that, before tossing it back with distaste. Andorian arms were always too unwieldy and inaccurate, and its grip never felt right in her hands. Their designs were primitive at best, and she would rather charge into a firefight with her blade than these toys.

Shutting the crate, Philippa dropped it carelessly onto the concrete floor. A slight smile appeared on her face when she discovered Federation weapons in the next stash, and felt a better sense of satisfaction when she took a phaser rifle. These were more to her liking, and though their designs were still inferior to the Empire's sleeker weaponry, she could wield these without–

A trio of short beeps from her computer caught her attention. She turned around and found the map of her 'lair' – the underground bunker that was her refuge – overlaid onscreen. She narrowed her eyes, noting how close the red blips were to her study, tripping motion sensors embedded in the walls of the corridor leading towards her. Hostiles, no doubt. But how did they get past the first entrance? DNA identification was required, and Philippa had installed a virtual intelligence that could identify imposters.

No matter. Casting one last glance at the map, she hefted the rifle and stood before the doors, hearing the muted, affirmative ping from the scanner by the study's doors. They slid open, and Philippa was quick to take aim at the head of–

Her eyes widened, and her finger froze on the trigger, even as Michael and her doppelganger raised their own phaser pistols.

They locked gazes – the same women from different universes – then, as expected, the Captain smiled and lowered her weapon. Michael glanced at her, and was only willing to lower her own pistol when Philippa aimed her rifle down at the floor.

"Well, now. This is certainly interesting," the Captain said, giving her a once-over, and Philippa smirked. The buoyant, amiable voice she'd heard in old recordings, now bore a subtle edge sharp enough to cut – it seemed the toothless tiger had begun to grow her fangs.

"I hear you've been busy tarnishing my good name, Emperor."

Philippa's smirk grew into a crooked smile, and she let her rifle hang by her side, confident that Starfleet principles would see to her continued survival this day. Now though, her curiosity begged a few questions…

She cast a brief glance at Michael, then met her soft counterpart's eyes. "What good is a name that belongs to a ghost, Captain?"

[orbemnews]

A New Generation of Wi-Fi to Improve Your Home Network When the pandemic upended our lives, many of us were forced to stay home and shift our work and hobbies to the internet. Office meetings and classrooms were replaced with video calls. We binged on Netflix, played more video games and shopped online. The result: We slammed our home Wi-Fi networks with more devices that were doing more than ever before. Our congested internet connections, which contributed to spotty video calls and sluggish downloads, became the No. 1 tech headache. Now a new generation of Wi-Fi, known as Wi-Fi 6, has arrived to solve this problem. It brings faster speeds and broader coverage. Most important, the wireless technology does a better job sharing a data connection more efficiently across a large number of household devices, like phones, tablets, computers, smart speakers and TVs. With Wi-Fi 6, when one device consumes copious amounts of data, like a video game console downloading a huge game, it won’t slow down the entire network, which was what happened with past Wi-Fi technology. Wi-Fi 6 debuted in 2018 but reached the mainstream only this year, when it became more affordable, with devices that cost as little as $70, and more widely available on new internet routers. Many newer smartphones and computers now also include chips that help them take advantage of Wi-Fi 6. So how exactly does it work? Imagine cars driving on a road. On older Wi-Fi networks, the cars, which represent devices transmitting data, drive in a single lane. A device taking a long time to complete a data-heavy task is like that obnoxious slowpoke forcing everyone behind to tap the brakes. Wi-Fi 6 reduces congestion by directing traffic. There are now multiple lanes: car pool lanes for the newer, faster devices and a slow lane for the older, slower ones. All of the vehicles are also full of people, which represent big batches of data being transported over the network simultaneously. “Wi-Fi 6 can be much more efficient at getting a lot more cars down the road faster,” said David Henry, a senior vice president of the networking company Netgear. I recently tested two new Wi-Fi 6 routers and compared them with a previous-generation Wi-Fi router, which led to some middling results as well as more surprising improvements. Here’s what I learned. Test, Test I usually have more than two dozen internet-connected devices running, including smart speakers, a thermostat and a bathroom scale. That appeared to make my home an ideal test environment for Wi-Fi 6. The Wi-Fi 6 routers I picked were Amazon’s Eero Pro 6, which costs about $230, and Netgear’s Orbi, which costs $380. I compared them with a Google Wifi router, which was roughly $130 when it was released in 2016. One test involved downloading an episode of the Netflix series “The Final Table” on two smartphones and a tablet while streaming video on another tablet. The Wi-Fi 6 routers did better than the older router, but only marginally: On the Eero and Netgear routers, it took about 45 seconds for all three devices to finish downloading the TV episode. On the older Google router, the task took 51 seconds, 13 percent slower. When I tried streaming a high-definition video on a tablet while the other devices were downloading files, there wasn’t a noticeable delay in the playback of the streaming video on the Wi-Fi 6 routers or the older router. I ran the routers through many tests like the one above, including downloading video games while doing a video call. The results were often underwhelming. So what gives? Nick Weaver, the chief executive of Eero, the router maker owned by Amazon, said the benefit of reduced congestion with Wi-Fi 6 would be more visible in an environment with many more devices, like an office with hundreds of computers doing heavy tasks at the same time. “It’s less important in the home environment,” he said. Most homes still don’t have so many devices. Keerti Melkote, the founder of Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company that offers Wi-Fi products for businesses, offered another theory. The majority of the devices in my home would need to have chips that made them compatible with Wi-Fi 6 before the benefits were more pronounced, he said. Only about a quarter of my internet-connected devices have those. Upsides Those weren’t jaw-dropping results. But the good news was that using Wi-Fi 6, I noticed subtle changes throughout my home. For one, my Amazon smart speakers are now more responsive. In my bedroom, I ask Alexa to control a pair of internet-connected light bulbs. With the older router, whenever I said, “Alexa, turn on the lights,” there was a delay of about two seconds before the lights turned on. Now it’s less than half a second. I noticed something similar about MyQ, which lets me use a smartphone app to control my garage door. Previously, after pressing the button, I waited several seconds for the door to open. Now the wait is a split second. My video calls also look clearer than they used to, and they take less time to connect. This suggests that Wi-Fi 6 is a long-term investment. The more internet-connected devices that enter people’s homes in the coming years, the more the perks will become visible. “It will take time, but the improvements will be real,” Mr. Melkote said. Bottom Line Of the two Wi-Fi 6 routers I tested, I preferred the Eero Pro 6. It’s $150 cheaper than the Netgear Orbi, and both routers were equally fast in my tests. The Eero’s setup was also simpler. But who should buy? My experience indicated that people who bought a router in the last five years probably wouldn’t see major improvements immediately, so there is no rush to upgrade. Those customers are probably better off waiting for Wi-Fi 6E, a newly unveiled technology that supposedly offers even more improvements to reduce network congestion in dense neighborhoods. Routers that work with Wi-Fi 6E are just beginning to roll out — and are very expensive — so it could be several years until it’s practical to consider upgrading. But if you bought a router more than six years ago, upgrading to Wi-Fi 6 would offer a big boost in speed, and the overall benefits would be more noticeable. That’s largely because in 2015, the Federal Communications Commission removed restrictions that had limited the wireless transmission power of Wi-Fi routers, allowing new ones to be 20 times more powerful. Here’s an even simpler rule of thumb: If you are happy with your internet connection at home, hold on to what you have and upgrade when you feel you must. Even Mr. Melkote hasn’t made the jump to Wi-Fi 6. He said he planned to this year because his family was working and attending school from home for the foreseeable future. As for me, even though the improvements over my older router were only marginal, there’s no turning back. I seem to connect half a dozen new devices to my network each year, so I’ll need those extra lanes. Source link Orbem News #Generation #home #improve #network #WiFi

[all-hallows-evie]

Incomplete Obi Wan AU

A/N: This has been sitting in my Google Drive FOREVER...So why not throw it up on here. *Shrug* Worst case scenario, inspiration strikes and you guys get to see more of my ramblings lol. 

Warnings: Snarky!Obi Wan, not much else. Not Beta’d. and as the title says: Currently incomplete 

***

It was small, out of the way, and inconspicuous. Just as he had suggested, but the one thing he had not counted on, was the heat. Even through the shining chrome hull of the Queen’s cruiser, you could feel the choking heat of the desert outside. 

Obi wan tried to push the sticky heat out of his mind, even though it was becoming increasingly harder to do so as thin rolls of sweat slid down his neck and into the collar of his tunic. The twisted metal he had pulled out of the ship's engine was done for. He’d never seen such a mess, no doubts that this piece had needed repairing since before they left the planet, the fact that they had made it as far as they had was a partial miracle, if it hadn’t been for that power leak they might have burst into a huge fireball on their way to Coruscant.

Ugh. Heat. 

A change in the air told him Qui gon was approaching, the force seemed to bend to his will around him in a way that was effortless. Obi wan clears his face of any aggravation to look towards his master as the door to the bay opens.

No doubts Qui gon was feeling the heat too, and yet he wrapped himself in a thick sandy grey wrap that made Obi wan itch just thinking about it. 

“The hyperdrive generator is gone.” He says, shaking his head at both the horrible state of said hyperdrive and his masters choice of warm disguise, but he had learned to not question him long ago, “We will need to get a new one.”

Qui gon only grunts in return, he seems to have more things on his mind than the field trip at hand, “Don’t let them send any transmissions. Be wary.” It was more warning than advice, “I sense a disturbance in the force.”

Obi wan could barely repress his smirk, so that's what it was. Ever since they had landed on this god forsaken hell hole Qui gon had been distant, saying that he had sensed something in the force, something possibly dark, but undoubtedly strong. 

As hard as Obi wan had tried, he could not figure out what it was as well. He had meditated, and it had nagged him, but he was not able to pull on the force and create a picture of what it could be like he could before. This was shaky, this was dangerous, and he hoped with every inch of his soul that it was a challenge. These envoy missions were doing nothing but dampening his spirits, for once he would like a challenge, a fight, or else what was the point of honing his skill as hard as he had for the last years if it was not to hunt, to stalk, to possibly kill.

“I feel it also, Master.” His face betrayed none of his thoughts.

With a quick turn on his heels, Qui gon is out of the room, without another word.

There is a quick burst of heat in Obi wan’s chest as his master leaves, it was the familiar sting of jealousy that was no stranger to him. He had felt it as a boy, when no master would take on him as an apprentice, and he felt it now, that Qui gon seemed more than eager to find lost creatures and bring them home. 

Just this morning he had found some god awful being in the swamps of Naboo. That had stung enough, and his pride had almost gotten them killed in the depths of the Nubian seas. The gungan transport was like nothing he had piloted before, but he refused to be outdone by that orange freak Qui gon was trying to rely on. 

His stomach growled in a sad protest, he hadn't eaten anything since the morning. It had been just a cold rash of bread and Republic funded milk, but it was the best the red Republic cruiser could do on such short notice. 

This whole mission had come as a surprise. He had been pulled from his early morning training to sit in the chambers with the council and be sent on an emergency mission to a planet he had never heard about. Naboo. He smirks, it was a stupid name for a stupid planet, with a stupid little colony of people who were too full of themselves to take into account that they shared their watery little planet with another race. 

The prospect of a mission always made him slightly anxious and excited. He couldn't count how many times his close friends,having been made jedi knights for the longest time, would come back with massive battle scars, like badges of honor. The stories they told of battle...Obi wan wanted so much to be in league with them that he could almost taste the heat of battle. It was sweet, and cold; he craved it like nothing he had known before. Not women, not stims, but battle.

Considering Qui Gon's reputation for misbehaving, he had hoped he would have seen some kind of action, but there had been nothing. Even the small battles he had in Naboo’s main city of Theed left him wanting more. Droids just didn't have the same kind of satisfying feel that cutting through flesh did, or so he thought. 

It wasn't blood lust. At very least, he didn't think it was. He wasn't fighting for the sake of fighting, he wanted a reason, some sort of dire situation that warranted no other recourse but battle.

He was done toying with the hyperdrive, he gives the hunk of metal one last wistful look before walking away. There was no where to put the beast, so he might as well leave it until his master returned with a replacement.

He leaves the small engine room, the door closes behind him. 

If possible, the corridor felt hotter than the room itself. He gives his arms a quick, loose shake, unsticking the back of his tunic sleeves from his arms. He makes his way to the mess hall, the Queen would be nowhere in sight, like most royals she probably took her meals in her room with her whimpering group of handmaidens, and everyone else on board would most likely leave him alone, which was how he liked it.

There was no one in the mess hall other than a nameless palace guard, and he was easily ignored, in fact that dumb beast was already fast asleep with his large feet on one of the tables. Obi wan can't help but to scowl. He helps himself to a few pieces of some sort of bread and a bluish purple fruit covered in blunt spikes. There was no use trying to make himself a bigger meal, the queen might disapprove, and he was waiting for a communication from his master. Qui gon never went very far without keeping Obi wan in constant contact. He prided himself as the only person Qui gon could truly trust, and he had every intention of keeping it that way.

He leaves the mess hall as quietly as he can, in no mood to wake the sleeping brute and takes his small food haul to his tiny chambers. He turns a corner and almost runs into a figure hidden under a bright orange and yellow hood, like a ghost of the sun.

Ugh. Sun.

The handmaiden quickly bows and excuses herself. Obi wan recognizes her as one of the handmaidens belonging to the queen, he was not sure if it was the same one that had been instructed to clean the astromech droid that had single handedly saved the ship as they escaped the Trade Federation. He moves to one side, letting her pass, she moves to go, but not before giving him a full look over out of the corner of her eye. Obi wan smirks as he goes into his room. At least there was promise of some sort of fun if his master dallied.

Two hours had passed, his small meal long gone, and still there had been no word from his master. Meditation had done nothing but annoy him as the disturbance in the far reaches of the force ebbed and waned. He was nowhere closer to understanding what it was then when his master had left. By the heat of the room alone, he could sense that the double suns of Tatooine were starting their descent. But there was something else, the wind. He couldn't be sure, but something was happening outside. Without another thought, he rushes out of his room, snatching on his brown cloak, he wraps it around himself and heads for the landing bay. He pushes past Captain Panaka, the Queen's guard. He opens the bay door and heads out. Sure enough, several miles away from the small outpost that his master had disappeared into. A dark shadow was looming in the distance, the wind around them was already starting to pick up. He swore inwardly, his eyes squinting at the distance, that sandstorm would be around them in a matter of minutes. Captain Panaka comes to stand next to him, "That doesn't look reassuring." He says to the wind, but noting that he is the only one there Obi wan nods.

"This storm will slow them down." 

"Any advice knight?"

Obi wan could only smirk, people knew nothing of their order at times, but he makes no move to correct him, "Prepare her for a bit of strong wind, but if she is space worthy we should have nothing to fear." 

"Shall I ask the pilot to ready the shields?"

"That shouldn't be necessary." Obi wan replies, already tired of their conversation, he turns to leave, but not before noting the crease of worry in Panaka’s brow. Why would he be so worried about a handmaiden?

It was almost another three hours before there was a knock on Obi wan's door. There had still been no message from his master, and he had been sleeping. He was less than pleased to see Panaka at his door, he rubs the sleep from his eyes, "Yes?" 

Panaka clears his throat, obviously embarrassed to wake the young man, "The Queen has received an urgent transmission from home, and she requests your presence while she views it."

Obi wan nods, he turns and straps on his boots before following Panaka to the transmission room. The whole crew is there, the Queen is sitting on the largest chair in her room trying to look magnanimous and aloof, but only managing to look like a little girl who has fallen into her mothers dress closet and is playing princess. Obi wan takes the seat closest to the door, trying to ignore everyone's stares. Once he is settled, Panaka begins the transmission.

"...The death toll is catastrophic. You must do something..."

The white haired man in the hologram warbles on and on about something terrible happening on their home planet, but obi wan can't seem to concentrate. The thing, this being at the edge of his perception was growing slightly stronger, something was happening and his master was not telling him. His anxiety reaches a higher level than he would like, whatever was out there was close to Qui gon, and whatever this politician from back water Naboo had to say meant nothing to him. He could barely stand the mans droning any longer when the com ended, before anyone can speak Obi wan stands,

"It's a trick, send no reply." 

He says no more and storms out of the door. He had no way of knowing if what he told them was true, but he could sort all of that out in the future, right now what mattered was the shadow in the force. He ducks into the cockpit of the royal cruiser, takes a seat by the same console that led them to this strange planet and immediately contacts his master. The windows of the cockpit are dark, and the cool night sky of Tatooine presses in on the glass, the nights are as oppressive as the days.

<<Back to Masterlist

[epacer]

Cal Matters

Safe Reopening Creates Massive Shopping List for California Schools

An academic year in which public education will intersect with public health has created back-to-school shopping lists unlike any other for California’s schools as they attempt to transition toward in-person instruction once they have the state’s blessing.

Bakersfield’s Panama-Buena Vista Union School District plans to hire a manager to handle contact tracing for a system of 19,000 students and 4,000 employees.

Anaheim Union High School District spent more than $500,000 this summer on additional band instruments so students won’t have to share clarinets, saxophones and flutes to reduce risk of spreading the coronavirus.

Among the few California schools to physically reopen, Yreka Union High School District near the Oregon border is spending about 10% more than it would in any given year to hire more maintenance staff to support exhaustive cleaning efforts.

While an overwhelming majority of students began the year in distance learning, schools are preparing for that moment, sourcing personal protective equipment for teachers and kids in a competitive market, figuring out how they will trace coronavirus cases and test employees, and wondering just how far their dollars will stretch this year.

The laundry list of safety measures schools are spending on is due to new state public-health requirements they will have to abide by for in-person learning, and mounting pressures to bring students back to campuses to help stop widespread learning loss and revive a sputtering state economy.

Doing that will require safety precautions to help prevent coronavirus outbreaks and give parents, students, teachers and staff enough confidence to return in person. The exact costs related to health and safety measures depend on how much of the year schools will offer in-person instruction. That amount of time is in turn tied to local health conditions and, school officials say, whether they will have enough money in their budgets to sustain it.

This summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Office of Emergency Services procured a 60-day supply of protective equipment for the state’s 1,037 school districts, anticipating that campuses were going to physically reopen to begin the new term. Order forms of the $53 million shipment obtained through a public-records request partially illustrate the scale and cost attached to reopening schools for the state’s 6.1 million K-12 students:

●    $633,457.10 for more than 204,000 N95 respirators for school nurses

●    $2,732,978.56 for 55,912 no-touch thermometers

●    $6,729,690.24 for 154,068 gallons of hand sanitizer

●    $14,142,785.63 for almost 7.2 million cloth face coverings for elementary students

The state and FEMA have helped with masks. In some counties, such as Kern, hospitals and businesses have chipped in with donations for personal protective equipment, or PPE. But high demand for supplies have driven up costs and attracted sketchy vendors looking to make money off some districts in urgent need of supplies.

School leaders have called on the federal government to help with the extraordinary costs of doing distance learning and physically reopening schools they say could threaten efforts to bring students back on campuses.

Superintendent Marten

At San Diego Unified, superintendent Cindy Marten said a precarious budget situation will affect how quickly and to what extent the state’s second-largest school district will be able to offer in-person instruction this year. To date, the district has spent $11 million on personal protective equipment.

“When the funding’s not there, we will have to stop (reopening),” Marten said Thursday, calling on Congress to pass a financial relief package for schools. “When you reopen and you can’t put the appropriate nursing and counseling and distancing in place and physical changes that need to happen, you slow it down or you don’t do it as safely.”

The federal government’s lack of involvement in procuring protective gear for hospitals has meant state governments competing with each other for supplies, driving up prices and putting individual school districts at a disadvantage, said Robert McEntire, director of management consulting services for School Services of California.

For example, the cost of industrial-size Lysol disinfectant, about $6.50 in ordinary times, now costs as much as $19, McEntire said.

“When you get these small districts operating on their own for their own supplies, they’re struggling to compete, and often if they can even get stuff, they’re paying far more for it,” McEntire said.

That has helped create a “Wild West” of procurement, he said, that has drawn “fly-by-night people looking to profiteer” from schools that struggled to get protective gear and technology through their normal suppliers.

The Panama-Buena Vista district spent this summer buying electrostatic foggers for each of its 24 schools that custodial staff will use to deep clean classrooms, which will each have “sanitation stations” teachers and staff can use for minor disinfection. The district spent money on air purifiers to help dissolve aerosol particles indoors, as well as extra N95 masks for special education teachers to wear when working with special-needs students who might not be able to wear their own face coverings.

“If you don’t feel safe, you’re not going to be able to learn. If you don’t feel safe, you’re not going to be able to teach,” said Jennifer Irvin, the district’s assistant superintendent for education services.

Though the distance learning start has meant more time for schools to prepare for in-person learning, it’s unclear when that will happen for Kern County schools. As of Thursday, the county was still in the purple tier of the state’s new reopening guidelines, meaning schools can’t reopen. In July, before new state guidelines that almost entirely shut the door on campus reopenings, the Panama-Buena Vista school board planned on giving families the option of sending kids to school five days a week.

Maple Elementary, a district of 300 kids in Shafter, has spent about $225,000 on desk barriers, a mask stockpile, two student teachers to help with distance learning and two portable classrooms to help expand the school’s indoor capacity, according to superintendent Julie Boesch.

Like the rest of the state’s school districts, Maple is affected by deferrals — delayed cash payments to schools that the state used to plug its $15 billion education budget shortfall. With about 30% of the state cash flow to districts not coming until next school year, many schools are borrowing money and repaying it with interest this year to get by.

Instead of borrowing money, though, Maple has sent layoff notices to its instructional aides. Layoff protections to teachers and some classified employees approved by Newsom and the Legislature were intended to prevent schools from cutting personnel essential for school reopenings but have hamstrung some schools’ abilities to deal with volatile budgets.

That’s left Boesch, whose husband is a bus driver at a nearby school district, conflicted.

“As much as on a personal level I’m like, ‘OK, I’m glad (for my husband),’ on a professional level, that’s tying our hands with where we can cut expenses when we still have an enormous amount of costs,” Boesch said.

Some of the state’s classified employees — which include custodians, food service workers and instructional aides — have reported either not receiving enough supplies from their schools to their local unions, or not being notified when a colleague has tested positive.

The latter was the case recently when Ben Valdepeña, president of the California School Employees Association and a school custodian for 38 years, received an email from a local chapter. Several fellow custodians at a local school district were concerned about a colleague who’d been absent from work for two days with little explanation from their school leaders.

It was later found that the custodian, Valdapeña said, had tested positive for coronavirus.

“It’s scary to me. You have districts that do the exact right thing. They follow all the rules, they tell everybody what they need to know, and they may even send people home and quarantine them,” Valdepeña said. “And then you have other districts where it’s like they try to hide it.”

Valdepeña said schools should not underestimate the amount of cleaning supplies and gear it will take to sanitize schools on a routine basis, adding that custodial workers and employees “will need a ridiculous amount of PPE.”

At the global scale, many of the countries that have successfully reopened schools have done so with stellar hand hygiene, strict physical distancing and face mask requirements, said Dr. Anand Parekh, chief medical officer at the Bipartisan Policy Center, who is researching school reopenings worldwide. Some of the countries that opened schools without a face covering mandate did so because they had reached very low transmission levels, Parekh said.

Nationwide, a safe reopening would cost schools $22 billion in just protective gear, cleaning supplies, and additional school nurses and custodial staff, according to an estimate from the American Federation of Teachers.

Children and teens will be encouraged to bring in their own cloth face coverings, but if they forget theirs or don’t have one, schools will have to provide that for them, said Sheri Coburn, a school nurse in San Joaquin County and past president of the California School Nurses Organization.

And although the state has already distributed millions of masks to schools, including child size ones, there will likely be a need to resupply periodically. “So hopefully the state can continue to help,” Coburn said.

While most California students are doing distance learning, some teachers have returned to their classrooms to lead video instruction from there. Coburn said that in her district this means a daily screening of staff, which entails a questionnaire and temperature checks.

That, however, is not feasible for students. “We have high schools of 4,000 to 5,000 students, we would be there all day,” Coburn said. That is why when students return to the classroom, it will be up to parents to monitor their child’s symptoms, she said. *Reposted article from the times of SD by Ricardo Cano and Ana B. Ibarra of September 7, 2020

[thekidultlife]

Mr. and Mrs. Yoon Pt.2

Part 1 | Part 2

Words: 1253

Genre: Ansgty

“Alright, here you go, dear! ‘Twelfth Night’ by William Shakespeare,” he gave you the paperback book after you had finally cleared the table in the secluded study and placed the telegraph on it alongside many photographs of the documents themselves. Yes, they are highly confidential US files from the different departments ranging from the Federal Reserve to the FBI supplied by loyal Communist agents.

Jeonghan knows a lot of them and he’s pretty good. I doubt that he’s a rookie in this line of work. My only job is to encode and relay. That’s what I’m good at after all.

“Thanks,” you scanned the book and after a few good looks, you picked the first document you will be encoding.

In actuality, there was no need for a physical copy of the book for you knew already what it contains. It purely serves as a guide and a back-up plan in case something happens. You don’t usually spend much time codifying all the files— you tap it in the telegraph, after writing it in code in your head using the book as basis with numbers representing the page, the sentence number, the line and the number where the word appeared in the line. The code was never repeated since reusing them will hint the ones trying to crack it.

Normally, documents are photographed and the microfilms are then covertly sent through courier to Moscow. That method was used by most spies during WW2, so the GRU wanted to find a different solution and it eventually resulted with this technique. The files are all in your head; you are the only one who knows how to crack them if you failed to give Moscow the key.

Mumbling as you concentrated, Jeonghan on the other hand, meticulously organized his own documents for the museum—some procurement deals for new artifacts from South America and Egypt.

You could’ve been left in peace doing your  work, not until Jeonghan started to take off his chocolate brown vest and continued with his dress shirt, whilst stealing a few discreet glances at your  direction. You had caught his actions on peripheral view and almost whipped your  head towards him when his shirt was tossed over the sofa. Jeonghan had his back turned towards you yet you could still see his well-developed biceps and those defined collarbones and shoulder blades.

Realizing your embarrassing folly of staring at him, you yelled in frustration.  

“For Pete’s sake, Jeonghan! Go undress in the damn bedroom!” You let the telegraph handle go and pointed at the direction of your bedroom as your voice eventually became a restrained hiss. “It’s just upstairs and quite a short stroll.”

“Oh my? Did I distract you?” Jeonghan gave you an apologetic look, feigning innocence, even though he purposely messed you up just for the fun of it.

You narrowed your  eyes and puffed your cheeks in irritation. Your blood was beginning to simmer once again and as soon as you noticed it, you counted for ten seconds and forced yourself to calm down.

Remember, Y/N. He’s just trying to blow your head up. Pay him no mind.

“For your information, I was not distracted. Now, if you want to undress, do it in the bedroom; if you want to stay, the clothes must also stay on that body…or else—“

“Or else what?” He challenged you with a snicker as he crossed his arms over his toned abdominal muscles.

Don’t mind it, Y/N. Don’t you dare stare at him. He’s an egotistical bastard who would only gloat once you look at him.

“Or else I’ll throw this telegraph on that pretty face,” you were already at your wit’s end and would’ve absolutely hurled the heavy machinery towards him if your rationale was not stopping you to do so.

You then sighed in relief when he picked up his dress shirt and tossed it over his shoulders, though not completely buttoning it up.

“So you think I have a pretty face?” Jeonghan finally asked in a sing-song voice, picking up a rather important document from his stack of papers.

Groaning at how your banter never seem to end, you sighed as you seated yourself in front of the machine, still deciding to engage in another heated argument.

“Nope.” Apparently, you decided yes.

“Now, I thought you value honesty?” he smiled at you with raised eyebrows as you stared at him with a jaded look.

“Don’t turn my words against me, Yoon Jeonghan,” you replied, busying you hands with tapping.  “And by all means, I don’t think you have a pretty face, dear.”

“You’re getting better every day, darling,” he muttered amusingly, eyes strained on the piece of paper on his hands.

“Well, I get to interact with you daily, of course I’ll get better.”

It was your moment to smirk this time and he simply returned it with a brow arched.

After your transmission, there was a returning message from Moscow that arrived that night.

26 Aug 1950

To LILY:

           Inform ANGEL of the shuffling of personnel in CARTHAGE in early September. Also, there will be a new FELLOW COUNTRYMAN assigned to your group—WEN JUNHUI. He is a SOSEDI and a former COMRADE. He is loyal, level-headed and trustworthy. Please check WEN and communicate your consent to this clearance.

You read the message again and again, more cautious than before. Your body shivered as a cold memory crept up to your spine; relishing a sensation you had almost forgotten. You thought you could avoid it once you had set up in the US but you were wrong. Totally and absolutely wrong.

Jeonghan had sensed the unease upon the air and immediately raced to your side.

“What did they say?” he asked you in a low voice, careful that he may step on a landmine, yet you did not give much of an answer nor budged on your seat. You simply stared at the telegraph with a far-away look and Jeonghan frowned.

He was not good with situations such as this. Yes, he was good at everything—everything except comforting. He had no idea what to do and had even thought of leaving you alone. Silence often gives you the best answers but Jeonghan was hesitant. His conscience, if he did have one, was screaming at him to do something, anything other than leaving you alone in a cold desolate night.

“Y/N, tell me. What did they say?” he inquired yet again, this time much louder. Nonetheless, you remained still as a stone, and so desperately, Jeonghan threw caution to the wind.

He approached you slowly but surely and covered your   hands with his. You blinked several times after leaving your  trance yet the dread was still there in your  eyes. Leo knelt down and reached for your  cheeks as he cupped them gently, turning your  frightened gaze into his.

“Y/N, it’s alright. You can tell me,” Leo coaxed you even though he was unsure if you would actually do as he says. You could always refuse and leave him with questions unanswered.

Yet you did not.

You stilled for a moment and then bent down to his shoulder for solace. Jeonghan could feel your  warm tears flowing and wetting his dress shirt as he let you embrace him. He, however, did not return it.

As you continued to shake and cry in his arms, Jeonghan picked up the discarded transmission and read it carefully. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

He already had his doubts since day one.

Admin Hyeri

[anselm0]

Novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture

I knew this was going to be Something, and it sure is.

I’m not the first to remark on it, but that sure is a gay pride flag on the cover of this book/movie. A quick google reveals that the pride flag debuted in 1978, while TMP was released 1979, which by no means proves intent, but those are facts of general interest I’m going to share here.

Two things: 

LOVE INSTRUCTOR???? Her FIRST, no less??? what

Why am I being subjected to Roddenberry’s writing exercise of reviewing his own tv show while in character of one of the characters on said show

One actual thing that we learn from Kirk’s preface is that there are apparently two varieties of humans, the original flavor and then the super cool Crystal Pepsi humans who are wicked smart and pretty insufferable about it. Also not in Crystal Pepsi humans’ favor is that they SUCK at space travel because they can’t “help but be seduced eventually by the higher philosophies, aspirations, and consciousness levels” they encounter in aliens and doing a bunch of disappearances, defections, and mutinies as a result. So the moral of the story is we need humans too stupid or stubborn to want to be better to drive the space planes, I guess. 

I also find this amusing. The editor’s note on this line from “Kirk” is that he’s being modest, because he did a great five year deep space mission. ~~Kirk begs to differ, though: 

I also liked TOS, imaginary editor, but 94 deaths in five years of peaceful exploration is not an amazing statistic. Anyway, Kirk’s annoyed at how he and his five year mission got portrayed by the guy they sent to record it, what does that asshole have to say for himself?

what. is. happening. 

Look. I am all for world-building. But this is ridiculous. What kind of false modesty self-dragging self-insert Bolshevism

We are, by the way, only 11 pages in, and the story hasn’t even started officially. This will be the longest long post.

Chapter One opens with Kirk getting a semi-telepathic message from Starfleet that is the opening scene of TMP in which the space cloud zaps some Klingon ships.

Yeah, I can see where the public concern over this policy would come from, imaginary editor. It is bananas, and I hope consigned to a quiet ‘canon? never heard of her’ retcon. Imagine if this were still the case when the Borg came. Who could have guessed that having technological access to the brains of all the top brass in the Federation’s first and only major defense force might be, like, a bad idea!!!!!

It’s also a POINTLESS idea, because after getting the message, Kirk goes to a signal station to call Starfleet because he can’t reply (a design flaw) and also he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do with this information because he didn’t get any instructions (why send classified info to people who don’t need to act on it???), and they just show the same scene to him again when he’s there. 

Before that happens, however, Kirk gets put on hold long enough to think thoughts and feel feelings he “had not permitted himself to admit” to himself. Like all former greats, he hates his desk job. He took it for reasons, despite this amazingly persuasive case against doing so:

We get it, you’re a Real Man. 

Literally the entire medical profession apparently agreed with McCoy that a desk job would be bad for Kirk, but Starfleet wanted him to be their posterchild of awesomeness for all those frickin’ Crystal Pepsi humans wondering if Starfleet is even necessary (why they would care about low intellectual ability Kirk is a mystery left unaddressed), so they made sure Kirk was persuaded to accept against medical advice. 

The way they did this was a combination of his sense of duty and a sexy lady. Of course. Sexy lady (Vice Admiral Lori Ciani, spelled Ciana in all subsequent mentions) is in fact the one Kirk gets connected to once Starfleet takes him off hold. Lori always gets his blood pumping, what with her “unusually large eyes and the slim, youthful angularity in her arms and legs” that “always reminded [Kirk] of a fawn’s wild grace and innocence”, even though he knows she’s actually a freak in the sheets. Oh, and she’s also smart and a great officer or whatever, her lips caress his name whenever she says it, he can almost smell “her body fragrance” and Kirk’s getting hard.

I wish I was exaggerating.

There are a number of concerning things here that I think McCoy should turn his attention to instead of whether Kirk can survive at a desk job. Are relationships one year contracts in the future? That seems like a bad idea.

Kirk has a paranoid fantasy that Admiral Nogura manipulated Lori Ciana into contracting sex/mothering/friendship with him and is pretty sure that Nogura told her to talk to him now to make sure he does what Starfleet wants again. 

I’m tired already.

It is not clear to me if she acts like he expects her to if his paranoid fantasy was real. In any case, the conspiracy theory and THIS ENTIRE CHAPTER was all for nothing because Kirk just goes to Nogura’s office and convinces him to give him command of the Enterprise.

On a more pleasant note, there was a chapter in the middle of all Kirk’s nonsense of Spock’s POV. He’s at Gol trying to achieve Kolinahr and he gets distracted by what seems to be the space cloud momentarily linking his and Kirk’s minds. Spock is shook and “knew in this instant that the human half of him was far from extinguished. That half had simply been capable of human guile and had learned to hide itself even from his own notice. He had foolishly and carelessly underestimated it and believed it to be gone. But like the enemy it had always been, his human half had merely lain in wait in order to assault him while he was defenseless.” 

MY POOR BB

Anyway, Kirk’s on his way to the Enterprise and once again thinking thoughts.

I’m going to guess that Kirk is not a great boyfriend.

There are several things going on here, none of them good or pleasing. 

There are some really uncomfortable descriptors for Sulu and Uhura, which are unnecessary in addition to being offensive because we all know what they look like. We know Sulu is Asian, so you don’t have to call him “the Asian romantic,” or really modify any descriptor of him to remind us that he’s Asian. Uhura initially has “classically lovely features,” which is okay, I guess, but then she has a “fine-boned Bantu face.” Um. 

There are some weird descriptors of Will Decker, too, who Kirk is coming to demote and summarily replace, but the worst one is this one, Scotty’s perspective on Kirk pulling Decker aside to tell him he’s being demoted:

My face is a rictus of horror. 

The description of the transporter accident is quite gruesome and Good. We all know the fate of the unfortunate Commander Sonak, but Roddenberry now reveals that the second person was sexy lady trap Lori Ciana!! Kirk inexplicably took over the transporter controls to try to save them her, but isn’t familiar with their new configuration, and is guilt-stricken by the uncertainty that their deaths might have been prevented by someone like Decker, who really knows the new Enterprise. Also, nobody knows why she was there.

FUCK YOU

I’ve been very negative so far. The novelization actually does a lot better than the movie does in conveying Kirk’s disorientation with the new ship and how much he’s second-guessing his fitness for command, despite his insistence before that he was the only one who could do this. On the other hand, he doesn’t realize that he should PUT DECKER BACK IN COMMAND. 

Oh, he makes Decker the science officer in addition to the executive officer because he won’t accept a different science officer in replacement of Sonak who isn’t Vulcan. Apparently there’s no replacement for a Vulcan science officer.     .   .   .        He immediately begins worrying that he’s overloading Decker with responsibilities. JUST MAKE BETTER CHOICES INSTEAD OF WORRYING ABOUT BAD ONES.

Hey, you know that dumb scene in TMP where all the crew gets together in an empty room to once again watch the Klingon ships get destroyed and since it’s a rehash, everybody spends it wondering why Starfleet has like eighteen different uniform designs in unflattering cuts and colors? Roddenberry knows we all think it’s dumb and has some strong words in response:

lol

Apparently that room is the “rec deck,” which is the largest interior space in a starship ever designed. Some people think it’s wasteful but real space veterans know that the rec deck is where “the most vital of the ship’s mechanisms [are] kept in peak operating efficiency through music, song, games, debate, exercise, competition, friendship, romance, [and] sex.” There were definitely regular public orgies on the five year mission, weren’t there. 

Thirty-one people bail after seeing the Klingon ships bite it, which seems like a thing that they shouldn’t be able to do?? Also, what was the point of all that secrecy with the secret implant for telepathic transmission of classified information if Kirk’s just going to show it to several hundred people who are free to leave if they want to?????

I know TMP gets shit for being The Motionless Picture, but you really have to read the novelization to grasp the complete lack of plot points. It’s EIGHTY pages before Lieutenant Ilia arrives. The book is 250 pages long. 

Uhura has some kind of Tone when she tells the bridge that Ilia is Deltan and Kirk rebukes her, “And there are no finer navigators in Starfleet, Commander.” 

This is a weird species whose major defining features are overwhelming sexual pheromones and a GREAT sense of direction.

Kirk immediately regrets chastising Uhura since she’s “the last one who needed instruction in diversity from him.” IS THE FUTURE RACIST OR NOT, GENE

Sulu seems not to know what a Deltan is, even though all the other TOS officers do, so I don’t know how that happened. I got my hopes up for ONE SECOND when he didn’t seem to care but he is affected by her allure after all. Stand down, gays. 

Kirk clocks the obvious clues that Ilia and Decker were involved before, and starts finding ways to make it his business. 

Sure, Jan.

Anyway, the ship leaves the orbital dock in a looooong and boring chapter, then spends another chapter flying past Jupiter at IMPULSE. Thank Jupiter and Zeus we did not have to sit through the slow ride from hell through the solar system. 

Some random things we learn in the meantime (a lot of meantime!!):

McCoy is a hippie who dislikes surgery and medicine, preferring to just berate people into healing themselves or whatever. I now see why starships would need ship’s counselors but there would be absolutely no Xanax or beta-blockers for the Reg Barclays of the future.

There are body scanners incorporated into all the new uniforms, which constantly transmit biodata to the medical bay. This was always a part of the costume design (it’s in those super ugly belt buckles!) but never mentioned or actually used to my recollection in TMP. It’s also not a thing in future Trek series, presumably because it would be boring to not have medical emergencies.

Chapel went on the five-year mission with a PhD and now has her MD! GIVE HER SOMETHING TO DO

McCoy resigned from Starfleet because Admiral Nogura would not heed his medical opinion that Kirk is a Manly Man who needs to be doing Manly Things out in space instead of working a desk job. 

Immediately after this reveal, Roddenberry reinforces how scientific it is by having Chapel say, “deprivation of [starship command] produced physical and emotional symptoms remarkably like those associated with narcotic withdrawal.” Okay!!

We only refer to Ilia as “the Deltan navigator” now.

“The so-called mutant-farm civilizations of pre-history had known [humans aren’t alone in the universe] of course, but their information had been a gift and not the result of human labor and growth.” W H A T 

What do these words mean

FEELS racist??? idk idk

also this:

What a piece of information to just casually drop with no followup whatsoever!

Roddenberry is basically masturbating himself and Kirk about how great it is that he’s back. Having Kirk command the Enterprise again is

“like Lazarus stepping out into the sunlight” plz

so spiritually moving that Decker is suddenly feeling fine about being inexplicably demoted (couldn’t Kirk have just been an admiral still? and Decker a captain?) and removed from command

By the way, Kirk apparently didn’t officially take command until moments before they left orbital dock, which feels wrong to me?? There were eleven hours where he was giving all the orders but had no official jurisdiction or responsibility for the consequences. Starfleet needs better command protocol.

making Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov ecstatically happy, a fact that Kirk somehow knows from looking at their faces despite not seeing any of them in years and having done nothing but demand the ship be launched before being properly tested or configured for warp and against the advice of his first officer and chief engineer omg you idiot

Kirk then orders them to go to warp agains the advice of his first officer and chief engineer, accidentally creating a wormhole the ship falls into along with an asteroid that nearly destroys them because Kirk doesn’t know how the phasers work on his new ship. Kirk then gets shirty with Decker when Decker factually states that Kirk doesn’t know what he’s doing and Decker does, and knowing things was useful in that it saved the ship being blown up by a series of stupid choices. GREAT FIRST DAY

Again, I do think the book is doing a good job of conveying Kirk’s motivation of scrambling to relive his glory days and his willful blindness to the consequences, but I don’t know how we’re going to get to a point where we’re actually happy this guy gets to be in command of a starship for another five movies. McCoy does call him out on his nonsense, but I don’t see him learning or growing at all yet and can’t foresee it from what I know of what plot is coming next.

Speaking of plot developments

SPOCK!!!

First of all, “severe black robe” is underselling one of the best looks ever served to my undeserving eyes. Second, no sooner has Spock stepped back on the bridge than everyone starts dropping serious hints about his relationship with Kirk. I mean

subtle!!

Spock is not a happy bunny, though. Everyone is happy to see him again - it’s been so long and Scotty’s so excited he apparently forgets that you don’t touch Vulcans? - but Spock’s ignoring them. As soon as he can, he finds a place to meditate.

Roddenberry wants to make absolutely sure we know that the Enterprise is a nonstop fuckfest. Consider me informed!

Spock needs to meditate because he was way too excited to see Kirk again. He’s pretty whatever about everyone else (”humanly human” McCoy and Chapel “with her bizarre and impossible fantasies of one day pleasuring him” ick) but his t’hy’la is a different story.  I MEAN!!!!

He has to go to a meeting with Kirk and McCoy (who’s now monitoring Kirk’s behavior re: his unfitness for command) and we get this little gem about the officer’s lounge:

I know it’s supposed to be a utopia but come on. 

WINK

They’ve established there’s some kind of intelligence in the space cloud that Spock can telepathically link with when the first probe arrives and injures Chekov. Chapel comes to treat him but she can’t do anything for him. Ilia does...something vaguely telepathic that usually happens during Deltan sex to make him feel pleasure instead of pain and you know what, I’m going to choose to not read into this. It does seem weird that Starfleet has extremely strict regulations about allowing Deltans to serve due to their pheromones but telepathy is A-okay. 

We learn during the probe’s visit that the only console hooked into the ship’s main computer and Starfleet databases is the science station’s, which seems pretty unbelievable. There isn’t even an uplink for centralized record keeping about course changes and phaser discharges? 

Ilia disappears and Kirk is surprised how much he cares. They did meet just today but SHE IS YOUR CRACK NAVIGATOR why wouldn’t you be upset! Her replacement comes up as they’re getting pulled into the space cloud and she’s also good; Kirk thinks, “There might be something about her worth remembering.” I’m concerned that Roddenberry doesn’t seem to realize how unlikeable he’s making Kirk. 

See the entire sequence where the Ilia probe arrives:

Gross.

Kirk does spend a lot of time thinking that Deltan pheromones don’t affect Vulcans and that Spock is annoyingly unmoved, but that’s just guys being dudes. 

Probe Ilia remembers Decker, so Kirk tells him to use that to try to establish productive communication with Vger. I know it’s spelled Vejur but that’s dumb. It’s Vger. V’ger if you’re nasty. Anyway, Kirk was making this traumatic assignment about him and his awesome sexual prowess. 

But he’s not done!! How could this sequence possibly end WITHOUT Kirk creeping on his first officer trying to fuck an alien probe!!!!

It’s completely normal! Look, Decker even expects it!

Decker is Manfully frustrated that his Manliness isn’t working on the probe. Kirk and McCoy are armchair quarterbacking this like the fans of weird sexual encounters they are. Chapel comes in to make a good suggestion and McCoy condescends to her, of course. There’s some worldbuilding around Deltan sexuality which seems to be just that there are psychic connections involved that make regular, non-psychic sex boring for humans afterward. Okay? I thought it was going to be something much weirder. Again, I don’t know why THIS makes Deltans have to take celibacy oaths to be in Starfleet but non-sexual telepathic actions are totally fine. 

This is all going on while the Enterprise is in the cloud, so they take a break from creeping on Decker and the Ilia probe to go to the bridge and have Kirk condescend to Uhura about how to do her job. Look, I don’t want to get into a whole thing about Kirk’s virtues as a commander but he is not better at Uhura’s job than she is. PLEASE give her something to do other than be impressed with Kirk.

Around page 209 (out of 250) we finally get a chapter from V’ger’s POV and it is legitimately Good. If Gene Roddenberry was capable of writing science fiction without obsessing over future sexuality, this book would be so much better. 

There are fewer than 40 pages left by the time we get to the iconic sickbay scene. 

This book is so weirdly paced. If you’re going to write about future sex, please let it be between the characters we actually care about!! For example!!!!!! But no, we get Decker and Ilia-probe, which may actually be Ilia’s psyche in a mechanical casing? Unclear, but Decker is pretty convinced.

Gross.

The rest of it is basically exactly the same as the movie: they get to V’ger and figure out it’s Voyager and respond with the correct code, but V’ger refuses to acknowledge it. Decker and Ilia somehow become noncorporeal entities joined with V’ger. It’s not clear how this is possible, but whatever. Kirk is, like, mildly regretful about the absolute shitshow this mission turned into and the fact that he lost two good officers to a space cloud, but he’s not torn up about it. He got his ship back! And he has no fear that it will be taken away again because he caused half the shitshow! In true Star Trek fashion, there is literally ZERO discussion of where V’ger, who is a perambulating cloud as wide across as a small solar system, is going to go now instead of Earth bc that’s a somebody else problem.

The end.

[unabashedtastemakersublime]

Which Kinds of Gambling Are Legitimate in Louisiana?

A mom had finished dressing up her 2 children for college by 5 in the morning. Following this, she'll head for the casino for an amount of some gambling activity.Does it sound such as a also ludicrous to be real situation? Think againToday, gambling looks like a everyday task that folks ignore also easily. But, they don't understand the possible harm being caused for their lives due to gambling.Usually, gambling also known as betting is a form of sport that involves belongings and money being put at risk. All the belongings or money are at a risk whilst the likelihood of wining is really minimal or is completely determined by chance. But, you are able to generally use some kind of wicked ways to get, but nevertheless you are able to never be absolutely sure of winning the game.

Gaming are of several types: one of the types is beatable while one other is unbeatable.The games that will simply be trampled ergo making a statistical good probability through utilization of strategy are called as beatable games. Some of them are poker, even though it could be labeled as sport requiring ability; Pai Gow poker, Tiles, video poker, position devices, horse racing, sports bets.

If nothing of the techniques in the overall game helps the ball player to get the overall game, then it becomes an unbeatable game. Some traditional examples on this type are baccarat, roulette, keno, position devices, craps, casino war, pachinko, faro, 3card poker, 4 card poker, pyramid poker, red dog, Spanish 21, Caribbean stud poker.

Equally unbeatable gambling and beatable gambling is found at the casinos. You can find still additional gambling games that aren't being played in the casinos like mahjong, backgammon, lottery, coin tossing games like head and end, several carnival games such as for example Hanky Pank and The Razzle.Another form of gambling sport could be the repaired chances gambling which may be noticed in functions such as for example football, hors racing, tennis, baseball, tennis and a great many other sports that entice thousands of individuals on betting on the winning team.

Still the exact same, they're all various kinds of gambling which does not have a chance of experiencing continuous wins.In gambling, individuals typically take to to obtain straight back what and all they lost during the span of the game. A few people continue steadily to enjoy the overall game having a opinion that they shouldn't slice the monotony of these luck. As a result, they keep betting and wind up placing them selves at a threat of having a loss rather than gain.

Many individuals who enjoy gambling state that they enjoy only for satisfaction and for a recreation. Numerous others claim that they enjoy it to earn some money and gambling is a very easy way to complete earn money.Since gambling involves plenty of kinds of intellectual task, alongside tension and attitude of champion, it's probable to become hooked on the game. Later on, it might affect the one who is mixed up in sport of gambling.

With all these psychedelic consequences due to gambling, a few people also take part in betting whether a record is fake or correct, or whether an function will need place at a particular time with still another person. That happens typically on scenarios wherever 2 persons debate against each other with solid opinions against each other. Typically, The 2 persons place bets for money and for enjoyment just to create their stage on a certain issue.

Due to the bad aftereffects of gambling, many appropriate jurisdictions choose not to legalize the gambling activities. Because of this, all agreements that have resulted in debts due to any gambling task are taken as unenforceable by law.This is the main reason gambling is a dangerous activity. Those who chance simply do not realize the harm of gambling to them.As informed, never put good money soon after bad money. If by any chance you are involved with gambling, end straight away to devoted any loss on your own side.

If you are one that thinks gambling is a new task that blossomed in Las Vegas in the 20th century, you may want to comb up on your gambling facts. To get advisable of how big the gambling history is, take to going back a couple of thousand years. You'll observe that games centered on chance and the roll of cube have now been always been an integral part of human history.

Not only did the Asian and different populations enjoy gambling and games of chance, many Indigenous American communities employed such activities well before the current casino. Add to this the kinds of gambling carried all over the world by Western explorers and you've a worldwide sensation of problem and excitement. Here is a starter reality - lotteries have also been used to raise resources for community structure projects.

e In the event that you see 100 persons on the street in one day, it's a pretty safe bet that about 65 of these have located a bet or built a wager before year.o By many matters, profits in gambling casinos global add up to $30 million annually. Various studies report that Indigenous American concerns host almost 300 casinos.History of gambling details: The state of Nevada legalized gambling in 1931. New Shirt was the 2nd state to create gambling appropriate (1976). South Dakota and Iowa followed in 1989.o While casinos have operated in Nevada because the 1940s, the state developed its Gambling Commission in 1959.

One fable that seems unwilling to die is that online gambling isn't good to players, due to casino get a grip on, less-than-random figures and so on. Basically, this is false. Safe-gaming application, eCommerce Online Regulation and Confidence (eCOGRA) and various certification nations have removed much of the insecurity and unfair play. The fable might shortly develop into one of the many Internet gambling facts.o Casino fashion games are undoubtedly the most used task online, outnumbering sports betting 2 to 1. Lotteries and pari-mutuel betting are much down the list in percentage of online gambling task, as are real-time online poker rooms.o The Interstate Cord Act, transferred in 1961, is a federal legislation that had the goal of reducing gambling activity. What the law states claims it is illegal in the United Claims to make use of line transmission (such as telephone) to put bets or share gambling information เว็บบอลออนไลน์.

Intriguing Gaming Facts: Sixty % of online gamblers use British as their main language. Second in line is Russian. Germany takes up place number three, in accordance with a study by Inland Activity Corporation. For age, the figures are shut, but these between 26 and 34 enjoy much more than others. One out of each and every five players is over the age of 45.o As well as online casinos, a number of the most used kinds of Web/Internet gambling are lotteries, sports publications (wager on football, rugby, baseball etc.).

e Based on a 2007 history in USA Nowadays, the Venetian Macao casino was the biggest on earth (on the southern hint of China). Foxwoods in Connecticut can also be advertised whilst the world's largest casino.Very Intriguing Gaming Facts: Video slots are often regarded the most used online casino game. Roulette is one of the toughest games to get, while casino poker is usually regarded one of the easiest (with only a little skill). If you can learn how to depend cards, you are able to move blackjack to the top of the "easier" list.

[45news]

The world is gripped by the coronavirus pandemic. At time of writing there were about 225,000 confirmed cases in total, and 9,300 deaths. Europe is for the moment the epicenter of the outbreak, particularly in Italy where the virus has overwhelmed the health care system, but dozens of other countries are only a week or two behind on a similar track, including the United States.However, there are major divergences between the performance of different countries. Rich and middle-income East Asian countries like Taiwan, Vietnam, and Singapore have managed to nearly halt the outbreak in its tracks, while more ramshackle countries like the U.S. and U.K. have botched it almost beyond belief.While it is obviously too early to conduct a full accounting of what works and what doesn't, some broad lessons about best practices are still apparent. America will need to learn these lessons quickly if it wants to save itself from potentially horrifying outcomes, both now and in future pandemics.It's fair to say there are three broad levels to any pandemic response, each built on top of the other. The foundation is the national health care system, which provides the necessary broad access to testing and treatment. The second is the state's administrative bureaucracy and welfare state, which coordinates additional response measures. That means stuff like setting up mass testing checkpoints at border crossings and around the country, securing stockpiles of necessary medical supplies, constructing emergency hospitals, and so on. It also means deploying income support to individuals and businesses should mass lockdowns or quarantines become necessary, to keep people from being ruined financially and the economy ticking over. The third is citizen awareness: The population must be ready to upgrade their hygiene habits, accept drastic restrictions on movement, and avoid gathering together, so transmission is limited.Of all these, mass testing deserves special emphasis, because without it any emergency response is all but hamstrung. A nation cannot fight an epidemic without knowing where the disease actually is.The best-performing countries, however, excelled on all three levels. Taiwan has a Medicare-style single-payer system (indeed, it was actually based initially on America's Medicare system, except made universal), which allowed them to deploy testing, treatment, and quarantine without any fuss. They also had pandemic response plans drawn up after the SARS outbreak in 2002, which had been regularly reviewed and practiced. Finally, their citizens had been educated and prepared to take any epidemic seriously, so that people did not try to escape lockdowns and spread the disease further.Even middle-income countries can manage this. Vietnam, whose per-capita GDP was only about $6,600 in 2018 (or about 12 percent as much as the U.S.), squelched its initial epidemic with a lightning-fast deployment of mass testing, contact-tracking, quarantine, and public education measures (though it has since been dealing with new infections from foreign travelers). If the state is on top of the situation, mass lockdowns and the associated economic devastation can be limited or avoided.European countries were considerably behind the curve. Most have good enough or better medical systems, but their bureaucracies were caught flat-footed on the response. Italy has a world-class health care system, and the state actually moved quite quickly to put through testing, lockdown, and quarantine measures, but it simply wasn't fast enough to halt the outbreak. Worse, Italian citizens initially did not take the crisis seriously enough. Many resisted social distancing advisories and continued going out to public gatherings when the epidemic was in its early stages — encouraged by mixed messages from some authorities. Notice of a mass lockdown in northern Italy leaked before it could be implemented, and thousands fled to the south, where they spread the disease. And once an outbreak has gotten out of hand, even the best health care system in the world will be overwhelmed, because none are prepared to treat such gigantic surges of critically ill patients.Still, Italy is now working to the absolute utmost to fight the crisis, and appears to have slowed the growth of new cases. Other European countries, belatedly jolted into action by the Italian example, are taking drastic steps to limit disease transmission, build up their testing and treatment capacity, and keep their populations protected in the meantime. Here the famously generous European welfare states come in handy — countries like Denmark and Norway already have generous sick leave so infected people do not have to come to work, plus unemployment benefits to catch people who lose their job, and so on. These countries were also quick to pass business support measures to limit layoffs and prevent bankruptcies until the crisis passes.The United States, by contrast, has faceplanted on every single aspect of the response. Our health care system is a bitter joke by Taiwanese or Italian standards. We do not even have universal coverage, and what coverage we have is a usurious, fragmented, Kafkaesque nightmare that routinely bankrupts people who get sick. President Trump's direct response has also been horrifically bungled. We still do not have enough tests at least two months after we should have had them. He has not secured supplies of vital equipment like masks and ventilators, and hospitals are already running short. He did not even start activating the Army Corps of Engineers until a couple days ago. Hospital ships that Trump boasted were on their way turned out to be docked for maintenance and will take days to get moving. An economic support measure (which contains some emergency paid leave and unemployment insurance provisions that are worse than what most European countries have in normal times) is bogged down in Congress.Perhaps worst of all, Trump, Republican politicians, and right-wing media consistently downplayed the epidemic for weeks as it gathered strength. As the virus quietly spread through the population, Trump was still claiming "The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA," and conservative media was claiming it was no worse than the flu. Just in the last few days, Republican hack propagandists like Sean Hannity have pivoted on a dime from "I see it, again, as like, let's bludgeon Trump with this new hoax," to "this program has always taken the coronavirus seriously. We've never called the virus a hoax." The result is a persistent partisan split in how likely Americans are to understand the threat posed by the outbreak.At any rate, this all suggests the sketch of a broad policy agenda to fix this outbreak and head off future ones. First, the wretched American health care system needs to be sharply augmented on an emergency basis and eventually replaced with something that actually works, like Medicare-for-all. Second, the federal government is in shambles and needs a total overhaul. To start with, we should copy Taiwan's pandemic systems so that response teams and supplies are always ready to go on a moment's notice. More broadly, state capacity, which has been gutted by decades of conservative austerity, anti-science, and anti-expertise dogmatism, must be rebuilt across the board. Conservatives have insisted for decades that the government is all but useless, and today we are all paying the price. Third, Trump should be turfed out of office and the conservative movement should be comprehensively defeated politically. It turns out there are some serious downsides to having a narcissistic reality TV host in charge of the country.I have little hope that very much of this will come to pass. But in a crisis, sometimes what seemed impossible can happen very quickly. Let's hope somebody is trying to learn the lessons Taiwan and other Asian democracies are teaching us.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Top coronavirus doctor puts head in hands when Trump mentions 'Deep State Department' at briefing Bloomberg's last FEC filing shows he spent nearly $1 billion on his failed presidential run Netflix establishes $100 million fund for entertainment industry workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic

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