The Past, the Present, and the Ouch

[Zechs Merquise]

Scattered amongst the relics of wars long past and what felt like to Zechs to be visions of things to come, baubles posed in glass cases for lingering eyes to gawk at. Milhouse the Third, Deputy Museum Curator of the “Archeology Department,”toyed with a flat disk at his desk tucked away in the corner. The lights low as to not provide too much glare for the cases or his oversized glasses.

Zechs was admiring a poking stick etched with symbols whose meanings had long been lost before any man touched the stars. The tucked a stray strand of hair before his ear as he leaned closer to the case and swore one of the symbols was a hand in a most impolite gesture.

The environmental controls kicked in, sending a cool stream of dry air to drive out the oppressive moist heat of the watery world outside. It did nothing for the smell of fish and salt he could practically taste. Oceanic worlds were never his preference to visit. It didn’t help he had yet to learn to swim. There was no need to in space.

Zechs strolled through the displays and the overly dramatic presentations generated by holographic hosts. Like so many museums, he wondered how many actually payed attention to any of it. Too much to see. Too much to say. Too little to get from listening, besides everything.

It had been a while since he last listened to someone who actually knew anything. Too often as of late he felt like all he did was sit in meetings, dreaming of getting something actually done. A burden of being an Admiral of No one. But learning the distant origins of jizz in the mating rituals of long extinct beings perked more than his interest. Even if it was all made up. Or true. What did he know?

The lights flickered. The holograms frozen and shattered into disjointed projects. The wall came rushing at Zechs as explosions echoed around them.

[Zechs Merquise]

His ears rang. His vision a dark blur. His body oddly numb with a strangle tingle radiating from his fingers and toes, despite his inverted position amongst the historic rubble. Distant sirens closed in and turned the ringing into a pounding headache. Or perhaps it was the explosion. Both? And the poking stick logged into the floor beside his head might have played it’s part too.

And what was worst of all. Well, nowhere near that. He had no idea why, unlike all of his other close calls tied to battles and accidents he had some minor say or control over. This seemed… Random. An accident. An act of terror. Beyond his control. And that scared him.

Zechs laid there. On his back. Still. His senses slowly coming back into alignment with the world around him. He stared up past his feet into the smoky sky. Draped in what used to be a comfortable, if not outdated, coat. He tried to move and free himself from the debris, but pain struck through the numbness. Shards of glass riddled his limbs. His jaw or perhaps a shoulder (it was hard to tell) he dared to guess had even been dislocated. Tears would have come if not for the salty drizzle from water launched ships passing over.

He carefully turned his head and looked around. On a scale of a slight blemish to the surroundings to the total devastation of a Death Star unleashed, this was nearly the latter, except for him. The museum was no more. Milhouse was no more. So many were no more. It stung him to not be able to do anything about it, but he could have been a blink from nothing as well.

Beliefs were tricky. Some found comfort in religion. Some in the Force. Others in their legacy, but there was only one certainty in life. That it began, ended, and was forgotten. It was the way of things. What came before. What came after. It was what it was, and nothing any of them could do would change it. They could only hope to impact the world around them for the better for those who would come after them. He liked to think he had, for the most part. Maybe.

Zechs closed his eyes. The world faded away. An eternity drifted in a breadth. Then a stab struck his shoulder, and forever had to wait.

[Zechs Merquise]

A weight had been lifted off his shoulders as he laid in fine comfort. The black sky and its painful tears gone and replaced by a warmth cuddling his being. He drifted over the edge of barely conscious into a sleep devoid of dreams and nightmares. The occasional pinch (it is what they’d call it) stabbing him and either sending him deeper or shattering the peaceful façade of dozing.

A lifetime later, Zechs awoke into the buzzing mess of a hospital hallway. A dripping flowing relief directly into his veins. Stirring staff and the unfortunate bump into his cot more than once. He felt fine. The pains were bearable. His vision only summoned a partial extra of everyone. His hearing spot on, if you didn’t count he couldn’t hear at all out his left ear. Yet for his safety, of course, they had restrained him at his elbows and knees.

He could hear the familiar gurgling of bacta tanks around the corner. An alert like a drawn out siren sounded as staff buzzed by his cot. Their faces drained like sleep had been more elusive than positive outcomes. The burden of civilians in times of war.

He remembered when the Death Stars fell, all three times. The promise of peace and the end of those pains. How they were hollow as there was always another darkness to rekindle the war: foreign and domestic. A republic. A rebellion. An alliance. An empire. All built from the same flawed material: them. It was no wonder nothing ever seemed to change no matter how many good people worked at it or went to war. Well, not the change anyone wanted.

Zechs began to work his restraints as best he could. Wiggling. Jiggling. Stretching them. They held firm. Not that he knew what he’d do if he managed to get loose. But his eyes were heavy. The world was heavy. He drifted back and forth, wondering, fearing, staring into the abyss and being kicked into it.

He didn’t know what had happened. He didn’t know any of the details. Not that it mattered, but if he did, perhaps he could have been some help to someone somewhere. Instead, the drip continued to fill his body with all the things prescribed for his recovery. In a hall. In a hospital packed to the brim and overflowing.

Hope strolled down the hallway on unfamiliar faces who, despite everything, continued. There was hope that everything would change yet. Hope was enough.

[Zechs Merquise]

“Ya see, yes?” The doctor pointed to a spot on a fuzzy hologram of his bare bones. Whatever it was. Where ever it was. Zechs didn’t see it. The doctor seemed to figure that out by the blank expression on Zechs’s face. He pointed to tailbone. “Here.”

He broke his butt.

Technically, he cracked his tailbone. Somehow. He figured with a wall pouncing him, a building collapsing around him, and a poking stick failing to impale him that his rear end would have been the safest of all his flesh pieces. He almost made him laugh.

It reminded him of a time long when he was at one of the Imperial Academies. TIE training where he got his flight suit’s hose stuck on his TIE’s hatch handle. Then it snapped loose. The sudden lack of air flow took claustrophobia to an all new level. His breathing became labored, and his face felt aflame till he got his helmet loose from his skull. He didn’t know why that came to mind.

Time healed all wounds, even a rear end. It gave him time to think and listen.

The attack wasn’t an attack. It was an accident. Some ship’s engine had failed after launch, but it didn’t have enough speed or control to get out over water. Too many lives lost due to some fool not paying attention to what amounted to a “check engine” light.

Maintenance. It wasn’t to be neglected.

Zechs didn’t stay there long. He didn’t need to be tied down to heal his butt. A cushion. Stopping doing anything if it hurt. Simple orders any cadet could follow. Orders best followed in the comfort of home or your home on the go.

The Betrayer wasn’t the fanciest Lambda shuttles. No longer a mass transport, but converted into a mixed used vessel with some cargo space, a couple cramped rooms, and a slightly less so general purpose area. Still, it was his (partially), and his little quarters onboard were a quiet piece of paradise. Plenty of books to read. A few holo’s to catch up on. The fun kind. Life was depressing enough.

[Zechs Merquise]

The hologram flickered above the project on the nearby desk. The quite literally blue face shimmered in the darkened cabin of the shuttle. A haze obscured Zechs’s gaze as his bodied cried out with a drawn out yawn for sleep. His mind was unwilling to yield to the abyss. Too busy thinking and wondering but trapped in a comfy prison of flesh and a bunk.

The voice spoke in a steady almost monolithic pace. Each word chosen with such preciseness it lead Zechs to question if he had not reached an answering machine. “No.”

“No?” It was never so simple, but so simple things often came out to be. A question. A yes. Or a no. Other words might be chosen but it was generally an affirmative or a negative of some sort. “Go on.” Zechs fought through a yawn. “Please.”

“The timing is not right. There are other more pressing concerns.” The slightest of pause few others would catch from the chiss. “But that is the expected reasoning. Justification is not required as they say.” A real one. Words became mixed up as the hologram jittered. “It is what it is.”

Zechs scratched his nose. The sent of some odd substance he had come across tickled it further. “The reality of the situation I suppose.” Another itch sent him adjusting his positioning.

“Then we are in agreement.”

Shaking his head, Zechs couldn’t help but feel like he was stuck in the middle of the Alliance’s Senate, or whatever it was calling itself this week. Republic. Alliance. Jizz. It often felt like rearranging the same words to describe a slightly different arrangement without any substantive shift. Like, did it really matter if the Alliance commanded a fleet or a system did? If the military rank was granted by merit alone, the right people would make sure the right assets were at the right palce at the right time to the best of their ability. Anything less would mean a failing of the system, but it was a reality of the situation he supposed that power was stuck in a constant tug of war between the Alliance and the systems that craved it. Boys and their toys as they said.

The hologram shattered. The line cut. The shuttle shook. A cold robotic voice crackled through the speaker. A droid burdened by a sense of impending doom. Even when if it was a sunny day and it stood in a field of wonderful flowers, it’d look to the sky and wonder when the asteroid was coming. It was only a matter of time for any world, after all.

“We’re here.”