fighting_mad | [oom] Eiattu

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[oom] Eiattu - Palace

Plourr was in the middle of an informal audience with the governor of one of the planet's largest provinces when the aide interrupted and murmured in her ear that something had happened. She told him to define 'something,' and he had said the magic word: the Priamsta. She excused herself from the audience and left her office (something the palace was still atwitter over; princesses didn't have offices), and that was when she'd been told that Nental, one of Eiattu's larger cities, was in the process of being attacked by a group thought to be led by the rebelling nobles.

They were smart; going after the governmental buildings, the royally-operated or loyalist-run businesses rather than the ordinary people. Wouldn't do to alienate the people they were trying to gain control over, after all.

"I want Zee Squadron moving at all possible speed to Nental for air support. Who's in charge of the city's Guard? I need him on the comm ten minutes ago," Plourr snaps, cape and outer tunic lying crumpled on a table, sleeves rolled up to her elbows. It's still chaotic in the impromptou war room but less so than when she'd first entered and started setting things to rights.

She talks over the general buzz of voices, moving quickly from terminal to terminal and person to person, answering questions without hesitation and often in the middle of other sentences. "Someone tie in to the--yes, do that--to the newsfeeds; see what they're reporting, if we're not getting through on the official channels."

She bends over a terminal alongside a low level tech, named Zhaleian if she's remembering correctly at all, and he brings up a holo of a local reporter, standing on what looks to be a building roof. The dull whine-whump of heavy blaster and cannon bolts can be heard, and occasionally flash in the distance over the female reporter's head. Plourr watches and listens, her face tight and well under control, but furious.

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Rial heard what was going on and now he's entering the room at a quick but controlled pace. Can't let them see that he's angry, scared, unsure, because everyone in the room is used to seeing Count Zen and that's who he's going to be.

He sweeps his hair out of his face and into a low ponytail with the ease of long habit, and moves over to stand next to Plourr, jaw tightening at the sight of the newsfeed.

"What do we know?"

Plourr nods distractedly to her husband and holds up one finger in the galactic signal for 'wait,' partially to him but mostly to the voices saying, "Princess," "Princess."

The reporter glances over her shoulder as a stream of heavy bolts fire into the sky behind her. "Oh, it looks like something's happening now. The antiaircraft batteries appear to be opening fire on several of the landspeeders that have entered the city; this is the first concentrated resistance we've seen so far, since the attacks began twenty standard minutes ago and we began seeing 'speeders and soldiers dressed in black in the streets."

It cuts briefly back to the studio, where they show a blurry still of an old, Imperial-brand landspeeder, filled with soldiers wearing familiar black armor.

The feed starts playing over again; Plourr moves to the next terminal, motioning Rial with her with one quick gesture. "Not much," she says grimly, watching the next feed over the tech's shoulder. "We're getting nothing out of the official channels; can't tell whether it's because they were hit hard or just because they're disorganized as all hell as a general rule." She talks fast, interrupting herself only once with more tight instructions to the tech.

She moves on, expecting him to follow. "We're looking at the three local newsfeeds for our information; they're saying that the Province House was rocked by explosions twenty standard minutes ago, along with selected other targets." She watches the newsfeed a moment and then walks on, toward Count Hilunda, who is beckoning to her from his place with the comm unit. "Government Square, a summer house where my family would occasionally spend time in the area, even some particularly loyalist businesses in the area. The explosions came first; there are soldiers on the streets now and there have been some reports of small arms fire--"

"It's the governor of the province," Hilunda mouths, handing her the earpiece, and Plourr is still pressing it into her ear as she turns away and says briskly, "Governor, what the hell is happening?"

Rial follows, taking in everything and everyone, frowning slightly. He's opening his mouth to speak when Hilunda beckons Plourr to the comm, and then Plourr is turning away to talk to the Governor and Rial's bending over one of the terminals that's showing the newsfeed, chewing his bottom lip.

He's not used to this. Things were pretty calm, at least from his view, but now...now he's seeing chaos and he's not exactly sure what to do. He can analyze people, sure, but Plourr's the one with the military experience. She knows what to do.

So Rial bites his lip and watches the smoke and flashes as the antiaircraft batteries fire at the 'speeders, and soldiers dressed in black swarm his streets.

She's talking, on the comm; trying to get sense, to get something out of the pompous ass on the other end, but he has no idea what's going on in his own city, and when an aide flags her down frantically, mouthing, "The captain of the Guard," she gives up on that conversation and takes the new earpiece being offered her.

"Captain," she says, leaning over the same holoprojector as Rial, sharp eyes taking in the scene. "Where are your people?"

He responds, and she whirls away from the 'projector and snaps, "You should not be holed up inside a building, Captain! How many of you are there? ... Four h-- Either you split your force in two and get half of your asses outside right now, right now, on--" She leans over the station that has a digital map spinning in the air over it, invaded areas marked in black, and she stabs a finger at one jet-black street. "On Seventeenth Boulevard, in a flanking move with the other half coming down Sixteenth, first taking down the landspeeders and using them for cover, or I will replace you with someone who damn well will!" Another pause as he responds, this one short. "Good!"

She yanks the earpiece out of her ear and is immediately greeted by another voice. "The admiral says that Zee Squad is on its way" and immediately, someone else says, "General Leranion, Princess," and she snags that earpiece and leans over that comm unit. "General, how many can you send to Nental?"

Hilunda looks apologetic as he hands Rial an earpiece. Rial understands the look a moment later, when he hears the Goverener raising hell. And so Rial goes into diplomat mode, soothing him and only listening with half an ear, focused on the holoprojectors and frowning at the map. Plourr's saying something in the background, and he glances over.

There's the sound of an explosion from one of the newsfeeds and his earpiece rather abruptly goes dead. Rial swears and tosses it to some nameless tech manning a comm station, then bends over a projector. The reporter is looking distinctly more frazzled, but the there's something wrong with the sound - it keeps cutting in and out.

"Kriff," Rial mumbles under his breath, and bends over the shoulder of the techie. "What's happening with the feed?"

"Shit," says Plourr, straightening up abruptly as she hears the explosion, and she doesn't care who hears the Earthian curse. "Shit shit shit." Back into the comm unit: "No, not you, General; yes, a regiment will have to do. How soon can you get them there? ... Where are they coming from? -- Good." The whole time she's talking, she's trying to inch away from the comm unit to get a better look at the holos, which most people in the crowded room are staring at now. "Good. Do that. Come up with a plan of attack and call back in fifteen minutes. Out."

She whirls to Rial's side. "What's happening?"

"Too much," Rial says, pushing a stray bit of hair behind his ear, "but it looks like they've gone after the Governor. There's still nothing on the official channels."

There's another, smaller explosion, and one projector fuzzes out. A tech, young-looking and obviously stressed, glances up from his terminal. "We're losing the signal-"

"Shitshitshitshit," she says into her hand, frozen in indecision a moment, and then another tech saves her.

"Could we route it through the university? They've got a strong carrier," says the woman, and whether or not the plan will actually work, Plourr shakes herself.

"Get me the general back on the line," she says grimly, and then she's lost in a sea of planning; of strategy and assaults and troop movements and trying to (and mostly succeeding) keep track of what exactly the general and his staff are proposing. It's hard, without any infantry training. She keeps an eye on the holos and she trusts Rial to handle what's going on, for the moment.

The do route it through the university, in the end, and the holo stops fuzzing out. But that doesn't change the end result - the city is under attack, and it's all they can do just to keep it together. He's not quite as efficient as Plourr, but he barks orders and listens to what is going on, watches the maps and offers advice where he thinks it might be necessary.

Even if in his head he's watching everything he knows start to weaken.

But there's no time for that kind of thought as he reassures the captain of the Guard that reinforcements are coming, hands the earpiece to Plourr and stares at the map, at the streets marked in black.

Plourr has one in each ear and she takes a seat; she's not entirely sure how she's keeping the conversations separate as efficiently as she is.

"They're on the way, Captain, with an ETA of ten standard minutes. So now would be the optimal time to--

"Yes, General, that's the plan. Do that. --

"to attack now that you're in position. ... That was not a request, Captain; that was an order. Call and lead the assault, and avoid civilian damage as much as physically possible, or I will bust you to buck private and promote your second-in-command so fast your vaping head will spin. Understood? ... Good. Out. --

"General, we have a plan?" A long pause. "Good. Out."

Both comm units click off and Plourr is out of her chair quickly, moving to watch one local station's feed, which has given up on its hysterical reporter and is trained on the street below. As luck and narrative coincidence would have it, they're looking down on the main boulevard, where the counterattack should be starting right about -- now.

Hopefully, Captain Herjee is not the incompetent fool militarily that he came across as over the comm.

An explosion takes out the lead landspeeder on Seventeenth. In the smoke and chaos that follows, the air looks like it's thicker with blaster bolts than it is with oxygen.

Plourr stands tall and watches, silent, as her fingers dig into her palm. She can't stand being here, watching this, instead of leading the charge herself.

Rial watches, as do most of the people in the room. The comms are still crackling with bits of disjointed messages, and there's the tinny whine of blaster fire mixed through the static. He watches, eyes quiet and hard and far away as the second landspeeder crashes into a wall, flames licking around the nose. Armored soldiers are pouring into the streets, ducking behind rubble, taking cover behind the downed 'speeders.

Rial watches (his) streets fill with the smoke, watches debris fall from (his) buildings, watches (his) soldiers fall as blaster bolts flash through the air.

Rial watches, because he cannot look away.

The comm goes off and Hilunda answers it, fumbling for it in the sudden silence in the room. Silence aside from the holo.

He has to say her name four times before Plourr realizes someone is talking to her. "Princess Isplourrdacartha?" he says again, louder this time, and she tears her eyes away from the holo and she goes.

It's the commander of the squadron on the comm and then it's Herjee who is better at his job than she'd expected, and she and the aide sitting across from her are communicating between them, coordinating an air attack. Maybe it's something that someone would traditionally do for her, but Plourr has never been about tradition and she needs to do something, and this is quicker than routing everything through an aide for decisions, anyway. And this, she knows. The speed of those Headhunters, their armaments, how precisely they can fire. She knows this and she works with it.

Rial stays watching the projector, only glancing up when he feels a light tug on his elbow. It's the young tech who told him about losing the signal. Rial takes the earpiece from him, but it's no good, going dead before he can distinguish more then a couple words.

"Kriff," Rial says again, and turns back to the holo as another explosion rocks the street. A building is swaying dangerously, showering debris down on the heads of the soldiers and filling the air with dust.

It's going to come down, Rial realizes, even as the holo fuzzes out before stabilizing once more. The building's going to come down, and when it does, it's going to block Sixteenth off completely. Meaning no reinforcements from there would be able to make it through on foot. Meaning that the opposing forces would have one less place to take cover.

"Plourr," he says, reaching out for her, but the building is already starting to crumble.

Plourr spins just in time to see the building come down, sending an avalanche of stone and mortar and glass down on those below and the other buildings around. A tsunami of dust and debris several stories high sweeps through the street, obscuring the cam's lens entirely.

There must have been civilians taking shelter in that building.

The princess doesn't let herself look away for a long, long moment.

But when she does, she is utterly cool. "Herjee?" she asks, and there is a long moment, but she gets a stunned, choking response. "Good. Back off, do you hear me? Back off. Get as many of your people as you can and get back down Seventeeth. Draw them with you. --

"Commander, it's going to be impossible to tell friend from foe at the intersection of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Boulevards. Do not engage there. From what we're hearing, there should be--" She checks the holomap again. "There should be some repulsortrucks on the southwest edge of the city, waiting to take the soldiers back to wherever the hell they came from. Burn them down, but leave at least one or two still able to fly, understood?"

And she goes on calmly.

Rial isn't as good as Plourr, it takes him a long minutes before he can look away from the wreckage in the streets. When he finally does shake out of it, he sees that Plourr seems to have the military aspect under control.

He moves to the map and stares at it, frowning. A female tech appears at his side and bobs a very quick half-bow. "Count Pernon, there's a call-"

Rial takes the earpiece and sits down, answering it with a brisk "Pernon." The voice on the other end sounds like someone trying desperately not to panic. It's the director of Nental's emergency response forces, stumbling over his words; they're going to need medical assistance, search and rescue teams, firefighters; and so Rial listens and does his best to calm the man down.

But the sight of the downed building outlined in smoke and flickering fires, the feeling of tension in the air all around them, just make it harder to concentrate.

The reinforcements arrive. The two groups clash harder this time; the rebels are outnumbered several hundred to one. They flee.

They flee, and they arrive at the edge of the city to find that most of their transports have been destroyed, and those who don't make it onto the two that escape are slaughtered. One of the two transports is shot down. The other manages to get away; it escapes when they were supposed to follow it, to use it find the Priamsta's base of operations, and Plourr isn't happy about that.

Though to be fair, she isn't happy about any of this.

Hours pass.

The fighting is over, but the aftermath isn't; husband and wife stay and direct the clean up, the mop up, the intelligence; Plourr tries, to no avail, to track that solitary transport. They give an address, broadcast across the planet, condemning the nobles and the use of force and promising governmental aid to Nental. They begin making plans to go there.

And eventually, they exhaust the crop of aides and advisors and techs, and the new group works with them a little while before it revolts; before they tell the princess and the count that they need to rest, that the aides can handle what comes and comm if Eiattu's rulers are needed.

They go, surrounded by a cadre of guards.

Plourr's hands starts shaking when they're nearly to their rooms, but she doesn't say a word.

Neither does Rial.

It's been a long time, it's been long and stressful and hard and somewhere deep down, Rial knows that as the husband he's probably supposed to say or do something comforting. Tell her it's alright, (it isn't), tell her it'll be alright (it won't), hold those shaking hands until she's strong again.

But even though he knows he should, he doesn't. Just walks along, hands by his side, head up and eyes quiet. On the outside, he looks calm, unruffled, like everything is fine.

On the inside, he wants to find some quiet little spot and hide until this is over and done with.

It's for the best. She'd tell him to shut up if he said anything comforting right now. She keeps her head up, too, for the benefit of the guards. Of those they pass in the corridors.

So they walk silently, through hallways, through a secret passage or two, until they reach the quarters. Two guards go in first in what has become a ritual; Rial and Plourr wait with two more outside until the 'all clear' comes, and they go through the door.

Plourr murmurs her thanks to the guards, as she usually does, and heads straight for their bedroom.

Rial nods his thanks, pulling his hair out of the ponytail and walks over to the bedroom, slipping through the door and pulling it shut behind him.

And then he exhales, a long sigh, and just leans back against the door, not moving from where he is.

Eyes shut, "You okay?"

Plourr doesn't appear to have heard him. Immediately upon entering, she had kicked off her shoes -- thunk, thunk -- and moved to the mirror, where she is leaning her elbows on the bureau and removing her earrings.

At least, she tries to remove her earrings. Her fingers are cold and won't hold still, much less obey. She gives up after a moment with a low, helpless curse, and she rests her head in her hands, running shaking fingers through her hair.

Oh, damn.

Rial remains where he is for a moment, then opens his eyes and moves over to the bureau, standing behind her.

"Plourr."

They could play this game. She could say 'what' and he could say whatever it is that he wants to say, and they could go on like that.

Or Plourr could just cut to the chase and turn to him and wrap her arms around his neck, since that's going to be the end result of that whole emotionally stunted conversation.

She goes with the second option.

"Kriffing hands won't hold still," she murmurs into his shoulder, but it's an attempt at normalcy that is half-hearted at best.

"Yeah, I figured."

Rial wraps his arms around her, holding tightly. "Are you going to be okay?"

"A lot of people died today," she says, and her voice has gone contemplative and quiet, still steady. "Under my orders."

"Yeah. They did." He stares at the mirror behind her, frowning slightly. "But you did the right thing, Plourr. You did the right things."

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