fighting_mad | [OOM] Royalty

Flashing through the explosion cloud that was once a TIE fighter, Plourr feels like she's doing the right thing for the first time since she came home. Furious, too; she has always been a top-notch pilot, wouldn't be in Rogue Squadron if she weren't, but she has never flown like this before.

One TIE, two TIE's down, and she barely even hears the other three voices over the comm because she's watching the tiny figures running on the ground. She can't tell who is a member of the People's Liberation Battalion and who is royal security and who is a civilian - but the white of stormtrooper armor is easy to spot even from the air. The PLB solders and security personnel and civilians-- they're all her people. And she'll she damned if she'll let the Empire hurt her people anymore.

There's a turbolaser in the side of a tall building; it's doing significant damage.

Not again.

She hits the lasers.

"Never again."

The TIE spirals down out of control, slamming into the turbolaser and blowing a huge hole in the side of the building with its explosion. More congratulations over the comm and she really doesn't hear them this time, because there is a familiar figure leading the PLB soldiers into the building. The man who says his name is Harrandatha.

"I'm going in," she says, spinning the X-wing back.

[Dialogue from Lucasfilm's and Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars: Rogue Squadron: The Warrior Princess.]

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"Who were they? Where are they now?!"

Harran falters. "They... They were killed in--"

"People of Eiattu, hear me! I don't know if you believe that I am Princess Isplourrdacartha. Until recently, I didn't believe it myself."

Harran may falter, but she does not. "Years ago, the people I loved most in the universe were taken from me. That night, I killed my mother's only son. I ran from Eiattu and never looked back.

"Now I know that you can never run from your home. Eiattu is the birthworld of my father and mother, of my entire family. Eiattu took everything I had away from me, yes. But it gave everything to me, as well. And all these things, my family and their love are here, in every blade of grass, in all the rolling hills..."

She started out not knowing what she was saying, just letting the words come, but now she realizes. Now she knows.

"And in you good people." She lets her eyes drift over the crowd a moment. They don't look especially friendly-- but they're not attacking her, either.

"This man has lead you to victory over the Imperial invaders, something that no leader of Eiattu was able to accomplish. But he is also a pawn of the Moff Leonia Tavira."

"Lies..." he murmurs, shaken. But they are; they are falsehoods! How dare she say such things?!

"LIES! I came back to this planet to save my people from the nobles! To bring about a new age to our world." If stares were quad-linked laser bolts, Plourr would not be among the living at the moment. "What has she done but coddle the Priamsta and the Imperials?!"

He looks around. He sees that he's losing them. "I led you people to victory! I--"

"--I almost wish that you were my brother." She slowly lowers the blaster. "At least then I would not have to live with the guilt I've carried all these years.

"But you're not my brother. You're a lie. A false hope to a helpless people." She walks toward him. "Once we have Moff Tavira in custody, we can get to the bottom of this and find out just who you are."

He raises his own gun fast, the barrel shaking but pointed at her head. "Get back! Sergeant Ashaad, stop her!"

The sergeant doesn't move. "B-but, my lord..." he protests.

Plourr ignores the weapon. "You see, these people don't need us." She spreads her hands to the soldiers standing on either side of her; soldiers who are regarding her with expressions of respect, for the most part. "This is the strength of Eiattu, not its leaders. Its strength lies in its people." She steps forward again.

"I said stay back! Stop her!" he shrieks, blaster twitching uncontrollably. "I-I am Prince Harrandatha Estillo! L-l-leader of the People's Liberation Battalion! I-I--"

"And that ring, 'brother dear,' " she says, eyes narrowing as she takes in the heavy red signet ring on his gun-hand, "just isn't you."

"I said stay back!"

He fires.

Sergeant Ashaad moves fast for a burly man. He steps into the way. "Comrade, no--"

Plourr is moving, too. She throws herself to the ground, snapping off a return shot even as she falls.

Plourr's blaster bolt flies true.

Harran's gun-hand explodes from the wrist up in a spray of red.

He screams.

"Leonia ... ggrrgglleee ... help me," he cries, dropping to his knees and bending over the smoking, bleeding stub of his arm.

"It's true!" says one PLB soldier. "He was an impostor!"

Lying on her side, hot blaster resting on the ferrocrete, Plourr glances back at the good sergent. "Harran" wasn't nearly as good of a shot as he was a liar-- the loyal soldier seems to have just had his shoulder grazed.

Running across the rooftop with Wedge and Tycho, and Rial's throat leaps into his throat at the sight of her on the ground.

"Plourr!"

She looks back at the voice and footsteps, and she rolls to her feet, holstering her blaster.

The three of them pull up short as they come up to her. "Plourr, are you alright?" Rial places a hand on her shoulder, unable to believe it.

"Yes, Rial. I'm fine." She shrugs off the hand-- but only after a moment or two.

Wedge says that they vaped the last of the TIEs; that the citadel is secure.

"So, this is the would-be prince," Rial mutters, more to himself than anyone, hard eyes on the kneeling, keening man.

Plourr pays him no mind, asks about the rest of her squadmates.

Wedge fills them in on their misadventures, and then Tycho has a more immediate question. He asks what will happen to the impostor, now being loaded onto a repulsor-stretcher and cared for by medics.

Wedge is still more practical and shrewd. He asks who will rule Eiattu.

"We'll care for him the best we can," Plourr says, "until we can find out just what was done to him." She pauses.

"And as for the rest..."

Princess Isplourrdacartha smiles.

[OOM] Royalty

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