~Survival, Dark Times: An Empire State of Mind~
It was yet another day at the Coruscant Security Headquarters. Rhynna Volt's hands shifted through files, looking at what they had for the day. As always, she was assigning security crews to certain outposts in the lower city. Sending teams that were everything but a SWAT team in name to docking ports and hangers. Keeping a distant eye on the air traffic control stats that she recieved on her computer from the place just a few levels above her office.
All in all, Rhynna had accomplished what she was originally hired to do: Keep Coruscant safe and secure. She had taken over after a disasterous tenure under Han Solo, she was hand picked by Supreme Admiral and famed hero Sora Trok himself. She'd gotten several awards for her long service to Coruscant and to the New Republic overall, considering that she did more than just protect Coruscant from any crazed murderors dressed in blue or wild terrorist attacks. It would seem like a great honor to accomplish all of this, to have this position, and it was.
At least, it was for a time.
Rhynna, one who had never taken a liking to emotions, had actually been happy when Admiral Trok asked her to be the next Head-of-Security. Of course, she didn't show this, and kept her focus on what would need to be done next. However, as she got deeper into the job, she realized how much of a cursed position it was.
Perhaps it was not the realities of war, arrests, and what truly went on inside the government. Rhynna was an accomplished pilot during the final days of the Empire; of course, she had never risen too high due to the prejudice against women inside that particular government, but nonetheless it was on her record. When the New Republic was formed, she finally got more equal treatment, and was promoted to leading a ground battle squadron, that regularly patrolled areas of Imperial activity. She'd cleaned out Remnant bases more than once during her two years in that spot. So, with all of this in mind, she knew how brutal war could be. How many people lost their lives, how many horrors you could truly see. That did not disturb her.
What did was the corrupt government, and it was getting more and more difficult to ignore. Rhynna's personal policy for herself was never to betray the side she served. For all of the Empire's flaws, she was loyal to them from the day she went to the Academy. However, when they were abolished, she was secretly relieved, and hoped that the NR could provide a well-deserved change. She wanted it to provide a stability that the Empire couldn't.
They never did, though. First, there were all of the disasters that took place. The Hutts managed to kidnap a princess and hold her for ransom in a move for power, a stupid, blonde terrorist managed to break out of a mental institution and lead the Republic's forces on a wild chase that led to them getting imprisoned by the Black Sun. Not only that, but an attack on two prominent buildings on Coruscant. Admiral Natasi Daala was behind those attacks, as well as the assassination of Chief-of-State Mon Mothma. Even when Renee Haltzilakas took office, nothjing changed. Selas Taban was nearly killed by a random mercenary, Coruscant Security officer Takk Tennan was lured into a trap and killed by another Imperial, and Padme Amidala was murdered by some psycho. This was chaos beyond belief, and it was what led to Sora deciding that order must be restored.
This gave Rhynna more hope, and she had loyally followed the Supreme Admiral ever since. However, despite that, she was beginning to see what his leadership was truly like. Yes, no more incidents on Coruscant took place, but there was another war on their hands. Innocent prisoners were killed. Sora still claimed to run the 'New Republic', but he had just created a new Empire. Rhynna sided with him at first, and still did; she even fought for him when he blockaded the Jedi Order ten years ago. For the safety of Coruscant, Sora even gave Coruscant Security a huge, new HQ building about a year after Rhynna took the Head-of-Security position.
But as more and more time progressed, the truth came out. Innocent civillians were still being arrested daily. Just today, a man was brought in for protesting Coruscant's hard, strict laws. Of course, this would not have bothered anyone years ago, but ever since a man called Ardol Vent spread anti-propaganda against the NR, and was exposed to be an Imperial agent, Sora was paranoid about anyone that spoke out about him, and so they always had to arrest those who disagreed with Sora's ways.
Not just that, but Sora didn't want the public's opinion of him to be unsettled in any way. He had gone to such strange lengths to make them think he was amazing: He had married, and had children with, the singer Deena Yitek, just so he could put on a nice family image to the civillians. Sora's personal life was none of her business, so she never judged him for it, but as more events transpired, Rhynna saw how much the once great hero that she followed had turned into nothing more than a pathetic ghost of a man.
And she had to follow him. She had no choice. Rhynna was a woman of the utmost loyalty; she had agreed to serve the New Republic, and she would do just that. Maybe she personally disagreed with Sora's methods, or that moron that he appointed as Chief-of-State, but she could do nothing about it. She was here to do her job, do her duty. It was not her job to disagree with him and revolt as his old friends and companions had. So, despite her growing dismay over all of these years, she would do nothing. She would not betray the New Republic. It was not her place to do so.
Not to mention, she didn't see how the 'Resistance', as his old rebelling friends called it, helped matters, either. She didn't know whether they were just scorned because of how he treated them, such as when he put warrants out for their arrests, or because they truly wanted to help the Galaxy. Even if it was the latter, she felt that they were just making things worse. They were bringing more chaos to the table, not decreasing it.
Rhynna snapped out of her thoughts, momentarily, when she heard a buzz at her computer. She adjusted her glasses and looked at the new message that had come in: It was forwarded to her from Winter Retrac, one of her top officers, about the results of a mission that Kurt Jervada, a mercenary who was one of Sora's top men, had just finished. Apparently he had just killed several more supposed Resistance agents.
She had never really approved of Kurt, just because she didn't see why Sora was allowing a merc into the events of a government. In a way, she still didn't know what to think of the man, as she didn't know him too much, but her opinion of him had changed a bit. He honestly seemed like he had good intentions, whatever those may be.
And now, thinking that about the man, a mental image had been stuck in her brain for months now: She could see the burning flames of Coruscant as buildings went down in ashes, and Kurt stood inside one, with his head held high as he faced death, doing the honorable thing that Sora would never do.
Let the bastard burn, Kurt.
Rhynna heard a knock at the door, and as she closed another file, she motioned for the knocker to come in. One of her officers walked in, looking slightly nervous and worried. "Head of Security Volt, there's been a development with Prisoner 1602. You really should see for yourself," he said, gesturing for her to follow him.
Rhynna could feel some slight fear welling up in her chest, as she had suspicions about what was coming. She tried to surpress it, though, while she followed the young officer throughout the halls of HQ. Prisoner 1602 was the one arrested for spreading anti-Sora/Solon propaganda, and heavily tried to resist arrest, saying that he wouldn't go down just for stating his point of vi-
Her thoughts cut off when she rounded a corner and saw the prisoner hanging in his cell. He'd grabbed a simple cloth given to him to wipe the blood off of his face from the confrontation before his arrest, and had used that to commit suicide.
She looked to the officer beside her, keeping her composure. "Inform the Supreme Admiral, and just...get him a body bag. Get someone to inform his family, if he has any, and I'll wrap up any other details," she ordered in her usual, emotionless tone of voice.
The officer got to work, and Rhynna quickly headed back to her office, keeping a plain, unaffected face all the way there. However, once she was inside and the doors were shut, she took off her glasses...and that was when a few tears fell.
She truly was trapped in her own private hell.