How much can you take?

"The gas was unnecessary," she mumbled when she could lift her head again.

"That's what you think," Hunter's voice came cool and calm over the comms. "I know better than to trust you'll cooperate."

Well, she could hardly fault him on that. Word games had become a favorite thing while under mind control, and frustrating him had been exceptionally satisfying. As had forcing him to be exceptionally specific. About everything.

The reminder made Toni smile a little, sharp and bitter as the room came into focus. It promptly went back out of focus as she was punched in the face hard enough to snap her head back. Her hood fell back, dark blue hair falling across her face and briefly obscuring her vision; a tiny part of her regretted not getting it cut before now. It would provide a good handhold for pain.

Already she could feel the start of the black eye, and bruises would be marked all along her back from just that hit.

And yet...

Her hands were tied behind her back, but not... tightly. With rope, of all things? That would be useless in actually holding her. She wasn't tied to the chair... Who had arranged this interrogation? It was poorly handled.

"You have something we want," Hunter said. "Moff Zamar's report. Now we have questions, and you will answer them."

Toni worked her jaw slowly; crude responses typically weren't her style, so it said a lot that she was considering what Modiri might have done in her position. Spitting on the floor was a bit much, however.

"If you wanted answers, you should have contacted Imperial Intelligence," she said after a long moment, letting a smirk cross her face. "That's their job, after all. Oh, wait, you can't. You had them dissolved."

A swift glance around the room netted her the location of all the exits, and revealed the first thing that actually made her heart sink. Vector stood there, a single guard of his own, hand tied behind his back. They could hurt her all they wanted, but if they touched him, the plan would no longer matter. They would all die.

"You should have kept your brainwashing program," Hunter sighed a little. "It'd be less painful."

"The only painful thing here is listening to you talk," she shot back.

A blow came from the side, and she just managed to lean back enough to avoid the full hit.

"Moff Zamar's report," the mercenary growled. "What did it say, and who did you tell?"

"Go jump out of an airlock," Toni replied.

Insolence earned her another punch, one that knocked her off the chair; stars exploded across her vision as she hit the floor, unable to roll with the blow and cushion her landing.

"What did it say, and who did you tell?"

Toni clamped her mouth shut; no one would believe if she said anything now. Hunter especially; he had witnessed her stubbornness first hand, and would be suspicious if she gave things up too swiftly, too easily.

She had to endure this.

Modiri paced around the dock where Toni had insisted she stay, occasionally shooting the stray mercenary that thought to stick their stupid heads up from the damn stairwells. It had been five hours since her Chiss friend had left on this stupid plan, and the waiting was definitely getting to her.

"Boss! More coming," Blizz reported from his window perch. "Bigbig group."

"They really don't seem to like that we're holding out here," Torian said offhandedly as he checked one of the grenade traps, vibrostaff close to hand.

"They can kiss my ass," Modiri snapped. "And they're about to figure out that I don't like them much either."

The holocom had been silent for the past five hours. When it pinged, she scrambled to answer it... but it was not Toni, giving the all-clear, it was Ensign Temple, looking worried.

"Any news yet?"

"No."

Temple chewed on her lower lip, looking anxious. Annoying as it was, Modiri couldn't really blame her; this was a stupid plan, and Toni had gone along with it, like an idiot.

"Dr. Lokin's going to be heading to your location," the ensign said after a moment. "Do you need any other backup right now?"

"Could use another gun," Torian said before Modiri could answer. "Keep getting merc groups trying to swarm us."

"Well maybe if you'd use the ones we've tried to give you?" Modiri shot over her shoulder.

"Where's the fun in that?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, the byplay got a small laugh from the ensign.

"I'll escort Dr. Lokin, and make sure nothing happens while we're getting to your location."

Given Lokin's unique condition, that was probably for the best; a Rakghoul in the middle of Coronet city would raise more than a few eyebrows. Modiri didn't give two shits about it, but she knew Toni would, so she just nodded brusquely, and cut the communications.

"Here they come," Torian warned.

"Then let's give them a nice, warm welcome."

Modiri moved to the other stairwell, readying for yet another fight to hold this damn landing pad.

Toni tasted blood again as she was once more thrown to the floor; the random electrical shocks were getting stronger, making it harder to catch her breath between them. But even thought the ringing in her ears, the blackness at the edges of her vision, she could still see Vector. They hadn't tried to use him against her yet...

She was hauled upright by her hair, thrown back into the chair still twitching, and gasped for breath as blood trickled over her lips. Some parts of her had gone numb, while others burned bright with pain. She was fairly sure at least three of her ribs were broken, if not more, and her shoulder had been dislocated twice already.

"Agent."

Vector's voice, still somehow so calm. His connection to the nest, maybe? She could envy him that, at the moment. She wasn't even sure she had a voice left after the work they'd done thus far. It calmed her, soothed her, even knowing that he could do nothing.

"Just hold on. Someone will come-"

Her eyes widened and fury pulsed through her as his guard slammed the butt of his gun into Vector's temple, knocking him to the ground. Shaking, weak legs or not, double-visioned, and having not gone through with the plan, she still tried to lunge to her feet, wanting to hurt the man who had hurt Vector.

She only managed to throw herself to the floor, which seemed to amuse the torturer, who gave one leg a sharp kick before yanking her back onto the chair.

"Remove him, and prep her for the next round."

She wanted to snarl at them to not touch Vector; but he met her eyes squarely as he was pulled to his feet and she managed to choke the reaction down. Letting on that he was important to her, that he was precious, would only get him hurt. She would break, possibly properly, if she was forced to watch them hurt him.

A tiny prick on her arm, and then kolto poured into her abused system; they didn't want her dead, after all. She couldn't give them anything if she was, and the kolto itself would help prolong the torture. She had already lost track of how long they'd been trying to break her; was it too soon to give in?

No, she could hold out. And in a way, even as she feared for Vector's safety, him being out of the room was better. He would hold to the plan, to the security it contained, far better if he didn't have to watch her be tortured.

She regretted not arguing with him further; if she'd made him stay with Modiri, or go back to the ship, would he have been better off?

Another blow rang in from the side, and she only just barely managed to keep from falling out of the chair once more. She hissed as she was wrenched to her feet, shoulder protesting the abuse, and the torture renwed.

"It's been ten hours, I'm fucking going up there," Modiri snarled. "Get out of the damn way!"

"Cipher Nine hasn't signaled for a rescue, and neither has Vector," Lokin replied calmly. "And how would you get up there anyways? There's no speeder to take, and you'd likely get shot out of the sky."

"So I'll steal something from the ground," she retorted. "Not like anyone out there can shoot straight as it is."

"And what would Cipher Nine say if you showed up before she was able to fulfill her part of the plan?" Lokin countered.

"This plan was a stupid plan! There are so many better ways they could have done this," Modiri snapped.

"Such as?"

She glared at him.

"I could probably have come up with something," Gault volunteered, glancing up from his card game with Blizz and Temple. "It'd be a nice challenge."

"See?!" Modiri demanded, gesturing at the Daveronian.

"No one's arguing that it was a sound plan," Lokin replied, arms crossed over his chest. "The desperate ones usually aren't. But we owe it to Cipher Nine to let her have the full twenty-four hours before we get involved."

"...I should have blastered him the first time I laid eyes on him," Modiri grumbled as she paced over to the stairwell again.

"Who?" Lokin inquired.

"Yes."

He made a sound that suggested it wasn't a particularly helpful answer, but Modiri didn't care; she'd known Hunter was trouble from the word go, and watching him take glee in using Toni's now-defunct codeword had made her want to put a blaster bolt through his face. Even being trusted to countermand the worst of the orders hadn't changed that.

An explosion on the lower floor had everyone reaching for their weapons; grenades could only stop so many mercenaries.

"Why do they have to come right as I'm about to win?" Gault complained, clicking the safety off his rifle.

"Cheating to win, you mean?" Ensign Temple said in a voice too sweet to be anything but mocking.

"Now now, no need to make such baseless accusations," he replied.

"See cards in sleeve," Blizz said in his native language. "Cheat cheat!"

"You wound me!" Gault replied dramatically.

"We won't but the mercenaries might," Modiri said irritably. "Take positions and prepare to kill some dumbasses!"

"...amazingly high pain threshold," Toni heard someone murmur as her vision cleared. "Seems to be fading in and out...

He wasn't wrong. Her mind was feeling dull, and she had no really clue as to how long she'd been in that room. She vaguely remembered being thrust into a bathroom as some point, but otherwise the best she could remember was the kolto injections; no food, and the only 'rest' she got was brief unconsciousness before they stimmed her back into awareness. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Vector...

"Look, we can do this forever," her torturer said... though he almost sounded impatient. "Ready to talk yet?"

"Didn't I tell you... to go jump out...an airlock?" she rasped.

The slap was light in comparison to the earlier hits, she was just too exhausted to avoid letting it snap her head to the side.

Was someone watching, she wondered. The holoterminal wasn't lit up, but there had to be other cameras. Why had she thought this was a good plan? It was not a good plan. And Vector... she should have made him stay behind, or tried to. Where was he? Was he being hurt, somewhere where she couldn't see it? Would they try to use him against her?

Another slap, this one one a fresh wound that made her yelp.

"What did the report say?"

Slowly, she managed to push herself back upright, letting her head hang low. She was so tired. So tired. She spat blood onto the floor, then drew in a raspy breath. Vector. If he was safe... she couldn't find out with all their focus on her. She had to 'give up' the fight if she wanted to find him and get out in one piece. It still stung her pride, even knowing that everything she was about to say was a bold-faced lie.

She could only hope that their rough treatment hadn't broken the spring-loaded blades in her gauntlets, or the stim she'd palmed in preparation. If either one of those failed, she was as good as dead.

"The.. report said that.. we didn't have... enough troops," she ground out, her strained voice little more than a croak on some of the words. "Reinforcements... are coming. A new fleet from the.. Auril sector. Led by... Sith lords..."

The torturer looked away, across the room as Toni leaned a little more forward, trying to will some small amount of energy into her trembling limbs. The stim was necessary, but how much could she do on her own?

"Tell the boss," he snapped at someone out of her range of view. "Now."

Toni flexed her fingers lightly in a specific manner; a small needle pressed against her wrist, though it didn't penetrate just yet. She needed him to look away for a little longer...

"Relax," he drawled, lifting her chin up and pushing her back a little against the chair. "Vacation's over. Now you get to check out."

That sounded much too ominous for her liking, and damned if she was going to let their unnecessary attack on Vector go. The needle stabbed her wrist, and the stim flooded into her system; it hurt like the electric shock, but it cleared her mind, and she thrust herself to her feet as he turned away, the blades sliding out of the gauntlets and through the ropes.

"Good. I'm done here."

He swore as she came up, and started to lift a hand, but with the specific stim in her, she was faster, the initial pain washed away in a tide of energy and euphoria. She cut his throat even before he could sound the alarm, then turned and launched herself at the guard holding her rifle, slamming her into the nearest wall with enough force to break several bones as she relieved the woman of her personal weapon. The third guard almost had a comm unit out, but one of the hidden vibroknives dealt with him.

And there was Vector in the doorway, staff in hands; she was fairly sure he'd left a trail of unconscious bodies in his wake—he always did prefer to spare life instead of take it. His expression was one of alarm mingled with disapproval and concern, but he slung his staff over one shoulder and strode quickly to her side... just in time to catch her as the stim wore off, and with it, ninety percent of her energy.

"You should not have pushed yourself," he scolded. "We had it handled."

She smiled weakly, and stifled a hiss of pain as he picked her up.

"You... c-can't run like this," she protested.

"We don't need to. The shuttle is not far, and we have already... dealt with the personnel. Rest, Toni. We will be safe soon."

For all he moved swiftly, he also moved smoothly, taking as much care as possible to not jar her. The fog of exhaustion crept in, blackness edging around her vision, but she couldn't let herself pass out. Not yet. She had to stay aware until they reached safety, and then she had to contact Keeper.

Grimly she held onto consciousness with every last bit of stubborn determination she could manage.

"Boss! Boss! Shuttle come in, shuttle, shuttle!"

It was impossible to not hear Blizz's delighted yelping; the mercs had ceased coming almost four hours before, finally seeming to figure out that their people were just going to keep getting killed, which had left Modiri more antsy than ever. Almost a full damn day since that shuttle had gone, and... there it was, landing on the pad.

Vector climbed out first, then turned and caught Toni before she could do more than try to pull herself over the edge. Modiri winced for her friend; Toni looked like hell. One eye was swollen shut, and blood decorated her mouth and chin, no doubt from getting her nose broken, or her lip split. The fact that Vector wasn't even letting her walk said a hell of a lot about her state, and the bounty hunter found herself wondering just how many new scars her friend would be walking away with.

But at least she was alive.

"I c-can..walk,"Toni protested as the group gathered around her.

"We think you should not. Ah. Doctor."

"Welcome back," Dr. Lokin said, a thin smile on his face. "We were starting to wonder if you'd make it before you time limit was up."

"I have to... call K-Keeper..."

"Fuck that," Modiri snapped. "You just went through hell and need like.. ten goddamn hours of rest!"

"While crude, Modiri is correct," Dr. Lokin said with a small nod. "No doubt you need some time in the local medical facilities to recover from... that."

Toni shook her head a little, but was clearly in enough pain that she couldn't hide all of it. Which just made Modiri even more upset; this plan had been stupid from the word go, and now Toni was suffering for it. And—she glanced around at the assembled people—so were they. Vector's formerly inscrutable expression was full of angry remorse; Ensign Temple looked horrified. Behind his professional mask of authority, she was pretty sure Lokin was pissed off as well. Of her people Gault couldn't look at Toni without wincing, Torian looked like he wanted to punch someone, and Blizz... was too short to reach her, but he looked like he was trying, for whatever reasons of his own.

"I n-need to-"

"We will call Keeper," Vector said firmly. "You will be tended to by the doctor, and you will rest until your song is no longer full of pain."

Modiri snickered as Toni looked startled, briefly rebellious, then—after looking around at the faces of her friends—resigned.

"It's h-hardly fair when you all gang up on me," she muttered.

"Vector, bring her over here, and I can do a preliminary scan and kolto injection," Lokin instructed. "Then you call Keeper and let her know that the agent has returned and is undergoing treatment."

As he moved to follow the doctor, Toni caught sight of the myriad bodies that still littered the ground.

"...did you... h-have a party or something... while I was gone?"

"Or something," Lokin replied wryly.

"So I got a little ansty," Modiri shrugged irritably as Vector carefully deposited Toni on one of the lightly damaged couches. Watching her friend wince just made her want to shoot more people.

"We think 'a little antsy' is understating it," Vector said dryly.

Modiri just shrugged irritably, and moved out of the way so that he could go call Keeper. It was probably better that he did it anyways, since she wanted to chew the woman's head off at this point.

"Ensign, go to the Imperial station and get a stretcher," Lokin instructed as he pulled out a medical scanner. "We're going to need all hands to get through the mess of people waiting outside the building."

"Torian, go with her," Modiri ordered.

Torian nodded, and the pair left at a quick trot. They would have a handful or more of mercenaries on them the minute they stepped out those doors, but the ensign had proved herself an excellent shot, and Torian was fast enough to hit someone else before they hit him.

"So much... fuss," Toni mumbled.

"Yes, well, you were away for quite a while, and we'll all be better for the chance to make sure you don't aggravate your injuries further," Lokin said sternly.

Modiri saw surprise, and then the smallest hint of resigned affection. Sure, the doctor had started off being one of the stranger members, but... it was clear enough that he gave more of a damn about Toni's health than her employers.

Even if he did transform into a rakghoul every now and again.

Sleep was safe—or as safe as it could be in a warzone—and Toni woke up several hours later in a room she didn't recognize, feeling rather like she'd fallen down a hillside on Hoth; everything ached, and despite the blanket covering her, she felt chilled. Her dreams had at least been kind—rather, she hadn't had any, too deep in healing slumber to remember much of anything. She doubted she'd get that sort of future consideration...

Wanting to or not, she sat up slowly, wrapping one arm around her ribs as they protested mightily, and looked around the room; It was small, neat, and mostly empty... Only Vector was there, standing at the window and staring out over the war-torn landscape.

"...where's everyone else?"

"Modiri took Blizz and went to take care of something that Darth Tormen wished of her," Vector replied, turning away from the window and moving over to the chair at the side of the bed. "Torian stands outside the door, ready to repel any trouble. Everyone else has returned to the ships, though Lokin has recommended that you stay still for several more hours. Keeper would like you to contact her once you have recovered. There is a secure connection here in the hotel."

Despite herself, Toni shifted nervously; he sounded upset, which meant he was more remote.

"Why are you angry?" she asked after a moment. "And who with?"

He softened, just a little, and sat on the bed, taking care to avoid encroaching on her space until she leaned against him. When she did, his arm wrapped around her, and she could feel his hand trembling.

"We are angry, but not with you," he said. "We do not fault Keeper for the plan, but we think there should have been a better one, one that didn't involve you getting hurt, or the anxiety that has laced everyone's songs since. We are... a little angry at ourself, for not being able to help you, for arriving too late-"

"You weren't too late," she interrupted, frowning a little up at him. "You arrived just when you needed to."

He shook his head a little, then handed her a glass.

"Lokin said you should drink all of this, and that you can complain about the taste of it when you get back to the ship," he said. Toni accepted it, sipped, and made a face. It wasn't as bad as it probably could have been, but it wasn't pleasant. "We arrived late; if we had been faster, you wouldn't have needed to kill those people."

Briefly, her grip on the glass tightened.

"They hurt you," she said, her voice cold. "They took you away."

He leaned in, and his lips brushed her temple.

"They did not harm us after the first blow," he said gently. "We were put in a room and told to wait, which we did until we decided that we had waited long enough."

Vector was not one to lie and spare her feelings... but it didn't make her feel much better. Clearly sensing that, his hold tightened just a little.

"We did not enjoy watching you suffer," Vector said softly. "But it was worse not being able to see you. We... worried that you would become too stubborn, and sustain damage that could not be treated."

"They tried," she said quietly, shuddering a little. She was going to have nightmares of that session for the rest of her life, she knew. "But for all they were... methodical, they didn't seem to be interested in causing permanent harm. I suppose killing an Imperial agent would be a bit too much trouble."

She downed the rest of whatever was in the glass, coughing as it burned down her abused throat, then passed it back to him; Vector placed it on the small side table, then lightly smoothed her hair out of her face.

"We would rather not go through such an event again, if that is possible."

She snorted a little, winced, and elbowed him gently.

"Don't make me laugh; that hurts. And really, I'll take a pass on a repeat performance myself. Now then, help me up. I'd like to talk to Keeper."

"You should remain at rest-" he began, a little sternly.

"I don't think we have the time for it," she interrupted, though she kept her own tone gentle. "And we need to know, I need to know, if all of that was worth it."

He sighed, then kissed her temple again, and obligingly helped her to stand; standing hurt much more than sitting, but it was a dull sort of pain, the kind she could—and did—ignore. With a flip of her wrist, she pulled up the hood of the more tattered coat—it was going to need replacing soon enough, sadly—and headed for the door.