Chapter Twenty

Liberty, work-out room

If it was possible, Lochlin looked even more fatigued than the last time Rannan had seen him. The boy, man, Rannan corrected himself, had the look of someone who had worked far too much under too much emotional strain on him. They – together with both their XOs – were sitting on the mats of the work out room and trying to set up a strategy to uncover the traitor network aboard the Liberty.

"But isn't it most important to know who is involved in this in our nearest vicinity?", Lin tossed into the round. Lochlin's XO – a rather mean and hardened looking woman named Saron Kenzy – shook her head and said: "No. Even if we can expose a member of our maintenance crews or a deck officer as a traitor, the people behind this will remain hidden. And they will become more cautious and thus even more difficult to expose. So we have to find them as fast as possible. We have this record of Zifra. We have to use it."

"And what do we do? Mutiny? Who will be the new captain? Quite frankly, I don't trust anyone in the command crew of this ship anymore. We'd need someone from outside. And I don't see any way to realize such a scheme. I bet all our communication is being monitored, so there's absolutely no way for us to get in touch with any other Alliance forces. Even if we can get this mutiny started it will lead us only into complete chaos and a catastrophe." Lochlin gave a little huff and everyone stared at him. It was the longest statement he had made since the battle, and it had come out in a kind of rush no one would have expected from him.

Rannan smirked because one of the statements the Lieutenant had made had triggered an idea in him. He cleared his throat and said tentatively: "Well… as for our communication… I have a brilliant Bothan hacker in my squadron who needs something to work on because he's become quite edgy. And for the captain from outside… well… I have someone in my mind who could useful." Lin eyed him suspiciously. "Ran, you're not talking about…"

"Nomo Morgan? Oh yes, I am. She may be a an ambitious and hard-headed bitch but she's a loyal and clever ambitious and hard-headed bitch. And her operating territory is as near to us as possible. We should try it." His XO gave him a look that said "You're nuts." because she knew damn well that he and Nomo Morgan were a pair of dynamite and a real danger to the sometimes very sensitive relationship between Starfighter Command and the fleet. He'd have to talk to her later in private. For now he threw a look into the round and finally Lochlin ragged his hair, gave a tired nod of approval and said: "Alright… give me everything you have about this Captain Morgan and tell your hacker to start working on that communication monitoring thing. We'll meet again in two days. I think it would be best if each of us uses this time to inform their squadrons. Other than that we need to keep absolutely quite about all of this. And… well… I think that's it." With that he got up, nodded towards Kenzy and left the room with her in tow.

Rannan was amazed at how fast the kid – no, the man, he corrected himself again – had learned to command and how little attention he paid to the fact that actually Rannan was outranking him. But then again… he's grown desperate and fatigued. He most probably doesn't care about what he's doing anymore., Rannan thought to himself.

A shove to his shoulder called his attention to his XO who was grinning at him mischievously. "Growing old, are we, Commander?" He grinned back. "I'll show you what it means to insult your commanding officer like that!" And with that he flung himself towards her. It was her giggling like a school girl he remembered most of that day, even long after it was gone.

Predator, interrogation room

"Well, what do we have here?"

Slowly she lifted her head up and looked into the direction the voice had come from. Right in front of her stood a bald Imperial officer wearing a sneer on his face. She felt her wrists and ankles bound to a kind of table which stood upright. The officer – an Admiral, the rank insignia told her – reached towards her and cupped her chin roughly with his right hand. "I asked you a question. And I demand an answer. Now!" With that he slapped her right cheek so hard that her head flew to the side. She felt warm blood trickle down from the corner of her mouth but still kept quiet. It earned her another slap, this time on her left cheek. "Who do you think you are? Answer me!"

Coreena only slightly lifted her head this time. The officer now had a nasty look on his face. But she didn't care. There just wasn't any energy left for her to care about anything. Her body was still aching, and desperation had taken over her mind. It had silenced her. The only thing that would come to her mind was "Leave me alone.", but she didn't even haven the energy to tell the officer.

And just as she had expected it, another slap hit her face, jerking her head to the side so hard it hit the table she was strapped to. She didn't even flinch at the pain shooting through her skull as her cheekbone connected with the metal. Suddenly a faint sound caught her attention. Slowly she looked up and saw herself faced with a black shining sphere hovering about half a meter centimeters before her. A torture droid., shot through her head. She had seen pictures of it but couldn't quite bring herself to believe that the Empire was capable of actually using those things. Before anything more came to her, she felt a slight prick in her right arm. The droid had put a syringe into the vein. Mildly she wondered what this was about. Then she saw the venomous smirk on the face of the officer and suddenly felt excruciating pain as he pinched her slightly on the arm. "Don't you think it's about time we start using less violence, dear?", was the last thing she heard before she began screaming.

Liberty, Flt.Of. Blenwell's quarters

"You. In the work-out room. Now."

A bewildered look crossed his features as Marten stared at the woman standing in his doorway and glaring impatiently at him. "What the…" But he was cut short by her saying: "I bet you need a good sparing, too. So come on, let's go." He still hadn't quite gotten to what she was telling him. "Lieutenant…" A slight huff escaped her throat. "Do I have to make it an order, Flight Officer?" The soft impatient padding of her foot was added to the slightly annoyed appearance of Lieutenant Kenzy. He tried a last time to say something and was rewarded only with the quirking of her right eyebrow. "All right, I'll just get my stuff."

Trying to understand what in the Jedi's name had brought her to his doorstep he rummaged around in his locker. After some minutes the time where it wasn't too obvious he was just stalling was up, and he turned back to Kenzy. "Well, let's start with the warm-up.", he said and began to jog in the work-out room's direction. He was surprised to find her joining him without any remark or even the rolling of her eyes.

When the had reached the work-out room, they began their stretching. It was the part of their sparring sessions he liked best. Seeing her in all her physical glory – refined muscles, lithe body, all of that. She was a warrior, and a beautiful one at that.

Making a face he shook his head. Thoughts like this were not his. And most of all not when they were referring to Lieutenant Kenzy. They didn't include words like beautiful, glory, like. Well, usually. He grunted under his breath. At some point this had changed. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but it must have started after their first work-out session. Some time after that he found himself not only checking her out but also liking what he saw. And he found himself being attracted to her not only physically. He began to notice things about her he's never seen before like her kind of twisted sense of humor, her unconditional devotion to their cause, her… Will you just stop it? Marten grunted again. Right. He was not supposed to think about her that way. He was a big bad macho, and she was an overcompensating and over-ambitious pain in the neck.

On the other side of the room Saron stretched as well. And observed Blenwell from the corner of her eye. Well, okay, she didn't observe, she did a downright check-out. Smirking slightly she had to admit that she liked what she saw. Broad shoulders, sculpted torso, nicely formed biceps… All right, stop drooling now, will you? Turning away from him, she smirked again. Since when was Marten Blenwell, pain in the ass extraordinaire, the hunk of the month?

Okay, so he was physically appealing. But she found it disturbing that being attracted to him didn't just confine to his outward appearance. There was something about him… She couldn't quite put a finger on it, but she found herself feeling more and more oddly comfortable around him. At some point their bantering had stopped being all grim and dead-serious and changed into something a bit more playful. It appeared more like a sport now, something they both enjoyed as a way to keep their minds a wits sharp enough, to somehow relieve them of the boredom of everyday routine and the horror of the recent events… Sithspit, what was she thinking?

Bantering with Blenwell was never "playful" or "a sport" or something to "enjoy", it was just a nuisance, bothering her to no end, making her invest valuable energy in fruitless attempts to make him see his utter stupidity.

Unfortunately she had to admit that Marten Blenwell was anything but stupid. If he didn't hide behind the layer of bored macho he usually wore he could be quite entertaining and a surprisingly intelligent tactician. He…"Do you want to stretch or to fight, Lieutenant?" She blinked and turned at him, trying to look at least fairly irritated at his quip but chose to give him only the raising of one eyebrow and taking her usual fighting stance as an answer. He grinned and said: "Just what I thought." And then the usual dance of exchanged blows and hits started just like always.

Finally she felt the tension that had been created by the hatred and desperation created by Chesfer and the anger at Lochlin and her own utter confusion and helplessness about the whole situation and had been continuously building up since the Cap had been taken melt away as she concentrated her energy on deflecting the blows, dodging his moves and adding her own share of aggressiveness to the fight. And then suddenly they were both thrown to the floor by the combination of both their moves and locked in an embrace on the mats with Marten lying on top of her and holding her wrists on both sides of her head. Neither of them said a word. Only their exasperated panting echoed through the room but even that was lost to both of them as they found themselves starring at each other.

If someone had asked him later who it was that started kissing the other he wouldn't have been able to answer since he couldn't even remember. He just knew that suddenly they weren't fighting anymore but kissing each other madly and hard, all the while roaming the other's body with their hands and almost ripping apart their clothes. And he wasn't sure if he could have stopped himself even if he had wanted to. Neither was she.

When it was all over both were being completely still for just a moment and just starring at each other again. And just for the fraction of a second Marten saw something in her eyes he had never seen before – a strange mixture of fear, regret, hurt, pain and a strange and almost unbearably great sadness. It was over almost before he could quite put a name on it when she blinked and wordlessly disentangled herself from him, stood up and gathered her clothes as if she's just been in the shower. When she was done with dressing again she turned around and glanced briefly at him and he felt slightly uncomfortable and…vulnerable. Which turned into sheer devastation – if only for a second – when she said: "No need to apologize or fuss over it. After all, it was just sex." And with that she finally left him alone, sitting on the floor, feeling completely dumbfounded and confused and – he hated to admit that – heart-broken.

A/N: I truly and deeply apologized for the huge delay in updating but I have been suffering a major, major, major case of writers block which just loosened up yesterday. I just hope I can keep on updating a bit more frequently now.