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It was early afternoon as troves of guests were trickling in to the event of the year. The lavish birthday party of the boy-who-supposedly-had vanquished-the dark lord. The vast gardens, enclosed by a high fence and beech hedges was adorned with colourful garlands and other barely visible chains of light which would spend light after sundown. Just as Harriet had predicted her family had not yet acknowledged her birthday and she had set out to complete several tasks to ensure that her parents would never forget that it also was her birthday as well. Furthermore, Sirius had transformed into his other persona Padfoot to greet the unsuspecting children and their families and had left his wand behind on the kitchen counter. Suffice to say, that the wand was not there anymore as Harriet had seen her chance to perfect her pranks.
She rounded her corner and saw how Sirius was kissing and cuddling Amelia Bones in his dog form and seemed to enjoy it immensely, while Remus was standing uncomfortably in the doorway without knowing what to do as he could not give his friend away to a fellow colleague.
"I had no idea that the Potters had such a lovely dog." She gushed partially squatted down and laughed as the large black dog was happily rubbing his head against the woman's chest.
"That's no…" Harriet started yet stopped as she suddenly got a brilliant idea.
"Oh, yes he is quite a lovely dog." She concurred, and Sirius happily barked at her as if speaking in agreement. "But…" she answered staring her godfather in the eyes with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "We've been meaning to de-sex him actually as he is quite randy and jumps anything that moves. You wouldn't know the spell for that, would you?"
Sirius howled and crawled backwards from Ms. Bones and away from Harriet with his tail between his legs as fast as he could, throwing a quick look at his friend standing in the doorway, who was coughing and hiding a grin behind his hand.
"Sure, I do. Yes, I see castration really is better for some dog breeds." Amelia concurred turning towards Sirius was now desperately twisting and turning to get out of the room without losing his precious parts or revealing that he was an unregistered Animagus. He could lose his job for that and serve time in Azkaban and Remus seemed to enjoy his predicament just as well.
"Perhaps we should ask Lily first if they still want to de-sex their dog?" Remus finally cut in freeing his friend from the delicate situation and Amelia nodded.
"Of course. I wouldn't do anything to their lovely doggy without her permission."
"Lily, we have a problem." James rushed back into the house and addressed his busy wife as Sirius was desperately looking for his wand and Remus was playing a round of chess at the kitchen table. He had observed that this birthday Harriet had not evaded her parents and mad sure that she was present, but nobody of her family had addressed her. Neither her parents, nor her brother and Sirius had scolded her to never repeat something like earlier again, but she had just told him, that she won't promise him anything. Especially as the day was not yet over. The way she had phrased it with a specific intonation made Remus shiver as she seemed to have planned something and as she saw her dishevelled father enter the kitchen, her face was far to smug.
"What do you mean with: We have a problem." Lily asked him, huffing annoyed.
He uncomfortably scratched his hair. "Ahm, yes, well, see, ahm. Something with the invitations must have gone wrong. We have about 50 more guests than anticipated and you're not going to like who they are."
"Alright, I bite." Lily said facing him. "Did they have invitations?"
"They did. I checked it myself." James answered angrily. "But we now have former death eaters and their spawns attending our party and they could influence Alexander. I really don't know how they could get invitations."
"That's not good, but we can't risk an incident. That would be bad press." Lily tried to rationalize wiping sweat of her front.
Remus listened in to their conversation and observed his godchild further who seemed to do the same and her smirk was worrisome.
"Queen takes knight. Checkmate." She ordered the piece and Remus blinked. She had just beaten him in just four moves. Maybe he should let her play against the Weasleys' youngest male, who was known to be quite well at that game. While he mentally checked her moves again she turned around and addressed her parents, who turned around in surprise.
"Well, if you two could just stop squabbling like little children, then you might be able to turn this situation into an advantage. But it seems that you are too Gryffindor to actually realize it."
"Did you create this mess?" James asked her to step closer to her, but she did not flinch.
"How would I have been able to accomplish that?" she asked innocently clasping her fingertips together. Too innocently, Remus realized.
"I don't know your guest list and quite frankly you never cared about me having birthday too. So why should I care about Alexander's huge party."
"Well, he vanquished Voldemort, therefore he is entitled to have one." James defended himself, but Lily seemed a bit more pensive.
"Says who? Dumbledore?" Harriet shot back jumping on her feet. "The meddlesome old fool, who loves to stick his overly large nose in other people's lives without caring about the devastation he's creating? Why is nobody questioning that loon?"
"Harry, that's enough." Lily ordered trying to silence her daughter, but she was not finished.
"No, mother." She spat. "I'm not finished. Why does his brother Aberforth hate him? Why and how did his sister die and what was his connection to Grindelwald before he duelled with him? Nobody knows, and nobody seems to care and yet you have corpses plastering his past."
Her parents frowned at her. "What in merlin's name are you talking about?" James asked her accusingly. "How can you even think about smearing his name? Do you have no shame?"
She pointed his index finger at him. "You do realize that you sound like a member of a sect or brainwashed individuals. For your information. Dumbledore is acting outside of Muggle or Wizarding Law, which makes him a criminal."
"Harriet, the ministry is corrupt. You wouldn't understand." Lily cut in, but her daughter only rose her eyebrow.
"Then why are you not doing anything? It's peace time, isn't it? Yet, you sit here complaining and whining about the ministry being corrupt, when you comfortably sit on your backsides without even trying to change it."
"The discussion is over!" Lily stopped her. "Now, behave and don't make a mess of Alexander's party."
Harriet scowled. "So, it's Alexander's party. Not partially mine?"
"No, your father explained why, earlier." Lily huffed, and Remus winced. Did they not realize what they were doing to their daughter? And he remembered her threat from the day before.
"Well, enjoy the festivities." She grinned sheepishly adding. "as long as you can" and swept out of the kitchen with Sirius wand hidden in her pocket and she could vaguely hear that Remus tried to reason with her parents on her behalf.
Remus observed his godchild during the games of the parties and he didn't like what he was seeing. She was mostly ignored, laughed at or harassed by her brother and his friends and once or twice he had intervened to the annoyance of Sirius, who had not seen the entire picture. But now she was closely interacting with potentially dangerous families and it seemed that the Malfoy's and especially their son had taken a liking to her. He had used his better hearing to eavesdrop on her and he was surprised that she was talking about private libraries and … Hogwarts with them. So far, there was nothing dangerous about their conversation.
"But you're the chair of the board of directors. So, it is possible to skip years?" she asked, and Remus finally realized why she had invited them. All the unexpected guests where somehow connected to one of the school governors. He chided himself for mentioning them the day before as it seemed that she had invited them last minute. But to what end? Was she really that desperate to not go to Hogwarts? She could always go to a different wizarding school. Had Narcissa Malfoy just invited her to visit her and her son? They did not waste any time drawing his godchild to their side. He needed to step in or the entire situation could become dangerous for her. Malfoy's son, which seemed to be the same age as Harriet, pulled on his father's sleeve and asked if he could go and get some of the birthday cake and just as his father was about to nod, Harriet cut in warning him to not eat it.
When Lucius enquired why, she just shrugged her shoulders and murmured that her brother had one coming for being mean to her.
Remus breath hitched. Had she spiked the cake with something? Was that why she had spent so much time in the kitchen, which was quite unusual for her when her family was in there as well.
"We appreciate the warning." Lucius Malfoy had smirked and locked eyes with his wife. "Are there any deserts which are safe to eat?"
"Naturally, only the birthday cake is riddle but the muffins and the brownies are safe to eat." She informed them and Narcissa enquired again. "Riddled?"
Remus looked to the buffet table and saw the horde of children minus Luna Lovegood, who was strangely dancing with her hands beside her head as if in trance gorging themselves with the cake until…
Suddenly a child screamed out in terror and began spitting the food on the grass. The screams quickly grew more desperate and horrified, some of the children were whimpering and the adults were rushing to the scene seeing what the problem was. Chocolate cake with red and golden icing on it was suddenly riddled with long, thick, long brown worms, bugs and maggots which where trying to escape the six-storey cake.
Lily and James where flabbergasted as they could not explain what just had happened and tried to do damage control, but the other children stayed clear of any other food.
Alexander, however broke into tears and Harriet felt a tiny bit of shame, but only a tiny little bit. Alright, maybe she had been a bit too mean. Especially, as he suddenly turned around and turned towards her as she stood relaxed and observed the entire drama with happy eyes.
"Harriet!" her father angrily thundered. "What have you done!"
"Ah, now you realize that I'm here too, father. Well done. Took you long enough." She responded mockingly smirking at him as his face turned into an angry shade of red.
"You accuse me of doing that, but do you have any prove? How should I have done that? I was nowhere near that bloody cake and you told me not to touch anything of Alexander's."
"Stop making a scene and go to your room." Her father ordered ignoring her protests, while Lily tried to do damage control and vanquished the cake to the kitchen, checked the other sweets and apologized to the guests and asked the children to take some of the other sweets.
"Alright, father." Harriet smirked. "but this day is not yet over. Perhaps you and mother should reflect on your behaviour otherwise there could be more surprises in store for you and Alexander and you know how much he loves surprises. Aut inveniam viam aut faciam. (=I shall either find a way or make one.)."
"What did you just say?" James asked stunned. "Did you just threaten me?"
"Do keep up, father. It's Latin." She answered him. "It's a promise." With that she turned and strolled back towards the house and knew that the worst scare was yet to come.
Harry had just been relieved of her very long and uneventful shift on the bridge, but she could not help but wonder if the shift had seemed this long because she hadn't slept the last two days due to several things: Keeping Baila alive and collecting evidence. So far, she had been able to keep Baila from killing herself, but she also checked on her before and after her shift. She had long talks with her and had made the other woman promise that she would not try anything to harm her before she had not talked with her.
Baila Panaká, was her full name and she was a native of the planet Naboo. The planet Emperor Palpatine was from and naturally her parents were apparently very loyal to him. Baila had told her that her father used to be in Naboo's defence force and her mother Sabé used to serve as a handmaiden to the apparently most beloved queen their planet had ever had. Her family from her mother's side even had very distant relations with her apparently. But Baila had never been able to meet their ambitious standards although she apparently looked rather alike their role model. They had wanted her to get into the much-coveted places of serving as apprentice legislators, but after her uncle's gruesome murder at the hands of a partisan group answering to Saw Guerrera, the seats had been grabbed by more powerful families.
When her father had come under scrutiny for supposed bribery, her family had forced her to change her career path and to serve the empire as a lowly technician to prove their family's loyalty to the empire. Baila had never wanted to serve the empire in such a function and Harry could see why. The other girl was rather clever and sensitive, and she reminded her much of her cousin. The other woman's self-esteem had already been rather low and with the constant harassment of her superior officers she had finally snapped but Harry worked very hard to get her away from her suicidal thoughts and she had even warned the person who had interfered and almost botched her attempts to save the young Nubian, that if he ever interfered with her again, then he would regret it. He was probably nursing a sore throat and blue bruises now and would remember to keep his mouth shut the next time she tried to save another suicidal and there were bound to be some more.
Thrawn's office:
"Agent Colburn is very close to putting Midshipman Potter back in the brick." Eli Vanto informed the blue skinned Chiss while entering his office.
"Really?" Thrawn asked amused. "Why?"
"She openly attacked another Midshipman from the technical engineering division. But the reasons for this are still unclear. Agent Colburn is investigating and questioning witnesses. As the cantina was quite full there are quite a few."
"Did you see the altercation?" Thrawn asked with mild curiosity.
"No Sir, I didn't" Vanto answered sighing. "But she certainly has managed to be the talk among her peers. Some say that she is a lost cause as it happens among some conscripts, who are unable to come to terms with their imperial service."
"Do you believe her to be a lost cause?" Thrawn asked him and Vanto suspected that the Chiss was testing him again.
"I honestly don't know, Sir." He told him. "She seems rather angry sometimes even though she tries to hide it, questions everything, shows contempt to her superior officers from what I have observed and if her speed at picking up Sy Bisti is any indication she is rather intelligent. Conscripts are usually only angry in the beginning of their service until they realize that there is no way out and come to terms with it, but she seems to not have progressed to that point."
"I agree." Thrawn nodded. "She is rather unusual. Very stubborn. I saw that you assigned her additional reading material on history and clone wars battles. Did you find her knowledge insufficient?"
"I did, but that's where the fierce discussions started. She handles the assigned history with disdain as she believes it to be flawed and incorrect. Well, she did not phrase it directly like that, but told me that history is always written by the winning side of a war, which means to her that it doesn't necessarily have to be the truth."
"Interesting." Thrawn murmured more to himself.
"And she named a least six 'plotholes' in the empire's historical narrative but insinuated that there were more. She is walking a very fine line between argumentation and insubordination." Vanto answered. "But she certainly is trouble."
"Yet, there is nothing in her file that suggest that she would attack a fellow officer without reason." Thrawn pointed out opening her file. "The first time she attacked one was in self-defence and in closed quarters. Attacking someone in open in the cantina is something else. She has dozens of witnesses and countless officers and as you pointed out earlier, will be this weeks gossip on the ship. If she knew who she wanted to attack, then why did she choose to do so at such a public location?"
"I hadn't considered that." Vanto admitted. "You think she choose to do this in the cantina. Did she want to make a statement?" Vanto doubted that she could make a statement or was it a warning, that she was not someone to mess with. He had seen his fair share of bullying during their time in the Royal Academy. Especially towards Thrawn, but she was a conscripted Midshipman. Why would she make a statement like that? Especially, as it was bound to get her in trouble.
"Perhaps." Thrawn answered. "Agent Colburn will report his findings in a few hours."
Together with a very exhausted Baila, Harry was returning from the training deck where she had sparred and jogged with her to get her mind of committing suicide. But Harry suspected that Baila's exhaustion was also partially physical. Like her, she hadn't seen natural sun or a solar cabin for some time and as Baila had been assigned to this destroyer longer than her, chances where high that her Vitamin D levels were nearly depleted. When she had dragged her to the infirmary the staff tried to send them away. So, she had angrily, with gritted teeth, resorted to the imperius curse to get her way and was lucky that it had worked. Baila's extensive blood test would still take one rotation, but at least she would have something else in her hands that she would be able to present when the time came, and questions were being asked and they were probably being asked after what she had done. She was collecting evidence, which had meant that she has sliced for information about the other conscripts that had chosen to leave their life and stored the information on an extra data disc.
Just as they stepped out of the turbolift they were stopped by a stormtrooper without his uniform, which Harry recognized as Colin Creevey.
"Potter, I was just looking for you." He panted. "We need your help."
Baila shifted uncomfortably next to her and Harry didn't really want to leave her alone right now.
"Why? What's wrong?" She enquired wanting to finally to get to the shower after her workout.
We, ahm, there are two troopers in our squad, who just tried to off themselves and we stopped them just in time, but Neville figured that we would need you to help them.
Harry's breath hitched. It seemed that her little demonstration had worked or at least Longbottom was clever enough to understand what it had meant. She collected herself and turned towards Baila.
"I need to go for some time. Will you be alright without me? I'm going to check on you later, is that alright for you." Baila hesitantly nodded and turned towards the direction of her bunk.
"Please remember your promise." Harry added and Baila turned back and nodded with a determined smile to reassure her new friend.
With that Harry took off following Colin down a level to the barracks of the Storm troopers.
"How exactly did you stop them?" she enquired.
"We stunned them, before they could do any more harm." Colin responded next to her.
"Were there any previous signs that they wanted to commit suicide?" she enquired but Colin shook his head. "Wouldn't know about that. They seemed fine."
"Do they have any other specialized weapons expertise, beyond blasters?" she enquired processing the information and mentally going through her list of what she could find when she met them.
"Don't know." Colin responded, and Harry gritted her teeth. He was quite unhelpful.
"Have the two already seen a lot of action in combat?" she enquired wondering if she had to consider PTSD in her calculations, which she would have difficulties dealing with as she had only studied it in theory, but never actually worked with people suffering from it.
"Yeah, they are the two oldest troopers in our squad and have seen some action." He responded and was further interrogated by her:
"Any particular behaviour from them, anger, insomnia, hallucinations, flashbacks?"
"Nope, not that I can recall." He answered as the turned around the corner and directed her towards two cots, where she saw two stormtroopers in training gear sit on one, with Longbottom and second one who seemed familiar to her standing protectively near them and seemed to protect them from several other troopers. It seemed that the entire squad was here. As they passed several groups of stormtroopers male and female and some relaxing on their cot there was some catcalling among some males, but Harry only shot them an annoyed look and proceeded to ignore them.
When she reached them she immediately saw that the two very certainly not alright.
"Thanks for coming." Longbottom told her. "I know it's difficult for you to see me, but…"
She stopped him with a dismissive gesture.
"Not here for you Longbottom. I'm here to help them and you are far too many around here, that I can talk to them properly. Might I suggest that you get out of hearing range?"
"We are not going anywhere. They are in my squad and therefore our responsibility." A broad shouldered dark-skinned man told her.
"And I respect that." Harry answered sensing that the man was truly worried for his comrades, but she needed space to talk to them. "But does any of you have any training in psychology or psychotherapy? I have a PHD from my planet and although the empire does note recognize it I know the procedures to working towards preventing it. They tried to commit suicide and you prevented it, which tells me that your squad is more committed to its members than all the others here on the Chimera and I will need your help later, but first I need to assess the situation by talking to them. Privately." She told him.. "Technically I should talk to them one after the other, but time is essence here."
"What's a PHD?" the man asked, and Longbottom explained. "It's the highest achievable rank in Universities, on our planet. Ahm … Universities are like academies, Sir."
Ups, the man was probably outranking her, but luckily, she was in the navy and he was in the army and the only thing he could do was complain about her behhaviour to her superior officer as she had not addressed him properly. But he seemed to be a bit more relaxed than her stuck up superiors.
He scrutinized her and nodded shortly. "Alright, give them some room." He ordered, and the group dispersed in several directions, but not further than just out of hearing range and Harry set down on the same cot opposite the two and set to work with them while hoping that none of the members of their squad was responsible for their state otherwise she could forget getting their help.
"You asked to see me, Grand Admiral." ISB Agent Colburn asked as he stepped into Thrawn's office.
He had spent much time interrogating witnesses about the incident and had not been happy about Thrawn's order to present his findings. He knew that he should be looking for more spice indicted officers in the fleet and this woman was beginning to grade on his nerves. She hadn't been long on this ship and this wild space chick was already threatening carefully administered order and he liked having everything in order. He had hoped to use her attack in the cantina to finally get her kicked out or court martialled, but he unfortunately he had investigated too well and had not enough evidence to convict her and he suspected that it would not come to that. Especially, as the Grand Admiral had invested in her future by letting her be trained by his personal aide.
"Yes, I'm most curious about the incident." Thrawn answered with Vanto at his side.
"Very well, Grand Admiral." The man answered and readied himself. "The incident was observed by no less than 587 individuals of various ranks and divisions. I've spoken to several witnesses, who were closest to the incident and they confirmed that Midshipman Potter attacked Midshipman Ponce by grabbing his throat from behind, forcing him to bend backwards onto one of the tables and apparently threatened him to kill him if he ever crossed her again. Until further investigation I was informed by other conscripts about an earlier incident, where Midshipman Potter prevented a person from jumping to her death. Midshipman Ponce apparently was one of two individuals encouraging the suicidal to jump. A few conscripts concurred that she thundered at them looking furious and had ordered them to silence."
Thrawn looked pensive and enquired. "The suicide was prevented?"
"Yes, Grand Admiral." The ISB agent answered with grinding his teeth. "We have identified the suicidal as Naboo Native Baila Panaká, a technician in the communication division. But we have also detected that somebody has issued a full and detailed blood analysis, yet we do not know who and why of her, but I suspect that Midshipman Potter is somehow behind it."
"It is not the standard test`?" Eli Vanto asked and the ISB agent shook his head. "No, it is not. It is a more detailed and far costlier one."
"Agent Colburn, do you know where Midshipman Potter is at the moment. I believe that it would be most useful if she were present during our conversation." Thrawn stated.
"I'll know in a moment." Agent Colburn told him, tapped something in his data pad and frowned.
"Is something wrong?" Vanto enquired.
"No, it's just unusual." He answered. Normally, at this time Midshipman Potter is on the barrack deck of her assigned cot, but she is currently one deck below with storm troopers. Apparently, there has been another suicidal incident involving two troopers, which was prevented.
"Very interesting." Thrawn commented and Vanto knew that the specific intonation which indicated that the Chiss would not let this go anytime soon.
She had spent another night without any sleep and was now very close to cracking herself. Both of the troopers, who had attempted to kill themselves where showing some signs of PTDS due to their exposure to severe violence. What made it even worse was that they had been on track to become death troopers, whatever that was, when one mission had gone awry and now plagued their memories.
She had worked hard to gain their trust or rather she had manipulated them to get their trust using shamelessly NLP techniques. They had eventually warmed up to her and trusted her well enough. All under the watchful eyes of his squad. They had confirmed that they had problems to get a good night's sleep because they were plagued by nightmares and flashbacks of what had happened on their mission.
One of the two also told her that he sometimes was unable to fire his rifle, because he could see his victims from that one mission looking at him accusingly. When she had carefully prodded what had happened on that mission she had bite her tangue a few times as she had been quite shocked. The empire had already committed one genocide and she was working for them at the moment. Her mental commitment and nausea against the empire grew with the ever more detailed growing narration. The two had been part of one of the squads that had been deployed to Lasan, where they had used T-7 ion disruptor rifles against the Lasad. It was hard to imagine that someone would create weapons which disintegrated organic beings' atom by atom, resulting in a slow, painful and excruciatingly grotesque death. No scratch that, of course they would. The empire was run by psychopaths and high functioning sociopaths. Of course, they would do that. If not even something worse. Although, she really wanted to cry for the lives lost on Lasan, she had to focus. But she wrestled with her conscience.
The two had just followed orders and taken part in the genocide and she really wanted them to suffer for taking part in these killings. They deserved to die, but it seemed that they were already haunted by the ghosts of their past. So, who was she to judge? She also was working for the empire at the moment. Still forced, but still, she was working for them. They had just followed orders and would probably have been shot if they hadn't complied. But did this redeem them? Some people would probably think so, but not her. It didn't redeem them in her eyes. They weren't conscripts. They had known what they had signed up for. They had known, that they would follow orders. But how would she truly react in a situation like that? She knew that she would rather consider her own death than being responsible for that. She only hoped that the empire would never force her in a situation like that.
She reminded herself, that she was not allowed to judge them in her current state. She needed to stay impartial if she were able to help them. But did she want to help them? She didn't, but as she listened to them she became aware of another lurking danger and knew that she had to help them to prevent their deaths and possibly many others. But if she would ever get the chance fleeing from her imperial service, knowing that the Dursley's would be safe, then she would try to find the -at the moment only rumoured-rebellion.
After talking with the two troopers she had shortly spoken to their squad leader and informed him that they definitely needed help and that they were unable to perform their duties in their current state. She couldn't send them to the med bay due to her low rank, but she suggested that for the time being they had to be confined there and with his permission she would visit them there and work further with them there, but she warned him that the two shouldn't be anywhere near their blasters or any other weapons. When he had asked her if they were mentally ill, she had informed them that they were not ill, but scarred. She told him that they would need help to stand on their own feet again, but she couldn't do that alone. Getting the two troopers permission she persuaded them that going to the med bay would be the best option and she would regularly come to visit them to help them get better and that they could count on her and their squad.
As it became time to get ready for her shift again she saw the squad leader take action and went back to her deck, checked on Baila, who had just woken up and murmured a cleaning spell to avoid the long way to the showers. Her hair had also grown a bit, but she surely could still hide it underneath her cap. She slipped into her jump suit and extended her small suitcase a bit to get some pepper up potion. She needed to function on her shift after all.
She closed the door of her locker and jumped shrieking and cursing as she came eye to eye with Thrawn's aide: Eli Vanto.
Harry quickly caught herself, put her feet together and squared her shoulders. How embarressing! Had he seen what she had done? She hoped not.
"Sir?" she addressed him and caught him smirking at her.
"Grand Admiral Thrawn requests your presence." He told her and gestured her to follow him which she did reluctantly. She was probably now walking to her doom and she realized that she would be late for her shift again if Thrawn was in his office and not on the bridge. Blasted!
Harry followed Commander Vanto with racing heart. What the hell would happen now? Why did the Grand Admiral want to speak with her? They stopped shortly in front of a guarded door and handed the stormtrooper commander their code cylinders. After that they entered an antechamber which to Harry's astonishment was sparsely decorated with several columns displaying, what seemed like … artwork, which was strategically illuminated.
She could spot two small obelisks, which were about a yard tall, a rather large horn, something that resembled a golden goblet with stone inlays. A small golden statue which looked like a planet with rings around it an inscription on the rings, but she could be mistaken. They passed something that looked like a broken hilt of a sword, but she had no idea if that really was what she assumed it to be. They passed two closed blast doors on the left and right and stopped next to something bulky that looked like a class 4 or 5 droid. Well, it looked mean.
Did the Grand Admiral collect trophies of those he besieged or was he just a collector, who loved to hoard treasures. She suddenly had to stop herself from snorting in amusement and bit her cheeks as she imagined a large blue dragon with glowing red eyes and smoking nostrils, hovering over masses of gold and artistic statues like the dragon Smaug from her favourite children's book.
"Something amusing?" Vanto asked and she bit her cheeks a bit harder not to give her away. How should she explain what she had just thought about their scary fleet commander?
"No, sir." She neutrally said shaking her head but swore that her voice was a bit higher pitched and the other man arched his eyebrow. It seemed that he was just as sharp as the Chiss commander, but let it go.
The door finally hissed open and she followed Vanto into the main office and stepped dead in her tracks. It was not what she had expected. It was still rather dull with grey being the only colour, but even in here she could spot some artworks. Before she could examine them further she remembered her place and scrambled to stand attention and realized that there was someone else in the room beside Vanto and the scary blue-skinned commander.
The ISB agent, she had encountered was also present. She gulped. That's not good. Not good at all.
"Midshipman Potter." Thrawn greeted her. "Thank you for coming."
As if I had any other chance.
"Do you know, why you are here?" he asked her.
She squared her shoulders and kept her hands behind her back. "I do not, Sir." She answered with steadier voice than she felt. "But I suspect it has something to do with my dispute with the other Midshipman in the cantina."
"Correct." Thrawn answered. "Agent Colburn's investigation indicated that the altercation followed a specific incident from hours earlier. Is that correct."
"It is." She confirmed nodding once.
"Please. Elaborate what that incident involving Crewman Baila Panaká was about." Thrawn ordered.
"Well," Harry started gathering her thoughts. She had to be careful not to get too much into detail, but still provide enough information. She took a deep breath and locked eyes with the glowing red ones.
"I spotted Baila Panaká sitting at the edge of her cot, with her blanket torn to pieces and woven to a sling. She was slightly trembling and almost ready to jump. But as she hadn't jumped at that time, I knew that I had still some time to get to her to prevent it. I addressed her and like many suicidals she tried to deter me from helping her, when suicidals really want to receive help. So, I slowly built up some rapport, but she edged closer to the edge and if she would have slipped, then she would have died. In order to prevent that, before I could reach her I made her promise that she could not do anything to herself until after she had talked to me. That promise still stands. I needed to talk with her to get her mind away from committing suicide and to make it easier for me I asked her to temporarily remove the sling. I could see that she was quarrelling with herself to comply with that. In that fleeting moment the other Midshipmen called out to her to jump already and his call followed a second. He would have rendered every rapport, I built with Crewman Panaká useless and it could have led to her death. I hadn't been able to reprimand him then in front of her or her trust would have been shattered, but I vowed that I would not let this go."
She breathed in anger and clenched her fists behind her back.
"So, you attacked him in the cantina for that." Agent Colburn asked with a slight snarl and Harry was close to rolling her eyes but stopped herself in the nick of time.
"He was there, I saw an opportunity and I took it." Harry answered calmly. "He probably won't do anything like that anytime soon. The second individual will also think twice at doing that again and it involuntarily served as demonstration that it was not acceptable to make fun of suicidals or trying to push them further to their death. And it prevented two more suicides."
"The two stormtroopers that are confined in the med bay?" Thrawn asked.
"Tell us, what makes them different to Crewman Panaká? You corroborated with commander Othello to have them confined, while you clearly observe her behaviour." Thrawn asked.
"Several things, Sir." Harry answered and realized that she somehow had slipped into her lecture mode, which had sometimes frustrated even her two best friends on Earth.
"First, the reasons for their suicides are different. The two troopers are suffering from what is known on my planet, as PTSD and means Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I don't know if the empire has similar concept or definition for it. It's not a mental illness, but a psychological wound that is triggered by a terrifying event and is often found in combat units. After talking to both troopers they confirmed that they display several symptoms of said disorder and won't be able to perform their duties if they do not get help. Furthermore, they still think about killing themselves and I can't help three people on my own and still perform my duties to the best of my abilities. Especially not, when there is no will or structure in the empire to prevent their needless deaths. Crewman Panaká's situation is easier to handle as she is depressed and willing to let someone help her. Additionally, I suspect that her depression is also partly due to physical reasons."
"What was the event that supposedly triggered this PTS thing?" Agent Colburn asked her, but Harry shook her head.
"PTSD" she corrected "That I cannot say." She had no idea if they had broken their confidentiality by telling her about Lasan and she had no desire to be shot or killed because she knew something that she wasn't supposed to know. But she strongly suspected that the empire wasn't keen on letting the rest of the galaxy find out about it.
"So, you don't know." Colburn huffed shaking his head, but it seemed that the other two weren't so easily fooled.
"It seems that Midshipman Potter is unsure if the information provided about this event is strictly confidential. Isn't that right?" He mused, and Harry's blood drained from her face as coldness was rushing down her body. Shit! I'm dead!
She quickly looked from an angry looking agent Colburn to the slightly smug Chiss and back, but couldn't immideately answer.
"Midshipman Potter." Thrawn prodded. "Isn't that right?"
"I'm neither negating nor confirming that, Sir." She tried to evade the question but Thrawn stopped her.
"But you just did." Yes, she did. But not verbally. Or did she?
"Do you have suggestions how the suicide incidents can be reduced?" He enquired locking his unsettling glowing red eyes with hers.
Just as she wanted to answer Agent Colburn cut in. "With all due respect, Grand Admiral. But should we really focus our resources on preventing these incidents. Yes, these incidents are unfortunate, but cutting out the weak only makes our forces stronger."
Harry clamped her teeth shut otherwise she was very tempted to give the ISB agent a piece of her mind and her hands had wandered from behind her back to her sides and had formed fists in anger. As she realized this she quickly put them behind her back. A motion that had unfortunately not gone unnoticed.
"You seem to strongly disagree with Agent Colburn." Thrawn asserted.
She nodded trying to get her burning anger under control again otherwise something would happen when she lost control. And the last thing she needed was some of Thrawn's treasured artefacts exploding inexplicably or lights flickering. The strange orb between the two lizard looking creatures seemed to be a likely candidate for explosion. Ok, lights flickering could probably be explained with power failure, if she was lucky.
"Permission to speak freely, Sir?" she asked her fleet commander and Thrawn answered. "Granted."
"Being suicidal, depressed or having PTSD has nothing to do with being weak. Everybody can have phases that bring us closer to suicidal thoughts. There are many external and internal influences that can cause it. The spectrum can be rather wide. If it is not treated by means necessary, it can cause suicide.
As for PTSD, it can happen to the strongest person and can't be cured. But with the right treatment those suffering from it can manage and work just as efficiantly as everybody else. What you also overlook is the way that people commit suicide. For the empire those suicides are just numbers, but what it tends to overlook is that statistically one suicide can cause further suicides as there are often correlations. Furthermore, the people finding the dead after successfully committing suicide can be traumatized further. When the suicide was public, like it would have been in Crewman Panaká's case it would have traumatized further individuals, which would then not have been able to perform their duties as well as they should have. And then there is the additional danger of extended suicide. At least on my planet it's called like that. I don't know if the empire has a definiton or a term for the same concept. "
"How can suicide be extended?" Colburn frowned at her. "The duration of how long it takes to neutralize oneself?"
"No." She shook her head. "Extended suicide is often committed by individuals, who consider their lives meaningless and want to do something that will be remembered. Meaning that they will try to take as many people into death with them as possible. This can easily be accomplished by anyone carrying or handling blasters or any other hazardous materials, which I believe we have in copious quantities on board. These suicides can be either well planned, in which case they can be spotted beforehand or they can be rather spontaneous which can cause devastating effects in case the individual decides to carry out his or her extended suicide in the middle of a battle."
"We do have mental evaluations." Colburn protested, but Harry nodded. "Yes, before somebody is assigned to a ship and, but mental states can change." And the empire is rather trigger happy instead of finding out the reason for things gone awry. She added mentally.
Thrawn pensively turned towards one of the artworks with one hand behind his back and one on his chin. A few seconds passed, and he turned again facing her again.
"Very well, Midshipman." He said approvingly. "You've made your case. I would like you to continue what you are doing, and I also ask you to find and identify the deficiencies of our current system and write a detailed report and also what steps should be taken to improve it. I need to inform you that this report will need to be impeccable as it will be forwarded to High Command. Commander Vanto will supervise your progress."
Harry gulped. Did Thrawn really let her write something as important as that? Does that mean he would actually listen to her suggestions? She would do her best to improve the conditions to prevent more suicides.
"Yes, Sir." She acknowledged. "Thank you, Sir."
"High Command, will not be pleased to get suggestions from a female wild space midshipman on how they should run their fleets." Vanto commented after the office door closed after Agent Colburn.
"They will listen to her when it is presented properly." Thrawn answered. "I find her arguments very convincing."
"They are" Vanto concurred and blinked as Thrawn used his globe interface to display several holo paintings.
"Tell me, Commander Vanto." He said. "Which common thread do these paintings have?"
Vanto sighed, stepped closer and scrutinized each in detail until he concluded. He did not recognize their origin, but suspected that Thrawn would shortly fill him in anyway.
"The styles are all different, indicating that they are from different cultures" he started and Thrawn nodded.
"Different cultures, yet the same planet." He informed him. "A very curious planet. What else, can you see?"
He scrutinized them again and then it hit him. All those individuals depicted in the paintings, murals and other means were holding either a large stick in one of their hands or a delicate one. One artwork on a vase showed two individuals holding their sticks against each other as if they were preparing for a fight holding swords, but he didn't see any sword. Only that stick. "They are all holding some sort of stick, ... or ... wood?" He answered.
"Exactly" Thrawn approved pulling Midshipman Potter's wooden stick from a hidden compartment of his desk and carefully laid it on it.
Very long chapter. Please be so kind and leave a small review for me. As I am learning for a major exam, I won't update during the next month. Next update will probably come around easter.