Sergeant Emras motioned for another round. The drinks took a minute to arrive, but Iscom had already started his before the sergeant spoke again.

"It is Badri," he said. Noticing the look Iscom gave him, he added, "My birth name, I mean. Badri Javaid Ravjanday."

"I'll make sure to get the right files next time," Iscom said with a mock salute. Badri set his own drink down and pulled a miniholo out from under the table. As he set the holo down, Iscom noticed something odd about his hand—no fingernails? How had he never noticed that before? Thinking about it, it became obvious. Left hand, so cybernetic. And of course you wouldn't notice when he's wearing gloves—but what about other times? The obvious answer was that he hid it. Hadn't he been carefully working around his cybernetics, keeping the full extent of them hidden from the rest of the team. And, since he had gotten his cybernetics less than a year ago... Bloody hell, I might be the first person he's ever told this too.

"Look, I don't know how to explain this, but I'll try my best." He spun the device around on the table, seemingly confirming Iscom's thoughts. "This," he said, lighting it up, "is me." An image of the sergeant floated above the table, presumably from his medical scans. It was a static replica, unmoving, unseeing.

"The easiest way for me to explain it, is, well, this," Badri said, dragging his hand through the image. It separated in two portions, neither of them entirely recognizable.

He gestured at the first one. It was more distinct than the second one, and Iscom could still make out the sergeant's face on the model. It was, for the most part, only his lower and left sides. There were bits and pieces that hung in the air that disturbed Iscom slightly, but it was still preferable to looking at the second image.

"This," Badri said, was it sadly? Iscom wasn't sure, "is a model of my cybernetics."

Which meant...

Iscom forced himself look at the second image. It actually wasn't as bad as his first glimpse had made it out to be. It was mostly the upper right portion, ending with a fairly clean cut starting about two thirds of the way across the sergeant's chest at the left shoulder and moving inward as it crossed his torso, ending halfway across his right leg. The head was what really had turned Iscom away. It was missing most of the skin, and a rather large portion of the back of its—his, really—skull, not to mention that the brain damage underneath was so bad that Iscom could see it, from relatively simple bruising to places where it seemed entire pieces had been destroyed completely. The right eye was the only thing still intact, mismatched with the empty left socket. Iscom couldn't shake the feeling that the eye was staring at him.

"This is what is left of my organic body," Badri said. Iscom could feel the real sergeant staring at him too. He struggled to find something to say.

All he managed to come up was with a lame, "You weren't kidding when you said you had a lot of cybernetics."

Badri laughed suddenly, a nervous, tension-snapping sort of laugh. "No, I wasn't."

Iscom looked back at the second image, trying to overlay the hologram with the real person sitting across from him. It was more difficult than he had guessed. "You said it was a crash?" Iscom asked.

"Yes," Badri said. Iscom didn't look away from the hologram. He wasn't quite ready to. "The team I was a part of, before this one, our ship was shot down on a mission. I... I'm the only one left."

At that, Iscom had to look up. The sergeant had shifted his gaze, however, looking at the same holo that Iscom was fixated on.

"I know it doesn't mean jack, but I'm sorry," Iscom said.

"It means a little," Badri said quietly, still not looking up. "It means enough that you haven't run away screaming yet."

It was Iscom's turn to laugh at the sudden snap of his nerves. He wasn't sure if it was the alcohol getting to him, or just the horror of the story. "To be honest, I can't say I've seen worse, because I haven't. Most people who take this much damage have the courtesy to bleed out and end their own misery before the doctors can get to them."

"It's kind of funny, actually," Badri said with a smile, "the ship that destroyed me also saved my life. When we crashed, a piece landed here," he said, tracing along the clean cut that marked the end of his body on the second holo, "but it stayed there. Several tons of burning metal falling from the sky, and one piece had the gall to cut me in half and then seal the damn wound shut."

There was a rather extended pause as Iscom tried to absorb this.

Kind of funny?...!

Oddly enough, there didn't seem to be an audible sound when Iscom felt his nerves not only snap, but shatter into a dozen disorientated pieces. That was just the last straw today.

"So let me get this straight," he eventually started. "You survived being literally cut in half only because—did you even survive?" He wasn't sure if he sounded as bewildered as he felt, but damn. What, just, what the hell?

"Not... exactly," the sergeant said, awkwardly looking at his own hands.

Iscom rubbed his forehead, trying to piece this together in his head. "So you died," he asked.

"That's a fair way to put it," Badri said evenly.

Iscom stared at him. "Fair?" he asked weakly. "Fair? I don't have any words to—I don't think there even are medical terms for what happened to you!"

Badri shrugged. Iscom choked. "I told you," said Badri, "I didn't choose it. It was one of those emergency-whatevers; no consent, informed or otherwise. No means to give consent, in my case," he added in defense of the doctors. "I wasn't fit to be conscious for two months after the initial crash."

Iscom downed the rest of his drink and rubbed his eyes. The hangover would be worth it tomorrow if it let him get through the rest of this conversation. "Bloody fucking hell," he whispered. On the verge of hysterical laugher, he asked, "How the hell do you live? I mean, how the hell are you alive, yeah, but damn. Emergency doctoral override..." he trailed off. No means to give consent. By the stars, his body was fucked to hell.

"I live because I saw the alternative," the sergeant said quietly. "And to be honest, it scared me."

"Of course it did," Iscom said, finding his drink empty as he brought it up to his mouth. He motioned for another. "I've seen it too. Alright, not that close, but close enough for my liking. In the past five years I've seen damn more than I would have liked. The last six months in particular," he added darkly, wishing his next drink would come faster.

Badri murmured agreement, draining the last of his own glass. "Last six months I've been cooped up in rehab. Learning how to work all these damn things," he gestured a little wildly at his face. "Walking, now, walking's a bitch. I got speaking started early, but anytime I tried to think about it the whole rig just shut down. Couldn't make sense of anything. Damn near drove me mad before I figured out that I just had to stop thinking in wordsand it would all come back."

"What do you have in there?" Iscom asked. He was starting to feel the alcohol getting to his head, but at this point the conversation might make more sense if he was drunk, so no real loss. "It's not a translator chip."

"Speech processor," said the sergeant. "Left temporal lobe biocomputer. Prosthetic mod, not an augment."

"Is that new? I've heard of it somewhere before, I'm sure, but I can't remember where." Iscom explained.

"Prototype," Badri said. "I think mine was the first installed. In someone who lived. Mostly."

Iscom snorted. "Mostly. What the hell have I gotten myself into?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about this," Badri said, with a gesture first at the holo, and then at himself. "I have to go to a specialist every six months for... a 'check up' of sorts. Next one will be in, oh, about three months," he said. "All you have to do is keep me alive until then."

"Again, with the not getting yourself blown up?" Iscom suggested.

Badri laughed, "Fine, fine, I'll try not to do it again. But for now, we should probably call it a night."

Which seemed like a rather unsubtle way to suggest that Badri was done talking about himself, but that was fair. He did just face the rather grueling task of explaining... this. Iscom wasn't sure if he would have been able to explain something this extensive or personal to anyone without drinking himself into unconsciousness. "I'm going to check on Yuo once more. You coming?" Iscom asked his CO.

"Of course," Badri said. Iscom wasn't sure if the offence was real or just drunken sarcasm. "To the hospital, then?"

"On your lead," Iscom said as he stood up, gesturing Badri to the door. The sergeant stood up shakily, and Iscom rushed to his side. "Whoa there," he said. "You sure about the visit? You just got out yourself."

"I'm fine," Badri insisted, pushing Iscom away. "It's just the damn alcohol messing with the nerve connections. I'll be fine once I get my footing."

"If you say so," Iscom relented, following him out the cantina.