hadriel_logs | you keep dreaming and i'm scheming

Those words strike a thorn in Rey's expression.

"You know that's not the point. If people find out that the head of the fucking Guard is getting chummy with a guy who openly jumps on the opportunity to play personal hitman for genocidal synthetics, you can kiss any good faith people might have in you goodbye. Everything that you and others have worked for--" She waves a hand at the room. "--this? Is gone."

"Don't be ridiculous!"

She expects this from Doctor Sweets, not from Rey. Not from someone who ought to understand the line that Maketh knows they all must walk in this business. If an objective must be taken, then it must be taken. Sometimes the means are distasteful, but that doesn't make them any less necessary.

Of all the people here, Rey ought to understand that.

"I am utilizing an asset in order to ensure the survival of everyone under my protection." Maketh tightens her mouth into a sharp line. "I cannot build the weapon without him. Either we collaborate or we lose a potential resource. It is not complicated, Rey."

Rey has done her fair share of butting heads with Lance in recent history, but this is one matter that she is sure they wouldn't have differing opinions on.

"It isn't that simple, either." She doesn't want to fight, but she can't be complicit and support this, either. Maketh has to know that. "If that asset turns around and decides to work with those synthetics, or use that weapon you are working on to help them, then your 'protection' is going to ring pretty hollow over the corpses of everyone in the city! And don't you dare give me any 'ends justify the means' bullshit, because you know that isn't what this is about."

While no fan of the gods, Rey can get on the same page about one thing: The Null can go fuck themselves.

It's hard not to stand up and get in Rey's face then, to raise her voice and prove her wrong. Maketh knows these arguments. She had them all the time with her officers on Lothal. In some ways, the familiarity is almost a comfort. Maketh lifts her chin, defiant. "The Null have made threats, just as the gods have. Their means remain unproven. Hux is not a fool. He will survive, and you do not survive with untested allies."

Maketh has proven her use, and so Hux has no reason to see her dead or weakened. Not yet.

"The Null don't need to make good on their threats -- they're fucking synthetics. They're machines that don't give a damn about us. I've fought their kind before. Been killed by their kind on more than one occasion." Of course, she has been killed by humans as well, but she at least had more in common with them than a soulless automaton. "I hate the shit that the gods do, but you can't think that what you're doing is for everyone's protection. This is about you and your vendetta, and I can't..."

She stops. Shoulders slack. Maketh will thank her for this someday, won't she?

"I can't let you go down that road."

"...what?"

Of all the ways Maketh thought this conversation might go, this was not among them. She feels cheated for a moment, absurdly. When she saw Rey come in and greet her, Maketh had thought--

Well, it certainly doesn't matter what she thought.

"You can't let me go down that road? Really? What does that even mean?"

"It means that I was under the impression that you had established the Guard all that time ago to help people, not so that you could fool yourself into thinking that it's worth sacrificing them for some 'greater good', or to form fucked up alliances with someone willing to hand them all over to an even worse enemy."

Rey's jaw grits. She wants to stay calm, but all of the things Maketh had told her in the past start to come together. And she gets it -- she does. She wants to believe that Maketh did everything with the best intentions.

That tends to be where it all goes wrong, right?

"This city is not your Empire. You are not an officer of your Imperial Court. Those are the assholes who killed you because you were trying to do what you felt was right. Are you going to stand there and tell me that they were right all along? Is that where you're going?"

"How dare you!"Maketh snaps, rising to her feet. Her fists are clenched, eyes wide and furious. No one knows how hard she has worked better than Rey, what she's given to make the Guard work. "Everything I have done is for the good of the Guard!"

Edited 2017-11-16 20:35 (UTC)

"How dare me?" Rey spits. She can't help but throw herself onto her feet as well. Keep eye level with Maketh. "How can you seriously think that working with someone like that is going to be good for you, let alone anyone here? And since when has it just been about the Guard? You're supposed to be helping people -- that was supposed to be the whole point! Unless I'm wrong and that changed somewhere down the road since you started conspiring with a fucking maniac."

In which case, Henry was right in that Hux had been a worse influence on Maketh than Rey thought. But that was a given either way.

Edited 2017-11-16 21:12 (UTC)

"He is an asset to be utilized!" Maketh snaps, rising to her full height. She refuses to be cowed by Rey, who could - if she wanted - pick Maketh up and bodily carry her out of the room. "Why did you tell me about the weapon if I was not to use it?!"

She could. Hell, Rey rendered the whole city in flames at one point, even if it were by no choice of her own. She still did, she still could. But destruction won't solve this.

"Because things have changed since then. We know more now than we did back then, such as what will happen if you succeed. You kill the gods, everything dies. We die." Rey grits her teeth, hands clammy. This is going about as well as she expected it would. And yet there is one fear that lingers on Rey's mind. "You die -- or worse."

Maketh becoming the very thing she was trying not to would destroy her.

"We don't know that!" Maketh snaps. There isn't enough information, nothing has been proven. Only the enemy is clear and now that she has the means to strike, she fully intends to do so. The opportunity will come. And when she's ready, she means to take it. "And I am not concerned with dying."

How foolish. She's died many times already.

A flash of red blinds Rey's vision. A familiar echo of something Nick had told her flares across her mind.

Rather than targeting Maketh herself, Rey grabs the desk that's between them. Regardless of its weight, it might as well be light as the paperwork that's on top of it, as Rey flings the desk into the adjascent wall. It flips, landing sideways. A leg snaps off.

"IT FUCKING CONCERNS ME, ALL RIGHT?" she bellows, not caring about making a ruckus when she's already made a mess. "It concerns me if you're hurt, and it concerns me when you talk like people here are yours to dispose to people like him!"

Her breath is ragged, skin is scalding hot. She sees fire in her mind.

"As for your 'asset'..." Venom practically ebbs from the word, like it's a cosmic joke in itself. "I'll destroy him if you continue this. I won't just kill him. I'll keep killing him. I'll fucking bury the bastard if I have to. Lobotomy was your idea once, wasn't it? I'll do that. I can. Because I would give my fucking soul to keep that man from poisoning yours."

Rey's anger is visceral and sharp. The desk goes flying. Papers scatter and wood splinters against the wall. Maketh holds her ground, back perfectly straight, eyes narrowed tight and full of fury. But she holds. She stands her ground and doesn't give an inch. Inside she feels suddenly, utterly calm. The eye of the storm. Nothing at all can touch her.

"You are acting like a child," Maketh says, voice purposefully soft. "Of all these people, I thought you would understand what we face."

Instead she's arguing against Maketh's brutal, Imperial logic. So what if it came from the Empire? Their teachings made her strong and they have need of that strength, now.

"The general is useful. More so alive than not." Maketh narrows her eyes in warning. "More so than you have been, of late."

No. Not this. Rey knows what Maketh is doing -- what she's trying to do. And while anger might be a pointless effort, Rey has to let it burn before she can attempt to simmer it.

"A child throws tantrums. A child makes empty threats," Rey growls. "I do not make promises that I can't keep."

Just ask Rose. Or anyone, really. Shit, Maketh probably doesn't even need to ask.

She takes a step forward, and it's like moving through molten lava. Nothing Rey can't handle. "I trusted you with the information on that gun when obviously I shouldn't have. If I'd known that it would lead you to think more like him, to accept the ways of the people who fucking murdered you, I would take it back." Her eyes narrow. "That's my mistake. I'm just correcting it."

If it means she has to spend every waking moment making sure that Hux doesn't take another step towards Maketh again, of getting involved with the maser weapon, Rey would gladly make that choice.

Maketh lifts her chin, defiant. Rey wants to make good on her threats? "You can certainly try. But if you think General Skywalker will stand for that, then you're far more foolish than I thought."

She puts venom in her tone.

"Go ahead. See what happens."

"I don't give two tugs of a dog's cock what your General Skywalker thinks."

Rey stares at Maketh a moment. This is where she should throw her hands up, give up, storm out. Let Maketh see where her self-destructive path takes her.

Like she said herself, however. Things have changed.

"You are not fit to serve the Guard," she finally says, flatly. Voice hoarse from yelling, now that she's no longer raising Hell like before. The fires are embers and that's almost even worse. "It's obvious that you do not have the best interests of others in mind -- or, if you believe you do, then you're wrong."

Maketh wants to snarl something acidic out, point out that challenging Skywalker openly is beyond foolish. His retaliation will doubtless be swift and sustained. A tactician of his caliber won't have been standing idle, he'll have contingencies in place. And his reaction will be swift and viscous. She wants to yell at Rey, make her understand how foolish she's being, but the words die in her throat.

Instead she stares.

Rey's voice is almost empty.

"You...you would move against me."

It's not a question, despite Maketh's wide eyes. Rey isn't talking about challenging her. She's already done it.

"You would betray me."

Confidence isn't Rey's strong suit, but combat and war is. She might not be dealing with typical fighters here, but she's hardly typical herself.

Besides, what happens next is up to Maketh.

"No, you betrayed us. For all your intent to do good for the Guard, you forfeited your authority over it the second you chose to overlook your 'asset' being a threat to the people its members are supposed to protect, and I've no doubt that Nick and Henry will agree." Rather than being dominated by anger this time, Rey forces herself to maintain a neutral tone, her visage unchanging through her clenched teeth. "And I refuse to let you run this place like your fucking Empire by allowing people to die like pawns played to further your need to have an enemy. It's clear to me now that your judgment has been compromised and you pose a risk to the city. I don't want to do this, but you're giving me little choice."

After all, there are people in here worth protecting. Not all of them are affiliated with the Guard.

"You know nothing about command," Maketh hisses, fists clenched tight. If they fight right now, Rey will win. There's no question. There was never a question. "You are acting like a child--how dare you say that! I am a good officer!"

Despite Maketh's offensive approach, Rey does not falter. It wouldn't be the first time. If Maketh needs to blow off some steam, then that's what she'll do. Rey can't stop that.

"You say that, but your actions and goals do the exact opposite. I'm not the only one, either. Nick worries for you. As does Henry. People are doubting in your ability to make sound decisions that don't just reflect the very people you were trying so hard not to be."

Even if she doesn't believe Rey, the reality will come crashing down sooner than later.

"I am an officer of the Imperial Court!"

She's shouting this time, shaking with the rage of it.

"Get out of my sight."

There it is again. Those words. It's clear where this is leading, and Rey isn't budging.

"You're not. That's what I'm trying to tell you. You are Maketh Tua." Her jaw clenches. "And I am not your subordinate that you can talk to like that."

"I am an Officer of the Imperial Court!" She says it again. She'll say it as many times as it takes. Louder and louder until her voice cracks. Her hands are shaking and she forces them to lay still against her sides. Do your duty, soldier. And stand up straight, you are a disgrace to the officer corps. "I am an officer--!"

It's the sort of thing that Rey sees all the time. The programming that any human mind can be subjected to. This woman is a product of a militarized state and it shows.

"You are Maketh Tua," Rey interjects. And, against her better judgment, she takes Maketh tight by the arms. Trying to reach out to her in every way she can. "You are not a number, you're a person. And--"

Don't.

"--you're--"

Stop.

"You're the woman that I love," Rey snaps through the needles in her throat. "I will not lose you to this."

The way Maketh looked at her when she stepped into the room, how she spoke to her... It made her feel something that she never felt before. A fear of that warmth turning into cold hatred. And Rey can't stomach the thought of that. If it means swallowing her own greatest fear, she'll have to do that. One step at a time.

Edited 2017-11-18 03:52 (UTC)

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