Ask Biting The Hand That Feeds

[Trys Aran]

To say that Trys was furious was a gross understatement. She had only heard rumors about it, hadn’t talked to Velt herself, but even that was enough to enrage her. She had been working on some undercover ops in the lower district of Coruscant when she heard the whispers and ramblings about the conditions Velt had been given.

The seasoned Ranger wasted no time in quickly making her way back up towards HQ. She had come into prominence since going on Holonet and her various run ins with the Sith. With Onn, Rook, Coulter and others all gone, she was one of the last remaining vets on the force. She knew her days were numbered, especially as she had been in the Sith crosshairs before. However, she still had a voice, and she hoped to exercise it today.

Trys was pacing back and forth as she waited outside the Chief’s office. She had to temper her anger, knowing that screaming at the man would serve no purpose.

 

[Douglas Hudson]

Another day, another chance for Douglas to get another "strongly worded" piece of correspondence from the FWA senate.

The tone might change from time to time but the specifics of said correspondence never did - it was always about getting The Results and that was all they cared about. Off the back of another call with Naeva, Douglas sat in his office and tried to find his center again with a glass of ice water. Losing his temper did him no favors so, by and large, he didn't... ever really. He had learned a long time ago that it was better to have ice in your veins than fire in your belly.

A notification came up from his datapad and he glanced at it. Much as he might wish he could afford the luxury of a glass of water in peace after being lectured about budgets and The Results, he was in a position where he did not have that luxury. Seeing who was apparently waiting for him, Douglas raised an eyebrow slowly before lowering it once more and gulping down the last of his water.

Setting his glass down on the desk to one side, he rotated his chair to face the doors and pressed the button to allow them to slide open, the locks disengaging automatically. He didn't bother picking up any of his paperwork or booting up his terminal again - Aran was the kind of person who wouldn't bother reporting to him in such a manner without, what she believed, to be good cause.

He stared at her placidly over his desk.

"Lieutenant Aran." he greeted her, checking the calendar for a second, "I don't believe your most recent undercover operation's report is due for another two days."

Douglas didn't ask why she was here specifically because he wanted her to get to the point. She could be a blunt and straight forward woman and he would let her bring up her grievance however she wished. And yes, it was indeed a grievance. Trained, skilled and experienced as she might be, Douglas was all of those things as well and he could tell she was... agitated. To what extent he did not know - hence letting her 'shoot first' as it were.

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys carefully thought over her words, staring at the Chief. He looked as if he had aged a few decades. Ever since the HQ explosion, he hadn’t been the same. He had made a series of irrational decisions, his tenure was marked with inactivity and the Rangers were now contending with the ISC equivalent.

The veteran closed her eyes and exhaled soflty.

“I’m not here about the report, Chief,” She stated after a moment. Her tone was always a bit rough around the edges by nature, but the Chief had known her long enough to be unfazed by it, “I’m here because I strongly disagree with a decision you’ve made. Anyone else that would have said something about it is, quite frankly, dead,” Trys stated bluntly, “So here I am.”

She kept the rage out of her tone for now, but her face and posture were rigid, “Telling Velt to bring in a Sith Lord is completely unrealistic and suicidal. I say that as a survivor of a Sith onslaught, just as you are,” The Chief wouldn’t forget about an assault on his mind anytime soon, just as she never would. Her words hung like frost in the air, a chilling reminder of a shared experience for them both.

“What Velt did back at that prison regarding Coulter is what any good Ranger would have done. It’s what I would have done.”

There was a long pause before she spoke again, “He is being punished not because of actions he took,” Trys gave him a long, hard look, “But for the ones you never did.”

 

[Douglas Hudson]

No, she wasn't here for the report.

Neither of them had ever believed that she had been but that was just how these things went. He waited for her to get to the actual point and, as was her remit, she didn't disappoint. Leaning back in his chair ever so slightly, he watched as she marshalled her thoughts and cut right to the chase.

She disagreed with his handling of Velt.

"Velt lost two Sith Lords." he spoke eventually, his words measured in the face of Trys' anger because getting angry himself would accomplish nothing, "One through surrendering his weapons, ensuring he was in entirely no position to put up even token resistance when a Ranger under his command was executed and an asset lost. The other by doing nothing to actually secure the prisoner, allowing a leg-less man to crawl his way to freedom unhindered."

He rubbed at his beard slightly as he spoke.

"The surrender I could have understood - applauded, even - had it accomplished anything. It didn't." he eyed Trys, "It let the enemy walk away and left another Ranger dead. Because people like us, who have seen what the Sith do, know that you cannot negotiate with them. I can't promote a man who doesn't understand how the enemy works when doing so would mean he would be expected to lead Rangers against them. Not unless he could prove that he could actually do it."

For the first time in the meeting, Trys would be able to see a flash of emotion as Douglas hands twitched, almost closing into fists for a moment before he caught himself. Letting out a slow breath, Douglas looked away from Trys for a moment as he took a second or two to gather his composure again. Eventually he settled on pouring himself another glass of water from a flask he kept under his desk.

"Do you know what I spend my days doing, Aran?" he asked her, dropping rank for the moment as he spoke to her, "Do you know what I have to spend every, waking, moment doing instead of running down smugglers, killers and Sith like I would like to be doing?"

He wasn't going to answer for her, he wanted her to put herself in his shoes and then try and stand there and tell him that he had failed.

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys heard everything he said, and it did little to help her mood. This was a man defeated and broken. She understood him on many levels. And she also understood that this was all dangerous for a man that was tasked with leading the Rangers.

“What kind of message are you sending to the Rangers and those new graduates from the academy?” Trys asked after a while, not bothering to answer his question, “That they have to come out the gate knowing every little inner working of some magic wizards in the galaxy that you have no idea how they operate or what they can do? Velt went to Raze because Raze was the obvious threat. You knew Onn was never a fighter. It would have been Coulter and Velt against two Sith Lords.”

Trys shook her head, “Even with the mishap with the other Sith Lord, the mistakes go far deeper. Why were two Sith Lords put in the same facility to begin with? Why was Raze able to break in so easily if you and other Rangers are so well versed in how the Sith operate?”

She gritted her teeth as she spoke, “Because no one fucking knows how they operate,” Trys spat the words, “Not you, not me, no one.”

She stared at him for a while, “You are undoing everything Velt has put into the force, all the work he has done till now, all of it because he didn’t know how to execute everything perfectly in a scenario none of us would have predicted. What are you hoping to accomplish? Do you think you’ve inspired Velt to eagerly hunt down Sith Lords? Or have you simply laid out that the rank of Captain is only for suicidal lunatics.”

Trys crossed her arms over her chest, “It’s not my concern nor anyone else’s what you’ve spent all your time doing. What you need to spend that time doing is leading. No solidarity speeches, no inspirational press interviews. You need to invest in your best people. You need to invest in the ones that still give a fuck enough to do the right thing even if it means putting themselves in danger. You’ve given enough speeches. Isn't it about time you’ve executed on some of your own shpiels?”

 

[Douglas Hudson]

Douglas didn’t expect Rangers to automatically know how to fight Sith – contrary to the seemingly growing sentiment, he was no fool. Still, he let Trys have her spiel because she brought up good points that he wanted to bring up.

She wanted to know what message he wanted to send to the other Rangers?

“The message is simple; we have to try harder. Not complain to every other Ranger from here to Tattooine that you think your boss is being unfair as Velt has obviously been doing.” He shot back bluntly, “Velt could have done what we did to actually capture the Sith in the first place and put pressure on the Jedi to pull their weight but he wouldn’t. Because he’s a bigot and we all know it.”

Why were two Sith Lords put in the same facility?

Very similar reason as to why he didn’t have the time to go running across the Galaxy putting out fires like they so very clearly wanted him to do, standing shoulder to shoulder with the up and comers and giving them safer experiences. He knew they wanted him to and he wanted to be out there rather than where he was but there were good reasons why he couldn’t simply go out into the Galaxy and start acting the part of a gunslinger.

“He presided over the single biggest failure of the Rangers in a century. Is it fair for all the blame to be on his shoulders? Of course not. But it would be as soon as a promotion after such a kark up came out.” He argued back with that same raised eyebrow as before, “The rank of Captain needs to come with unflinching strength in the face of the worst odds because, make no mistake about it Aran, we face the worst odds. Every Captain came before Velt faced lesser odds because the threat is escalating – and many of them died. We need him to be made of the hardest steel and right now? He isn’t. He’s a poster boy, an ass-model or whatever the holonet is saying these days.”

Douglas did something he very rarely did and actually cracked a smile. It was sad and it was tired and it was bitter, though not toward Trys.

“Investing in my people is all I do.” He admitted, looking up to the ceiling feeling at least three decades older than he was, “The only reason you’re still allowed to exercise any police rights in the Colonies and Mid Rim is because I spend days in meetings with individual planets. Same with the rest of the space we’re allowed to police. And all because… we’re losing.”

He sat down in his chair and leaned forward on his desk.

“I literally cannot go back to those same delegates after explaining to them, time and time again, that we can beat back the tide and then explain to them how I have promoted Velt to a command position, second only to my own, after such a failing. These delegates don’t care that he has basically zero infractions or that his arrest rate for the usual criminal detritus is so high or even that no one could reasonably have done much better; all they care about is the flavor of the month, the biggest and scariest. And Velt was in command when we gave all our naysayers another blaster to shoot us with.”

The smile had faded by this point.

"Aran, you can believe I can do more and that I'm choosing, out of some kind of spite, not to but it isn't the case. Corellian Hells, you can keep believing it if you want but it won't change anything; we need a win. I would love Velt to hand us that win, to show me and every doubter that he's our man, that he can be the Captain we so desperately need to be." He stared her in the eyes, "That he can replace Roland - surpass him even. That he can surpass you. That we can count on him to lead us in battle against the Sith, a clear and present danger to every living Ranger and pretty much 80% of the known Galaxy. Right now?"

Douglas looked her dead in the eyes.

"Right now he's a man I'd love to have at my back when walking through the lower streets. But not the man I'd be happy having as the next person in command to take over when the next Sith Assassination attempt comes. When death actually manages to stick this time." he leaned back in his seat with a mild shrug, "Or when someone else decides to 'retire' me."

Douglas was not unaware that Aran was one of the most popular Rangers within the organisation and Velt was a close second after their recent spate of losses. The two of them were at odds with him and he was not best liked amongst the Rangers at this point. It wouldn't surprise him at all if one day he was surrounded by enemies who didn't bother trying to pretend they believed they were on the same side anymore.

@Sreeya