While in transit...

[Keshani]

Kesh was really starting to hate long drives. At first the long drives were ok - a chance to think, relax, and watch the world go by.

But she felt so much like she was wasting time. And she felt confined in a way - stuck in a transport.

When she was a kid she had pretty much free run of wherever she could get to. Since then confinement had always equated to torment and torture and having to do things against her will.

Not that that's what she felt here.

She was completely here voluntarily.

In fact, there were those who probably would have preferred if she WEREN'T here and would have done a certain amount of things out of their way to make sure she didn't end up here.

But it was her choice.

She remembered the statue back on Alderaan that sparked her epiphone and her decision to come here. She thought about her reasons for doing so; the reasons she had given at that time, anyway.

They still held true. She still wanted to be here to make sure that others didn't have to go through everything that she had gone through, that they didn't have to go through anything that ANYONE was going through at the hands of the Empire. She hated the Empire with all of her heart and wanted to cause it harm.

She thought back to the statue on Alderaan again and her conversation with General Antilles. She wondered what it felt like to genuinely have peace as a motive; to have no hate or anger as a driving force; to just merely want to....co-exist.

She doubted she would ever truly be able to know that or understand it. Not after everything she had been through.

She watched the landscape whizz by. She had sat up front with Holler driving again. She usually sat in the back, but she had ran around and beat Grunt out for the "shotgun" seat and he had let her have it for once. Softy.

Her gaze turned to Holler as he drove and she watched him for a few moments.

"Hey Holler?" she asked, shifting her position a bit to sit up.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to and all, but I was just thinking and wondering....

"When you started doing military type stuff, or security type stuff, why did you want to do it?"

[GM Craig]

"Easy," he says. "I wanted to protect people. If the bad guys are shooting at me, then they're not shooting at anyone else."

[Keshani]

She frowned slightly. "But at what point in life did you decide that your life goal was go let yourself get hurt so others didn't have to? Like did you just wake up one day and decide you wanted to --" she stopped. to be a human punching bag was what she had been about to say but she thought better of it. "-protect others?" She finished instead somewhat lamely

[GM Craig]

He is quiet for a moment, and you notice Grunt lowers her eyes a moment before finding something to stare at out the window.

"I was pretty young, Snaps. Maybe thirteen? Might have been a little older. It's not a happy story. But I decided then that I was going to do what I could to protect people. So I signed up, as soon as I was old enough."

[Keshani]

She watched him for a minute in silence and then looked at Grunt for a moment too.

"Does like everyone have some sort of thing like that that prompted them to want to do this?"

She shrugged slightly realizing that what she said might not be taken the way she meant it.

"It's just....look, I know I'm far from one of you guys and all. But I...acquired....an intense hatred for the Empire because of things that they did and I guess I thought I was more the exception than the rule. And I guess a part of us non soldiery people tend to think soldiers do what they do just because I don't know...they take pleasure in it somehow?"

"That sounds really awful after getting to know you guys a bit.

"But I don't know..it seems more and more that maybe at least most people who are fighting in this war have like a personal reason to be here. I guess that's a bit...overwhelming...to think about."

[GM Craig]

He takes a breath. Grunt keeps looking out the window.

"The Empire had been hard on a lot of people, Snaps. A lot of lives have been ruined, in a lot of ways. People react to it differently. Some want revenge. Some want to protect people. Some want to overthrow a tyrant. Some just like fighting. Some people doing ti because their family, or they like the uniforms. There's a lot of reasons people pick up a gun and put on a uniform. But people do other things too - like become a hotshot tech specialist and help build a new outpost out in the middle of nowhere."

He smiles and glances at you.

[Keshani]

She giggled softly at his comment.

"I didn't 'become' a hotshot tech specialist, sir." (she emphasized the word "sir" in a silly, teasing/slightly sarcastic way), "I've always been one."

But then her face turned serious again.

"It's just....weird. Like, as a kid I didn't ever hear anything about the Empire doing bad things. I guess we were just in a buble on Bakura or something..."

She glanced over at Grunt, noting that she was still staring out the window pointedly.

"I'm.....I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about this anymore..."

[GM Craig]

She catches you looking at her, returns the look for a moment, then goes back to looking out the window.

'It's fine," she says.

[Keshani]

She felt kinda awful, feeling like she should say something, but not knowing what. She glanced at Holler, trying to ask with her expression what she should do, but she knew he was driving at might not even notice her look.

"How long have you all been together?" she asked feeling pretty lame with the question but feeling like she needed to say *something*

[GM Craig]

"Well, Me, Spitz and Screamer have been together the longest, 5 years or so. We signed up on Chandrilla and eventually found ourselves in the same infantry squad. from there we were recruited by Senator Mothma for a 'special assignment' she said - taking the fight to the Imps. That's where we met Peepers, Jacks, Hassle and Kicker. We did a few things here and there. Then Grunt joined us, oh, I guess that was about a year ago now."

[Keshani]

"That must be really......neat -- neat's a sucky word but I'm gonna use it anyway -- to like have been together so long."

In her mind, even though she has worked with these Specs for a bit now, she saw kinda a romantic view of the military - of guys living like brothers, like family - relying on each other and watching each other's backs and being kinda...happy....and content.

[GM Craig]

Holler nods. "Yeah, it makes a great team. But it's not all roses. Soldiers go where they're told, so there's three others that came with us from Chandrilla who we haven't seen since leaving. And over the course of missions, we've lost people too. Not every fight is clean. People get hurt, and people die. That doesn't diminish why we do what we do, and I wouldn't trade the experience or the memories of them for anything. But there's pain in loosing a companion you've shed blood beside for years."

[Keshani]

She let the silence kinda settle for a few moments, watching the trees and hills go by around them but then it was too much. She turned and narrowed her eyes playfully.

"And all you big strong soldier folk don't mind being stuck here babysitting us techs?"

[GM Craig]

He smiles. "No way I could do what you do. I can't bring water to the camp for several hundred people. No way I could organize a frackin droid work party. And truth be told, I'd have gunned down that charging Dantarii, and likely precipitated a bloodbath. If me doing what I do, lets you do what you do, then I have no problem with it at all." He snickers. "Besides, this assignment was been way more exciting that I expected."

[Keshani]

"Oh, do tell." she smirked back at him.

"Am I providing you with enough entertainment then?"