Hoth: Blood and Ice

[I figure we can have a brief interaction first with Luth meeting up with Layne wanting to talk, and being told to either follow along or don't talk? Then jump cut to the ship]

Just past the hangar exit of Echo base

Layne's speeder was never particularly fast or great to handle. It was more style over function, and the Ortolans had ruined the style and done no favors to the functioning other than the fact it was now guaranteed to work as she needed it to in the extreme temperatures of this forsaken planet. The armor-clad Jedi; if she was even still allowed to call herself that; was busy making sure she had everything she needed in her backpack and the bike's storage compartment.

Double-checking and then triple-checking. Fully focused on the task, so she wouldn't have to think about what her actions had wrought.

Luth had been looking for Layne. She'd wanted to talk to her since the previous morning, but the opportunity hadn't come up. And now... "Heading out again already?"

Unless Luth had no ability whatsoever to sense the feelings of others through the Force, it would likely be *impossible* to find that the conflict she must've felled in Layne earlier that day had amplified a *great* deal since.

She looked up at the other, at the consequences of her past failures, and just stared for a few moments.

"...My ship is still out there. I have to go get it."

On the other end, Layne likely had sensed the conflicting emotions when she had met Luth the day before. Twisting, raw emotions, hate and fear, buried just beneath her calm surface like the glow of a hot coal under metal. It had cooled considerably. Her expression was unreadable behind the armor's helmet, but the closest thing to the surface was concern.

Luth nodded to the bike. "Mind if I go with?"

"Fine," she said, "Just be sure you keep up. I'm not equipped to rescue anyone."

She had the *equipment* for it, just not the right state of mind.

"You have five minutes to get packed before I leave without you."

"Maybe. I can handle myself," she agreed.

Syl's ship was in the hangar, so it didn't take long for her to retrieve what she needed. Her gun was strapped across her back. It hadn't changed, despite everything else that had. The same one she had on Bankor. A little more scratched and worn, but generally well maintained. "Ready."

She nodded, and they'd set off into the wastes again; where she seems to have been spending most of her time since coming to this planet.

the scene wipes away, into a new one; the two bikes nearing the crashed Sunset Dawn

How had it taken her so long to get from here to the base back when... gods, was it really only yesterday? It felt like so much had happened since then. So much *had* happened. She didn't want to dwell on it. On any of it. What she'd done to Daz. Those visions.

She stopped her bike as close as she could get, expecting that Luth would do the same. They'd probably have to get inside first; see to it the power is properly running; before they could park their bikes in the cramped hangar of the freighter. Assuming it could even still fly.

"There she is... gonna have to take care of the bodies inside first..."

She'd almost forgotten about them. They'd appeared to her to have died on impact. In reality of course, they had only been unsconscious. Or maybe *she* had been delirious and just, missed them altogether. Well, she was soon to find out. Perhaps even get a hint of it in the approach, depending on whether or not the weather had obscured any tracks besides her own that led away from the ship.

"Got it. I'll follow your lead," she agreed, watching Layne carefully. It really was impossible to miss how difficult of a time she was having. She wanted to talk to her... maybe it would help or maybe not. But it would definitely wait until after a sad and grisly task like that.

She headed inside in silence, Luth in tow. The other woman would probably get the sense the ship had been a mess even before the crash. Junk everywhere... and... stray pieces of wrapped hard candy too for some reason. Maybe even an overturned painting somewhere that had been stowed away before coming loose during the descent.

Hangar bay first, and then a hallway... slowly making their way to the cockpit; which might be a bit difficult since the ship probably wasn't in a flat perfectly horizontal orientation. Might take a bit of time and athleticism to make it up there.

"So..." she said, as they "...you were lying to me on Bankor after all. About which side you were on."

Classic Layne... blunt as always. Even now. Maybe *especially* now.

"Yes. One of many mistakes," she admitted. "You were right... If you think you've gotten away with something with Baras, you haven't. I told you about the mission against him, and he caught up with me aftward."

She picked her way over the debris carefully.

"I should've forced the truth out of you then. I should've listened to my instincts," she said, her voice nearly as cold as the air itself. Life support had gone offline, it seemed.

"And then you took my place as his apprentice, I suppose. Know that he will use and discard you eventually, like he does all his tools."

"... It's a slightly different place, but I'm well aware. I've had a long time to observe his methods."

"I don't think you made a mistake. You offered help, and I should have taken it," she replied with a shake of her head. "I knew he would come for them if I did, and I was too controlled by my fear to believe in the people I cared about. Not being willing to make the bet of trust was my mistake."

"Fear isolates you, and anger and hatred is just..." She grabbed a bar to pry open a door that had gotten warped and stuck in the crash. "... security theater."

"No, it *was* a mistake not listening to my instincts. It doesn't matter what *you* could or could not have done. *I* could've done something instead. And I don't intend on ignoring my instincts again."

She stayed quiet on the topic of anger and hate, and instead continued to move forward and toward the cockpit, relying on physical strength rather than tools to make it past any obstacles.

"Was it your instincts or your fear that I was a turncoat?" She asked as she followed along carefully.

"It didn't make sense. You showing up, right after I had that connection with Baras when meditating. Didn't make sense that he'd let you walk free after the smuggler moon either. None of what you were saying lined up either. You threw up so many red flags, and I just chose to *ignore* them all because a Jedi's supposed to not jump to conclusions, and I was doing a lot of that already on Bankor, *with others.* "

She sighed, remembering her suspicions of what would turn out to be Zash.

"Of course, I was right about you, and I was right about those others. And I did nothing about any of it. And people paid the price for that."

She nodded as she listened. "How would you approach a problem like that now?"

"Like I said, I would trust my instincts. I wouldn't..."

...Shouldn't...

"...just wait and see. The other I mentioned? Well, I would've probably failed regardless. But you? As you were back then, would've been easy. I don't know what Baras has taught you since then, but I'm confident I would've been able to subdue you if I had to. Force you to tell me what hold he had over you, because I'm guessing there was *something* he held over you."

She shrugged. "What'd come after that would depend on what we'd uncover. We might've found some way to resolve whatever he held over you, in your favor, if only I hadn't walked away that day."

Or maybe it'd still just be ruled by uncertainty...

"It was safety of others. Niall, Arali, Sylvain, anyone I was close to. He had an extensively network in both areas... I didn't know how much of one then, but you know how it is with Baras. I made a mistake. I figured back then he'd pull the trigger if I got caught and talked."

"He might've," she said, "I thought the same, once. But his influence only stretches so far, and as he told me earlier today, he doesn't really plan everything out the way he lets his enemies fear he does."

A brief pause as she moved further up.

"Though, that may have just been another lie. I was instrumental to the plans that helped propel him into prominence, after all. Even if he does not plan for everything, the plans he *did* make reached rather far."

And then, one final climb and door, and then she moved ahead of Luth and into the cockpit... to find...

It is empty with a note saying they would try for the beacon.

"Yeah. I've learned a lot dince then. He's good at cultivating paranoia, though, and fear controls people," she observed. "Wind someone up and point them in the right direction and they'll jump off a cliff themselves."

She looked down at the note, then over at Layne. "Looks like your crew survived, or at least got out of the ship okay."

She let out a strained chuckle at the discovery. They were alive after all? *Were* anyway. They had not made it back to base after all, so they had to be dead now, after all. Because of her.

This was... well... an appropriate reminder of what an asshole she was, wasn't it? Didn't even do her due diligence to check they had *actually* been dead instead of unconscious. What the hell was she even doing? Plunging herself into darkness to save the light in others? *This* had happened before she could even have conceived she'd be called to make that choice.

THe darkness had always been there, after all, it seems. Never fully discarded.

Layne slammed a fist into the control panel displaying the message and screamed.

Luth was taken aback at first, stepping back a little. Wouldn't someonenormallybe happy that they were alive? But... Layne... The emotion in the air was palpable.

And wasn't it a familiar enemy?

She knew this feeling. She had lived with it for so very long. Still luved with it, always under the surface. It was something she should be encouraging in her Republic counterparts. She couldn't, though. The pain was too familiar.

She couldn't help, though, either, despite knowing the spiral of self-recrimination thoroughly. She was a Sith and an enemy and maybe an embodiment of the failures Layne seemed obsessed with. So she stood back, for now. Let her get it out.

The rage-filled scream faded, leaving; for a time; only silence to fill the cockpit, as she stood there, staring out into the snow-bound world outside.

Finally, she spoke, though her eyes remained focused on some distant point on the horizon. "...Tell me more of Baras. And the Empire."

"You know the latter better than I do... and possibly the former." Why did that annoy her? Luth was definitely among the top of Baras' hatedom. A question to think about another time. "What do you want to know?"