An Empire reaches across the infinite expanse of the stars, and plucks up a little lost sheep. He squirms. He struggles. He swings his needle of a sword. He changes nothing. He moves nothing. He does not move, save where the Empire moves him. His ribs, at an angle too sharp to maintain. His body, skipping across the desert. His thoughts, torn from his rattled head and left strewn on the sand with his blood. No more. No moving, now. They want him still, while they peel him open. They do not care to hear him scream. If his voice mattered, they would have sent someone who could listen. 

An assassin falls to the ground, and an Empire sighs in annoyance. What now? If she hadn’t wanted to breathe the poisoned air, she should have stood someplace else. Or tried not to breathe. Did she think of that? Did she think to put in a little effort, for once? Didn’t she realize how much trouble and expense they’d gone through, to strip away everything that couldn’t be useful? Good girls say ‘thank you’ when they receive a gift. Good girls get up. Get up. Get up. We took out all that could’ve held you back. Why did you decide to stop? Get up. Get [i]up.[/i]

A little lost sheep flops over on the wet dunes, coming to a halt beside his death. The toxic gas sends him coughing. The coughs break him anew. But inch by grasping inch, he pulls the remnants of his armor over his mouth; just enough of a barrier to let him breathe. Still, he watches her. He never stopped watching her. He couldn’t stop. Not then. Not now. Not when he has his answer, at last. Not when he sees, at last, who taught her to hurt like that.

Through the wool, through the fire in his flesh, one voice speaks against the omnipresent rumble of Empire:

“Your name…is Bella.”

And he is gone, snatched up at terminal velocity. 

Get up.

They’re escaping.

Get [i]up.[/i]