Tyger Tyger
The Clinging Fire
It had happened in Quantill City on Ando, but Milo had come to find that, really, it could have been anywhere.
One Milo Nox, TIE Pilot, attached to a bombing raid on behalf of the Sith Empire. They were to free Ando from the Republic. They were to ingratiate to the ethnic group of their political preference. With the heavy-influence of the Sith at the time, they would have likely developed a Sith government and turned the people into caricatures of themselves, after deracinating them from their culture, from each other.
But all that wasn’t Milo’s concern. He was to “liberate” the Aqualish from their “progressive” Republic overlords and their particular brand of monoculture. He didn’t really buy into all the propaganda reveling in his prospective heroism, no, but, the loyalty, the fidelity, the honor. The code, the duty. Why not? He had paid for it. There was too much sunken debt to give up on the Empire now.
His bomber was shot down at the edge of the atoll, his bringing it down along the beachhead probably the only thing that kept his engines from exploding on impact. Salt water licking razor blades into fresh, open wounds, he lay behind the cover and concealment offered by his wreckage, G.I. blaster pistol in hand, clutched desperately as though it were a religious artifact.
The Republic Ground Forces were coming for him. Issuing terms of surrender by artillery-based loudspeakers, messages betrayed instantly by blaster fire streaming overhead, melting into the TIE frame.
From behind his cover, Milo poked his head out. To find some measure of how screwed he really was. Oh, and he was. But what sank in were the Aqualish sitting on their apartment balconies, watching the whole thing unfold like it were a holovision program. Their eyes, black and listless.
He specifically remembers a woman, stepping out to the edge and shaking hair fibers and dust from her vinyl carpet. As though the dust even mattered. As though there wasn’t a war going on just outside her peripheral vision.
He remembered how his blood boiled in his veins, how suddenly he remembered and bought into every ounce of propaganda. His outrage that the Empire was wasting its resources saving such ingrates, these subhumans. He called them every slur he knew, about spiders and monkeys and fish. He even made some up. How could their basic humanity not compel them to action?
Easy. They weren’t human at all. Of course. That must be it.
It wasn’t until he had become Tyger Tyger that he understood; forgave them, in the only way that he could.
While this was unique to him, they saw it every day. His horror was their lives. His plight wasn’t even entertaining anymore.
He found it curious that such blind hatred could only be borne of this innocence. The entitlements of a life lived in security.
Not 15 minutes later, his flight group would return for him with a second bomber run and rip the infrastructure in half.
[member="Deja Bloom"]
One Milo Nox, TIE Pilot, attached to a bombing raid on behalf of the Sith Empire. They were to free Ando from the Republic. They were to ingratiate to the ethnic group of their political preference. With the heavy-influence of the Sith at the time, they would have likely developed a Sith government and turned the people into caricatures of themselves, after deracinating them from their culture, from each other.
But all that wasn’t Milo’s concern. He was to “liberate” the Aqualish from their “progressive” Republic overlords and their particular brand of monoculture. He didn’t really buy into all the propaganda reveling in his prospective heroism, no, but, the loyalty, the fidelity, the honor. The code, the duty. Why not? He had paid for it. There was too much sunken debt to give up on the Empire now.
His bomber was shot down at the edge of the atoll, his bringing it down along the beachhead probably the only thing that kept his engines from exploding on impact. Salt water licking razor blades into fresh, open wounds, he lay behind the cover and concealment offered by his wreckage, G.I. blaster pistol in hand, clutched desperately as though it were a religious artifact.
The Republic Ground Forces were coming for him. Issuing terms of surrender by artillery-based loudspeakers, messages betrayed instantly by blaster fire streaming overhead, melting into the TIE frame.
From behind his cover, Milo poked his head out. To find some measure of how screwed he really was. Oh, and he was. But what sank in were the Aqualish sitting on their apartment balconies, watching the whole thing unfold like it were a holovision program. Their eyes, black and listless.
He specifically remembers a woman, stepping out to the edge and shaking hair fibers and dust from her vinyl carpet. As though the dust even mattered. As though there wasn’t a war going on just outside her peripheral vision.
He remembered how his blood boiled in his veins, how suddenly he remembered and bought into every ounce of propaganda. His outrage that the Empire was wasting its resources saving such ingrates, these subhumans. He called them every slur he knew, about spiders and monkeys and fish. He even made some up. How could their basic humanity not compel them to action?
Easy. They weren’t human at all. Of course. That must be it.
It wasn’t until he had become Tyger Tyger that he understood; forgave them, in the only way that he could.
While this was unique to him, they saw it every day. His horror was their lives. His plight wasn’t even entertaining anymore.
He found it curious that such blind hatred could only be borne of this innocence. The entitlements of a life lived in security.
Not 15 minutes later, his flight group would return for him with a second bomber run and rip the infrastructure in half.
[member="Deja Bloom"]