Andor stays a committed love letter to the unknown soldier. The rebellion’s lines have been pushed forward by hundreds who will never be recognized, even if their deeds are famous. Cassian has heard people claim to be at Aldhani, they don’t even know he was there. The money that bankrolled the rebellion, and no one knows who did it. Luthen will never get a medal of honor, or see the light of gratitude. Nemik’s manifesto comes back in both finales, reaching people across the galaxy. Whole battalions have enlisted because of him, and he’ll never be remembered. Without the unnamed soldier, we’d be nowhere
Character Appreciation Friday: Aldhani crew (x)
for @andorshitdaily's one-year blog anniversary
Vel's trying to shake off her "rich girl" label. Cinta is in it for revenge. Gorn lost his taste for the Empire. And so on. “Everyone has their own rebellion.” I love that, over time, each and every one of the Aldhani team could connect over their bigger goal, the heist (regardless of whether they truly believed in the overall struggle or not), and find camaraderie, forgiveness, understanding and even love in ways that healed parts in them.
i promise im working on A Wide and Soundless Place and the rest of Stars Fight on the Shoulder of Orion, but here's this thing as well lmao. chronological writing is for NERDS.
Trigger warning for this section include torure in a medical setting, restraints, nightmares, panic attacks, and crying. Please be safe and heed the tags. Also, Cassin uses it/its pronouns in this installment. Enjoy
It can’t hear the questions they’re asking it. The handler is too far away and its ears are ringing too loudly. Its world is suddenly extinguished in an onslaught of pain and it screams louder and higher and longer that it knew possible. The bright pain explodes out of the back of its neck, deep down in the soft place at the base of its skull, splitting its head in half and bursting out of every bone. The agony stops and it flops back down onto the table, the places where the straps hold it down are raw and straining. Its muscles glow with bitter ache from hours of useless struggle.
Has it been hours? It feels that it has suffered and sobbed for hours. Its thin, cheap clothes are soaked with sweat, its hair plastered down to its face. It pants, chest heaving. They ask it something again.
“I cah—” it coughs, unable to finish the word. Its mouth is so dry it hurts to swallow. “I can’t—puh—”
Please, it was to beg. Please I don’t know what you want. But it can’t speak and it can’t feel its hands or feet for the tightness of the straps. Its given up crying long ago but it still happens to it, like a draft under the door, like a leaking faucet. Its too parched for tears, what little moister it had pressed out of it as stress sweat. It sinks into the durasteel table, the luma hot and scintillant above it and the table gleaming underneath it.
Agony bursts through it again like a lightning strike sustained, the hot current frying the nerves in its extremities and muscles until they seize and contract uncontrollably. It can feel the rolling devastation in its fingertips, its guts, its teeth, its heart and internal workings. Then the pain stops and X9 pants, little whines escaping it as it tries to avoid vomiting. There’s nothing in its stomach, not even water. Once during these sessions it lost control of its bladder and now steps are taken to assure it can’t be so pathetic in the future. It can’t turn its head; it doesn’t know if they’ll stop it from choking.
The luma is brought down and the blinding light knives its eyes so harshly that it sees nothing but sunspots and purple veins across its vision. Its chest shakes as its heart thuds, off beat with itself and there’s a jolt through its limbs as its nerves try to fire correctly and fail.
“Clem,” one of the technicians is saying. “Clem wake up!”
It doesn’t recognize that voice—it must be someone new. It can’t turn its head to look. Its heart is still beating hard enough to shake its entire body, tripping over itself when it kicks up or falters down.
“Clem,” someone else says to it, very close to its ear. It shudders away from a touch on its cheek, trying to curl away from the unwanted touch but failing. That familiar horror of violation sinks down into even more familiar helplessness. There’s no reason to waste its energy on despair. If struggle and teeth and pleas and tears could stop those hands they would have by now.
“Should we touch him?”
“He might come up fighting.”
“I’ll do it.”
Its nerves jolt again. It won’t be able to get up even if the straps are removed.
“Untangle him first, I think that’s what made him panic.”
The skin around the incision in its neck is hot and painful. They’ve been testing the chip since they installed it.
“Untangle him so he can hit him better? Yeah, seems like a good idea to me.”
“You don’t get on opinion. Nemik, don’t hold the glowrod so close, it’ll hurt his eyes.”
The straps pull away all at once and X9 curls into a tight ball, unable to breathe or weep or move. The luma fades. Another jolt makes it flinch. It can’t see.
“Let me handle him when he wakes up.”
“Why?”
“He isn’t afraid of me.”
It holds its breath to keep from sobbing, as if its dignity matters. It thought it unlearned dignity long ago, but here it is trying to save face. Its further gone than it thought and dreads the end of this mission. Rael will return it at some point.
“He’s less afraid of you—”
“Oh, would you shut it—?”
“Clem—”
X9 deflects the touch to its shoulder with the outside of its wrist before it even knows its awake, rolling its hand over its assailant’s and twisting their arm downwards until they yield, tumbling out of its hammock in the process. It hits the cold dirt with a sharp oof and its assailant is on it in the split second it takes to open its eyes. Strong arms wrap around it, forcing its arms to cross over its chest, and it flings its head backwards to try and break the hold. Its caught—they must have been expecting that—and its head is pushed down firmly but not painfully.
“Clem, listen to me—” the grip on it is just hard enough to hold it and it doesn’t have the energy to fight as hard as it was taught. It squirms all the same, looking for a foothold in the dirt to launch off of. Its legs are pinned closed on either side as its grappled to a standstill. “Clem, Stop—stand down!”
X9 goes limp. Realization hits it like cold water. They’re a superior. Its been fighting a superior. Its shoulders start to shake uncontrollably, legs drawing up to its body. They’re already disciplined it with the chip, even after it tried to avoid them finding out about the nerve inductor at all, and now its actively being insubordinate. It was so stupid to think it could hide, that just because Rael hasn’t so much as raised his voice at it that all others connected to him would treat it the same. It deserves this. It can’t get a full breath.
“I’m going to let go of you and you won’t fight me, alright?” Taramyn says.
“Y’sir,” it mumbles.
It keeps its head down and sits with its knees under it when Taramyn lets it go, trying to get its pieces back together. Its shoulder and arm are pressed to the support pole, its feverish head resting on the cool wood. Taramyn crouches next to it. He doesn’t touch it and doesn’t order it to do anything. He just looks at it, assessing. It hasn’t needed specific positions to comply in a long time—it can even anticipate when its going to be dealt with most of the time—but since Rael hasn’t kept up the process, X9 can feel its structure starting to degrade. Ghyron will have to break it all over again. Its face twists at the thought. Rael might have to re-break it. It’ll be completely nonfunctional soon. Taramyn looks up at the others and then addresses the shuddering weapon.
“Skeen is going to bring you some water,” he reports sternly. “Nemik is going to sit in front of you. Do you understand?”
X9 can hear the Imperial affectation take over his voice like a gel filter on a stage luma. Its teeth chatter from its trembling and its stomach contracts inwards when it tries to exhale. Its heart squeezes and it feels sick, nauseous deep in its nerves.
"Yes or no, Clem," he promts. He doesn't sound as impatient as he should.
"Yes, sir," X9 answers, hushed.
“Hey,” Nemik says softly and he sits so close to it that their knees nearly brush. “May I touch you?”
It doesn’t have an answer for that so it stays quiet. If Nemik wants to touch it there is nothing it can do to stop him. Asking for permission is almost cruel.
“Answer the question,” Taramyn orders and X9 swallows.
“If—” it coughs. Its throat hurts. Its chest hurts.
“Yes or no, Clem,” Taramyn says. His face is pensive, his brow set in a concerned furrow. Its so at odds with his tone that X9 struggles to reconcile the two.
“Yes, sir,” it answers and Nemik smiles sadly at it. He takes its hand and presses it to his chest, and then presses its other hand to its own. It flinches and Nemik waits for it to settle. That makes its unease worse. It can’t think of any reason why they would touch it at all, let alone so gently. Even their healer is gentle.
“Can you breathe with me?” Nemik asks. It glances at Taramyn, breathing shaky and shallow.
“Follow Nemik’s breathing,” he orders and X9 tries. It feels the swell of Nemik’s chest under its palm and the shaky, rapid rise and fall of its own. The air is too cold in its nose but worse in its throat. Nemik is patient as it struggles, rubbing his thumb over its knuckles and breathing deliberately slow and calm. They could have just told it to regulate its breathing and its distantly annoyed that they didn’t.
“There, you’re getting it,” Nemik praises and Taramyn murmurs that it shouldn’t force it.
“Take your time,” he says. The Imperial facade has retreated some. There’s pressure in its chest but it doesn’t let the feeling rise. Its eyes blur. “You’re doing very well.”
Its heart trips as it comes down from its frantic gallop, settling down as the trembles ease and then dissipate. Its breathing hitches and Nemik holds its arm, making little circles with his thumb. Someone—someone did this before. Its head twitches as the itch in the back of its mind flares but its distracted by Skeen appearing out of the darkness like a phantom.
“Does he still need water?” he asks, as if X9 has ever needed anything other than to be left alone. The shaky calm rattles but Nemik catches it before it can stumble.
“He’s just giving us some water,” he assures. He lifts X9’s face and wipes away the wetness under its eyes with his sleeve. It didn’t know it was crying. Its nauseating, how much its body misbehaves when it hasn’t been reconditioned in a few months. What an unfortunate miracle that it can still fight. The mug is handed down over its head (it hates that it cannot properly see Skeen without craning its neck and making it obvious) and Nemik thanks him.
“Here, can you try to drink some? Your throat sounds like its sore.”
Its throat is sore, but it looks at Taramyn again just to be sure.
“Slow sips,” Taramyn says. “Small as you can.”
The water is cold and clear and the best thing it has ever tasted. It has to put genuine effort into not draining the whole mug as quickly as it can. It feels the cold all the way down to its stomach. It holds the empty metal cup between its hands, thumb nail scraping on the tiny dents and divots.
The Upstairs Lounge guy has reached the quarter-way point with his scene-by-scene in depth Andor analysis. Highly recommended. (Not least for the shitpost-style opening about Taramyn.)
