As Tcho drops to his knees alongside Renault, he catches sight of the strange blaster the man was carrying earlier. Another piece of evidence for PD, he notes to himself. Aloud, he orders Kerr-Lonn-Ny, “Grab that,” pointing out the gun at the edge of the circle of light from the doorway. He begins pulling out his medkit. The knife wound in Renault’s back needs immediate first aid; Tcho does not want him to die.
“Yeah, that thing’s mean,” Kerr-Lonn-Ny groans, shaking out her still-tingling arm. She takes a step over to the weapon as Tcho begins his bandaging. “We should destroy this,” she says, nudging it with the toe of her shoe.
“No,” Tcho objects. “We have to turn it in.”
“To who?!”
“To people who need to know that threat is out there,” Tcho answers evasively.
Kerr-Lonn-Ny is pretty sure she has Tcho figured out by now, based on what she overheard during the cocktail hour. “What, you’re going to give this weapon to the Rebels, then?” she asks, her tone disapproving.
“They can make some counter for it,” Tcho replies defensively, finishing up his work on Renault. He breathes a sigh of relief that the patient is not going to bleed out. He will be all right in time, but when he does wake up, Tcho will be long-gone from this part of the ship. Hopefully whoever Renault tells about this incident will not believe that the blown-up Rebel spy is somehow still aboard.
Kerr-Lonn-Ny picks up the weapon and mulls over Tcho’s argument. “Well, it would be good to know how to mitigate it. But this thing… This thing hurt…” She pauses, trying to figure out how to articulate how it made her feel.
“Right, you’re injured. I’m sorry about that. I can take a look at your injuries when we’re out of here, but we need to go,” Tcho says firmly. He quickly stuffs his supplies back in his satchel. Already he can feel the numbness in his right arm fading. It is getting harder to force that hand to do anything at all.
“We can turn this over to someone,” Kerr-Lonn-Ny reluctantly agrees, “but not just anyone.” Her discomfort with technology shows as she continues, “We don’t know how this thing works.”
“That’s why we’ll give it to people trained in these matters,” Tcho assures her. “You and I can’t make that call.”
“Right, but who actually can for a weapon like this?” she counters. “This isn’t just a stun gun.”
“I only have one contact,” Tcho says more desperately. They need to move. “I don’t have access to other people who make decisions.”
“Who’s your contact?”
“We can discuss this somewhere else. We have to go!” Tcho says urgently.
“I’m holding onto this until then,” Kerr-Lonn-Ny insists.
“Fine!”
“What are we doing with him?” Kerr-Lonn-Ny asks, looking down at the unconscious human.
“We’re leaving him here. He chased after me; others will be along shortly, I’m sure. Let’s get out of here now.”
“Okay, you’re the criminal,” Kerr-Lonn-Ny says, relenting in face of his expertise in these matters. “Let’s do this.” Tcho frowns, his cheeks burning purple with shame at being thus labeled. “Or Rebel operative, whatever,” Kerr-Lonn-Ny corrects herself. “What do I know? I’m not a soldier.”
Tcho sighs. “I’m not even a proper Rebel,” he mutters, gesturing for her to lead the way out of the room. After all, she got in here somehow. That itself is something that is puzzling him, but he will wait until they are out in the corridors before addressing it. To avoid his nonfunctional and bloody right arm being seen by passengers and crew, he spares a moment to slip his left arm out of his stolen uniform jacket so that he can bundle the whole thing around his messy limb.
Leading them back to the public area of the Dame, Kerr-Lonn-Ny invites, “Just come back to my quarters and we’ll—”
“What were you even doing there?” Tcho demands, sounding more angry than he intends. He is mad at himself, not her.
“I got a bad feeling, okay?” she snaps back, defensive.
That answer is not going to cut it. “How did you know to be there?”
Kerr-Lonn-Ny drops her voice. “Look, sometimes you just get a bad feeling, sometimes a vision.” She looks around nervously, then grabs his shirt and yanks him closer. Tcho winces at the jarring of his arm but does not resist. Their faces centimeters apart, Kerr-Lonn-Ny whispers, barely audible. “You’re a Rebel operative, right? I’m in touch with the Force, okay? The Force is my ally. If anyone finds that out, it’s a one-way ticket to the grave.”
Tcho does not fully understand what she is saying, but he can appreciate that she has just trusted him with something deeply personal and significant. He immediately reciprocates, addressing her earlier concern. “There is a protocol droid on this ship who is my contact, and that is who I need to turn these things over to. He’s at JT’s party right now.”
“The emcee droid at the gala? Droids are part of the Rebellion? More than just astromechs or whatever?” Tcho nods plainly, and Kerr-Lonn-Ny admits, “I don’t know how droids work.” Then a darker thought occurs to her. “Does he have a restraining bolt on?”
“Not a real one. He’s a free droid.”
Kerr-Lonn-Ny got stabbed by an unbolted droid recently, and it has made her more wary of technology than she was before. But JT has talked the matter over with her, sharing her own perspective on the things. Kerr-Lonn-Ny lets out a long, pensive sigh. “JT seems to trust that droid, and you trust that droid,” she observes.
“I do,” Tcho affirms.
“Look, this thing that shot me,” she says, hefting the weapon, “it wasn’t just bullets, and it wasn’t just a blast. It messed with the Force.”
“Let’s get back to your room, and let me examine you to see what it did,” Tcho suggests.
“Shouldn’t you get your arm looked at?” Kerr-Lonn-Ny asks, releasing his shirt and glancing at the bundle of jacket clutched to his chest.
“There are many reasons I don’t want to go to the med center myself,” Tcho replies.
“Yeah, that place is a bad time,” Kerr-Lonn-Ny agrees, thinking of passenger recuperation and the FX droid who attacked her.
“It’s overwhelmed right now. There are still people recovering from the ship accident. And while, yes, my arm is… not quite right, that’s another thing that shouldn’t be dealt with in this hallway.”
Kerr-Lonn-Ny nods, seeing the sense of this. “Right. Back to my quarters then.” They resume walking down the hall. “Hey, does JT know you’re a Rebel operative?”
“Yes. She was helping me some. She’s not a Rebel, though.” Tcho’s mouth quirks up into a smile at the thought of the blue-haired loon. “She’s just a friendly, helpful person.”
“She is really friendly,” Kerr-Lonn-Ny agrees. “Just… just a little too much.”