Project Boussh: Epilogue: Kriffing Lies and Holograms
by Policrat'

McEwok staggered off the dance-florr, alone, a bottle in each hand.

"Are you supposed to be drinking that?" asked Elscol Loro, appearing in 
front of him, with a suspicious, almost-sober look on her face.

"Ewoks had the corks out of them," he hiccuped. "Won't keep. But I'll leave 
the recriminations to the Mendellians. After all, it wasn't my priceless 
pre-phyloxia Madiera that was being guzzled by a tribe of ignorant aliens." 
Then, with cool cynicism, he glanced round the dance-floor. "And I don't 
want it to rain on everyone's War Day."

"Isn't it your War Day as well?" she asked, cocking a quizical eyebrow. "Or 
have you been away playing Imperials too long, Commander?"

"So that's what this is about," he shrugged. "Care to join me? I may not be 
nice men, but this is the finest wines available to humanity. Grab a glass, 
and see if you can't find something to decant it into."

"Won't Plourr have something to say to that?" he asked.

"Plourr passed out again," he shrugged. "Bacta and vodka don't mix."

Elscol disappeared into the crowd, and returned with a half-pint glass and a 
water-jug.

"That'll do," he nodded, and together, they came out into the cold night 
air, and walked in silence into the dunes. Ahead, the Pacific sparkled 
darkly beneath a sea of stars.

"So," he said, sitting down on the sand. "You have your doubts about my 
loyalty to the New Republic."

"Yes," she confirmed. "And I have a silenced Czerska in my shoulder-holster. 
Can't have rain on anyone's War Day, can we?"

"Fair enough," he agreed. "I could say the same about you, though. About 
loyalty, the New Republic, and all that. You're not exactly the greatest 
guardian of peace and justice."

"And you'd be right," she admitted. "It's not about politics. The air-trams 
occasionally ran on time under the New Order. It's about beating the Imps, 
then, when they're down, smashing their skulls in with a hydrospanner, so 
they can't hurt you any more."

"Right," he shrugged. "Thousands died just so we could have a party."

"They were Imps," she said, with a dismissive shrug.

"They were human beings," McEwok sighed. "They were soldiers, some of them 
conscripts, all of them obeying orders. It's easier to kill another man when 
you've reduced them to a white plasteel mask or two radiator wings and an 
eyeball cockpit, but that's nothing more than an emotional sleight-of-hand. 
They're still dead."

"People die," she shrugged.

"People live, as well," he pointed out.

"I don't care."

"And you know what?" he confessed, finally, "Neither do I. None of it really 
bothers me. I get more annoyed by the fact they blew up the _Admonitor_, or 
what the Ewoks did to the wine, or the high-level strategic idiocy that 
caused the whole mess than I do by the sight of dead Stormtroopers. Or dead 
New Republic personnell, or dead Mendellians, for that matter. But at least 
that means that I still have some sense of perspective, cold and callous as 
it is, about the whole thing."

"How so?"

"Let me put it this way," he sighed "I heard one of the Terrans saying that 
she thought you were cool."

"Our line of work," Elscol shrugged. "Other people's blood is a great 
anesthetic. You stay cool, you stay alive. 'Cold and calloused', like you 
said. Cool."

"No, not like that," McEwok corrected her. "It means she think's its fun, 
what you do, the way you do it."

For the first time in their brief acquaintance, Elscol looked surprised. Her 
eyes went wide, her mouth formed a little pink 'O' of shock. She looked, 
suddenly, very cute and vulnerable.

"Oh, kriff," she said.

"Yeah," McEwok said. "Drink more."

They drank and talked, and drank some more, until they lay flat on their 
backs, side by side, staring at the stars.

Then, finally, Elscol propped herself up lazily on one elbow.

"Fancy a kriff?" she asked.

McEwok looked back at her, and grinned.

"So long as we understand that this is just a drunken mistake," he said, as 
they swapped feral, complicit smiles in the darkness. "A clumsy, carnal, 
callous fumble by two kriffed people which will mean nothing now, and even 
less in the morning? Yeah, why not."