Standing on her luxury balcony, Burati’s voice echoed over Coruscant. “I’m doing my best, Vahn! How is it my fault if I kick a stinking alien out of the way?” She paced, blonde twin-tails drifting like contrails.
Vahn’s voice returned through her earpiece, tinny and distant. “That ‘stinking alien’ was a very important diplomat. You’re the face of the Empire, Burati. Act like it!”
“I AM acting like it! I act like it every day and all I get is criticism!!”
A dangerous pause came. “Then it sounds like you’re not cut out for the job… just say the word and I’ll have your replacement in your chair faster than your head can spin…”
Burati stopped. The plunge in her stomach vanished beneath a bubbling rage sweeping from her knees to her head. “You KNOW WHAT?!” she screamed, ripping out the earpiece. “DO IT! DO IT, RIGHT NOW! I DON’T CARE!!” Pitching her arm back, she tossed the device off the balcony, Vahn’s tinny voice vanishing into the clouds below.
Tears in her eyes, Burati turned and ran. She ran before the rage receded and regret overtook it. Past V-3PO, out the front door, and down the hall. Through door after door.
Only her own breathing and the distant hum of sublight engines registered as she pushed herself through a detour packed with supply crates and hissing steam vents.
---
“Wh-where am I?” Burati’s heels clicked against bare permacrete. She’d never seen this part of Coruscant. Reaching up, she found only an empty ear. She was lost, looking like an idiot.
Turning without looking, she slammed into Du’s chest, toppling backward with pin-wheeling arms onto her arse. Sprawling out, she winced and froze. “Uh. Um, sorry. Hi, do you… do you know where this is…?”
