Among those listening to Church’s story was Private Sarah Tanaka, who was sitting a bit away from the others with a carefully neutral expression on her face. The truth was she had hardly paid attention to the tall tale—all she could focus on was her own apprehension and anger. The anger was directed partly at the Empire, and partly at the idiot in her cell of protestors who had gotten them all caught. Everything had gone fine for three months—the members of the cell would don masks, leave around treasonous pamphlets in public, deface symbols of the Empire’s might, maybe shout a few slogans, and then either melt back into the crowd or escape along preplanned routes where the security cameras had been sabotaged.<br/><br/>But the aforementioned idiot had gotten himself caught trying an overly risky stunt that had been voted down at the previous meeting. Then he had given up everyone’s name in less than an hour to avoid being tortured, assuring that no one would have time to escape to a safe house. The only thing to be thankful for was that only one cell had been compromised, and therefore the movement would go on.<br/><br/>With some effort Sarah pushed aside her anger, but there was still plenty of other things to trouble her. It would not be long before everyone in the platoon knew she was PES, and likely they would hate her guts for it. The odds of her surviving even one mission were poor. And the young doctor knew there was no telling if she would be able to handle the terror of actual combat. She was used to stress of course—opening up someone’s skull and operating on their brain was no walk in the park—and had seen plenty of death in her time, but it was not the same as having some ugly monster shooting at you. And for that matter, could she take a life when the time came?<br/><br/>Still, at least before her likely death, Sarah might have a chance to save a few more lives—that was what she was truly passionate about, even more so than her politics. For now, the troubled medic was content to sit quietly and observe the other soldiers.