This sector of Dantooine hadn't always been known for its gizka problem. In fact, it had acquired the reputation only a year ago; a year, however, was a long time ago when you were eight, and particularly when you were blamed for causing the outbreak in the first place.

Ania understood this. She understood that Revan was sick of telling people that it hadn't been her idea, and Malak was sick of explaining that he just hadn't realised why they were being carried in carbonite. And all of them were equally sick of waking up to find the dratted things in underwear drawers and personal belongings, and of being obliged to use them for 'saber practice. Chasing several miles over the plains chasing a hopping, croaking, pregnant amphibian in the middle of winter was nobody's idea of fun.

And she had approved - she really had - of Malak's idea of putting the dratted things in cages, collecting as many as possible, and presenting them to the Council when they'd finally rounded them all up. It'd clear his name, it made sense, and it was - wossaword - humane.

The drawback was that their secret cave was now chock-full of cages of gizka, all of which were breeding and all of which needed feeding. There was barely space for them to sit any more.

And so, okay, they needed to get rid of a few of them. The logic was as airtight as ever. She wasn't sure, though, if that really meant that it was right.

"Coochy-coo. Coo-chy coo-chy. Come to Revan, little gizka..."

The gizka eyed Revan with distrust, and hopped into her lunchpack. She shrugged, leaned over and picked it up, holding it at eye-level. "Good boy."

"Girl," Malak corrected her, without looking up from his inspection of the cages.

"Whatever. Look into my eyes and try not to give birth, okay? That's it. Now..."

There was that horrible feeling of pressure, again, then something in the Force went splurch.

"Oh, not again," Revan groaned.

"It doesn't work on gizka, Revan, just admit it."

"It does!" Revan snapped, dropping the dead gizka onto her lap. "When Malak freed them -"

"You helped."

"When he freed them, I saw loads of Padawans do it. And we're not allowed to practice on people, are we, 'cause we're just apprentices, and gizka should be easier."

Malak leaned over and picked the gizka up by a hind leg, transferring it to his own lap. "Revan, since you kill every gizka you try this on, I'm glad they won't let you practice on sentients."

"And I really think," Ania added, "I really think, Revan, you should get a Master to help you. You're killing them."

"So's Malak," Revan objected. "That last one wasn't a failed experiment, that was live dissection."

"It wasn't living dissection, don't be stupid. Dissection means its dead. S'vivisection when it's alive. And it was dead, anyway, by the time I started dissecting it -"

"You're both killing them."

"Well, yeah," Revan said. "'Case you hadn't noticed, they're a pest."

"Vrook's started feeding 'em poison," Malak added, turning the dead gizka onto its stomach. "We get sent to hunt them with lightsabers, An, how's this any different?"

"At least we're learning something useful while doing this," Revan said, grabbing for a new gizka. "Okay, I think I know what I did wrong now."

"I think you push too hard," Malak offered, reaching for his knife. It was already covered in gizka blood; Ania couldn't really see what point there was in dissecting the poor things over and over again, but apparently he was learning something. At the very least, she supposed, he was learning to make clean incisions. "You're only trying to stun 'em."

"I'm being as gentle as I know how to be," Revan retorted.

A gizka hopped onto Ania's lap, cooing softly at her. They were rather sweet, really, when they weren't birthing in your only clean pair of socks. Vrook had been giving them poison, too.

This... this was different, though. She couldn't say why, but this was wrong.

Splurch.

"Drat and bother."

It wasn't... it wasn't the killing. Revan was right, Enclave policy was to reduce the gizka population wherever possible, before they upset Dantooine's ecology. And she didn't even really mind Malak's nutrition experiments, because, well, at least those gizka were alive, and they were being fed. It was just... this.

"Hey, Revan?" Malak said suddenly.

"Yes?"

"I think this one's had a brain haemorrhage. Probably your fault."

Revan blinked a few times, then turned to Ania, who shrugged. "Haemo-what?"

"Haemorrhage. Its brains bled out. I think."

"Oh."

"That's sick," Ania said. They ignored her. "Really, really sick."

What'd it ever done to them?

Well, okay, the underwear drawer thing, that was annoying, and making them run around in the snow for hours trying to kill it, and pooping on things and giving birth on things and trying to get intimate with Vandar (though that could be quite funny, really) and yes, Vrook was poisoning them and the entire Enclave was under orders to kill gizka on sight, but, look, at least they had a chance then. Even against Vrook's poison; Malak had managed to nurse one of the sick gizka back to health - it was sitting in its own special cage somewhere - and Force knew that gizka could out-hop apprentices when they so chose.

It wasn't fair on the gizka.

"But I'm not pushing physically," Revan was saying. She stopped, and bit her lip. "Am I?"

"You're doing something wrong," Malak told her helpfully. "As if I know what. Look, here, try again with this one, I'll tell you if it haemorrhages -"

It wasn't fair on the gizka.

Ania mumbled something about the 'fresher, but neither Revan nor Malak was paying her much attention now, and slipped out. As she was leaving the caves, that horrible splurch came again, followed by Revan's inevitable curse and a stifled mutter from Malak.

There was no getting through to them, when they were like this. Revan's logic was sound, anyway, and both she and Malak were having too much fun studying the gizka to be much interested in arguing. Ania almost couldn't blame them. It was frustrating, not being able to test things in public. Malak kept trying to get into surgical lessons, and being rebuffed; Revan just wasn't old enough yet. And it would be nice, Ania thought, to find out how to blow things up properly, even if those things were gizka...

Once she was out of the cave, she ran, and didn't stop until she was outside the Council room. Malak and Revan would both be downright furious, but... what was logical, surely, wasn't necessarily right.

Right?