But this is where Sog Triskan found himself as neon yellow bolts arced past his TIE fighter. The harsh green sky beyond the transparasteel of his cockpit was filled with dozens of other ships--other TIEs jockeying for position with the Lortans. The surface below was pockmarked with flame-filled craters and blasted out buildings, and the horizon was colored red and orange by the distant ground battle in the foothills. The Lortans piloting the airspeeders that flitted through the sky sought to kill him, to drive him and his comrades off of this planet and back into Imperial space. If it weren't for Sog Triskan's brilliant piloting skills, the Lortans would have already succeeded. It was only by the virtue of his training that some stray laser blast hadn't turned his TIE into a smoldering cloud of slag.
Sog's scanners beeped at him. As a Lortan speeder raced underneath and behind hit TIE, Sog pulled on the yoke and executed a roll that brought him directly behind the airspeeder. He twisted a dial on his control console, waited the split-second for the targeting computer to chirp in affirmation, and released a volley of green plasma that vaporized the Lortan's craft and sent metal shrapnel cascading across the city below.
Sog Triskan was a pilot in the Imperial Navy. Only twenty years old, Sog had already illuminated his presence to Imperial Command with only one prior battle under his belt. Most cadets spent a year or more conducting routine patrols on secure Core worlds, but Sog was already being assigned to dangerous missions in the Mid Rim. He had graduated from the Imperial Academy on Prefsbelt, top of his class, and had caught the eye of Captain Kane Sartoza. Captain Sartoza, commander of the esteemed 242nd TIE Fighter Wing, was an astute and perceptive man with decades of decorated wartime experience--so when he specifically requested that a cadet from the Prefsbelt Academy be fast-tracked into his service, Sog Triskan found himself in one of the most respected battlegroups in the entirety of the Imperial Navy. Within months of his deployment, Sog had been sent into battle against a flotilla of pirates that were ravaging trade routes in the Corporate Sector. It was there that Sog discovered his proclivity and capability for aerial combat.
Another airspeeder zoomed past him, and Sog twisted his TIE to pursue. His thoughts were elsewhere, but he was not distracted. He knew the mission (eliminate the Lortan presence and secure the Saloch system). He knew what the stakes were (the Lortans were a group of religious fanatics who had already "purified" six systems in the Yushan Sector). Most of all, he knew the enemy. His squadron had studied the Lortans extensively in the days prior to the battlegroup's arrival on Saloch. Sog was intensely aware of everything that happened around him, and he was mopping up the Lortan's primitive airspeeders with ease.
But all of this was happening automatically. He felt like he was on autopilot, simply going through the motions of the battle and not actively engaging in it. His mind was gone, thinking about events of the previous night, thinking about Laria.
Sog blasted the Lortan's airspeeder out of the sky before swiveling to engage another. As he did, his mind fell completely into the vivid recesses of memory.
#
The night before, Sog sat with two of his squad mates in one of the dozens of mess halls aboard the Star Destroyer Accorder. They'd just come from a briefing on their upcoming battle, and they were discussing the situation before they went to bed to rest up for war.
"We came out of hyperspace a few hours ago," said a red-haired officer named Banks. "We're in the system already, but they're holding us back. It doesn't make any sense. Why aren't they sending us down to Saloch tonight?"
"You heard the Captain," said another officer, a short woman named Skartis. "We emerged at the edge of the system. They're hoping to catch the Lortans by surprise."
Banks shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense, that's what I'm saying. How would showing up farther away give us the element of surprise? Why wouldn't they take us out of hyperspace right on top of them?"
"They'd pick us up on their scanners as soon as we emerged," Sog said, shaking his head. "If the Accorder just popped into realspace in Saloch's orbit ahead of the rest of the battlegroup, the Lortans would ready their defenses and swarm us before the others arrived. If we wait here, then we can come at them with our full force, catch them unprepared."
"It's basic training stuff," Skartis said with a smile. "They oughtta send you back to the Academy, Banks."
Banks frowned and leaned back, gripping the edges of the steel bench that he sat on. "Still doesn't make any sense. We don't need to wait for the rest of the battlegroup. No alien force is a match for even one Star Destroyer. They should've sent us right down their throats."
"For one thing, the Lortans aren't aliens," Skartis said. "They're humans. Did you even listen to the briefing?"
Banks gestured dismissively.
"And another thing," Skartis continued, "what you're saying is simply wrong. Alien forces have taken out Star Destroyers before. Remember what we learned about Ryloth?"
Sog nodded in agreement. Over a decade prior, a terrorist group of Twi'leks known as the Free Ryloth Movement had scuttled a Star Destroyer that was en route to their home planet. This incident, the first of its kind, was largely suppressed in galactic media, but was taught to all cadets at the Imperial Academies as a lesson in hubris. No individual cog of the Empire is indestructible, they had been told--it is only through unity and obedience that the Imperial Navy can control the chaos that is the Outer Rim.
Banks sighed. "Yes, I know. I suppose I'm just anxious to get out there."
Skartis smiled again. "This will be your first battle, won't it?"
"Yours too," Banks said. "I'm glad to be done with patrolling spice mines and escorting bulk freighters. I don't think I've pulled a trigger since the Academy. I half expect the blaster cannons on these TIEs are fake."
Skartis laughed. "Fair enough." She turned. "You've been out before, Sog. You anxious about tomorrow?"
"Yeah, I am," Sog said. "You guys are fresher meat than I am, but not by much. I've only been in one other battle before this."
"Ammuud," Banks said. "In CorpSec. That was right before Skartis and I arrived. Missed it by mere weeks."
"You didn't miss much."
"I don't believe that," Banks said. "Not with how often you and Laria talk about it." He sat up higher in his seat. "Say, where is Laria?"
Sog gave a quick look around. He didn't see her anywhere in the mess. "I'm not sure. She was at the briefing."
"Probably prepping for Saloch," Skartis said, taking a bite from the grey slab that made up her Imperial rations. "I bet she's more excited for tomorrow than any of us. What was her kill count at Ammuud? Seven confirmed?"
"Eight confirmed, three probables," Sog said. He finished up his ration and wiped the sides of his mouth. "Excuse me," he said, standing up and straightening out his grey uniform.
"Say hi to her for me," Skartis said.
Sog nodded, and then left the mess hall. Behind him, Skartis and Banks continued to rile each other up about the forthcoming battle. He felt a heightened sense of condescension as he walked away, like they were children excited about their very first day of school. This feeling struck him as odd, because his combat experience was so trivially greater than theirs. And yet, he couldn't help it. He had experienced what war felt like, and they hadn't. His first battle against that flotilla of pirates had changed him forever, shown him what it truly means to be a soldier for the Empire. Skartis and Banks would experience that feeling tomorrow. But for now they were mere infants, and he no longer desired to speak with infants. He wanted to get in the proper state of mind before the invasion, and speaking to Laria was the best way to do that.
Two turbo lifts and a hundred meters of hallway later, Sog found himself outside of the barracks of Nexu Squadron--his home aboard the Accorder. He swiped his keycard, waited for the hissing door to rise into the ceiling, and strode into the barracks. It was a contained living space for 24 individuals, a common area surrounded by six small dormitories, a unisex refresher, and a private comm room. The common area was well lit and aggressively austere, the only decoration being a large grey and black poster on the wall near the main door that displayed the Imperial Naval Code. Sog read it to himself, as he did every time he stepped through that door:
I WILL HONOR THE EMPIRE IN
MY THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS
I WILL OBEY MY SUPERIORS
I WILL NEVER SHIRK FROM MY DUTIES
I WILL MAINTAIN IMPECCABLE STANDARDS
OF CONDUCT AND APPEARANCE
I WILL USE IMPERIAL RESOURCES
RESPONSIBLY
I WILL COMPLETE EVERY MISSION WITHOUT
HESITATION, AMBIGUITY, OR MERCY
I WILL RECOGNIZE THAT THE EMPIRE IS
GREATER THAN MYSELF AND BE WILLING TO
DIE IN ITS SERVICE
These words echoed through Sog. They didn't make him smile; there was nothing cheery or jovial about them. But they were straightforward. The Empire was a well-oiled machine that fabricated order and peace, and this Code was its owner's manual. It was heartening to him to know that if these spartan teachings were followed to the letter, then the New Order could and would maintain stability across the galaxy. Simpler instructions had never been given to him.
There was one other person in the common area with him--a younger pilot with short, curly black hair. He was reclining on the sofa that sat in the center of the room and reading something on his datapad.
"Evening, Triskan," the pilot said without looking up.
"Relons," Sog replied. Sog walked past the pilot and opened up the door to his dormitory. The three-by-four-meter room was tightly filled with two double bunks and a single dresser. The dorm was empty.
"Hey, Relons," Sog said. "You seen Laria anywhere?"
"She's on a holo," Relons said, keeping his eyes fixated on whatever he was reading.
Sog nodded and glanced at the comm room. There was a red light on the panel by the door, indicating that the holotranceiver was in use.
"Did she mention who with?" Sog asked.
Relons shrugged. "Her mother, I think."
Sog was surprised to hear that. Contacting a loved one over the holonet--while not prohibited by Imperial Command--was highly frowned upon. On the one hand, it no doubt seemed a sign of weakness to contact one's parents on the eve of a battle. On the other hand, Laria was no coward. She had been one of the finest cadets at Prefsbelt, second in piloting ability only to Sog himself. Where she had surpassed him by far, however, was in ground combat, especially in the martial art of Echani. Sog had never met someone so in-tune with the mechanics of her own body as Laria Forelo. She was an astounding soldier, and the Empire was stronger for having her.
Sog had met Laria's mother on the day of their graduation from the Imperial Academy. Tooshara Forelo was a lovely single mother in her sixties who always seemed to find joy in everything that was presented to her. At the graduation ceremony--a purposefully bland event meant to represent the cadets' introductions into something far greater than themselves--Ms. Forelo had broken down in tears of pride and admiration. Afterwards, Ms. Forelo insisted that Sog join her and her daughter for a celebratory dinner. Sog had acquiesced, and spent a charming evening with Laria and her mother at a high-end restaurant under the skyhook that would take them away to their futures in the Empire the following morning.
A dull pain manifested in Sog's chest. Neither of his parents had attended the graduation ceremony. He was fairly certain that they were both dead. A small part of him hoped so, as it was easier to accept that reality than the one where his parents had consciously chosen not to contact him for the last seven years.
He suddenly wished to speak with Laria's mother. He couldn't explain why, but the feeling was almost overwhelming. He was sure that Laria, who was like a sister to him, wouldn't mind his interruption. Tooshara would probably be elated to see him over the holo.
"She said it was private," Relons said, still not looking up.
Sog ignored him and approached the door and swiped his card. It opened with a quiet hiss, allowing him to step in to the room beyond.
The comm room was as big as the common area outside, but much more cluttered. It was dark, with only the blue glow of the three holotranceivers providing any illumination beyond the glow from the common area. Each holotranceiver was in its own cubicle, preventing the displays or projectors from the other machines interfering with each other, and also providing a modicum of privacy. Only one holotranceiver was occupied. Sog quietly sealed the door behind him, and once more plunged the room into darkness and silence.
Sog heard Laria's voice from the farthest holotranceiver, and he realized she hadn't heard him enter. She was speaking with someone in a hushed, almost worried tone. Sog was about to make his presence known when he heard the person on the other end of the holo speak.
The voice wasn't that of a woman. It wasn't even that of a human. Sog stayed by the door and held his breath.
"You're certain this communication is secure?" the garbled voice said. It was watery, like the speaker's mouth was full of froth.
"Absolutely," Laria said, her voice low. "I've installed the spike into the terminal, they can't trace this. Most of my squad mates are out at the mess. No one's listening in."
"Good," the voice said. "You were right to contact us. You're doing the right thing."
"I just didn't know where else to turn," Laria said. Sog could hear the despair in her voice. "I can't take it anymore. It's... I just... I can't be a part of this anymore. I can't."
Sog swallowed a lump in his throat. What was she talking about? Who was she saying this to? He wished to step closer, to catch sight of the blue holographic projection of the alien speaker on the other end. But he dared not move a muscle.
"It's alright," the alien said. "We can help you."
"And I want to help you," Laria said, urgency and passion taking ahold of her words.
"That's good to hear," the alien said. "The Rebel Alliance needs all the help it can get."
#
A light flashed on Sog Triskan's control panel, and once again he found himself in the present. The twin ion engines of his fighter were screaming, the broken remains of buildings were passing underneath, and laser bolts were lighting up the green sky above like fireworks. He glanced at the display--a little digital representation of his TIE surrounded by a field of concentric circles--and saw a red dot indicating that an airspeeder had gotten behind him.
Sog flicked a switch and set his engines to maximum speed, propelling himself forward and up to try and shake his pursuer. Yellow bolts streaked by him, narrowly missing the broad solar arrays to his right and left. He rolled to the left, hoping to break the Lortan's line of sight, but the speeder stayed on him, matching his trajectory exactly.
Whoever was after him was good.
Sog pushed forward on the yoke and sent his TIE into a dive. He aimed straight for the ruined skyscrapers in the city below. The Lortans' airspeeders were maneuverable, but no where near as mobile as a TIE fighter. He pulled up just before slamming into the roof of a wide-domed structure, and then veered left behind a skyscraper. His TIE narrowly avoided careening into the glass windows of an office building, but he pulled hard to starboard at the last second and then flew under another skyscraper that had fallen on its side, hanging over the streets below like a dead tree after a storm. He jockeyed between the buildings, keeping one eye constantly on the display near his hands.
The red dot stayed behind him the entire time.
Insid his obscuring helmet, Sog smiled. He hadn't been challenged once in this battle so far. It was beginning to look like the Lortans didn't have a single competent pilot among them.
He began testing the Lortan pilot by taking a series of increasingly risky maneuvers. Sog rolled his TIE so that he flew horizontally through a hole that had been blasted out of the center of a huge tower, and the airspeeder followed. Yellow laser bolts pelted the durasteel and glass of the buildings around him and created a storm of fire and smoke. Sog pushed the fore of his craft straight down so that he headed into a canyon that ran through the center of the city, pulling up only just as he reached the rushing river at the bottom. There was a slight shudder as the TIE's solar arrays skimmed the surface of the water.
The airspeeder followed him into the canyon, copying his flying pattern perfectly. When the canyon opened up into a waterfall that cascaded down the cliff atop which the city was perched, Sog slammed on the accelerator. His TIE shot out into the open sky and back into the chaos of the battle. The airspeeder stayed right on his tail.
Worse yet, his scanners told him that the airspeeder had opened up a comm channel. Sog scowled. He'd hoped that the Lortan pilot had recognized that the two of them had engaged in what he felt was an honorable test of skill. This was a duel between two warriors, Sog had assumed. Instead the Lortan was calling for backup.
Sog decided that the game had come to an end. With no structures to block him up, Sog pulled down on the throttle and twisted the control stick with the other, executing a Koiogran turn. He was suddenly facing his opponent while maintaining his forward momentum. If he were in space, his TIE would have kept heading the same direction while he carefully lined up a shot on his pursuer. But in the atmosphere of Saloch, gravity and friction fought to deny him such leisure. Sog knew he only had a fraction of a second before his TIE would stall out and the airspeeder would go zipping by him.
Fortunately, he had anticipated this. His opponent had not.
The Lortan must have panicked when he saw Sog's TIE invert itself, because the airspeeder immediately threw on its airbrakes, and it slowed right into the path of Sog's laser cannons.
Sog pulled the trigger and felt a rush of excitement as the airspeeder's engines exploded. The airspeeder started spinning and plummeting to the surface below, clouds of black smoke and flames billowing out behind it. Sog pushed the throttle forward and pulled back on the yoke, righting his TIE and watching with satisfaction as the red dot disappeared from his display.
His victory was short lived, however, as two more dots quickly appeared off to his left.
Sog grunted and gripped the control stick with both hands. He veered port, seeking to intercept the airspeeders before they started firing into his flank. The horizon slanted, the expanse of fields and mountains disappeared to his right, and the city on the cliffs came back into his view. The bulk of the battle was raging in the distance--a cluster of small black dots and colored lines of energy swarming through the sky like glowbugs. Sog knew that the fighting was just as intense on the ground below as the Saloch natives fought against the Lortan's army, but that wasn't his concern. He flipped his scanners over to short range detection and saw the red dots magnify on his display. To his surprise, their courses had changed. They were no longer coming for him. Instead, they were headed upwards into the sky, chasing down another TIE fighter that looked exactly like his.
Sog wasn't sure if the Lortan reinforcements had gotten their targets confused or if they had watched him execute their comrade and were now too afraid to engage him. Either way, Sog's next objective was clear: save his fellow TIE pilot before those airspeeders converged on shot him out of the sky.
Sog gunned his TIE fighter and reveled in the sound of the ion engines screaming in exertion. The metal of the TIE's frame groaned, the displays rattled and chirped in warning. To him, these were sounds of ecstasy. This wasn't his fighter; he'd never flown it before. The Imperial Navy didn't permit pilots getting attached to their ships, preferring to keep their tools of war interchangeable and anonymous. Still, Sog knew that this TIE was enjoying the rush of combat. It lusted for blood and speed. All TIEs did, and he sought to appease them.
The airspeeders were closing on the other TIE. Sog opened his comm channel to the pilot.
"This is Nexu One," Sog said. "You've got two on your six."
The TIE pilot reacted to Sog's warning by rolling just as the first bolts shot by it.
"Roger, Nexu One, this is Nexu Three. Thanks for the heads up."
Sog's heart caught in his chest as he heard Laria's voice over the comm, and once again his mind descended into memory.
#
Sog stood in the entryway of the private comm room. The door to the common area was shut behind him, the holotranceivers cast their eerie blue glow across the dark walls, and Laria was staring straight at him. She was half standing, half sitting in the chair of the farthest holo booth, her posture tensed in anticipation, her eyes filled with absolute horror.
"Sog," she said.
Sog couldn't even respond to her. Laria had just finished her communication with the aquatic alien, ending by telling it that she would be jumping ship at their next friendly port of call and leaving the Empire behind forever. The alien had not only mentioned the Rebel Alliance, it had said that it was a recruiter for the terrorist organization. It was recruiting Laria. The alien hadn't contacted her here, there was no way for it to--Laria had contacted it. Once the holo was over, she had disconnected a small blinking device from the terminal. She turned around coolly, and then she saw Sog.
"How..." she stumbled over her words, her voice coming out raspy and quiet. "How did... Did you hear any..."
"Laria," Sog said. He couldn't believe what he had just witnessed. He and Laria had been through flight school together, had been by each other's sides all throughout the last six years. They'd thanked the stars when, by pure chance, they'd been assigned to the same battlegroup.
Sog blinked in an effort to erase this moment from his vision. It didn't leave. Laria was still crouching by the terminal, holding an illegal computer spike in her hands and looking like she'd just been caught at the scene of a murder.
"Sog," she said quickly. "Please. Don't--Don't shout. Don't do anything brash. Just... Just let me explain."
"Explain?" Sog said. "Laria, what the hell is happening here? What was that? Who was that?"
Laria slowly placed the spike inside her coat. "It wasn't anything. It wasn't anybody, Sog. I wasn't talking to anybody."
"I saw everything," Sog said. "I don't believe I... Laria, you're a..." The words wouldn't leave his throat.
"I'm not," she said. "I'm not. I'm still with you."
"The Rebels?" Sog said, the word sounding blasphemous to his ears. "You're defecting? How? Why?"
"Sog, please. Please. This can't leave this room. Sog, you have to promise me."
Sog shook his head. "No," he said, pausing. "You're a traitor--A traitor to the Empire. A traitor to... To me."
"I'm not." She rushed up to him, and he flinched. She grabbed both of his arms and stared up into his face. Sog was tall, much taller than her, and she had to crane her neck back to meet his eyes. Her eyes were deep brown, even in the dim blue light of the holotranceivers. Her short auburn hair framed her pleading face.
"I would never betray you, Sog. Never. This has absolutely nothing to do with you. It's... It's me. I can't--I can't take this anymore. What we do. The things they make us do. Sog, this place is poison. These people, this Empire, it's... bad."
"What are you talking about?" Sog said. He couldn't understand where this was coming from, what had led her to this. Why was she doing such a horrible thing? "The Empire is our life. The Empire is everything. It's order, it's peace, it's--" He shook his head. "Why am I explaining--You know this, Laria! You know this as well as I do."
"It's evil, Sog," she said. He knew from her voice that the words were hard for her to say, but it sounded like she believed them.
"Laria, I can't abide this. I have to report... this. You." He turned to the door.
She pulled him back.
"Sog, please. You can't turn me over to them. You can't. I don't want to hurt anyone, especially you. I just want to get out. I just need to leave."
"I have to," he said. "I would be betraying everything I stood for if I saw this and didn't say anything. I have to, Laria."
"No," she almost shouted. "You're a good person, Sog. You're loyal to a fault. But you're loyal to the people who matter to you. I know you, better than anyone. There's nothing more important to you than your team. Skartis, Banks, Relons, Antion, Temm... I'm part of that team, Sog. You can't turn me over to them."
"You're not part of my team anymore," Sog said. "Not after witnessing that. You're not an Imperial."
"I'm not," she said quietly. "But I'm still part of your team, Sog. Not theirs. Not Palpatine's. I'm part of you."
Sog didn't say anything to that.
Her lips trembled. "You know what they'll do to me if you turn me in. I won't be discharged, I won't be tried. They'll torture me, Sog. We've seen it happen. They'll drain me for information I don't have, and then days, maybe weeks later, they'll execute me in front of everyone. Sog, you can't let that happen to me. Not to one of your own."
Sog knew she was right. After the battle above Ammuun, it was discovered that a comms operator aboard the Accorder had been leaking military trade route information to the pirates. Captain Sartoza had the comms operator stripped down and paraded into the central hangar bay, where much of the Star Destroyer's crew and troops had been assembled. The comms operator, a woman named Keeni Jusako, was forced to her knees and shot through the back of the head after admitting to her treachery. From the bruises and cuts that covered her skin, it was clear that the interrogation droids had had some time with her before the public execution.
Sog couldn't have that happen to Laria. She was right; she was part of his squad. And even if a member of his squad a mistake, he would stand by them. It was the right thing to do.
After a moment of standing with her in the near darkness, he turned his back to her. "You took an oath," he said.
"I have to leave, Sog," Laria said. "I can't be a part of this. Not willingly. I'd rather die."
Sog winced. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly through his nose. Then he opened the door to the common area and walked out.
"Sog, wait--"
Relons was still on the sofa, data pad in hand. He looked up as Sog entered.
"I heard yelling," Relons said. "Everything okay?"
Laria rushed out of the darkness into the common area, eyes wide and begging. Sog didn't even look back at her.
"Argument with her mother," he said, and then stormed into his dormitory.
#
"Nexu One, I could use a hand here," Laria said. She was dodging left and right, barely keeping ahead of the yellow laser blasts from the airspeeders.
Sog just kept staring ahead. There was Laria, still flying her TIE fighter the day after openly telling him that she was planning on abandoning the Empire. She was a deserter, she practically said so herself. She couldn't stand the thought of being in the Imperial Navy a day longer, and yet here she was the next day.
Laria, his friend. Laria, the Rebel sympathizer. Laria, the traitor.
TIE fighters didn't have any shielding, and barely any armor to speak of. If even one of those brilliant yellow bolts struck her fighter, she was dead.
"Nexu One," Laria shouted over the comms. "They're all over me; I need you!"
Sog shook his head. No. Laria was not a traitor. Not today, at least. Right now, she was his squad mate. His wingman. And she needed his help.
Sog's TIE fighter tore through the open sky and closed the gap between him and the airspeeders. They reacted to his arrival by peeling off of Laria's TIE and trying to come around to face him, but these two weren't nearly as skilled as the last Lortan pilot. Sog caught the first one just as it veered left, blasting it in half with two pulls of the trigger. The second one managed to escape his field of fire and, seeing that it was now outnumbered, began to turn and flee. Sog pulled a quick pitchback, gaining altitude and closing on the slower airspeeder. He fired two shots that went over the Lortan's bow, dropped slightly, and then vaporized the airspeeder with a third shot.
"Thanks, Nexu One," came Laria's voice over the comm.
Sog hesitated, then said, "Return to formation, Nexu Three. We're not done yet."
"Roger, Nexu One."
Laria's TIE took off into the cloud of fighters above. Sog waited for a moment, watched her rise into the sky until she was just another speck--uniform, aggressive, nameless--and then followed.
#
"...Not have done it without the aid of the Empire. You have saved us in our most desperate hour."
Sog barely listened to the towering alien as it spoke. His mind was racing, still going back to the events of the night before.
Sog and nearly fifty other TIE pilots stood at attention in a blasted plot of land that might have been a park before the Lortans arrived. Rows of TIE fighters were parked behind the pilots, standing on their wings on the uneven ground (a landing method that always greatly agitated Sog--TIEs weren't structurally designed to be supported by their wings for long). In front of them, standing atop a makeshift stage, was Captain Kane Sartoza, still in his flight suit and standing proud with his arms behind his back. He was flanked by Admiral Yax Vonteri and Lieutenant Commander Stiern Kotops, two men whom Sog knew by reputation but not by acquaintance. Accordingly, a squad of stormtroopers stood behind them with rifles low. Opposite them stood a gathering of Tunroth, the denizens of Saloch. The Tunroth were huge, hulking aliens with wide heads and tusks emerging from their lower jaws. None of them were wearing armor, and each carried a primitive club that was adorned with metal blades. It seemed impossible to Sog that such creatures were capable of constructing the once-mighty skyscrapers that stood in ruins around them.
The Tunroth at the head of the group--their leader, judging by his cape and scepter--was presenting Captain Sartoza with a weighty-looking medallion with a leather band. Sog could not tell if Captain Sartoza was particularly honored, but the Captain played the part in any case.
"When the Lortan fanatics first landed on our planet, my people made short work of them. But then they brought their spaceships, and their blasters, and their airspeeders... And my people experienced crippling loss for the first time in our history." The alien looked deeply humbled by this admission. Sog suppressed a sigh. Captain Sartoza had briefed the 242nd TIE Fighter Wing on the native Tunroth before their arrival on Saloch. The Tunroth, despite their capacity to travel the stars, had refused to harness blaster technology in the entirety of their civilization. They were a warrior race, and saw blasters as an obstruction of honor. Their people fought each other in wars with swords and axes and their bizarre bladed clubs that they called "kilters." As a species, they had decided to refute and deny the usefulness or even the existence of blasters. It was unsurprising to Sog that the Lortans had conquered so many of the Tunroth's worlds.
"We were doomed," the Tunroth said somberly. "Though we never gave up fighting the invaders, my people knew that our race was at an end. But then, as if sent by the gods, you descended from the heavens to slay the Lortans by our side. My people are far too proud to ask for assistance, but still you came. You have saved the Tunroth, Captain Sartoza. For this, my people will always be in the Empire's debt."
Sartoza bowed, and the Tunroth placed the medallion around the Captain's neck. Sartoza stumbled ever-so-slightly from the weight of the hunk of metal, but he retained his balance. Rising to his full height, he turned towards the audience of TIE pilots and civilian Tunroth. He bowed again, and the audience applauded.
Laria, who was standing next to Sog, leaned over to him slightly. The applause drowned out her whispers so that no one could hear her but Sog.
"This is such sithspit," she said. "These people think the Empire came here to save them. If that were true, then why didn't they come earlier? Why didn't they save Rrulinn? Or Quaensan Prime? It was only when the Lortans became the Empire's problem, when they started interfering with Mid Rim trade routes, that the Empire stepped in."
Laria nodded up to the stage. "But look at Sartoza, accepting that medal like he's some kind of hero. If we'd shown up a day later and the Tunroth had been wiped out, no one in Imperial Command would have lost a wink of sleep."
Sog heard her words, but he didn't listen to them. The only thing she said that resonated with him was the word "they." She considered the Empire a "they," not a "we."
She kept looking at him, waiting for him to say something. When he never did, she leaned away and looked down at her feet. "Thank you," she whispered.
The Tunroth leader knelt to bow before Captain Sartoza, and then Sartoza began a speech of his own. It was filled with the same kind of rhetoric that Sog had heard a dozen times before, and he didn't listen. All he kept thinking about was the person beside him. She was simultaneously his friend and his enemy. An ally and a traitor. The venom in her words was evident. Her hate for the Empire was so palpable he could almost taste it. She claimed that she wasn't going to hurt anyone, that she just wanted to leave this all behind, but he heard her talking to the Rebel recuitor last night. She didn't just want to get out, she wanted to join them. Even if she wasn't hurting anyone in his squad now, soon she would be actively fighting against them. Should he just let her go and hope that one day she doesn't blow up a factory? Or bomb an Empire Day parade? Or shoot Banks or Skartis out of the sky? She wasn't just abandoning him--she was betraying him. He thought of the COMPNOR-approved poster that he and Relons had put up in the streets of Hanna City on Chandrila a year ago. YOUR EMPEROR COMMANDS YOU, it read, imposed over a background of stormtroopers arranged in a stylized Imperial crest. EXPOSE, PURSUE, DESTROY THOSE WHO WOULD RESIST US!
And yet still Sog knew he couldn't turn her over to the Empire. She was practically his family. When he was alone in the Academy, when all of the other recruits were receiving holos or care packages from their families, she had always been the one to seek him out and provide him company. When they were seventeen and the Academy had thrown a ball in honor of the visiting Moff Tarkin, Laria had rejected the hands of half a dozen other cadets to dance with him at the stroke of midnight. Not six months ago during the battle above Ammuud, she'd saved his life. Blasted a pirate's Z-95 out of the air just as it had acquired a lock on Sog's TIE.
His loyalties were pulling him apart. The galaxy needed the Empire, that much he was sure of. Never, in all of the galaxy's history, had there been such a prolonged era of peace as they were experiencing now. The Empire meant order and security to all those under its banner.
But he couldn't give up Laria. He couldn't. All of his training told him that he must, that she was a threat, a danger to all he held sacred and dear.
Captain Sartoza finished his speech and bowed again before stepping off the stage. The pilots began to disperse.
"Well," Laria said, putting on her helmet. "See you back up there."
Sog stood still. The Tunroth were departing. Sartoza was walking by him, headed for his TIE intercepter.
He couldn't let Laria go.
"Sir," Sog said. "Captain Sartoza."
Sartoza paused mid-stride, body wavering from the massive medallion that hung around his neck. Recognizing Sog amongst the amalgam of black-clad pilots, he grinned slightly and altered his course.
"Lieutenant Triskan," the Captain said. "That was some flying you did today. I heard about your in-atmo Koiogran. I'm impressed."
"Sir," Sog said. "There's something I have to tell you."
Out of the corner of his eye, Sog saw Laria stop and turn towards him. He could almost see the terror on her face through the mask.
Sartoza frowned. "Is it so important that it can't wait until we're back aboard the Accorder? I'm anxious to get off this miserable rock."
"It is, sir."
"Alright, then. Out with it, son."
Sog breathed in deep. "During the skirmish... There was an airspeeder that escaped. A Lortan fighter. I tried to pursue, but I was intercepted and forced to disengage."
"A single airspeeder?" Sortoza said. "That's not exactly a cause for alarm."
"These Lortans are zealots, sir. Fanatics, as the Tunroth said. I fear that if even one combatant from this battle survives, he will be viewed as a hero or prophet and inspire others to seek vengeance. It could grow, sir."
"One pilot, though? I think you're overreacting, son."
"The Seperatist Crisis started with one planet leaving the Republic. Sir."
Sartoza blinked at that. He stroked his chin, and then nodded. "You raise a good point. What do you suggest?"
"It was, as you said, only a single ship," Sog said. "I recommend that myself and another pilot hunt down this straggler and deal with him."
Sartoza nodded. "A solid plan. You should have joined the ISB, Triskan. You'd go far." Sartoza looked around him, and his gaze fell on the only TIE pilot that remained around them: the stunned and staring Lieutenant Laria Forelo.
"You. Your return to the Accorder has been delayed. You're following Lieutenant Triskan on a recon mission."
Laria turned her helmeted head from Sartoza to Sog and back. "But, sir, I--"
"You can have celebratory drinks with your comrades when this task is done," Sartoza said. "This is an order, Lieutenant."
Laria stood silent for a moment. "Yes, sir," she said at last.
Sartoza grinned, clapped Sog on the shoulder, and made for his TIE interceptor. As soon as he was out of earshot, Laria walked up to Sog.
"Sog, what the hell are you doing? None of the Lortans escaped. You made sure of that."
Sog pushed by her. "Follow me," he said.
She did. The two of them climbed into their TIEs and flew off into Saloch's emerald sky.
#
The two TIE fighters cleared the borders of the destroyed city in seconds. Behind them, dozens of identical ships were rising into the air to dock with the Star Destroyer that wasn't anymore than a wedge-shaped dot in the cloudless sky above. To their right, Saloch's primary was setting on the horizon, casting shadows across the spine of mountains that bordered the massive plains that surrounded the city.
"Sog," Laria said over private comms. "What's going on? What are we doing out here?"
"Fly past the ridge," Sog said. "Into the desert beyond the mountains. Touch down when I do."
"But Sog, I don't--"
Sog silenced his comms. For the next few minutes, he did nothing but fly straight and think. The craggy, snow-frosted mountains passed underneath him, giving way to an endless sea of sand that was broken up by islands of jagged rock. It took him nearly five minutes to find a suitable spot that would fit both of their fighters. Their TIEs landed in a patch of rough sand that rested in the bowl of a massive slab of rock, like water left on a boulder at high tide. Sog undid his flight harness, opened the boarding hatch, threw down the emergency escape ladder, and climbed to the sand below.
The moment he removed his climate-controlled helmet, he began to sweat. Saloch's deserts were as infuriatingly inhospitable as the rest of the planet. Sog found himself wondering why the Lortan's fought so hard to claim it.
"Sog," came Laria's voice from behind him. She too had removed her helmet and was now marching across the sand towards him.
"What is going on?" she said. "Why did you lie to the Captain? What are we doing out here?"
"We need to talk," Sog said.
Laria looked away. "Sog... I know you're upset. But I told you: this is something that I have to do. I can't stay here. The Empire is monstrous."
"If you're just going to keep saying the same things, then we aren't talking. It's just you preaching to me."
Laria looked at him briefly, and then looked away again. "I'm sorry." She waited, staring at him, her sweaty hair falling across her face and sticking to her skin.
"Come with me," she said, but Sog knew she didn't mean it. It was said as a placating gesture, an attempt to show him that she still cared about him.
"I would never do that," Sog said.
"I know," she said. Then she smiled. "Can't blame a girl for trying, right?"
"Is there anything that I can say to convince you to stay?" Sog asked. "Anything at all?"
Laria frowned deeply, bowed her head. "No," she said. "My mind is made up, Sog."
"So you're joining them, then? Taking up with the enemy?"
Laria looked like she was about to say something, to offer a counter point, but she just nodded slowly instead.
"Even though you know what it could come down to?" Sog said. "That there may come a day when the two of us could meet on the battlefield?"
Laria closed her eyes at that. It was clearly something that she had thought about frequently, something that truly upset her. It made Sog's heart sink.
She licked her dry lips. "The odds of that happening--"
"You're willing to risk it?" Sog asked.
Laria was silent.
Sog shook his head. Damn it.
"The Empire is evil," Laria said after a moment. "This I know. If it came down to it, Sog... If ever I ran into you while fighting the Empire... I like to think that we'd recognize each other and we would aim another direction, but I honestly don't know. Every fiber of my being tells me that the Empire is the cause of all the suffering in the galaxy, and the people who support it must... can't..." Her words trailed off.
"The Empire is peace and order," Sog said. He wasn't yelling, he wasn't arguing. He was simply stating it. "What you said back there, about the Tunroth and the Lortans, about the Empire only interfering becaue it was threatening Imperial interests... Don't you see? That is what makes the Empire a force for good. It isn't motivated by emotion or... or passion. It's driven by the need for the galaxy and its inhabitants to succeed. Do you think Saloch is the only planet in the galaxy ravaged by internal struggle? If the Empire just went around helping everyone, that would be the only thing that the Empire did. It would consume all of our resources and destroy the galaxy. Then everyone would suffer."
Laria bit her lip. "It's still not right that so many Tunroth had to die before they deemed it necessary to intervene."
"If the Empire didn't intervene, then nobody would have intervened!" Sog was shouting now, and he forced himself to calm down. "Not all wrongs can be righted, Laria. Pirates are always going to raid ships, terrorists are always going to blow up hospitals. Sometimes bad things happen in the galaxy. That's just the way it is." He sighed. "But at least with the Empire, I can wake up every day knowing that I make a difference. That I put some sort of dent into the vacuum of chaos and despondancy that lurks at the edges of our civilization."
"At what cost, Sog?" Laria's head shot up. Sog thought she might be crying, but instead he only saw righteous indignation in her eyes. "How many worlds do you have to burn? How many executions do you have to witness before you start to think that maybe the ends don't justify the means? At what point do you sacrifice your humanity for the sake of your precious Empire?"
Sog thought back to the poster on the wall of his barracks. I WILL RECOGNIZE THAT THE EMPIRE IS GREATER THAN MYSELF AND BE WILLING TO DIE IN ITS SERVICE.
"I would sacrifice everything, Laria," he said. "Except for you."
In spite of her anger, he saw her eyes light up. She stood straighter, loosened her balled-up fists.
"I won't turn you over to some tribunal," Sog said. "I won't let them torture you."
"Thank you," Laria said.
"But I can't let you kill my comrades." Sog reached to his side and put his hand on the grip of his sidearm. But he didn't draw it. He waited for Laria to see what he was doing, to catch on to his meaning.
"Sog..." Her voice was hoarse, as if she'd spent days heaving or crying. "What are... What are you doing?"
"Grab your gun," he said.
She gingerly touched the blaster at her side, as if surprised and disgusted by its presence. "No, Sog, this isn't how--"
"I said grab your gun." Sog could feel tears welling up in his eyes. "I won't shoot someone unless they're armed and staring me in the eye. Now draw your damned gun."
"Sog." Laria's words became stern and commanding. "This isn't how this is supposed to happen. We can't do this to each other. We can't."
Sog blinked back tears, but it did no good. He began yelling in an attempt to fight them away.
"I said, Draw. Your. Gun."
"Sog..."
"Draw your gun, Rebel!"
Laria flinched, and whipped out her pistol. Sog blinked, then drew his own, but not quick enough. Laria lifted her arm and fired without aiming, shooting a searing bolt of plasma right by Sog's head and hitting the solar array of his TIE. Before she could get off another shot, Sog's gun was up, leveled on her torso. He kept expecting a chime to go off, telling him he'd locked on to his target.
There was no chime. Only the singing pop of the blaster as it rocked in his hands and sent a bolt into Laria's chest. Her eyes bulged and her feet came out from under her.
Sog stood completely still as Laria collapsed into the sand. The gun was shaking in his hand, his teeth were clattering.
Laria was on her back. She wasn't moving.
He waited. Held his breath to listen. He heard nothing in response. No gasps, no cries of pain, no breathing.
When the smoke cleared from the hole in Laria's chestplate, Sog fell to his knees and sobbed into an empty desert on a nearly dead world.
#
He buried Laria in the sands of Saloch. He blasted her TIE fighter apart from the air and did his best to make it look like she'd been shot down. Then he returned to the Accorder.
Captain Sartoza summoned him the moment he arrived. He demanded to know how the mission went, to which Sog responded that it was successful. Sartoza asked about Laria's whereabouts, and Sog told him that she'd been shot out of the sky in pursuit of the airspeeder, taking down the Lortan with her last breath.
Sartoza didn't question him further. He had no reason to disbelieve anything Sog had to say.
But it was the last time that Sog would ever lie to his Empire. He swore to it.
As he walked back to his barracks and into the embrace of his squad mates, he swore again: He would never let any of them die without reason. He would never allow the Empire to decide their fates for him. Laria was the last time.
As the Accorder jumped into hyperspace, Sog Triskan overheard Skartis asking Banks what he thought of their first battle.
"Well, I'll say this," said Banks. "I'm not the same person I was yesteday."
There was one other person in the common area with him--a younger pilot with short, curly black hair. He was reclining on the sofa that sat in the center of the room and reading something on his datapad.
"Evening, Triskan," the pilot said without looking up.
"Relons," Sog replied. Sog walked past the pilot and opened up the door to his dormitory. The three-by-four-meter room was tightly filled with two double bunks and a single dresser. The dorm was empty.
"Hey, Relons," Sog said. "You seen Laria anywhere?"
"She's on a holo," Relons said, keeping his eyes fixated on whatever he was reading.
Sog nodded and glanced at the comm room. There was a red light on the panel by the door, indicating that the holotranceiver was in use.
"Did she mention who with?" Sog asked.
Relons shrugged. "Her mother, I think."
Sog was surprised to hear that. Contacting a loved one over the holonet--while not prohibited by Imperial Command--was highly frowned upon. On the one hand, it no doubt seemed a sign of weakness to contact one's parents on the eve of a battle. On the other hand, Laria was no coward. She had been one of the finest cadets at Prefsbelt, second in piloting ability only to Sog himself. Where she had surpassed him by far, however, was in ground combat, especially in the martial art of Echani. Sog had never met someone so in-tune with the mechanics of her own body as Laria Forelo. She was an astounding soldier, and the Empire was stronger for having her.
Sog had met Laria's mother on the day of their graduation from the Imperial Academy. Tooshara Forelo was a lovely single mother in her sixties who always seemed to find joy in everything that was presented to her. At the graduation ceremony--a purposefully bland event meant to represent the cadets' introductions into something far greater than themselves--Ms. Forelo had broken down in tears of pride and admiration. Afterwards, Ms. Forelo insisted that Sog join her and her daughter for a celebratory dinner. Sog had acquiesced, and spent a charming evening with Laria and her mother at a high-end restaurant under the skyhook that would take them away to their futures in the Empire the following morning.
A dull pain manifested in Sog's chest. Neither of his parents had attended the graduation ceremony. He was fairly certain that they were both dead. A small part of him hoped so, as it was easier to accept that reality than the one where his parents had consciously chosen not to contact him for the last seven years.
He suddenly wished to speak with Laria's mother. He couldn't explain why, but the feeling was almost overwhelming. He was sure that Laria, who was like a sister to him, wouldn't mind his interruption. Tooshara would probably be elated to see him over the holo.
"She said it was private," Relons said, still not looking up.
Sog ignored him and approached the door and swiped his card. It opened with a quiet hiss, allowing him to step in to the room beyond.
The comm room was as big as the common area outside, but much more cluttered. It was dark, with only the blue glow of the three holotranceivers providing any illumination beyond the glow from the common area. Each holotranceiver was in its own cubicle, preventing the displays or projectors from the other machines interfering with each other, and also providing a modicum of privacy. Only one holotranceiver was occupied. Sog quietly sealed the door behind him, and once more plunged the room into darkness and silence.
Sog heard Laria's voice from the farthest holotranceiver, and he realized she hadn't heard him enter. She was speaking with someone in a hushed, almost worried tone. Sog was about to make his presence known when he heard the person on the other end of the holo speak.
The voice wasn't that of a woman. It wasn't even that of a human. Sog stayed by the door and held his breath.
"You're certain this communication is secure?" the garbled voice said. It was watery, like the speaker's mouth was full of froth.
"Absolutely," Laria said, her voice low. "I've installed the spike into the terminal, they can't trace this. Most of my squad mates are out at the mess. No one's listening in."
"Good," the voice said. "You were right to contact us. You're doing the right thing."
"I just didn't know where else to turn," Laria said. Sog could hear the despair in her voice. "I can't take it anymore. It's... I just... I can't be a part of this anymore. I can't."
Sog swallowed a lump in his throat. What was she talking about? Who was she saying this to? He wished to step closer, to catch sight of the blue holographic projection of the alien speaker on the other end. But he dared not move a muscle.
"It's alright," the alien said. "We can help you."
"And I want to help you," Laria said, urgency and passion taking ahold of her words.
"That's good to hear," the alien said. "The Rebel Alliance needs all the help it can get."
#
A light flashed on Sog Triskan's control panel, and once again he found himself in the present. The twin ion engines of his fighter were screaming, the broken remains of buildings were passing underneath, and laser bolts were lighting up the green sky above like fireworks. He glanced at the display--a little digital representation of his TIE surrounded by a field of concentric circles--and saw a red dot indicating that an airspeeder had gotten behind him.
Sog flicked a switch and set his engines to maximum speed, propelling himself forward and up to try and shake his pursuer. Yellow bolts streaked by him, narrowly missing the broad solar arrays to his right and left. He rolled to the left, hoping to break the Lortan's line of sight, but the speeder stayed on him, matching his trajectory exactly.
Whoever was after him was good.
Sog pushed forward on the yoke and sent his TIE into a dive. He aimed straight for the ruined skyscrapers in the city below. The Lortans' airspeeders were maneuverable, but no where near as mobile as a TIE fighter. He pulled up just before slamming into the roof of a wide-domed structure, and then veered left behind a skyscraper. His TIE narrowly avoided careening into the glass windows of an office building, but he pulled hard to starboard at the last second and then flew under another skyscraper that had fallen on its side, hanging over the streets below like a dead tree after a storm. He jockeyed between the buildings, keeping one eye constantly on the display near his hands.
The red dot stayed behind him the entire time.
Insid his obscuring helmet, Sog smiled. He hadn't been challenged once in this battle so far. It was beginning to look like the Lortans didn't have a single competent pilot among them.
He began testing the Lortan pilot by taking a series of increasingly risky maneuvers. Sog rolled his TIE so that he flew horizontally through a hole that had been blasted out of the center of a huge tower, and the airspeeder followed. Yellow laser bolts pelted the durasteel and glass of the buildings around him and created a storm of fire and smoke. Sog pushed the fore of his craft straight down so that he headed into a canyon that ran through the center of the city, pulling up only just as he reached the rushing river at the bottom. There was a slight shudder as the TIE's solar arrays skimmed the surface of the water.
The airspeeder followed him into the canyon, copying his flying pattern perfectly. When the canyon opened up into a waterfall that cascaded down the cliff atop which the city was perched, Sog slammed on the accelerator. His TIE shot out into the open sky and back into the chaos of the battle. The airspeeder stayed right on his tail.
Worse yet, his scanners told him that the airspeeder had opened up a comm channel. Sog scowled. He'd hoped that the Lortan pilot had recognized that the two of them had engaged in what he felt was an honorable test of skill. This was a duel between two warriors, Sog had assumed. Instead the Lortan was calling for backup.
Sog decided that the game had come to an end. With no structures to block him up, Sog pulled down on the throttle and twisted the control stick with the other, executing a Koiogran turn. He was suddenly facing his opponent while maintaining his forward momentum. If he were in space, his TIE would have kept heading the same direction while he carefully lined up a shot on his pursuer. But in the atmosphere of Saloch, gravity and friction fought to deny him such leisure. Sog knew he only had a fraction of a second before his TIE would stall out and the airspeeder would go zipping by him.
Fortunately, he had anticipated this. His opponent had not.
The Lortan must have panicked when he saw Sog's TIE invert itself, because the airspeeder immediately threw on its airbrakes, and it slowed right into the path of Sog's laser cannons.
Sog pulled the trigger and felt a rush of excitement as the airspeeder's engines exploded. The airspeeder started spinning and plummeting to the surface below, clouds of black smoke and flames billowing out behind it. Sog pushed the throttle forward and pulled back on the yoke, righting his TIE and watching with satisfaction as the red dot disappeared from his display.
His victory was short lived, however, as two more dots quickly appeared off to his left.
Sog grunted and gripped the control stick with both hands. He veered port, seeking to intercept the airspeeders before they started firing into his flank. The horizon slanted, the expanse of fields and mountains disappeared to his right, and the city on the cliffs came back into his view. The bulk of the battle was raging in the distance--a cluster of small black dots and colored lines of energy swarming through the sky like glowbugs. Sog knew that the fighting was just as intense on the ground below as the Saloch natives fought against the Lortan's army, but that wasn't his concern. He flipped his scanners over to short range detection and saw the red dots magnify on his display. To his surprise, their courses had changed. They were no longer coming for him. Instead, they were headed upwards into the sky, chasing down another TIE fighter that looked exactly like his.
Sog wasn't sure if the Lortan reinforcements had gotten their targets confused or if they had watched him execute their comrade and were now too afraid to engage him. Either way, Sog's next objective was clear: save his fellow TIE pilot before those airspeeders converged on shot him out of the sky.
Sog gunned his TIE fighter and reveled in the sound of the ion engines screaming in exertion. The metal of the TIE's frame groaned, the displays rattled and chirped in warning. To him, these were sounds of ecstasy. This wasn't his fighter; he'd never flown it before. The Imperial Navy didn't permit pilots getting attached to their ships, preferring to keep their tools of war interchangeable and anonymous. Still, Sog knew that this TIE was enjoying the rush of combat. It lusted for blood and speed. All TIEs did, and he sought to appease them.
The airspeeders were closing on the other TIE. Sog opened his comm channel to the pilot.
"This is Nexu One," Sog said. "You've got two on your six."
The TIE pilot reacted to Sog's warning by rolling just as the first bolts shot by it.
"Roger, Nexu One, this is Nexu Three. Thanks for the heads up."
Sog's heart caught in his chest as he heard Laria's voice over the comm, and once again his mind descended into memory.
#
Sog stood in the entryway of the private comm room. The door to the common area was shut behind him, the holotranceivers cast their eerie blue glow across the dark walls, and Laria was staring straight at him. She was half standing, half sitting in the chair of the farthest holo booth, her posture tensed in anticipation, her eyes filled with absolute horror.
"Sog," she said.
Sog couldn't even respond to her. Laria had just finished her communication with the aquatic alien, ending by telling it that she would be jumping ship at their next friendly port of call and leaving the Empire behind forever. The alien had not only mentioned the Rebel Alliance, it had said that it was a recruiter for the terrorist organization. It was recruiting Laria. The alien hadn't contacted her here, there was no way for it to--Laria had contacted it. Once the holo was over, she had disconnected a small blinking device from the terminal. She turned around coolly, and then she saw Sog.
"How..." she stumbled over her words, her voice coming out raspy and quiet. "How did... Did you hear any..."
"Laria," Sog said. He couldn't believe what he had just witnessed. He and Laria had been through flight school together, had been by each other's sides all throughout the last six years. They'd thanked the stars when, by pure chance, they'd been assigned to the same battlegroup.
Sog blinked in an effort to erase this moment from his vision. It didn't leave. Laria was still crouching by the terminal, holding an illegal computer spike in her hands and looking like she'd just been caught at the scene of a murder.
"Sog," she said quickly. "Please. Don't--Don't shout. Don't do anything brash. Just... Just let me explain."
"Explain?" Sog said. "Laria, what the hell is happening here? What was that? Who was that?"
Laria slowly placed the spike inside her coat. "It wasn't anything. It wasn't anybody, Sog. I wasn't talking to anybody."
"I saw everything," Sog said. "I don't believe I... Laria, you're a..." The words wouldn't leave his throat.
"I'm not," she said. "I'm not. I'm still with you."
"The Rebels?" Sog said, the word sounding blasphemous to his ears. "You're defecting? How? Why?"
"Sog, please. Please. This can't leave this room. Sog, you have to promise me."
Sog shook his head. "No," he said, pausing. "You're a traitor--A traitor to the Empire. A traitor to... To me."
"I'm not." She rushed up to him, and he flinched. She grabbed both of his arms and stared up into his face. Sog was tall, much taller than her, and she had to crane her neck back to meet his eyes. Her eyes were deep brown, even in the dim blue light of the holotranceivers. Her short auburn hair framed her pleading face.
"I would never betray you, Sog. Never. This has absolutely nothing to do with you. It's... It's me. I can't--I can't take this anymore. What we do. The things they make us do. Sog, this place is poison. These people, this Empire, it's... bad."
"What are you talking about?" Sog said. He couldn't understand where this was coming from, what had led her to this. Why was she doing such a horrible thing? "The Empire is our life. The Empire is everything. It's order, it's peace, it's--" He shook his head. "Why am I explaining--You know this, Laria! You know this as well as I do."
"It's evil, Sog," she said. He knew from her voice that the words were hard for her to say, but it sounded like she believed them.
"Laria, I can't abide this. I have to report... this. You." He turned to the door.
She pulled him back.
"Sog, please. You can't turn me over to them. You can't. I don't want to hurt anyone, especially you. I just want to get out. I just need to leave."
"I have to," he said. "I would be betraying everything I stood for if I saw this and didn't say anything. I have to, Laria."
"No," she almost shouted. "You're a good person, Sog. You're loyal to a fault. But you're loyal to the people who matter to you. I know you, better than anyone. There's nothing more important to you than your team. Skartis, Banks, Relons, Antion, Temm... I'm part of that team, Sog. You can't turn me over to them."
"You're not part of my team anymore," Sog said. "Not after witnessing that. You're not an Imperial."
"I'm not," she said quietly. "But I'm still part of your team, Sog. Not theirs. Not Palpatine's. I'm part of you."
Sog didn't say anything to that.
Her lips trembled. "You know what they'll do to me if you turn me in. I won't be discharged, I won't be tried. They'll torture me, Sog. We've seen it happen. They'll drain me for information I don't have, and then days, maybe weeks later, they'll execute me in front of everyone. Sog, you can't let that happen to me. Not to one of your own."
Sog knew she was right. After the battle above Ammuun, it was discovered that a comms operator aboard the Accorder had been leaking military trade route information to the pirates. Captain Sartoza had the comms operator stripped down and paraded into the central hangar bay, where much of the Star Destroyer's crew and troops had been assembled. The comms operator, a woman named Keeni Jusako, was forced to her knees and shot through the back of the head after admitting to her treachery. From the bruises and cuts that covered her skin, it was clear that the interrogation droids had had some time with her before the public execution.
Sog couldn't have that happen to Laria. She was right; she was part of his squad. And even if a member of his squad a mistake, he would stand by them. It was the right thing to do.
After a moment of standing with her in the near darkness, he turned his back to her. "You took an oath," he said.
"I have to leave, Sog," Laria said. "I can't be a part of this. Not willingly. I'd rather die."
Sog winced. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly through his nose. Then he opened the door to the common area and walked out.
"Sog, wait--"
Relons was still on the sofa, data pad in hand. He looked up as Sog entered.
"I heard yelling," Relons said. "Everything okay?"
Laria rushed out of the darkness into the common area, eyes wide and begging. Sog didn't even look back at her.
"Argument with her mother," he said, and then stormed into his dormitory.
#
"Nexu One, I could use a hand here," Laria said. She was dodging left and right, barely keeping ahead of the yellow laser blasts from the airspeeders.
Sog just kept staring ahead. There was Laria, still flying her TIE fighter the day after openly telling him that she was planning on abandoning the Empire. She was a deserter, she practically said so herself. She couldn't stand the thought of being in the Imperial Navy a day longer, and yet here she was the next day.
Laria, his friend. Laria, the Rebel sympathizer. Laria, the traitor.
TIE fighters didn't have any shielding, and barely any armor to speak of. If even one of those brilliant yellow bolts struck her fighter, she was dead.
"Nexu One," Laria shouted over the comms. "They're all over me; I need you!"
Sog shook his head. No. Laria was not a traitor. Not today, at least. Right now, she was his squad mate. His wingman. And she needed his help.
Sog's TIE fighter tore through the open sky and closed the gap between him and the airspeeders. They reacted to his arrival by peeling off of Laria's TIE and trying to come around to face him, but these two weren't nearly as skilled as the last Lortan pilot. Sog caught the first one just as it veered left, blasting it in half with two pulls of the trigger. The second one managed to escape his field of fire and, seeing that it was now outnumbered, began to turn and flee. Sog pulled a quick pitchback, gaining altitude and closing on the slower airspeeder. He fired two shots that went over the Lortan's bow, dropped slightly, and then vaporized the airspeeder with a third shot.
"Thanks, Nexu One," came Laria's voice over the comm.
Sog hesitated, then said, "Return to formation, Nexu Three. We're not done yet."
"Roger, Nexu One."
Laria's TIE took off into the cloud of fighters above. Sog waited for a moment, watched her rise into the sky until she was just another speck--uniform, aggressive, nameless--and then followed.
#
"...Not have done it without the aid of the Empire. You have saved us in our most desperate hour."
Sog barely listened to the towering alien as it spoke. His mind was racing, still going back to the events of the night before.
Sog and nearly fifty other TIE pilots stood at attention in a blasted plot of land that might have been a park before the Lortans arrived. Rows of TIE fighters were parked behind the pilots, standing on their wings on the uneven ground (a landing method that always greatly agitated Sog--TIEs weren't structurally designed to be supported by their wings for long). In front of them, standing atop a makeshift stage, was Captain Kane Sartoza, still in his flight suit and standing proud with his arms behind his back. He was flanked by Admiral Yax Vonteri and Lieutenant Commander Stiern Kotops, two men whom Sog knew by reputation but not by acquaintance. Accordingly, a squad of stormtroopers stood behind them with rifles low. Opposite them stood a gathering of Tunroth, the denizens of Saloch. The Tunroth were huge, hulking aliens with wide heads and tusks emerging from their lower jaws. None of them were wearing armor, and each carried a primitive club that was adorned with metal blades. It seemed impossible to Sog that such creatures were capable of constructing the once-mighty skyscrapers that stood in ruins around them.
The Tunroth at the head of the group--their leader, judging by his cape and scepter--was presenting Captain Sartoza with a weighty-looking medallion with a leather band. Sog could not tell if Captain Sartoza was particularly honored, but the Captain played the part in any case.
"When the Lortan fanatics first landed on our planet, my people made short work of them. But then they brought their spaceships, and their blasters, and their airspeeders... And my people experienced crippling loss for the first time in our history." The alien looked deeply humbled by this admission. Sog suppressed a sigh. Captain Sartoza had briefed the 242nd TIE Fighter Wing on the native Tunroth before their arrival on Saloch. The Tunroth, despite their capacity to travel the stars, had refused to harness blaster technology in the entirety of their civilization. They were a warrior race, and saw blasters as an obstruction of honor. Their people fought each other in wars with swords and axes and their bizarre bladed clubs that they called "kilters." As a species, they had decided to refute and deny the usefulness or even the existence of blasters. It was unsurprising to Sog that the Lortans had conquered so many of the Tunroth's worlds.
"We were doomed," the Tunroth said somberly. "Though we never gave up fighting the invaders, my people knew that our race was at an end. But then, as if sent by the gods, you descended from the heavens to slay the Lortans by our side. My people are far too proud to ask for assistance, but still you came. You have saved the Tunroth, Captain Sartoza. For this, my people will always be in the Empire's debt."
Sartoza bowed, and the Tunroth placed the medallion around the Captain's neck. Sartoza stumbled ever-so-slightly from the weight of the hunk of metal, but he retained his balance. Rising to his full height, he turned towards the audience of TIE pilots and civilian Tunroth. He bowed again, and the audience applauded.
Laria, who was standing next to Sog, leaned over to him slightly. The applause drowned out her whispers so that no one could hear her but Sog.
"This is such sithspit," she said. "These people think the Empire came here to save them. If that were true, then why didn't they come earlier? Why didn't they save Rrulinn? Or Quaensan Prime? It was only when the Lortans became the Empire's problem, when they started interfering with Mid Rim trade routes, that the Empire stepped in."
Laria nodded up to the stage. "But look at Sartoza, accepting that medal like he's some kind of hero. If we'd shown up a day later and the Tunroth had been wiped out, no one in Imperial Command would have lost a wink of sleep."
Sog heard her words, but he didn't listen to them. The only thing she said that resonated with him was the word "they." She considered the Empire a "they," not a "we."
She kept looking at him, waiting for him to say something. When he never did, she leaned away and looked down at her feet. "Thank you," she whispered.
The Tunroth leader knelt to bow before Captain Sartoza, and then Sartoza began a speech of his own. It was filled with the same kind of rhetoric that Sog had heard a dozen times before, and he didn't listen. All he kept thinking about was the person beside him. She was simultaneously his friend and his enemy. An ally and a traitor. The venom in her words was evident. Her hate for the Empire was so palpable he could almost taste it. She claimed that she wasn't going to hurt anyone, that she just wanted to leave this all behind, but he heard her talking to the Rebel recuitor last night. She didn't just want to get out, she wanted to join them. Even if she wasn't hurting anyone in his squad now, soon she would be actively fighting against them. Should he just let her go and hope that one day she doesn't blow up a factory? Or bomb an Empire Day parade? Or shoot Banks or Skartis out of the sky? She wasn't just abandoning him--she was betraying him. He thought of the COMPNOR-approved poster that he and Relons had put up in the streets of Hanna City on Chandrila a year ago. YOUR EMPEROR COMMANDS YOU, it read, imposed over a background of stormtroopers arranged in a stylized Imperial crest. EXPOSE, PURSUE, DESTROY THOSE WHO WOULD RESIST US!
And yet still Sog knew he couldn't turn her over to the Empire. She was practically his family. When he was alone in the Academy, when all of the other recruits were receiving holos or care packages from their families, she had always been the one to seek him out and provide him company. When they were seventeen and the Academy had thrown a ball in honor of the visiting Moff Tarkin, Laria had rejected the hands of half a dozen other cadets to dance with him at the stroke of midnight. Not six months ago during the battle above Ammuud, she'd saved his life. Blasted a pirate's Z-95 out of the air just as it had acquired a lock on Sog's TIE.
His loyalties were pulling him apart. The galaxy needed the Empire, that much he was sure of. Never, in all of the galaxy's history, had there been such a prolonged era of peace as they were experiencing now. The Empire meant order and security to all those under its banner.
But he couldn't give up Laria. He couldn't. All of his training told him that he must, that she was a threat, a danger to all he held sacred and dear.
Captain Sartoza finished his speech and bowed again before stepping off the stage. The pilots began to disperse.
"Well," Laria said, putting on her helmet. "See you back up there."
Sog stood still. The Tunroth were departing. Sartoza was walking by him, headed for his TIE intercepter.
He couldn't let Laria go.
"Sir," Sog said. "Captain Sartoza."
Sartoza paused mid-stride, body wavering from the massive medallion that hung around his neck. Recognizing Sog amongst the amalgam of black-clad pilots, he grinned slightly and altered his course.
"Lieutenant Triskan," the Captain said. "That was some flying you did today. I heard about your in-atmo Koiogran. I'm impressed."
"Sir," Sog said. "There's something I have to tell you."
Out of the corner of his eye, Sog saw Laria stop and turn towards him. He could almost see the terror on her face through the mask.
Sartoza frowned. "Is it so important that it can't wait until we're back aboard the Accorder? I'm anxious to get off this miserable rock."
"It is, sir."
"Alright, then. Out with it, son."
Sog breathed in deep. "During the skirmish... There was an airspeeder that escaped. A Lortan fighter. I tried to pursue, but I was intercepted and forced to disengage."
"A single airspeeder?" Sortoza said. "That's not exactly a cause for alarm."
"These Lortans are zealots, sir. Fanatics, as the Tunroth said. I fear that if even one combatant from this battle survives, he will be viewed as a hero or prophet and inspire others to seek vengeance. It could grow, sir."
"One pilot, though? I think you're overreacting, son."
"The Seperatist Crisis started with one planet leaving the Republic. Sir."
Sartoza blinked at that. He stroked his chin, and then nodded. "You raise a good point. What do you suggest?"
"It was, as you said, only a single ship," Sog said. "I recommend that myself and another pilot hunt down this straggler and deal with him."
Sartoza nodded. "A solid plan. You should have joined the ISB, Triskan. You'd go far." Sartoza looked around him, and his gaze fell on the only TIE pilot that remained around them: the stunned and staring Lieutenant Laria Forelo.
"You. Your return to the Accorder has been delayed. You're following Lieutenant Triskan on a recon mission."
Laria turned her helmeted head from Sartoza to Sog and back. "But, sir, I--"
"You can have celebratory drinks with your comrades when this task is done," Sartoza said. "This is an order, Lieutenant."
Laria stood silent for a moment. "Yes, sir," she said at last.
Sartoza grinned, clapped Sog on the shoulder, and made for his TIE interceptor. As soon as he was out of earshot, Laria walked up to Sog.
"Sog, what the hell are you doing? None of the Lortans escaped. You made sure of that."
Sog pushed by her. "Follow me," he said.
She did. The two of them climbed into their TIEs and flew off into Saloch's emerald sky.
#
The two TIE fighters cleared the borders of the destroyed city in seconds. Behind them, dozens of identical ships were rising into the air to dock with the Star Destroyer that wasn't anymore than a wedge-shaped dot in the cloudless sky above. To their right, Saloch's primary was setting on the horizon, casting shadows across the spine of mountains that bordered the massive plains that surrounded the city.
"Sog," Laria said over private comms. "What's going on? What are we doing out here?"
"Fly past the ridge," Sog said. "Into the desert beyond the mountains. Touch down when I do."
"But Sog, I don't--"
Sog silenced his comms. For the next few minutes, he did nothing but fly straight and think. The craggy, snow-frosted mountains passed underneath him, giving way to an endless sea of sand that was broken up by islands of jagged rock. It took him nearly five minutes to find a suitable spot that would fit both of their fighters. Their TIEs landed in a patch of rough sand that rested in the bowl of a massive slab of rock, like water left on a boulder at high tide. Sog undid his flight harness, opened the boarding hatch, threw down the emergency escape ladder, and climbed to the sand below.
The moment he removed his climate-controlled helmet, he began to sweat. Saloch's deserts were as infuriatingly inhospitable as the rest of the planet. Sog found himself wondering why the Lortan's fought so hard to claim it.
"Sog," came Laria's voice from behind him. She too had removed her helmet and was now marching across the sand towards him.
"What is going on?" she said. "Why did you lie to the Captain? What are we doing out here?"
"We need to talk," Sog said.
Laria looked away. "Sog... I know you're upset. But I told you: this is something that I have to do. I can't stay here. The Empire is monstrous."
"If you're just going to keep saying the same things, then we aren't talking. It's just you preaching to me."
Laria looked at him briefly, and then looked away again. "I'm sorry." She waited, staring at him, her sweaty hair falling across her face and sticking to her skin.
"Come with me," she said, but Sog knew she didn't mean it. It was said as a placating gesture, an attempt to show him that she still cared about him.
"I would never do that," Sog said.
"I know," she said. Then she smiled. "Can't blame a girl for trying, right?"
"Is there anything that I can say to convince you to stay?" Sog asked. "Anything at all?"
Laria frowned deeply, bowed her head. "No," she said. "My mind is made up, Sog."
"So you're joining them, then? Taking up with the enemy?"
Laria looked like she was about to say something, to offer a counter point, but she just nodded slowly instead.
"Even though you know what it could come down to?" Sog said. "That there may come a day when the two of us could meet on the battlefield?"
Laria closed her eyes at that. It was clearly something that she had thought about frequently, something that truly upset her. It made Sog's heart sink.
She licked her dry lips. "The odds of that happening--"
"You're willing to risk it?" Sog asked.
Laria was silent.
Sog shook his head. Damn it.
"The Empire is evil," Laria said after a moment. "This I know. If it came down to it, Sog... If ever I ran into you while fighting the Empire... I like to think that we'd recognize each other and we would aim another direction, but I honestly don't know. Every fiber of my being tells me that the Empire is the cause of all the suffering in the galaxy, and the people who support it must... can't..." Her words trailed off.
"The Empire is peace and order," Sog said. He wasn't yelling, he wasn't arguing. He was simply stating it. "What you said back there, about the Tunroth and the Lortans, about the Empire only interfering becaue it was threatening Imperial interests... Don't you see? That is what makes the Empire a force for good. It isn't motivated by emotion or... or passion. It's driven by the need for the galaxy and its inhabitants to succeed. Do you think Saloch is the only planet in the galaxy ravaged by internal struggle? If the Empire just went around helping everyone, that would be the only thing that the Empire did. It would consume all of our resources and destroy the galaxy. Then everyone would suffer."
Laria bit her lip. "It's still not right that so many Tunroth had to die before they deemed it necessary to intervene."
"If the Empire didn't intervene, then nobody would have intervened!" Sog was shouting now, and he forced himself to calm down. "Not all wrongs can be righted, Laria. Pirates are always going to raid ships, terrorists are always going to blow up hospitals. Sometimes bad things happen in the galaxy. That's just the way it is." He sighed. "But at least with the Empire, I can wake up every day knowing that I make a difference. That I put some sort of dent into the vacuum of chaos and despondancy that lurks at the edges of our civilization."
"At what cost, Sog?" Laria's head shot up. Sog thought she might be crying, but instead he only saw righteous indignation in her eyes. "How many worlds do you have to burn? How many executions do you have to witness before you start to think that maybe the ends don't justify the means? At what point do you sacrifice your humanity for the sake of your precious Empire?"
Sog thought back to the poster on the wall of his barracks. I WILL RECOGNIZE THAT THE EMPIRE IS GREATER THAN MYSELF AND BE WILLING TO DIE IN ITS SERVICE.
"I would sacrifice everything, Laria," he said. "Except for you."
In spite of her anger, he saw her eyes light up. She stood straighter, loosened her balled-up fists.
"I won't turn you over to some tribunal," Sog said. "I won't let them torture you."
"Thank you," Laria said.
"But I can't let you kill my comrades." Sog reached to his side and put his hand on the grip of his sidearm. But he didn't draw it. He waited for Laria to see what he was doing, to catch on to his meaning.
"Sog..." Her voice was hoarse, as if she'd spent days heaving or crying. "What are... What are you doing?"
"Grab your gun," he said.
She gingerly touched the blaster at her side, as if surprised and disgusted by its presence. "No, Sog, this isn't how--"
"I said grab your gun." Sog could feel tears welling up in his eyes. "I won't shoot someone unless they're armed and staring me in the eye. Now draw your damned gun."
"Sog." Laria's words became stern and commanding. "This isn't how this is supposed to happen. We can't do this to each other. We can't."
Sog blinked back tears, but it did no good. He began yelling in an attempt to fight them away.
"I said, Draw. Your. Gun."
"Sog..."
"Draw your gun, Rebel!"
Laria flinched, and whipped out her pistol. Sog blinked, then drew his own, but not quick enough. Laria lifted her arm and fired without aiming, shooting a searing bolt of plasma right by Sog's head and hitting the solar array of his TIE. Before she could get off another shot, Sog's gun was up, leveled on her torso. He kept expecting a chime to go off, telling him he'd locked on to his target.
There was no chime. Only the singing pop of the blaster as it rocked in his hands and sent a bolt into Laria's chest. Her eyes bulged and her feet came out from under her.
Sog stood completely still as Laria collapsed into the sand. The gun was shaking in his hand, his teeth were clattering.
Laria was on her back. She wasn't moving.
He waited. Held his breath to listen. He heard nothing in response. No gasps, no cries of pain, no breathing.
When the smoke cleared from the hole in Laria's chestplate, Sog fell to his knees and sobbed into an empty desert on a nearly dead world.
#
He buried Laria in the sands of Saloch. He blasted her TIE fighter apart from the air and did his best to make it look like she'd been shot down. Then he returned to the Accorder.
Captain Sartoza summoned him the moment he arrived. He demanded to know how the mission went, to which Sog responded that it was successful. Sartoza asked about Laria's whereabouts, and Sog told him that she'd been shot out of the sky in pursuit of the airspeeder, taking down the Lortan with her last breath.
Sartoza didn't question him further. He had no reason to disbelieve anything Sog had to say.
But it was the last time that Sog would ever lie to his Empire. He swore to it.
As he walked back to his barracks and into the embrace of his squad mates, he swore again: He would never let any of them die without reason. He would never allow the Empire to decide their fates for him. Laria was the last time.
As the Accorder jumped into hyperspace, Sog Triskan overheard Skartis asking Banks what he thought of their first battle.
"Well, I'll say this," said Banks. "I'm not the same person I was yesteday."
