Story By Simon H. Lee shl10@cornell.edu Copyright disclaimers: The usual supplications to LFL's legal dept. Star Wars Universe by George Lucas and owned by LFL; Original characters by Simon Lee. [Author's note: This started out better than it ended up, I think. Might have gotten a bit muddled as it went along in writing.] ONE SHOT ONE YEAR AFTER THE BATTLE OF YAVIN A single pull of the trigger, four shots, three hits, and the final TIE defending the supply convoy burst into a million glow- ing fragments. Keilyn Skye brought her X-wing's nose around and inspected the area. "Intruder Five here. I'm done." She looked at the dissipating cloud of gas that was formerly the TIE as it floated away. *I haven't shot down an Imperial in a while.* It had taken Skye most of a month to fully recover from her near-death at the hands of her old squadron--though "recovery" in- cluded exacting revenge in ways only barely sanctioned by Starfighter Command. After that, she had been assigned to anti-pirate missions near the Outer Rim, designed to win favor for the Rebellion among the smaller systems of that area, but, she thought, also Command's way of letting her blow off some steam. Fortunately, the nine months of running down down Z-95s, Y-wings, antiquated TIEs, and Uglies of all types had prepared her well for her new assignment with the Fleet's Intruder Squadron. *Now I'm the pirate.* Their current mission, escorting a raid on an Imperial supply convoy in the Propias Cluster, seemed orderly enough--an antiquated Bulk Cruiser and two Corvettes, combined with the firepower of two dozen X- and Y-wings, was more than adequate to jump the lightly- defended convoy of thirteen ships as they transited the Cluster. In order to add to the surprise, the Rebel fighters emerged from hyperspace at the opposite end of the convoy and moments after their mother ships. This forced the convoy to split targets, and would give the fighters a chance to spot any surprises the Imperials had in store. *Surprise--for who? There were a whole six TIEs defending a freighter convoy in which no ship mounted no more than two Class IV turbolasers? What were they thinking? Even we put up more support for those two-credit convoys out on the Rim,* Skye mused. *If this is an Imperial trap, it's going to be an awfully expensive one for 'em.* Commander Aison, the Intruders' CO, didn't appear to be par- ticularly bothered by the weak defense. "Area secured. Begin CAP as planned." The X-wing elements split up and started patrolling a globe of space ranging out to ten kilometers from the convoy. Skye remained on close patrol, weaving in and out through the convoy and the Rebel ships, getting a pretty good view of what they had captured in the process and verifying her sensor data with what the Rebels had been expecting. Targets Alpha, Beta, Epsilon, and Theta were ore freighters, heavy with cargo but light on crews. The assault shuttles now con- ducting boarding operations would leave new crews aboard that would take the ships to Rebel colonies that needed the resources. Targets Gamma, Delta, Zeta, Iota, and Lambda were the real prize--bulk freighters bearing a variety of goods, including food, spare parts, and munitions. The Corvettes closing to board with them were dwarfed by their prey. Targets Eta and Kappa were fuel tankers, which the Rebels planned to slave to the Bulk Cruiser's nav computer for the ride out as soon as they had been secured. Target Mu was another bulk freighter, and a curious haul--it contained a variety of luxury items. A life in the Rebellion was necessarily spartan, but reminders of home and any little perks they could scrounge were good for morale. Skye wondered if the ship was carrying any of the rare Alderaanian tea she had developed a liking for; of course, the last time she'd had to take over another pilot's escort mission in exchange for half a kilo of the stuff--now, *if* there was any of it around, it was probably worth half the squadron's X-wings. *Alderaanian goods aren't exactly plentiful these days.* Target Nu was a passenger liner, filled nearly to its 500- passenger capacity. The ship had been disabled and was due to be boarded later on, but most of the jokes about "taking their money and jewelry" were just that--the boarding crew had specific orders to only take any useful documents or special cargo. Though the X-wings had shot out the engines of a few ships, that damage had been restricted to ships that could easily be trac- tored to others and dragged out of the combat zone--the Y-wings' ion cannons had made this a relatively bloodless battle on both sides. The boardings appeared to be proceeding smoothly, Skye observed with relief--civilian casualties did not sit well with her. "So far, so good," she muttered as Intruder Eleven passed by her wing. Looking off to starboard, she saw the Corvettes and a few of the freighters moving toward their jump point. Overhead the Bulk Cruiser was shuttling a crew over to one of the tankers, while the Y- wings were beginning landing operations, and to port she caught a glimpse of the ore freighters as they darted off into hyperspace. That left the liner, the "treasure ship," and freighter Lambda still awaiting boarding. *One hour minimum response time from the nearest Imperial base. We've chewed up about half of that, and things are going well. Still...* Skye keyed her comm. "How much longer, sir?" "Looks like it's on schedule, Lieutenant. Why don't you swing by the leftovers again, check on them?" "Acknowledged. Keeping busy as ordered, sir." She let a wry grin crease her mouth and flew over toward the ships. *Nice and quiet...of course, they've got a large number of guns on them and we shot their comm systems out. Not too much damage, though.* Skye pul- led up sharply, putting the three remaining targets and the Cruiser below her, and checked her six. The Bulk Cruiser moved in to board Lambda. "Five here. Everything looks--" "Taking fire from Lambda!" *What?!* Skye inverted her ship and shot back toward the Cruiser. "Nine, get that turbo!" "Mantooine to Intruders, we are--" "Firing!" Nine and Ten blazed away at the freighter's turret with their cannons, melting it down to its mountings. "Turret destroyed!' The comm crackled to life again. "Mantooine here. Our hull's stable, but that hit took down our entire power system--primary and secondary both. We've got battery power for life support and a few other systems, but everything else--engines, cannons, tractor beams, long-range sensors, and so on--is out." "How long until you get everything working again?" "Looking at at least five minutes--depends on how quickly we can reroute things." *Well that's just great.* The Alliance's Bulk Cruisers were notorious for breakdowns of all types, often at inopportune moments, due to their obsolete design and generally worn condition. Unfortun- ately the Rebellion required as many ships as could be obtained. *Should have left that thing at home,* Skye mused. "Lead to Intruders--Lead Flight with me, we're going to make sure Lambda doesn't pull any more stunts. Five, you've got close escort, and Nine, take your flight and range out to the convoy's entry point in case the Imperials decide to show up. Look sharp, everyone." Skye flitted out past the liner. "Seven, Eight, watch the liner. Stormie, stay with me." "Acknowledged," replied her wingman. Skye called up a tactical display on her main screen. Mantoo- ine remained powerless between Lambda and the other two ships, with the X-wings flying amongst them. And that was it--all of the other ships had jumped out, though the Corvette Uraha might have caught the beginning of the fracas just before its hyperdrive engaged. Skye gui- ded her X-wing between Freighter Mu and the Mantooine, glancing at the superficial hits which had still managed to bring the Bulk Cruiser to a halt. *Damn.* The Cruiser was drifting a bit, but there didn't seem to be too much of a risk of collision with anything. Her R2 unit shrilled a warning. Skye flicked her eyes back down at the display and felt a shiver run through her body. The liner was moving. Very quickly. In the span of a few seconds, it had come about to face the Mantooine and was now rushing toward the cruiser at full acceleration. Lead Flight was shielded from the action by both Lambda and the Mantooine, Nine Flight was too far away, and Seven Element was behind the liner--if they fired they would only propel the liner into the Mantooine faster. Skye and her wingman were the only ones in the correct position to do anything be- fore the liner got too close to deflect with a torpedo salvo. *Firing? Who said anything about firing?* Somebody aboard the Mantooine gasped. The sound reminded Skye that if the liner hit the Cruiser, the warship's crew of two thousand would join the five hundred on the liner in death--either a fiery one in the impact or a cold one freezing in vacuum. She had to do some- thing fast, and her instinct was to fire--but arming the proton tor- pedoes was a struggle against her own will. *Dammit, Keilyn, DO SOME- THING!* Her finger frozen in place a millimeter from the trigger, she closed her eyes... Skye remembered that the primary oath she took upon graduating the Academy three years before was to defend the Empire. She had made the assumption that "the Empire" included the beings that formed it, but that idea was quickly contradicted by its actions. Why defend an Empire that first ordered the precision bombing of a Rebel outpost within a city, one that barely damaged the adjacent buildings, then leveled the eight surrounding blocks with an orbital bombardment "as an example to others who might harbor Rebel aggres- sors?" What moral standard authorized the even-less-subtle obliter- ation of entire settlements on only the slightest hint of Rebel ac- tivity? What was the purpose of wiping out Rebel-sympathetic vessels in a convoy, then leaving behind the crippled "collateral damage" to "demonstrate their folly?" Skye then swore to destroy the Empire, and protect the galaxy--and all the beings within it. She had sworn to defend the Rebellion. Skye pulled the trigger. Every moment from the time she fired until the flames stopped burning seared itself into into her memory as she forced herself to see, to watch, to remember what happened. The torpedoes, riding trails of blue fire, rocketed out at the liner, crossing the distance in a second. Forty meters out and ninety degrees off the bow of the liner, the warheads detonated, throwing a high-energy blast wave directly into the path of the ship. The energy wave slowed as it hit the sur- face of the hull, superheating the surface and applying a force as if the ship had crashed into a wall. The vessel's bow crumpled under the impact, disintegrating into an outrushing ring of metal. Behind it, the rest of the ship telescoped before splitting open, the lower cargo section spitting out baggage of all kinds a moment before a huge sec- ondary explosion wiped that part of the ship from existence. The ex- plosion tore through the passenger section, which had already been split open like a ripe fruit, incinerating everything in its path. The ship's engines, freed from their mountings, shot off into space in random directions. Much of the shrapnel was deflected away from the Mantooine, but several sections of the liner, still glowing yellow- white with fire, slammed into the Bulk Cruiser, setting off another, smaller chain of explosions, though the big ship's hull held against the impacts. Virtually nothing remained of the liner but small pieces of debris. Skye's hand fell from her control column, numb. The destruc- tion was total. "Keilyn?" Aison inquired after a few moments' shocked silence. Skye shut down her weapons systems and closed her ship's s- foils. "When the Mantooine clears us for recovery, I would like to head in, sir." "Uh... granted, Lieutenant." Skye turned her ship toward the Mantooine. *What have I done?* "Lieutenant? Do you have a minute?" Commander Aison stood in the open hatchway of Skye's quarters with a concerned expression on his face. Skye looked up from her ter- minal, her eyes seeming to stare through him. "Come in, sir." Aison stepped inside and leaned against the bulkhead, hands clasped in front of him. "Are you all right, Lieutenant?" "As well as expected, sir." "You did the right thing, Lieutenant. Everyone on the Man-- on both ships would have been killed if you hadn't fired... but I know that doesn't make it any easier." Skye folded her arms across her chest and stared down at the deck. "No, it doesn't." "Do you want to talk about it?" Skye rolled her head back and looked upward for a moment be- fore looking at Aison. "Not particularly, sir. I... need to think about this by myself... for a while." "It might be better if we talked, Lieutenant. For you." Skye let her hands fall into her lap. Her eyes flicked down at them for an instant before returning her gaze to him. "Sir, have you ever been in that situation before?" "I... have killed a few civilians in the course of combat, Skye. It's not easy to deal with, I know. But this is a war. No matter how hard we try not to, it still happens." "I doubt you'd understand then, sir." Aison seemed to want to argue that point for a moment, but instead nodded his head. "There are still a few things you should know, Lieutenant... that might affect how you think about this." "I'm listening, sir." "Our analysis found that the liner's hold was full of explo- sives--Intelligence is investigating the crew and passengers to see if this... tragedy was meant to be more than it seemed." *More than it seemed?* Skye's teeth clamped down into her tongue, and the taste of blood filled her mouth. "So they think this was just a setup?" "I wouldn't put it past them to load a ship full of explo- sives and civilians just to put us in a bad light--propaganda prac- tically accuses us of doing this all the time." *Doing this all the time!?* "They say *we're* doing this all the time?" "When you don't have a moral leg to stand on, you've got to make one up." "I think that's why I left them in the first place, sir." "That's why a lot of us did, Lieutenant." "I don't doubt it, sir. The Empire doesn't care if civilians got in the way if it doesn't somehow serve their purposes for them not to." "But we do, Keilyn. And that's what I've been trying to tell you--" "Don't tell me how to rationalize this, sir." Skye's frus- tration let itself out in a rush. "I care. Maybe it was the right thing to do. Maybe there's a point to all of this. But the thing that I'll never forget is that everyone who died out there--everyone who *really didn't need to*--all those deaths are my responsibility. I killed those people, people who had no part in this war, who just got in the way. And that isn't my way." "Are you thinking of resigning, Lieutenant?" Skye shook her head, slowly. "What are my choices then, sir? The Empire has done too many things that I have seen for me to excuse them for anything, and I'm not letting them get away with it. But... I don't know if I trust myself to violate my own personal oaths again... the ones that I swore, when I left those butchers behind, that tell me that I *will not* ever do that again." "Then they've already won, Lieutenant, because they'll have made you too unwilling, too scared to do anything that might hurt someone somewhere. All we can do is try to make sure that it won't happen again. The only way to do that is to stop them, destroy this Empire. And for that we need you." Skye nodded. "I understand, sir... I still need to think, but I can promise that I won't do anything unwise. Give me some time please, sir?" Aison gave her a long look. "I can do that, Lieutenant. I don't envy you in this, but we're all here for you." "Thank you, sir." Aison rose and left. Skye stared at her folded hands for a very long time. *Time. Maybe in a few years.* She returned to her computer terminal. *And the main thing is, I care.* "Prepare search for database on Mrlsst, identify and locate next of kin for the following..."

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