Important AN at the end of this chapter. Please see for news about further updates.

Rend
(v. used with object): To separate into parts with force or violence.

"Please state your name, species, sex, and, if applicable, your rank."

"Miraan Voxx, human, female, and I have no rank."

"For what position are you applying?"

"Engineer."

"And what skills could you bring to the Imperial Navy as an engineer?"

"Well, I have several specialties, such as a familiarity will all types of ion engines, a particular knowledge of the internal workings and requirements of several models of hyperdrive. I'm a fast learner and am able to keep up with demand in a field where new items are constantly coming into the market."

"I see, and why did you decide to become an engineer?"

"I don't have many talents. I can't create a compelling art piece, I don't know how to cultivate land, I can't cook a decent meal to save my life, and I can't pilot worth a bantha's backside. I know one thing, and that is how machines work. I can repair them, take them apart, clean them, and put them back together again. You want power re-routed? I can do that with my eyes closed. You want to know why a power converter is making a funny sound? I will find it, fix it or replace it, and have everyone home before lunch."

"Please remain focused on the question, Miss Voxx."

"I apologize. My point is that I can't think of a better way to serve the Empire, than by doing what I do best."

"Thank you."

He was in pain. That was about all he knew for certain. Considering his line of work, this pain was rather significant. He focused on his body and found that the greatest majority of his pain was centered in his left leg and lower left back. His next thought was that he felt oddly cool. Pain typically came with a certain amount of heat, but he was experiencing the sensation of coolness and a slight weightlessness. Was he dead? It was likely. Though he was almost certain that he could feel his heart beating. Yes, that was the sensation of blood moving in his veins. He tried to recall how or why he was here, wherever here was. The last thing he remembered was the sound of rending metal and a lot of shouting, then wave upon wave of pain until darkness clouded his vision. The memory was enough to snap his eyes open. So he wasn't dead after all. He saw blurry shapes of the medical bay and rows of empty bacta tanks, identical to the one he occupied and a couple medical droids milling about. A sharp pain lanced up his leg and made him look down at his injury.

She had been in and out of the medical bay all day and most of the night. She didn't even know what time it was when her sector commander came and shook her awake. She didn't bother with her boots, settling with pulling on her bright yellow engineering pants and her bantha leather jacket. She ran down the corridors barefoot all the way from her quarters to the medical bay. A droid greeted her as the door hissed open and told her what she had known all along, but was still unwilling to accept. She thanked the droid for doing its due diligence and walked shakily to the gurney that held a pallid Rodian. She sat heavily in the seat beside the small bed and tried to rouse its occupant. He wouldn't move. Though she knew he wouldn't, she was still wishing from one side of the Galaxy to the other that he would show some small sign that he knew she was there. A swell of emotion grew in her chest, crowding oppressively around her heart and constricting her throat. For a moment she couldn't breathe and couldn't help the single tear that rolled down her cheek. She felt so useless; so irrelevant. The engineer in her wanted to find what was wrong and patch it up, but living beings were well outside her scope of expertise and she wished not for the first time that day that she had gone into medicine. But there was nothing she could do for the broken body on the bed and it was killing her. She took a hold of his ashen, green hand and held onto it like a lifeline until all traces of life left him.

He swung his legs- or rather his leg- over the side of his bunk. The prosthetic could hardly be called a leg as it was little more than a metal rod, a hinge, a ball joint, and a plastoid lump. They told him it was only temporary, something to help him walk while parts were ordered for a better prosthesis. While he knew full well that the loss of his limb should not make him feel like less of a man, he couldn't help it. He felt like less, like he was broken and not worth fixing. They could replace his leg to be sure, but he had lost a part of himself, along with three of his brothers. There was no going back, so he couldn't dwell on it for long, but there was a part of him that just wanted to be whole again.

His commanding officer had told him that he wouldn't be able to serve on active duty until his prosthesis arrived and he cleared rehabilitation. After a lengthy conversation with his CO, and several appeals to someone higher up, it was agreed that he could remain onboard the Devastator as long as they found something for him to do. He would find out where they had assigned him today. It didn't make the getting out of bed any easier, knowing that he was all but sidelined while his brothers of the 501st were putting their lives on the line. Still, he managed to stand up, pull on his gray regs and walk out of his room with the help of a spare length of thin coolant piping attached to an old blaster grip that was doubling as a cane. He was still a soldier, and he would face this day just as he had every single day that had come before this one.

The short journey from the barracks to the Admiral's quarters seemed to take much longer than it used to. The looks he received in the corridors were doing nothing to help his mood either. His fellow troopers nodded to him and then looked away as if they didn't know what to say to him and the other personnel would either ignore him completely or give him brief sympathetic glances and he wasn't sure which one was worse.

The doors hissed open to the Admiral's office and he walked in. He was attempting to take some small comfort in that wherever they decide to place him, at least he would remain on the ship and among his few remaining brothers. It was a small mercy but it would one that he would be grateful for. Perhaps they'd give him a janitorial position, scrubbing the 'freshers and cleaning the barracks. That wouldn't be a bad job; it was low key and would give him plenty of time to heal. But it would also give him a lot of time to think and he wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing. The sight of both the Admiral and Commander Jir stopped him in his tracks. He stood ata attention the best that his injury would allow.

"Good day, Trooper. At ease."

"Sir." He relaxed his posture.

"Trooper four-one-five-five, you are being reassigned."

Okay, so here's the deal: I realize it has been weeks since my last chapter update. In those weeks I have taken counsel with my friends that give me advice on my stories every now and again. Both parties have concluded (with no shortage of debate, I assure you) that it will be highly beneficial for the story to be placed on hiatus for the time being. I do not intend for this hiatus to be permanent, however I do not know how long it will remain so. With the hiatus in place I intend to take another look at how the story so far flows and how that will transition to where I want the story to end up.

A most gracious thank-you to everyone who has touched this story, even if you never make it past this first chapter. A special thanks to the story followers. Seeing that people were following the story kept my spirits up through all 18 chapters of this wild ride. Thank you all and I'll see you again soon.