Tales of the Fallen Republic

by Jack Plum

Amid the cloud-high skyscrapers of Coruscant, an Emperor rules with an iron fist. Master of a thousand worlds, he controls the deadliest army in history and has spies lurking in every corner of the galaxy. Coruscant is a dark and mysterious place inhabited by soldiers, spies, politicians, assassins, and prisoners. They all have a story to tell, but will they live to tell it?

10. The Tale of Juno Eclipse

"In the later years of the Empire, Vader raised a thirteenth Starkiller. But many forget that the Starkiller had a pilot, and that she was the most decorated in the Imperial Navy."

-Pollux Hax, "Facts, Misnomers, and Secrets about the Thirteenth Starkiller"

The Tale of Juno Eclipse, or the Child's Tale

It was the air show. Imperial starfighters streaked through the daytime sky, and they roared and howled and screeched and they glistened like suns. Venator-class Star Destroyers drifted peacefully near the clouds like hot air balloons. And tens of thousands of people looked skyward and smiled and dreamed. Little boys ran and chased each other with toy V-wings, and girls sat contentedly on their mothers' laps while eating ice cream popsicles, and parents held each other's hands, and all felt the noise of starships run through their hair and clothes like wind and stir in them a joy and a thrill, like that of a child surprised with a wrapped gift. And among the tens of thousands of people was a girl named Juno Eclipse.

The air show. Everyone felt excitement as they said it.

Juno sat on her father's shoulders, and she watched the Imperial Dropship Transports fly in formation with clones waving from the opened doors. Her eyes gleamed with wonder, and she said nothing, and she never once cast her eyes downward. She watched the V-wings whirl and loop and form tight formations like acrobatic eagles. She watched the V-20 Maelstrom Interceptors blast beyond the sound barrier and shriek sonic booms and burn the air hot with their rocket fire. She watched the Delta-class T-3c shuttles screech their siren yells as they lugged over the crowds and cast their shadows darkly on them. And that night she watched the WVRN Y-wings drone lowly overhead and launch fireworks into the sky.

"Where are we going, Daddy?" she had asked earlier that morning. "To the air show!" had been his answer.

Juno watched everything from morning to nightfall, but none of it was as impressive as Darth Vader and his Black Fang Squadron. Darth Vader, the legendary overseer of the Imperial military, took the lead in his Eta-2 Actis-class interceptor, painted black, and with him were the ORC-1s. The ORC-1s (Oppressive ReConnaissance-1 starfighters) were modeled after the ARC-170s of the Republic, only these were sleeker and more menacing and solid gray, and the nose of them had been removed all the way up to the pilot's cockpit windshield. The ORC-1s were nicknamed the "sawed-off arcs" and the "stubfighters," and they were the most impressive starfighters in the Imperial Navy. While the ORC-1s were always painted solid gray, the ones in Black Fang Squadron were black. The clone pilots were the crème-de-la-crème from the Imperial pilot academy, unmatched and undaunted, and they were renowned throughout the galaxy, and they and Vader flew right over Juno's head.

Juno was from the planet Corulag, and her father had brought her here to the Imperial capital of Coruscant to see and to explore. Of all the things Juno saw on that trip, from the skyscrapers to the Jedi temple ruins to the Emperor's palace, nothing impressed her so much as the air show. It was that day she decided she wanted to be a pilot. "Someday I'll be in Black Fang Squadron," she said, still perched on her father's shoulders. "Maybe someday you will," her father said smiling, and he bobbed her up and down a little, and she laughed.

A man next to them shook his head. "You really shouldn't feed your kid false hopes. Only clones get to be pilots. Regular humans don't cut it, and women especially." Juno heard what the man said, and her smile faded. Her father eyed the man harshly and said "Keep to your business," and then, "There's no purpose to saying such things to a child." He then returned his attention to his daughter. "Ignore him, Juno." Juno's face became hardened, but not bitter. "I don't care what he says," she said. "I'm going to be a pilot one day, and then I'll fly over our house, and you'll see me waving from inside my starship."

Juno Eclipse and her father stayed until the place emptied and the last Star Destroyer blipped into hyperspace, disappearing into the night sky like a shooting star.