Please...I beg of you. Take one minute out of your busy schedule to review this story. I know it seems like I'm asking a lot. And maybe I should feel guilty for being so demanding, but...it sure doesn't seem like a lot of effort compared to the hours and days it's taken me to write it.

Seriously though.


Korwin sat in his chair, his hands folded in his lap, waiting for Laina to begin the day's interviews. She smiled warmly at him, and said, "Good morning. Are we ready to begin?"

The corners of his mouth curled up in a small smile, and he said, "I believe we are." He cleared his throat, and then said, "For the next six weeks, recon was all over that canyon. We'd be extracting and somewhere else in the canyon or on the plateaus, another recon squad would be dropped to work further in. We were literally constructing a piece by piece mock up of this canyon and it's defenses."

Laina tilted her head to the side, and her hairless violet brows furrowed quizically. "Why not use the Navy's fighters for reconnaissance purposes, instead of risking men on the ground?"

Korwin thought for a moment on how to answer the question, and then said, "Well, really the problem with that, is that there were so many overhangs, crags, caves and what not that the aerial recon just couldn't see. And at the start, they would have been blown out of the sky before they got anything meaningful. The Imps still had pretty tight control in atmosphere. The only place that was really well patrolled by the Alliance was around Mos Espa, and the desert immediately surrounding. They stayed away from the wastes. Of course, every once in a while you'd get to see a dogfight, and those were always amazing. But not often."

"In light of that, how was the Alliance able to keep up the constant ground reconnaissance without the Imperial's becoming aware?"

Korwin shrugged. "Honestly, I would say that it was because of the consummate skill of the individuals involved. No one was there by force, the recon units were all voluntary duty. You wanted to be doing what you were doing, you know? So you took care to make sure you were good at it. Plus, we really only operated at night. Daytime was for resting. Nighttime was where we did our best work. The Imps...they don't work like that. They don't think like we do. Not unless they're commando's. Even Sandtroopers aren't properly trained in camouflage and guerilla warfare. They just shoot better, and fight smarter. That's what makes them so-called elites."

Laina nodded her head and took down a couple notes on her datapad. Looking back up, she said, "Now you mentioned at the beginning of the Tatooine interviews that the sandpeople became a problem. When did that happen, and how?"

Korwin licked his lips, and looked up at the ceiling. He took a deep breath, and gathered his thoughts, and said, "My squad made first contact with them, and we had an incident in camp shortly after that. The first time we made contact, we were flying back to camp in a black box shortly after a successful patrol, when we heard this funny sound...this little metallic plunk." He licked his lips again and unclasped his hands, beginning to gesticulate along with the story.

"I had my legs dangling, and a couple seconds after that first sound, we hear another, and then I feel something hit my left calf. It burned like hell, and I figured I'd been shot, so my first thought was that maybe there were stormtroopers down there." He took a sip of his water and set the glass down gently. "None in sight though. All of a sudden, there's this loud bang from the left engine, and the thing starts belching out this nasty-looking smoke and fire. Next second after that, Kreth is wearing the pilot's brains, and the co-pilot takes a shot through the torso. The box jolted hard, and started spinning around, like some insane amusement park ride. Next thing I knew, I was airborne, and all I could see was the ground rushing up at me."

He held his right hand up high, and brought it down to visually demonstrate his fall. "We were about thirty feet off the ground, and I flew out a good ways, and then started down at an angle, like this. When I hit, I hit on the downward incline of a sand dune, and must have rolled a good hundred feet down the thing."

"Were you badly hurt?" Laina queried.

"Well, aside from my leg not really, and even then I had no idea how bad it was. But I was pretty stunned for a minute there..."


Korwin lay on his back, trying desperately to pull air into severely deflated lungs. His ears were ringing from the explosion of the engine, but he nevertheless heard the thunderous crash of the black box hitting the ground hard a couple hundred yards away. His back hurt, and his right shoulder throbbed fiercely. He could feel what he knew was blood soaking through the lower left leg of his jumpsuit, and knew it hadn't been a blaster bolt that had hit him. He knew from experience that there would be no more than a trickle of blood if it had. He also knew that he had to find out if his squad had survived the crash.

Struggling to his feet, he finally found his breath, and took in deep, gasping breaths. He knew that his pack would do nothing but slow him down now, so he let it fall to the ground. When he felt that he could move again, he began running as fast as he could over the deep, soft sand towards the sound of the crash.

As he crested the dune that he'd landed on, he could see the burning engine of the box some distance away, and bolts of red energy streaking into the darkness around it. The odd, percussive boom of slugthrowers was coming from all around, and Korwin could hear them hitting the box. It sounded to him like an odd combination of miniature explosions and handfuls gravel being hurled at a thin durasteel wall. He shook off the thought and continued running

Suddenly, a shower of sand erupted in front of him, accompanied by a loud braying sound. Korwin put the brakes on, and slid to a halt in front of the towering sandperson just as the creature brought it's gaffi stick down at Korwin's head. Korwin raised his blaster rifle to block it, and was nearly pushed to his knees by the force of the blow. Korwin tried to back up and bring the barrel of the rifle to bear on the sandperson, but the creature struck his rifle hard, sending it flying from his hand. He whipped his blaster pistol out, but the thing knocked that away too.

As the sandperson drew back to attack again, Korwin loosed a guttural roar and dove at the thing. He felt his shoulder impact hard in it's midsection, and they hit the ground violently. As the sandperson's back struck the ground, it used the momentum of the fall to flip Korwin off of itself. Korwin rolled to his feet and his right hand reached to the small of his back, unsheathing his vibrodagger and activating it. It hummed to life in his hand, and a cold smile passed over his face. The sandperson tumbled a few more feet and began rising, but Korwin was quicker.

As it gained it's knees, Korwin dashed forward. The sandperson frantically thrust it's gaffi stick out in front of it, hoping to ward off the attack, but Korwin quickly juked left and continued his forward momentum. As he passed the kneeling sandperson, he drew his arm back and slashed hard across the sandperson's throat, nearly severing it's head.

A jet of blood spattered hotly across his hand and face, and he watched dispassionately as the corpse toppled over. He wiped his blade clean on the hem of the sandperson's robe, sheathed it, and then dashed over to where his rifle and blaster pistol lay and picked them up. He holstered his pistol, and began rushing towards the black box again.

As he grew closer, he could see the moonlight illuminating a large force of sandpeople that were surrounding the box. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of all of his squad members, huddled inside the cover offered by the fallen box, firing desperately at the encroaching circle of tusken raiders. Korwin removed a frag grenade from his harness, primed it, and hurled it at a group of sandpeople. The hail of shrapnel loosed by the explosion ripped through the unarmored bodies of the sandpeople, sending several of them to their deaths. They didn't seem to realize that the attack had come from behind, and all of them continued firing at the downed box.

Korwin heard the engine wash of approaching boxes then, and turned his head to look. Eight of them were coming in from the direction of base camp. He dropped to the ground as the sandpeople also turned to see what the source of the noise was. A number of sandpeople opened fire on the arriving boxes, and he saw two door gunners slump in their harnesses as they passed over. None of them seemed to have spotted him though.

The Alliance boxes landed on the other side of the black box from Korwin and regular infantrymen began jumping out and returning the sandpeople's fire. Korwin went unnoticed by Alliance troops and sandpeople alike as he crouched low to the ground and crept closer and closer to the enemy. He was hoping to get by the sandpeople unseen, at least until he could get the attention of the other Alliance troops.

He watched as Kreth, Jenrol, Haslin and Kierse rolled out of the black box and sprinted through a small gap in the circle of sandpeople, making for the relative safety of the eight boxes sitting on the sands. He could see the infantrymen retreating back to the boxes as well, keeping up a steady stream of covering fire for the recon troops they were bailing out. He realized then, that they were leaving. The thought struck him that they probably thought he was dead. And after being tossed like that, why not?

He forgot stealth then, and decided that detection was the lesser of two evils. Much worse to be stuck out here when the boxes left. He hurled another grenade, and waited for the explosion before he began running in an arc around the group of raiders. At a distance of about thirty feet from the rearmost sandperson, Korwin opened fire, sweeping his blaster rifle back and forth over the lines of barbarian raiders. Pre-occupied as they were with the retreating rebels up front, they were caught completely unawares by the attack from the rear.

He continued running, even as he spent the last shot in his blaster pak. As the sandpeople began to take notice of him, he threw caution to the wind, planted his left leg in the sand, and cut hard towards the sandpeople. He was now sprinting directly at them. It was the fastest way to the boxes, and he wasn't getting left behind. Luckily, for whatever reason, they hadn't lifted off yet.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to reload while he was in their midst, and not having a place of cover to do it at that moment, he slung his blaster rifle over his shoulder and ripped his vibrodagger from it's sheath. He hit the sandpeople's lines hard and fast, his vibrodagger cutting left and right, slicing cleanly through muscle, tendon, bone and artery.

Korwin didn't slow his breakneck pace as he dashed through, instead dodging and juking away from the clumsy counterattacks of those sandpeople who weren't completely taken by surprise by the ferocious attack. Those who didn't get out of his way found themselves holding gaping, bloody, and sometimes fatal wounds.

As he cleared their lines, he passed his dagger through the flank of a huge sandperson, stabbing the blade deeply into it's gut, and ripping it through it's side and out it's back as he dashed past it. His eyes widened in alarm as he saw the first of the boxes beginning to lift off. "WAIT!" he shouted. He was gratified when he saw Kierse point to him, and then begin firing his blaster rifle at the sandpeople behind him. The door gunner opened up as well, and the other boxes that were lifting off began adding their own covering fire to his escape.

As he neared the box, it began to lift slowly off the ground, and with a great, flying leap he dove headlong inside. He began to cry out as he slid right through the center and saw the other door approaching rapidly. His upper body jetted over the edge, and he felt two pairs of strong hands grab his lower legs and keep him from sliding all the way through. The cry escaped, as a jolt of pain shot through his leg, centering on the wound that was currently being fondled by some asshole behind him. "Shit Nalan, you're wounded!" He heard Kreth say, as her hand came away from his leg covered in blood. Jenrol tried to take a look, but Korwin waved him off quickly.

He pulled himself all the way into the box and rolled over onto his back as it shot into the air. He was about to respond to Kreth, when Kierse shouted, "Holy shit, man! That was crazy!" He slapped Jenrol hard on the shoulder and said, "Did you see that shit?" Turning to Korwin, he repeated, "That was crazy! With the fucking vibrodagger, man, I can't believe that shit. You just ran through that whole fucking mob of sandpeople with nothing but your fucking vibrodagger!"

Kreth was staring hard at him, her face a little pale. Aside from Kierse, in fact, everyone seemed a little quiet. He met each of their eyes, and then said, "What?"

Kierse stopped raving now, and looked him up and down. His brows furrowed together, and he said, "Sithspit Nalan...you're covered in blood."

Korwin looked first at his right hand, and noticed that the vibrodagger was still buzzing happily along. He shut it down, and then looked himself over. Kierse was right. He was drenched in blood. His jumpsuit, his hands, his gear. He could feel it on his face, cooling, and getting sticky. He put a hand to his face, and tried to wipe some of it off. His hands were also covered though, and all he accomplished was smearing it around some. He gave it up as futile, and looked again at the vibrodagger in his hand. He tried to recall exactly what had transpired in those desperate moments, as he rushed through the mob of sandpeople, but the memory eluded him.

The rest of the short ride back to base camp was silent, with each of them lost in their own thoughts. When the box touched down, there was a team of nurses with a stretcher for Korwin. Apparently, the pilot had commed ahead. He hated stretchers, but his leg was killing him, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off walking was become a difficult thing to do.

As he laid down on the stretcher, he realized that he was probably in for a hell of a time when he heard Jenrol say, "Damn, I wish you'd have let me look at that. That's a hell of a hole!"

Korwin groaned at the exclamation, and was relieved when he felt the telltale pinprick that meant he'd be going to dreamland soon. He smiled as the euphoria hit, and let all the unpleasantness of war drift to the background as he floated off into the deep, narcotic sleep of the heavily anaesthetized.


"Slugthrower got me. I still have the slug that they dug out of my calf. It's sitting in a little box of souvenirs I have from the war." Korwin chuckled.

"Interesting souvenir." Laina said, a teasing smile on her face.

"Yeah, well...it's unique, you know? Not many people have those." He grinned now, mirth twinkling in his eyes. "It was the first thing I asked for when they told me that's what it was. They said it was a slugthrower, and I said, 'gimme the slug'. So they did."

"After that first incident, did the sandpeople become a chronic problem?"

He nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on someplace far in the past. "It started getting to be that every time we went out, they were there. They wiped out an entire recon squad in the canyon. The Imps were getting hit too, we knew that. But we had no idea why they were suddenly there, and so aggressive. They hadn't been sighted yet the whole time we'd been there, and now they're crawling out from under every rock in the desert, you know?"

He shifted in his seat, getting comfortable, and said, "So two weeks after getting shot...again...Borlin summoned me to his tent. He wanted to talk about some patrols into the deep desert. But it was almost like what he said to me that day, kind of started the real hell on Tatooine. Like foreshadowing, you know?"


Korwin stood at attention in front of Captain Borlin's desk, saluting. Borling returned the salute, and said, "At ease, Corporal." Korwin stood at ease, and Borlin said, "So what do you think of the natives, Nalan?"

"Sir?" Korwin queried, not quite sure of the question.

Borlin rolled his eyes. "The sandpeople, schutta."

Korwin winced internally at Borlin's harsh tone, and said, "They shot me, sir. I don't like them very much."

Borlin chuckled. "That's good, Nalan, That's good." He leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up onto his desk. "Because we're going to out-tusken the tuskens."

Korwin's expression turned to one of mixed resignation and hope, and he said, "No more canyon?" After that recon squad from a 1st battalion company had gotten vaped by the sandpeople, no one was too eager to work there anymore.

Borlin shook his head. "Let the Imps deal with it. We've got our own problems coming from the desert. That's where we turn. Until we resolve this, neither us nor the Imps are attacking each other. We just can't afford to. Looks like we've got ourselves another little war to fight, Nalan."

"Pardon my asking, sir, but why don't we just bomb the shit out of the sandpeople, and then attack the Imps when they're done getting their asses handed to them by the tribes in the canyon?" Korwin licked his lips, ready for the harsh reprisal he was sure would come.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea. Problem is, High Command won't do it. The sandpeople are sentient beings, they have women and children traveling in their bands. So we have to fight, or negotiate. I don't speak sandperson...do you?"

Korwin almost laughed, when he realized that Borlin didn't seem to find it funny. "No, no I don't sir." He said with a straight face.

"I didn't think so." Borlin said. "Besides that, most of the tribes are nomadic and therefore hard to find, and their camps are generally equipped with fairly decent turbolaser emplacments that they've scrounged up over the millennia."

"So we fight."

Borlin nodded. "We fight."

"So how do we fit in?" Korwin asked, referring to the recon squads.

"You'll be deployed as elite hunter-killer units. You've already got the skills necessary, but we've been doing some research on the sand people." He picked up a datapad that was sitting on his desk and handed it to Korwin. "Read up. This information will save lives, and make you more effective. Your job is to seek out small sandperson war bands, and destroy them. Since you've been laid up, we've sent regulars into the field against them, and they've been ambushed and slaughtered each time. This kind of fighting requires a special kind of soldier, and that's you guys." He said firmly.

Korwin nodded his head, feeling pride rush through him at the Captain's words. "I'll start on the research now sir." Korwin said.

Borlin nodded, and said, "See that you do. Three days, and your squad is in the field. Be ready." Borlin stood and saluted Korwin. "Dismissed."

Korwin saluted, and turned on his heel. As he walked out of the shade of the tent, and into the blistering heat of the desert, he looked down at the datapad in his hand. He hated studying, but this was necessary. As Borlin had said, it would save lives. He walked to 3rd platoon's tent and laid down on his cot, kicking off his boots. Turning the datapad on, he began reading the info that sprang up on the screen. And there was a lot of it.

After what seemed like hours, and likely was, he turned off the datapad and laid it on the ground next to his cot. His eyes were stinging from the reading he'd done already. He'd never been much of a reader, but the amount of information he had read as a recon team leader was staggering. It was going to be a long few days. He removed his jumpsuit and slipped underneath the thin sheet. Rolling onto his side, he closed his eyes. He needed to reset before he could process any more information.


Korwin's eyes snapped open, and he was immediately aware that something was wrong. He didn't know what though. It was dark, he could see that well enough. He listened, and heard the snoring of the other members of 3rd platoon. As his eyes adjusted to the low light within the tent, he saw that nothing appeared to be out of place. But something was.

He reached down to the ground and groped around for his jumpsuit, but the first thing he felt was the hilt of his vibrodagger. As his fingers brushed gently against it, something deep within him whispered at him to take it up. Unable to ignore the feeling, he wrapped his hand gently around the hilt and grasped it loosely.

Pulling himself to a sitting position, he was startled to realize that Kreth was now awake as well. She was sitting up as well, looking at him, a questioning look on her shadowed face. He said nothing to her, but stood up and began quietly walking to the tent flap. He looked over his shoulder and saw her going to Kierse's cot to wake him up, her blaster rifle in her hands. Korwin turned his attention back to the flap and continued advancing. When he reached it, he carefully pushed it aside and peered out. His eyes widened at what he saw.

Several tusken raiders were creeping along the outer wall of the tent, and he could see more of them preparing to enter 2nd platoon's tent. He leapt outside, startling the sandpeople that were about to enter his own tent. Before they could react, he activated his vibrodagger and plunged it into the lead sandpersons gut. It brayed loudly at the sudden pain, and he pulled the blade violently upward until he felt it hit the sternum, and then ripped it out. As the dying sandperson toppled forward, he stepped back and shouted as loudly as he could, "SANDPEOPLE, WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

The next sandperson in line swung it's gaffi stick at him, but he hopped backward, dodging the attack. As soon as his feet touched the sand again, he sprang forward, his left fist catching the sandperson in the flank as it recovered from it's attack. It jerked away from his fist, and he stabbed his vibrodagger into it's other side. Not waiting for the creature to react, he jerked the blade toward himself; felt it slice cleanly through it's stomach, and out. He sidestepped around the severely wounded sandperson, and saw that there were two more behind it. One of them had a slugthrower rifle.

He leaped toward the rifle-wielding sandperson just as it raised the weapon. As the barrel of the rifle came up to point at his face, Korwin swiftly swatted it aside with his left hand. Stepping inside the sandperson's guard, he stabbed it twice in the chest. Korwin felt a strange sensation on the back of his neck, and obeyed a sudden gut instinct to shield himself. He grabbed the dying sandperson and spun around with it held in front of him. His arms jerked, and the dying creature moaned pitifully, as a tremendous blow was absorbed by the meat shield.

Korwin gave a mighty heave, and both the dying sandperson and Korwin's aggressor went sprawling. As the other sandperson hurriedly tried to push it's almost-dead comrade off of it, Korwin hurriedly reached down and picked up the dropped slugthrower. The thing starting honking and braying madly, and finally slipped out from under the now dead body. It began scrambling backwards, trying to get away from Korwin.

Pointing the slugthrower at the panicking sandperson's masked face, he squeezed off one round. It's head exploded, resulting in a nasty pile of red-gray goo and chunks of bone, accompanied by a small corona of bloodspray. Korwin stared in amazement at the archaic weapon, then turned it on another sandperson who was running out of 2nd platoon's tent, the bladed end of it's gaffi stick dripping blood. He shot the thing twice in the chest, and marveled at the large, bloody holes the slugthrower made.

He watched as bright flashes went off inside several of the tents, and laughed out loud as he saw another sandperson, and another, come running from two different tents, both braying like crazed animals. He casually took aim and shot them both down. A few more isolated blasts sounded, all of them from energy weapons, and then Alliance soldiers began coming out of their tents, confused and pissed off. "What fuck is this!" He heard someone shout.

Then a panicked cry was heard from one of R Company's tents; "MEDIC!" A moment later, similar cries began sounding from all over the base.

Korwin slung the slugthrower over his shoulder, and turned off his vibrodagger. He looked at the corpse next to him, and spat on it. "Sithspawned fucking demons!" He shouted. He gave the body a hard kick in the flank, and another, before he heard someone shouting for a medic in 2nd platoon's tent.

A heavy feeling settled in his gut, and he turned and walked into the tent. He could see a small group of soldiers crouched over someone in the back of the tent. The heaviness turned to a feeling of sickness, and he stepped up his pace as he approached them. He heard someone muttering curse words through gritted teeth, and knew the voice.

Shouldering his way forward, he said, "Get the fuck back, give him some damn space!" Avery was laid out on the ground next to his cot, his eyes squinted shut as his hands pressed hard against a large stab wound in his stomach. Korwin knelt down next to his friend and said, "Hang tight, okay Ave? Medic's on the way." Turning and looking over his shoulder, he saw his words proved true, as the tent flap opened, and one of K companies medics rushed inside. Korwin got out of his way and let him go to work.

He stood there watching, as the medic did his best to get the bleeding slowed, and then ordered several men to help him take Avery to the field hospital. When they left, Korwin did too, but he didn't go with them to the hospital. Instead, he went inside his own tent. Everyone was alive and accounted for, which allowed Korwin to breathe a sigh of relief. Korwin sat down on his cot, and Kierse came over and sat next to him. Haslin and Jenrol joined them, and Kreth found her way to her own cot.

Kreth looked at Korwin and shook her head, a look of bemusement on her face. "You know, you're getting mighty fond of the vibro all of the sudden."

Korwin looked down at the vibrodagger, and realized that it was still in his hand. He chuckled and shook his head. Setting the dagger down next to his cot, he dropped the slugthrower there as well. Kierse reached down and picked it up. "Damn Nalan, this is one big fucking gun."

Korwin started to laugh, but it turned into a yawn. He covered his mouth with his left hand, and then said, "No shit. Might as well keep it. I'll have to find a way to send it to Naboo or something. Maybe Eli can hold on to it for me, along with that slug they pulled out of me."

Jenrol's head jerked at the name, and he said, "Eli? Who's Eli?"

A sly grin spread on Kierse's face, and he said, "Eli on Naboo, eh? Been holding out on us Nalan?"

Kreth put a hand over her mouth, and said, "Nalan, you got laid, didn't you?" Her tone was scandalous, and her male companions eyed her oddly for a moment at the sudden outburst of femininity. She was generally pretty much just like them...most of the time.

Haslin said nothing to Korwin. He merely grinned and patted Korwin roughly on the shoulder. Korwin let his head loll back, and he groaned loudly.

"C'mon shithead, what the fuck happened?" Kierse demanded loudly, his eyes eager. The red-head was always looking for a good story. Especially one that involved nude women.

Korwin rolled his eyes, and said, "I told you all about Eli, right?"

Everyone shook their heads. Kierse said, "I think I'd remember you telling me about a girl. I love hearing about girls. Not like we have any around here."

"Hey, asshole, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Kreth demanded hotly. She loomed over the Corellian now, her fists on her hips.

"Oh cool your repulsors Kreth. I was just fucking around." Kierse shook his head irritatedly as she sat back down, and muttered, "Sithspit." before turning back to Korwin. "So, what about this Eli girl?"

Korwin shrugged and said, "I met this girl on Naboo when I was on leave."

Kreth leaned forward, her eyes sparkling, and she said, "Aaaand? What happened?"

"I fucked her." He laughed then, and Kierse and he high-fived, Jenrol blushed nearly as read as Kierse's hair, and Haslin offered a joking, "Congrats boss."

Kreth kicked him in the shin, and said, "Shit, listen to you gamorreans. Is that all it was? You fucked her, and you're going to send her a war souvenir?"

Korwin sighed, and hung his head against his chest. When he lifted it back up, he had a small smile on his face, one that actually reached his eyes. He said, "Well, I did tell her I would come back."

There was a moment of silence, as Kreth sat there with little hearts in her eyes. Her romantic sensibilities had been all but destroyed over the course of the two military campaigns she'd taken part in so far. Hearing something like that was almost like... "A holodrama! It's just like those holodrama's my girlfriends and I used to watch in high school, back on Dantooine!"

Seeing the looksof incomprehension thatthe rest of the squad was giving her, shehuffedirritatedly and said,"The lonely young war veteran meets a beautiful girl on leave and they fall in love, and he goes through the rest of the war knowing that if he makes it, his ultimate reward is to be with her." She sighed girlishly, further shocking her male companions. "Force, that's so romantic!" She looked at them all then, and spread her arms out, saying, "Seriously, isn't it? C'mon."

Korwin shrugged, and said, "I don't know about all that. I told her I'll go back, and I will. We'll see about it after that. Who knows." He felt another yawn coming on, and did nothing to stand in it's way, allowing it to break loose unimpeded.

Kreth cocked her head, and said, "Listen Nalan, why don't you get some sleep. I'll tell Cap what you did."

Korwin nodded his head, and laid down. Pulling the covers up, he looked over at Kreth, and said, "You know our sentries are dead, don't you?"

She nodded.. "Have to be. Don't worry about it though. We'll cover you boss. Get some sleep. We'll take watches just like on patrol."

He nodded his approval, and said, "Okay. Night." He closed his eyes and let his breathing slow. Pure exhaustion allowed him to relax, despite the events of just minutes previous and the new grime that covered him. Faith in his comrades allowed him to fall asleep moments later.


"Did Avery make it? Your friend from Tides?"

Korwin nodded his head. "Yeah, he did. They got him into surgery, and then into a bacta tank, and he was back fighting again within a couple weeks. It was a bad wound though. A couple more minutes, he'd have bled to death."

Laina jotted a few notes down, and then leaned forward slowly. Keeping direct eye contact, she said, "How did you know that something was wrong?"

Narrowing his eyes ever so slightly, Korwin said, "How do you mean?"

"You said that you just knew that something was out of place. Something wasn't right. You knew there was somebody outside, and that something bad was going to happen. You knew that you'd need your vibrodagger. How did you know?" She asked, her soft, wondering.

He sighed. "After the war, or at least after I was done with it, I was introduced briefly to Luke Skywalker. He was all dressed in these black robes, and had one of those lightsabers on his belt. No blaster or anything like that, but then I don't expect a Jedi Master would need something like that." He frowned thoughtfully, and then his expression turned to a smile as he said, "You know, he was shorter than I thought he'd be. Kind of a soft spoken guy." He took a sip of his water, and said, "He told me that word had gotten to him through my COC, or Chain of Command, that I had gotten some feelings in the past. That sometimes, I knew when shit was going to go down, you know?"

Laina nodded, and said, "He thought you had the force?"

Korwin shrugged, and said, "Well, I guess I do. He told me I could be a Jedi, learn from him."

"What happened? How come you didn't make it?" She asked.

He chuckled, and said, "Oh no young lady, you misunderstand. I told him no. Right there, didn't have to think about it...no."

Laina was taken aback at that. "You told him no? But why?"

Korwin shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Why not? I had Eli to go to when I was done fighting, and enough money saved up that I could contact Faroul and bring my family to Naboo. Training like that would have taken time that I didn't want to spare. I was twenty-one years old, and felt like I was fifty. I had never wanted to fight a war in the first place, you know? But once I was there I couldn't leave, even when I got the chance after Endor. I signed on for another tour of duty, kept on fighting. Went for another year before I'd had my fill."

Korwin took another sip of his water, and then said, "At that point, when Skywalker came to see me, the only thing I wanted to do was put away my weapons and never use them again. To this day, I haven't fired a blaster rifle or slugthrower, and my vibrodagger hasn't had an energy cell in it for closing on twenty-five years now."

Korwin's eyes were a little moist now, and he swiped a hand across them and said, "You really take life for granted until you're in a situation like that. Not a day goes by, I don't think of guys like Tandro, or Turneen, you know? Guys who didn't make it, friends of mine. I look at guys like them and I know that at any moment, if I had been maybe three inches to the left, or standing up another inch higher, I could have been the one with a hole in my head. If I hadn't turned around when I did, that plasma grenade would have fried my guts." He took another long drink of his water, and set the glass down.

Shifting in his seat to get comfortable, Korwin said, "I remember a day a long time back, when my daughter was still a baby, before my son came. I must have been about twenty-three or something. Anyways, Eli was sick, I was sick, the baby was sick, and I had to drop the baby off with Eli's mom and dad, and then go to work. Now, I was laying stone at the time, working on those marble causeways they have all over Theed, doing repair work and whatnot. To make a long story short, I had a miserable day at work. My head was pounding and my nose was all stuffed up, my back was killing me, and my right shoulder where I got shot in Mos Espa was aching all day long.

"By the time I picked up Malea, our daughter, and got home, I was so tired and so sore. But all day long, I was in a good mood. Because I just thought of all those people I knew who would never take their sick baby to grandma and grandpa so they could go have a shitty day at work. They would never get married, have kids, watch their kids grow up. Men and women, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old. Aliens too. Young people, most of them not more than five years older than me, or young for their race at any rate.

"And here I am, you know? Twenty-three years old now and almost two years removed from combat, cooking dinner for my beautiful wife and watching my baby girl try to take her first steps..." He ducked his head, and his breath hitched, and Laina could see his shoulders begin to shake a bit. After a moment, he sniffed softly, and wiped his eyes. He looked up, and offered a weak smile that didn't quite reach his glistening brown eyes. "I'm sorry. It's just hard to talk about."

"It's alright Mr. Nalan." Laina said, trying to sound reassuring. It was strange for her, and a little uncomfortable. She could tell that other members of the crew felt the same. It was an old hurt she was seeing, a very old one, whose roots were older than she was. But it was no less raw, and no less intense for all the time that had passed. She could see the pain written clearly across his face as he spoke.

"It's just a hard thing sometimes, being one of the survivors. You don't ever want to ask why, you know? But sometimes, you just wonder why you made it and other people didn't, you know? Why did that stray blaster bolt hit them, not me. I was standing right there, in the same line of fire. Why did that person die, and I'm here talking about it almost forty years later?" He sniffed again, and his face took on an almost neutral expression, as he said, "I think about that sometimes."

Korwinsat there for a moment, unmoving, and then shook off his gloom. Offering Laina a smile, he said, "Would you mind if we called it for the rest of the day? I think lunch and a nap would be more beneficial to me right now than lunch and an interview."

Laina was once again taken aback a bit by his words, but she nodded her head in acquiescence. "Very well. Tomorrow then."

He nodded his head, and headed for the door, saying, "Have a good day everyone."

As Laina watched the door whoosh shut behind Korwin, she looked down at her datapad and began sifting through the days information. Despite only being a half-day, it had actually been quite productive. She was shocked at some of the stories she was hearing from him. The hand to hand combat had been a harrowing experience to live through, she was sure, but even his retelling had sent chills down her spine.

After Korwin's rather graphic narratives of the last few days, and the heart-wrenching display she'd just seen, Laina was more happy than ever that she'd chosen a career in journalism over the New Republic Naval Academy.