The shape of things became clear in pieces. Two days after the battle at the waystation, Chief Medical Officer Holden delivered the final report to Lieutenant Davek Fel. Among the injured, twenty-four remained in sick bay with wounds that ranged from minor to life-threatening. Bacta was being used for only the most serious cases. Chief Holden seemed to believe it was important to ration some for future use. Forty-eight crew members had been killed, including Captain Chavak Lorn and not including the fighter wing, of which nine TIE-Xs and their pilots had been lost, including half of Black Squadron and the CAG. At the same time, the fifteen escape pods from Shieldbreaker had garnered them another forty-seven new crew members that were still being shuffled to fill in gaps. Twelve TIE Demolishers and one new TIE Stalker also found roost in Voidwalker's hangar, giving the vessel almost the same total crew count as it had when leaving Bilbringi shipyards almost a month ago.

That meant there was just over one thousand lives aboard Voidwalker, and all of them were now on Davek Fel's shoulders.

The damage to Voidwalker itself was considerable. The dorsal engine was heavily damaged and, according to Chief Daharr, would at best be able to operate a fifty percent of usual thrust capacity. Two of the starboard turbolaser batteries were also disabled due to hull ruptures that had severed key power lines. The worst part was the ostensibly minor issue of the blown-out auxiliary coupling that converted energy from the main power generator to the hyperdrives. Without it they were doomed to spend forever floating in the Shroud.

Chief Daharr and his engineering crew had been working at it for two straight days. It was late in evening hours and Davek was sitting alone in his quarters, reviewing Daharr's latest reports on his datapad, when the door to his cabin chimed.

He'd almost fallen asleep in his chair, and he dropped the datapad in surprise. He picked it off the carpet, placed it on his compact table, and walked over to the door. It slid open and he was looking down at Marasiah Valtor.

She immediately saluted. "Reporting as ordered, sir."

Davek remembered after a moment. "Yes, of course. Come in, Lieutenant. Please."

As soon as she stepped inside he realized there was barely enough space for them both. His bed took up a third of the cramped room and they maneuvered around it to sit at the table.

"I'm sorry to be meeting here," Davek said, "But I wanted to talk privately, and the conference room behind the bridge is, well, missing a bulkhead."

"I heard it had been hit." She sat down, stiff-backed, and faced him across the table. "Are you all right, sir? Your damage, I mean."

His hand went to the pale scar running vertically across his forehead from the right eye to the hairline. "It could have been much, much worse. First Officer Sarl..." He shook his head. "I guess I'm following the family tradition."

She frowned. "Sir?"

"Nothing. My father had a similar mark. Has."

"It looks shallow, sir. Nothing that bacta couldn't heal."

"There's a lot of people who need bacta on this ship more than I do."

"Quite," she said simply.

Davek folded his hands on the table. "What about your pilots? How are they holding up?"

"Physically, sir, they're all right."

"Psychologically?"

Her lips pressed into a flat line. "It's difficult. For everyone. Gold Squad's been lucky. We've only lost two pilots this whole time. Grey and Black squads have been cut in half."

"What about the Demolishers?"

"Frankly, sir, they're the worst off. Those pilots didn't just lose half their number, they've lost their entire ship."

"I know. What's your take on Blue Leader? That is, ah-"

"Korosh Vull, sir," she supplied. "He's very professional, sir. He's doing the best anyone could do to hold his men together under the circumstances."

"That's good to know." Now to get to the point of it. "Lieutenant Valtor, I'm sure you're aware that Voidwalker needs a Commander of the Air Group."

"I think Lieutenant Vull would be an excellent choice, sir."

Davek blinked. "I was actually going to give you the position."

Now she looked surprised. "Lieutenant Vull has being flying TIEs for six years, sir. He has seniority."

"I know, but I finally got around to looking up regulations for a situation like this. I had to look hard because it's so unusual, but they said that when combining squadrons from multiple ships under one command, the duties for CAG typically go to the ranking officer aboard the home ship. Which would be you, Lieutenant."

"I… was not aware of that, sir."

"Do you think you're inadequate for the job?"

"No, sir. If you ask me to be your CAG I'll be it, sir." She paused, then said, "I'd still consider Lieutenant Vull's input in all things."

"That's your prerogative. You know this ship and her pilots better than Vull. He didn't step foot aboard Voidwalker until two days ago."

"Sir, I hadn't set foot on this ship until two months ago."

"Then you have almost two months seniority on Lieutenant Vull."

He'd tried to make a joke out of it, but she was still frowning. He'd only seen her smile once and tried to remember what it looked like. He couldn't picture a smile on his own face either.

"If you have a problem with this, Lieutenant, speak up now."

"Not at all," she said immediately. "I'll do whatever you need me to do, Captain."

He winced. "I'm not a captain."

"If I'm the CAG, sir, you're the captain."

"Only Captain Lorn could have given me a brevet rank. He didn't live to do so."

"You are our captain now, sir," she said, suddenly very intent. "And you have to act like one, because if we can't believe you're our captain then none of us will survive."

He wanted to ask her if she really thought any of them would survive this, but she was right, and it wasn't a question a captain should ask. "I will… try to keep that in mind, thank you."

"I'm sorry if I was too forward."

"Believe me, Lieutenant, I need a CAG who's willing to be honest. This is..." He sunk back into his chair. "Well. I guess you have some idea yourself now."

"Some," she admitted.

They looked across the cabin in silence, avoiding each other's eyes. Voidwalker had found a hollow inside a planetoid to hide in. Even the sublight engines had been powered down to almost nothing, leaving the ship eerily quiet.

"As CAG," he said, "You can rearrange pilots in whatever flights and squadrons you think best. You should also draw up schedules for fighter patrols. Two ships at a time, that's all. We need to conserve fuel for the TIEs."

"Understood, sir. I was already doing schedules anyway."

"Of course." He'd been reading the initial reports earlier today. Weariness was sapping his memory but he recalled it now. The Mandalorians knew in which direction Voidwalker had fled but as yet they'd not mounted a thorough search party. Several frigates and corvettes had been spotted poking around the vast asteroid field but none had gotten close to their hiding place. Davek's guess was that the Mandalorians were unaware Voidwalker's hyperdrive was busted and were spreading a much wider net than they needed to.

"Sir," she asked, "What happened to Captain Lorn's cabin?"

"It was right next to the conference room, which means most of it got sucked into the vacuum. So I'm stuck with these spacious quarters." He waved a hand at the table, the bed, the porthole window looking out on blackness. He wondered if he would ever see a blue sky again. Then he remembered, "As CAG you can have Commander Samar's room. I know it might be a little ghoulish but, well, at least it's quiet. I'll get the passcodes for you."

"Thank you." They looked at each other without looking for another moment and she said, "Is that all, Captain?"

He bit back his initial response and said, "For now, yes. Thank you for coming, Lieutenant."

She stood up and saluted him as he sat slumped in his chair. "Yes. Thank you, Captain."

And then she was gone. He glanced at the datapad on his table and realized he didn't recall a word of Daharr's report. He sighed, sat down, and called up something else. The gaping silence was suddenly filled with the sound of his father's voice.

"Davek, this is your father. I imagine you've just learned that Voidwalker will be mustering out under Admiral Branth for Senex-Juvex," the recording said. "I don't know what you'll find there or what challenges you'll encounter, but I do know you'll face them with all your skill and bravery. I've never doubted you. None of us have."

He tried to savor every word. They would almost certainly be the last he heard from his father or anyone else he cared about. Jagged Fel's voice were strong, soothing, as he said, "So go be a good soldier, Davek. And when you come back to us, I want to hear all your stories. Until then, good luck, and may the Force be with you. May it be with all of us."

The recording ended. Silence swelled again like the vacuum surrounding Voidwalker for light-years. When it felt like the void would swallow him whole, he tapped the datapad and played it again.

-{}-

Valiantly, stubbornly, foolishly, the crew of Voidwalker still tried to press on with their normal routines and schedules like nothing was wrong. Lukas knew it was absurd but he pressed on like the rest of them. It was the only thing they could do.

He was back to sitting with the rest of his squad in the mess hall. The first time after the battle they'd pestered him about what it was like in sick bay and he'd pointedly avoided answering their questions. They'd accepted it with sullen nods, telling themselves they understood when they never would. There was no way he could explain to anyone what it had meant to be trapped in that black lift tube for what felt like forever, desperate and helpless to stop Captain Lorn from dying.

Leila and Mynar bantered on like they always did, but it felt forced now, strained. He laughed and threw in smart remarks now and then but he found himself wanting to be back in sick bay. There were still people who needed care, humans he could actually help. If he saved a life or two, he thought, then maybe he could chase away the specter that haunted him when he tried to sleep at night. It was always Captain Lorn's face, sharply lit by Volmar's glow-rod, alien but so twisted in pain Lukas could almost feel the agony himself. He'd replayed those drawn-out and crucial moments over and over again in his head. He wanted to tell himself that there was nothing he could have done to save that life from such grievous injuries, and it might have even been true, but he couldn't believe it.

"Hey Briggs," Mynar said. "You hear that one?"

Lukas blinked and focused on the man across from him. "What?"

"I heard they're trying to cobble together a replacement for the hyperdrive power coupling. The one we've got's never gonna work but they might be able to get a replacement."

"Replacement how?" Lukas asked. "And where was this rumor from?"

"Ranulf, over in D Squadron. They brought him in yesterday to help man the engineering station while Daharr and some of his guys went into the backup equipment storage."

"Looking for replacement parts to hobble together a power conduit? Or coupling, or whatever?"

"What else would they be doing?"

Lukas sighed and Leila said, "You're getting desperate, Cevorn."

"Why wouldn't I be desperate?" Mynar snapped. "You want to die here?"

"Of course not, and keep your voice down."

Mynar hunched over the table and said in a low voice, "What do you think Prince Fel will do if we can't fix the hyperdrive?"

"We won't really have many options," said Lukas.

"Name them."

Leila supplied, "Surrender or die. Is that what you want us to say?"

"Yes. Someone has to say it. And even if we did try to surrender to those Mandos they'd slaughter us anyone, just like they slaughtered everyone at karking Karfeddion."

"Try not to let it get to you," Lukas said, not that he was having an easy time of it either.

"Of course it's getting to me," Mynar scowled. "I know we're supposed to be soldiers of the Empire and all, not let anything get to us, but damn it, I didn't get off Kolfax Minor starve to death in a tin can in the middle of karking nowhere."

There was a sudden ruckus from one of the tables. All the other heads in the mess hall turned to see one ensign shove another man's tray off the table. The second man jumped to his feet and started screaming in the other's face, "Take that back! You take that back!"

The first one swung a punch and knocked the second in the jaw. The other officers at the table- Lukas thought it was Helm Section's- stared with a mix of shock and fascination. Everyone else in the mess was staring too.

The second ensign punched back, getting the first one in the stomach and doubling him over. Then he bent low, grabbed up his tray, and raised it high to bash the other ensign's head in.

That was when a third officer- dark-skinned, lieutenant's bars, probably the Helm chief- burst in. He grabbed the tray, threw it back to the deck, and shouted, "Enough! Enough! Attention, both of you!"

The fighting ensigns stared at their CO, shocked by his entrance and shocked what they'd been doing. The lieutenant grabbed both his officers by the arm and hauled them out of the mess. One by one, the crew remaining turned their faces back to the trays and tried to restart awkward conversation.

"See?" Mynar muttered. "Pressure's getting to everyone."

-{}-

Davek was just about to change out of his uniform and settle in for a third night's sleep when his comlink buzzed and he was called up to the bridge. The second he got there Por Dun told him, "It's the fighter patrol, sir. They've met hostiles."

He knew this would happen eventually and tried to stay calm. "Let me see tactical, Ensign."

The holo sprung up to reveal a panorama of the space surrounding Voidwalker. Yellow orbs marked some two-dozen asteroids of varying sizes as they rolled lazily through the vacuum. Amidst all the space rock darted two small green lights marking the TIE-Xs on patrol. Chasing one of them was a trio of red lights.

"Three Beskad fighters," Por Dun said. "They came out of hyperspace almost dead on top of Black Four."

Before Davek could say anything, Lieutenant Valtor came running onto the bridge. She skidded to a halt in front of him and asked, "What's the situation?"

Por Dun repeated what she'd just said and added, "Gold Three is also out there. She's asking for permission to engage."

"She can't handle three Mandos on her own," warned Ensign Korak.

"I'm well aware of that, thank you," Davek growled. As he watched the holo the first green marker blinked and disappeared.

"Black Four is gone," Por Dun confirmed. "No eject signal. The Beskads are changing vector…. They're heading for Gold Three. They've seen her."

"Can we open a comm channel?" asked Valtor.

Korak shook his head. "Might give away our position."

She looked at Davek with pleading eyes. "Let me launch. Four fighters. We can take them."

He looked away, down at Korak and Por Dun. They knew the risks as well as he did. If those Beskads were in communication with a capital ship, and if that ship was on its way here, launching fighters could betray their location.

Valtor knew it too. "Sir, they know TIEs are short-range. Even if they kill Gold Three they'll send more ships to ferret us out. We have to take them out."

And pray they didn't reveal too much. She was right: it wasn't a choice after all. "Do it, Lieutenant. Scramble fighters."

Without another word, Valtor sprinted off the bridge.

-{}-

By the time Marasiah's TIE-X shot out of Voidwalker's hangar and jumped out of the asteroid, the Beskads were already engaging Gold Three. Marth was twisting and turning her interceptor, fast and frantic, looping around tumbling space-rock. Marasiah had never known she had it in her.

She gunned her fighter straight forward and hoped that with the Beskads distracted they wouldn't notice where the four new TIE-Xs had come from. She checked her rear scanners: Vendarth, Loman, and Rakash'mor were right behind her.

At this point there was no risk hailing. Marasiah patched her comm line to the pursued vessel and said, "Break hard for point oh-five-seven. We'll cover you."

"Right away, Lead!" Marth's voice was strained.

Marasiah watched her scanners as Marth cut a hard turn to port. It was a course that would take her into the tangle of radioactive gases and stardust that surrounded the asteroid field. The Beskads matched her turn and chased her, spewing green laser blasts from their cannons. Marasiah was close enough to see the lights of hot plasma now but she couldn't spot Marth's fighter against the nebula's glowing backdrop.

"Gold Three!" she called. "Can you see us on scanners?"

"Yes, sir! Lead, they're almost on me- damn it!"

"Are you hit? Three, disengage and head for our position. Try to-"

An agonized scream killed her headset, then a burst of static. She saw, with her own eyes, Marth's fighter flare and explode.

And she saw the three Beskads break, turn, and head right for them.

"All ships, prepare to break formation and engage!" Marasiah called. Two more pilots gone. Marth gone. At least one of them likely the follow.

The Beskads held tight formation as they charged. Their T-shaped forward profiles presented slim targets and Marasiah's cockpit wailed an alarm telling her proton torpedoes were inbound.

"Do we break, Lead?" asked Rakash'mor.

She waited, waited until those torps were close enough to see by their thrust-flares. Then she cried, "Break now!" and wrenched her fighter hard.

-{}-

Davek felt more frustrated and helpless watching this small skirmish than he had during the entire battle at the waystation. No more Mando ships had jumped in-range, thankfully, but the dogfight among the asteroids was terrifying to watch. The initial volley of torpedoes from the Mando fighters had missed three of the four targets, but Gold Five's TIE-X has been clipped on the solar panel and gone spiraling out-of-control into the nebula beyond. It was three-on-three now, a trio of harrowing one-on-one dogfights that played out with twisting, bouncing little markers on Voidwalker's tactical holo.

There was comm chatter too, which made things worse. "Stang! He's right behind me!" Gold Two said.

"Break hard port, Two! Do it now!" called Valtor.

"What about your guy?"

"Now!" she repeated.

Davek watched as the lights tangled up together again. His whole body tensed; then one red dot winked out and he relaxed just a bit.

"Good shooting, Lead!" said Two. "Thank you!"

"Go help Four," Valtor said. "I'll take the other one."

The lights danced again. Gold Four slipped back and forth, probably dodging lasers from the Mando on his tail. Gold Two came up behind him while Lieutenant Valtor's ship matched her attack in a dizzying series of weaves, a scissor pattern where each nimble fighter tried to get behind the other. From his short year in starfighter training Davek knew it was the kind of contest won by the pilot with the fastest reflexes. Valtor was as good as they came, another young officer he knew he could trust, and if her lost her-

The red dot winked out. Davek exhaled. Korak, seating at his console, pumped a fist in the air.

It was suddenly three-on-one. The last Mando ship made a desperate run for it, aiming for a clear shot at the nearest exit vector where it could jump to hyperspace. Beskads were fast but so were TIE-Xs, and with three against one it didn't last long.

Davek put a hand on Korak's shoulder. "Hail Gold Leader, Ensign."

"With pleasure, sir." Korak tapped his console and opened a comm channel.

Davek bent close to the speaker. "Gold Leader, report."

"All fighters destroyed, Voidwalker." Valtor's voice was still tense.

"Bring your ships back to the barn. Good work."

"Sir, I'm missing a pilot."

"Do you mean Gold Five? I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but he went spinning off into the cloud. Our scanners can't track him."

"I'm closer, sir."

"Your scanners won't be able to either. I'm sorry, but he's gone."

There was ten long seconds of open air before she said, "We can't afford to lose more pilots, sir. I'll send the others back and check on my own." With that, the comm line closed.

"I don't understand, sir," Korak frowned. "What the hell is she doing?"

Davek couldn't give an answer; he wished he had one.

-{}-

She knew Rakash'mor was out there. He wasn't far. She knew it, just like she'd known something was wrong today before the alarm sounded, the way she'd been right about that ship way back at Mygeeto, which seemed forever ago. Her console blinked. Voidwalker was hailing again. Probably Fel calling to scold her. No, that wasn't like him. He was calling to ask her if she'd lost her damned mind, and rightly so.

There was no logical explanation for it but she pressed on. As she slowed to approach the gas cloud her pulse was pounding harder than it had during the dogfight. Through her viewport, all she could see was drifts of violet, blue, and sometimes vivid red. They were so deep inside the Shroud that not even stars were visible behind the colors. She fired her thrusters once and let her fighter glide into the nebula.

These gases didn't just jam the sensors, she knew. They produced radiation that could be lethal without proper shielding, and every drifting fleck of starbust bit away at her TIE's defenses. Her shields would still hold for a little while, but Rakash'mor's were already down and every second drifting here was bringing him closer to death.

The thought made her sick. Trapped in a crippled fighter, abandoned by your squadron, left to die either from suffocation or radiation- it was an awful fate. Better to die fast like Sharen Marth, who'd never shut up before and would never speak now. Gold Squad had gotten off lightly before but now, finally, their luck had run out and attrition found them. Four pilots out of twelve gone now, five if she didn't find Rakash'mor.

As the clouds enveloped her she tried to think about the Twi'lek. She'd always liked him. He'd always been dependable and she'd never felt resentment from him after she'd gotten the whole squad bumped off the Sarretti and onto this piddling frigate, not that it hadn't saved their lives, at least for a little while. In a strange way she'd actually felt closest to him out of all the pilots in Gold Squad, even though their interactions had never been anything but professional; even though he was an alien. That, strangely, was the thing that mattered most. Being the only non-human in Gold Squad had marked him as an outsider from the start. Being from Kolfax Minor wasn't the same as being an alien in the Imperial navy but it was close in a way. At least, she'd thought it was.

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine her own feelings in this situation. She summoned emotions of bewilderment and loss and above all a sense of loneliness, paired with the feeling that perhaps it was meant to end this way from the start.

As she felt that feeling she felt its echo bouncing back to her. It was to starboard, not too far away. She tilted her fighter and gave it another kick forward. Stardust streaked past her cockpit, blurring her vision, but when enough veils were pulled away she could see the unmistakable X-shape of Rakash'mor's TIE drifting dark in the nebula only a hundred meters away.

She flipped her fighter nose-over-tail with direction thrusters, located the quickest route out of the nebula, then fired her engines to maximum, leaving a trail back to her pilot behind her.

-{}-

Lukas Briggs had volunteered for night shift at the infirmary that cycle. Anything to keep the dreams of Captain Lorn away, he'd thought. When the recovery shuttle landed with an injured pilot aboard he was one of the ones called by Chief Holden to help receive the casualty. They'd been told that the TIE-X had been found crippled in the nebula, which meant they should expect hypoxia and radiation exposure.

Holden quickly showed Lukas where they kept the anti-radiation meds before tasking him with finding a clear bed for the incoming wounded. That wasn't an easy task as most of them were still occupied. One man, an ensign from the gunnery crew with two broken legs, volunteered to shift himself over to a repulsor-stretcher. They'd just finished the awkward switch when another stretcher was rushed in with the pilot aboard.

The pilot was a Twi'lek. Lukas hadn't been expecting that and from his expression neither had Holden. The chief medic scowled, looked down at the anti-radiation meds he'd gathered, and pushed them aside.

"You, Stormie!" He snapped a finger. "With me! Donmark, Vorman, get him on the bed and hooked up to a respirator."

Lukas chased after Holden as the old medic hurried to the other side of the room. As he rummaged through his supply bin Lukas asked, "What's wrong? Will human meds not work on him?"

"The meds'll work against the radiation just fine," Holden said, "Thing is, they also induce severe neural numbing in Twi'leks."

"You mean brain damage?"

"Tuns everything inside those head-tails of his to mush." Holden shoved a box of something into Lukas's arms. "We've got to counteract that."

"With that?"

"Just a second- here." He gave Lukas something else, then spun him on his shoulders and pushed him back to the stretcher. Donmark and Vorman had just transferred the Twi'lek onto his bed and the latter was affixing the respirator mask to his face. The pilot lay limp on his back with his eyes closed. His chest moved up and down faintly like he was simple asleep.

"How long was he exposed? Anyone know?" Holden asked the crewmen who'd brought the Twi'lek in. Both of them shrugged, helpless. The medic scowled and told Lukas, "Open both those boxes and load up an injector. Five miligrams from the first one, ten from the second. Donmark, hook up a cerebral scanner. Two probes, one at the base of each head-tail."

Lukas did it all as quickly as he could. After he'd loaded the appropriate amounts into the injector Holden handed him another capsule.

"Sir? These are anti-radiation meds, the normal kind."

"Fifteen miligrams, Stormie."

"I thought-"

"Do it!"

Lukas didn't argue. He didn't hesitate or shiver or wallow in his confusion like he had with Lorn. He mixed the injection in the right amounts and turned back to the bed. Donmark had affixed two light probes against the blue skin of the Twi'lek's head and Vorman had hooked up a monitor. Waves ran across the screen in faint but steady pulses.

"He's dropping into a coma," Holden said. "Stormie, injection. Now."

Lukas dropped it into an open hand. He knew that this kind of injection, on a human, was supposed to go in the back of the head, right where spinal chord met the brain, but Holden went without hesitation to the spot on top of the Twi'leks skull, right between the base of his two head-tails, and injected him there.

Holden stepped back and looked at the screen. Lukas stared at it too, breathless and tense, not even knowing what he was supposed to see. The waves kept pulsing at the same rate but their depth increased a little bit before they seemed to level out again.

Holden sighed with relief and slapped Lukas on the shoulder. "Not bad, Stormie. He's not dropping any more."

"You mean he'll be all right?"

"We'll have to monitoring him for a while, but we kept him from taking a plunge."

"Sir… How did you learn all that?"

"Turns out they teach you a lot more in real medical school than boot camp."

"I'd…. I'd like to learn more," Lukas said.

Holden looked at him like he was surprised. He didn't smile- he never smiled, best Lukas could tell, but he said, "Good. We can work on that. But not tonight."

As Holden stepped away Lukas heard boots pounding the deck behind him. He turned around to see a short woman in a black pilot's jumpsuit running into the infirmary. She skidded to a halt in front of the bed, tossed long hair out of her face, and turned two dark eyes right on him.

"Medic, what happened to my pilot?"

Holden cleared his throat behind Lukas. "We've got the situation stabilized, Lieutenant."

She looked down at the Twi'lek, then at the read-out on the monitor. "Is he awake?"

"No, but we prevented him from slipping into a coma. Right now his brain needs time to heal itself."

"I'd like to be kept updated on his situation."

"We can manage that." Holden picked up the box of anti-radiation meds. "I heard you went for a dip in that nebula yourself, Lieutenant."

"My shields held. I'm fine."

"Protocol dictates a preventative dose, just to make sure." He looked at Lukas. "You can do the honors, Stormie. Just five miligrams."

Lieutenant Valtor scowled but acquiesced. After Lukas prepared another injection he gathered her long thick hair in both hands and lifted it up for the back of her neck was exposed. She didn't make a sound as he slipped the needle right below the base of her skull.

Once it was done she lowered her hair and turned around. "Thank you, Medic."

"Just, ah, doing my job, Lieutenant." Stupidly, he found himself marveling at how better she was hiding her mudball accent than Mynar.

"Thank you for helping Flight Officer Rakash'mor also. I believe you just saved his life."

"I'm glad I could help." He meant it more than he could say.

-{}-

It was almost 0300 hours on the ship's chrono when Lieutenant Valtor came to Davek's quarters. He'd told her to come when she was ready, after she'd checked into sick bay, washed, and changed clothes. Sleep was starting to come as he'd waited, dark and heavy, but he was on his feet at the sound of the first door chime.

Her wet hair was flat against her face and without her uniform or bulky flight suit she seemed surprisingly small. She snapped a salute nonetheless and said, "Reporting as ordered, Captain. I hope I didn't disturb you."

"At ease, Lieutenant." He let her follow him back into the room. Weariness still weighed on him and he dropped onto the soft cushion of the bed. "Have a seat, please."

She stared at him for a second, at the bed, then quickly took a chair by the table. "I apologize for counter-manning your order, sir. I'll accept whatever reprimand you think is appropriate."

"I don't want to reprimand you, Lieutenant. I'm curious."

She blinked. "About what, sir?"

"How did you find your pilot in that soup? Sensors couldn't see a thing."

Her eyes dropped to the floor. Her hands, one placed on either thigh, tightened on the fabric on her trousers. "I just… knew, sir. It was an instinct. I really can't explain it."

"Do you have these instincts often?"

"I don't know. Sometimes, sir. I don't try to have them. They simply come to me."

It was getting pretty clear now. "You know, I still remember what they said about you at the academy."

She looked up. "Sir?"

"They said you could beat every pilot they matched you with, in sims and in the real deal. They said it was like you knew your opponents moves before they did."

"They say that about every good pilot."

"No. Only the special ones." He leaned forward and held her eyes. "You have the Force, Lieutenant."

She stared back, expression blank, like she hadn't even understood what he'd told her. He said, "Believe me, I would know. My family has its share of Force-users."

"I'm aware of that. I, ah…. Are you sure, Captain?"

"I think so. I figured you should know. Tell me, does anyone else in your family get these instincts?"

"No. I mean, I don't think so. Though my brother… He's a stormtrooper, sir. At stormie school he was at the first of his rank too. Our family just attributed it to good genes, or good luck."

"Well you were right, just not in the way you expected. My mother's spent a lot of time trying to find Force-sensitives in Imperial space and train them as Jedi. It's been hard, with existing prejudices being what they are, and there was always going to be people who slipped through the cracks. I saw from your service record you grew up on Kolfax Minor."

"Yes." She stiffened. "It's an easy planet to overlook. I know."

"You came from where you came from. There's nothing wrong with that." He was tempted to tell her that, in her shock, she'd let her accept slip and decided against it. "There's nothing wrong with being overlooked sometimes either. The Jedi Order's loss is clearly the Empire's gain. Voidwalker's gain. That pilot down in sick bay isn't the only one who owes you his life."

Valtor stared back at the floor in silence and Davek let her stare and sort out all the thoughts that must have been swirling through her head. Her professional lieutenant's demeanor had slipped away with her accent. She looked small and young and uncertain. Kind of like how he felt.

"Captain… May I ask a personal question?"

"Go ahead." It didn't seem the place to deny it.

"Why did you choose to join the Empire instead of the Jedi?"

It was inexpressibly strange when the central fact of your life took another by surprise. "It wasn't a choice. I don't have the Force, Lieutenant."

"You don't? I thought it was hereditary."

"Sometimes. My mother is a Jedi, my father wasn't. My brother is a Jedi. I never had the chance."

"I see." She mulled over something else. "If you'd had the choice, would you have been a Jedi?"

He'd gotten this question before and always lied, but he found he couldn't lie to her. "Sometimes I think so. Other times I'd think, no, I'm okay like this. Being… normal. But I never got that choice. I try not to dwell on it. All I know for sure is that if I had, my life would have ended up very different."

"I know what you mean," she said, almost a whisper.

Silence hung between them, that deep silence that seemed unnatural on a spaceship. There was one thing left to tell her, the hardest thing. He hadn't told anyone yet but he had to tell someone first, and Marasiah Valtor seemed the only real choice.

"Lieutenant," he said, "Right after the skirmish I got a call from Chief Daharr. While you were recovering your pilot, I went down to engineering to talk to him." He saw dread and knowing in her eyes but went on. "The auxiliary power coupling is damaged beyond repair. Nothing we have aboard can replace it either. We no longer have the ability to go to lightspeed."

Her body bent forward under the weight of it all. Dark hair fell over her face and she said from beneath the curtain, very softly, "What do we do now?"

Just as weakly he said, "I don't know."

He watched her but she didn't raise her head, because of the weight or because she was afraid to look him in the eye. He lowered his own. There was nothing left to say.