1.

"So how many weeks have we been meeting for now, Lieutenant Tharen?"

"Almost three months."

"So twelve weeks."

"That's generally how that math checks out."

"So," Xanbea Bacleap said as she gestured towards the recording device on her desk, "You should know the drill by this point. One last time, please, for the record. Your name, rank, and position."

Renn let out an annoyed sigh. It had been a long three months and he was desperate for it to be over, "Flight Lieutenant Renn Tharen, Executive Officer of Bandit Squadron."

"And do you know why you're here today, Lieutenant Tharen?" asked the tribunal-appointed psychiatrist, "As well at the full legal ramifications of our conversation today?"

"Can any discussion really have legal ramifications before the New Republic drafts it's constitution?"

"Lieutenant it's a military tribunal, don't be obtuse."

Renn looked around her office. The sparse martial style seemed to be fighting a battle against, and ironically losing to, little pieces of decorum designed to cultivate an atmosphere of tranquility. Xanbea even eschewed her uniform in lieu of traditional emerald Naboo robes and donned her hair in elegant braids that spiraled down and danced around her shoulders. But even the cacophony of serenity that the woman's office tried to convey didn't detract from the fact that this was an official visit on a military vessel for a court martial tribunal.

Or I'm just projecting. Renn thought anxiously.

"Because..." Renn felt his throat tighten up around the rest of his sentence, trapping it there and saving Renn from having to utter it. He inhaled sharply and closed his eyes, but couldn't shake the image of Astin's X-Wing immolating on the launch pad before splintering into shrapnel and spraying the inside of the Liberty's flight deck with superheated astro-fuel and…

"Still having trouble with that are we?"

"Because certain senior officers have it out for pilots who don't follow orders with the dull obedience of children, dogs, and Stormtroopers." came spurting out of Renn's mouth before he even consciously thought the words. He couldn't help but cringe at how defensive it sounded, at how that sentence coursed with vitriol, as if anger could make her less right.

"We still have one big question left to answer Lieutenant. " Xanbea leaned forward and pressed a button on her desk. A hologram of Renn's service record flashed to holographic life on the bulkhead behind her desk.

"It says here that you have a history of insubordination as well as something of a drinking habit." She looked away from the file, "Those are generally not widely sought after traits in fighter pilots."

Oh thanks, I missed the day they taught that in flight school. Renn thought and somehow managed to keep it to himself.

She paused as if she heard what he had heard his thought.

"Frankly it's a miracle you didn't end up in my office or in a cell in the brig sooner, Lieutenant."

"Thanks, haven't we been over this?" Renn offered, mostly just to fill the loaded silence she left him. He didn't feel like offering her the explanation she was fishing for. Nonetheless, he couldn't help feeling like he was acting like a petulant child, stomping his foot and pouting to get his way.

"You know that I'm not here to grill you. You know I've only ever been fair to you in this office." She turned off the hologram, "I know your combat record is littered with citations and decorations, even if the specifics are still mostly classified. You know I'm not General Sienna. You know I'm not here to throw you in the brig on his account."

"I did the right thing on Abraxis." Renn said with what he hoped was the confidence he only wished he truly had faith in that statement.

"This isn't about Abraxis."

"Isn't it?"

"No." She said sternly, "It's about Lt. Griffith's dea…"

"That wasn't my fault." Renn insisted, this time with faith. He had merely been reading in his cockpit when a weapon malfunction had caused Griffith's X-Wing's fuel line to ignite and then explode. What happened on Abraxis, however, was Renn's doing. Those New Republic pilots he had killed.

"I know, Renn." She held eye contact with him, "But you've been flying combat missions for two years now, and since Endor more planets have been coming over to our side every day. With your record, I'm sure I could find you a job ferrying supplies or even a diplomatic post. Someplace far away from Starfighter Command."

Renn felt his stomach tighten. He closed his eyes and inhaled as he tried to clear the image of the firefighters desperately racing to pull Astin from his snubfighter as it burned in the middle of the flight deck.

"I…" Renn's voice trailed off. Nothing scared him more than his life becoming a cause. Even a cause he knew was right, that he knew as good for the galaxy, even the cause of the New Republic. As necessary and right as it may be, it wasn't him. It wasn't a life he ever chose, it was circumstances that conspired to put him here, not ideals or ambition. The most that a life that he had no choice in or control over could ever be was a eulogy to a different life he might have lived.

In a different life he might have been a historian, teaching the galaxy about the cyclical nature of war and imperialism that held the galaxy hostage. In a different life he might have been free, and not a slave to desperation.

More likely I'd be a transient alcoholic, giving the galaxy a lesson on how the cyclical nature of inebriation and hangovers can hold a life hostage. He thought grimly and exhaled, and knew that no matter what choice he made it wasn't truly his.

"No ma'am. I'd prefer to keep acting as Bandit Squadron's XO."

"Alright then," She stood up, "I'll have you slotted for active duty as soon as possible and you'll be flying sorties again by tomorrow morning. Consider yourself dismissed."

"Thank you ma'am." Renn stood up to leave the office.

"Renn."

He turned.

"Try not to let this war get you. Inside or out."

"No promises." He said with all the forced bravado he could muster.

A war can't break a spirit that's already broken.

Renn felt his hand start to shake and his stomach turn as he left the office into the gray twisting interior corridors of the Liberty. His uniform collar suddenly began to feel like a noose tightening around his neck. So he did what he had done for the last two years and undid the top three buttons. It wasn't exactly the way protocol demanded uniforms be worn but it fit with the cavalier aesthetic he was trying desperately to maintain. Much more than a panic attack would at least. Letting his fellow officers know just how shaken and terrified he was as he went throughout his day was almost as terrifying as going into combat at this point. He would be damned if he was going to let some of the swine who had made his life a nightmare since Abraxis see him for the broken spirit that he was.

He felt his mind race and the harsh lighting and idle chatter of officers in the corridor of the Liberty felt more and more overwhelming to the point where he couldn't even force his eyes off the ground. Everything, his whole haunted life, flashed through his mind. Astin's X-Wing exploding, Stormtroopers clattering lifelessly to the ground in a hail of blaster fire, the crowds cheering at the bar on Dantooine as news of Alderaan's destruction was reported, his mother immolating in his hands under the shadow of a steel atrocity that eclipsed the sun. It was his usual series of horrors, but familiarity had yet to acclimate Renn to just how shaken they left him.

His heart beat like a drum, mercilessly pounding in his chest as he kept searching for a moment he was sure was buried inside, underneath all that pain and terror, but that he could never find. That fleeting sense of catharsis that had once seemed to illuminate the path forward now felt like an ephemeral joke. He knew there was an elusive sparkle of optimism somewhere, something that he could hold onto, to become better in spite of all that had happened. Renn knew he had found it once. But, illusive as always, it seemed to disintegrate in his hands as soon as he felt like he found it.

As he entered the turbolift down to the flight deck he managed to breathe a sigh of relief. The bustle of life onboard a crowded Starfighter Carrier always grated on Renn. The constant crowded hustle was something of sensory overload at times. It often felt like turbolifts were one of the few places of reprieve he could find in the Liberty's pulsating arteries.

Renn realized this trip was not destined to be one of those moments of reprieve, as a thick, tattooed, and gnarled hand blocked the closing door.

"Kid." Rath Zane said with a smirk as he entered the turbolift. The man's appearance was so torn and gnarled by violence and war and worn that it shone over every piece of him. A former street tough turned Stormtrooper turned mercenary turned Alliance Special Operator, Renn had met the much older man during a period of transience immediately following the destruction of Alderaan. The two had worked together, running contraband onto and off of the more reputable planets in the centre of the galaxy.

It had been one of the darkest periods of Renn's life. Renn was thankful to Rath for taking him under his wing, but also nervous around the special forces soldier. Rath would always carry some of the weight of that year of living as a criminal had weighed on Renn, whether that was fair or not was hard for Renn to say. It didn't help that the first people Renn had seen die had died at Rath's hands outside of a Tatooine bar.

"Rath." Renn nodded without making eye contact.

"I hear the Bandits are deploying soon. I assume that means you're reinstated."

Bandit Squadron had developed into the go-to group for Alliance Intelligence over the last two years, much in the way the Special Operators tended to act as Intelligence's 'designated skull-splitters' as Rath so eloquently put it. So it was hardly uncommon for a member of one group to have gossip that was salient to the other.

"Could just as easily be that I've been discharged."

"You haven't though." Rath smiled a coarse grin, "You're easier to read than you think."

Renn uncrossed his arms,"The psych evaluation is done, so the last of my paperwork should go through today."

"Flight deck?" Rath pressed a button on the side of the turbolift before Renn could answer, "Anyways, it's not a combat job. Some mid-rim trade system, Aegen I think, wants to get in on the ground floor of this New Republic so they're looking to send most of their boys out to blast the Imps with our fleet and want us to send some people to garrison their worlds."

Renn nodded. Redundant quid-pro-quos with prospective members of the Republic had become the norm, a sort of diplomatic marriage with systems who had previously been a little hesitant to throw their lot in with the Rebellion but wanted to make sure they ended up on the winning side of the conflict now that the tides had turned. A way to both bring outsiders into the fold and make sure their intentions were honest. Any betrayal of the Republic would be quickly rewarded with their fleet being reduced to component atoms by the Republic fleet that would have a substantial advantage in both size and firepower against any sort of regional power.

"So the Bandits are the garrison."

Rath nodded.

Renn nodded in turn. Something tugged at his gut, but he was far too relieved to not be heading back towards the bloodbath of the frontlines he couldn't bring himself to pursue this fleeting bit of intuition.

Maybe it's just disguised paranoia He thought, but the thoughts persisted nonetheless.

"Are the special forces going to be backing us up?" Renn asked, knowing they wouldn't be. It seemed odd that Rath would be privy to information that didn't relate to his unit working with the Bandits. He knew that it wasn't that far-fetched that Rath would catch the odd obscure rumor. Yet Renn couldn't resist investigating. This sort of light probing was a suspicious compulsion that had plagued Renn even before Alderaan had been destroyed and had exploded into a sense of real paranoia afterwords.

"No, not exactly. But what I heard is that there's a substantial security breach and the planet's government might just be trying to waste our garrison to please the Emperor's ghost."

"And they're still sending us?" Renn asked, his paranoia crystalizing into fear about the deaths that security breaches precipitated.

The turbolift door opened as they settled on the flight deck.

"Your people don't exactly have a lot of friends right now with command. I heard you had something to do with that."

"So what, Sienna's sending us into a whole squadron situation that will likely kill them just to get to me? " Renn shook his head as he stepped out of the turbolift and onto the flight deck, "That doesn't sound like him." Renn had always thought that the one humanizing aspect that Sienna possessed was an unflinching loyalty to his men and to the Republic's military as a whole.

"It doesn't matter." Rath shook his head and pressed another key on the turbolift panel, "I have an Op I need to prepare for. Just...be careful kid."

The door to the lift shut and whooshed as it carried Rath off to his department.

"You too."