Prologue

The blaster bolt had liquified her guts. She didn't have long to live.

Her singed, torn coat dragged behind her as she limped down the factory floor. The tin roof above was broken and rainwater pooled down below it. Pale white moonlight flooded into the room. It was the only thing that could shine through the thick smog cloud. Machinery surrounded her in the dark like figures waiting to pounce and finish her.

Her right hand was gripped tight around the small half-empty heavy blaster pistol while her left was desperately trying to stop the blood.

That, and the knife, stuck firm and deep, were the only things that were keeping her alive.

She dragged herself up a wrought iron staircase, leaving behind a trail of blood. She couldn't hear anything but her heavy breathing and her blood dripping down onto the staircase.

She had reached the umbilical bridge between two factories. A massive shell had plowed through and demolished the middle of the bridge before digging itself deep in the courtyard, creating an eighty-meter wide crater. She took a moment to look outside, jaggard factory buildings stood silently in the dark. In the far, far distance, tiny flashes lit the horizon. Every once in a way, a closer, brighter flashlight the darkness as the artillery launched a counter-bombardment. She looked up towards the skies - wanting to see those beautiful twinkling stars that she had looked up to when she was young, dreaming of adventure - but she saw nothing, the sky was utterly blotted out by smog.

She heard a loud thud and shouts from the floors below. They had blown down the main gates to the factory complex, the same kill-squad that had pursued her for the last hour. Feet smashed through the puddles that had gathered from the fallen roof as they entered the main foundry. The end wasn't far.

There was nowhere else to go. She pulled forward with all her strength, knowing what would happen if they got the data tapes in her coat, but she could barely walk.

Where did all go wrong? The raid on the holo station should have been quick and easy. The informant had told them the foe had intercepted a friendly communication of highest importance. It was absolutely imperative that they could not allow them to decode it, lest terrible consequences incur. Secure it, bring it back to friendly lines at all costs.

It had gone wrong from the very start. Jordi was forced to detonate the explosives on the gate too early when the guards found him. The explosion killed him as well as five of the guards. He would not be the first to die. Three died in the courtyard, six more as they stormed the facility itself. The security measures on the database fried Beloit. Two more died as they fled. And she was the last one, fleeing like a rat. At all costs, indeed.

She was now dead. No doubt about it. With a resigned sigh, she decided to make them pay. Holding close the datatypes in her coat, she aimed her heavy blaster pistol towards the end of the hallway. She would take some of her before she died. It was her duty to rid the Galaxy of filth.

Her other hand was cradled around the data-tapes, cradling it as if it were her own child. She wanted to desperately know what great secrets the tapes held. What had been worth her scraficing her entire cell to retrieve it? Her friends? What had been worth everything she had given? What was going to get her killed right now? She didn't know and it griefed her. Had it even been worth it?

The first figure appeared in the doorway, a dark shape against the moonlight seeping in from the broken roof. She fired four tightly grouped shots into his chest. Without a single sound, he toppled back into his suddenly panicked comrades. More shapes flooded through the doorway, five more fell before her blaster ran dry.

She allowed herself one last smile as they flooded into the hallway as she realized something. She had done her duty. She had done her job. She was but a small nameless cog in a great machine of war. She had done her part and she would do just a little more before her end came. She continued to pump the trigger of an empty blaster as a barrage of blaster bolts tore her body apart. She staggered backward.

"Long live the Empire," was she shrieked at the top of her lungs - her final words, her final defiance - before a blaster-bolt exploded her heart. Her corpse toppled off the edge of the broken bridge, bouncing once off a support beam.

A/N: Hi, this has been a project long coming. I've been working on this series for quite a while and I'm excited to at last publish it. Thank you for reading this and please leave a review of any manner. I like reading reviews because often I grow from the critique it gives me. If you just want to give your thoughts, please do so.

Again, thanks so much for reading this!