This is a work of fan fiction and all canon characters, scenes, and concept are the property of LucasArts. Original characters and plot property of Gerald Tarrant.

Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.
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Seven: Fading Memories

Daral awoke with a start. The room was dark and empty. Blinking, disoriented, he made out two other cots across the small room, the covers rumpled and pulled back. He partially jumped up, feeling a momentary attack of panic. This wasn't his room at the Imperial Academy.

Imperial...

Then the weight of all that had happened crashed down on him, leaving him stunned once more, his mind a blank slate of grief and anger. Pushing back the covers, he swung his legs over the side of the cot and tried to maintain a semblance at least of calm, if not his comfortable cocky attitude. Keth...his family...the Empire...

Oh, man. What have they done? What's going to happen to me?

He clenched his hands into fists and bit down hard on his lip. He would not cry. He was not a child.

Anger burned through him, furious, violent anger. What right had the Empire to do this to his family or even to him? He was Daral Krellis, one of the brightest stars of the Imperial Academy, daring stunt pilot, popular, talented, wealthy, famous. They couldn't just take all this from him overnight. They couldn't! It was his, had always been his.

But they had. One day. Now he had nothing, no name, no family, no future. All because of the Empire.

Hot tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks despite his best efforts. His fury dissolved into cold despair and he slumped down on the hard bed, wiping away the tears. How could he have ever dreamed of serving in the Imperial Navy? To think that to do so would be the adventure of a lifetime? He had been a fool, thinking that it would be an honor to serve the Emperor. The Emperor...who had ruined his life.

Yeah, Daral. Some hero you are. Thinking that you were untouchable, that you were God or something. Now look at you.

Where did I go wrong?

He felt the gnawing of something deep and dark inside of him, felt himself slipping down into it. He felt so alone, so useless. What could he do? Nothing he had or ever had could bring his family or anything else back. Nothing. Not his name, not his money, not his one-time connections on Imperial Center.

There had never been a time when money couldn't do anything for him. The Krellis fortune had been his security in times when everyone else had nothing to lean on. But here he was, without money, weapons, anything, bound who knew where on a civilian freighter with two strangers who, for all Daral knew, had orders to kill him. And for the first time in his life, Daral Krellis couldn't do a single thing to stop this event from happening.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

He'd never been close to Keth. There had always had that gap between them though they were born of the same blood. Keth had always been the perfect gentleman, a ladies' man, a shrewd diplomat. Daral had loved Keth in his own way but hated the condescending looks given to him by his older brother, the looks that meant he was not popular enough for Keth to bother with. Keth was caring, of course, but Daral had never forgiven him for the loss of Kedan. Kedan had understood. And Kedan had left them because of Keth. And now Daral was alone. It all seemed so far away now.

He buried his face in his hands, thought of Kelgyn and Kent. He was so tired. Perhaps if he sat still, he would wake up, find that this was all a dream, find everything right again.

Suddenly, he sat up. Through the metal door he thought he had heard voices. He sat very still, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for the next sound. The vibration of the ship's systems through the walls hummed in the stillness. There they were; the voices again. But how could they be coming through the door? If the design of this ship followed standard civilian code, the door would be relatively thick to ensure privacy. Sounds that soft should not be able to penetrate from one room to the next.

Then he realized that the sounds were in fact coming though the intercom to the left of the door. Someone had quite obviously forgotten to turn off the intercom earlier. Daral put his ear to the speaker and listened, straining his ears.

"...think he...wake?"

"No...more than...three..."

"...stop...before Kess..."

"Already at..."

The voices broke off, but Daral had already heard enough. Kess-Kessel?

It had to be.

Who did these men think he was? Was he worth so little, even to them? He shivered, thinking of the dark mines on Kessel, the cold, the stories he'd heard back on Imperial Center around the dinner table, the old men with dark undertones in the wavering voices when they spoke of it...

And the glitterstim spice it produced, which had ruined his brother's life.

Abruptly he stood, blinking back the last of the tears. He would not give up this easily. Walking to the door, he tried it, but of course it was locked, and only the correct fingerprints would open it. He sighed in frustration. What did the room have that he could use to break down the door? Some furniture bolted to the floor. No weapons of any kind. Not even a computer terminal. And he had no weapons. He had been thoroughly checked for any kind of arms before leaving the Academy. As if he were going to steal any of the Empire's means of destruction anyways. But that left him with nothing with which to defend himself if the men decided to shoot him.

Footsteps down the hall. Someone was coming. Daral threw himself to the side, heart pounding, waited.

The door slid open, and a man stepped inside, silouhetted by the bright light of the corridor outside. Daral held his breath. The man looked to the bed, swore, and Daral struck, using every self-defense technique he had learned in training on Carida.

Leaping forward, he rammed the man hard in the back. The man bellowed, hit the deck with a bang, tried to roll over and gain a good grip on Daral's leg. The man's grip was sound and Daral found himself pulled to the floor alongside his adversary. The man drew back, still holding onto Daral's leg with one hand, and frantically aimed punches at Daral's face. One hit his forehead right above the eye, sending a searing white heat through his skull. Daral quickly twisted his leg out of the man's searching grasp and aimed rapid hand chops at nose and chin. There was a sharp cracking sound and the man jerked once, twice, and then was still, head thrown back at a grotesque angle.

Oops.

Now what?

Quickly Daral sat up, knelt, suppressed a groan at the stabbing pain above his left eye. His searching fingers found its source: a large bulbous swelling on his forehead. It didn't seem to be bleeding, however. He turned his attention to the body beside him, listened with an ear to the man's chest to make sure he was really dead, then started rummaging through the man's clothes. He knew he didn't have very much time, for the fight had been a loud one and sooner or later the other man would come running out to see what was the matter. Daral threw aside the man's heavy cloak, finding a standard blaster with half-charged power pack, an ID card, probably forged, and some small change in Imperial script coins. He pocketed the coins and the ID, closed his fingers around the cold haft of the blaster, stood warily.

His head pounded and he almost fell. White spots danced before his eyes. He staggered to the wall, gripping the blaster as though it were his only salvation, which, in a sense, it was. There was still the matter of the other man aboard the transport, and, no matter what happened to him, Daral Krellis would still be the best blaster shot this side of the galaxy. Or so he hoped. He hadn't been shooting in a few weeks, not with exams and all. He hoped his aim was still as good as it had been.

His head was still throbbing, but it felt a little clearer. The door was closed. No problem. Daral raised his blaster, and fired.

The small blaster quickly became too hot to hold, and Daral tossed it from hand to hand, waiting for the smoke to clear. To his surprise, the door was almost entirely melted through. Cheap transport model. A few more shots and Daral squeezed through into the hallway beyond, turned the corner, and ran straight into his other captor.

The man was quick. Surprised as he was, he brought his blaster to bear on Daral almost immediately, red blaster bolts tracking towards Daral and melting small holes in the corridor walls. But that split second of hesitation gave Daral the time to shoot him through the head, neatly, efficiently. The man dropped to the ground, a black, smoking hole through the center of his forehead.

Trust to Lady Luck. If she can't get me through, no one can. Not anymore.

Drawing a deep, ragged breath, Daral stepped back shakily, knelt, plucked the blaster out of the man's still twitching, clawlike fingers. He tucked it into the crook of his arm, began dumping the contents of the man's pockets on the floor of the ship.

There wasn't much. An ID, probably forged, that identified the dead man as Kesh Tarr, Imperial Intelligence. Daral snorted, dropped it into his own pocket on the side of his coveralls. If he could alter the holo image, the card would be useful. There were some coins lying on the floor, again mostly loose change. Daral pocketed those, too, though he couldn't see what he could buy with those. There wasn't much left. The beat-up comlink was so bent and mauled it would be good for nothing but space junk. Half a cheap cigarra. A scrap of paper still bearing the traces of old glitterstim spice. Daral grimaced, nudged it away. He had tried the stuff once; the memory still made his stomach feel queasy and his head light. A sabacc card. Frowning, Daral picked it up. One lone sabacc card? He turned it over in his hands, then smiled as he tapped the corner and watched the different card faces appear. A skifter card. That should come in handy. Daral had never been good at sabacc; it appeared that his luck was about to change.

He stuffed the remnants of the pile back in the man's pockets, then stepped over the body, looked around. The ship was small. The door to his right probably led to cargo storage. Again, following the standard civilian transport model, the door at the far end of the hallways should be the door to the cockpit.

The door, like all the other doors aboard, was locked. Daral hesitated, trying to decide whether or not to blow the door open. He did intend to sell the ship, and a ship with working locks and doors would sell more than one without, even on the black market.

Daral shrugged, hefted his pocket blaster, squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. Muttering several stronger curses he had picket up from Kent at the Academy, he adjusted the recharge rate, picked up the other blaster, fired. A couple of quick shots and the door was taken care of.

The cockpit was as barren and disorganized as the rest of the ship. The transparisteel forward cockpit view showed the mottled gray of hyperspace and the auto chronometer showed arrival at destination in six hours, twenty-three minutes. Destination being Kessel?

He scooted into the pilot's seat and gave the instruments a quick glance-over. Antiqued, but nothing he couldn't handle. A couple of the company shipping transports had had controls similar to these and he had flown them fine.

He grimaced at the memory now. Gone, everything gone...shaking his head, Daral roused himself. No self-pity now. The navicomputer should give him the plotted course.

Pull yourself together.

As he expected, the information was locked down, but only with a simple safeguard system. The men aboard the craft apparently hadn't expected anyone to tamper with their equipment. The men. The dead men. He needed to do something about that soon.

I killed two men.

What is happening to me? What have I become? I might as well be dead myself.

Daral wrenched his thoughts back to the computer, thankful that his semi-free time on Carida had been put to good use as a quasi-slicer for his section of the dorm. Of course, he had been using the codes to crack into the base commanders' personal files, but just the same, he was an old hand at this sort of thing now. The commanders had been furious, but they never found out who was responsible for breaking their security barriers. Or, if they had, had just let it pass. Perhaps they thought it would be good practice for a would-be Intelligence agent.

Intelligence agent! Daral thought bitterly, fingers poised in the middle of a code sequence that would override the coded security. Showed how much intelligence he had, joining the Naval Academy. The Imperials, thinking that they were so superior, making rules, more rules...

Daral jerked, suddenly aware of the computer screen's glare, finished keying in the code. There was a string of beeps, then the nav coordinates appeared. Just as he'd expected, Kessel was there. He also noticed that the computer only stored one set of coordinates at a time. They had come from Carida and were heading directly to Kessel. What other destinations the men had stopped at he had no way of knowing. These older transports did not carry backup coordinates.

He would have to come up with a new course, one that he could program in once the transport came out of hyperspace at Kessel, and hope that he was quick enough. But where? What system could he depend upon to remain anonymous, unknown, safe from unwanted eyes? Not Carida, or Coruscant. Not home. He had no home now. Well, he would come up with something. He was resourceful. He had time.

Daral Krellis buried his face in the crook of his elbow on the console and wept.

"Admiral on the bridge!"

The crew of the Protector's bridge stood and saluted, eyes on their commanding officer as he exited the turbolift.

"As you were," said Harkov, stepping up to the forward transparisteel windows of the bridge, looking out onto the deceptively peaceful scene. He could feel the storm breaking somewhere not far away.

He turned, noticed the young duty officer approaching rapidly from the starboard side crew pit. That would be engineering. Harkov smoothed his olive-gray uniform, straightened his rank insignia. "Report, lieutenant," he said crisply.

The lieutenant, saluted, handed Harkov a datapad, moved to look over Harkov's shoulder. Harkov listened patiently as the lieutenant began spouting information.

"The forward tractor beam is out, sir, but I guess that's normal. We've got a crew working on it right now. We've sustained heavy scorching on our starboard flank by the solar ionization reactor, so that might be part of the tractor beam problem. We've also lost all power on some of the bottom levels due to the scorching. Mostly, though, repairs are coming along all right. Shields are getting back up; we didn't get hit too badly in the front although aft shield strength was down to 20 percent. The only thing that's given us any problem is the ionization reactor and the power problem. But I suppose that is not unusual."

"That's fine, Lieutenant," Harkov said absently, staring beyond the words on the data pad towards nothing. The tractor beam again. How many times had he petitioned High Command for an overhaul? How many times had they refused? Perhaps Daran was right; perhaps he should be putting in a request for an Imperial Star Destroyer. Something inside him twisted in pain at that thought, and he pushed it away. No. No Imperial-class ships. The Victorys he had now were in fine working condition, with the exception of the Protector, and he would stick to those. The Imperial Star Destroyers had too much power, too much ruthlessness, too much of Empire in their build. He did not want any part of that.

More like release...

"Thank you, lieutenant," he said, handing the pad back to the nervous deck officer. "Nothing more than I expected."

The officer saluted. "Yes, Admiral," he said quickly, then executed a smart military turn and headed back across the command walkway to his station. Harkov sighed, resumed his moody staring out the viewports. Below the window, lighted panels blinked in sequence, indicating the status of the ship. He ran his fingers over the cold metal and warm lights and sighed again. He had so much to think about, yet more time to think than he would ever need.

"Admiral!"

Harkov partly turned his head to the side. It was another young deck officer, slight of build and tow-headed. The officer saluted. "Captain Zeldiri wants to see you, sir, and General Cion, on some urgent business. They are in the war room now. Should I tell them that you are busy?"

The war room? What hare-brained strategy had Zeldiri come up with now? Harkov turned, almost reluctantly, away from the transparisteel window. "No. Tell them I shall be there myself in a minute."

"Yes, sir."

The receding clicks of the officer's boots down the command walkway faded away. Harkov moved his hand over the metal panels, feeling them hum beneath his fingertips. His own ship. His own command. Power and prestige. Recognition from Lord Vader himself. Was that not what he had dreamed of all his life? He had everything any man could ever want or need.

And yet, was this what he wanted? The ruthlessness and inhumanity that accompanied the title of admiral? The senseless killing performed neatly, efficiently, by men become machine, reduced from human being to a faceless four-digit number? Was this everything life had to offer?

There was smoke, smoke and fire.

"Drask! Drask, where are you...?"

He almost cried out then, gripping the metal panels until he could feel jolts of pain stabbing his arms. Why now, of all times? He had not seen these memories in years, did not want to see them now. He did not want to remember, to open that gaping dark wound inside of him that had closed up and festered but never quite healed. He wanted to forget, yet not to forget.

More like release...

Harkov slowly raised his eyes to the window again, looked out at the velvet canopy of space and the brilliant stars. Thousands, millions of stars. For the destiny of all men, their life, their dreams, their souls, is in the stars. And in every man's heart is a desire to climb higher, to reach out and hold the stars in the palm of his hand, thus sealing his fate forever.

Forever.

Harkov tore his gaze from the tantalizing stars so close, yet so far away, and headed for the turbolift.

It had snowed during the night, and the air inside the main Echo Base flight hangar tingled inside Leia's nose and throat as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. A cloud of fog puffed out from her mouth and she pulled her thermal suit tighter around her. The cold was actually quite pleasant. It filled her, brushing her fatigue and irritability aside. Shafts of brilliant sunlight streamed in from around the ice slab blocking the opening of the cave and the retracted blast doors. A half-completed snowspeeder lay on the ground to her left, internal components strewn all around it on the floor. Two X-wings idled in their service bays, hooked up to power feed and refueling units. The cave itself was mostly devoid of life. Most people, except for the scouts out at this hour, were probably still having breakfast. An Artoo unit stood by one of the X-wings chirping softly to itself, and two maintenance droids bustled about lasing parts onto a snowspeeder. The wind whistled past the cave mouth.

Leia stood on one foot, then the other, looking around. She wondered if she were actually getting used to this. Sure, Yavin had been beautiful, but Hoth could be beautiful as well, in a stark, barren way. The landscape was desolate and lonely, but just looking out on that wide expanse of glittering white was enough to fill anyone with awe. There were the sunset ice storms that colored the air with millions of prismatic lights, the soft pastel colors of the ice mounds in the fading light, the strange and twisted ice sculptures frozen from underground volcanic steam, and the eerie flutelike music of the wind. She had grown to love Hoth in a way, even grown used to the freezing cold. Heating would be nice, but of course no one wanted the whole base to melt down.

She had never told anyone her feelings, not even Luke. Luke would think she was crazy. He didn't actually complain about the base, but Leia knew that he regarded Hoth as just a temporary stopping point, perhaps a year or two, but no more. He was constantly on the lookout for a more "suitable" base, as he put it, but Leia knew that he just couldn't abide the cold. She didn't blame him. Having lived in a desert climate for most of his life, he was understandably opposed to the Hoth weather.

Han would have just laughed at her and called her Your Worship. Almost against her will, she looked over at the empty space in the bay where the Millennium Falcon would have been had it been here. She missed Han, she supposed, but, of course, the only reason she was so worried about him was because it was her duty to care for members of the Rebellion. It would be horrible for him to end up as a meal for some alien creature somewhere or to be vaporized by some bounty hunter out to collect a reward. She saw again in her mind the way his eyes crinkled up when he smiled, his crooked grin, his unkempt, shaggy brown hair, his cocky swagger. Heard his insolently cool voice say, Your Highness-ness. No, it was nothing personal.

How long are you going to lie to yourself, Princess?

There were footsteps behind her, echoing on the floor of the bay, and she spun around to see General Madine stride into the room, as handsome as ever. His gray-streaked brown hair was windblown and he was dressed in a warm thermal bodysuit, goggles, and carried a pair of macrobinoculars in his hand. Leia waved to him and he hurried over.

As he stopped near her, Leia wrinkled her nose at a sudden rancid smell that seemed to reach out and grab hold of her clothing and hair. "You've been out on the tauntauns, haven't you?"

"Yeah." Madine's mouth twisted sourly and he twisted his face in a grimace. "You're right. They do smell. But they're very efficient for transportation."

Leia laughed. "I've never been out on one, and I don't want to. Luke's stories are enough for me."

"Luke's exaggerating." Madine brushed a bit of unmelted ice from his hair and removed his goggles. He paused. "Well, maybe not exaggerating that much."

Leia grinned at him and then quickly turned serious. "What did you want to see me about?"

Madine stopped in the middle of shaking ice from his boots, then glanced at Leia, moved closer. "There is a slight problem."

"What?" Leia felt alarmed. "Are Mon Mothma and Ackbar in trouble?"

"No, not that serious," Madine conceded. "As far as I know, they're still staying with the main fleet. I just received a transmission from Ackbar this morning. They'll be returning in about two days. Mon Mothma wants to conclude her tour of the medical frigates first. Rieekan, understandably, isn't too happy about them being away and that he can't talk to them if he needs them."

"Rieekan needs to think for himself," Leia snapped. She felt two days' worth of exhaustion and frayed nerves coming out onto the surface. Rieekan was pig-headed; that was what he was. She couldn't stand him, and he knew why. "He needs to be able to make his own decisions. He's not a child anymore."

"Leia-" Madine stepped closer, put a gloved hand on her arm. She flinched away. "Please. That's over. Don't think about it."

"No!" Her cheeks felt hot and she stepped back. Her voice rose. "Blast it, Crix, can't you see? It's not over! It never will be over. Not as long as there is an Empire, not as long as there are those of us that remember." She felt the tears again, felt Vader's vice-like grip on her shoulder, felt Tarkin's animal hatred. She saw his wolfish grin. I grow tired of asking, so this will be the last time. Where is the Rebel base?

She had tried. Oh, she had tried. And in the end, it wasn't enough.

But Rieekan had had his chance. He should have warned them. He was there.

It was your fault as much as his.

The tears were rolling down her cheeks. She hiccuped, tried to stop them. They came faster. Madine stood there helplessly, twisting his goggles in his large hands.

Dantooine. They're on Dantooine.

Father, I tried. I'm sorry.

Dantooine.

Vader's breath. Alderaan, for the last time. A green bolt of light. Tarkin's smile of victory. The stench of decay from him suffocated her.

They're on Dantooine.

Rieekan!

She sobbed helplessly, her hands over her face. Arms came around her, the warmth of a body pressing close. Madine. She put her arms around him tightly and cried harder. He smelled of tauntaun, but she didn't care.

"I tried, Crix," she whispered. "I should have...Rieekan should have..."

"Shhh, it's all right. Leia, please."

"I told Tarkin...but he did it anyway...I tried...Tarkin..."

She had never told anyone what had happened on the Death Star. Never. It would have been too much for her. Her own guilt would have overwhelmed her. Madine patted her back gently.

"I should have tried harder...tried to stop him..."

She then realized two things. One, that she was babbling, that Madine had no idea what she was talking about. And secondly, that they had their arms around each other like...Whoa! Startled, she pushed away. Madine let her go reluctantly, and she stood there, breathing hard, with tears still in her eyes, glancing at him accusingly.

"Leia-" he said, softly.

"No," she said. I'm sorry, Crix. "General, may I be excused? You may call me up later. I will be in the control center this afternoon."

He stood there, looking at her with such an expression of regret and disappointment that it almost broke her heart. Finally, he nodded, barely. She fled from the room.

"Leia!" he called after her, haltingly, hopefully. But she did not turn, even as she remembered the haunted expression on his face and the trails of wetness on his cheeks that were not made by melted snow.