Tales from the Galaxy

by Kam I Am

Tales of Womp Rats before they were target practice, Kaminoans before they cloned, and how the Force has really felt about its perpetual clash between dark and light. There's one about how Jar-Jar was the prophet no one listened to and that time Sebulba plotted to kill Anakin after the Boonta Eve Classic. A collection of oneshots and short stories, pick at random.

7. Forgiving the Old

Forgiving the Old

Part One: Of Escorts and Hesitation

Never let your wingmate down.

That's something they tell you a lot in Theed's Royal Flight Academy. If your wingmate wants you on their six, you're on their six. If they're calling for coverfire, you better be spraying down every meter of visible space with your cannons.

Your wingmate has your back, and you have theirs.

I'd almost liken it to marriage in a way, minus any of the good perks. Sure you can convince them to give you a ride home, or maybe to pick up your tab at the bar every once in awhile, but those weren't the perks I wanted. Not with my wingmate. She was eight years my senior, but I'd be lying if I told you I didn't have the galaxy's biggest crush on her. She was always everything I wanted to be. She had the prestige, the commendations, and at least six times my flight experience. Above all else though, she had my trust.

That's not even something I can say about myself.

It's been four months since it happened, and I still miss her to death.

My name is Rhys Dallows, Bravo Ten of Naboo's Royal Flight Squadron, and I let my wingmate down.

---

It was supposed to be a simple in and out - escort duty. Get her majesty to the dropzone and let the T-14 hyperdrive generator on her silver hunk of a craft do the rest.

Later flight records would lead one to believe there were only two escort crafts trudging there along with her. But I know better than that, there were six. Six pilots, with five of us soon to be condemned to death within our steel coffins. How do I know all this? Because I was there.

We're in orbit now, having just broke through Naboo's outer atmosphere. If I look back right now I could probably still just make out the glint of the Royal City of Theed, the shimmering dew of the planet's vast green fields. But I don't look back, I never look back. Deep Space opens its hellish maw to me, and I accept it with a reluctant sense of duty.

Then again, if Hell actually looks anything like this I'd happily be first in line. This was well beyond your average black and white starfield, seven craft filling the void, the leading one silver, elongated, and tubular, the trailing one's smaller, both golden and sleek. Lights shimmered down from all sides to meet us on our continued journey. The gleam was courtesy of the three moons that ringed Naboo's orbit, mirroring the true light that was coming from the incandescent and seemingly unpigmented sun some light-years away. The only other way to get a sight half this nice is with the use of some really heavy deathsticks. Not that I, an "esteemed" pilot of the prestigious Bravo Flight, would know anything about that.

My blue orbs take in the view, and I manage to catch them reflecting off of the transparisteel of the cockpit's canopy window. Looking closer I can spy the face they give way too, blond locks draping over a determined look. There's not much more time to gawk at myself though, not with the cockpit's sound receptors crackling to life.

"Comm check," Bravo Leader's gruff voice echoes from in front of us, situated within the cushioned interior of the Queen's Royal Transport. We'd all always joke about how how the boss was too used to living the life of luxury inside that spacious cabin to ever come back down into the cockpit of one of our N-1's, but you'd know that wasn't true if you ever heard the way he sounds in here, it's the closest thing one can get to a caged Rancor on Naboo.

Bravos Seven, Eight, and Nine all check themselves in. Math's not my strong suit, but I know it's my turn.

"Bravo Ten, standing by."

There's an awkward sort of pause after I check in. The kind of pause I was fearfully expecting.

"Surprised you managed to get out of the landing bay this morning," Bravo Nine notes, finally breaking the silence to some scattered laughter.

I've always hated Bravo Nine.

"He'll be alright," Bravo Seven replies before I can raise my voice to respond. "He's got rocket fuel in his veins, just like the right of us."

I can feel my face turn slightly red at the fact that someone else thought they'd have to come to my defense, but then again, Bravo Seven was my wingmate. Maybe she just didn't want to let me down. Though even with her vote of approval, the occasional chuckle still registered over the comm channel, telling me the others aren't exactly impressed by her endorsement of me.

Why would they be? I'm about as green as Bravo Flight recruits come. My biggest claim to fame came during a recent pirate attack near the space station TFP-9. An attack where eight of my twelve squadmates perished, and multiple enemy fighters escaped. Not exactly a mission logbook screaming of excellence.

Still, Bravo Seven was there too, and she saw something in me that made her request my immediate transfer to Bravo Flight. I spy her seating within the N-1 closest to mine and venture a glance over to her. As if sensing that I'm looking at her, her gaze jerks over to meet mine. Silently cursing, I immediately try and play it off as nothing, looking back down and pretending to input something on my forward control panel, but when I slowly look back up I see she's still looking at me, this time with a smile and a friendly thumbs up to accompany her. I return the favor.

Pretty soon we're setting up a six-man defensive perimeter around the Queen's Royal Transport. The formation's fairly routine for me at this point. Two fighters take point, another two split up and take port and starboard, and the final two - me and Essara - lock down the rear. Though with the way I was already struggling to keep up with the others, I should've known that the day wouldn't end well.

With not much else to do on our journey along to the Hyperspace rendezvous point, I find my eyes drifting towards the circularly pronged control layout shining up at me from the dashboard. The instrumentation is split into three different sections: Ship readouts, orbital scanners, and astromech translations. I tend to look at that last one the least - I don't need any help from a droid, especially not the new one Bravo Flight had me pair up with. His name's Wrench - a name he inherited from his last owner, but one I don't mind keeping much. He looks the same as all the rest, patterns of blue and white, domed head, all that, but some mechanic must've left a bolt too loose when it came time to program the thing's personality.

Another burble of whistles sound over the ship's private radio frequency, and I know it can only be courtesy of the blasted thing.

"What?" I gripe, glancing over to the leftward panel to decipher the droid's meaning.

Quit exchanging glances with your fellow meatbag and pay attention to your scanners.

Threatening to eject the irritating droid, I do as commanded, quickly shooting my gaze downwards again to spy a red blip that fizzles out just as I soon as I thought I saw it.

At first I brush it off as nothing, maybe just a drifting satellite that swiped across the edge of my scanners, but then it comes back. I keep my eyes trained on it this time, watching as it pulls in slightly, staying for a moment before receding back off out of range. Almost as soon as I'm about to raise a voice in concern there's word from the Royal Transport - and that already confirms my worst fears.

"Long range scanners just picked up on something, keep your heads up, chatter down, and cannons primed," Bravo Leader's seasoned voice orders to a slew of affirmative tones.

From my vantage point at the rear of the guard I can just make out a lone starfighter now slowly approaching us through the shadowy veil of space.

"Unidentified craft, power down or you will be fired upon," Bravo Leader relays forward, speaking in a clear and commanding tone as the ship drifts ever closer.

We wait a few moments, expecting a reply, praying for anything but a fight, yet no response comes. I keep my eyes trained on the singular craft, wondering what game its pilot must be playing at.

"Repeat," Bravo Leader echoes again, his voice more grave this time. "Power down or prepa-"

"SAAAAHOOOZUUU!" A snarling battlecry interrupts, ripping across the public comm channel, the speaker's voice dripping as much spit into my ear as it does noise.

From the little Rodese I know, "sahozu" roughly translates to "vengenance", vengenace against who or what, I don't know. And really, I'm not in all that big of a hurry to find out. I keep an ear to our flight's private comm channel, busily trying to triangulate the enemy's quickly dispersing flight pattern on my orbital scanner as I do so. It becomes increasingly hard, however, as my scanner is no longer home to one red blip, but several.

"Multiple approaching enemies... Sixteen, twenty-two, twenty-eight... Thirty-two starfighters incoming!"

Half a wing!? I think alarmingly to myself, now busily setting cannon power to forward maximum.

"Scanners must be malfunctioning, no way they could hide that many away from us in plain sight," Bravo Eight suggests, typically the go-to voice of reasoning in escalating situations such as this.

But the sight forming in my viewport negates his idea completely, mismatched hulls of all shapes and sizes overtaking the star speckled view I had been admiring just moments before.

You're probably wondering how they managed to hide thirty two starcraft right in front of us, I know I still am. My best guess is they invested in some really good cloaking devices, one's that were probably really kriffing expensive. That was bad news for us. It meant they really, really wanted the Queen dead. More than the average trigger happy we run into, anyways.

I'm not interested in the enemy's stock value right now though, all I know is that their craft are making a bee line for the Queen's ship and I've got superiors barking orders at me left and right.

"They're swarming us! What the frack do we do?"

"Diangos all over the place! We've gotta take 'em down."

"What about those gunboats they have? We can't leave those alone!"

There's miscommunication and confusion running rampant through the upper ranks, nobody can agree on a plan of attack when we've got ourselves outnumbered thirty two to six. We have them outclassed in talent, of that I had no doubts. But they caught us off guard, and sometimes that's all it takes.

I can hear Bravo Seven growl in annoyance, clearly none too pleased at the political debate our battle plan has devolved into.

"For Kriff's sake. What we need to be doing is focusing our cannons on those Morningstars, their concussion missiles will tear the Queen's ship into scrap if we don't act soon. Let the Diangos take their potshots for now, we can play clean-up later," she informs, the air of a veteran clear in her voice.

Her confident nature, along with the fact that she was the Executive Officer of the Squadron, gave her a great deal of sway, enough to convince the other hotshot pilots that it would be a good idea to listen up.

In total compliance with the orders, we break formation from the Royal Transport and quickly align our crafts at varying degree. It's a standard attack formation that we've run to perfection during our intensive simulation runs. The throttles on each of our craft are hit simultaneously, sending us lurching forward, slowly approaching our max speed of 1,100 meters per hour as the closing space between our charging forces becomes increasingly smaller. Soon there's no space at all, and our golden daggers are jousting emerald bolts with their graying hull's crimson, each one vying for dominance.

I feel a bracket of their missiles clip my leftward tail, deflected only by the stoutness of my shielding systems. Cursing inwardly, I fight the urge to break formation, staying in long enough to muster a direct hit on the nearest craft's bulbous cockpit. I have to shove my fighter into a tight tailspin to avoid colliding with the pilot's quickly deprecating corpse.

I'm about to fall in line and ready another strafing run with the others when my comm sputters to life again.

"Rhys, I want you and me running attack formation Zeta-One-One-Three-Eight on those Z-95 Headhunters. Now!" Bravo Seven chimes, more urgent than I've ever heard her sound.

"Headhunters?" I murmured aloud, tracking the indicated fighters by eye to their location in the corner of my viewport.

Was there something she had purposefully not told the others? Surely the Z-95s with their dual cannons and meager torpedo count weren't as great a threat as their one man army counterparts, the Morningstar. Still, if there was something she was leaving ambiguous she was doing it for a reason, probably expecting me to do the same. I wasn't about to let her down.

"Copy that, Bravo Seven," I say as I break free from the corner of the rest of the squadron's formation, more gratefully than reluctantly. Banking hard to starboard, I find the scenery waiting to greet me there no less welcoming than what I just left, enemy fighters brimming from side to side.

My target reticule starts sweeping the area for the nearest Z-95 Headhunter, an Incom Corp produced hallmark, perhaps with one of the least inspired designs I'd seen passed as an excuse for a starfighter. If the N-1 was the definition of elegance as touted by its Nubian makers, the Headhunter was its degenerate cousin. That's how I try and justify things anyways, these mercenaries weren't just committing treason against the Queen, they were committing treason against the long held Nabooian tradition of refined starfighter architecture.

The diagnostic reports Wrench had been furiously churning out for me proved just how archaic their ships really were. One hit to the winding compression tubes that hung from either side of the cockpit, and it's a slow death by frigid air. It's a different but equally deadly end for the circular filtration tanks that peek out from the bottom of each of their craft. Direct hit on one of those bad boys and a pilot's head will collapse in from the sheer vacuum of space. There were a lot of ways for them to die up here, a lot of things that could go wrong, but it went both ways.

That's what a wingmate was for. To make sure everything went right for you, and that nothing went right for the enemy.

With that comforting knowledge on mind I swing in close to Bravo Seven now, ready to put attack formation Zeta-1138 to its proper use. Just as soon as we're side by side though, we're forced to barrel out, running an evasive maneuver that barely saves us from being cannon fodder. I can feel the thunder of a Morningstar's erupting missiles clap near the point I just was - clearly my other squadmates weren't getting their job done. And even with me speeding away from the scene at over a thousand meters per hour, I can feel the racketing touch of flamed shrapnel scratch against the aft of my ship. While I'm vainly praying for the enemy's missiles to have crossed patterns and resulted in friendly fire, Wrench is there to tell me the opposite.

Bravo Nine has just gone offline.

One more shining beacon of green has left my orbital sensors, leaving only three in its departure: Me, Bravo Seven, and the Royal Transport. Where the other's had gone, I had no idea, their lives lost to the fray of battle. I'm hoping beyond hope that the salvage team that comes by later will be able to recover something, but I know that the truth is already staring me down in the viewport - four yellow coffins have scattered themselves across the emptying starfield.

As with most things in a dogfight, I don't get a second chance to look at them. The horizons are busily blazing past me as I spiral into a tight corkscrew, my ship's inertial compensators working overtime to keep up with the demand, bolts of crimson flaring past me in all direction. If that wasn't enough to contend with, Bravo Seven is shrieking at me to rendezvous by the Queen, making it clear that our final stand is soon to come.

I level out the ship, greeted to another barrage of lasers impacting with my rearward shielding as I do so. Ignoring the protests of my hull, I shove the throttle down as far as it'll go, the stars becoming pinstripes all around me as the Queen's heap of silver grows in size. Bravo Seven's on my right, her speed more than matching mine as we come closer to the conical craft, closer, and closer... Until it vanishes from both our sights.

Shock bathes my face, and it should be pretty obvious as to why. Ships don't just disappear. I'm fearfully thinking of all the worst possibilities, but Wrench is quick to inform me the Queen has successfully made her jump to lightspeed.

About time.

No sigh of relief comes, however. Not with nineteen blips of red still checkering my orbital scanners, closing in on us in all directions. I manage another glance over to Bravo Seven, to my surprise she's right there to return it. We remain silent. Beyond the brief spewing of orders earlier on it dawned on me that we hadn't said a word to each other throughout this entire ordeal, almost as if we didn't need to talk. Both of us knew the gig already. She had my back, and I was supposed to have hers.

That all seemed to fall apart so fast.

As soon as I find a moment to acknowledge the silence I can hear Wrench screaming something at me over and over. I bother to look, his shrill whirling more annoying than usual. He doesn't greet me with a snarky bulletin though, not this time.

Shrapnel has pierced your rightward air tank, oxygen levels rapidly decreasing.

Curses are flung at a speed I can't fully acknowledge, it quickly dawning on me that Bravo Nine has left me with one last cruel joke to contend with - this being the scattered scraps of his ship. Just as the Z-95 had its deadly shortcomings, so it seemed the N-1 had its. Elegance came at a price, and it appeared to be shoddy armoring around the air tanks.

"Stabilize," I'm quick to order the droid, appreciative of its presence for the first that I can remember that day. "Seal what we've got left in the other tank, and lower the dispersion rate by 33%."

System readouts begin to level out upon the command, but the astromech's final message leave me with grim implications.

Four minutes of oxygen remaining.

Four minutes. That wasn't even enough time to get back to surface level, let alone fight our way through a convoy of vengeful mercenaries. Little did I know, I wouldn't have to.

Their ships are upon us faster than my scanners can fully calculate, cannons pounding what's left of my depleting shields. My plan was to go out with a blaze of glory, my full load of proton torpedoes insuring its reality. Soon enough I'm whipping here and there, tails of electric blue streaking from my forward launcher tube, some hitting, most missing.

I'm not firing to kill anymore though, I'm just firing not to die.

That's something I've always been good at.

Not long after this my final comm exchange begins to crackle to life.

"Bravo Ten! Can't shake this one off my tail!"

Thrusting my head up to meet her I'm quickly realizing that by "one", Bravo Seven really means three. Slicing upwards, I expand the scope of my cannons to include the trio of graying hulls.

"I've got a shot!" Announcing this as my fists lay hovering over the trigger, aiming to get the best angle.

"Take it... Bravo Ten, take the shot!"

But I don't take the shot, I hesitate. The enemy doesn't.

"No! ESSARA!" Breaking callsign as I see flame expunge all that sets in front of me.

At the same time a furious blast from somewhere behind me forces my head forward, slamming into the reinforced glass of the cockpit's canopy. Despite the shock absorbing helmet that graces my skull I can still feel something cool and crimson oozing from my head. All the while things are spinning violently out control, twisting and turning on an axis I couldn't hope to decipher. The pinpricks of stars merge into ragged lines as I whip by them at an impossible speed. The world starts growing dark, with me only now realizing that the vents on either side of my cockpit are no longer blowing in breathable air. I feel the edges starting to close in on me, consciousness beginning to fail.

But I fight it. This is truly my worst regret. I fight the merciful grip of unconsciousness, desperately trying to defy what reality is shoving in my face. I fight it, and open my eyes to witness the horrors that have been patiently waiting to greet me.

Out across the vast canvas of space, the internal organs of my wingmate have splatter painted themselves. Some bounding off the thick reflection of my viewport, others skewering themselves on what remains of her ship. I take several deep inhales of depleting air at the sight, fighting the overwhelming urge to vomit. Moments ago she had been a living, breathing person. Now she's a bag of depleting meat and bone drifting aimlessly through this careless unpressurized vacuum.

This is about time for the sudden realization to hit, and it hits hard.

I let my wingmate down, and the failure is on show for me to see in all its gory detail.

It's a nightmare I carry with me every time I step into that hangar, every time I set within that cockpit, and every time I put on that same battered flight helmet.

It's the same nightmare that plagues my mind as I wake up.

---

Forgiving the Old

Part Two: Of Caf and Partnerships

Naboo

Theed Apartment Complex

32 ABY

(Three months after the Invasion of Naboo)

Rhys had awoken in the familiar fashion, sweat drenching his face, hands balled into fists, a bellow of terror held only at bay by his hoarsed gulps for air. He forced himself to remain still upon the realization that he was truly awake, his heart still pounding beneath the bedsheets, quietly telling himself the same thing he had on every other occasion this had occurred.

Just a dream.

Truthfully, he knew the horrors that greeted him in sleep were likely pedestrian in comparison to some of the others that visited the galaxy's trillions of denizens every night, but every time he tried to convince himself of this he'd find his mind drifting to those last panicked moments, his hesitation... His failure, and the grotesque results that had come with it.

Rhys found himself shivering immediately thereafter, at first thinking it the cause of the mental image, but a sudden breeze blowing across his face quickly contradicted that notion. He cast away the single bed covering he had been clutching tightly to himself, shuffling across his tiled floors to the-half open window across the room.

Peering out over the window sill, the sight that awaited him outside made getting up all the more worth it. Naboo at night was every bit as gorgeous as it was during the day, even moreso in Rhys' opinion. During the day, the planetary hub that was Theed was rampant with tourists and onlookers, all coming to appreciate its limestoned architecture, scaling walls, domes, and ornately painted windows. At night, the city fell empty of its usual populace, instead inhabited by quadducks, voorpaks, and even the occasional tusk cat, clearly an open invitation for wildlife to coexist with that which Naboo's architects had constructed.

These weren't sights Rhys witnessed often, typically too occupied within the confines of a starfighter cockpit high above to appreciate them, but they were savored whenever he did. Yet it seemed his time to do so would be cut short again, this time by an electronic buzzing near his bedside. Assuming it was the morning alarm, he quickly swatted the chronoalarm to the off position, only to realize that the device had never been on in the first place. Another blurbing of noise told him it was instead the beeping of his datapad that demanded his attention. The bluish glow from the device giving new life to his otherwise darkened bedroom.

Grabbing the hand-sized tablet, Rhys soon found himself staring without staring. The swirl of letters and shapes on the datapad's newly sent mission briefing having already lost themselves to his uncomprehending mind. The nightmare he had just witnessed was nothing in comparison to the one sketched out on the device before him, courtesy of Bravo Leader. A joint flight drill... with a Gungan pilot.

For three days he had drawn out schemes to get himself out of this mess waiting to happen: sickness, jury duty, kaadu burger induced coma. Anything.

Yet the early morning had come without event, and the twenty-two year old space pilot found himself standing in front of the locked blastdoors of the hangar bay, cup of caf in hand. His blue-eyed gaze reluctantly met the retinal scanner on the entry's durasteel side, eliciting a hiss from its inner mechanism before releasing the door latch with an aging squeak.

Stepping into the hub of activity that was the Royal Hangar Bay was generally a cause for excitement, but now it was all Rhys could do to not turn tail and run. Though he quickly came to the realization that there was no one he would actually be running from. At 0500 hours the Hangar Bay was as still as a snoozing Ewok, although nowhere near as quiet. This was due in part to a lone mechanic on the northward wall. A mechanic who just happened to be one of his better friends, and current loudest maker of noise, courtesy of the heavy duty drill he was wielding... One that was being used to tear his N-1 starfigher apart panel by panel.

"What the - Reti, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Rhys called out from the other half of the complex, already considering revoking the mechanic's "better friend" status.

No response, just more loud drill noises.

That wasn't going to do, there was no way Rhys would continue to allow his ship to be gutted without proper explanation, even if it was by a mechanic that he - for better or worse - trusted with his life. He stormed across the hangar's well-waxed floors, the clack of his polished boots droned out by the unending whir of tools meeting durasteel. On the way, he had passed by a half dozen gold and chrome painted N-1 starfighters, interspersed in alcoves between a series of lengthy cobble pillars. The columns supported the hangar's structure for three more stories, each level home to another outfit of similar modeled ships.

Finally upon the mechanic's working place he was forced to crouch down to meet the worker face to face.

"Reti!" His voice bouncing back and forth between the floor's granite tile and his ship's metallic hull.

A soot-covered Toydarian quickly turned his way, a hooked snout underlining his blueish visage.

"Yeah?" Reti asked, annoyance clear in his voice.

"Why the frack are you tearing my ship apart?"

"Engine maintenance, remember? You were whining about some 'squeaky noise' a couple days back - found a diced up mynock in the central valve. This was maintenance you asked me to do, Rhys. Look, even Wrench remembered," the Toydarian responded, jabbing his three-clawed hand back in the direction of the nearby droid.

"Oh... my bad," Rhys apologized sheepishly, nodding as the blue and white patterned astromech sent its usual snarky beeped greeting his way. He turned to Reti again and said, "I blame the time of day... And the lack of caf." Rhys admitted the last part with a grin, shaking his mostly full beverage.

"I could go for a cup o' caf myself..." Reti admitted with yearning, rubbing bloodshot eyes with the hand that wasn't covered in oil.

"You're in luck," Rhys beamed, revealing a second caffeinated beverage in his other hand. Reti didn't hold back his surprise, quickly swooping up from his position beneath the craft with his pair of tattered wings, greedily accepting the cup as he did so.

Rhys hoped the gesture would be enough to ease over his earlier outburst, but decided another apology was his best chance of assurance.

"Listen Reti, about all that shouting a second ago..."

The Toydarian shrugged it off between bouts of slurping.

"That's alright, between that and all the barking Bravo Leader does at me I think I've gotten used to it, starting to feel kinda therapeutic actually. And besides, I probably wouldn't want anyone touching my ship without permission either," Reti responded, nodding up to the second floor of the hangar bay where a long wing-spanned junk freighter, dubbed the Zoomer, was taking up a slab of space regularly occupied by two N-1 starfighters. It was all the young pilot could do to contain his amusement at the sight.

"That's probably because your the only one who'd-" Rhys paused as Reti's bulging eyes went stern,"possibly be able to fly that... marvel in the realm of aeronautics."

"Good save, hotshot... I'd figure you'd be a little more appreciative, considering I was the one that towed away what was left of your ship from that pirate skirmish."

Rhys swallowed hard. "I guess you're right... Though I probably wouldn't have needed towing at all if you had dropped by any earlier than you did."

The Toydarian's face went stern for a moment. "I told you before, if I had known three months ago what I know now, I would've came in guns blazing to help you guys out."

The pilot nodded solemnly. Leaning back against the nearest pillar, he found a grin creeping up his face. "That would've been a hell of a sight."

Despite the bout of good-natured laughter they shared at the exchange, Rhys aimed to shift the conversation in a new direction, opting to use the topic piece that lay before them.

"So, you've got all this stuff off... How's she looking under the hood?" he asked with a gesture towards the collection of golden hull coverings that lay scattered around his ship.

"Tip top, as usual," Reti answered back with a gleam. "Though you are gonna have to clear out that cargo hold eventually, you've still got fireworks in there from the Festival of Light, and that was nearly five months ago."

The twenty two year old responded to the statement with a shrug of his own. "I'm saving 'em for next year... Or a rainy day, whichever comes first."

And with weather as nice as Naboo's it was a fair question to ask. Still, his three and a half foot friend didn't seem wholly sold on the idea.

"Riiiiight. Well, beyond that there's really nothing to complain about. I'm just gonna crack open a fuel canister, fill her up, and you should be all ready to go."

Nodding gratefully, Rhys found himself standing up and drifting over to let his gloved hand meet the chrome metallic bow of his nearby starfighter, now perched slightly upwards with a jack so Reti could begin refueling from a power hatch on the belly of the craft. Still focused on the ship's bow, he found it cool to the touch and highly reflective, allowing Rhys to spy his combed blonde hair and steel blue eyes from its frontward paneling.

Too preoccupied with his own thoughts, Rhys didn't notice himself tracing along the side of the craft, hand running across the conical Nubian-type sublight engines, over the ionization chamber encased in a newly replaced yellow shell, and ending with an elongated pole that served as a heat sink finial. The same features could be found mirrored on the other, with the crescent shape of the middle there to offset them both. His eyes would continue to trace over the shape of the ship for a time, until a question finally echoed his way from beneath the ship.

"So what do you think about this Gungan you're gonna be paired up with anyways?" Reti's voice underlined by the soft burble of fuel filling the ship's tank.

Rhys gave a shrug in response, slumping back over to the same crated box of supplies he had inhabited earlier.

"Tough to say. Everybody I've talked to props the guy up like some sort of warhero, but I've met this other guy they do the same thing to at a banquet that the Queen invited Bravo Flight to a couple weeks ago, 'Jim-Jim Links', or something like that. Guy accidentally managed to shatter a chandelier with his tongue and two forks... I was impressed by his efficiency, but if this new guy's anything like that one I don't exactly have high hopes for him when it comes to something as precise as piloting a spacecraft."

There was a pause as Reti scooted out from beneath the starcraft, wiping his munchkin-like hands with a towel.

"I don't know Rhys, rumor has it the guy held out against a whole convoy of droids near the end of the Invasion."

"Yeah?"

Well so did I...

The Toydarian was seemingly left hanging on his rhetorical question, waiting a few more annoyed seconds before continuing.

"Yeah... So, where's this little training op being held anyways?"

Rhys paused for a moment, his brain not having to scour too far to obtain the information.

"Widow's Valley."

"Wait, you don't mean-"

"Yup," Rhys interrupted, having already anticipated the question,"the same place we made all those midnight munition runs during the Invasion, and the same place that me and..."

"Maaaaan," Reti breathed out, ignoring Rhys' trailing off a moment before. His eyes seemed to glaze over slightly upon receiving the information, as if the mere thought took him back years.

"Reti, that was like three months ago. You're acting like those were good times or something."

"Sorry," Reti said with a shake of his head, slowly bringing himself back into the moment. "I was just thinking about how much faster my ship could make that canyon run now."

"Oh yeah, what'd you say about upgrades?... Something about a second cupholder, right?" Rhys asked in response, only partially kidding.

"That was part of it, Rhys. Part. I've made plenty of other enhancements since then. Heck, even got the HUD working properly again now."

Rhys' snide expression fell away for a moment, replaced by a helping of humored disbelief. "You're kidding."

"Any Toydarian worth his wings would never kid when it comes to tech."

"Who'd you have to scam to get the parts this time?"

Reti acted affronted by the implication, but a crooked smile soon played across his gray lips.

"Nobody! Not this time, anyways. Just talked up a Twi'lek, told 'em I had a ship that was faster than anything the Royal Fleet had to offer, and -"

"Reti, come on," Rhys quickly interjected, realizing that the mechanic was about to go on a very long tangent that he wasn't all that interested in hearing about,"Vana and I both know your ship's just some junk freighter that you leveled down with enough guns to lay waste to a small moon. I'll admit the thing packs a punch, but it probably couldn't even outclass my landspeeder, let alone one of our N-1s."

His three-foot companion crossed his arms defiantly.

"You seriously challenging me to race my ship against your landspeeder?"

A smirk crept quietly onto Rhys' face.

"Only if you're self conscious enough about your ship to think you have to."

Reti was just about to raise his voice to counter when they were both interrupted by the hum of the Hangar's main doors receding into the ceiling. In doing so the Hangar's two inhabitants were left victim to the dewy chill of the outside world. A shimmering hull slithered through disturbing the otherwise star-speckled sky.

Rhys shivered in response to the sight, tightening his flight jacket's grip around his body before shifting positions, allowing the approaching craft entry upon the main landing hub. It was a Taylander-class shuttle, a revelation in the SoroSuub Corporation's recent line of products, and presently one of the most expensive public transports that credits could buy. A series of overhead lights activated in celebration of the shuttle's arrival, temporarily blinding the duo already within, and serving as an annoying reminder that it could still be considered "morning" even without any trace of sunshine to be found.

With his eyes adjusted to the sudden change in lighting, Rhys quickly found why the shuttle was so exceedingly high priced. The craft boiled down to an elongated tube, its hull sharp and silver in tone, though a green strip was painted down the middle, evidently to indicate where the lower and upper levels split off. But these were details that Rhys offered only a cursory glance, it was the painting scrawled out on the underbelly of the approaching craft that he took most interest in. He had only a passing interest in the many acquatic creatures that graced Naboo's oceans, but even he could recognize the Opee Sea Killer that was scrawled out in red paint on the belly of the craft.

Rhys kept his eyes trained on the image as the craft allowed its three pairs of landing claws to unfold, followed soon thereafter by the craft's central boarding ramp. The familiar stern and balding figure of Ric Olie, more often referred to as Bravo Leader, was first to exit. Next came a trio of Gungans, the first was heavyset and short, garbed in a pair of thickly woven robes. It was someone Rhys very quickly recognized as the Gungan monarch Boss Nass. Two more Gungans flanked his sides, both considerably taller than their leader. The one on his right was also dressed in robes, but his were purple in color, an uninterested look adorning his face. The one on Nass' left was in strong contrast to other two, wearing oil-ridden overalls with a pair of flight goggles strapped to his scaly forehead to reinforce the fact that he was the vessel's pilot.

"You jealous?" Reti murmured with a gesture towards the expensive vessel, its four departed passengers quickly approaching them. Rhys stopped himself from scoffing at the question, realizing how smug such an action would appear. Still, there was no reason for him to reasonably be jealous of the group Gungans approaching him... Even if said Gungans were flying a craft that could fly circles around most anything in the Royal Fleet.

Not much more time was spent marveling at the ship though, not with the quartet of new arrivals standing just meters away from Rhys. Offering a firm salute first to his captain, he then turned and gave a quick bow in acknowledgement of Boss Nass and his two fellow Gungans.

Already in midconversation with the trio of Gungans, Bravo Leader halted the others before gesturing to him. "And this is Rhys Dallows, one of our finest pilots. He'll be the one that accompanies you during your flight drills today, Toba. Would you like to say anything to him, Bravo Ten?"

Rhys nodded before turning to the triad, only to realize that Bravo Leader had failed to indicate which Gungan was which, leaving the disgruntled pilot to make the determination on his own. Cursing silently at his luck, he weighed his options, coming to the rather obvious conclusion that Toba was one of the two flanking Boss Nass. The one on his right seemed the less likely option, even while wearing some flight attire Rhys figured the being looked too unkept, likely just the vessel's designated pilot, and given his awestruck face it appeared to be his first time land-side. Rhys felt safe in assuming this wasn't the storied warhero he had heard so much about. Turning instead to the one in purple robes, he gave him a soft smile.

"It's a honor to finally meet you sir. I've heard a great deal about your actions during the Battle of the Great Plains."

The Gungan's eye seemed to twitch slightly at the greeting, though he did not speak.

"Er, actually Rhys, that would be Prince Dun-Tar, nephew of Boss Nass, and future heir to the Gungan Throne... He's simply here to observe our proceedings here today."

He looked at Bravo Leader, then at Dun-Tar, then at the real Toba, then back to Bravo Leader.

"Oh."

This was unexpected. Yet again Rhys found himself on the wrong end of a guess, for whatever reason assuming the warhero would've aimed to look more presentable during the duo's groundbreaking mission. After all, this would be the first time a Human and a Gungan would be flying together under a circumstance that wasn't necessitated by war. Then again, this Gungan did seem to be more in line with the species' other proclaimed warhero, 'Jim-Jim Links', the one that he had met at the banquet.

"Um, please forgive the confusion on my part."

Boss Nass smiled warmly in response. "There'sa no need for apologies, wessen mistaken you outlanders for each other all the time."

"Well... That's a relief."

Bravo Leader cleared his throat then, obviously none too pleased with the twist their current conversation had taken. "Right. Well your majesty, I must say I'm very impressed with your people's transport. It certainly lives up to all the praise I've heard about it."

"Wessa liken it a lot too," the Gungan Leader admitted simply. If Rhys hadn't been so intent on maintaining his professionalism in front of the others, a chuckle likely would've poured from his lips. For whatever reason he had expected Boss Nass to sound more regal in his responses.

If Bravo Leader was feeling at all the same way, he was doing a great job of not showing it, instead keeping his gaze trained on the Gungan's vessel. "I'll be eager to see how well it does during the flight run today."

Rhys' face dropped at the implication. He wasn't just about to let the Gungan's shiny new toy disrupt a centuries-long tradition of the N-1, and its many predecessors, from being Naboo's sole attack fighter. If Toba wanted to run Bravo Flight's training circuit, it was only natural to expect him to do it flying one of Bravo Flight's starfighters.

"The Queen and her fellow Ambassadors should be arriving shortly, for now I encourage you to explore the Hangar Bay, any of the roaming mechanics will be happy to answer your questions, as there's quite a bit to see," Bravo Leader finished.

The three Gungans made their leave, dispersing throughout the Hangar with Toba at the groups head. Rhys and Bravo Leader stayed in their respective places, watching the group drift apart from each other. After a few more moments of silence Rhys finally decided to test his luck.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

The Captain made one of his trademark 'this can't be good' faces before sighing. "Granted."

"All due respect, but that flashy transport is just a big maneuverable-less rig without much firepower on it. Unless the goal is for Toba to to kill the enemy with kindness and crash while doing it he's probably gonna need a smaller bird."

While the "enemy" in this case would be a series of holodrones, Bravo Leader was not one to take any advice lightly.

"Are you suggesting we give him one of ours, Bravo Ten?"

The younger pilot squirmed awkwardly in place for a moment.

"Considering the eventual plan is to move them over to our style of craft anyways, yes sir... Begrudgingly," Rhys explained, placing extra emphasis on the last part.

"Hm..." his superior hummed, hand scratching the beginnings of a beard as his grey eyes scanned the length of the hangar for a replacement craft. His gaze continued searching for awhile, often coming back to one craft in particular before shifting his line of sight again. Finally, he gave a resigned sigh.

"That one," he said, pointing back to the N-1 he had kept passing over.

"That one? But, sir -"

"That's my decision, Dallows. Besides, it's not like we can just keep it locked up in here forever, especially without a pilot to contest it."

That last bit, practically tacked-on as an aside was as below the belt as anything Bravo Leader had thrown his way.

"Sir! You know she would -"

"All I know," the Captain interrupted with annoyance clear in his tired voice,"is that you suggested giving the Gungan another starcraft, and when I decided to give him another fighter you start protesting it. Now, I don't know about you Dallows, but the problem here doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the ship."

Rhys raised his voice to counter, but no counter came. He knew there was unlikely to be anything he could say that would change the captain's mind.

"Besides," Bravo Leader continued,"the thing has a closer control layout to his shuttle than anything else we've got. I'm going to go get some mechs to start prepping it, I want you to go and inform Toba about all this. Try and introduce yourself, sparking a little team camaraderie before you two get up in the air can't hurt."

"... Yes sir," the younger pilot answered, finally resigning himself to the Gungan-induced horrors still to come.

"Safe travels, Bravo Ten. I want to see 'em both fully intact when you two get back here."

"I'll do my best, sir."

Rhys kept his tone steady, but swallowed hard as Bravo Leader turned away.

We'll see how far "my best" can get us...

That morose thought and Wrench's ever constant presence at his side were all he had to keep him company on his brisk journey back over to Toba. Spying a lanky form he raised his voice to speak, but that had been before he could note the Gungan's elegant posture and purple tinted robes. Yet his voice had spoken before his mind could halt him, and he found himself saying, "Hi again, Toba. Bravo Leader just - Oh."

"That's twice now you've mistaken me for Toba, Mr. Dallows," Dun-Tar drawled out in a surprisingly Basic-sounding accent. Rhys was far too busy formulating an apology to marvel at this.

"My apologies, I would never do that intentionally... Just a coincidence is all."

"'Coincidence'," the Gungan mocked him in a regal tone. "That's a fool's word for conspiracy... Coincidence is allowing one's planet to be invaded, and somehow still having the... naivety to assume it won't happen again. I believe in many things Mr. Dallows, but coincidence is not one..."

"And neither should you," he finally noted. Their eyes met for a moment, swampy emeralds scouring his orbs of sapphire. Rhys hid his surprise at the sudden rant as best he could. He figured the Prince would be a little displeased to find he had mistaken him for Toba... again, but somehow twisting it all into a commentary on the Invasion had been far from expected.

"I don't think anyone's assuming we can't be invaded again, sir. In fact, this joint flight operation between our people seems like a real attempt to unite our people and prepare ourselves if such a thing were to happen again."

Rhys paused there, almost expecting the Prince to make another comment on some foolish way he had phrased things.

"As far as figuring the difference between coincidence from conspiracy, I think I can do that well enough on my own, but... I'm grateful for your suggestion," Rhys offered, tacking on the last bit almost as an afterthought.

The Prince responded to this with another nod of his head.

"But of course, you Naboo have always had your own way of doing things."

And as Rhys would later find out, so to did Dun-Tar. Still, there were more pressing matters on his agenda - namely that of finding wherever Toba had disappeared off to. Bidding his farewell to the Prince, he began branching farther out in search of Toba, finally noting that the Gungan pilot had drifted towards one of the craft parked nearest to the Taylander-class transport, this being one of the Queen's three Royal Transports. The warhero's pools of grey sweeped across its chromium exterior, tracing over the oblong shape of the craft.

"She's a beauty, isn't she?" Rhys asked as he stepped up next to the proper Gungan.

"She?" Toba asked, chewing on the singular word for a moment. Though with the way Gungans "chewed", Rhys found it difficult to distinguish when they were talking, when they were eating, and when they were doing a mix of both.

"It's a term we use... I'm talking about the ships when I say it," Rhys explained to him with a sigh. If the exchange was anything to go off of, there would be an obvious language barrier plaguing them the rest of their flight drill. This would be a very interesting day.

Appreciating the stilled silence that erupted as they both continued to admire the vessel's exterior, Rhys knew it couldn't last. With a sigh he quickly motioned for the younger pilot to come along with him, the two walking in another bout of silence for the majority of the path.

"If you liked that one, you're probably gonna be happy with what we'll be running our flight drill with today," Rhys noted as the two took a turbolift up towards the second floor of the Hangar.

Soon enough they were upon the craft as requested by Bravo Leader, a N-1 starcraft same as the dozens of others spaced throughout the Hanger. His hand traced over its freshly painted hull, hiding evidence of skirmishes hard fought, and promises long since broken...

But here he stood anyways, always the dutiful soldier. The guy who had scraped by in flight school, assigned to the Queen's Royal Escort long before he was ready, led into battle by one of the best to ever fly with Bravo Flight. Someone who he had failed. Someone who had...

"No! Essaara! Nooo!"

His eyes snapped shut for a moment, shaking his mind clear of the all too clear inferno still bathed within his memory. Another deep inhale of oxygen and he turned to look back up at the Gungan.

"Think you can handle it?" Rhys asked, reiterating a question he had just asked himself mentally.

Toba adjusted his flight goggles, straightening to his full height, nearly a head taller than Rhys.

"Yessa, I thinken I can handle she."

"... Her," Rhys quickly corrected before shaking his head. "Just take good care of her, alright? She really means a lot to the fleet."

And, as Rhys had come to realize some three months earlier, even more to him.

---

Forgiving the Old

Part Three: Of Defiance and Spirit

Blue orbs pierced the thickened transparisteel of the N-1's rounded viewport. A young face stared back at him through its reflective glare. A face hardened by failure, hesitation, and the calamities of war.

The time for remorse had come and gone, Rhys realized, looking past his reflection and onto the task that lay before it. Or, to be more exact, the task sweeping to and fro, a streak of gold joyriding its way across the vast plains of green. Toba was getting a feel for his newly-gifted starfighter, experimenting with its limits, not so much piloting the craft as he was forcing it to its breaking point.

For a time he was intrigued by his partner's display. Even with the occasional dip and novice-like shift in altitude, it was clear that the Gungan could fly. Soon enough, his attention was diverted away from the sight, eyes drifting forward, back to the real task.

Widow's Valley. Once an elaborate outcropping of rocks, the land form had slowly been transformed, first by nature then by the brute force of hundreds of seismic charges. Captain Olie had nearly exceeded the military's budget in his attempts to ensure that Bravo Flight - and Toba by extension - had a suitable training ground to hone their flight skills.

Rhys' mind sweeped its way through the artificial canyon's labyrinth-like maze, its ins and outs, twists and turns, peaks and ravines. He knew its routes better than the intricacies of his own hand. Frell, he knew most things better than the intricacies of his hands.

Seriously, who bothers memorizing the lines on their hands?

Still, his mind lingered. Lingered on the one thing he didn't know, the one unknown staring him straight in the face - via facecam, that was. It was time to see just how well-placed Bravo Leader's respect for the Gungan was.

"Well, you ready?"

"Yessen," came that same gruff voice, thick in its delivery of the Gunganese tongue. The craft leveled out in response to the question, close enough for the astromech droid lining either cockpit to be visible.

"Good to hear it," Rhys stated, doing so over the excited squeals of each pilot's respective droid companion. "By now I'm sure you've read through the flight manual."

"Yessen sir, front to back," The Gungan responded again, resolute in his answer.

Rhys chuckled, recalling how he had given that same answer, word for word, during his own initial flight drill. The difference was in how the responses had been delivered. For all his composure now, Rhys couldn't deny he had been a ball of nerves that day. Toba sounded different, though - confident, both in knowledge and his ability to run the course that lay ahead. It was enough to urge the pilot forward, eager to see whether the Gungan's faith was well founded.

"Follow my lead."

In moments the valley was clear of both golden hulls, each vessel vanishing into the maw of the canyon before them. Rhys squinted his eyes upon entry, familiar with the darkened landscape that his gaze was adjusting to. Even at midday the gorge's towering rock walls succeeded in blocking out the sun's rays, leaving a blanket of shadow to consume the underpass.

"It'll clear out soon," Rhys reassured his companion, hearing a disgruntled note over the comm. "This first leg is meant to slightly disorient the pilot."

"It'sa definitely working," Toba noted, one of his craft's pronged tails scraping against the closest wall. The resulting sparks lit the chasm up for a moment, revealing a zig-zagging path that lay meters before the duo. With another squint of his eyes, Rhys could just barely make out the diverging entry points that lay spread on either side of the wall.

A whistle from Wrench confirmed what his muscle memory already knew - he was moments away from colliding into a rocky pillar.

"Hope you weren't getting too comfortable," the pilot noted before punching the throttle, his craft kicking out a billow of exhaust and jetting into the closest of the two crevices.

A yelp over the comm line told him that the Gungan was not comfortable, even more so now that he had been left alone in the darkened chasm.

"Take the other path," Rhys explained over bouts of concern - both from Toba and the Gungan's droid companion, Sparks. "I want you to get a feel of the canyon, we'll meet up on the other side."

Assuming you make it there...

The musing was less grim humor and more a legitimate concern - this was supposed to be the easy part of the course, less a test and more a primer. A wailing of noise from his own astromech brought him away from the concern, back to the fact that he was moments from spinning out and missing the first zig in the widening underpass.

A tight snap roll was made in response, the pilot eternally grateful for the thick straps pinning him back to his seat. Naboo's rising sun twisted along with him now, shining in and out incessantly as he soared by the occasional dip in the canyon wall. In the meantime, a flickering dot on his scanner readouts told him that Toba was doing the same in the other passage, more or less managing to mirror his own movements.

A pause in the course's archaic layout found Rhys looking inwardly again, mind drifting from the task before him. As one hand was kept idly on the control stick, the other found itself lingering into the pocket of his flight vest, the cool touch of a second pair of dog tags in hand.

A finger tip was brushed over the carved aurebresh, revealing a name that was not his own.

"Don't worry," he breathed as if talking to someone, though no one else could hear him. "I've got my eye on him."

And with the gorge's entrapments suddenly lessening in height, he made good on the statement. Weaving past the splintered outcroppings beneath, Rhys tilted leftward, forming up on his partner's wing. He offered a thumbs-up for succeeding in the first leg of course, but the gesture was disregarded by the Gungan, his lanky form too occupied with the control panels surrounding him.

"You can ease up now," Rhys informed, adding an edge of comfort to his words. "Need to be in the right mindset for the next round, things get pretty twitch-based."

The Gungan didn't acknowledge the statement, his astromech companion opting to do so instead.

"There's never any right mindset for a pilot, that's what droids are for."

A chuckle was elicited at the comment, what Sparks lacked in processing power he more than made up for in personality.

"I'm going to hold back on this leg," Rhys began again, the duo fast approaching their destination - a wild jumble of dripstone. "Let you take the lead here."

The offer was made willingly, the pilot never being extremely fond of the next portion himself. Toba remained silent at the command, craft lurching forward, entering the haphazard cavern at a bantha's pace. The speed was par for the course, the emphasis placed less on handling and more on instinct. This left the partners to dart here and there, needling their own ways through the tightening path. All the while Rhys was keeping an eye on the Gungan further ahead, watching as he bounced throughout, indecision clear in his steering.

"Come on... Focus," Rhys found himself murmuring, ensuring that he was off the main comm-line. "You're flying like I shot out one of your sublight engines."

The response to this was another juke of the control stick, one that sent his partner's craft reeling against the nearest limestone obstruction.

Maybe I should shoot out of one of his sublight engines...

As if reading his thoughts, a fire appeared to be lit deep within the Gungan. Soon enough there were no more broken turns, nor near-collisions. Those errors had been replaced with swift pivots and proper flight technique, almost machine-like in their execution.

Despite his ranting to the contrary, the Gungan was actually beginning to exceed Rhys' expectations, and exceed them by a fair amount. Moments later the duo had maneuvered the end of the canyon's final leg, clearing out into a large valley, intricate waterways carving the surface below.

"Whew!" the pilot finally exclaimed, doing nothing to hide his awe at the display. "How long you say you've been piloting again?"

"Thirteen years."

"And... How old are you?"

"Twenty one."

Rhys was neither a master of math nor multitasking, but even as he continued onward, with the world spinning and playing victim to the axis of his ship, he was able to crunch those numbers.

"Wow, you guys like to start young, huh?"

"No, yousen must just start late."

The statement was delivered without an ounce of well-meaning humor, leaving the pilot to scoff as he rounded back, his starfighter lessening in speed. Their final task would give clear indication as to how confident the Gungan had the right to be.

"Alright, now its my..."

"... Turn," Rhys finished, finding a strange familiarity within the words. "This is gonna be pretty simple actually: first pilot to knock the other's shields out wins. I want your cannons primed to their highest non-lethal setting."

Toba gave a grunt of agreement from the other craft, heightened growls coming from both their turrets.

He next focused his attention on the two droids seated within their respective craft. "And I don't want any funny business from you two. No altering of system readouts or channeling more energy to the shields when we aren't looking - this is going to be a clean one, I don't want any cheating from either party."

The two astromechs squeaked innocent replies, insisting that they had no idea what he was talking about.

Their shields were primed, cannons were charged, and engines were revved. They were full go.

"Bravo Ten," came the Commander's gruff tone, breaking them from their otherwise centered attention. "We're picking up on some sort of pirate activity three clicks south of your position, down by Moenia City."

Because of course you are…

He mused with a sigh, pushing his palm off one of the gears, leaving his sleek vessel humming in a standby-like mode some thirty meters over the rocky canyon top. Brushing off the lever, he turned to grab the radio comm before saying, "Copy that Bravo Leader, we're just about wrapped up here, we'll cut out the fun parts and check out whatever's going on."

His superior gave a note in affirmation, leaving veteran and inductee to their business.

"Is thisa part of the drill?" the Gungan asked, uncertainty clear in his voice for the first time since they had begun the course.

Rhys heaved on the stick in the next moment, pulling out of the tight twirl he had sent his craft into before darting back upwards, hugging the canyon wall as he went.

"I sure as hell hope not."

Toba followed his lead, and the pair flew relatively silent the remainder of the way, tension from the prospect of a live engagement more than compensating for their lack of discussion. These 'calm before the storm' moments were the sort of thing Rhys reveled in, adrenaline fueling his tired limbs and flushing any other useless thoughts away from his mind.

The trek of green fields that accompanied them for the next several minutes soon cleared away, disturbed by a scatter of boulder-etched monuments - idols that the Gungans had once worshipped. Having sailed past the carved face many times, Rhys didn't give it a second glance, but halted when Toba did the opposite, murmuring something over the comm unit. He found himself pausing at the display, a thought occurring to him.

"A silent prayer?"

The Gungan confirmed his suspicion. "As yousa people expand, these Elders diminish. It's a rare sight, brings good luck."

As they carried on again, Rhys couldn't help the twinge of guilt he felt. While ancient, it was still commonplace for Gungans to make pilgrimages to such locations, both war and, as Toba put it, "the expansion of his people" had done their part in destroying the artifacts, leaving shattered remains in their place.

While not much of a proponent of a higher power, he found himself reassured by Toba's actions - it was always good to know someone had their back, whether wingmate or spirit above.

The same could be said for the city of Moenia, Rhys realized, their starcraft now lurking near the outskirts. Towering architecture dotted the grounds before them, connected by various bridgeways, a sheet of mist blanketing the structures. An all-encompassing ray shield draped over the sight, blue in tint. It was a defensive measure - given courtesy of technology developed by the Gungans, but quickly put in place by the Queen. The failed Invasion had shifted many an opinion on what had once been considered such "war-like actions".

It had been a worthwhile precaution if the sight looming above its plasma sphere was any indication. A half squadron ran in a vulture-like circle overhead - six crafts varying in pilot and paint job. Unified by one craft-type, by one insignia. Plastered on each of the Diango's trilateral wing layout was a cross-like symbol, diverging off into a web of talons.

Rhys shifted uncomfortably in his seat at the familiar sight, but remained silent. With the number of pirates he had already dealt with it was natural to find a look-alike emblem or two.

"Bravo Ten," the Commander chimed back in, likely noticing the uneasy pause."Regroup at base if you're doubting your numbers, we can scramble a full squadron within the hour."

"Negative sir, this village will be in shambles if we wait any longer... We're going in."

Had Rhys insisted on staying against any other spacecraft when numbers were down two to six, Bravo Leader would've considered him insane and used the remote ejection feature on both pilot's craft to send that message to them. But these were Diangos. They weren't pushovers by any means, but as he knew from their prior engagement, the half squadron of pilots that commanded the squid-like crafts lacked discipline, as well any form of rearward shielding. If the duo came ready with a concise plan of attack there was a high chance that they would come out of the engagement relatively unscathed.

A multitude of attack patterns began running through his head, few of which they would be able to run, he realized with a glance back to Toba. How could he possibly expect the Gungan to know any of the advanced flight tactics Bravo Flight had practiced to perfection? It was back to basics for the duo.

Already an idea was being formulated, one which could be effective, but was sorely limited by their current flight accommodations. Though the fact remained that the pirates hadn't made their business known yet, giving him no reason to suspect them of any wrongdoing.

Should be pretty obvious, though...

Rhys found himself reasoning, having enough experience to realize how shamelessly predictable outlaws tended to be. Still, they were innocent until proven guilty, and that gave the pilot all the reasoning he needed. He was gambling on the fact that since the mercenaries were foolish enough to intimidate a tourist's city, they'd be foolish enough to stay after a fair warning as well.

The conclusion made him edge closer to the group, the six crafts maintaining their vulture-like circle around the top of the hill-bound town.

"Sabaoth Leader," he began, nabbing one of the pilot's callsigns from the sensor overlay, "this is Rhys Dallows of the Naboo Royal Fleet. You are in restricted airspace, disengage immediately."

A garbled crackle was all that met him over the comm channel, the half dozen maintaining their flight pattern.

"Repeat, this is Rhys Dallows of the Naboo Royal Fleet, ordering you to disengage immediately."

Static lingered, pounding his ear drums as the mismatched assortment continued their circling.

"SAAAHOOOZUUU!"

"Hold on... Those insignias, that battlecry -"

He was back again. Cannonfire narrowly streaking past him, lining up his last target as the galaxy tried to find its way around him.

"Can't - shake him. Take the shot, Bravo Ten!... Bravo Ten!"

Wrench finally chirped him an inquisitive tone, breaking his mind free of the coming blaze.

"Nothing Wrench," Rhys said through gritted teeth, though something was very clear wrong. Something he had been waiting months to fix. His focus was diverted elsewhere, however, primarily to the fact that his six foes were darting directly towards him, cannons thundering to life. Evidently "Sahozu" was less a phrase of warning and more of intent.

Ignoring Toba's protests he punched his throttle full forward, jetting away from the outskirts of the town, easily outpacing the pursuing Diangos. Storm clouds brewed menacingly overhead as they flew, coupling a sense of dread to their escape. Soon enough the flock of craft had been lost, an overlooking ridge concealing the duo from sight. Their pursuers lingered nearby for a moment, thrusters growling out like a pack of hungry wolves, but their pilot's were easily swayed, uninterested in further effort, returning to their vigil over Moenia.

"Thesa seem very interested in this town..." the Gungan finally murmured after several panicked moment's silence .

"That's funny, because I'm feeling pretty interested in them," Rhys responded, flicking a switch overhead, already preparing himself for the duo's return.

His fingers laced over a side control panel, dialing up shield capacities, readying himself for the clash to come. A bleeping tone interrupted him from his work, a new message arriving from the Private Channel. Flicking the indicator on, he went back to prepping the starcraft.

"I want you to weigh the risks here," Bravo Leader said in a hushed tone, likely outside his usual confines of the Commander Center.

"I am, Captain," Rhys responded, shifting in his seat as he struggled to maintain his usual composure. Something told him that ridiculing his superior at the moment wasn't the best idea. "We're not going to get much better odds against these guys than with this 'warhero' everyone keeps trumpeting on about."

"Just remember what's at stake..." Bravo Leader reminded, another ping of noise indicating that he had signed off.

His battered flight helmet was snugged tightly overhead in response, a determined look crossing his face.

I'll be damned if I ever forget...

---

Forgiving the Old

Part Four: Of Chaos and Retribution

Fists were clenched tighter around the thruster controls, a deep inhale working to center his uneasy mind. Finding his wits in the moment of peace, Rhys' attention was diverted back to his astromech.

"I want you to shut all non-mandatory systems down, refocus all forward power into the shields."

The twenty-three year old knew how he wanted to take these thugs down, and he also had it very specifically planned out who would be doing the take downs. Five pilots and a city-full of innocents lay victim, and six pirates would be given in retribution. A concerned inquiry from Wrench brought him away from his intentions, Rhys offering a scoff in response.

"Yes, all of 'em - wouldn't have said all if I didn't mean all," the pilot paused, determination casting away any notions of humoring the droid. "Cannons, navcomputer, all those sensor gimmicks, everything we've got, Wrench. Gimme as much shield power as you can muster."

There was a resounding ebb as the command was issued, the craft growing cold as the hum from the internal heating systems went quiet. Vapor promptly began condensing near the helm of his cockpit, lending an eerie overlay for the clash soon to come.

"Listen up, Toba," he started, shooting his glance back to the Gungan. Their vessels were both still huddled beneath the hill-side's cover. "Here's the plan: I'm going to play bait."

The Gungan raised his voice in a questioning grunt, almost incredulous in tone.

"I want you to stay tucked away further above," Rhys stated calmly, having anticipated the inquiry. "We're lucky it's a cloudy day. I'll lure them away from the city and let them eat up my shields. While they're busy with me I want you to come flashing down with your cannons primed and wipe out the lot of 'em. Understood?"

Another grunt, this one affirmative in nature.

Satisfied by the relative simplicity in their discussion, he smiled. "Copy that, Cesta Four. Keep it safe. I'll see you in the skies."

Soon enough, the pair had diverged. Gungan vanishing into the billowy mass above, while Human counterpart remained below, soaring back towards the city - months of indignation welling up inside of him. His time with Bravo Flight had always emphasized two simple codes - "never let your wingmate down" and "kill only when you have to". But all that had occurred in the past few months had slowly changed that sentiment, everything was becoming "kill or be killed." And the pilot was starting to like it.

Not much longer was spent pondering the concept, Moenia's fog-drenched outline reeling back into view. His grip was tense on the control yoke, grateful for the practice he had gotten earlier that day in Widow's Valley, knowing how necessary it would soon become. With another glance over his shield-heightened tactical display, he was jetting forward, coming to rest a city-stretch away from his six oppressors. But there was another to join their ranks, looming higher above, a crack of lightning bathing the warship's silhouette into his gaze.

It was gone as soon as he thought he saw it, enveloping into the dreary overcast.

"Wait a minute - scanners picking up more!" More and more, a dozen dots pinging to life on all edges of his scanner readouts, replacing the vanished titan by sheer force of number. Rhys' face was knotted in anger as he came to the logical conclusion.

"Ambush."

Just like last time, the bait had been baited. Like a drove of hornets they flung up, pinpricks arising from all sides of the surrounding hill-line, large portions of his viewport wafted out by the spray-painted hulls of craft both familiar and exotic. The conglomeration was alive in every sense of word, the mix of piloting species nearly as colorful as the ships they flew. Contrasting the crescents of paint were the power cords that lined their exterior, wiring exposing what weak points personality could not.

From a citizien's perspective down below they were like a flock of kitehawks migrating southward, wings spread wide as they converged. The truth was much more dangerous, and it sent Rhys' heart pounding, fighting with the controls as the encirclement closed around him.

"We need to gain altitude!" he exclaimed, more to himself than his companion, wrenching the throttle upward. As he knifed higher above, all manner of starcraft were there to twirl along with him, interplaying torpedoes with cannonfire. Bursts of shrapnel began dotting the already cloudy sky, durasteel blending into the mass of gray. Familiar streaks of gold came thundering past each other in response, one vanishing upwards while the other brought cannonades of fire smearing past the darkened clouds.

"Watch your six, Cesta Four," Rhys advised from experience, flaring past his counterpart as lightning rang in the distance. "These are some slippery bastards."

The Gungan did as advised, corkscrewing against the plume of enemy hulls, evading return fire well over a kilometer over Moenia's tallest structures. In turn, Rhys found himself a momentary pause from the chaos, clearing the murky weather to find Naboo's unpigmented sun greeting him up above. Wheeling back by a mix of gravity and intent, he once again plunged headfirst, the storm's hellish maw unraveling around him.

Close to a dozen fighters had maintained their pursuit behind him, undeterred by Toba's attacks, and with the change in direction they were there to meet him head-on. Diangos and Headhunters alike, each forced to veer wildly out of the way, fearing collision with their prey. While they faded out of view, their hull's crest remained etched in Rhys' mind, the spider-like image bleeding into all that he saw.

Soon enough, it too was hurled free, exchanged with a new craft to rise from the smoky heavens. The heavy-hitters of the mercenary attack force - the Morningstars.

In the months that had followed that bloodbath of a first encounter with the bomber-type, Bravo Flight had decided on a new name for the craft - angels of death. It had been especially apt for Rhys' comrades that day. Though they certainly had the overarching shape to match the description as well, wings stilted upwards to couple with their vertically-lined bodies. What truly garnered them the title, however, was the stacks of clusters missiles lurking in their launcher tubes.

All too aware of what one of their erupting payloads would bring, Rhys flinched at the sight, jerking his starcraft away from the cycloning death-bringers. Eyelids were opened a second later, revealing that the bombardiers had broken pattern, flitting in different directions somewhere overhead. About to raise a word in question, a patter of noise, first from the readouts, then by Wrench, brought him to more pressing matters.

"I've got one on my tail!" A hurried glance through the drizzle provided him with answers - the streamlined exterior of a Headhunter coming into view, outfitted with a pair of sublight engines well beyond its class. Elongated mortars on either of its wings came to life, streaks of resounding fire nearly uprooting him from his seat, held only at bay by the stoutness of his deflector shields. Before another barrage tore Rhys' ship apart, his counterpart came plunging back into view, letting loose a round of emerald death, sending the pirate diving for a collision course with the ground.

"I hit him!" Toba's excitement controlled, though clearly pleased with himself.

"Nice going," Rhys exclaimed with a sigh of relief, watching as the wreckage careened out of sight. The display had the pilot make up his mind. "Stick on my wing."

"But, yousa craft don't have any wings," the Gungan reminded him, the duo continuing their own coil downward.

"It's... Another phrase. Look, we're going to have to stick closer together if we want to get out of this, the plan's gone to hell and my turret's haven't recharged, just have my back and I'll have yours."

His companion did as requested, their golden hulls finally escaping the blanket of storm clouds, finding themselves back within reach of Moenia City. There wasn't long to take in the surroundings, their pursuers moments from breaking free of the overcast's grip. Time seemed to halt, a crescendo of wailing engines the only indication that the duo were being trailed.

Then, all at once, they broke free of the gloom, hives of starcraft puncturing the sky, atleast two dozen in all. Orange cannonades of fire poured freely, each shining red with intent. They avalanched like precursors to the coming rain, crashing into anything that stood in their way. As the town's protective barrier soaked up salvos of cannonfire, Rhys' starcraft did the same, quaking under the immense demand. A respite was given seconds later, gun batteries recharging as their vessels bulleted down instead.

The pair held steadfast in their presence, unwavering from their position as the drove cycloned around them. Their next actions were performed on instinct alone, repulsors influxing against the ray shield, sling-shotting them back into the fray. Rain pounded what the onslaught of lasers could not, the pod-like cockpits that encompassed each pilot threatening to compress upon their shaking forms.

To add to their troubles was the inevitable sight, causing the pilot to growl out in frustration."Another one on my tail, closing in!"

"I can't shake this one!"

Rhys' found himself quivering, and it had nothing to do with the turbulent winds beating in on all sides. As more and more starfighters angled behind his fleeing form, he found himself resolute in his earlier plan, one that had failed him months earlier.

"I'm going to stay the course, let 'em take their potshots at me. I want you try and find the opening, Toba."

Don't make the same mistake I did...

With an acknowledgement from Toba he began simplifying his flight patterns, weaving less and less, his vessel centering itself in the targeting reticules of at least four of the nearest craft. His grip on the throttle began to ease itself, heart in his throat. He was taking the gambit head-on, entrusting his life to a pilot he had known for all of three hours.

"Hey big boy!" his voice full of adrenaline, echoing through the nearest pig-like Gammorean's public comm channel. The pilot gave an enraged snarl in response, urging his trilateral starcraft into even closer firing range.

"Stay the course and find the opening," Rhys murmured to himself, skittering meters above the city's plasma enclosure. "Stay the course and find the opening..."

"There!" an eruption of noise blaring out the Gungan's voice.

Wait... Is that a -

"Proton Torpedo!" Wrench chirped out, as if reading its owner's mind.

The ionized sphere of crimson energy had came veering past Toba's intended target, cannoning instead for a direct hit on Rhys' leftward sublight engine.

He didn't have time to chastise the miss, only to react to its implications, manning a flick roll at such breakneck speeds that the entire canopy shook in alarmed protest. Still, the torpedo's deadly aura had been evaded, resounding with a crack against the hillside atleast a kilometer away. Though Wrench was quick to inform him that another ploy like that would have a 67.8% chance of sending his entire craft splitting in two.

"Yeah? Well, I like those odds a hell of better than the ones on plasma incineration... And no, please don't run that calculation."

With the way Toba was firing it seemed likely he'd be finding out soon enough anyways.

"I'm sorry sir," the Gungan piped up, the shame of a dangerous miss running clear in his voice. "They're too fast."

"They're too everything," Rhys retorted as another barrage of electric blue flamed past his ship, this one impacting with an enemy fighter. "That was a good hit! But quit firing, I'd like to get out of here with all my limbs still attached."

The Gungan did as requested, making it all too clear that retribution could only be given by one. This left the attackers unopposed in their firings on his ship. That wouldn't last for long, not with Rhys disregarding Wrench's earlier warning and casting the pronged vessel into another daring roll, this one wide enough to break away from the city's perimeters, disappearing back into the surrounding hillside. Howling turbines were still ever present, informing him that at least one other pilot had been foolish enough to attempt the same maneuver.

The sudden wave of force was doing a number on his stomach, but he pushed through, inertial compensators working overtime to keep up with the demand. Whipping winds consumed the initial exhaust of flame from his afterburners, leaving vast contrails of vapor to form in their wake, undoubtedly angering his mid-roll pursuer.

Not long was spent trapezing against the hillsides. Instead he cast his vessel further tree-level, screaming past the limestone rooftops that lurked outside the city's protective shields. The 'deetdeetdeet' of his relay sensors told him he had angels incoming, and he didn't want to be anywhere near the ground when their cannons came roaring. He sent himself rebounding upwards, using the influx of momentum to launch himself into the calming skies.

"SAAAAAAHOOOZUUU!" Again echoed the foe's bloodthirsty battle cry over the public comm channel, the same snarling Gammorean trailing upward for what he believed to be the killing blow.

Deep space. A lone starfighter drifting near the edge of Naboo's asteroid field, its canopy window shattered by a barrage of cannon fire some hours before, leaving what was left of its pilot's lifeless body to be vultured by the vacuum of space.

"Sahozu this."

His fist slammed a blinking activator towards the helm of the cockpit, the hull emanating a relieved groan as the rearward cargo bay opened and the ship became several times lighter, a flurry of pyrotechnics launching in all directions

Knew those fireworks would come in handy...

A triumphant grin was there to greet the thought. The jagged rocks that formed Point Moenia's hillsides had new rubble accompanying them - flaming chunks of what had once been a Z-95 Headhunter.

His sense of uplifting relief quickly passed, the impact of pyrotechnics with enemy hull effectively burning the pig-like pilot alive within, but not in the way he intended.

"Oh no... No, no, no."

Pilot and vessel had taken diverging paths, hull for the rocky grounds below, and flaming carcass into the city square, bypassing the plasma surroundings and hurtling straight for the shield's reactor core. While fireworks impacting with the Headhunter's exterior had been one display, the sight of a burning Gammorean resounding with shield emitter was pure spectacle. In a flash of smoke and snarls the city's energy encasement was gone, its blue tinge flickering away, dissipating with a hum of distress.

The earlier-encountered Morningstars had been waiting for this moment. No longer were they interested in taking potshots at Rhys' shield-enhanced starcraft, now their attention and overwhelming payloads had been diverted elsewhere - to the defenseless households that loomed far below. With the town's protective sphere of energy downed, there was nothing to halt the carnage soon to come. Nothing to stop the spilling of blood of another group of innocent people from being his fault.

It was in that moment of soul-wrenching desperation that Rhys made his move. Without acknowledging Toba, Wrench, or even his own panic-stricken sense of action, he had dove between the hunters and their prey, launched from his hillside vantage point. It was all the trio of Morningstars could do to veer away, this way and that, narrowly avoiding the threat of collision with his Nubian-crafted hull. It was now, temporarily at least, that he had caught their attention.

A jerk of the control yoke sent his craft howling tree-level again, rustling branches as the clap of incendiaries missing their target reverberated against his hull. Rhys didn't have long to reflect on the near hits, brackets of cannonfire replacing their missile companions. He went swerving between the bases of pinewood in response, enemy lasers pelting as much ground as they did the tails of his vessel.

"Where are my cannons, Wrench? I can't keep going like this forever," Rhys asked, renewed desperation beginning to settle in. His game of "shoot and don't get shot" was coming to its deadly end.

The astromech took longer than expected to respond, a bout of damage control scenarios running in addition to the latest turret-fire calculations. It was below, on the middle of his three scanner readouts that he finally received his answer.

Estimated recharge time: 3 minutes, 43 seconds

Gritted teeth was all Rhys gave in response, doubt plaguing what adrenaline could not. He kicked the throttle up a notch, winds from the turbine unsettling leaves and causing roaming critters to cower beneath the bushes that scattered the grounds below him.

"Y'know, twenty seconds ago this all like a briliant idea..."

Retrospect was everything, perhaps even the death of him, but the joy-filled hurrah of a new pilot entering the fray forced the thought from his mind.

"What the -" but he was caught off, cratering impacts on either side of him bringing him to glance back at where his pursuers should've been. Instead of the menacing presence of a trio of vertically-lined starcraft he was greeted by the sight of a different sort of ship - considerably more battered than its predecessors, wings outstretched, engines weighing down what cannons could not.

"Reti!?" Rhys exclaimed, doing nothing to hide his incredulity. "When the hell did you get here, I thought you'd be up in the Hang-"

"You really think I'd agree to prep fighters at 0300 if it didn't mean getting out of that bantha hole early?" The question was given as his mismatched hull formed up on the elegant craft's wing, each soaring back into sight of the city.

"You're going to have a hell of a time explaining this to Bravo Leader," Rhys stated, but couldn't help the smile slowly creeping up his face.

"I've got more reasons than this to be afraid of him." His statement underlined by the blare of their sublight engines.

"Besides," the Toydarian reasoned over the resurfacing of enemy lasers. "I told you I decked out the rest of my ship, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't show you this?"

Upon command a rack of grenades ejected themselves from his frontward cargo bay, drenching the three nearest shooters with explosive shrapnel. Sharpened alloys were greeted by their foe's winding turbines, the two mixing to form a unique blend of combustion, vessels imploding upon impact. Even Rhys couldn't hold back a cheer at the display, raising his craft away from the blast radius, tree trunks crunching in all directions.

They were still outmanned a dozen to three, but the odds suddenly didn't seem to matter so much. Not as much as the fact that the city still remained defenseless, nothing to inhibit cannonfire from uprooting the scattered structures. Perhaps even more alarming was the new vessel that had made its way to the outskirts of the settlement, this one bulbous, at least fifty meters in length.

"So, that's what I saw earlier," Rhys noted, eyes widening at the familiar sight. "It's a Taylander-class Shuttle."

"No kidding," Reti began, the city growing more visible just over the hill's horizon. "That's where most of your pals have been coming from, looks like they carved out a hangar bay for the thing and had it hiding up in the clouds to deploy more fighters - we should take it down before it can spit anybody else out."

"I need to find Toba first," Rhys said, urging his starfighter closer to the city.

"The Gungan?" Reti responded with a hint of incredulity. "Don't think you're going to need to worry about him, he's living up to that 'warhero' title pretty well."

"I'm not worried," he shot back, though something in his voice betrayed him. "We're just... Going to need the extra firepower to take that thing down."

With the justification given, the pair went sweeping back towards the city limits, losing themselves in the crossfire. Rhys found himself surprised, his Gungan counterpart having done more than his part in thinning out the flanks. Zipping close to a towering limestone settlement, he evaded past the dozen foes that still remained, primarily the same Diangos that had lured them into this trap to begin with. Catching a familiar glint of gold, the pilot fought the urge to rejoin the fray. Instead he skirted sideways, tailfins flailing open as starcraft slowed from speeds well over a kilometer per hour. Breathless from the sudden inversion, he said,

"Nice work Cesta Four, we need to clear out for a second though - got one last test we need your help with."

In moments the duo became a trio, lurching back to maximum velocity, Rhys relaying the task as they went. What remained of their enemy's forces trailed behind them, the group's intent likely becoming apparent to the mismatch of pirates. The Bravo Flight pilot actually found reassurance in this, glad to see they had detracted their opponent's attention away from the city.

What he wasn't glad to see was the Taylander-class Shuttle, its cylindrical form primed with turbolasers, each making note of the group's arrival with chunks of projectile plasma. Both starcraft diverted from modified cargo transport in response, all three motoring back into the familiar treeline. Blaring outbursts of fire overtook the positions they had once occupied, the crossfire devouring some of their opponents.

"We'll have to spread out," Rhys decided, eyeing the skies for any raining shrapnel. "Just try weighing it down with whatever explosives you've got left."

"Best shot we've got," Reti agreed, though quickly revealed that, unlike Rhys, most of their payloads had already been used up to that point. Still, it was their only real shot at taking the warship down, and he had no intentions of shying away now, not with its mass looming threateningly close to the City. Seconds later the plan was put to the test. Each of the N-1's delivered electric streaks of blue from their launcher tubes while Reti interplayed the display with shell-like explosives. Plumes of smoke stemmed on all sides, incendiaries forming a volatile haze as they drilled away at the shuttle's deflector shields.

As the exhaust cleared and their haul of explosives lay detonated, it became clear that it hadn't been enough. The titanic vessel remained defiant, scorched, but relatively undamaged, its shields finally flickering out.

"It's no good," Reti finally determined, weaving into a loop as return fire rang around him. "We're all out of ammo, and there's no way our cannons can penetrate that thing's hull, even with the shields down."

"Well, we've gotta do something, if it gets any closer it'll start taking potshots at the City."

"Then I'll just have do it," Toba announced, launching straight for the vessel's menacing exterior. Rhys watched him go, the Gungan's craft dodging past the vacuums of turbolaser fire thumping all around him. Closer and closer he veered to its hull, hurtling at a speed that made Rhys gasp, realizing all at once what his partner was planning to do.

There would be no hesitating this time, he was unwilling to lose another wingmate to his own second-guesses. Engines were revved up, launching him forward again, closing the distance.

"No! Toba wait -" He was cut off a second later, the Gungan's starfighter pulling up at the last moment. A rounded astromech was left to drop from behind the cockpit, colliding with the tubular fuel tanks near the aft, the mix of circuitry and propane enough to cause the enemy's structure to erupt on impact. Imploding chains followed suit, lines of rocket fuel lashing out into pools of combustion all across the craft's rounded underbelly.

"Using your astromech droid as a projectile..." Rhys murmured to himself, darting away from the shuttle's crumpled form. Wrench was quick to chirp out a note in alarmed disapproval, but the sentiment wasn't shared by all.

"You're a genius!" came Reti's comment, oversized freighter tilting dangerously close to the fiery mass. Whether genius or astromech-demonizer, Rhys didn't know, nor particularly care. The massive vessel had been demolished, and it was time to escape before its sizable payload collided with the forest grounds. Their surrounding assailants seemed to have the same idea, whizzing out of the pinewoods before Rhys had a chance to rev up his thrusters.

It was not salvation that received their fleeing forms, however, but a suppressing volley of death, twenty-two cannons firing out in unison.

The sight that greeted the trio as they finally broke past was perhaps the most welcoming Rhys had seen that day. Bravo Flight in all its eleven fighter glory, trumpeting their arrival with another salvo of emerald laserfire. Old wingmates, present wingmates, and new. The gang was all here, whether in spirit or flesh, arriving to clear out what remained of the once-deadly crew of Sabaoth Squadron.

"I need visual," said one of the new arrivals, familiar in tone, atleast a klick away from them. "Where's the kriffing thing hiding?"

"Oh you mean that old warship, Vana?" the Toydarian piped up, humor once again found in his voice. "We put what's left of it out on display in the forest. I'd keep my distance though, wreckage is _-level's highly volatile."

"Reti?" came the second Bravo Flight pilot that day, her and the nearest ten N-1s jetting into view, sun beams bouncing off their reflective glare.

"And Bravo Ten and Cesta Four," Rhys chimed in, sure to use callsigns on the chance that Bravo Leader was listening in. "Good to hear from you again, Bravo Seven."

"Same to you," Vana responded, dry but welcoming, her turrets ripping into a passing Headhunter. "Don't know what the hell you were thinking when you decided to take these guys out on your own."

"I really didn't know either," Toba revealed, aligning his craft with its brethren. It was the first joke that Rhys could recall him making that day.

He offered a chuckle in return. "I'd say we did pretty well for ourselves, you're just here to clean up our mess."

And clean up they would. Despite Rhys and Toba's best efforts to do so beforehand, the dogfight had managed to lock itself to the village and its immediate surroundings. But with the combined forces of both Bravo Flight and Reti, the scope had near doubled in size - for the better, as Rhys quickly justified. The less ships soaring above the city, meant the less hulls cratering into citizen's homes.

Without his full acknowledgement the tables had begun to turn. Unrelenting tides replaced with meager resistance, scourings of cannonfire reduced to whimpers of defiance. Left disgruntled and without a leader, the surviving pirates were forced to dart here and there, lacking any organization in their flight patterns.

A crimson dot was soon found seesawing between his scanners, inevitably aligning itself with his target reticule. Turrets hummed hungrily in response, finally reverberating to life after being disabled all this time. His thumbs were left to float over the triggers, four months of killer's anticipation brewing inside of him. The scene was perfect. The swift action split seconds in the making. Even the opposition's pilot knew what was coming. Rhys spied the toad-like being within the craft, coughing and spurting as smoke engulfed his cockpit, desperately struggling with the controls, that cursed war cry no longer pouring from his lips.

One push of the trigger was all it would take. One push and he'd be free. Free from the enemy and free from his nightmarish memory.

And so it was.

With the trigger pulled another life was taken, and another craft vanquished, durasteel splintering in all directions as he sliced through the resulting cloud of flame. A triumphant cheer was given by all to greet the clearing clouds.

The battle was won.

---

Forgiving the Old

Part Five: Of Embraces and Reflection

Minutes Later

A slowly settling wind breezed over the starfighter's golden hull, just one of the many that now scattered the fields of Moenia City. As pilot and droid disembarked their craft, Wrench squealed an excited tone, it only just now occurring to the astromech why Rhys had specifically ordered Toba's N-1 to be the one firing upon the mercenaries - at first anyways.

"Hey, what can I say?" Rhys asked cheerfully, beginning to pull the droid free from its socket behind the cockpit. "They gunned her down at one point, so I figured it was only fair to return the favor."

A chuckle then greeted him as he tore away his flight helmet. "I guess I'm just a sucker for some poetic justice... "

Boots met water-laden turf a moment later, a joy-filled whoop elicited from the N-1 nearest to his. Panning his gaze, he was welcomed by the sight of his current wingmate bounding over to him, flight goggles bouncing around his neck as he went.

Receiving the arrival with a beam, Rhys then raised his hand to offer Toba a congratulatory high-five, the Gungan recoiling at the sight.

"Why yousa gonna hit me?"

"I'm... not," he found himself pausing, looking down at his palm. "It's a high five, you're suppose to slap it back when something good happens."

The Gungan's eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Whysa?"

"I..." Rhys paused, deep in thought for a moment. "Y'know what Toba? That's a damn good question. I don't know. It's just something we've always done."

Had the Gungan been gifted a pair of eyebrows, they would now also be furrowed in a bout of confusion.

"You landsiders doin' a lot of very strange things."

Rhys found himself smiling in response. A smile that quickly turned into a bout of good-natured laughter. His first real laughter in some many weeks.

"We sure are, Toba," he replied. "But hey, nothing strange about what we just did out there. That was some great shootin' and scootin' on your part, nice work."

A quick nod was all that was needed to say "thank you", though there was clearly still something on his counterpart's mind.

"Listen... Ima deeply sorry about that torpedo that almost hit you. I figured there was a shot where really there not bein' one."

"I should be the one apologizing to you, even with that miss you probably saved my ass three or four times out there..." Rhys responded, smile never wavering. "I let some preconceptions I had of your people control my judgement of you, as a pilot, and as a person. That was wrong. And coupling that with the boss deciding it was okay to let you fly someone else's starcraft..."

The Gungan perked up towards the end, eyes brimming with curiosity. "Whosa craft was this?"

Rhys paused, regarding the ship in question, chipped paint revealing months old scorch marks. "A... mentor's, I guess you could say. A very good friend as well, one that I let down..."

"Then that droid that launched was theirs..." Toba drifted off for a moment, eyes widening at the realization.

"Forget it," Rhys said, shrugging the statement off with a wave. "The thing was so old it was nearly rusted to that socket. Maybe it's good you ejected it when you did, it's lived a long 'life', a lot longer than I'd ever think it last."

The Gungan shook his head at the response. "Isa didn't deploy it."

Their gazes met again at the response, realization dawning on them both.

"You trying to tell me the droid decided to eject himself?"

An odd sort of silence greeted the pair after the question, then Toba finally nodded. "I think you have more watching your back than you think."

Rhys turned to him again, an enlightened grin on his face.

"Seems we both do."

---

Rhys Dallows

Personal Log

I still have nightmares of that escort mission.

But they've changed.

The rest of the day seemed to pass by in a blaze. Debriefings and medical checkouts and even a couple interviews with Moenia's local news. Everybody went to a cantina that evening to celebrate - the Swampy Lianorm. It's a nice place, pretty new as well. Just got financed as part of the reconstruction project after the Invasion. Sykes and Reti were both pretty adamant about it, "best kaadu steaks this side of Naboo".

Figures I'd end up getting sick.

We sat there and talked for awhile. Too long, I'd wager. Ended up sharing a lot of stories, Toba's "projectile-astromech" won them over pretty quick. Rumor has it the Queen's working to get the Gungans their own Squadron now, a new branch to the Royal Fleet. Everybody seemed to like that idea. It's weird, but I think I'm starting to like it too.

An emergency Holonet report came on about midway through dinner, apparently those thugs were after the Globe of Peace. Kind of ironic, really. It's about the same time that I realize those Taylander-class Shuttles weren't the first ones we saw that day. I tell Reti about it and he says it's probably just a coincidence. Makes me realize that wasn't my first talk about coincidence that day either. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

A couple hours later everybody finally decided to go home.

Well, most of us. I end up wandering back to the Hangar again... Just a quick check-up on things.

It was lonely in there when I came around, quieter than it's ever been. The N-1s are all snugged away in their alcoves, albeit slightly rearranged. Bravo Seven's got moved back down to the first floor, squeezed in right across from my mine. Just the sight of it is enough to make me start wondering about that day again. Well, readdressing it. It's always there, kind of lingers around in the back of my head now, waiting.

I think I'm starting to make my mind up on the whole thing. We're all going to have those moments, those times where we act or wish we hadn't. All of us. Whether it's me, Toba, Vana... Essara. Hell, even Reti. The thing is, no number of canyon runs or sims are going to prepare you for those moments. Even more, those little sayings, those dumb sound bites that the Flight Academy force feeds you aren't going to help either.

And yet I still find myself clinging to them. I'll think about them, try to apply them.

Maybe it's less about not letting your wingmate down, and more not letting them think you did.

Whatever the case, I decided it'd be a good idea to go back and chat up my instructors at the Academy, been awhile since I've to talked to any of those grizzled war vets. I don't tell them about what's up - that my nightmares have changed. We do end up talking, though. Keep it simple at first, everybody keeps telling me how prestigious it is to fly in Bravo Flight, I remember when I thought the same way. Then they start prodding a little deeper, listing off my assignments like I had my resume in front of them.

I got out of there before too long, wasn't interested in reliving any past experiences. But one manages to catch up again, a navigation officer, a crusty Bothan that I never liked very much. Turns out he had heard about what happened all those months back, says he's sorry. Before he leaves, he tosses out another one of those feel-good quotes, like it's going to give me some sort of epiphany while I'm soaring through rush hour.

Thing is, it might've worked.

When I close my eyes the nightmares come back. Except they're different. I'm the pirate and the entirety of Bravo Flight's my target. I'm the one chanting out war cries of vengeance. This is who I am now. I'm not some golden boy because I aced some flight drills and squeaked by in a couple exams. I'm the same as every thug, mercenary, or mindless drone the Trade Federation still manages to shove our way. There's nothing to split us apart, really. Not when we're up in the air. We both have fears and hesitations. And we both have killed, directly or otherwise.

Crazy as it sounds, I start twisting around the new line that Bothan gave me. When you know where to look, it's easy to find some truth in the Academy's lies.

So my nightmares have changed again - because I've changed them.

It starts out the same way. I put on that same helmet, battered and bruised, and shrug off Bravo Nine's constant teasing. Wrench spurts off some snark, and Bravo Seven shoots me a thumbs-up. I kick on the secondary thrusters, and glide back towards my position near the rear of the Queen's escort. Then I exchange one motto for the next:

"I forgive the old me, and embrace the new."

Let's just hope this one's better than the last.

End