It's hard to lose control of a life that you've fought all your life to gain control of. That's what's happened to me, and I hate it. Maybe that makes me a control freak, but then so be it. That's what I am.
I figure it's because of the turns my life has taken, everything seemingly always out of my control. So control became everything, became important, became essential, starting on the day my world was destroyed. Alderaan and all that I knew disappeared in the blink of an eye, the victim of an Emperor hungry for power and domination. Some time later, I became the target for a fledgling New Republic's paranoia, and nearly lost not only control of my career, but my very life itself! They wanted to convict me of treason, and execute me. Me! A loyal son of Alderaan, who had more cause than anyone to hate the Empire. If not for friends who stood by me, helped to clear my name, I would have been shot. And my best friend, Wedge Antilles, who was the most determined of all to clear my name and save me, stood steadfastly by my side. It's been more than a year since his untimely death, and I still miss him.
Of course, the same career choice that nearly cost me my life a hundred times over also made me the man I am now. I realized my dream of being a pilot, racing through the stars, and I made a difference in so many parts of the galaxy. It brought me adventure, promotion, friends that have lasted a lifetime, and eventually even marriage and a child. I survived far longer than I had any right to as a Rogue, and so did my closest friends. We flew together, enjoyed life together, bonded together in a way that can never be broken--in life, at least. We shared happy and sad times, we fought against terrible odds and survived. We celebrated victories, and mourned lost comrades along the way.
However, as with most pilots of the New Republic, eventually you get too old for it. You get shuffled into slower and safer duties, training the next generation, and the next, until you suddenly realize that you're no longer as essential as you once were. Then retirement, that once seemed so improbably and far away, suddenly looms before you. You get a golden chrono for all your years of sacrifice, and you unaccustomedly find yourself on the outside looking in.
The upside to it all, of course, is that you now have time to spend with the family who's suffered through your long absences and feared for your safety. You now get to indulge your interests, hobbies, and enjoy the relaxation that doesn't come easy to an old soldier. It's hard to leave the fighting behind, to find the peace that you've fought for an are supposed to enjoy in your golden years.
And, you know, one day I realized that old age was something I never really dwelt on as a pilot. We're a superstitious lot, afraid that if you think about or make plans for your future, you'll automatically jinx it. But then you survive mission after mission, reach desk duty, retirement, and your age quickly catches up with you. As do all the aches and pains, gradually graying hair, that slow spread around the middle that you can't avoid no matter how many abdominal crunches you do. And before you know it, your children are growing into adults, and you take on roles that you never thought you would get the chance to. You're a mentor to other generations, an old and trusted friend to people you've known for thirty years, a partner to a wife who's put up with you for longer than you deserve.
The greatest shock of all, though, is when it all comes crashing to an unexpected end. Just when you finally think 'I've survived, I'm safe, I can enjoy my life,' fate comes into play and takes it all away. It starts with a cough, that just won't go away. You think you've caught a bug that's being stubborn, so you fight it and go on. Then pain in the abdomen and chest, and you think you've pulled a muscle from all that coughing. But one morning, you can't get up, and you feel weak, and you don't know why. Your wife convinces you, the terrible patient and procrastinator that you are, to see a doctor. A battery of tests follow, and then you're sitting in front of a doctor who tells you that you have a disease that will more than likely kill you within a year.
Sith, I survived the death of my planet! I escaped a run on a Death Star that killed ninety percent of the pilots around me. I managed to scrape through an undercover mission to Imperial Center only to be tried for treason for my trouble. In a squadron that counted dead pilots by the dozens, I endured for more than a decade. When the Yhuzong Vong wiped out half of our known galaxy, I managed to come out the other side and make a life for my family. But now my own body is betraying me, and there's nothing I can do. It's the ultimate loss of control, and a poor way for a Rogue to go.
Battles are nothing new to me, though, particularly hopeless ones. So I did what I usually do--I put up a tenacious fight. I struggled through treatments that had worse side-effects than the symptoms of the actual disease. There were a lot of sleepless nights and horrendous mornings. My friends, both close and far, rallied around me to offer love and support. My wife and child were my center, my rock, an anchor for those times when I felt the urge to give in to despair. But somehow I knew it wouldn't be enough, that the control would slip and I would lose this battle. Even so, I've outlasted even the most optimistic timeframe of the doctors. They expected me to be dead more than a year ago.
Of course the ironic thing is, that I really thought I would be the first of us, the old time Rogues, to die. Wes suffered through the loss of his wife, but soldiered on with his shipping business and his daughter. Hobbie and his wife settled with his plants, and he enjoyed success as a writer and now a businessman. What Corran went through with the Vong--I don't know how you come out of something like that and be as strong as he is. But it was Wedge... He shouldn't be dead, it should be me that died that day. He had so much to live for, years of peace and family ahead of him. Life just isn't fair.
Now it's my turn. I know I don't have long, and I'm kind of glad. My family is suffering, and I don't want them to. And I've had a rough existence, to put it mildly, with enough horrors for several lifetimes. There's been far too much pain in my life. I've always soldiered on, though; always fought for life. But now I'm done, I have no more fight left in me, only this disease that steals my strength and leaves behind agony that no medication can mask. It's a battle I just can't win, and I'm not sure I want to. I'm done with it. I just want to go quietly and let my family be at peace. I want to be at peace.
Just peace...