"Stang, now I'm gonna have to buy feed until that grows back. Gonna have to take out another loan." Jed grumbled.

"You think it was Rollag?" Greene's face was covered in soot and embers had burned a few holes in his clothing.

It had to be Rollag's thugs. Grass didn't just spontaneously combust, and there hadn't been a hint of lightning for a week.

"No doubt. Renda and Luke can feed and water the nerf tomorrow, you and I are going to go to town and give Rollag a talking to. Might even have to get the authorities involved." Jed was positively furious.

"No. You don't have to bloody yourself." Greene said.

"What do you mean?" Jed looked at him quizzically.

"You're not a killer, you're a good man, and I don't want you getting hurt." Greene put his hat back on.

"And you are a killer?"

"They made me one."

"Who's 'they'?"

Greene hesitated a moment, not sure whether he should tell Jed about who he had fought for during the war. He decided Jed deserved to know the truth.

"I was with the 501st legion, the personal troops of Lord Vader."

Calling him "Lord Vader" instead of "Darth" seemed to be an easy way to identify former Imperials. Greene knew the man had been dead for eight years, but the way he had carved through a whole battalion of men on Hoth like they were nothing still haunted Greene's memories and dreams.

Jed looked back at Greene one last time before he started making his way back to the house. Obviously the revelation had startled Jed, having named his son after a Rebel hero he would be one of those beings that still hated any reminder of the Empire. Greene half expected Jed to contact the authorities so they could drag him off and put him on trial for war crimes.

Greene knew what he was "supposed" to do. He'd seen the holos and heard the stories. He was "supposed" to confront Rollag and his men, then have a heroic duel at sundown, and that would be the end. But such things were for Jedi and melodramatic fools. The age of heroes was long over.

Greene dug through the chest, and strapped on his gun belt. He also pulled a spherical, metallic object from a pouch that had been hidden deep within his pack. He slipped it in one of the pockets of his jacket. He took the speeder bike, and headed towards the town. The mansion was dark, except the basement windows.

"What are you doing here?" It was Dax, walking up the path that lead to the small town.

"You burned the pasture, didn't you?" Greene clenched his jaw.

"Yeah, figured Jed could use some more persuasion, since you declined our offer. By the way, I heard an interesting rumor about you."

"What's that?" Greene reached through a false pocket on the left side of his jacket and flicked the switch on his blaster.

"You were a Stormtrooper."

"I was, 501st." Greene gripped the sleek Westar blaster. He knew what he was about to do would definitely be considered fighting dirty, but he didn't care.

"Well I-" Whatever Dax was going to say, it was cut short by a bolt from the blaster Greene drew through the false pocket.

Shouts could be heard from the windows in basic and Huttese. That was where Rollag's crew must have been quartered. Greene still didn't know who Rollag was, but the dwelling wasn't nearly ostentatious enough to be the home of a Hutt. He drew one of his blasters, the heavy DL-44, and took the thermal detonator in his other hand. A single bolt from the blaster shattered the old fashioned glass window, where one from the Westar would've just punched a clean hole, and Greene lobbed the grenade in. The noises coming from inside got a lot louder. He had ten seconds to leave. Greene jumped on the speeder bike, and went full throttle, before swerving to take cover behind a large rock.

He saw the flash before he felt he shockwave and heard the blast. His ears rang, and he felt as if he had been hit in the chest with a hammer. He hadn't felt anything like that since he had been wounded on Hoth. But he was alive, and the mansion had collapsed, just as he had planned. Perhaps it wasn't necessary, perhaps Jed could've made a deal, or left to try his luck on Tatooine. But Rollag could've just kept expanding until he choked out the entire region.

Greene made it back to the farmhouse just before dawn, and knocked on the door. Jed appeared, wielding an ancient wood stocked blaster rifle. Greene had seen Rebels armed with anything they could get their hands on, but he got the feeling that even the most desperate of them would've turned up their noses at such a weapon.

"Oh, it's you." Jed lowered the weapon. He had dark circles under his eyes.

"Rollag won't bother you anymore." Greene hooked his thumbs into his belt.

"What did you do?"

"You'll find out soon enough. Tell the authorities who did it, I'll be long gone."

"I don't think so, Lieutenant Rargren Rokowuff." An unfamiliar voice came from the darkness behind them. "Drop the blasters."

He hadn't heard his own name in years. Greene turned around in shock to see a figure clad in mismatched armor, with a raised blaster. Greene would be dead if he made any sort of sudden move, so he unbuckled the gun belt and let it fall to the ground. A bounty hunter. But why was he here? Jed had turned him in, obviously. That realizationhurt, he thought Jed was his friend.

"I was a Lieutenant for a day before I deserted. How much did they pay, Jed? How much?" Greene was positively furious.

"Enough to keep my head above water. I'm sorry. I lost a lot of friends that joined the Rebellion." Jed looked down.

"Who do you work for?" Greene turned to the bounty hunter.

"A wealthy Alderaanian with a grudge he can't let go of."

"Fair enough. But I've already been punished enough for my time with the Empire."

"How? Spend a year in a prison camp?" The bounty hunter said.

"Non-humans on Myrobac were forced into slavery for the most minor offenses. Lots of the humans didn't like that, but the Imperials had blasters and they didn't. I deserted, en route to Endor after I got commissioned. They hid a lot from the troopers, but becoming an officer showed me how rotten the Empire was."

"You still killed in the Emperor's name." The bounty hunter's voice had a grating electronic modulation provided by the angular helmet.

"There was a woman, Redli. She waited for me, for four years. We got married the day after I got back, things were fine for a month, but then the garrison left. It was chaos, there were riots, looting, and reprisals of all sorts against Imperial collaborators. Someone let it slip they saw me arriving in my blackcap uniform." Greene clenched his jaw, which was a nervous tic he'd had for years. "Her father, her own father, decided that by marrying me she had brought dishonor to her family name." Greene's voice shook.

"So? Wrap it up I haven't got all night Rargren." The bounty hunter seemed agitated.

"In isolated societies like Myrobac, honor is everything. They made me watch when they did it, when they killed her. Then they beat me halfway to death and left me tied to a tree, to starve or die of thirst. An old woman who felt sorry for me cut me free, and I stole a ship to get away from that forsaken rock. So tell me Jed, do I still deserve more? Do I?" Burning tears were flowing down his face now.

"I- I didn't know, I'm sorry." Jed seemed to be trying hard to keep himself from looking Greene in the eye. "But I can't lose the farm."

Greene shouted a curse in Myrobacci, which loosely translated into basic as "May you die young with no one to mourn for you" and spit in Jed's face. The last thing he heard was the familiar sound of a stun blaster. There was no happy ending, no flying off into the sunset. Greene had two regrets in his life now, joining the Empire and standing up for Jed.