The cockpit of Paulen's ship was dominated by a sense of quiet anxiety as the four occupants braced themselves for what they might find at their destination. The trip to the Fondor System had been long and quiet, and Lucy had attempted to pass the time with Meditation, with frustratingly little success. There was simply too much on her mind for her to find peace.
Sitting beside her in the Pilot's seat was Paulen, who maintained a strong calmness as he kept an eye on the ship's instruments. Even with the Force, It was hard to gauge whether or not his confidence was genuine, or simply an act put on to reassure his passengers. Regardless, Lucy was willing to believe that Paulen was being sincere; he seemed like the type of man to be honest.
Behind them in the other two seats were Sarah and Tristain. The Force around them radiated with immense anxiety, even fear, as they idly inspected their weapons. Fondor was once their home; a home that they had been forced out of as the vast majority of their friends and allies were killed. Now Fondor languished under the boot of the Empire, the planet's vast shipyards cranking out ships for the very military that oppressed it.
The Jedi Code preached harmony, serenity, and peace; but Lucy found it hard to not share Sarah and Tristain's mindsets. The great darkness in the Force was blinding, choking, and it was hard to see the light through it all. The fact that she and Kyle were also responsible for inspiring a crackdown on Utapau, resulting in the enslaving of what was likely a great number of people... it was all that she could do to remain calm.
Feeling antsy and impatient, Lucy finally caved and asked the question that they were all thinking… "How much further?"
Paulen checked his instruments. "About ten minutes. I've programmed our jump to end outside of the normal step-off point. I'd put us closer to your satellite, but we'd risk colliding with the moon."
"We'll take safety over convenience," Sarah noted. "Tristain, anything on the comms?"
Tristain looked up from the backpack-mounted Old Republic comms set that he was tinkering with, moving his headset off of one ear to speak with them. "I've still gotten nothing from our satellite; we should assume the Outcasts told the Empire where it was... Let's hope they didn't decide to leave anyone to watch for any returning Rebels."
"What about Imperial Traffic?" Lucy asked. Thanks to the encryption keys that Paulen had found, and some joint work between him and Kyle modifying their comm set, Imperial Comms were currently more accessible to them than the Rebel ones were.
"Seems quiet," Tristain answered. "A lot of protocol and business being done on the shipyard nets, and nothing exciting on the command net either. Unless they somehow know we're listening to their comms, I don't think they're expecting company."
Sarah nodded as she took in the information. "Then with any luck, we can be in and out of here without a fight."
"Leave that to me," Paulen confidently stated, scanning over his console when a proximity alarm sounded. "Looks like we're almost there. Seatbelts on everyone, if the Empire's waiting for us, I'm not going to be able to get away from them by flying casually."
"What if they have an Interdictor?" Sarah asked, and Lucy stifled a groan of frustration. Of course this new Empire had their own Interdictors.
"I doubt it, they can barely afford to keep 'em up around Imperial Center. Too expensive to build and maintain, and they need 'em for the frontline," Paulen reassured her. "Assuming we do, we let them drag us in, and then Lucy can kill all of them, and we'll steal the ship."
"Good plan." Sarah nodded before Lucy could interject.
"I'm honored that you think I'm that good, but I'm no Hero of Tython," Lucy pointed out. "Those creatures back on Utapau nearly killed me, I don't think I'd do well against a whole ship's crew!"
"Let's just hope we don't have to put your skills to the test," Tristain commented, to which Lucy gave an approving nod.
Their discussion was cut short by Paulen, who spoke up as he reached for a control lever on his console. "We're here, standby..."
Paulen pulled the lever, and their ship returned to normal space on the outskirts of the Fondor System. Paulen immediately reduced the ship's power output to the point where even the lights in the cockpit dimmed. This was a part of the plan, as the Phi-class apparently had limited stealth capabilities, and avoiding a fight would be critical for their mission.
Fondor itself was visible from their position through the viewport, but appeared to be quite small because of their immense distance. Even so, the shipyards could still barely be seen, along with small dots that slowly glided around the massive structures. Judging by the apparent size of the shipyards, and the distance they were at, those dots were likely an entire squadron of Star Destroyers.
"There's a lot more than when we left..." Sarah mused as she looked back towards her former home, her tone dejected and quiet. "They're probably building more as well."
"Easy, Sarah, Focus," Paulen softly said, bringing her back into the present. "You said your satellite was orbiting Craster, right? That's the red moon?"
"...Right," Sarah confirmed, her voice still hollow as she spoke. "There's a few small settlements on the surface, but at least when we left there wasn't anything military. Still, there's probably a few patrols around the whole system, so keep us in the dark."
Paulen nodded, giving a quick thumbs up. "Can do."
With limited use of the ship's engines, they began the slow trip towards Craster. Four hours of miserable quiet passed by, interrupted only by the occasional light conversation, or by concerns that they'd been spotted. When they finally achieved a stable orbit over Craster, Paulen leaned forward intently, making small adjustments to their flight as they remained in low power mode.
"I'm not reading your satellite on passive scanners, and I'm not dumb enough to try the active ones," Paulen reported.
Tristain held up a finger to give himself an extra moment as he listened to the comm set, likely searching for the satellite, but shook his head. "It's gone then, I would have certainly heard the recovery beacon by now. The Empire must have found it."
"Then let's send our message before they come back," Sarah said firmly. "Tristain, patch us through to the old channel... let's see if anyone's still listening."
Lucy waited in silence as Tristain and Paulen worked in conjunction to establish the connection. Predictably, connecting Old Republic hardware to Galactic Empire systems was a substantial challenge, but, thanks to a bit of jury rigging, not impossible. After a few minutes of work, Tristain passed her the handset attached to the comm backpack. "You're on."
Sarah held her thumb down on the transmitter, breathing deeply before she spoke. "Cheyenne Relay, this is Lyon's Den. Do you read? Over."
An eerie silence greeted them in response. Ten seconds passed, then twenty, and then a minute. Sarah repeated her message two more times, each more urgently than the last. Lucy, Paulen, and Tristain remained silent, their own private doubts present, but unspoken for their leader's sake.
Finally, after two minutes of silence, a man's voice replied to them, a cautious optimism permeating his words. " Lyon's Den, this is Cheyenne Actual... Is that you Sarah?"
The tension in the air seemed to crack apart like ice in springtime as Sarah smiled, a single tear running down her cheek before she brushed it away. "Affirmative Cheyenne Actual... It's damn good to hear your voice, Charlie."
"Took the words right outta my mouth," Charlie said. "We thought you were dead, is your cell still active?"
"Barely, and not on Fondor anymore," Sarah answered. "I'll explain more later. I don't know how long we can maintain our position, we're in the Empire's backyard right now."
Charlie paused for a few moments, no doubt processing what she had said, before replying. "Sounds like we better be quick then, I'm listening ma'am."
"I need a new relay satellite, and some stealth-capable transports with enough seats for the Lyon's Pride... we're all that's left," Sarah explained quickly. "I know it's a lot to ask, and I know you had your own issues, but we're sitting on an opportunity to launch a massive prison break on Utapau."
Charlie was silent for a good few seconds before he replied, his voice quiet and soft. "...Is it really just your squad now, Sarah? What about your father? Is he..."
Lucy resisted the urge to flinch at the utter fury that spiked in Sarah's mind as she answered through gritted teeth, "He's dead. The Empire paraded his corpse through the streets after they beheaded him."
There was a moment of tense silence between all five of them, and Lucy was left wondering if there was anything she could do to help. But with surprising speed, Sarah calmed her nerves, breathed deeply, and continued to speak as clearly as she could manage.
"Things aren't looking good Charlie, and my team's not in great shape, but you know I wouldn't lead them into a suicide mission," Sarah stated. "We found a Jedi Charlie! She helped us get somewhere safe, and now she can help us hit the Empire where it hurts! I just need-"
"Alright," Charlie interrupted her, a noteworthy unease in his tone. "You'll get your satellite, and your ships, but I'll warn you now. We'll need this favor returned in the future… And probably sooner rather than later. Things haven't been great for us either."
Sarah's sigh of relief pretty accurately summarized Lucy's own feelings on the matter. "We won't let you down Charlie. Can you meet us at Rally Point Lookout? "
"Lookout?" Paulen spoke up for the first time, before Tristain silently gestured for him to be quiet.
"We can do that," Charlie confirmed. "I've got a pair of U-Wings I can send, but I'm short on pilots. I can send one and have an astromech ferry the second, but you'll have to find a man to fly it."
Sarah spared a brief glimpse at Paulen, before turning back to her handset. "We've got one on hand, the same guy who got us this Imperial Shuttle. We'll try to rig a friendly IFF tonight, so don't shoot us when we reach the rally point, got it?"
"Got it," Charlie confirmed. "I'll have your ships inbound in two days. Just remember, you owe me one, got it Lyons' Den?"
"Understood Cheyenne Actual," Sarah fell back into the typical comms disciplines with well-practiced ease, as though she had never left them. "We'll be in touch, out."
The line went silent, and Sarah returned the handset to the comm backpack as she fastened her seatbelt again. Paulen returned his attention to his instruments and set about returning them to action when a warning light began to blink on his console.
"What's that?" Lucy asked, although she was afraid that she already knew the answer.
"Passive warning sensor, that's gotta be an Imperial Patrol," Paulen answered, before flicking a pair of switches and examining the resulting readout. "Two strike craft, probably TIEs, heading right towards us!"
TIE Fighters. The term rang familiar in Lucy's mind, and she quickly remembered why. She and Kyle had been given some brief instruction by the Rebels on some of what was going on in the Galaxy. One of those lessons pertained to imperial Military units, and one of the most common of those was the TIE/LN Starfighter. It apparently served a similar doctrine to the Mark VI Supremacy Class Starfighters that the Sith Empire had fielded, and which Lucy had personally fought against. However, she had been in a small, nimble starfighter during those fights, not a shuttle craft which she wasn't even flying.
"Can we outrun them?" Sarah asked, echoing Lucy's own suggested strategy.
Paulen's expression had barely shifted from the calmness that he'd displayed earlier, and although Lucy could sense a strong conflict within him, the pilot's hands worked with a professional and practiced ease. "No, but we can fight."
"In a shuttle?!" Sarah demanded, looking at him as though he were crazy.
"In my shuttle," he corrected coolly, then barked, "Strep yourselves in!" He didn't bother looking to see if his crew were obeying or not, instead focused on the instruments before him as his hands danced over the consoles nimbly. He muttered under his breath, seemingly to himself, "Time for a dogfight..."
Paulen didn't wait for them to comply, gunning the throttle and causing them to rapidly accelerate as Sarah hastily put on her seatbelt. Lucy was pressed backwards into her own seat as Paulen turned on a dime, directing them towards the incoming fighters at a closing speed that only rapidly increased. In the distance, Lucy could see the pair of enemy fighters bearing down on them, with one trailing behind the leader's right flank.
"You're taking them head on?!" Tristain demanded, looking at Paulen like had gone crazy.
"Let him work," Lucy reassured him. As much as she had her own doubts about what Paulen was doing, she also knew that distracting their pilot wasn't going to do them any good.
The distance between their ship and the TIEs continued to close as Paulen reached for the trigger at far beyond effective range, without even having a target lock. With a steady hand, he fired three bursts of green laser blasts at the lead TIE, which was seemingly caught off-guard, and forced to roll out of the way. The TIEs blew past them on either side, the screeching of their engines momentarily audible as the wingman veered off from the game of chicken. Neither he nor the flight leader attempted to shoot back, seemingly more focused on avoiding being hit themselves. Given that Lucy had learned how they weren't very durable, this made perfect sense; a fighter with shields would've likely not been so sheepish.
The craft were rapidly heading away from each other, but Lucy could see on the sensors that the TIEs were quickly turning around to engage their rear. In response, Paulen pulled back on the stick and twisted them around, bringing them about in a surprisingly abrupt Immelmann turn. Lucy was pushed back into her seat as she watched out of the front viewport as Paulen prepared to engage the TIEs once more.
"Needed more speed... but now we've got it," Paulen noted as he locked onto the first TIE Fighter. The firing computer locked onto the target rapidly, and the wingtip guns spoke as they gimbaled onto the flight leader, firing a burst of bright green bolts as the TIEs returned fire.
Lucy watched as the shuttle's viewport was momentarily overtaken by green fire, burning away their deflector screens and forcing Paulen into a roll to evade further fire and certain destruction. His own shots were already fired, however, and through the now-clear viewport Lucy watched the first TIE Fighter detonate in a spectacular explosion. A few small pieces of debris clattered off of the shuttle's hull like metal rain as they blew past the wreckage.
"Nice work, but we won't survive another hit like that," Sarah noted, a restrained note of panic in her voice.
"We won't need to, we've got speed now," Paulen replied as they began another turn to merge.
Lucy watched on the ship's sensors as the last TIE Fighter mirrored their movements, preparing for one final clash before Paulen executed a roll mid-turn. Again, the TIE matched them, and suddenly Lucy could see his strategy. Rather than facing the enemy pilot head-on in a joust-like fight, Paulen would match them in a rolling scissors maneuver.
The distance closed and Lucy, Sarah, and Tristain waited with bated breath for the confrontation. However, Lucy noticed the same thing that Paulen had almost certainly planned for; their speed was now better than the TIE's. Again, Paulen locked the target, exploiting their now-superior speed to get the first shot off. He pulled the trigger, and the second TIE was blown apart in a great ball of fire.
Paulen let out a low breath as he continued to accelerate, turning to leave the system. "Scratch two. There's a few others on the long-range scanner, but we'll be gone by the time they arrive."
"Nice work!" Lucy complimented the pilot, causing him to smile with a small degree of pride. Still, she sensed a quiet solemnness in him, and pieced together why quickly. Less than a month ago, he had flown under the same banner as the two pilots whose lives he had just ended. It was an experience that Lucy had never known, and one she hoped she would never have to.
Sarah looked as though she were still having a hard time processing that they'd won. "...What kind of shuttle is this?"
"One designed in a Galaxy dominated by Headhunters and X-Wings," Paulen simply answered. In spite of his victory his voice was cold and stiff, the voice of a man grappling with his own internal struggles "We're clear of the moon's gravity well. Stand by for jump in three, two, one..."
Night had fallen over the Base on Verdant when the shuttle returned to the hangar. Lucy walked down the ramp to find Kyle and Peter were waiting for them to return. Naturally, it took about a third of a second before Kyle had her in his arms, hugging her firmly as he frantically spoke.
"I know you told me not to worry, but I couldn't help it," he said as Lucy gently hugged him back, recognizing that he needed reassurance. "Besides, it's not like I was the only one either. Peter was worried too."
"Yeah, but I wasn't losing my mind over it," Peter grumbled, before turning to Lucy. "I did my best to keep him busy while you were gone, but there's only so much you can do about that kind of anxiety."
"Thank you," Lucy replied. Admittedly, she'd known that Kyle was going to be anxious about her leaving, especially without him coming along. Even so, Sarah had been right when she mentioned her plans to escape if they had gotten boarded. While Lucy still wasn't sure that she would have been able to win such a battle, she recognized that as a Jedi Knight, she certainly stood a better chance of pulling off such a feat than anyone else.
Kyle's face reddened as he processed that everyone was staring at him, and sternly defended himself from Peter's teasing accusation. "You were in Imperial Territory, I had good reason to be worried!"
"He's not wrong, we ended up running into an Imperial Patrol," Sarah pointed out, before clasping Paulen on the shoulder. "But thanks to our pilot, we made it home just fine."
"I became a transport pilot partly to avoid dogfights, you know," Paulen noted. "...but it was nice to be reminded that I still have the skills."
"You did well," Sarah reassured him as she gave the man another pat on the shoulder, before turning to address Peter. "We managed to get into contact with Charlie, and he agreed to help us out. I want to discuss it with you tonight, at least briefly."
Peter nodded. "Works for me, we have a few things to show you as well."
Peter, Sarah, and Tristain quickly left. Paulen moved to walk away as well, before Kyle spoke up, his voice rich with concern. "You got in a dogfight?"
Paulen nodded. "We got attacked by two TIE Fighters. It was a little tricky, but it worked out in the end."
Lucy couldn't help but feel disheartened at just how shaky Kyle sounded, let alone how he felt through the Force. He was an anxious person by nature, but this kind of extreme worry was unusual even for him. Paulen seemingly noticed as well, looking at Kyle with a concerned look of his own as Lucy rested a hand on Kyle's shoulder, hoping to change the subject. "What has Peter been having you do?"
Kyle perked up a little bit at her words. "We've been going through the data from Major Dauphin's Code Cylinder, and we've found a lot."
Kyle led her and Paulen in the same direction the others had gone, where they found Peter and Val standing beside ED-3, who was using his holo projector to display an image of an Imperial facility to Sarah and Tristain.
The main structure itself was a brutish, ugly monolith; little more than a large duracrete cube surrounded by a perimeter wall. A series of sizable landing pads stood just beyond the wall, overlooked by a pair of watchtowers. Past the landing pads was nothing but vast and open grasslands, which would be very hard to hide in. There was a river visible at the edge of the hologram, but Lucy's attention was captured by the laser cannons mounted on the facility's roof.
"Shall we begin?" Peter asked as he looked at Sarah, who nodded her approval. "Kyle and I have been working on combing through the data we found on Major Dauphin's Code Cylinder, while Val and ED-3 have been trying to recover what we lost. Sarah has also just told me that Charlie's promised us some stealth-capable transports."
"If I may," Val interjected, and Peter nodded. "Our biggest concern is obviously the Star Destroyer in orbit, but now that we have the U-Wings, getting into the planet's atmosphere shouldn't be too much of an issue, so long as we keep our distance. The long-range scanners on a Star Destroyer are more concerned with ranging for the guns than anything else."
Peter nodded, and continued what he was saying. "In addition to the Imperial Encryption Keys, we've also found this, a complete map readout and garrison assignment of the Empire's Labor Camp on Utapau. As best as we can tell, this is the only facility of its kind on the entire planet, and is currently being flooded with the civilians who were arrested during the sweep of Pau City that was happening as we left."
Lucy felt a pang of guilt, but swiftly buried it. She couldn't afford to get distracted now. Kyle however, seemed to be having more difficulty, his mind a veritable storm in the Force. Lucy discretely took his hand into hers, and gave it a reassuring squeeze as Peter continued to speak.
"The prison's garrison is substantial, we can expect to find a lot of Army regulars, backed up by Stormtroopers. The Empire also uses Sentinel Shuttles to ferry the captured civilians to the Labor Camp, which with any luck, we can use to evacuate the slaves once we free them. There's also a pair of Occupier Tanks which they use as cargo transports, and we can expect to have to destroy them."
ED-3 added holographic examples of the occupier tanks to the display. Much like the building itself, the vehicles were brutish; they were short and angular, used tracks instead of repulsorlifts or wheels, and featured forward-facing laser cannons.
While Lucy was busy inspecting the vehicles, Peter continued. "The prison is equipped with mid-range scanners and an array of anti-aircraft laser cannons. Val, do you think there's any chance that we can secure a landing within the prison complex?"
Val immediately shook her head. "Not a chance. U-Wings don't have the firepower to suppress a whole gun battery, and at that close range the scanners could probably overpower the stealth systems."
"And I hadn't even gotten to the planet's TIE Garrison yet..." Peter grumbled, clearly in deep thought. "In that case, we'll have to go to the backup plan, and find enough firepower to break our way in on the ground. Fortunately for us, the Empire has a Weapons Development Facility right next door to the Labor Camp. It's about a five kilometer walk, and from what we can tell, the Empire uses the slave labor to build their weapons."
ED-3 zoomed the hologram out to show that across a bridge on the river and down a winding dirt road was a second Imperial compound. Unlike the Labor Camp, this facility was largely open to the air, although it too was surrounded by a high-standing duracrete security wall. A pair of watchtowers manned opposite corners of the facility, and within the wall were a dozen small structures, along with a large scaffolding erected around what looked like a giant humanoid being.
"Is that a statue?" Lucy asked, her mind immediately drawn back to one of the most defining elements of the Sith: vanity . Across their temples, academies, military bases, and even their cities, the Sith were happy to erect massive monuments to their own grandeur. Admittedly, the Jedi had also also been prone to displays of vanity in Lucy's time, and she wasn't sure if that had changed for the better or the worse while she'd been gone.
"...I guess it does kind of look like one. But no, what you're looking at is a next generation Imperial battle droid," Peter answered. "If what Kyle and Val found is accurate, it's got the armor and armament of an entire tank company; laser cannons, missiles, defensive countermeasures, energy shields, and probably more, since the Major's Notes were incomplete."
"By the Force, look at the size of that thing!" Sarah commented. Lucy couldn't help but agree with the woman's astonishment; as best as she could tell by the surrounding structures, the droid was probably a little over twelve meters tall. "Even Glade's launcher wouldn't put a dent in that thing..."
"With any luck, we won't have to fight it," Peter interjected with a smile. "Val, Kyle, and I have put together a plan... we steal it."
Sarah blinked, a look of sheer disbelief on her face, before she turned to Val. "...Could it work?"
"Droids aren't my area of expertise, but I don't see why not," Val answered before gesturing to Kyle. "You're better off asking him. He'd be handling the programming side of things."
Kyle sheepishly stood up in response, and ED-3 provided a larger holographic display of the droid in question. "To answer your question... maybe. The Major's notes refer to this droid as being a technology test bed, likely for a related battle droid program. We can expect to find it with a few of its components either disfunctional or removed, and we know for certain that there's a major issue with the Friend-or-Foe identification system."
Sarah shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. "You want us to steal a broken, dangerous droid?" she asked, exasperation being the only thing that managed to outweigh the incredulity in her tone.
Lucy felt a sense of severe annoyance flare up as she glared at Sarah, but bit her tongue and let Kyle reply. Shaky or not, she knew that he could stand up for himself. "I'm getting to that. For starters, this thing has enough firepower to outgun more or less anything the Empire's able to throw at us, including their TIE Fighters. Even better, the Empire might be hesitant to destroy it. They've put a lot of resources into this droid, and losing it could severely hurt their research."
Sarah nodded, her scrutinous expression slowly lightening up. "And how do we plan on stealing it? Can we remote control it somehow?"
"No, but thankfully, Val had a better idea," Kyle answered, before turning to ED-3. "We're going to copy Eddie's personality matrix, and modify it for use in a battle droid."
Lucy spared a glance down at ED-3, and admittedly, couldn't help but be a bit excited at the idea of her little buddy having a twelve-meter tall armored killing machine for a little brother.
"That's admittedly the part of the plan I'm not so confident about," Peter interjected. "Putting aside the technical difficulties of putting astromech firmware thirty-six hundred years out of date into a cutting-edge battle droid, this is a plan that doesn't have any room for failure. Nothing else being tested at the research facility has the firepower necessary to break that prison open, and if the best we're getting for support is a few U-Wings... there's a very good chance that this isn't going to work."
Lucy moved to speak up at the same moment Kyle did, but Sarah caught them off guard by beating them both to the punch.
"We have to try," she declared, speaking with a firm tone. "I'll run over everything myself and see if we have any better options, but even if we don't find any, we're still going in. Besides, in a worst case scenario... the Empire's still going to have to build themselves a new battle droid, and we can get out the same way we came in."
There was a moment of quiet, then the assembled group shared a collective nod. Lucy sensed a shared hesitation as well, but like with before, none of the Rebels showed any signs of wanting to back out of the fight.
Sarah smiled, the expression soft and filled with pride. "Then it's settled. Kyle, gather up whoever and whatever you need to get that droid under our control. Peter, Tristain, I want to discuss backup strategies with you. Everyone else? Get some rest, we're not letting go of Utapau without a fight."
"Yes ma'am," Kyle replied, before turning to head for the hangar door. ED-3 switched off his hologram and followed along, and Lucy was about to join them before she felt a hand clasp her shoulder.
"Lucy?" Sarah prompted looked fidgety, nervous almost… like she was worried about how Lucy would respond to what she was about to say. "You know Kyle a lot better than any of us do. Do you think he can handle this?"
Lucy paused, wondering how she should reply. While she had faith in Kyle's abilities, she also recognized that he was starting to crack. He didn't have a lifetime of Jedi Training to calm himself like she did. "I think so, it's just... He blames himself, the crackdown was part of our plan to get into contact with you. We couldn't think of any better ideas, and we didn't know what to do, but-"
"Lucy," Sarah said her name again, this time more firmly as she squeezed her shoulder. "Can you handle this?"
It didn't take even a moment's thought for Lucy to find her answer. "Yes."
"Good," Sarah affirmed. "Neither of you should be blaming yourselves, this is the Empire's fault. They don't just enslave people on Utapau, they do it on Kashyyyk, on Ryloth, and on tens of thousands of other planets. You two might have been the ones to stir the Empire up on Utapau, but you're also going to help us hit them where it hurts and set those people free."
Sarah's words echoed in Lucy's mind for a moment. While it was terrible to be reminded about the current state of the Galaxy, it was also a relief to know that Sarah didn't blame them for what had happened. "Thank you."
"I've left people behind too, Lucy. Sometimes civilians, sometimes my own men," Sarah added, her voice carrying a solemn weight behind it. "But we're at war. We're going to suffer losses, and there will be casualties. Whenever you're feeling those doubts, just remember, we're not the reason that any of this is happening."
Lucy had to force herself to nod. She knew that Sarah was right, but that didn't mean that she had to like it. "I just wish it wasn't necessary."
Sarah's momentary silence spoke volumes. "Me too," she finally answered, her voice softer than a whisper. Her eyes were distant, memories playing heavily in her mind for a moment. Then she blinked, seemingly clearing her thoughts, and offered Lucy a reassuring nod.
Then, without another word, Sarah turned on her heel and marched away, leaving Lucy to her own thoughts.