In the fresher, Tabraile's arms trembled as he supported himself over the dirty sink and stared at himself in the mirror. Covered in sweat and grime, he struggled to keep from passing out on the floor. Slowly tilting his head back, he closed his eyes and poured the last of their emergency water ration over his face and hair to cool off. According to the thermometer, he was running a fever, but he knew his body temperature was elevated from sitting inside the cockpit of a TIE Advanced for six hours while the fierce sunlight of Greleus 9 recharged the solar panels to boost the fighter's power-starved systems.  

It was dumb luck to find a partially intact fighter on the perimeter of the base. The TIE Advanced had suffered a direct hit to its wing mount, which forced the fighter down into a controlled crash. Discarded as wreckage by the Imperials and scavengers that came after the occupation, the fighter's distinctive white paint had dulled to a steel gray. Time and the harsh environment had worn the craft down, draining what was left of its power and reserves.

His limbs were heavy with fatigue from five desperate hours picking through the wreckage of the shuttle to salvage parts to outfit and repair the fighter. He was at his breaking point. The insecure voices in the back of his head told him to simply succumb to fate and be captured, but he refused to be broken.

"Tabraile?" Anayera called from the other room.

Licking his chapped lips, Tabraile sighed. "I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine."

RK-O9's subdued whistle concurred with her concern.

Hands trembling, he opened the door and stared out at them. Anayera and the droid had taken shelter behind the blast doors as the last rays of the planet's white sun fell below the mountains, leaving only the shadows.

"Tabraile, please," Anayera whispered, gesturing for him to come closer. "Sit down before you fall down."

"The Rebels will be here soon." He felt her hands tugging at his tunic. Though he wanted to sit down beside her on the berth, tired as he was, Tabraile resisted. "I can rest when I'm sitting in the flight chair." He pulled the thermal blanket over her shoulders. "Still not sure how this is going to work. The TIE Advanced wasn't made for two people. It's going to be a tight fit in there."

RK-O9 whistled softly, pressing itself against Anayera's thigh.

"And we don't have enough boost to break out of orbit." Tabraile put his hands on his hips to control the shaking. "We're going to have to use the atmospheric elevator."

Anayera's stared at him incredulously. "You said it was designed for weather balloons?"

"It is, but the TIE will fit. Just barely. Once we clear the atmosphere, the engines, as they are, will break orbit and then the hyperdrive can take over."

"What if the Alliance sends fighters?"

He took a deep breath and exhaled. "We have enough power for the engines and shields."

"What about life support?"

"That's the tricky part. Helmets make great souvenirs for scavengers. I found one, but it's damaged. Had to jury rig it to make the life-support systems work. We'll have to share it."

"Share a helmet? While you're trying to dodge X-wings? Tabraile, don't be absurd."

"Have you got a better idea?"

"I actually do. It's called hibernation, a deep mediative trance. When I enter such a state, for brief periods of time, I don't not need to eat or drink. Breathing slows to a standstill."

He hesitated. "Is that safe?"

"Safer than passing a helmet between us." Anayera stood up, leaning on a rail, and brushed her hand across his forehead. "You asked me to trust you." She kissed him on the cheek. "Now I'm asking you to trust me."

Tabraile squeezed her hand. "Okay, let's do it."

                                                                     ~ ~ ~

Tabraile waited until his feet touched the flight chair and then lowered himself into the cockpit. RK-O9 was tucked on the floor of the fighter next to his right boot. Behind him, crammed behind the seat, Anayera wrapped herself in her cloak and leaned against the rear bulkhead. She was padded with blankets and anything else he could find to cushion the close quarters for her.

Beyond the viewscreen, a heavy-weight hydraulic lift held the TIE Fighter suspended by its wing pinions. The droid was poised to insert the fighter into the lift. Tabraile closed the upper hatch and hung on it so that his body weight could complete the seal. He didn't trust what time and the elements may have done to the environmental valves, but was reassured when the life support systems indicated a fully contained flight compartment.

"Yeah, I see them buddy," Tabraile replied to RK-O9. He scanned the sensors screen "Two Alliance dreadnaughts. They're not playing around."

He sat down in the chair and hit the flight toggles to prep the fighter. "This is the time to say we're surrendering peacefully." When he heard no response, he craned his neck over his shoulder to look down at her. "What's wrong? Second thoughts?"

"There's no turning back from here," she whispered, looking up at him with trembling lips.

"Copy that. If you're going to do this hibernation thing, now's the time."

After spending six hours in the sweltering heat inside the TIE's capsule with only a fan exhaust from the life-support system to sustain him, Tabraile was used to the oppressive heat inside the compartment, but he sensed a chill in the stale air as the cockpit grew ten degrees cooler. He watched the interior temperature gauges drop below normal and heard a muffled knock against the back of his chair. Again craning his neck over his shoulder, he saw her lying against the back of his seat with her head bowed.

"Ana!" Tabraile panicked. Perched in the seat on his feet, he checked her for signs of life. There were none. "Is this supposed to happen? Check her vitals."

RK-O9 responded in a series of melancholy whistles to acknowledge his question.

"Normal? What part of this is normal?" he argued with the droid's assessment. Tabraile checked the bandage about her waist. It was seeping with fluid. "Don't have much choice, do I? Okay, move us into position." He strapped himself into the five-point restraint harness as the fighter lurched forward in the hauler's transport cables.

Laboring under the weight of time and the fighter, the crane stuttered forward and pushed the TIE Advanced into the elevator tube before detaching from the wing pinions. "Sahsahlah," Tabraile said, kissing his right hand and taking the yoke. "RK-O, prepare to shunt all power to the engines. Thrusters at half." He pushed the grungy helmet over his head and wrinkled his nose at the musty odor as the environmental seals came online. "Cut life-support systems to zero and drop climate controls to 5%. Yes, it's going to get very cold. Just do it."

He listened adamantly to the mouse droid's report. "We won't need the weapons system. Divert that power into the shields. Might need them, depending on how hard they come at us. Stand by. This is where things get a little bumpy." Tabraile initiated start-up sequence for the elevator. The doors slammed shut and sealed the vacuum tube as powerful currents of air flooded the compartment. Batters by the current, the TIE Fighter shook as the lift launched.

The elevator was designed for ferrying cargo between the planet and the orbital observatory, not deploying fighter craft. His stomach dropped, and Tabraile felt the sensation of weightlessness as the TIE Advanced was catapulted upward at increasing velocity. The roar of the forced air driving them through the confined tube filled the entire cabin.

Teeth rattling, Tabraile closed his eyes. Slammed against the flight harness, he was lightheaded from holding his breath, all in vain hopes of saving his stomach. Remembering his breath training, he braced himself and stiffened his muscles to avoid unconsciousness.

When the lift doors shot open, momentum expelled them into the planet's upper atmosphere—95 kilometers above the surface. Rolling out of the shaft, the TIE Fighter gracefully dipped over the edge of the elevator and fell.

Tabraile activated the propulsion system. The cold engines ignited, causing a red glow to temporarily fill the cabin with light. "Engines at full, RK-O. Take them up."

Any insecurities or doubts that Tabraile had were supplanted by the resplendent view of the planet from the cockpit as the atmosphere dropped away and blended with the open horizon of space. But the picturesque scene was marred by two incoming capital ships. Tabraile's stomach dropped again, but not because of the g-forces.

RK-O whistled in alarm.

"I see them," Tabraile said, his voice digitized by the mask. "A Dauntless- and Liberator-class. That's a lot of firepower. Not to worry. All we need is a little wiggle room to activate the hyperdrive. If they want a piece of me, they'll have to earn it."

                                                                   ~ ~ ~

With his eyes closed, General Gireg Vannre stood on the bridge of the Dauntless-class cruiser Forbearance. A white scar from a tribal brand ran horizontally across his face. His black skin made him a defiant shadow in the harsh light of the cruiser's command deck. He tried to be like a shadow, quiet, unnoticed, as he breathed in through his nose and exhaled quietly through his mouth.

The frenzy of activity on the bridge was in sharp contrast to his calm. However, beneath the brown breast of his uniform, his heart beat wildly in anticipation. He had found her! Struggling to concentrate, he opened his eyes and prepared to reclaim one of the prizes stolen from him at the onset of the war.

"General," a technician said, "a single TIE Fighter has left the surface of Greleus 9 via the atmospheric elevator."

"An unusual deployment," Vannre said, wondering at the strategy. "Life signs?"

"Sensors indicating one pilot," she replied. "Your orders, sir?"

"I know she's here, possibly on that fighter," Vannre said. "Chief Rustin, open communications."

"Channel open, sir."

"Single TIE Fighter, this is General Gireg Vannre of the 9th Division Cavalry Strikeforce. I ask you to kindly stand down."

"Stand down? This is Captain Marric Tabraile, and I'd ask you to kindly get out of my way. I've got no business with you."

"I have reason to believe you are carrying a person of interest to me. Stand to and prepare to be brought aboard. No harm will come to you or your passenger."

"And if I decline?"

"I'll be forced to do what I must, which will endanger both of you. For her sake, please stand down."

"Sounds like you've made up your mind. So be it. Bey c'jaal." The channel went dead.

"Sir? There's one life form on that ship. Your daughter may still be on the planet," Rustin insisted.

"She's in that fighter. With him," Vannre replied.

"How can you be so certain?"

"He didn't deny it. Ready the tractor beams," General Vannre said. "Shields up. Captain Baku, I want that ship and its occupants. Unharmed."

"You heard the General," a Mon Calamari shouted. "Ready tractor beams. Shields up. All ion cannons, fire at will!"

It was a difficult feat for a capital-class ship to target a single small fighter, but numbers made up for accuracy as 500 ion cannons opened fired above Greleus 9. The TIE Advanced proved agility was better than accuracy by spiraling into the heavy barrage. Through a series of dangerous scissor maneuvers, it rolled erratically left and then spun to the right, dancing its way through heavy fire and down to the hull of the Forbearance where the dreadnaught's ion batteries proved ineffective.

Rustin and the majority of the bridge crew involuntarily flinched as the TIE spiraled out of a death roll and flew across the viewport of the command deck. Engines shrieking in defiance, the fighter missed crashing into the bridge by mere meters.

"A single fighter trying to take on a dreadnaught," Rustin said. "Crazy Imp!"

"Yet he's making a mockery of our ion batteries." Vannre chuckled, his dark lips curling into a thin smile of hope. "He's good. Too good for an Imperial."

"General, what did he say to you?"

"Bey c'jaal. Be well and be safe. It's Socorran, which explains this reckless bravado." Vannre took a deep breath. "Captain Baku, hail the Intangible. Scramble all fighter squadrons. No direct fire. Haunt him. Harry him. Force him into the ion cannons."

"I don't understand. What's he trying to do, General? He hasn't fired a single shot."

"He's not looking for a fight, Chief, especially one he can't possibly win. He's looking for breathing room, so that he can jump to hyperspace. Make certain he doesn't get it. My daughter's on that ship. Bring him to ground."

Eyeing the bridge screens, Vannre watched the TIE Fighter weave and dodge, artfully ducking across the dreadnaught's hull as a swarm of X-wings moved to intercept it. The pilot executed a sharp pitchback, and the fighter barreled up and over in a tight loop that brought it in direct line with a hangar bay.

"What's he doing? Is he coming in to land?" Rustin asked, perplexed. "All security personnel to docking bay alpha!"

The TIE Advanced flew into the bay at speed, narrowly avoiding the line of waiting X-wing fighters and equipment in the launch arena. Munitions crates were tipped over and scattered in its wake. The pilot showed a high-degree of mastery at the controls by slowing the engine from the void of space to artificial atmosphere. Utilizing the thrusters to evade dock personnel on the deck, he made a ninety-degree turn and banked into an auxiliary storage bay. Alliance soldiers fired their blasters at the craft, but the small weapons were useless against the shields.

"Get those X-wings to the back of the ship!" Captain Baku ordered. "He's going to make a run for it."

"No," Vannre said with a smile, "he's got all the room he needs and nothing to stop him." He watched as the TIE Fighter's engines glowed vibrantly.

"General Vannre? Is he really going to—" Before Rustin could finish the statement, the TIE's engines exploded in a blue miasma and propelled the fighter out of the bay. Colliding with an X-wing, the Imperial fighter began to roll uncontrollably and then vanished into hyperspace among the residual debris.

"Collision report?" Vannre asked, his smile fading.

"Debris suggests the TIE Fighter sustained catastrophic wing failure," Rustin reported.

"Chances of recovery?"

"Depends on how good a pilot he is and how far he's going, sir."

"Scan the nearest star systems," Vannre ordered. "Recall secondary squadron groups and dispatch primary teams in pairs to look for them. I've come too close to give up now."

"But General, they could be anywhere." Rustin pointed to the sensors report on the screen. "By the looks of that wreck, they could be in any number of pieces."

"If she were dead, I would know, Chief Rustin. I would know." The General stared into the empty void of space where the fighter had vanished. A piece of the TIE's solar panel drifted into space. "I need to find her before Jyaard does."