A controlled landing was pilot jargon for a recoverable crash. Tabraile's head ached, his neck stiff from the impact of bringing the damaged TIE Advanced to the ground ninety meters outside of an Imperial field hospital. Crippled in the collision with an X-wing, the fighter was then hit twice by turret fire from the Imperial base before radio communications could be established to clear their approach.  

"RK-O, get out of here." As smoke filled the cockpit, he leaned over the flight chair and examined Anayera's face. Still unconscious, she was bleeding from a cut above her eyebrow. Suffering a pang of regret for that, he picked her up, balanced himself on the console, and hauled her on his shoulder as he climbed out the of the ruined TIE Fighter.

Blaster fire erupted around them. Using the misaligned solar panel as cover, he embraced Anayera in his arms and slid down the flight capsule into a waiting squad of stormtroopers. Four of them took Anayera from him and laid her on a gurney strapped to the back of a troop transport. The driver covered her face with a blanket as a grenade went off nearby.

Tabraile snatched the blaster from its holster and fired at a group of militia soldiers encroaching on the hospital. "What the hell's going on here?"

"Local faction of Rebs from a town called Sanctuary," replied a stormtrooper. "They make it a habit of attacking Imperial bases here on Talus."

"Where are your commanding officers?"

"Dead or hiding. Right now, you're the only black cap on the field."

Tabraile ignored the slur. "Your designation?"

"RM-5371, sir."

"Reinforcements?"

"We called for help from the Imperial Garrison, but they never arrive in time. The Rebels are good at hit, destroy, and run before our forces can maneuver into place."

"So what's the plan to keep the base?" Tabraile fired a shot and took down a Rodian, who was setting up a T-21 rifle.

"We hold the line, Captain. You can go with your passenger or stay with us. We could use a good shot. If things get real bad, head to the bottom of the hospital. That's where we'll make our last stand."

"Hold up a minute." Tabraile tucked RK-O9 under his arm and ran after Anayera's gurney. He laid the mouse droid beside her and covered them both with the blanket. "Keep her safe." Turning back to the stormtrooper, he asked, "Where do you need me?"

"You flyboys seem to be pretty handy in the turrets. Head on up there. We'll cover you."

Tabraile ducked down low along the field hospital's security fence and sprinted toward the turret tower. Tufts of scored earth and scorched grass flew into the air as blaster bolts hit the ground where he ran. He threw himself over the burned-out wreck of a speederbike to avoid a grenade and covered his head and ears to protect himself from the blast before resuming his desperate sprint.

Four sentinel towers protected the base as its first line of defense, but only two of the turrets were operational. Tabraile trotted up the stairs to the top of the structure. He ducked under the big guns as a blaster bolt nearly took his head off. Missing most of his helmet and his face, a dead gunner was slumped over the firing controls. Tabraile dragged the body from the console and stepped inside the mount to take aim.

Modeled after the E-WEB Emplacement gun, the turret was powerful, causing his hands to go numb from the recoil. Adjusting his grip and his shoulders to absorb more of the shock, Tabraile settled into the harness and fired. A dozen Alliance soldiers, who thought they had incapacitated the big gun, were caught in the blast. Three remaining stragglers retreated into the shadows.

The Rebels were well-organized for a civilian militia and well-equipped with an arsenal of heavy weaponry. An explosion rocked the neighboring tower. Tabraile turned to see the only other gunner being blasted into the rear wall. His corpse was crushed and crumpled in the violent impact then blown through the viewport. Black smoke rose from the structure, and subsequent explosions caused stress fractures to fissure through the duracrete.

Tabraile spotted the responsible Rebel carrying a rocket launcher and fired onto the Trandoshan as well as the assortment of defenders guarding him. The resulting blast left a wide, black crater in the turf with corpses inside it.

Retaliation was swift. Hurried into position, a Wookiee took a knee and fired a rocket at his tower. Tabraile felt the structure shift on its foundation as the projectile struck the duracrete. It penetrated the reinforced stone, but did not explode. Staring down at the fuselage, he fired a wild shot that took out an incoming transport and quickly retreated.

He ran by the jutting nose of the rocket and threw himself down the stairs as the delayed explosion shattered the base of the turret. Narrowly escaped, Tabraile leaped the final flight of stairs and out the door. The fallen tower leaned forward and collapsed to the resonant cheering of the insurgent rebels.

"We're overrun!" RM-5371 yelled. Helping Tabraile to his feet, he turned to the other stormtroopers. "Fall back to your final protocol positions!"

"Any word on those reinforcements?" Tabraile asked.

"This is how it goes on Talus, Captain. We're on our own." The stormtrooper fired a successive volley of shots as the Rebels pressed their defenses. "Take your passenger down to the bottom of the base. We'll hold them off as long as we can."

Tabraile sprinted into the base. Following the signs to the med bay, he found a medical droid administering a bacta treatment to Anayera's injury. From a quick scan of her vitals, he could tell that she was in stable condition.

"RK-O, get down to the bottom of the base and send out a priority distress call. Yes, use her name!" he snapped. "That should get someone's attention!"

He wrapped Anayera in blankets to keep her a warm and carried her in his arms. With the field hospital's lights winking on and off, he did not trust the power to the lifts and ran the four floors to the bottom of the base. Scores of stormtroopers rallied around him and took up defensible positions in the corridors.

"RK-O, did you reach anyone?" Swearing under his breath and panting, Tabraile listened to the droid's report. "What do you mean no one's answering?" He laid Anayera on the floor near a security terminal.

"The Rebs might have hit the outpost, too," RM-5371 said. "They do that when they're trying to send a message." The stormtrooper glanced down at Anayera. "If she's important, Captain, they might not kill her. They might negotiate terms and keep us alive as hostages."

As explosions rocked the hospital above them, the Imperial stormtroopers held their positions with blast rifles trained on the corridor, but it was a lost cause.

"Stay with her," Tabraile said. "Do not leave this floor. That's an order."

"Captain, what do you intend to do?"

Tabraile knelt down beside Anayera. Feeling beneath the blankets, he unclipped the lightsaber from her belt. "Something I swore I'd never do again." Igniting the lightsaber, he stared at the crimson hue it cast on the walls and then proceeded up the ramp toward the surface.

                                                            ~ ~ ~

His uniform was torn and smeared with soot. It reeked of death and reminded Tabraile of the night he piloted a wily basebuster and her Sith escort across the planet Naboo. He shrugged out of it and into a white shirt he found in the barracks. He was still cold, trembling, and slipped into a black flight jacket that he was thrown over the back of a chair along with the shirt.

Sitting on the edge of a maintenance grate on the floor, he swung his legs absently against the metal and stared into the darkness below. There were feelings that were worse than death, and he was on the brink.

Anayera stirred from the floor beneath him. RK-O9 whistled encouragement to her as she slipped an arm from beneath the blankets and rubbed at her eyes. "RK-O9?" She sat upright in terror and felt for her lightsaber, but it was not within physical reach.

The hilt of the weapon was jutting from a smashed control panel on the far side of the room. Shattered, black glass gripped the lightsaber as sparks leaped from the ruined circuitry board.

Operating on auxiliary power cells, the terminal played footage on a security loop over the remaining screens. She watched as enemy soldiers swarmed the field hospital's meager defenses. "Rebels attacked the field hospital? Are we prisoners—" Her questions fell to the quiet of static discharge.

Though outnumbered by the Rebels, the Imperial stormtroopers fought back and mounted a counter charge in the surveillance loop. They were led by a familiar figure in an Imperial officer's uniform. He was wielding a crimson lightsaber in his hand. The bodies of Rebel soldiers told the tale.

"Tabraile, you did this?"

"I didn't have much choice." Tabraile's voice was cold, distant.

Anayera scanned the security footage in disbelief as it looped back across the damaged monitors. "I sensed a darkness inside you, but my uncle said I was mistaken. That night on Dantooine when you deflected the flower pot? I knew." She carefully got to her feet. "You suppress it so well, but you no idea of the danger you're in if this is discovered. Why would you join Empire?"

"It was the one place I could hide in plain sight and still do what I love. Flying."

"Why would you need to hide and risk your freedom? Your life?"

"I killed my brother." He stared at her. "Didn't have much choice then either."

"Tabraile?" She put her hand on his shoulder, but he recoiled from her.

"Don't ... touch me," he cried, struggling to breathe. Hands balled into fists, he drove them into the metal grating until his knuckles cracked and bled. "I swore I'd never touch a lightsaber again, and I haven't. Until now. Yates was right about all my reckless adventuring. Sastár milel ri'mhd."

"Tabraile, you're not making any sense."

"It means happily ever after." He buried his face in his hands and then nervously ran his bloody fingers through his hair. "But there's no such thing. Not for me. Not for my family. Not for you, if stay around me. It's a lie."

Anayera sank down in front of him. She rolled up her sleeves to reveal the scars on her wrist. "The one person that I should have trusted, I betrayed. Myself. Do not make the same mistake." She wiped a tear from his cheek as he looked down at her. "We all carry lashes given to us by someone we trusted."

Tabraile fell to his knees and embraced her. He held her so tightly that he feared she might break, but he could not help himself. At that moment, Anayera was his only light in a starless sky that was collapsing on top of him, smothering him beneath the weight of his guilt and shame.

"Captain!"

Startled by the call, Tabraile swung his hip and drew his blaster in one fluid motion. Anayera extended her hand toward the lightsaber. It flew into her grasp and ignited, bathing the room in a crimson glow.

"Whoa!" RM-5371 held his hands up in surrender. "Captain, just wanted you to know reinforcements are inbound. Your droid's message got through to the outpost, and all hell's breaking loose." He removed his helmet and revealed the face of an older man with closely cropped gray hair. "You must be somebody really important, ma'am."

Tabraile did not lower his blaster. "I can't let them find her, RM-5371."

"Copy that, captain. You won't get any grief from me. My entire platoon is dead. Thanks to you, I'm alive. That's a sign. I'm calling this my retirement party."

"How long before reinforcements arrive?" Tabraile climbed up the floor-level grating and took RK-O9 from Anayera before helping her up behind him.

"Ten minutes. I don't supposed you have an escape plan that would allow an old stormtrooper to tag along?"

"We're headed to Kor Bha'lir. Beyond that is need to know," Tabraile said. "How far is the town from here?"

"No more than three or four clicks," the stormtrooper replied. "Nothing a speederbike can't handle. Might be a few left topside in the compound."

"What are we waiting for?" Tabraile led with his blaster. He moved into the corridor, which was littered with the bodies of Rebel and Imperials fallen in the skirmish. Blast scoring and grenade detonations pocked the walls. Anayera stayed at his back for support.

"It's clear, sir." Leading the way out of the entrance, RM-5371 took a deep breath and moved passed them. "What you didn't put down, my troopers mopped up before they were taken out. There's not a Rebel left to—"

A blaster bolt to the head knocked the stormtrooper off his feet and launched his body several meters from where he had been standing. Tabraile fired back into the darkness as a second blaster rifle shot erupted from the dying Rebel's gun.

Startled by the bolt, Anayera blocked it with the hilt of her lightsaber. The weapon sputtered as she tried to ignite it. The crimson blade appeared and then vanished back into the damaged hilt.

Tabraile's fired an additional shot into the Rebel out of spite. Kneeling beside the fallen stormtrooper, he checked for a pulse. "So much for old stormtroopers. Are you alright?"

"I am," she said, "but I can't say the same for my lightsaber."

"Come on." He led her to the semi-underground garage and hit the ignition on one of the remaining speederbikers." RK-O, find a waypoint for Kor Bha'lir."

As Tabraile secured the mouse droid in the rear compartment of the speederbike, Anayera straddled the vehicle. "Where can we go, Tabraile?" As he hopped on the bike in front of her and gripped the handlebars, she wrapped her arms about his waist and rested her chin on his shoulder.

"The one place I know I can keep you safe," he replied. "Socorro."