Aang drove for only a few minutes; he drove and drove until he saw something dark in the distance, something that definitely rang his senses. He sensed a cry for help; however he knew there could be some deceptive play at work, so he stopped just then to keep himself at a minimum safe distance.

One hand gripping his lightsaber hilt, Aang dismounted the speeder and approached the dark shape with caution. The closer he got, the more he realized it was a person. He moved his hand away from his lightsaber and ran over to the person's side to assist him. Only, it wasn't until Aang was kneeling at the unconscious person's side that he realized it was Bando. Although Bando was face-down in the dirt, Aang recognized he was wearing a helmet, and he saw the cut he made on the back of Bando's helmet.

Aang sensed Bando's life force depleting, so he turned him over on his back to look him over and diagnose the problem. He didn't see any scorch marks or any sign that he'd been hit by a blaster, 'So why is he dying?' Aang thought. He scooched himself away on the chance Bando was baiting him into lowering his guard; but even after a moment, Bando still didn't move.

It was then that Aang noticed something different about Bando's helmet. It seemed to Aang that the helmet was more mechanical than practical. 'But why?' Aang thought. There was a panel that was extended from the helmet that gave him a peak of the inner workings. He couldn't deduce much by the little he saw through that, but he spotted something else that gave him a clue. At just the right angle, he could see just a spot of Bando's skin; with the little he could see, he couldn't confirm it, but it seemed Bando's head was probably severely burned. 'Does he need the helmet to live?'

Aang found himself looking around for any nearby. . . anything, but he and Bando were really in the middle of nowhere. He wondered what to do. 'What can I do?' He wondered again. He looked back down again at Bando's helmet. "Could probably start with that." He mumbled to himself. He tried pushing the helmet panel back in to see if that would help, but yet he sensed Bando's life force lowering still. He hummed to himself, perturbed by the unchanging situation.

At that moment, he remembered the helmet cut that he gave. Aang leaned Bando's body up into a sitting position so he could assess the damage. He observed that the lightsaber certainly sliced deep enough to cause damage. Through the slice, he saw several severed wires and other damaged functions that would certainly be life-threatening in this condition. 'I did this.' Aang told himself. He felt some guilt; but felt relief, ultimately for the fact that had he not done this, Bando would still be in the Empire's hands.

Aside from imminent death, Aang sensed something very different about Bando; Aang sensed as if there was 'peace?' in Bando's mind. Aang closed his eyes and placed a palm on Bando's helmet. Bando was indeed at peace; but the cry for help that Aang felt earlier was telling him that Bando did still want to live, despite being content with death.

It was settled. Aang knew what he needed to do; hopefully the other rebels would take it easily, 'if we're still alive for it to come to that.' Aang kept his optimism in perspective. He laid Bando back on the ground and quickly ran back to his speeder. There was a pack attached to the back of the speeder. 'The Force-' He thought as he quickly opened it, just to find a full medical kit. "-works in mysterious ways." He finished his thought as he grabbed it. "Now all I need is-" He dragged the last syllable as he looked around again, much more closely this time. He found a decently-sized boulder in the distance he could use. "In very mysterious ways, the Force works." He said in amazement. He didn't see it before, because he only looked for more people the first time he looked around.

He jumped on the speeder, got over to Bando, swept his body up, and sped over to the small boulder. He laid Bando on the ground, ignited his lightsaber, and swiftly cut through the boulder; he then used the Force to push the severed rock to make sure it didn't land on him or Bando. From there, he made quick work into cutting across the long side of the boulder, creating a smooth surface for Aang to lay Bando's body so he could work.

He hoisted Bando once again and laid him across the makeshift boulder table, setting the med kit right beside him. "Okay okay okay, what first? What first?" He thought for a second, rapping his fingers on the boulder. "I can't repair the helmet if he's still wearing it, but he'll probably die if I remove it. So. . . make sure he can live just long enough." He assessed to himself out loud.

He dumped the contents of the med kit onto the surface and dug through it all. Bandages, patches, penicillin and other basic medicines, even some empty needles. "Ah, this won't work!" He exclaimed quietly, gradually beginning to panic. He put the currently-useless stuff back; but when he picked up the long cloth bandage, a different medicine vial dropped back down from underneath the bandage. He picked it up and read the contents; he didn't recognize the drug; but once he read what it treated, he emptied the contents into a needle. He held the needle to Bando's neck; but before he inserted it, he looked to the sky and prayed to anything. "Please don't let this be a mistake." And he lightly pressured the needle, gently inserting the medicine into Bando's bloodstream.

Aang waited a moment before trying to take Bando's helmet off. There was an efficient security measure in place to make sure people couldn't take it off to kill Bando. He put all four of his hands around Bando's helmet, trying to use the Force to make the mechanism unlock from within.

No noise was made, so you couldn't tell anything was working from the outside. Aang jolted when suddenly the helmet opened up, revealing itself to be composed of interlocking panels. More than that, the components of the helmet were attached to artificial skin pieces that even pierced Bando's skin. It wasn't a helmet; it was a cage. A cage that kept him in pain, but kept the pain from getting worse at the same time. It was a painful remedy. Suddenly Aang understood why Bando was so content with death; but Bando's being under this pain, Aang wondered why he was calling for help. If Bando wanted to die, he could've just let himself die by not calling for help. Did Bando want to help?

Aang quickly pushed those thoughts out of his mind as he got back to work to repair Bando's helmet. He also had to put aside the incoming wave of guilt he was beginning to feel for now somewhat participating in Bando's continuing pain. He observed the damage in the back of the helmet, and then the weight came down upon him that he was completely unprepared for this. 'How am I supposed to fix this?!' The panic was settling in big time.

Then Aang noticed one of the cut wires spark. 'It's still active?' He thought. 'Maybe the wires just need to be held together, somehow.' But he still didn't know what he could do; he didn't have a lab on hand.

"Pow-" Aang heard a very faint, very weak voice. Bando was trying to speak. "-wer" He could only speak one syllable at a time. "sssource." He breathed before going unconscious again.

'Power source?' Aang thought. He looked at the wires again. They were active. "Of course!" He exclaimed with a sharp snap of his fingers. "A source of power that can act as a conductor can bridge the wires together to let the power flow naturally. But what do I ha-" He answered his own question before it was finished being asked. He picked up his lightsaber, quickly but gently used the Force to deconstruct it, take the Kyber crystal out, then put his saber back together. He gently placed the small crystal between the cut wires, then closed the helmet back up. It looked awkward, but having a small part of a crystal shard sticking out of the back of his helmet would have to do to maintain his life. Aang heard a humming sound from within the helmet, telling him that the solution was working. He sensed Bando's life force beginning to return.

. . . 'Now what?'

---

As fast as he could without a machine, Mythus ran to check up on the other Imperials on his team that were loading and guarding the leftover ships. "Hey!" He shouted. "Are the ships loaded?!"

There was no one amongst them -other than Mythus- who held a superior rank. The only ones left were basic stormtroopers and pilots. They all looked at each other, wondering who was going to answer him. The closest one standing to Mythus decided to speak up. "Well, yes. They are." He answered; Mythus would normally then command everyone to board so they could take off, but the tone he heard the trooper speak in told him he should let him finish. "But, there's been a complication."

Mythus leaned in close, obviously unpleased, and inquired in a threatening tone, "Yes?"

"Uh, Bando Roscoe, sir."

"What of him?"

"Well, um-"

"Spit it out, trooper!"

"He's betrayed us."

Mythus's expression didn't change. He only waited a moment before responding, "I know. I notice you're all still alive; what did he do?"

"He. . . disabled all our engines."

Mythus furrowed his brow. "That seems too simple a problem for a pilot not to be able to fix."

"Yeah, well," the trooper led Mythus over to one of the ships, "this is different." He said, pointing to a hole stabbed through the ship where the engine was. "There's no way any of us can fix that any time soon. Much less on all the other ships."

Mythus was bubbling with fury. He hadn't seen Bando's betrayal coming; at least not this soon, if at all. Not only that, but Bando had doomed the rest of the population to die under the threat of the Death Star. They'd already suffered a defeat under the rebels at the Temple; and now- . . . 'The rebels have ships.' He realized.

Mythus turned and faced the gathered few; the troopers and pilots still had their attention on Mythus. Since Mythus was the highest-ranked Imperial present, they all looked to him for instructions. "The situation is dire, but there is still a chance for us to escape. The rebels have ships. We will draw them out and I will lead you into the final battle against them. They will die, and we will, finally, get off this rock."

The Imps didn't seem too enthralled, and Mythus took note. "I understand the odds don't seem likely, but under the threat of the Death Star, people will die anyway; all the same, there are two outcomes from it. We keep the rebels here, keep them from taking off. We die as heroes to the Empire, and our names will live on. Should they remain here by the time the Death Star arrives, the galaxy will finally be rid of their terrorism, and the Empire will be that much closer to achieving peace. So what will you do? Sit back here and die, and let the rebels leave to continue to threaten the galaxy? Or will you take a chance, and fight the rebellion one last time? Are you willing to sacrifice yourselves for the glory of the Empire? What say you?!"

The troopers saw that point and all willingly complied. They raised their blasters and shouted and chanted.

The trooper closest to Mythus turned away from the crowd and asked Mythus, "But sir, what about Bando?"

"I was concerned at first, too. He has sustained a life-threatening injury, so his betrayal does not affect our odds. He doesn't know where to find the rebels, so he'll die like an animal out in the middle of nowhere. Now gather the rest of the men posted around the city."

---

After a few hours, Bando regained consciousness. He found himself lying on the wall of a cave. There was a camp fire in front of him, and across the fire, Aang was seated in a meditative position. "Hey, you. So you're finally awake?" Aang said when he noticed Bando looking around. When Bando saw Aang, he didn't dare move; Aang could sense tremendous fear within Bando. "You can relax. I'm the only one here."

Bando looked towards the entrance of the cave. "Where, is here?" He asked. Bando's voice was much gentler than what Aang had heard before.

"Just one of the many caves I've lived in during my time on this planet."

Bando took some breaths; but when his memory failed, he had to ask, "What planet?"

Now Aang was confused. "Lo. . . Lothal. Is your memory alright?"

"I. . . don't think I've exactly been myself recently." Bando answered with a hushed and scared tone, being sure to emphasise.

"Fascinating." Aang said quietly, though he was more confused.

"I don't remember when it all started, but all I know is this, feeling. I'm trapped in my own mindscape, but someone else was in there, with full control. I- AAAH!" In that moment, a flood of memories came to him. He remembered Lothal, the Empire, and Mythus. "Aaaagh!" He gripped his helmet hard.

"Woah, hey, hey, you okay?"

Bando leaned back against the cave wall, looking up and taking deep breaths while still grunting, as if he was in pain. "I'm. . . remembering."

"I thought you implied it was someone else's memory." Aang was even more confused.

"But it's still my brain." He said with a strained voice. His breaths gradually decreased and got softer until he had calmed down. "What have I done?"

"Whatever it was, you weren't in control. Based on what you've said to me, at least."

"Pzallon. That scientist. He did this to me."

"Did. . . that?" Aang gestured below. Bando looked down and saw he didn't have his boots on; his mechanical prosthetic legs were in full view. Seeing them again after so long triggered many more of Bando's memories. Bando seemed to be in shock, but Aang couldn't tell without seeing his face. "You still okay?"

Bando handled this memory influx much better. Matter of fact, he seemed much more composed now than he did before. "Yeah." He said quietly. He took one last deep breath. "The Empire is on the way here with a planet-killing superweapon. The entire Imperial occupation has evacuated, with the exception of the team that Mythus Pzallon took with him to the Jedi temple. I think I remember you guys taking out a lot of our. . . the Imperial team, but they still have enough ships to get the rest off of Lothal before the planet is destroyed. No, wait, I took care of that."

Aang reeled back just slightly. "How?"

Bando looked down at his mechanical legs. "Seeing these just now, for the first time in a long time, jolted my memory. So when I saw them again, I. . ." Bando wondered how he could best explain this. "So, I woke up surrounded by Imperials. I think I was in a hospital. Something happened to me then, too. Even though I'm free from whatever the Empire did to me, I did something but couldn't remember any of it when I woke up a moment ago."

"But you remember now?"

"Yeah." Bando said, some memories still finding their ways back. "It was, like, a supercharged adrenaline rush, or something. I killed every Imperial in sight and in the hospital. I found where they were keeping the rest of their ships and stabbed right through the engines; but by the time I was done, whatever was going on with me was weakening, so I had to get out of there before I was killed. That's why only a few of them are still alive."

"May I ask what those have to do with that situation, why they jogged your memory?" Aang gestured towards Bando's prosthetics.

"Ah. Like I said I hadn't seen these in a long time. I always wore uniform and boots over them. I remembered what happened when I looked at them because I used them to kill."

"I imagine metal legs would be efficient for killing."

"I know tons of ways to kill."

"I also just noticed you've adopted a different way of speaking." Aang said, taking note of Bando's wording in his sentences like: 'knowing tons of ways' and 'I was, like, supercharged,' and 'or something.' To Aang, it was almost as if Bando was-, "How old are you?"

"Um. . . How long ago did the Clone Wars end?"

"You're nineteen?!" Aang exclaimed.

"Nineteen years since it ended? That makes me around sixteen or seventeen."

"Are you serious?" Aang asked, his voice dropped and was filled with sadness and sympathy. A child was in a situation that forced him to need mechanical legs, and such a helmet like what he had, and not to mention a child being forced to do the horrendous things he did. "How much of your life have you missed?"

"I. . . never really had one. Born in war, born of war. Killed in war, reborn for war."

"All that time in the Empire must have matured you a lot."

"Maybe."

A tender, but downcast moment of silence passed.

"Wait what're we doing? We're all gonna die soon. We gotta get out of here." Bando abruptly stood up and headed to the front of the cave, but Aang called to him before he could get far.

"We can't go to the rebel base. More specifically, I can't go back there with you."

"Huh?"

"You remember Ezra Bridger?"

"Bridger. . . Ezra Bridger." He mumbled, his memory shaping up, "Uh, I think so." Bando replied, going back to sit in front of the fire again.

"Yeah, well, he -most of all- is not going to be very happy to see you. What you and -Mythus?- have done here has put him in a very dark place. I already fear for him; if we let him see you, there's no telling what will happen."

"So, what do we do? Your friends are the only ones with functioning ships, aren't they?"

"Yeah. In the area, at least. The closest open spaceport is a very long way off." Aang responded, stroking his chin. "Well," he thought, "I'm thinking I'll just give one of my friends a call, break it to them easily. Across a hologram, no one will get hurt."

"That does feel like the safest option." Bando concurred with the plan.

"Alright." Aang said, finally getting up. "I'll be back."

The tide was turning, but in whose favor?