Jada swallowed with a small amount of fear as she approached Hublin. She couldn’t think of anything she’d done wrong, any way she’d erred when flying under Hublin and Dav’s command against the surprise attack of the X-Wings.

“Sir,” she said, standing behind Hublin who was reading a datapad with his back to her. “Cadet Sanddancer reporting as ordered.”

Hublin turned to look at her. “Oh, yes. Follow me, Sanddancer.” He began walking down a long corridor branching off from the main hangar.

Jada broke out in a cold sweat. She’d only seen other cadets walk down that corridor in the company of an officer for one reason:

That corridor led to the Grey Room.

#

“Flight Senior Eccles reporting as ordered, Second Lieutenant Solo.”

“At ease, stand easy and relax, Eccles. Follow me.”

Solo began walking at a relaxed yet focused clip towards the turbolift. Dav felt a wave of excited worry flit through him. Every aspect of his life so far had been on the hangar level of the Adeptus. To be brought onto a turbolift- well, he’d be rising literally, and perhaps figuratively in the world of the Empire!

“Also, you may have heard Commodore Bast said during the Eulogy, I’m Lieutenant Solo now- no ‘second’ in my title anymore.”

“Congratulations, sir.”

Solo looked at Dav, and then back at the door of the turbolift as the floors sped by. “Well, I think I was just lucky is all. They had a short inquiry after we got back and decided I did everything right. So rather than be executed for losing three pilots, I’ve been promoted. It’s a crazy galaxy, Eccles. Just keep your head down and hope no one asks you to be a hero.”

Dav waited a few seconds. “Sir?”

“You know what a hero is, Eccles?”

Dav thought for a second. “Lieutenant Hublin said it was someone who got everyone killed.”

“And you, Eccles? What do you say?”

“Sir, I say a hero is someone who can overcome great odds and win the day, sir.”

“Nice try, Eccles. Nope. That’s from the days of the old Republic. Today, a hero is someone whose the Empire can use in the movies.”

“Sir?”

“Nevermind, Eccles. We’re here. Steady up.”

Dav snapped to attention. Through the transparent doorway he could see a long walkway, huge windows opened up to the darkness. In an open set of pits on either side of the walkway, a number of men in crisp grey uniforms sat at rows of computer terminals.

Dav swallowed. Was he on the bridge?

“Follow me, Eccles,” Solo said. “I’m going to brief you on your next mission.”

#

Slak, Bondo and Norrin sat in their chairs in the back row, long after most everyone else had left. They said nothing to each other, staring at the floor, the walls, and occasionally each other.

Norrin felt a nudge at his foot and looked up. Rex the R2 droid was there, looking at him and whistling softly. After a few seconds, Rex’s holoprojector lit up, showing a short, silent montage of Porkins speaking, running and joking. Norrin smiled for a second, his skinny hand stroking Rex’s domed head absentmindedly. But soon his eyes teared up and he had to turn away.

“P-Porkins was…was good,” Bondo said. “H-he…helped me, when I…looked for something during the fir-fir-first sports day. And…”

“And you couldn’t figure out how to lift a barbell,” said a voice from a safe distance behind them.

Slak and Norrin turned around. Bondo kept looking at the ground.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Feddik was standing perhaps a dozen feet behind them, flanked by Medea and Rand, both of whom were smirking at them.

“Too bad about your flightmates,” Feddik said, walking a few calculated steps closer. “I guess they’re just not as good at weeding out traitors as they used to be.”

“Freddik,” said Slak, “you really think this is the time?”

“It’s always the time,” Freddik said, walking closer. “You might think that just because you were the first to go out on a mission that you’re something special. But when you scrape the rust out’ve that tenth-rate metal eye of yours you’ll see clearly that you lost nearly a third of your squad out there, and all because you couldn’t handle being surprised.”

Bondo still stared at the floor, though his shoulders had hunched just a little.

“Maybe when you realize that Four Flight is for the charity cases, you’ll stop thinking of yourselves as special. That traitor Gaab should have been found out a long time ago by the recruiters. And you? You had a traitor in your flight all this time and you never, ever knew it. And that fat sack of meat Porkins? He was nothing but a pathetic excuse for a…”

Bondo didn’t so much jump; months of drills and exercises at making him a member of a team had taught him a higher level of efficiency in movement and action than he’d ever known as a farmboy on a nomadic agricultural vessel.

As such, Bondo didn’t so much leap or jump as he just moved, pushing out with one foot and sweeping his chair aside and turning to face Freddik before he’d even straightened to a standing position. He moved so quickly, in fact, that he surprised everyone, even Norrin and Slak. In less than one second, he’d moved with a fluid, sweeping motion, gotten both his sizable hands around Freddik’s smaller and very, very fragile throat, and lifted him six inches into the air.

#

Jada followed Hublin past the infamous Grey Room, down several halls and into another room. There, against the back wall under a small window sat a mid-sized desk. In front of the desk and in the center of the room stood Commodore Bast, looking out the window at the vista of the planet they’d just returned from, his hands folded behind his back.

Bast turned to face them, his cold blue eyes focusing on Jada intently. She noted his temples were greying, in contrast to his cropped brown hair.

“Lieutenant Hublin and Cadet Sanddancer reporting as ordered,” Hublin said to Bast, coming to attention.

Jada snapped to attention as well, following Hublin’s lead.

“Right,” said Bast, looking Jada up and down. “Well, cadet,” he said, his speech clipped with a higher-class accent than Jada was used to dealing with, “there’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll put it right out: Your family is dead, cadet. I’ve just received word that your father, mother, and brothers were at your family farm on Tatooine when rebels hit it in an attack using stolen Imperial equipment.

“I’ve no information beyond that, save that your farm was apparently in debt to one of the local business concerns, and they’ve sold it to the Lars family, whom you’ve apparently had some dealings with.”

Jada was stunned. Before Bast had finished the last ‘d’ in ‘dead,’ her world had begun spinning around her head. This couldn’t be real! It had to be a dream! This had to be someone else’s family! Yes, it was…it was Dav’s family! Poor Dav, if he found out…when he found out that his family had been killed…

“Cadet?” Bast said, “can you hear me? I won’t ask if you’re alright- that’s a foolish question at a time like this. But I will ask: Can you hear me?”

“I…I…what?” Jada repeated, still dazed, confused and entering a state of shock.

“Cadet, listen to me, listen to me. Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said, the tears beginning to flow.

“Cadet Sanddancer, your Lieutenant tells me that you’re record here is exemplary. Not phenomenal, but exemplary. You are the kind of cadet that we can expect great things from, if you complete your training and maintain your focus. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Jada, her voice a million miles away.

“No, you do not, cadet Sanddancer. You are in pain, but this can help you. Do you understand? Cadet Sanddancer, you can become a pathetic, sniveling creature, or you can use your pain to become something far, far greater than you are now. What will you choose, cadet?”

“I…I…” she said between sobs, still holding herself at attention while Hublin looked on stoically.

The door behind them opened again, and Jada heard the sound of heavy boots on the steel floor. “Ah, here you are,” said Bast, looking over Jada’s shoulder. “We were just finishing. Cadet Sanddancer, I want you to meet the person your flight saved today: Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith and protégée of the Emperor.”

Jada had felt the prickles on the back of her neck as the door behind her had opened. Still struggling to stand at attention, she saw out of the corner of her eye the reason why such a cold chill had enveloped her so suddenly:

The man standing to her left was huge, and dressed all in black. He wore a breathing mask and a black, metal helmet similar to that used by the black-suited troopers here on the Adeptus. He must have sustained a tremendous injury in either combat or an accident, for the sound of his mechanical breathing apparatus filled the mid-sized office.

There was something else, too, though Jada was in no position to analyze herself. As the man…or, the man-thing they called Darth Vader entered the room and fixed the pure black, shaded eyes of his helmet’s mask on her, something that had already sparked within her fanned into flame:

Hatred.

#

TO BE CONTINUED...