GEN Presents:

Brothers In Arms
By Admiral Kyle Kessler

The Wing Commander's waiting room was spotlessly clean, typical of the man by whom I was about to be interviewed. I fidgeted nervously, brushing imagined specks of lint from my uniform, when the reception droid announced that Major General Stretch, Commander of Wing X, Imperial Class Star Destroyer Challenge, was ready to see me. Yesterday, I had been grilled for four hours by Intel. That had been a piece of cake by comparison. At least the Intel boys hadn't trusted me in the first place. I was not looking forward to this.

Stretch looked up from his monitor and acknowledged my salute with a barely perceptible nod. "Sit down, Kessler," he said quietly, indicating the chair in front of his desk. I sat stiffly, my back ramrod straight, eyes staring at a point thirty-five degrees above the horizontal. He looked at me for a second, then sighed, a short hiss of exhaled breath. "Relax, Kessler....that's an order by the way."

This was going to be worse than I had imagined.

He shuffled a stack of papers on his desk and seemed to consider how to start for a few seconds. "I've just read the Intel report on your...debriefing. How did you find it?"

I considered my choice of words carefully. "Very...thorough, sir."

He seemed to find that amusing, at least, but I was fooling myself if I thought it was going to deflect his purpose. "I put you in charge of Tornado Squadron two standard weeks ago, Kessler. You had no previous command experience and I appointed you Squadron Commander in one of my squadrons on the hunch that I thought you would make a good job of it. A lot of people thought I'd made the wrong decision, but I believed you had what it took to be a successful Commander and help me turn around the Challenge's reputation in this Battle Group. In those two weeks you've flown one combat mission, lost your ship and three of your men, and Intel has expressed some concern over the...relationship you may have developed with the Reb pilot who for some, as yet unsatisfactorily explained reason, seems to have saved your life on Viridian II. Can you give me just one good reason why I shouldn't have you shot?"

I suppose when he put it like that it did sound pretty bad. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Granted."

"You'd look pretty stupid for having promoted me if you did, sir."

The moment seemed to carry on for an aeon before Stretch spoke again.

"I've never being afraid of looking stupid, Kessler. In fact, it can sometimes be extremely useful to look stupid on occasion. I've always found it useful to have my enemies underestimate me. Actually being stupid, on the other hand..that gets people killed. Have I underestimated you, Kessler? Or are you only trying to look stupid?"

I think I may have actually forgotten to breathe at this point. As his steel grey eyes drilled into me I suddenly realised I was this close to a firing squad. I'd never been very good at lying to Stretch. From the day I met him in Aggressor Wing to my initiation into Dagger Brigade he was always there. Every position I applied for, there he was ahead of me. A guy could get paranoid trying to outmanoeuvre him and he could smell a lie from five klicks on a windy day on Hoth. He knew I was hiding something. I was going to have to come clean...

"Sir....I don't know where to start..."

"Start at the beginning, Kessler. All the best stories start at the beginning..."

Two hours into the patrol we picked up an echo from the Independence. She wasn't exactly where recon had told us she would be, which confirmed our suspicions that the Rebels had detected the gunboats before they escaped into hyperspace with the details of her location. It appeared that she had been attempting to use Viridian II's radar shadow to hide herself from our sensors. It had almost worked. If we hadn't been lucky enough to intercept a loose fragment of radio chatter from one of her escorts when we changed course to sweep past the planet, she would have gotten away with it. Now she was doomed, thanks to one overeager Rebel pilot on lookout who forgot to switch to tightband comms when he spotted our course change.

I flicked the transponder to short range secure mode and began to issue instructions to the Squadron. "Flights Two and Three assume escort positions. Primary targets are enemy interceptors, free to engage at own discretion at three klicks. Target at Flight Leader's priority at detection range. Tornado 2-1 acknowledge."

A brief two-tone warble as the comm's encryption circuit synchronised, then a short burst of static and I heard Thrax's concise reply: "2-1 acknowledged." The briefest ghost of a smile flickered across my lips. Flight Leader Thrax knew his business. I pitied any Rebel pilot whom Thrax took an interest in. At least it was usually quick...

"Flight One, select Heavy Rockets and standby to receive target information. Course change to zero-three-three mark zero-one-five." We began to pull up in a low parabolic arc. This would serve to maintain the distance to the target while opening up the range at which we could gain a valid target ID on the Independence by extending our orbit of Viridian II faster than she could maintain a radar mask with the planet's bulk. After a few seconds, my tentative radar contact was confirmed. The MC80 Independence in a low orbit. Good tactic to evade detection, not such a good idea if you need to run in a hurry. She would take quite some time to fight her way free from Viridian II's gravitational pull and thick atmosphere. Too much time to make any difference. Of course, if she stayed atmospheric our Rockets might have a harder time tracking her, but if any of them hit anything vital, drive systems for example... An idea occurred to me. A quick glance at the cockpit MFD confirmed Intel's suspicions. Independence's hyperdrive had been damaged in the earlier attack by Inferno Squadron. I could clearly see a Heavy Lifter fighting to maintain a parallel course while work crews attacked the damage to the outer hull. You certainly couldn't fault them for their bravery; the windspeeds at that altitude were showing up at 120 knots. Fat lot of good it was going to do them...

A buzzer sounded insistently in the cockpit. I glanced at the threat display. Shiva in Tornado 2-2 confirmed what I saw a second later. "Enemy interceptors, four marks at zero-nine-nine. Targets designated A-Wing class." "Flight Two engaging," replied Thrax. "Confirm ACM's switched to single fire and selected. I have bandit one"

"2-2 confirmed. I have bandit two."

"2-3 confirmed. I have bandit three"

"2-4 selecting single fire and confirming. I have bandit four."

"Accelerate to attack speed and engage when ready. Maintain formation until closed to dogfighting range," ordered Thrax.

I keyed the transmitter. "Flight Three, assume goalkeeper position at red two-five, range one point five. Standby to engage any survivors and successive enemy attack waves. Flight One, switch to single fire and target the mothership. Point targets as indicated by telemetry. Confirm when targets locked and ready to fire." Firing our Rockets one at a time was my preference. It maximised the danger time over target when you were locked onto a firing solution and couldn't manoeuvre without breaking lock, but it ensured that more of your shots got through. Rebel warhead launchers could only track one missile at a time. There was a danger if you ripple-fired off the blast from a successfully intercepted rocket destroying or throwing off-course its neighbour. Single firing ensured that your shots were spaced evenly enough apart to prevent this from happening, and if Thrax and his wingmen did their job properly, we wouldn't have to worry about avoiding enemy fire while locked on to target. A short bleep from the target computer indicated that firing information had been successfully transmitted to my wingmen. Each of us was now locked onto a separate section of the Independence's engines. Another quick glance at the cockpit MFD indicated that the battle was already going our way. Two A-Wings had been knocked out, while Shiva had sustained one missile hit without any structural damage. His shields were barely holding, but he could look after himself...

"Flight One, engage SLAM boosters and accelerate to firing speed." I flicked open the safety on the SLAM firing switch , thumbed the ignition, and my Missileboat bucked under the sudden thrust as the engine overdrive boosters came online. With one eye on the throttle indicator, I missed what Thrax didn't:

"Bandit, Bandit, Bandit! Eight marks at zero-three-five! X-Wings launching from mother!" I cursed under my breath. Not that I was worried about the X-Wings getting close enough to prevent us from firing. The Independence's attempt to remain stealthy had sunk that idea, but they were on a perfect course to intercept any rockets launched from our current position. A quick check confirmed that I didn't have time to select another target vector. They would be on us before we could get another lock from another angle. There was no alternative...

"Flight Three, break position and engage second wave. Thrax, disengage whoever you can and come at them from the rear. Objective is to scatter the second wave." The targeting computer began to get the range to target. Just a few more seconds and we could fire. However, it would take around thirty seconds to get every shot off, that was the problem. The Rebs weren't quite as dumb as Intel would like us to believe. Of course, I had been at Endor...I knew that from experience.

"Flight Three engaging, attack pattern Alpha."

"Flight Two, roger. 2-2 and 2-3 disengage. Attack....damn! We lost 2-3! Shiva, break off and do what you can. We'll cover you. 2-1 out."

"Flight One, standby to fire on my mark." With any luck, our TIE Defenders could create enough chaos to break up the formation of X-Wings and allow our shots to get through unmolested. Still, it never pays to underestimate the enemy. The squeal of the targeting computer indicating weapons lock broke me out of my reverie.

"1-2 locked on and ready to fire."

"1-3 locked and ready. Target points as indicated."

"1-4 locked on. Give the word, skipper."

"Fire!" I ordered. The ship surged as the fuselage-mounted rocket launchers began to disgorge their cargo. I checked the throttles. We had about fifteen seconds of SLAM power left. Enough to ensure that at least the first half of our shots would be going too fast for anyone to successfully engage, and if what I had in mind worked, that would be enough. Far ahead, I could see explosions blossoming in the night. It looked as if Shiva was firing off missiles into the pack of X-Wings without waiting for a lock. A waste of ammunition, but a creative tactic, and it seemed to be working. The first few Rockets streaked through as the Rebs broke formation to avoid his fire. At least two were too slow to react, but it was impossible to tell if they had been destroyed or damaged without losing my lock on the Independence. I was just going to have to trust my wingmen. That was something I was having a hard time adjusting to. This was my first combat sortie in command of Tornado Squadron. Experience tells you that men like Thrax and Shiva can be relied upon to do what needs to be done in the heat of battle, but I was still a Flight Member at heart, never having had a taste of leadership as a Flight Leader. Relying on others to do what they've been told without looking over their shoulders all the time was a skill I was having to adapt to quickly, and suddenly being thrust into the job of Squadron Commander was proving to be a bigger challenge than I had anticipated. I constantly wanted to know exactly what my men were doing and how they planned to do it. I needed time to adjust to the idea of giving orders and trusting them to get on with it. I think Thrax understood how I felt, but I suspected that he may have been slightly bitter about not having been chosen as Commander in my place. To his credit he was professional enough to never let any bitterness, real or imagined, affect his performance. I suspect he would probably have made a better Commander than me in any case; his leadership style seemed effortless, and I had to admit to feeling slightly envious of the rapport he had with his Flight. I knew the Wing Commander had stuck his neck out by putting me in charge...I hoped I never gave him cause to regret it.

The high pitched whine of the SLAM boosters cutting out stopped my daydreaming cold. This was the vulnerable period, when we were moving slowly enough for any Rebs good enough to evade the Defenders to catch up with us. As mean a ship as the Missileboat was, it was never designed for dogfighting. A cluster of green dots on the forward scope confirmed my fears.

" Flight One, this is Three Leader. Be advised we are heavily engaged with multiple bandits! Unable to account for all enemy ships at this time. Watch for enemy fighters!"

"This is Tornado Leader, roger that, I see them. Flight One, four bandits incoming! All ships manoeuvre at will!" I was fairly sure we'd fired off enough shots to do what I had in mind, and I was in no hurry to see any of my Flight become X-Wing bait. The SLAM power gauge showed at least a minute before the boosters would be fully charged. It was going to be a long minute. The Threat Display suddenly lit up like an Ewok Summer Festival. We had concussion missiles incoming and we were definitely not in the ship of choice to evade them. I thumbed the fire selector switch to "lasers" and began firing blindly down the intercept vector. I didn't have time to check how many missiles had been launched at me personally or to lock one up for a computer-assisted tracking shot. At the same time, I was conscious that every shot my single laser cannon fired increased the time it would take for the SLAM system to power up, but hey, a guy's got to have priorities, right? An explosion about point three klicks off the ship's head confirmed that I'd taken out a missile, more by luck than judgement, but any congratulations were premature as the cockpit heaved violently and I was almost blinded by the flare of another explosion much closer. Obviously I'd missed one. My shields were all but wiped out; I heaved over on the joystick, frantically trying to clear my eyes and look for a target when an X-Wing screamed past metres from the cockpit canopy. A shower of sparks and flying glass cascaded over my helmet as my MFD blew out. He'd volleyed a quad-fire burst into my forward shields before I'd had time to stabilise and pump power into the deflectors. A swift glance at the damage indicators confirmed my worst fears - my shield generators were out. Don't get me wrong, I'd cut my teeth in TIE Fighters so flying in unshielded craft held no terrors for me. Dogfighting in an unshielded Missileboat, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter.

"This is 1-3, he's got a lock on me! Somebody get this guy off me!"

"This is 1-4! Where are those damned TIE Defenders? I can't shake this guy!"

I'm ashamed to admit that my frustration got the better of me at this point. "Cut the chatter! Keep this channel clear!" I snarled and immediately regretted it when a fraction of a second later Flight Member Salkind's ship exploded in a fiery mess around him. I was paying the price for my lack of attention; worse, my squadron was paying the price. With my MFD out I was having a hard time working out just who was where and doing what. The instructors at the Imperial Weapons And Tactics School had hammered it into us time and time again. There are only three things important in combat: Situational Awareness, Situational Awareness, and Situational Awareness. It was about time someone took charge of this situation....

"1-2, NiksaVel, are you engaged, over?"

"Negative, Tornado Leader," replied the new boy. "I'm all clear at this time."

"Roger that. Be advised, you are to put all available shield energy into your weapon systems and engage your SLAM boosters. Once clear of the furball, switch to Concussion Missiles and swat these punks off our backs." I pulled into a savage corkscrew to avoid a dangerously close burst of laser fire. "Is that understood, over?"

"Roger, Tornado Leader. I'm outta here." NiksaVel was an old friend from Wing V and Aggressor Wing, recently drafted into Tornado at his own request. It was good to know that someone had some faith in my abilities. I glanced around the cockpit, searching for my other remaining wingman. "1-4, come about to one-four-five and prepare to engage the bandit on my six!"

"But I..."

"Just DO IT, pilot!"

I thumbed the fire selector to "missiles" and switched to ripple fire. I would probably only get one shot at this, but Shiva's scattering tactic had given me a desperate idea. Heaving on the joystick, I hauled the ship around to what became a collision course when 1-4 did the same. I checked the throttles. I probably had a few seconds of SLAM power. It would be enough.

The Overdrive thrusters screamed into life, and I was slammed back into the acceleration seat. At the last possible second I eased back on the joystick and must have overshot my wingman by inches. I had the barest fraction of a second to see him open fire on the X-Wing on my six. I still have no idea whether or not he hit him, because in that instant, the X-Wing on his tail was bracketed in my crosshairs. I stabbed down on the trigger and two concussion missiles streaked out of their launchers and tore through him. The range was so short I'm surprised they had time to arm themselves. Burning fragments of X-Wing lit up space in front of me. "Happy Graduation Day, sucker!" I yelled into the microphone, then exultation turned to horror as I spotted his port upper engine spiralling through the void. "Oh Sh..."

That was as far as I got.

I could only have been out for a few seconds, but when I came round, Viridian II filled my viewport. I was in the upper atmosphere, the ship wouldn't respond to the joystick, and I was locked at full throttle. The SLAM boosters had cut out but my speed was still too fast. I was going to hit the surface before the self-repair systems could bring the flight controls back online. A sudden flare of light from above me caught my attention. It was the Independence. At least something had gone right for me today. If you knock out the engines of a ship in space, it isn't going anywhere fast, but it can still defend itself and you have to work hard at finishing her off. If that same ship is trying to maintain a high-speed low-altitude orbit of a planetary body when you wipe out her propulsion system, she's only going in one direction: down. The Independence was falling quickly. The stress of her uncontrolled re-entry was doing the job that a score of Heavy Rockets would have been needed to do: she was tearing herself apart. As I watched, shuttles were attempting to abandon ship. Most of them never cleared the docking bays as the slipstream caught them and smashed them into the wreckage that was following the cruiser down.

The sight really cheered me up.

Another jolt shook the cockpit. At first I thought one of my engines had gone up but as I craned my head to look behind me I spotted him: an A-Wing! I suppose we must have done something to seriously upset this guy because he was determined to see me go down in flames. He must have been pretty good to get away from Thrax and Shiva, but as I reached for the ejection lever I spotted something else: the vapour trail from a Concussion Missile closing on his six. I think I must have been hysterical by this point. I certainly managed to see the funny side. I doubt he did. The fuselage of the A-Wing was mostly intact as it spiralled burning past my cockpit, and I managed to wave at him as I shook, helpless with laughter.

Another glance at what instrumentation I had left reminded me that it was fast approaching time to get out. I braced myself and pulled the ejector. Something else went wrong. I don't know if the canopy only partially cleared or if I just went clean through it, but I hit something on the way out. Hard. My flight mask was ripped off and I just had time to wonder if I could survive the shock of a supersonic ejection before I blacked out again.

All in all, this was turning into a pretty shitty day.

Wherever I was, it was cold. I opened my eyes but everything stayed black. A moment of panic took me and I tried to reach up with my left hand to check my eyes but a sickening wrench of pain from my right shoulder brought a quick stop to any hasty movements. I tasted something salty. There was blood trickling into my mouth. I blinked furiously and slowly my vision cleared. My panic subsided as I realised it had only been blood obscuring my vision. That and the snowbank my face had been buried in. Looking up at my surroundings produced another wave of pain. It was possible my neck was broken but I sincerely hoped it was only whiplash. Over the crest of the ridge of snow, I could see a low column of smoke, probably the remains of my ship. I was shortly to be proven wrong about that.

My head dropped back into the snowbank. A part of my brain was telling me that to relax now was suicide. My chances of surviving in the open in temperatures like this were nil, but a little voice was saying "Just relax, Kyle, and all of the pain will go away." It was a very seductive voice. I was starting to have trouble remembering why I needed to get up. It was about then that I heard the crunch of booted feet in the snow. Risking another look up, I saw the orange flight-suited figure of a Reb pilot cresting the snow ridge. He seemed unsteady on his feet and there was something wrong with the way he was walking. There was nothing unsteady about the hand that held the heavy blaster pistol, though, and it was pointed straight at me. I had always assumed that I would get taken out in the cockpit. I supposed that this was as good a way to go as any. At least I was too cold to feel much pain. I tried to laugh, but my teeth were chattering too much for it to have the desired effect. He approached me slowly but purposefully. I could feel a wave of darkness overtaking consciousness. I tried to fight it. I badly wanted to die facing my executioner, show him how an Imperial pilot could die, but I was fighting a losing battle. The last thing I heard before I passed out yet again was laughter, as if from a great distance. It didn't seem appropriate somehow.

I awoke without pain. Well, not strictly true, but the pain seemed a far way away. I realised that I had been drugged. It was dark again. A few seconds of blinking reassured me that it was just night-time and my vision hadn't been impaired. I couldn't move my arms. At first I thought I had been tied down, but a quick check revealed that someone had made a professional job of body splinting my right shoulder using the ripped off covering from a flight seat. I seemed to be sitting in an improvised lean-to, constructed in the lee of the wrecked fuselage of an A-Wing fighter. Sitting opposite me across a low fire was the Reb pilot I had assumed was about to kill me earlier.

"Hello, Kyle," he said.

The day was turning out to be full of surprises. I was, I have to admit, stunned. After watching me do a fish impression for few seconds, he chuckled, then hissed in pain and reached down to his right leg. The material of the flight suit had been badly scorched and his upper right thigh was heavily bandaged. He rubbed at the dressing for a moment and looked back up at me. "You don't recognise me, do you?" he said. I was still at a loss for words. He reached up with his free hand and unbuckled the straps holding his flight helmet in place, the other hand still holding the blaster that was pointed firmly at my face. The helmet came free and crunched into the snow at his side, and he leaned forward into the weak light cast by the flickering flames. I saw his face and my heart leaped into my mouth.

"Hello, Gaius," I managed to say, somehow, but my brain was reeling with the shock of it. "I... didn't expect to uhh...see you here."

He laughed. It was the same dry laugh I remembered. "I'll bet you didn't! Or to see me in this uniform, I expect."

"I thought you were going to finish me for sure."

The laugh stopped then and a dark shadow seemed to cross his face. "I would have if I hadn't seen your face. You're a lucky man, kid. Your helmet was in pieces. What happened, bad ejection?"

"Something like that, I think..." I shifted my weight to ease the pressure on my cramped back. He raised the blaster menacingly.

"Don't make any assumptions based on our relationship, Kyle," he said, all pretence of camaraderie gone now. The blaster never wavered.

"Just shifting my weight, Gaius, relax." We remained silent for a while, examining each other over the low flicker of the fire. Eventually, I spoke. "I thought you'd died in a training accident on Carrida."

"That was the idea. Some friends of mine helped me to arrange it so I could get off planet without any questions asked."

"You mean you faked your death to join the Rebellion?"

He nodded. I was speechless. This was all too much, too quickly. "Gaius...I...you..." I gave up. "How could you do it? How could you betray everything we fought and died for?"

The look of incredulous disbelief he gave me must have echoed my own. "You cannot seriously be trying to tell me you still swallow that crap about bringing peace and order to the Galaxy?" he asked. "Are you really that stupid?"

I bit back my angry reply. I'd always made it my policy to never argue over politics and religion, especially not with a man holding a gun. "And you seriously believe that the Rebellion's way is any better? A thousand arguing voices in the Senate raised in dissent about whether or not you should defend here, retreat here, attack here. Your military commanders can't flush their own toilets without having to request permission from Sector Command. You need a strong central authority in charge, not rule by committee! You're at war for your very survival, or hadn't you noticed?" Sometimes I just couldn't take my own best advice.

He went quiet for a second, then "You're right, Kyle, we need strong government, we need leaders who can exercise strong judgement on their own discretion. We need all those things, but we have something your Empire never had, something you probably would never comprehend..."

I waited.

"We have mercy, we have justice and we have our freedom."

I snorted derisively. "Freedom, justice, and mercy? Take the entire Galaxy and grind it down to dust, Gaius. Then sift it through the finest sieve and show me one atom of freedom, justice or mercy! They're just ideas, Gaius and the thing about ideas is that sooner or later, someone has a better one!"

He shook his head in amusement. "Let's just skip the politics, shall we, Kyle? Agree to disagree?"

I could see his point. "Okay."

"Besides, we've got better things to worry about, like survival, for example. We only have four days' food left between us; that's if the cold doesn't finish us off first. I'm pretty well insulated here, but without your helmet, you're going to lose a lot of heat from your head." He was right. "I'll see if I can knock up a hood for you out of the wreckage. My distress beacon is active so we shouldn't have to wait too long for a pick up."

A thought occurred to me. "Gaius," I said. "You realise that we stand just as good a chance of being picked up by my side as we do yours. In fact, since my boys did such a good job on the Independence..." his eyes darkened "...I'd say there's a better than even chance that we now control this system, and that means..." I let it hang unfinished.

"Let's just cross that bridge when we come to it, Kyle." He stood with some difficulty and holstered his blaster, reaching over me into the wreckage.

"Gaius.."

He stopped, waiting.

"Why are you helping me, Gaius?"

Another long, uncomfortable silence. "Let's just call it for old times' sake." That familiar old smile that I remembered so well creased his face. It was like coming home.

Stretch took that moment to interrupt. "So Gaius was an old friend from the Academy?"

"Yes, sir. He was my class leader. I owed my graduation to him."

He took a moment to digest this information. "You didn't reveal this to Intel." No accusation, just a statement of fact.

"No sir, I didn't think they would understand."

"What happened next?"

I drew in a deep breath. "We spent the next three days trying to survive, rationing our food. After a couple of days, my dislocated shoulder improved enough for him to remove the splint and allow me to regain some mobility. We talked about people we had both known at the Academy, anything really, to pass the time. We avoided discussing our current occupations. I don't think we trusted each other enough for that, and there was still the question of what we would do if rescue eventually turned up. We never spoke about that other than the first time I mentioned it, but I know he was thinking about it."

"Tell me about the day the Stormtrooper Transport arrived," Stretch asked.

This was the part I had been dreading.

Dawn was breaking on the fourth day of our isolation. We didn't speak much anymore. We seemed to have exhausted all safe topics of conversation. Hope of rescue was fast fading and I think we were just beginning to come to terms with the idea of death. At last I broached the subject that neither of us had wanted to talk about.

"Gaius, if we get picked up by my side, you know what will happen to you...?"

He looked up at me. Suddenly, he didn't appear quite so self-assured. "I have no intention of giving anyone the option of taking me alive, Kyle, I'm a pretty handy shot with this, you know?" he replied, patting the holstered blaster. He was, too. I remembered that much. He anticipated my next thought before it was half-formed. "Don't try to interfere if it comes to that, Kyle. Much as we like each other, I'd shoot you if you tried to stop me..."

I didn't doubt him. He'd always been single-minded. "Hey," I said, trying to lighten the mood. "Let's just make sure it never comes to that."

The Transport's arrival took us both by surprise. Without warning, we were suddenly both drowning in blown snow and deafened by the roar of its thrusters. It touched down with a crunch and I heard Gaius swear softly. Throwing aside the screen of the lean-to I could clearly see the Imperial insignia on its flank. I was in an agony of indecision. He pulled the blaster from its holster and shot me one warning glance. "Don't even think about it, Kyle." Then he dropped to a firing position and took aim at the cargo hatch. The first Stormtrooper to clear the doors took a shot in the face. He hit at least one more, I think, before there were too many clear of the transport and in cover for it to make any difference. Still, he kept firing, but we both knew that it was only a matter of time.

Then it happened. I called his name and he spun around, half expecting a final deception. The shot hit him square in the back, throwing him across the encampment with a gasp of pain. I could hear the voice of a Stormtrooper Sergeant through the wind. "He's down! Set your weapons to stun, we want him alive!"

He lay in the snow, fighting for breath. I didn't think the wound was a fatal one, but he wasn't getting up in a hurry if the expression of agony on his face was anything to go by. Teeth gritted in pain, he reached out towards my feet. I realised the blaster had landed within my reach. He was trying to grasp it as the sounds of booted feet approached, but he couldn't seem to move his legs and was having to drag himself over the snow. Without thinking, I reached down for the gun as his hand closed over the grip...

"What happened next?"

I realised my mouth was dry. I sneaked a look at the carafe of water on Stretch's desk. He nodded and I stood, helping myself to a glass. My hands were shaking. As I poured with my back to him, I continued. "I picked up the blaster and shot him in the face. He was dead when the stormtroopers arrived seconds later." I turned but couldn't look Stretch in the eyes.

"You killed him?"

"Yes sir."

"Why, Kessler?"

I could no longer trust myself to hold the glass without spilling water. I laid it down on the desk and tried to compose myself for a second. "Because I knew what would happen to him if he was taken alive. I owed him a clean death." I met Stretch's cold grey gaze. "Because I owed him my life..."

"You told Intel that he was going to shoot you, that you fought over the gun and that you shot him to save your life. Falsifying an official report to Intel is a Code One offence, Kessler."

Stretch's eyes seemed to drill into mine for an eternity. I fought to return his gaze. I was resigned, by now, to take whatever was coming to me. After a while he flipped closed the buff folder in his lap and dropped into the out-tray on his desk.

"Return to your squadron, Kessler. Thrax has been running things in your absence. I want you on desk duties only until you're fully recovered. Pending medical review in one week, you are reinstated to the flight roster. Dismissed."

It was more than I deserved. I deserved to be stood up against the nearest wall and shot, but not for the reasons that Stretch assumed I was thinking of. I simply saluted and turned to leave. His voice stopped me as I crossed the threshold.

"No need to discuss the details of what happened on Viridian II with anyone outside of this office, okay, Kessler?"

I would take the story of what happened on Viridian II to my grave.

In the turbolift back to my quarters, my head was reeling. I was only dimly conscious of what was happening around me. My mind was back on Viridian II, in the final moments before the shelter was overrun by stormtroopers. I remembered.

He looked up into my face, and for one moment his features blurred and it seemed I was looking down at the pain-wracked face of our father, dying in the cold of another, far distant world. For a timeless moment, I was staring at the figure of Lieutenant Colonel Marius Kessler, shot by a Rebel rearguard as he led his regiment of the 3rd Coruscant Stormtrooper Legion in the Assault of Hoth; then the moment passed and it was Gaius Kessler again, the elder brother I had idolised throughout my childhood. Gaius, who had gone against our father's wishes and enrolled in the Academy as a pilot. Gaius, who lay bleeding in the snow at my feet. Gaius, who needed me now as he had never needed anything from me before.

Our father used to tell us that at times in life, men are faced with defining moments. In a time of crisis, a great man will seize the moment and act decisively. He will define the moment. Weaker men will pause in hesitation, and in that hesitation, the moment will have defined them.

I knew what I had to do. I picked up the pistol and pointed it straight at his face. He smiled, despite the pain. I remembered the last three words he would ever speak...

"Thank you, kid."

I shot my brother.

Trooper Perrell vaulted the fuselage of the wrecked A-Wing and rolled to his feet on the other side. Bringing up his blast rifle in one swift motion, he spotted two figures in the lee of a crude shelter constructed against the wreck. His first impression was that one of them was holding a blaster. He had almost fired when he realised that the armed man was dressed in the remnants of an Imperial pilot's uniform and appeared to be badly wounded and in a state of shock. Lowering the barrel of his weapon, Perrell keyed his transmitter. "Area secured! Get me a medical droid, we've got a live friendly here!"

A second glance confirmed that the downed Reb pilot was dead. Perrell ignored the corpse. "Okay, sir, we're going to get you out of here. Medical assistance will be with us in a minute, just hold on." The pilot looked up and Perrell could see the streaks of tears running down his filthy face. The pilot raised the pistol; there was a wild look in his eyes, and for an instant he was sure that the pilot was going to shoot him. The moment passed and he lowered both the gun and his head as his shoulders shook, with the cold or with tears, Perrell couldn't tell.

Perrell would remember that look in later days, long after he had forgotten even the names of his two comrades who fell that day. It seemed to him that it had been the look of a man who had faced the worst that the Galaxy had to offer, and survived; but it did not seem to be the look of a man who remained wholly sane after the experience.

Perrell was glad that he never had cause to meet that particular Imperial Officer again.

© (copyright) Paul Lee Charlton. All Rights Reserved

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