Carci

“You’re the only one who can do this Lieutenant Kylna. You’re the only one I can trust.”

The Karkarodon’s strong arms grasped the pilot by the shoulders. His mouth twisted upwards in an approximation of a smile. A smile made of a thousand pointed teeth. Carci Kylna couldn’t help but grin too. She was back in the saddle, ready to ride out into the night, running another mission to help liberate the galaxy. Just like old times.

“You can count on me boss.” She chimed with a palpable excitement. He pressed a brass device with a disc poking out of its frame into her hands and wrapped her fingers around it.

“This is an important mission. You need to get this to Commander Tri Lennix. Without it, Ord Avis is surely lost.” The luster for the cause shone in York’s black eyes.

“And with it, the war?” Carci repeated the phrase he’d given her a thousand times during the Clone War with a roll of her eyes.
“Maybe this time, Carci…” York was committed as any officer she’d served under, whether the war was hot or cold. “Maybe this time…”

It had been a decade since they’d seen action together. She was barely a woman, and he’d molded her into the best pilot the squad had ever seen. There weren’t many who could make an impact alongside Vulture Droids and Tri-Fighters, flying with such skill and finesse they could challenge a starfighter’s droid brain. She’d flown out over Coruscant on that fateful day. The beginning of the end, the Republic had called it. Their valorous General had captured the Chancellor! He’d succeeded in kidnapping him from their Capital! She had hopped into the cockpit of her starfighter feeling like she could take on any clone she ran into out there. York had been there to wave her off.

He’d been there when she crashed back into their hangar, her ship shot to bits. He carried her to the infirmary as their dreadnought, the Brilliant Grasp, leapt away to the outer rim, the whole fleet licking its wounds as reports of their ‘defeat’ came in. Count Dooku was dead at the hands of Skywalker. The Jedi had rescued their Chancellor. Kenobi had defeated General Grievous. All the Separatist leaders disappeared on Mustafar. The end of the war. Their senators were folded into the new Galactic Empire, abandoning the soldiers who’d pledged their lives for a better galaxy.

A new Galactic Empire rose from the ashes of the crumbling Republic they’d been fighting so hard to dismantle, sealing the cracks of ineptitude with cruelty. The galaxy celebrated the end of the war, but the crew of the Brilliant Grasp didn’t raise a glass to their new masters. They fought on. They raided Imperial bases and smashed Imperial patrols with the sheer overwhelming force of a dreadnought, right up until they couldn’t.

First the battle droids shut down. Legions of the friendly, bubbly bots slumping onto their knees and rendered little more than expensive paperweights. Next went the tactical and repair droids. All the lights and hums and whirs that filled the dreadnought vanished.

The skeleton crew of organics wasn’t enough to helm the vessel. It had to be abandoned, parked in the mass shadow of a distant asteroid to keep from being discovered. The last few swore they’d return one day, and take up arms to liberate the galaxy once again.
All that remained of the Confederacy of Independent Systems was a handful of loyalists scattered to the winds.

Carci knew the war had changed, but she refused to let it end. At least in her heart. It wasn’t hard to hide her Separatist past. No one expected an experienced pilot to have fought in the grand civil war between clones and droids. Two groups distinctly ‘other’ from the rest of the galaxy. She pulled odd jobs across the outer rim for the next nine years, hauling cargo, ferrying passengers, and a little smuggling if she knew the route well enough. Never anything dangerous. Never anything that would put her on the Empire’s radar. The last thing the cause needed was one of their best rotting in a jail under the watchful eye of clones who’d enjoy nothing more than reminding her who won the war.

Every extra credit was tucked away. Every spare moment was spent hunting down old allies and scouring CIS comm channels. She knew they were out there, waiting for her to return to the good fight. But they weren’t responding.

A year ago she was low on credits. Repairs of her Aurore freighter had stalled after an Imperial tariff created a shortage of stabiliser coils. She needed a well paying job. So she boasted at the local cantina about knowing a secret clone war hyperspace route. A boast that got her a face to face with a gang boss. Someone who wanted illicit spice smuggled out of Ylesia right under the Hutts’ noses.

The thing is, she actually did it. A thousand doses of Glitterstim hauled out of Hutt space and only a handful of mercenaries knew about it. She touched down outside a dusty old cantina on a desolate moon, letting the gang go celebrate their big score. None of them noticed the figure slinking aboard the ship, save for the pilot who’d stayed behind to guard the loot. She had her blaster on him before he could realise his mistake, but something about the shine in his black eyes that kept her from pulling the trigger. Something about the familiar toothy grin.

They’d been fighting the good fight ever since. A thousand doses of Glitterstim was better split two ways than a dozen, and with those credits they’d been able to finish fixing up her freighter. They’d gathered a small crew of neo-Separatists, humans and aliens all believing in the dream of free systems governing themselves. They’d even liberated a few B1 battle droids from their early retirement on a junk planet, painting them in garish colours and letting them roam the ship on their own. They were just as much a part of the crew as anyone else.

Just like that, the Confederacy was rebuilding itself. York had connected with a fellow Separatist movement on a former world of theirs and they were prepping for combat. The assault wouldn’t be easy, but as long as Carci reached the surface with the datadisc intact, the mission would be a success. Commander Tri Lennix would welcome the backup she’d brought, and Separatist banned would fly on Ord Avis once more. All before Life Day.

She saluted her General as she led the attack party into hyperspace.

------------

“Please state the nature of your medical emergency.”

Carci groaned as a synthetic voice woke her. She’d been in and out since the attack, fading into a world too bright for her bloodshot eyes, and fading out when the terrible agony of her burns had proved too much for her fortitude. But there was no comfort in the dark embrace of unconsciousness. There was laser fire. Heat. The whistling of atmosphere through a smashed cockpit viewport. The crunch of impact against the compacted dirt of an alien world. Heat. The lick of flame at her back. Heat. The silence of her fused safety belt. Darkness. Heat. Fire.

“She was burned! Badly. All across her body. Can you not smell it?” The Ugnaught who’d brought her here piped up, slamming his hands on the hospital counter to get the attention of the droid behind it. The low resolution face turned its fixed smile to the man.

“She will need to be admitted to the intensive care unit. Please stand back so we may transport her. Please fill out this form.” The droid behind the counter slid a small datapad into Kazov’s hands while two sets of metallic arms hefted her up into a stretcher. They jabbed her with a needle, and the siren call of the dark beckoned once more.

“Ah hells…” Carci heard the Ugnaught curse as she hovered away on the hospital gurney. “Dee never told us her kriffing name!”