Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Former Legacy: Chapter 2: Burning in memories

The smell of ash and burning flesh still lingered around her, the sound of her own heart beating and her shuddered breath filled the darkness. She was entombed, cut off from the outside world, but she could still hear faint thuds in the distance that caused the ground beneath her to tremble softly and the dust to fall from above.

There was nothing she could do, not a damn thing. She was just a child, powerless against the horrors that were unleashed upon her in an instant. How could she have hoped to fight against that thing? It had towered over her, even as it stood in the distance, watching her, a dark spectre that cut down everyone around her relentlessly.

Through the pitch-black darkness of her tomb, she could still remember the nightmare’s form. It was wrapped in a cloak of shadow, obscuring its face, but she could still see. It was scarred and pale, not like anything she had ever seen before, a nightmare of flesh born into reality. Its features were so badly cracked and deformed that the creature had a permanently twisted sneer scarred across its face. Its eyes were sunken into its skull, causing shadows to fall over them but not enough to hide its most horrifying feature.

Why were its eyes glowing? The thought sent a jolt down her spine as those red piercing eyes hung before her in the darkness of the spectres eye sockets. She would never forget those piercing red orbs, unblinking, staring straight through her. She looked into those eyes and knew only one thing.

Fear.

She had heard stories of the Sith, but nothing could have prepared her for what she had witnessed. Her body trembled; she had seen so many die that night, so many suffer. Before she found herself in the darkness, she saw buildings crumble, innocent people

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being slaughtered in the streets and ominous triangular capital ships descending from the sky, spewing swarms of small starfighters into the atmosphere, as the city she grew up in burned around her.

Breathing an exhausted sigh, she sat still and waited. In this cold tomb of darkness, there was nothing else in her universe except for herself and the life she held in her hands. A life she was not sure would survive the nightmare that had fallen upon them.

Lexiine stirred in her seat as she leaned back in her chair, her feet propped up, hands behind her head and her eyes shut. She stifled a soft groan, realising she had almost fallen asleep, though, at the same time, she felt too relaxed to get up from the chair.

“Captain,” a voice spoke to her. “Captain, please!”

With her eyes still shut, feeling lethargic and groggy, Lexiine replied to the voice. “What is it?”

A moment of silence followed, she still refused to move or even open her eyes to address the person speaking to her.

Finally, with a lazy sigh, Lexiine slowly opened her eyes and shifted her tired gaze toward an especially unhappy young man who sat in the pilot’s chair beside her. Lexiine stared at him for a moment as the young blonde-haired, blue-eyed Lieutenant glared back at her. His youthful face not doing anything to temper his steely glare.

Without reacting to his obvious dissatisfaction, the hint of a smile began show on Lexiine’s face. “What’s up, Torbin?” she chirped.

“Sir, can you please get your feet off my galaxy map?”

Torbin kept his eyes on Lexiine, never showing any sign of hesitation toward her. This scene between the two of them had been played out a thousand times to the point where it had become routine.

Lexiine smiled back at the Lieutenant, slowly lifted her feet off the galaxy map console, allowing the hologram of the known galaxy to display correctly. In one fluid motion, she used her arms to lift herself up, giving her enough room to shift her seating position back and cross her legs in front of her on top of the chair. The momentum of this action spun her chair over a hundred and eighty degrees back

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to its neutral position facing the front viewport, allowing Lexiine to witness the mesmerising purple glow of the hyperspace tunnel before her.

“Sorry, I keep forgetting,” she told him as she gauged his reaction with a sidewards glance.

Torbin’s glare faded, his face returning to its usual stoic yet youthful characteristics.

“Thank you,” he replied, quickly shifting his attention back to the flight instruments in front of him as Lexiine’s quiet glance lingered.

As she watched him for a moment, Torbin unconsciously rubbed the stump of his left leg. Lexiine had lost the people she most cared about, but Torbin had been through so much more. He had lost the people he loved, everyone he ever knew in addition to losing his entire right leg and part of his left leg, just above the knee.

It happened during the invasion of Coruscant, Torbin had found himself pinned down by rubble for almost a week before a group of Republic Troopers found him alone, surrounded by the broken corpses of his family. When the Troopers managed to get him clear of the rubble, his legs were too badly mangled to save, worse still, he had become paralysed from the waist down. Normally, artificial prosthetic limbs would have allowed Torbin to walk, but due to the damage to his spinal cord, such devices would not function. The only option Torbin had left was to be confined to a hover-chair for the rest of his life.

The horrors he suffered through happened thirteen years ago, he was only a child at the time, yet he endured.

It seemed like a cruel joke that every time Lexiine returned to the ship, she would prop her feet atop the galaxy map, putting focus on body parts he no longer possessed. However, she knew better than to think that way, she had recruited Torbin into Ravage Squad herself. While others in the Republic military saw only his disability, Lexiine was interested in Torbin’s extraordinary piloting abilities.

A month before he joined Ravage Squad, Torbin was part of a

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Republic convoy that came under attack from a small band of pirates preying on ships in that sector. He flew a heavy cargo ship at the time, with subpar manoeuvring capability and a limited sub-light speed. Despite the limitations of his ship, he managed to fly into a debris field and alluded the aggressors in their agile starfighters long enough for backup to arrive. His superiors commended his actions, but still, they only saw a small man in a hover-chair and could not look beyond it to see the potential he had as a combat pilot.

Lexiine got up out of her chair and stretched her arms into the air, letting out an audible groan. With her hands clasped behind her head, she walked to the exit at the rear of the cockpit, the automatic door opened for her.

“Let me know when we reach Coruscant, Lieutenant,” she told Torbin as she left, the door sliding shut behind her, not giving him the chance to respond.

Before she could take another step, Torbin’s voice crackled over the ship’s internal communications system. “Understood, sir.”

Lexiine did not waste a second to turn around and give a rude gesture to the door behind her as she stuck out her tongue in the most immature way possible. Satisfied with her silent retort, she walked down the stairs to the upper deck of the ship.

“Stikks, you around?” Lexiine called out as she peeked her head into her Cathar subordinate’s quarters.

Pausing for a moment to look around, she tried again. “You’re not taking a shower without brushing your fur first, are you? You remember I made you spend an hour unclogging everything last time.”

Usually, teasing her like that would get some kind of response out of Stikks; her playful nature would not allow her to stay silent. Lexiine sighed as she made her way down to the cargo hold, continuing her search.

As Lexiine stepped off the personnel elevator, she noticed HK-51 standing on the far side of the hold next to the weapons and equipment lockers. A thick, black data cable was connected to a port

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on its chest plate snaking all the way to a terminal nearby. The assassin droid’s head suddenly turned to face her as she walked further into the cargo hold, tracking her as if it were a surveillance camera.

Lexiine cocked an eyebrow at the droid, something about the way it was tracking her felt unsettling. “Are you just going to stand in the corner and watch me?” she asked the droid with a raised voice.

“Informative: I am currently in standby mode, Master,” the droid told her from across the hold as it continued to stare directly at her.

“Then what the hell are you looking at?”

“Clarification: This is an automated message. My systems are currently engaged in high-level combat diagnostics at this time.”

From the workbench in front of Lexiine, Stikks finally spoke up, revealing her presence. “I think I overheard him say something about analysing the data collected on all five hundred and something missions we’ve been on since you activated him.”

Lexiine focused on the small Cathar. “Any idea why?”

Stikks rested her left arm over the back of her chair, looked over her shoulder at Lexiine, and shrugged. “He never tells me anything. I don’t think he likes me.”

“It is an assassin droid,” Lexiine corrected her, “the most I want it to do is kill Imperials, whatever it thinks is irrelevant just as long as it continues to do that much.”

Considering Lexiine’s words for a moment, Stikks stared off into empty space then returned to what she was doing before. Lexiine stepped closer to Stikks and looked over her shoulder at the workbench in front of the small Cathar.

Spread out over half the workbench was a thick, matte white anti-static material. Various small precision tools were laid out on the edges of the material with equal space between them. Toward the centre were a small collection of devices, some half-constructed as well as, what appeared to be, a remote detonator, possibly the same one Lexiine had used during that last mission on Nar Shaddaa.

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“By the way,” she told Stikks, “every time I come in here, you’re always tinkering with something.”

Stikks kept her eyes focused on her work. “It helps me cope being on the ship.”

Lexiine paused. “Do you still get nightmares?” she asked the Cathar out of concern.

Stikks stopped working for a moment. “Sometimes. But I’m okay,” she assured Lexiine then continued tinkering with the device in her hand, “I don’t get them as much these days.”

“What are these, anyway, some new type of explosives you’re cooking up?” Lexiine asked, changing the subject.

Stikks shook her head. “This isn’t new, it’s the same design as the ones we used on that shuttle the Imps were using back on Nar Shaddaa,” she explained. “I have to figure out what went wrong.”

That statement took Lexiine by surprise.

“Wrong? It looked like it worked perfectly to me. Roasted those Imps pretty good,” Lexiine commented, leaning over Stikks’ shoulder to get an even closer look.

Putting down the device in her hand, Stikks turned to her commanding officer, their faces close, staring directly at each other. Lexiine noticed the worried look in Stikks’ eyes and waited for the Cathar to respond.

“But it didn’t work exactly how I wanted and it caused too much collateral damage. General Garza is going to skin me and hang me by my ears if I don’t figure out what went wrong.”

Lexiine stared into Stikk’s big blue eyes for a moment then, without warning, grabbed the tips of the Cathar’s pointed ears and pulled them gently.

“No one’s going to hang you by your ears,” she assured her companion with a soothing voice, “you keep worrying about all these supposed mistakes you made on the field when every one of our missions turn out perfectly.”

Stikks’ fur rippled, reacting to the sensation of her ears being pulled.

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“I. . . just want to do well,” she said, shaking her head gently to get free of Lexiine’s soft grip. “You say our missions turn out perfectly, but General Garza always yells at us after every mission and it’s because we always go too far.”

Lexiine stood straight and looked down at Stikks who stared back up at her. “She always yells at me after every mission,” Lexiine corrected, “you just happen to be there to spectate.”

“But what about the people who got hurt because of the shuttle?”

“What about them?”

A moment of silence passed before Stikks answered.

“I. . . don’t want to hurt people who don’t deserve it,” she confessed.

“Hurting people is part of the job. It’s especially part—” Before Lexiine could continue, the ship’s intercom chirped, causing both Lexiine and Stikks to look up in the direction of the internal communications speakers out of habit.

“We will reach our destination coordinates in sixty seconds—mark,” Torbin’s voice announced.

Looking back at Stikks, Lexiine sighed. “We’ll talk about this later,” she told the Cathar as she started on her way back up to the cockpit.

Stikks sighed in response, looking back down at the explosive devices scattered on the workbench with a hint of regret in her eyes.

Torbin glanced back behind him as he heard the cockpit door slide open.

“Standby,” he told Lexiine, going back to his instruments, “we’re about to drop out of hyperspace.”

Lexiine took her seat, trying not to give in to the urge to put her feet up, instead opting to just lean back in her chair. Beside her, Torbin pulled the hyperdrive power levers back as the destination counter hit zero.

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Through the long rectangular viewport at the front of the cockpit, the swirling, hypnotic hyperspace wormhole faded away and the streaks of stars surrounding the ship turned back into pinpoints of light. Ahead of them, a planet zoomed into view then came to an abrupt halt, an illusion caused by the ship entering back into normal space.

As Torbin checked his instruments, Lexiine’s attention was fixated on the sight before them, a large planet covered in an endless city that sparkled like a jewel in the blackness of space. From orbit, Coruscant looked wondrous, like a living orb of shimmering lights. However, once you get down into the atmosphere, the quiet beauty it held in space is replaced with the chaos of air traffic and trillions of beings going about their day-to-day business.

For many, once the initial sense of wonder finally wears off, the treasured jewel of the Republic begins to reveal its darker side. Criminal activity, poverty and decay run rampant in the seedier parts of the planet, below the surface of the mega structures covering the continuous landscape, traits the government hides well from those not familiar with the capital of the Republic.

It had its fair share of problems, but for better or worse, Coruscant was the planet where the members of Ravage Squad all grew up. They were home.

“Home sweet city planet that could easily turn out like the city moon we just came from,” Lexiine mused.

“Entering orbital control range at equatorial approach vector thirty-nine-mark-two,” Torbin announced, ignoring Lexiine’s quip. “Decreasing thrust to fifty percent.”

“Now it’s time to go through the whole song and dance routine,” Lexiine yawned.

A few moments passed until the communications system finally sounded to indicate an incoming channel.

“Captain, incoming communications channel from Coruscant Control,” Torbin announced, adhering to strict military protocol by confirming the channel despite the ship’s computer already doing so.

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Lexiine leaned forward and tapped a set of keys on the terminal in front of her to initiate communications with Coruscant Control.

“Channel open,” Torbin confirmed.

“Freelance cargo shuttle, this is Coruscant Control,” a feminine sounding voice spoke over the comms channel. “You have entered Coruscant orbital traffic lane E22, submit your identification information, flight plan, cargo and passenger manifest through this channel and stand by for further instructions.”

Lexiine put her right forearm on the terminal, leaning on it as she tapped a key with her left hand to activate the reply channel.

“Coruscant Control, we are switching to a secure transmission frequency, standby,” she told the operator as she tapped out a series of commands on her terminal with her left hand. The communications signal squelched and buzzed for a moment before returning to normal.

Lexiine waited a few seconds for the computer to verify the secure channel was resynchronised correctly with the Coruscant Control operator before she spoke. “Coruscant Control, this is cargo shuttle, ‘Valkyrie Rising,’ complying with your instructions. We are sending our identification information and flight plan; however, our cargo and passenger manifest is under restricted access. Our ship’s cargo is bound for Republic Strategic Information Service; confirmation is embedded in our identification information.”

Lexiine tapped the key again to deactivate the reply channel then another to send the identification information as instructed.

After a long pause, Lexiine and Torbin finally exchanged a glance as they waited for a reply.

“Freelance cargo shuttle, ‘Valkyrie Rising,’ your identity has been verified by Republic SIS and your flight plan has been logged into our system. For security considerations, we are dispatching Republic starfighters to escort you to your destination. Hold your current position until the escort fighters arrive, any deviation will be seen as an aggressive act and you will be shot down.”

With another quick tap, Lexiine replied to the controller.

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“Understood, Coruscant Control, cutting engines and standing by at our current coordinates.”

As she tapped the button to close the reply channel once more, Lexiine gave Torbin a quick nod who immediately cut all forward thrust and engaged reverse thrust to stop the ship.

“Confirmed, welcome to Coruscant and have a nice day, Coruscant Control out.”

With that, the channel closed and Lexiine leaned back in her chair again.

Torbin looked over at his commanding officer. “They told us to hold position this time.”

“Yeah,” she replied, “so we’re to head to General Garza’s office through the hidden entrance immediately after we land. Then there’s the fighter escort which means we’re meeting with Garza as well as a liaison officer from Republic SIS.”

“And the last part?”

“Looks like the SIS operatives on Nar Shaddaa have already cleaned up whatever mess we left behind and have received our information drops.”

“We did leave quite a mess this time,” Torbin commented.

“And Garza is going to chew my ass over it like always, but since we got the ‘have a nice day’ message, it looks like the SIS operatives successfully covered our tracks.”

Lexiine swivelled her chair around, putting her feet up on the galaxy map and her hands behind her head, closing her eyes.

“Anyway,” she told the young Lieutenant, fully aware that he had started glaring at her the moment she closed her eyes, “wake me up when we get there. . . on not. It’d be nice not to have to deal with the old decrepit hag today.”

Torbin opened his mouth to protest but stopped himself as he realised the futility in scolding his superior officer yet again. No, he would just have to endure it for now and prepare himself for the lashing they were about to get from General Garza instead.

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*   *   *

General Elin Garza threw her datapad down onto her desk in a fit of outrage, letting it slide across the surface of the desk and fall down on the other side. Before it could hit the ground, Lexiine caught it and cocked an eyebrow at General Garza who looked directly back at her, fuming with anger. Just as Lexiine and the rest of Ravage Squad predicted, the General was not happy.

“What the hell is this?” General Garza bellowed, pointing at the datapad in Lexiine’s hand.

Lexiine hesitated for a moment, almost stating the obvious, that she was holding a datapad, rather than giving the General the answer she wanted. However, it was too late for answers, the General was already about to begin.

“This is completely unacceptable, I told you after your previous mission to have some restraint! Yet, I receive reports that you destroyed an Imperial shuttle above a populated area causing it to crash into residential housing, killing who knows how many people. What the blasted hell were you thinking?”

Garza glared directly at Lexiine who seemed unfazed by the General’s outbursts. Behind her, Torbin and Stikks exchanged a quick glance, waiting nervously for Lexiine’s reply, hoping she was not in another one of her moods that made her purposefully taunt their superior.

“We got the job done,” Lexiine said firmly, “we took down a Sith, prevented the Imps from getting any of the isotope-5 refinery components and managed to get a butt load of information about those components as a bonus.”

“That is not the point, Captain,” the General countered. “Your conduct on this mission has caused too much collateral damage that could have easily been avoided had you even bothered to exercise a shred of restraint.”

Lexiine looked Garza directly in the eye and threw the datapad back down on the desk with a sharp snap as it hit the flat surface,

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making Stikks flinch behind Lexiine. “My job is to get the mission done no matter the cost. Whatever happens afterward is up to you and the SIS pretty boy over here to manage.”

Before Garza could retort, Jonas Balkar raised his clenched fist up to his mouth and cleared his throat.

“Yes, well the information we obtained from your droid has helped us quite a bit in our investigations regarding the use of isotope-5 by the Empire,” the dark-haired man informed the two women who were still glaring at each other. “Once we manage to figure out the purpose of the components listed on the manifest, we’ll have a clearer picture of what the Empire is up to. I’d say congratulations and a round of drinks are in order.”

General Garza’s glare faded with a sigh as she remembered the presence of the SIS agent in her office. She brushed away her silver hair to rub her temple, smoothing out the wrinkles on her forehead temporarily as she circled her fingers in an effort to calm herself down.

“Captain, despite the mission being a resounding success, your method leaves much to be desired,” she told Lexiine, trying not to reignite her own anger. “If, by chance, the Hutt’s were to learn of our involvement in this incident, it would deal a severe blow to relations between the Republic and Hutt Cartel. We may have their cooperation after their defeat at Makeb, but we can’t afford to give them anything they could use as leverage against us and allow them to slip their way out of our grasp.”

Balkar nodded in agreement. “I share your concerns, General, and I don’t particularly like the way the Captain handled the situation. However, Republic SIS is on top of things on Nar Shaddaa. As far as the Hutt’s are concerned, the entire incident is a gangland related faction dispute gone out of hand.”

Garza turned to Balkar. “Explain.”

“The Devaronian black market merchant the Empire was dealings with had quite a lot of scrupulous connections with various factions in the undercity,” Balkar continued, “playing various sides

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against each other for his own gain. To put it simply, we got lucky and the loose ends tied themselves. All we had to do was a bit of clean-up work.”

Lexiine winced; the very idea that the pretty boy SIS agent and his sideburns were helping her avoid being chewed out by Garza annoyed the hell out of her.

The General sighed. “Very well, however, for the record,” she said, turning back to Lexiine, “I don’t condone the actions your squad has taken that have caused the casualties of innocents.”

Lexiine looked away from the General for a moment, unable to bear the hypocrisy she was hearing coming from this woman’s mouth. She, the very same General, had ordered the illustrious Havoc Squad to murder a group of civilians who had been implanted with synthetic enhancements against their will by a lunatic.

The commanding officer of Havoc Squad refused the order, instead freeing the civilians and guaranteeing their lives. He promised them that the Republic would find a way to disable the implants before they were activated, turning the civilians into mindless killing machines.

A few months after that incident, Garza started the “Ravage” initiative with Lexiine as her first recruit. Under General Garza’s command, Lexiine’s first mission was to hunt down each one of those civilians and assassinate them despite the General begrudgingly agreeing to the decisions of the Havoc Squad commander months earlier.

Lexiine shook her head in disappointment. “General, I don’t have to remind you that this is entirely the reason why this squad exists. We do what we must to ensure the survival of the Republic. We’re here to win a war, one that has gone on for far too long and is eating away at the Republic bit by bit.”

“I know perfectly well why your unit was created, Captain,” the General barked, “I don’t need to be reminded. Yes, you are here to complete the missions we cannot assign officially, but you go too far. You need to exercise better judgement during your missions in the off

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chance that something may come back to bite you. More importantly, you need to exercise better judgement during your missions in the off chance that something may come back to bite the Republic. If that were to happen, you know what the consequences would be for Ravage Squad.”

The room fell into silence once more as General Garza waited for Lexiine’s reply.

Realising it was pointless to continue the argument; Lexiine looked Garza straight in the eye. “Do you have any further orders, General?” she asked her commanding officer.

General Garza tried to hide her annoyance at Lexiine’s submission; she wanted the Captain to challenge her further, she was not done with her.

The General looked over at Balkar then back to Lexiine. “We’re done here for now, Captain; stay on Coruscant until your squad is needed.”

“And make sure you frequent the usual cantinas to make your presence known,” Balkar chimed in.

“Dismissed.”

With those final words, General Garza saluted the members of Ravage Squad who snapped to attention, returning her salute.

“Yes, sir,” the three acknowledged in unison.

Lexiine turned to her companions and pointed her thumb back to the hidden exit in General Garza’s office. Her two subordinates nodded, making their way there; however, before Lexiine was able to follow them, she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder that prevented her from moving.

“Since you’re sticking around for a while, why don’t we relax one night and go out for some drinks,” invited Balkar, “just the two of us?”

Balkar smirked at Lexiine, almost drowning her with his charm. The Ravage Squad commanding officer slowly looked down at Balkar’s hand on her bare shoulder then looked up directly at him in disgust.

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“Balkar, I’d rather lick the taint off a Rancor than go anywhere with you,” she told the SIS agent with an edge of venom, swatting his hand away from her shoulder.

Balkar winced at the image being conjured up in his mind. “Okay, okay. I got the message loud and clear.”

Garza ignored the exchange between Balkar and Lexiine as she tapped a combination of keys on the terminal sitting on her desk. Without any further acknowledgement of the General, the members of Ravage Squad walked through the open hallway that was hidden only a moment ago.

As they continued down the dark corridor, the light behind them turned into a sliver as the hidden wall behind them shut, finally shrouding them in darkness. A second later, they heard the sounds of several locking mechanisms engaging as the soft glow of guide lights activated, illuminating their path through the hidden passage.

Stikks’ left ear flicked. “I can’t believe it; we got away without a scratch. I was sure General Garza was going to bite our heads off!” she laughed, trying to hide the nervousness in her delivery.

Lexiine kept her head locked forward, though she could sense the anxiety in Stikks’ voice behind her.

Torbin looked over at Stikks, recognising the same discomfort he had seen in her many times before. “It seems we got lucky yet again,” he told Stikks, keeping her mind preoccupied. “If it had not been for Agent Balkar’s presence at today’s debrief, we may have received the full brunt of General Garza’s wrath.”

“Maybe,” Stikks murmured.

Walking ahead of them, Lexiine shook her head. “Psh,” she scoffed, “I would rather have gone toe to toe with Garza than have Balkar in the debriefing. She may have started the Ravage Squad initiative, but she shrivels up whenever we break normal military conventions despite it being the reason why she started this squad at all.”

“I understand, sir. But, with all due respect,” Torbin hesitated for a moment but decided to proceed, “I think the General just wants

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us to find alternate solutions where we can instead of resorting to extremes on every single mission we’re assigned.”

Lexiine stopped suddenly in place allowing Stikks and Torbin to move ahead of her. Stikks’ fur stiffened for a moment as she sensed the change in mood from Lexiine. To the Cathar’s left, Torbin gave Lexiine a sidewards glance, carefully studying his superior officer’s face as he slowly rotated his hover-chair in place to face her.

The three stood silently in the dimly lit corridor, their faces bathed in the soft orange glow from the guide lights on the floor.

Lexiine finally broke the silence. “We do what needs to be done to make sure the invasion of Coruscant doesn’t happen again,” she spoke, staring at the empty space between her two companions. “We do what needs to be done so that we can give the Empire a taste of the nightmares they made the three of us suffer through.”

Lexiine focused her attention on Stikks, then to Torbin. The two felt the weight of her gaze upon them, the seriousness in her voice. Stikks’ fur rippled as she tried to nod but felt the muscles at the back of her neck tighten.

“Some Nar Shaddaa slum dwellers died, so what?” Lexiine continued. “They’re none of my concern. Remember, we’ve got a job to do and we’re authorised to do it at all costs.”

Torbin focused his eyes down at the stump of his left leg that suddenly began to feel uncomfortable, he felt it burn despite the fact that he should not be able to feel the stump at all. Sighing, he slowly looked back up at Lexiine who stared straight into his eyes. He nodded slightly in acknowledgement, knowing that she was one of the few people in the galaxy who understood what he had been through.

Without another word, Lexiine continued to walk forward, her two subordinates following her silently. Each of the members of Ravage Squad had been through their own piece of hell at the hands of the Empire that they would never forget. Their motivations were clear, their scars, both mental and physical, ran deep. The Empire would pay for what they had done to them.

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Lexiine knew that one day, perhaps a day well into the future, perhaps even tomorrow, General Garza would have no more use for her and her squad. If that day ever did come, she would accept it and let the Republic do whatever it wanted to her just as long as she was given the chance to inflict as much hurt onto the Empire as she could before that day ever came.

Turning her head to the side, Lexiine looked back at Stikks who walked silently behind her. The small Cathar had her head down, looking at her feet as she walked, clasping her hands in front of her anxiously.

Lexiine may have been willing to give up her own freedom for the Republic, and she knew well enough to know that Torbin would do the same if that scenario were to happen, however. . .

She shook her head at the thought. Lexiine would not let that happen to Stikks, she could not, knowing what she knew about her past, it would be the most horrific thing for Stikks to endure. She would rather die than to lose her freedom, not again.

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