Bid Against the Thunder || ONC 2020

Chapter 14 - I Will Return

 Locked in by the Forebearance's tractor beam, the TIE Defender's shields were offline and the weapons systems shut down, inaccessible to pilot control. There had been no communications with the dreadnaught as the fighter approached, only the back and forth toggling of the wing panels in a sign of surrender.

The TIE fighter was drawn into the docking bay under heavy guard. Six X-wing fighters formed a semi-circle of defense. Wings separated to double their firing capacity, they kept vigil as the Defender was lowered onto a docking berth.

Tabraile chuckled. Their aggressive readiness was warranted. The transponder beacon, which RK-O9 had decrypted, identified the craft as Lord Rainier Jyaard's personal ship.

Defiantly wearing his heavy blaster, Tabraile crawled through the top hatch and held his left hand to show that it was empty. In the right, he carried a bottle of Socorran raava. Anayera's lightsaber was hanging from his belt. He jumped down to the deck plates and rose slowly to the clicking of fifty blaster rifles.

RK-O9 rolled down the side of the fighter on his magnetic wheels until the point where the craft's rounded capsule ended, and he could find no purchase. Tabraile tucked the droid under his arm and set him on the floor, where he surrendered, too, by extending his single mechanical arm through the top hatch in his black chassis.

"Drop the blaster and the lightsaber!" a harsh voice ordered.

"Not gonna happen," Tabraile replied. He put his hands and the raava behind his head. "I'm not here for a gunfight."

"Identify yourself?"

"Captain Marric Tabraile?"

"Your Imperial affiliation?" the soldier demanded. "This craft belongs to Lord Rainier Jyaard of the Galactic Empire."

"I'm not with the Empire anymore. As for the ship, it's mine. Jyaard won't be needing it anymore. He's dead." News of the Imperial's death send a tremor through the assembled company. "I'm here to see General Vannre to return this droid. It has a message for him."

"So we meet again, Captain Tabraile, under much different circumstance," General Vannre said. He stepped away from the ranks of his soldiers. "I very much enjoyed that stunt you pulled in the Hagos System, except the part where you might have gotten yourself killed." Vannre glared at him with the admonishment of a stern, but approving father. "You're bold to come out here wearing a blaster and a lightsaber at your hip."

"My Imperial superiors would agree with you. They've written me off for being reckless and for disregarding authority."

"You're bolder still to come to my fleet in a ship that belongs to my greatest enemy. Just when I was beginning to like you."

The conversation was a test of wills, and Tabraile refused to back down. "Like I said, General Vannre, Jyaard didn't need it anymore, and I needed a ride."

Vannre's eyes narrowed, and Tabraile could see a hint of Anayera in his expression. "What confirmation can you provide?"

Tabraile pursed his lips into a thin line and shook his head. "Only my word."

RK-O9 burst into a cacophony of beeps and whistles. It sped away from Tabraile and hailed Vannre with an extended greeting.

"RK-O9! It's been a very long time, old friend," Vannre said. "You say it's all true? What's this about a message? And where's my daughter?"

Retracting its mechanical arm, the droid rolled back to Tabraile and played the message as ordered. A hologram of Anayera appeared on the deck. Holding her hands in front of her, she was dressed in the black rijani and crop top as Tabraile last saw her. The white, tribal scar across her face stood out prominently like her father's. Stricken, Tabraile wanted to look away but kept watching.

Running an anxious hand across his mouth and chin, Vannre sank down on a munitions crate. Visibly shaken, he dismissed the Rebel crew members who came to his side to offer comfort. "My little girl, all grown up."

Tabraile remained wary of the blasters trained on him as the Rebels faltered, seeing their leader deflated in front of their eyes. "When was the last time you saw her?"

"Twenty years ago. She was just three years old when Jyaard took her and her mother from me. Play the message, RK-O9."

"Mihalo, papa. Do not mourn me. I have done many terrible things as you know," she said. "I well remember the adventures you told me of your youth, but never imagined that I would ever live to collect such tales of my own to tell. The greatest of them being when I fell in love with a Socorran pirate." Anayera smiled and wrapped her arms about her torso. "Papa, it's exactly like you said it would be. Like walking weightless over deep water while your heart was bursting in your throat. While broken things can never be as they were, they can be mended." Anayera straightened as if greeting a dignitary or formal guest. "For him, I invoke the Rite of Feunau'l. Socorran's have no words for goodbye. They say doaba ol'val tru. Peace and hope, papa. I love you." The holo ended.

Tabraile wanted to fall to his knees. To crawl back into the Tie Fighter. To be anywhere that he could be alone with the pain roiling in his guts. Ignoring the Rebel arms aimed at him, he dropped his hands to his sides.

"Was it a noble death?" Vannre asked. He looked to Tabraile, but the Socorran stared at the deck with a lump swelling in his throat. "By Jyaard's hand?"

"She didn't die alone." Tabraile swallowed hard, his voice cracking with emotion.

"And what of him? Did he suffer?"

"Most definitely," Tabraile replied, the sorrow in his voice replaced by cold menace. "I'm sorry I couldn't keep her safe."

"From herself? You did what I could not do, pulling her from the darkness." Vannre took a deep, shuddering breath and exhaled. "On the path Jyaard had set for her, this was inevitable."

Tabraile unclipped the lightsaber, causing the array of rifles and blasters to bristle as he offered it to Vannre. "She would want you to have this."

Vannre stared at the silver and red hilt. "I would no sooner take this, then take your life, Captain Marric Tabraile. While I have lost my daughter, I have gained a son." He glared at the assembly of Rebel soldiers. "Put your weapons down. If you intend to shoot him, you better plan on shooting me as well."

The Rebel general stood up, his face aged ten years by the news of his daughter's death. Walking up to Tabraile, he cupped the Socorran's face in his hands and kissed his left cheek, then his right, then kissed his forehead.

"The Rite of Feunau'l?" Tabraile whispered.

"A life for a life, if you accept this honor?"

"The honor is mine, sir." He held out the crystalline bottle of raava to Vannre as a gift.

RK-O9 spun in circles at Tabraile's feet in a fit of static squealing and beeping. The droid celebrated with a high-pitched whistle and came to rest at Tabraile's boot.

"I believe he's chosen a new master." Vannre looked down at the droid and chuckled. "I understand Socorrans are excellent storytellers, almost as good as Danerians. I want to hear all about my Anayera from the man who cared for her as much as I did. Perhaps by the time we finish this off," he held the bottle up to Tabraile, "I'll have convinced you to stay on."

"To stay on?" Tabraile followed him into an access corridor leading from the docking bay. Behind them, the assembly of Rebels returned to business as usual. "You mean join the Rebellion?"

"I could use a reckless pilot with no regard for authority." Vannre frowned in confusion at RK-O9's insistent babble. "What's this talk of being an outlaw?"

"Because I am one. I'm a deserter," Tabraile said, stopping in the hallway. "You know that, right? A Socorran pirate, the son of a smuggler. And I'm very proud of that fact."

Vannre grinned and took him by the shoulder. "Through tyranny and oppression, the Empire has made outlaws of every just and honest being in the galaxy. Rogues and insurrectionists. Scoundrels and anarchists. Smugglers and pirates." Vannre winked at him. "Trust me, son. You'll be in good company."

                                 THE END