Imperial Pilot
"It's for horrid reason, why an Imperial finds themselves in such tragic times..." | Tags - OPEN
It had been far too long.
Carida had once been the home of one of the most famous Imperial academies in galactic history. Not of her Empire, of course. That Empire had been smaller, younger, and far less fortunate than its ancient predecessor. Still, symbols mattered, history mattered, those places mattered.
And for Jaine Callahan, Carida had always meant something.
Whenever duty allowed and the endless demands of military life loosened their grip, she found herself returning to the world. Not because regulations required it. Not because she had family there. Simply because it felt right.
The locals knew her, or at least they knew the stories. The ace TIE pilot who had somehow survived the collapse of the Empire. The woman who kept coming back from battles she had no business surviving. The pilot who pushed her starfighter beyond safety regulations, beyond engineering specifications, and occasionally beyond common sense itself.
They bought her drinks, she bought them stories and everyone left happy. For years she had spent evenings in crowded cantinas recounting impossible dogfights, near-fatal engine failures, daring escapes, and the strange collection of victories and disasters that made up life in the cockpit. The people listened eagerly. Children asked questions. Veterans shared their own memories. Older citizens spoke fondly of Imperial ideas long gone.
Jaine had often joked that COMPNOR would have loved her.
A decorated pilot, survivor and walking recruitment poster with enough charm to make people forget how ugly war actually was. The irony was that she probably would have made a very good one, a shame there wasn't much of an Empire left to advertise.
The thought lingered as the shuttle descended.
Outside the viewport stretched a galaxy she barely recognized anymore. The Galactic Empire was gone. The Galactic Alliance was gone.
The old order had collapsed into a thousand competing ambitions. Sith carved kingdoms from the Core because nobody stood strongly enough to oppose them. Mandalorians crawled around, as they did. Refugees fled from world to world seeking safety that rarely existed. Politicians promised solutions while entire sectors quietly fell apart.
Everyone seemed determined to govern themselves, but most appeared terrible at it. Jaine rested her head briefly against the bulkhead and closed her eyes. There had always been a better option, not a perfect one, but just a better one.
The gathering on Lothal still felt strange to think about. The 9th Mechanized. The 3rd Naval Task Force. Soldiers, sailors, spies, administrators, and survivors from a dozen different stories somehow finding one another in the dark. For the first time in years, it felt like they were building something rather than simply trying not to die.
Maybe that was enough, maybe it wasn't, but either way, she wasn't thinking about it today. Today was for Carida, for breathing, for walking familiar streets, for listening to familiar voices. For pretending, if only briefly, that the weight of an entire fallen Empire wasn't resting somewhere on her shoulders.
The shuttle touched down with a soft thud, the clamour of the local dock ringing loudly in the air. Jaine rose from her seat and looked at the Imperial cog on her shoulder, keeping the flight suit and helmet on helped with the locals. A small smile appeared as the boarding ramp began to lower.
One last moment of peace. One last chance to leave old regrets behind.
And if fortune happened to smile on her for once?
Maybe she'd even make a friend or two.