Star Wars: Death and Life/Part One

Star Wars: Death and Life

“Come on, just around the bend!”

“Ma'am, we've got Mandalorians on all sides! We'll never make it without support!”

“If we make it, Corporal, we won't need support! We destroy this power generator and the whole Mando line collapses!” The officer gripped her blaster with purpose, then turned back to the junior NCO and the remnants of her unit, her countenance grim. “We're dead if we leave, but just as dead if we stay! D'you want those dogs to sing songs about how they gunned you down?”

The combat-reduced squad of Republic Marines, their armor chipped and scorched by shrapnel and blasterfire, their faces stained with blood, sweat, and grime, looked at their officer one more time. The eyes of each man and woman spoke of many things: fear, admiration, pure unbridled grit and determination, as well as an overwhelming sense of knowing, whatever happened, that they were serving alongside brothers and sisters. Barely a moment passed as their commander asked for, and got, their assent to one last, grand effort. As one, the soldiers raised their weapons, prepared themselves, and leaped through the accessway into the inner control area...

For their officer, it was her last leap, as a Mandalorian grenade tore into her chestplate...

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

“Commander Reyolé did everything right, more than we could have asked for.”

Malak paced the command center, walking back and forth between Revan's chair and the wall-sized holodisplay. Both Jedi were still clad in their warrior attire; the former wearing his customary high-necked orange greatcoat and robes, the latter in subtle dark grays over matte armor plates, with his cowl up. The two men looked upon a readout of the assault, displaying in excruciating detail the aerial recon from before, during and after, on three separate sections of the huge panorama. As Revan keyed for a close-in view of the moment that everything shifted in the Republic's favor, Malak continued his missive.

“Finding the intel, scouting out the best route, even ensuring that the mission succeeded. We might not have been able to liberate this world from the Neo-Crusaders if it weren't for her.”

Revan took a sip from a cup of plain water at his side. “And you think it worth all this trouble to bring her back?”

“The Republic has been developing this kind of technology in secret for decades, Revan,” Malak replied. “The problem is that they're squeamish; they don't want to tackle the ethics of reanimating a body. Not even the body of one of our best soldiers, one of our best combat leaders.”

“And yet, they'd clone us an army based on her DNA if we asked them to,” Revan agreed, taking another sip of water. “If what you suspect about her is true, this might be well worth our while.”

Malak turned to face Revan and folded his arms across his chest, his expression contemplative. “None of us has been able to sit down with her to confirm this. She always distrusted Force-users, and made no attempt to hide that fact.”

“You would trust this woman with your life?”

“I would.”

Revan rose from his chair, plunging the room into darkness as he dismissed the holodisplay with a wave of his hand. “Then get it done.”

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

A dense haze smeared the landscape, making it blossom with light. Trees shimmered in the shine of an impossible sun, leaves splashed with light like liquid, as a light breeze tickled their tips. The ordinary glass, set in the ordinary windows of the ordinary residences in this colonial neighborhood, seemed to have become mirrors to a beautiful landscape. Even the stones of the pedestrian path seemed to sparkle, giving the appearance of flowing water.

But not a sound permeated the air; all was quiet as the vacuum of space.

For Laera Reyolé, this wasn't of much concern. She couldn't explain why, but then, she had no inclination to do so. Everything seemed perfect, as it should be, without interference from the outside world. Better yet, free from the outside galaxy. The young woman stared at her home for a brief moment&mdash;or several centuries&mdash;before investigating further. Everything was good and proper, exactly as she had left it...to go where?

The memory seemed to have vanished, somehow, but even this did not give Laera pause. She picked up a still holo of her parents&mdash;at least, she thought it was of her parents&mdash;and examined it. Her mother was tall, leggy, with blonde hair and brown eyes and a visage that conveyed constant good cheer; her father, by contrast, was somewhat dour-looking, considerably shorter than his wife, his crown of auburn hair balding in the middle. His blue eyes sparkled with an inner curiosity that belied his ordinary appearance, and seemed to dart into and out of trouble on a minute-by-minute basis.

Laera smiled at the holo. As she did so, it vanished, as did the idyllic neighborhood that had held it in secret. Even the starshine seemed to shift; instead of an opalescent blue-yellow, it shone with a fiery orange, obscured by billowing clouds of acrid smoke. The young woman, who had inherited her father's hair and eyes but her mother's buoyant features, looked up, suddenly despondent, though she couldn't remember why. Her expression shifting to bemusement, she wandered about the wreckage of the planet that had given her life, almost as though she were in a dream. Not a nightmare; they always came with some sense of dread or loss or catastrophe. This felt different, somehow. More like...watching someone else's life.

As she batted at a flying piece of litter, the scene changed yet again. Laera was in the landing bay of a starship, accompanied by armored and helmeted figures in the livery of some unknown force or garrison. As though by someone else's volition, her body moved, giving signals to the armored men and women around her; smartly and with good pace, they boarded a medium-sized assault transport. Laera followed them, as though on autopilot, and secured herself at the head of the passenger compartment. After issuing a series of instructions that she could not hear herself give, she began to don her own helmet.

A breath.

A single, solitary breath. Followed instantly by the powerful urge to take another. And another.

A sound.

Gasping; a human desperately grasping for purchase on a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere.

More sounds. The steady beeping of a monitor, the drone of ventilation equipment, the soft, slippered footsteps of sentient beings.

Laera took all this in as though she were listening to an audio recording of someone else's fight for life. Her unseeing eyes allowed her brain to maintain an odd sort of disconnect with the surrounding environment, even as the muffled voices of strangers responded to these new and intriguing sensations. Inwardly, she wondered what sort of holodrama was being played for her benefit; after all, she was supposedly oblivious to outside stimuli.

The breathing grew more desperate; the monitor pinged more urgently, and an unpleasant beating sensation began to hammer at her awareness. As Laera attempted to reconcile these new events, something hissed nearby. Silence and numbness once again filled the realm of her consciousness, such as it was.

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

Thump!

It wasn't so much a noise as it was a feeling, of a soft, weighted instrument striking her knee.

Thump!

The feeling had shifted now, this time striking her other knee just below the joint. Two more thumps announced the fact that she had elbows; the sudden jerking that followed in turn gave substance to the arms and hands that they were connected to. Dimly, Laera realized that the two earlier bumps had resolved themselves into legs and feet.

''Snap! Snap!''

A rubbery slapping noise caused Laera to shift her consciousness; in doing so, she realized that she had a head, and that it rested against something. This contact radiated out into the rest of her body, and she was suddenly cognizant of her wholeness. A bright light, partially occluded by some sort of membrane, shone down upon her. In opening them, she discovered that she possessed two working eyes, which fluttered in the brightness.

“Welcome back, Commander,” a smiling Twi'lek announced in dulcet tones, meeting her upward gaze.

Laera continued to look up at the man, taking in his gray-green skin, pink eyes, broad needle-toothed grin, and shoulder-wrapped lekku. She recalled dimly that she'd always liked the natives of Ryloth; they had had a noble warrior spirit that nonetheless bore a pragmatic side to it that she could empathize with. As she continued to gaze upon the alien, he continued his work of testing her reflexes and muscle strength. As he was checking her fingers, Laera became aware of the fact that she was naked. She attempted to raise her head to say something, but the doctor gently laid a reassuring had on her forehead to discourage her.

“Not quite yet, Commander,” he soothed, his tone mildly reproving. “We'll get you some clothes soon enough.”

The doctor returned to his ministrations. Satisfied, he left after having pulled a blanket over Laera's still immobile body. Time seemed to pass by in fits and starts as Laera continued to explore herself. As best as she could figure, the sensation was not unlike being rendered into the viscosity of fruit preserves and oh-so-gently poured into another form, only to be solidified around some new framework. Her sense of continuity thrown out of whack, it seemed an eternity before a medical droid arrived. Beeping and humming to itself, it began to bombard her with a series of audiovisual stimuli. The exercise seemed to help her come back to herself, somehow, and for this she was grateful.

When the droid left, a human orderly entered the ward, carrying a stack of boxes. As he entered, Laera noticed, for the first time, that the whole ensemble bore the unmistakable marks of being a military operation. No hint was given whether this was aboard a ship, planetside in some secret bunker, or even tucked away in some Core Worlds ecumenopolis. The thought made her chuckle inwardly; she'd always wanted to visit Coruscant.

Still bemused, Laera turned to acknowledge the orderly, who had been gesturing toward the fiberplast boxes that he had set beside her low bed. She remembered how to nod an acknowledgment, and the young man turned to a nearby faucet to draw a glass of water. The sound triggered a new feeling in Laera's mouth, which she was able to recognize as thirst, and she greedily accepted the cylinder of liquid that the orderly offered her. Eyes closed in delight, she sucked the water down, then flashed a grin that was all teeth. It took a minute to remember how...

“Thank. You. For. This,” Laera managed to stammer, in a voice she recognized as being rough, as though it had atrophied from lack of use. The orderly nodded and returned her smile.

“These are your personals, if you'd like to look at them,” he said, gesturing again to the packing boxes. “Dr. Shak thinks you're ready to finish coming back to life...”

Star Wars: Death and Life: Part Two