A new distress signal was just picked-up, coming from the imperial border. Rebel Base Karin is located next to a large imperial-occupied settlement, so they get a lot of refugees from that direction. You've been here for decades, the title of commander being given to you a couple of months prior, and you've been assigned to the rescue mission. You're careful however, this is no ordinary refugee group. They're travelling in an Imperial jeep, probably one they commandeered during their escape, but such things aren't super uncommon. No, the real reason, is the mech they brought along with them.

It's of rebel making, the signature hacked-together look impossible to miss, even covered by all of that imperial black paint. You've seen machines like these before. They are usually the ones massacring your comrades, the ones that strike fear in an entire platoon at the mere sight of their silhouette in the horizon.

So of course you're cautious, at first. You order the four best pilots in the entire base to gear up, and you do so alongside them. It's rare that you get to pilot a mech these days, but when the circumstances call for it, you find your old instincts easily, as if they never left.

It's not long before you spot the machine in the horizon, and as soon as it spots you back, it begins firing. You deploy your shields and yell over the comms channels, ordering your men to not retaliate, and demanding the offending mech to cease fire. It listens and draws its weapons back. You arrive next to the jeep and order the pilot to dismount so you can talk. You only dismount yourself once they are far away from the mech.

With your squad behind you, all armed, you approach the group. The people in the jeep are the first to talk, they explain that, as you predicted, they stole a military vehicle from an Imperial factory that they were working in, with the help of the pilot. They can't explain where the pilot got the mech, she's remaining silent the entire time, but they assure you that she's a victim too.

You tell your men to escort the jeep back to base, you'll be staying behind with the pilot until they return with an engineering team. You don't want any tracking devices to make it inside the base, and with a machine of this size, your portable scanner won't be thorough enough.

Once they leave, you and the pilot climb inside the cockpit. The girl remains quiet, but seems to relax once inside. You try to interrogate her, about the rebel uniform she's wearing, about the imperial paint job, about the source of her machine, but she dodges your questions, only giving the occasional "I don't know." The girl is clearly very young, you'd guess around her mid twenties. Taking a better look at her, you spot several gashes in her uniform, likely from old stab wounds, underneath which you can see simple civilian clothes. The insignia on the shoulder guard is peculiar too, the emblem of a rebel base on the other side of the continent. A couple of theories run through your mind. Perhaps she's a prisoner of war, there's an imperial prison not too far from where the distress signal originated from. Maybe she's a spy, the rebel uniform just a part of her facade, but that seems unlikely. You've been standing here alone with her for a half hour and she hasn't tried anything. Instead, she looks relieved. That's either very good acting or a genuine emotion.

You notice the caravan you've been waiting for on the horizon. Before long the full scan is complete and no tracking devices, hidden compartments, or contraband is found. You begin the long journey back home, tailing the strange new pilot's mech.

A couple of weeks pass, and it becomes clear the girl has no ill intentions. Senior interrogators have been hounding her for a while now, and a couple of things have started to make a bit more sense.

She was a prisoner of war, stationed at Rebel Base Harrison before her capture, explaining the insignia. She was under imperial custody for only three weeks after being caught during an imperial sortie into rebel territory. She escaped thanks to the confusion caused by an invasion operation organized by a nearby rebel base, the Garret branch. This was corroborated by the admin when you called them about it. She's telling the truth.

The leadership at the time allowed her to continue her stay here for a few weeks, but now they're threatening to kick her out if she doesn't start piloting again. You understand their reasoning somewhat. The girl is a formidable pilot, if her records from Harrison are any indication. She joined the rebellion eight years ago, so she's no rookie either. On top of all that, recent causalities mean the base is severely understaffed on pilots. It's entirely understandable to want her back on the saddle.

But she won't budge. She gets shaky and nervous every time the topic's brought up. Claims that she can't fight, and doesn't elaborate. She says she just wants a place to stay until she gets her act together, but she's grown more and more isolated and depressed since her arrival, not leaving her quarters for days at a time. The other pilots have tried their best to bring her out of her shell, but to no avail.

So now, it's up to you. Your superiors are demanding she be kicked out, or forced into piloting again, and you don't have any more excuses for them.

You knock on her quarter's door to no response, as expected. You go inside anyway, it's a breach of protocol, but you don't care. You're trying to help her. She's on her bed, hugging her knees tightly, her face entirely covered by the thin cot. It's wet in several places, particularly near her eyes.

You sit down on the edge of the bed. You tell her calmly that you'll leave whenever she wants, all she has to do is say so. She remains quiet, so you continue. You explain what the higher ups have told you, but assure her that you'll do what you can to help her out. She only shivers in response.

...

There's a question on the tip of your tongue. The girl is clearly too unstable to be interrogated like that, but you want to ask anyway.

...

You decide not to, instead you tell her that you'll come by tomorrow morning to take her to the training grounds. You're telling her this in advance so she can prepare. Internally, you don't want to do this, but the alternative is throwing her to the wolves. If you can get her inside a cockpit again, even if she refuses to do anything else, you can still argue that she's improving. You can still give her a little more time.

She doesn't respond.

You've done what you can. After closing the door, you wait for a moment and listen in. You hear hitched sobbing.

You'll have trouble sleeping tonight.

...

Once the next morning comes, and you're outside her quarters again. You go to knock, but the door swings open. The girl flinches when she first spots you, but a smile comes across her face. She cheerily tells you that she's ready and walks away before you can say anything.

You tell her she's going the wrong way and begin walking towards the training grounds. She follows behind you, trying to hide the blush on her face, the sight of which puts a smile on your face.

The training grounds have been prepared just like you asked yesterday, two standard issue Grappler model mechs face each other, the same model she piloted on Harrison. You take the one on the left and watch as she excitedly skips towards the elevator leading to the cockpit of the mech on the right.

Once you're strapped in, you open comms with her, asking if she's okay. Her demeanor today has been unnerving to you, but you also can't hide your own excitement to pilot again, so maybe she's feeling the same thing. She assures you that's she fine, yesterday she was just a little down. She adds a 'sir' at the end there that causes her to giggle and apologize, calling it an old habit. That gives you pause for a moment, but you toss it aside. You're making progress and that's what matters.

The duel goes as you expected, both of you are a little rusty, she more so than you. At first, you hold back to even the playing field, but after a while you find yourself on the back foot. She's faster and more aggressive than you thought. While at the beginning she seemed hesitant, she's coming into her element now, her movements far more instinctual than considered. That's the sign of an experienced combatant. In the end, you still end up winning, you took a few bad hits at the end, but it wasn't enough to offset your early momentum.

You both dismount and shake hands. She really is a formidable pilot, a couple more weeks of training to derust, and she's ready for the field. She seems to wilt a bit at that, giving only a half-hearted 'yeah' in response, but you're confident you can get her spirits up again in no time.

You exit the training grounds a lot more confident, not just in yourself, but also in her.

And you vow never to underestimate her again.

You keep training with her over the course of a few weeks. She even gets the upper hand on you a couple of times. By the end of the month, she had fully come into her own, the hesitation fully gone, she started leaving her room more often too, even making some friends at the canteen. So it's not long before she's assigned a platoon and is officially back on the field. The months following her enrollment are almost miraculous. Casualties plummeted on every mission she was assigned to, morale was through the roof, she was even being considered for a field commander position.

Which is why everyone noticed the day she didn't leave her room again. And the day after that, where she didn't speak to anyone. And the day after that one, where she completely disappeared.

Several search missions had been conducted already, the mission reports for all of them strewn about your desk, they have been for several days in fact. They never find her, but they always find something else.

The first one found the insignia of her tattered uniform, seemingly tossed aside in a massive desert located southeast from the base. The second one found a melted mech carcass further along that direction, the make of the machine not matching any mech in the Karin or Garret branches.

The last one, found a tape recorder. And that's when the pieces started to fit together.

You didn't tell the others, because how could you? They wouldn't understand the significance of it, of the tape recorder. You've seen one of those before, you keep an identical model inside a drawer in your office, the same tape always inside. You only take it out when things get really bad, when work becomes too much, when the casualties become too much to bear, when you start hearing screams again.

It was so obvious in hindsight, how could you have missed it? She was a captured rebel for fuck's sake, you know what that really means! Yes, it was only three weeks, but can you really trust her word on that? She might've been lying, or even better, she was forced to forget.

Your hands are trembling, and they instinctively reach for the desk drawer. You flinch once you realize what you're doing.

...

You open the door to her quarters. You jerk open every drawer and cabinet you can find.

You see it. A tape, the Empire's insignia staring through your very soul.

...

Outside her quarters, you stuff the offending object into your pockets and walk back to your office.

Walking inside, you find Senior Commanding Officer Karin. Your boss's boss's boss. A war hero of the Rebellion Militia, having served almost her entire life, only retiring in her nineties. Posters of her likeness adorn the cockpits of pilots across the entire rebellion. You even have a signed photograph from her, from your more innocent years. From before you got that tape player.

She eyes you sternly, the kind of look capable of petrifying anyone who recognizes her, the look every rookie hopes to never see. You're no rookie however. You keep your composure, if only barely. You feel a buildup of sweat around your grip on the tape, but she doesn't seem to notice, instead she asks for a chat and motions for you to have a seat. She takes the seat behind your own desk. So that's how it is.

You comply because there's no other option. A brief interrogation follows, turns out you've not been as discreet as you've thought. The other commanders noticed you acting weird, and leadership decided to bring Karin out of retirement just to deal with you. She says she's not bothered by it, she just wants to know why it had to be her, after all, if she of all people is getting involved, then it must be really serious.

Your composure holds tight. You calmly tell her about the runaway pilot, leaving out the tape player. You tell her that you grew attached to her, and that her sudden disappearance upset you greatly. You promise to do better, and reluctantly acknowledge that you miss her, to try and sell it. You're not lying, just omitting a few, admittedly crucial, details.

Her expression softens. She says that it's normal to get attached, specially since you were the one to help her with her traumas. She fully understands your feelings, she herself has had the same happen to her several times in her long, long life. She assures you that you only need a little time, and if the other officers raise a stink about it again, to not worry about it. She'll make sure you get the time you need to grieve her loss.

Her words make you feel frigid. You know that she's alive, in fact, you know exactly where she is. She went southeast, and there's only one place in that direction that she could be in. You know it well, don't you?

Karin takes her leave, and as soon as she does, you start counting. Once you're sure she's long gone, you go to lock the door and close the blinds. You take the tape out of your pocket and walk towards the drawer.

You really shouldn't be doing this.

You also don't try to stop yourself.

More time passes, the exact measurement completely lost you. Even if you could math it out, it doesn't matter. Nothing does.

Because you're getting out of here.

The tape only confirmed that should have been obvious from the beginning. Maybe the others couldn't have figured it out, but you should have. You must have, in fact. You just didn't want it to be true.

Your hand lingers on another drawer. The one you cannot open. The one that has it. The thing. The thing you shouldn't have brought with you, the thing you should have burned as soon as you escaped, the thing you know can kill you if it wants to.

The thing you can't bring yourself to throw away. Or look at. Or acknowledge in any way.

You want to go back in time and show it to her. Maybe then she wouldn't have left. Maybe then she could have an ally in all of this.

But you didn't do that. You couldn't. The shame was too great.

Now you get to live with the shame of knowing that you could have saved her.

...

You can't wallow in your own misery forever. Life moves on. She's only one of many. All you can hope for is that she comes to her senses and blows the entire place to the ground. That she follows in your footsteps, however unlikely that would be.

But it doesn't matter. Because you're getting out of here.

You've packed everything already. It felt almost nostalgic. You're glad you didn't get attached to anyone else. Deep down, you must have known this day would come.

Your personal mech has been fully stocked, enough fuel to make it halfway across the continent. The mechanics gave you some weird looks at the request, but you have the authority. If they refused, you'd just fire them.

Everything is in place. It's now or nev--

The sound of sirens starts blaring across the entire base. Suddenly, you don't want to leave anymore. You have a duty to these people. They've been your comrades for decades, they took you in when you were at your lowest.

You can't abandon them. Not now, not ever.

You rush over to the meeting room, the other Commanders already there. They explain that an Imperial squadron was just spotted heading straight at them. Ten frontliners, four backrow supports, two artillery cannons, the largest invasion force the Empire has ever sent their way.

A brief silence follows. There something they don't want to say, not to you anyway. You figure it out immediately, you did so as soon as the sirens went off. 

You give a curt nod to one of them, you know what they want to ask, quickly making your way to the hanger.

Before that however, you make a small detour to your office.

You weren't fast enough. The invasion force is at your doorstep before you can even mount your mech. They blew up the entire hanger with a massive raygun blast, and now your prized possession lays in front of you in disarray, it's molten skeleton still emitting smoke.

It doesn't make sense, it doesn't make any sense! Their ETA was two hours! How are they already here? How did-

You see them. Through a hole in the wall you see them, still far on the horizon, but it's them.

It's her, the runaway.

Your body freezes. You try to run, but to where? Your mech is gone, and you can't outrun an entire platoon on foot! You could hide, but you know it won't help. When these kinds of invasions happen, the Empire leaves nothing but rubble.

So, all you can do is stand there, and stare death in the face.

Because that's what will happen now, right? They'll kill you. Right? That's what they do.

But...

There's a way. A way you can still live. It would mean betraying everything you care about but…

Just thinking about it causes bile to rise up in your throat.

...

It would work. Maybe. They might still kill you before you can get to them, but if you do--

No time. They're here. It's only now you notice that they've been shooting thorough the hole in the wall, but they've not been firing in your direction.

Why?

...

You know why. You've been on the other side before.

...

You can't take it anymore. The bile inside you burns your throat, you feel cold and feverish at the same time, your head is throbbing in pain, you can't breathe, you feel like you're suffocating. Good! You want to die, anything would be better than this, literally anything but this! You plead and pray to every God you know, you beg to die, to not have to do it all again, to not have to see the blinding lights again, to not have to smell the rotting of your own soul in that damn cell again, to not have to hear th--

The sound of leather boots clicking along the hangar floor.

That's impossible. She never goes on field missions, She never does! She only watches from a far whispering in your ears--

"Are you lost, puppy?"

Your eyes shoot open, immediately raising to meet Her gaze, before you force them down. No, no! You can't look at Her. You can't! No. She's not here. She can't be. You ran away! You never have to see her again!

Your headache intensifies further. You feel like you're being split open. In the chaos of it all, you remember it so clearly.

You killed Her.

You did, didn't you? During your escape? You remember, Her blood coating your pocket knife, the stained leathers of Her uniform. You do. You remember! You did that!

So why-- why is She?

...

You almost looked at Her.

You force yourself to curl, covering your eyes with your knees, drowning all the screaming with your hands, muffling your sobbing by biting your thighs hard enough to draw blood. You force yourself to not exist, to shut the world out.

You feel something metallic being taken from your hands. You didn't even realize you started holding it.

You feel its leather straps surround your head, and you begin to trash about, wailing violently, your entire body franticly trying to get away.

In the struggle, you open your eyes slightly. You don't see Her, but you see her, the runaway. You also see the muzzle on her face. In your brief stunned disbelief, she takes the opportunity to strap your own muzzle into place.

As soon as it does, you feel all the tension leave your body, muscles that you had strained for decades becoming undone, leaving you as nothing but a rag doll on the floor, all energy sapped from it.

Thankfully, the runaway pilot is there to hold you up, to not let you completely collapse. You feel grateful and you hate it. She's saying something to you but can't hear it. That makes her look concerned for a moment, before all the worry falls away from her face, a placid smile coming to replacing it.

She angles your gaze back to Her, and She roughly pulls your muzzle forward. You pretend not to whimper.

Finally, you look at Her, and all the decades weighing down your soul fall away.

She's gorgeous, She always was. In fact, She looks younger, somehow. The thought makes you squirm. She smiles. Oh stars, that smile. You didn't remember how much you missed it. You feel your headache retreat as She ruffles your hair. The tears come quickly after. Why? What did you do to deserve such kindness? Why, after everything you did? After you convinced yourself that She could be killed, after being stupid enough to try it, after being foolish enough to believe it worked... You don't deserve this, you begin shaking again.

"Sssh, it's okay."

And it suddenly is. You've forgotten how that felt. Only She could do something like that. You feel a warmth embrace you, like the feeling of comfort itself is enveloping every fiber of your being. She cradles you for an eternity longer. You don't ever want this moment to end. In that endless bliss, you accept that it's all over. It has been for a long time.

You knew it was over the moment the alarms blared. You knew it was over the moment the pilot ran away from the base. You knew it was over the moment the girl showed up in the first place.

You knew it was over the moment you tried to run away from Her.

Eventually, She pulls back, aiming your snout in a new direction. You spot three hostiles looking at you, fear coating their features.

A small part of you wonders how long they've been standing there. Did they see everything? A larger, more important part of you, already knows what She wants from you, it's just waiting for Her to pull the trigger.

She does, and for the first time in decades, you fell alive.