Jace Starlancer: The Last Flipcard

In Character Roleplay
#1

Flipcard: Playing card used in the game of Pazaak. Drawn from a player’s sidehand, it can be used on one’s turn to play one of two values. It can be instrumental in turning certain defeat into a narrow victory. But in the end, it is just another gamble.

Stabbing Westward: Darkest Days

There was a knot in the pit of Jace’s stomach as he walked away from the Republic survivors. Even as he’d spoken his words of encouragement, it had all felt very hollow. They were defeated not just physically, but in spirit. And it was his fault.

Faces started flashing through his mind. Faces of people he’d known. Faces that he had not seen among the survivors. Faces of peole he’d laughed and joked around with.

Laughed with.

Joked around with.

Fought side by side with.

Bled with.

Faces of people that he had just gotten killed.

Nearly out of the forest, he stopped in his tracks, doubling over and leaning against a tree trunk as the whole of his lunch evac’d out the airlock.

He stood there motionless for some time, leaning against the tree in the growing darkness.

Then as if by their own volition, Jace’s feet continued plodding their way out of the forest. Continuing on over the hills. The night was silent except for the distant scream of starfighters and explosions going off at the base. On and on he walked. Nearly stumbling at one point, he made his way on autopilot back to where he’d set his ship down, entered, punching the lock, and then made a B-line for his quarters where he collapsed on the bed.

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#2

Jace lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling of his quarter. The events of the day replaying themselves in his head over and over. Forcing him to relive the stupidity of his choices in relentless humbling detail. From a well conceived idea, to getting supporting intel, and then finding needed help, all leading to what they thought was a glorious victory for all of thirty seconds.

Thirty seconds.

That was all it took for the world to come crashing down.

He got greedy.

He wanted those idiots to get caught with their pants down. And in his haste, he forgot all about what he had planned to do, and tossed it all to the wind. All because he was an overconfident little shit.

The residue of bile still burned in the back of his throat. It had been a long time since he’d lost his lunch like that. Not since he served on the Flipcard, when he was forced to kill a man for the first time. It was only about three to four years ago, but it felt like a lifetime.

Jace rolled over and stumbled out of bed. His mechanical feet clanking on the deckplates as he made his way to the refresher and splashed water on his face. After rinsing his mouth out, he returned to his room and stood in the doorway.

The room suddenly looked unfamiliar to him. But slowly, memories would come to him, and echos of the past played themselves out before him. He dislodged himself from the doorway and slowly drew over to his dresser, opening a drawer. A drawer full of keepsakes. He reached in for one of them, pulling out an old framed object and staring at it.

Stabbing Westward: Shame

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JaceNSandraFramed

Jace wandered back over to the bed as he looked at the picture, sitting down and resting on his elbows, leaning forward. It had been a long time since she had been a part of his life, but what a part it was. The flame he felt had never truly died down, even if he had accepted their parting. She was the love of his life, but he came to terms with the fact a while ago that he wouldn’t be the love of hers. This redhead was meant for bigger and greater things and he was just a stop on her way.

Yet even so, she had made his life make sense in a time when he had needed it. He had carried so much hate around for so long over the loss of his brother, the Mandalorians rampaging, the Jedi refusing to help out and then snatching up his sister.

And then he met her. And all his hate fell away. He became a man wanting to be better, to do better, and to go out of his way to help when needed. He was finally able to find purpose. And he started to think that was enough. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he was just trying to live up to this idea of a person he thought would be worthy of her.

But it wouldn’t matter in the end, because he didn’t live up to that idea. It wasn’t enough. Intent without brains gets people killed, and that was a hard lesson to learn.

He layed back in the bed again, staring up at the old photo of them.

No.

He was definitely not worthy. And what was left for him? He couldn’t face the republic soldiers again. Not after what happened. Not after what he’d done.

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Stabbing Westward: Everything I Touch

All he could do now was try and make some sense of his bungling. All he could do now was try to make it right. And he would make it right if it was the last thing he did.

There was no going back now.

He could only go forward.

Forward to whatever awaited him, but only one thing was for certain.

This time, he wouldn’t take anyone with him.

Jace sat upright and popped up to his feet. There was a grim determination to him as he cast the picture aside and headed back to the engine room. He had a lot to do, with limited options, but none of it would be possible if he didn’t get this damn thruster working again.

Time to break some shit.

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#3

Jace woke with a start.

Crap…how long was I out for…

Jace looked over at the chronometer. Okay, only fifteen minutes. That was all the sleep he’d gotten since the base fell. He looked back to his thruster components within the access alcove. It was mostly finished, he just had to get the power distribution module out and salvage the parts for the new one he was patching together. All that was left after that was to patch the engine casing and cover the gash in his hull where the beam weapon had gotten through his shields and hit the thruster.

He reached in with his mechanical hand and it the component release and pulled the part out. He gave it a good look over, and it appeared that after the engine was hit, the distribution relay was fried with the surge of power. Pretty much what he expected. He brought the piece back to his table and started pulling it apart and salvaging certain parts from it. The programing chips and miniboards were useless, but a lot of the structure and frame of the device were still usable.

His rebuilt relay was mostly done, he just needed a few choice parts. Namely the connectors that were made out of a harder to get metal. If you weren’t a regular supplier or factory operator, you might as well call the stuff unobtanium. Thankfully, it was easy enough to salvage if you knew what you were doing.

Jace got the parts pulled out and finished up the rebuilt module. He connected some leads to it to test the power-flow and everything was looking good. He tooke the new piece back to his engine compartment and got it installed, closed the access hatch, and reconnected power to the engine. He headed back up to the cockpit and did a systems check on the engine and everything now showed green, except for the part flashing red about the hull breach. That should be the easy part. Scrap durasteel wasn’t hard to find.

Mood Music | More Stabbing Westward

Viscara was on another night cycle. Jace perched atop the Serendipity in the darkness doing his best to weld the durasteel over the gash in his fuselage. He didn’t need it to look pretty, just be spaceworthy. With just a few more spot-welds, he had the piece securely attached.

He lifted up his welding mask and reached for a can of foaming agent. Spraying over the welds and then tapping a few things on his pad, the ship began to pressurize inside, and he spotted one place in the foam where air began to get sucked inside the the lower pressure of the ship. He didn’t find any more spots after further inspection and then wiped off the foam, doing one last spot-weld.

Okay, that should be good now.

Jace cleaned up his repair operation on top of the ship, then climbed down to the ground where he had a line running from the ship’s air compressor. After putting away his welding equipment, he grabbed the can of black paint and attached it to the powerwash/painter and then hooked it up to the air compressor line and began the Serendipity’s new paint job. Once finished, she would be a new matte black. She wouldn’t fool sensors like that, that’s what his sensor scrambling package was for that Mart made him weeks ago. This was just to hide from visual scanning in the black of space.

Eventually, that was also finished. Jace stepped back in his own mechanic jumpsuit he wore when working on the ship. It was now covered in a light dusting of black paint and splotches where more paint had dripped down on him. He carried everything back inside the ship and stowed it in the ship’s modest hold.

The ship was ready now…

Jace stripped down and went to the refresher, stepping into the sonic shower and he let the thrum of the sound generator wash through him, shaking off the dirt and grime. He leaned against against the wall of the shower, listening to the low hum.

One step closer…

He was another step closer to bringing this thing to a close. Not much longer now and he would make this right.

No more of his friends would die on Viscara because of him.

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#4

Stabbing Westward: How Can I Hold On

Jace sat in his cockpit, the lights dim from low power mode, looking over scanning results and computer readouts. The screens were filled with asteroid compositions. He was looking at density, mass evaluations, and center of gravity calculations.

He needed to find something with about the same size and mass of a ship a little bigger than his, while having a decent gravity center that would hold the thing together if he tried to move it. Not just that, but it had to perform reasonably well under stress.

Most of the asteroids in the Viscaran system were solid enough. That is why the space station was bringing them in for mining. The hard part was finding something big enough and built so that it could be maneuvered without having to have four full-sized engines strapped to it. He needed something he could keep to just one engine.

He cast a side glance at his status monitor to make sure the sensor scrambler was still blinking, showing it was still running. He didn’t see any ships nearby his position either, so he seemed to be safe for the moment.

There was a beep from one of his scans as it finished and he looked back to the results.

Well hot damn…

Lady Luck was with him today. His scan found three suitable asteroids. Two appeared to be relatively close by each other, and the third was on the other side of the planet. He could work with that.

Jace took a breath of mixed anticipation. One more step closer.

He checked the sensor readouts again and there was what looked like a sith picket ship on patrol about a click away. Best to wait until it got farther away. As long as they didn’t come in for a close pass, he should just look like another derelict rock floating next to a larger derelict asteroid.

The sith’s trajectory took it in a wide arch towards the outer system and Jace waited a good two minutes after to make sure it was gone and that nothing was following it before he put a little power to his engines and then gave a small goose to the throttle and cut the engines again, sending him in a coast towards the two asteroids he found together on the scan.

He neared the two rocks and used his maneuvering thrusters to bring the ship to station-keeping. Bringing the nose around, he was able to get a good look at the two asteroids.

Yeah…these will do nicely…

He marked the two floating in his computer so he could find his way back to them later, then checked his sensors again. Nothing at the moment, so he gave them both a short range intensive scan. The scan lasted about five minutes each. Possibly the longest five minutes in his life as his eyes went back and forth between his progress bar and and the scans watching for movement in the area.

Finally the computer beeped complete and he pivoted his craft. Jace popped another little thrust, sending Serendipity away from his new pet rocks and heading towards Viscara. He adjusted his approach vector so that he looked like a meteor in freefall, and then waited until he hit the atmosphere, switched on the heat-shields and dove into a large cloud where he kicked on the repulsors and hovered there for just a minute. He scanned the Veles surrounds and found a clearing to set down in the forest.

He brought the ship down to a quick landing and then quickly killed his main power. He jumped up from the pilot’s seat and ran back to his hold, hitting the top access release, then grabbing the camo-net and putting it on the lift beneath the opening. Riding the lift to the top, he quickly stretched the net over his ship, covering it so she would blend in with the trees. He closed the access, making sure the net didn’t get pinched, and then climbed down from one of the wings.

With the ship hidden, now it was time to work on the next leg.

Carefully, he made his way back to Veles, pulling on a helm, clad in his black-ops gear, and made a b-line for his storage room.

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#5

Stabbing Westward: Drugstore

The last two days were busy ones. Jace had barely had time to sleep, or eat with the exception of the occasional energy bar.

He’d been hard at work putting together the engines for the two asteroids. As it turned out, he already had most the parts on hand for one of the medium thrusters. He spent the first have of the first day getting that one put together, and then another day scavenging and manufacturing parts for the second one. The third asteroid was out of the question. It was too far away from the others to be brought around without raising suspicion, so he was content to work the first two.

The scans he took of them were put into the analyzer that would indicate the most efficient places to mount the engines and the maneuvering thrusters. He’d also already had the spare computing modules on hand to install the flight computer software that would be used for the autopilots. All those half-finished projects he’d started and kept the parts from finally was paying off. Who said there was anything wrong with being a pack-rat?

Day two was just as busy as the first. After finishing gathering the parts for the second engine and getting it all assembled, he allowed himself a short nap, but it didn’t last long. His sleep was restless, and he was up again in a couple hours. He got the flight software loaded in on the computers, and then moved everything to his hold.

A few mandalorians from the forest base had come snooping around while he was working on the engine, and he had no qualms with making short work of them. He could use a new disguise anyway. He stripped their armor and between the two suits, he fashioned himself what looked like a good bounty hunter getup. It was better than going around in his black-ops gear.

By the time all the work on the engines and computers were done, it was well into the night. Perfect. He needed to go see Roy anyway, and that was best done under the cover of night.

Jace donned his new disguise and started out from his camouflaged ship. He made a point to keep off the main paths and roads. Can’t take cabs either. If his got stopped for a random check, there would be nowhere to go. So he kept to the alleyways, and cut through the reservoir park to where Moss usually did his work.

He’d never had much against the band of Coxxian smugglers. They had even agreed to help him back when he was fighting Duskhaven. He’d always kept a decent relationship with them ever since that.

As he emerged into the dark back-alley, Roy gave him a familiar smile and twitch of his lekku.

“Ah, greetings traveller, what can Roy Moss do for you on this night?”

“It’s Jace, I trust you can keep this discrete?” His voice came through the mando-helmet with a small amount of static and tinnyness.

“Oh, my friend, I heard about the base. Have you decided to give up on the millitary? I must say, it never seemed a good fit for one such as you.”

“We’ll see.” Jace kept his intentions to himself.

“So mysterious, my friend! You are looking for something specific tonight, yes? You brought credits?”

“I did. and yes, I have something specific in mind.”

“What then can this humble purveyor of hard-to-obtain goods get for you?”

“Explosives.” Jace keeps his voice low.

“Oh my, has Duskhaven suddenly made a comback?”

“I think you know what they’re for. Will that be a problem?”

“Oh, I have many friends, but you are the one bringing me credits at this moment, so what you need is what I provide!” Roy’s lekku slither a bit across his shoulders as he regards Jace as if he were casing the man. “How…much are you willing to spend?”

“How much can I get for ten thousand?”

“Oh, quite a considerable amount! You are making my night, my friend!”

“I thought I might. How soon can you have it ready?”

“We can have it for you by morning. Where might we deliver it?”

“Send a speeder with everything on its way to the Mandalorian base. Call me when you’re on the way and I’ll intercept and take it from there.”

“Oh, the clandestine approach! I miss seeing this side of you my friend. You were quite more interesting before you joined that army!”

“Navy.” Jace corrects.

“Ah yes, well, I must ask for half the money up front as insurance.”

“That’s no problem.” Jace counts out five thousand in credit chits and hands them over.

“Wonderful, I will let Reid know right away!”

“Thanks.”

“Good luck with your war my friend, let us know if you ever wish to return to more respectable work!”

Jace gave a grunt at that and a nod, then turned away to head back into the darkness.

Perfect. He had the night before the explosives would come, and so as he returned to his ship, Jace began to look over specs for heat-shields. These would be just as intergral to his plan as every other component so far. If he kept working through the night, he might be able to get one put together or salvaged.

That never happened though. His sleep-deprived psyche had other plans.

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#6

Beeep

Stabbing Westward: What Do I Have To Do

Jace awoke with a start. Looking around and trying to blink the grogginess from his eyes, he saw the heat shield schematics.

Beeep

“Crap!” He stood up like someone who just realized they were late for work. How long had he been out? His comm was going off.

Beeep

He checked his chronometer and it looked like he’d lost the entire night.

Beeep

Grabbing his comlink, he checked to make sure it wasn’t anyone he didn’t want to talk to and answered. “This is…” he cleared his throat. “This is J.”

“Catch you at a bad time Shadowlancer?” it was Reid calling himself.

“Not at all, just caught me in the refresher.”

“Right. Stuffs on its way. Should be there in about five minutes.”

“Understood. Pleasure doing business.”

“That’s my line.”

Jace afforded a small smirk.

“My boys will be looking for you, let me know if you need to get anything else.”

“Will do. Shadowlancer out.”

He switched off his comms and quickly checked the calls. Looks like Reid had been calling him for a good ten minutes. Well, that was embarassing. A message from yesterday he’d missed too. No time to dwell on it though. Jace grabbed his mando-helmet and pulled it on, then took a quick look in the mirror to make sure his disguise was all in place, then ran out to catch the Speeder.

He’d have to catch them a bit closer to the Mandalorian base than he’d wanted to. He hoofed it quickly through the brush and he could hear the speeder approaching. He stepped out and waved them down. A rodian popped his head out of the passenger side window. “Youu here for pickup?” He asked in that typical rodian kazoo-voice. “Idenntify yourself.”

“Shadowlancer.”

The rodian nodded and pulled back into the speeder. “Leeed de way,” he shouted before rolling the window back up.

He gave a nod and lead them back to the ship. He had a route planned that the speeder had to use in order to fit between the trees, so they had to double back a slight bit.

Eventually they arrived back at the ship and unloaded the explosives after getting the rest of the pay. They didn’t stick around to help him load it inside which was fine. He’d rather they didn’t anyway.

He took a running inventory of the explosives as he carried them in. Looked like he was getting his money’s worth. He set them in his hold for now. He would rig them later when it came closer to time. Closer to the end.

He pulled his messages back up to check the one from yesterday. Standard bulletin from fleet command after a big hit like that.

This is Commander Kantuur of the Mon Cala Republic Garrison.

All Viscaran personnel unaccounted for following the loss of Viscara have 24 galactic standard hours to report in before they are declared Missing In Action.

Any such personnel will be assumed either KIA or AWOL, and next-of-kin will be notified.

He stared at the message after reading it. They sent this in the early evening it looked like.

Great. So he had about half a day to chicken out before he was declared lost.

His mind went to his parents and he felt a pang of guilt for what he was going to put them through with this. They would be getting word that they’d lost another son. And with Nara off training with the Jedi somewhere, there would be noone left to cary on the family.

Was what he was doing selfish? He didn’t know. All he knew is that he couldn’t go forward unless he did something. He didn’t really hold out for anyone else forgiving him, but he hoped at least his mom and dad would.

It was a bit of a gut punch, but he couldn’t get hung up over it. There was no chickening out, and there was no going back. He had to see this through one way or the other.

Jace turned back to his heat shield schematics and sat down. It was time to get back to work.

#7

Stabbing Westward: Torn Apart

As it turned out, ray and concussive shielding units take a lot of the same parts as heat shields, so there was no reason to go with regular heat shields when he could put together actual defensive shields with just a bit more effort and finesse. He spent most of the day like the previous two. Scavenging and fabricating parts.

It wasn’t glamorous work, but he was way past glamorous. The good part was that shields weren’t nearly as complicated as weapons, so he didn’t need to spend as much time on constructing the components he needed. He managed to put both the units together by the time night fell, and even managed a break to quell his grumbling appetite.

By the time the standard day cycle transferred into night, he’d had everything assembled, organized, and ready for deployment. This was it. The last of what he needed for the asteroids. Jace stood for several minutes in the entryway to his modest cargo bay, staring at everything he’d brought together.

Shields and engines for two derelict space rocks. Enough explosives to turn a city block into a smoking ruin. And all his spare Stronidium and engine fuel he had on hand, plus some extra he had been able to concoct between projects. He had been knocking things off his list for days, and it really was coming close to conclusion.

Am I really going to do this?

Then he was reminded of everything that happened before. All the people that died. His friends and comrades. All the people he’d let down. He heard Mart in his head yelling at him. Calling him selfish and pathetic. His one good hand trembled as it all built inside him, and he swelled more and more with anger and disgust. First with himself, then at the sith. Sure, Jace had his part in the blame, but so did the sith. And by the celestials that crafted the very system of his birth, he swore that he would give everything he had to avenge all the deaths he had helped them cause.

He knew what he had to do. He knew why he had to do it. And now…no…wait…there was one last thing to do before he left the surface of Viscara for what might be the last time.
The tremors came back for just a moment and he shut his eyes, leaning his head against the doorjamb.

Stabbing Westward: Waking Up Beside You

Letting out a breath of resignation, he turned to go sit back at the table in front of his datapad. He gripped a fist with his left hand, wringing out his nervousness, and then reached to the pad, setting it upright and then switched on the holo-recorder.

With red eyes, Jace switches off the recorder and blows out a breath.

He has to take some time to decompress before he can even think about anything coherently, then finally goes and grabs a datacard and copies the holo recording to it.

Without a word, he dons his helmet and leaves the ship for the last time, heads back to his storage room, clears everything off the workbench an places the card on it for someone to find. He keys his room’s security to allow only one specific person in, then heads to the doorway, takes one last look around, and then heads out, stopping at a messenger kiosk to pay to have a simple message delivered the morning after tomorrow, and then going back to his ship.

Back at Serendipity, or should he say “Venger” now, as that was what he’d keyed into his transponder mask, he clenched his hand, flexing it a bit to wring out the stress, and then started getting the ship ready to go. He gathered the supplies he’d need for his next task. Various tools, welding equipment, and an envirosuit.

Once everything was ready, he headed up to the bridge, and made his departure up into the sky above, stealthily returning to his two pet rocks.

#8

The thing about extended spacewalks are, you can’t just decide you want to jump into a suit and dive out into space. There are hours of preparation one has to go through before heading out. The first thing you have to do is breathe pure oxygen for a couple hours to expel all the nitrogen in your body. This keeps you from getting the bends, gas bubbles that occur in your joints, making it hard to move.

While you’re doing that, you can check your suit to make sure there are no leaks and all the seals are good and clean. You pressurize it and make sure it and make sure it holds air, check your monitors, check your PDA, make sure the powerpacks are charged, and you’re good. It is sort of like doing a mini-preflight checklist on your suit.

Then you need to plan out everything you have to do outside and all the tools you’ll need. You can only tether so many things to your EVAC suit, so you may have to come back into the ship for breaks to swap out your equipment. Then you have to actually do the tethering. You tether your tools, and you tether the suit which will later get tethered to the ship as you go out the airlock.

Next is your emergency pack. It has small maneuvering thrusters to get you around in space in case you become untethered. You need to make sure it is fueled, powered, and then check your joystick to make sure the controls are working. Once everything checks out, you fix the pack to the suit.

The last thing you do before stepping into the suit is to power everything on. Usually you would have a team working with you back on the ship, but when you’re working alone like this, you have to tie your PDA into the ship’s systems so you can check sensors, communications, security, etc while you’re on your spacewalk.

Finally, once all that is done, you’ve been breathing the oxygen long enough by now that you are ready to suit up and start your spacewalk.

And all that is the easy part.

The hard part is not shitting yourself once you float out into space and feel like you’re in a constant freefall without any surface under you. Your brain goes into emergency mode because its not used to not having a ground below, and your instincts are screaming at you that you’re going to die.

Many people hyperventilate or lose their lunch at the start of the spacewalk. Veterans will sometimes take something to settle their stomach beforehand. Others will tell you not to look “down.”

Jace had his own approach. It was different for him. For anyone who loved the dark freedom of space as he did. With his girl at station-keeping, he shut off the gravity throughout ship and walked up onto the inner airlock door so that the outter door was above him, his magnetic boots keeping him in place. He arched his back and looked up at the starry “sky” above him and smiled, then closed his eyes, turned of the maglocks on his boots, and then gently pushed off.

Slowly, he floated out into the vacuum of space and he eventually opened his eyes, and he was emersed universe itself. He reached his hand up to the distant stars as if to caress the light they gave him, and this was when he was at his most peaceful, because it was like he could feel the entire galaxy around him.

Slowly, he rotated, and eventually the nearest asteroid came into his view, and he was pulled from his reverie. Thrust back into the reality of his situation and reminded that there was work to do. He took a deep breath of the heavy oxygen inside his suit and then reached for his thruster control. He gave himself a little burst towards rock number one, and once there, reached for one of his attached tools. Taking the floating anchor, he pressed it to the surface of the rock and fired it, planting a tether into the asteroid’s surface.

He disconnected the feed from the anchor and hooked the other end of the tether to his suit, then felt for his ship-tether. He looked back “up” to his ship, and gave his line a tug, sending him to the surface of his ship. Once to there, he reactivated his mag-boots and made his way over to the external access for his ship’s hold where all his parts were. He took a minute to call up the intensive scans he did on the asteroids and checked where the program had determined the best place to mount the engine and maneuvering thrusters were.

Studying the plans, he nodded as he committed them to memory and then got to work mounting the engine, maneuvering thrusters, fuel tank, shield, and computing module, all the while keeping an eye on his ship’s sensors. A process that took him well into the day to complete. The equipment was mostly ready to go already, all he had to do was mount it, secure it, and then connect the fuel and data lines.

Once that was done, he powered on the computer, made sure the flight program he’d charted was loaded, and then set it into sleep mode. Once he activated it, it would start off on its own along the programmed path, and with these shields, hopefully would get a bit farther than he originally planned for. Every little bit was gonna help in this.

He checked the mountings one last time, then took a scan of the asteroid. Doublechecking the results, he found a couple places where the mountings needed to be adjusted to fix their angle so they fire correctly and in the right direction. He ran the scan again, and everything now checked out within acceptable margins.

Jace returned to the ship and took a short break, remaining inside his suit. He was able to sip from the water line to quench his thirst, but his stomach was empty, and the medicine he’d taken was starting to wear off.

He grabbed his second dose of the medicine and fed it into his air supply, and then headed back out to repeat the same process on rock number two. Everything was quiet in the dead of space, as with the calm before a coming storm. And he worked on with only the sounds of his movements within the suit and his own thoughts to keep him company.

Thoughts of his task, his next steps, next tool he’d need, next weld to make, next connection to make, and in the background of it all, everpresent as the Tatooine suns and creeping up like a slithering quacta, the knowledge that this was his last phase before launch. Once this was done, only one thing remained.

One last final step. Playing his flipcard.

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#9

Stabbing Westward: Desperate Now

Jacen sat at his console aboard Serendipity, staring at his plans. His work on the asteroids was all done. His explosives were all set aboard his ship. There was nothing left to do but study and wait for his window.

He checked over his approach vector, it would not be long until his moment of truth came. Everything was set. His eyes drifted to the old picture of Sandra he kept pinned to his console. Cute as can be, standing there in his bridge. His heart ached for days past, but more than that, it ached for the present situation and all that was lost.

He stared at the picture a bit longer before tearing his gaze away from the redhead. He forced himself to focus on the tactical display, watching as his window grew closer and closer. Once the sith base neared being beneath him, his window lasted for five minutes to where his approach angle would acheive maximum efficiency. Anything outside that window and he would have to expend too much time and fuel getting into position, and leaving himself and his rocks prey to the pickets that would be on him in before he could get into a good approach.

This was it…

Time was nearing…

The window was closing…

His hand started to shake. He swallowed hard as he wrung it out. Memories began flashing through his mind.

Sneaking into the base

Training Damien

Running missions with Nova

Joining the Navy

Sitting helpless in the torturer’s chair and looking up to see the love of his life came in to rescue him

Dozens of intimate moments and an image of that red dress

Haranguing Duskhaven

Running the Shadowlancers

Missions with the Flipcard

His first time in hyperspace

Academy days with his friends

Racing swoops

Cutting up with his brother

The window was nearly on him.

He eyed the activation button for the asteroids’ engines. His hand reached out, ready to press it as soon as his tactical map beeped ready.

Here he was. He was really going to do this. Jacen Starlancer, smuggler, rogue, scoundrel, pilot. He wasn’t the type to just throw his life away, was he? No, just the type to throw others’ lives away.

A tremble passed through him.

No, he couldn’t let that be the story of his life. The bumbling idiot. The hapless fool. The guy who got his friends killed. He couldn’t let that be the end of it. He had to make his life mean something. He had to balance the score! All those lives! All those deaths! He couldn’t let them die for no reason! He couldn’t let them fall in vain! He wouldn’t!

He gripped a his hand in a fist as it hovered over the console, and it shook as anger filled him. Anger at himself, anger at the sith. And hatred for them all!

His fist gripped tighter. The window neared. There was no question anymore. He was going to do this. He was going to join his friends and make sure as many of the damned sith followed him as possible!

And then finally, there was…a chirp?

Stabbing Westward: Sometimes It Hurts

Jace flinches at the unexpected sound. What was that? He stared at his readout. No, the window hadn’t come yet. That was…

He looked to his messenger and stared at it. It took a few moments for it to register. I was a text…from Sandra.

His heart dropped as he was suddenly pulled out of his tunnel vision and the adrenaline left him shaky. He slowly reached for the messenger to see what she wanted.

Repub looking for you. Are you alive?

He blinked at the message and just stared for a few moments before reaching a shaky hand to the voice-to-text button.

“S-Sandra? Uh…yes…for now…”

And then his world was suddenly on hold as he waited to see if she was going to respond.

Meeting later. Taking the Repub base back. Tomorrow

“That’s…That’s good…hopefully this will help…uh…did they…deliver the message early?”

Which one

“They were supposed to wait till tomorrow morning…guess you watched the message I left in my unit already…”

He paused a moment, figuring she was going to try and talk him out of it.

“Look…this is just something I have to do…”

Message?

Jace suddenly the sinking feeling he’d given too much away. Apparently she hadn’t seen his message after all. “Nothing…just forget it…you’ll find out tomorrow…”

Listen, there's a disturbance in the force. I... I have to go.

“Take care of yourself…love you…”

Dont die, silly

And with that, the message link was closed from her side.

Jace sat there staring at the coversation, but not for long, because there was a sudden noise from his tac-com.

Beep

That was it.

Jace hesitated for just a moment, but then his determination returned and he brought his fist down on the commit button and the asteroids sprang to life.

Stabbing Westward: On Your Way Down

All systems in his ship came online. Sith sensors would be showing him like a tree topper on lifeday, so he had to be quick and be right. He kicked in his thrusters and shot off after the asteroids.

He slid in behind number one, which was set to take the lead. He had to stay back far enough that he engine didn’t eat at his own shields but close enough that he looked like a sensor echo on the asteroid. The second was a decoy. It was set back just slightly so that it was the second one to be targeted.

The two rocks and the ship picked up speed as they veered towards the surface. His ship shuddered as they hit atmosphere and sudenly there was fire all around them. If the shields did their job, which by all means they should, then they should be fine. He could see a red aura glowing around the rock in front of him as he followed behind it, matching it’s speed. By now, they would be carving a bright streak through the night sky, and with them not burning up in the atmosphere, the sith would be onto them now, raising defenses.

This stretch before his meteor made it within firing range was the last bit of predictability he would get. He knew once they pulvarized his cover, all bets were off. He only hoped that the asteroid’s debris cloud would confuse their sensors long enough for them to move on to the next incoming rock, giving him precious time to shoot in past their killzone and hit his target.

His computer began to spew warnings klaxons about his course and impending crash, then there were more alarms adding to it for weapons locks grabbing near him, but nothing had found Serendipity yet.

Then the shields around number one started making a bright halo around it. They were definately hitting it now. It would only be a matter of seconds now before…

Suddenly his cockpit flashed bright red as a fireball engulfed the asteroid. More alarms started going off about proximity and debris. Jace punched the controls to kill the alarm as he shot through the cloud, and he could see turbolasers laying down intercepting fire towards his second decoy.

Those shields gave him precious seconds as he redlined his throttle. It was all or nothing now! No rock to have to hide behind to match speeds with, he shot like a bat out of hell straight down at the base, and he saw the second rock disappear from his sensor screen and the canons were already moving to track him.

The ground was coming up quick, and he hoped he could get low enough before they could track him. Shots started to hit close and he rolled out to the right, but he couldnt stray too far or he would miss his mark. Alarms started to go off again. This time his own shields were starting to come down. He redirected all his shield output to the front. He didn’t need to worry about anything hitting him from behind now.

He did his best to juke and dance, cutting across the turret’s axis to make them lose lock momentarily and reposition and re-aim, then there was an explosion nearby and his ship lurched away to the left and begin to spin. He couldnt stop the spin completely, that hit must have taken out one of his maneuvering thrusters, instead he went with it. He was laser-focused now. He worked his yoke rotating through the spin to put his nose back on the base, which was coming up quickly.

It was it now. This is how he would make them pay. This is how he would make things right. This is how he would…

“Shit!”

In a last moment of panic and self preservasion, the base rushing up at him, he reached for his ejector lever on his seat and pulled it. The explosive bolts blew the canopy and blew him out and straight at the nearby lake towards the shore. The water came rushing at him quickly, seemingly as fast as the ground was coming at his ship, and he lost all awareness of anything but the speeding body ahead of him.

“Shit, I’m sorr…”

Anything he was saying was cut off by the combination of his crash webbing activating and bare moments later of him hitting the water and skipping a couple times before crashing into land near the base as it was hit by the ship.

Some time later, as a band of concerned figures search the debris, one ejector seat is found among the rubble. In it beneath the crash webbing sat the unmoving body of the hapless pilot, his last moments of horror and regret plastered to his face.

Stabbing Westward: Goodbye

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