Like A Second Sun

[Temekel Vipion]

On the sands of the ravaged planet of Anx Minor, among countless piles of rubble, several pieces of a holo-tape are strewn amongst it, burned and charred to pieces of glass. Before it was broken, it once contained:

---

The casualty reports keep coming in from Rennar and Twoarch. 

I have mobilized every scrap of recovery forces I can to attempt to dig our wounded out, but the numbers are beyond my worst imagination. The Republic have knocked us onto our knees, having prepared for this since Dubrillion. Perhaps even before.

Naile is gone. He might be dead. I do not know. I am standing here and watching across the horizon. I am connected to him, watching across a burning landscape.

Naile was the first friend I made when I returned to the powerbase on Dubrillion.

Occasionally I am stopping and holding the hand of a dying Imperial, one who has been designated past our abilities to recover.

Naile was the one who saw the first spark of my potential, who urged me to not settle for a reduced role, who told me that I had the world ahead of me if I could take it.

We are sedating those who can be sedated, but we will run fast out of supplies if we allow this mercy for everybody, so for now it is the ones who scream the loudest.

He participated in Tarimra’s death, and he tried to urge me to join him. I tried to convince him to not participate, and he let me believe I convinced him.

I painlessly kill the soldiers who do not scream.

Emlar is watching behind me, I do not know who sent her but I understand it is an expression of worry. I have finally convinced her to leave me the time to record this.

I am recording this, putting it to words, because I cannot push back what I am feeling any further, and once it is over I will smash it to pieces...

...

We are losing Rennar.

The Republic are advancing and so are the jedi, and I hear a single message in my mind. He tells me that he will watch my left flank one last time. I beg with him not to go through telepathic flashes, but what I want to say is:

Gods, please, don't go. Don't leave me like they all did. Don't get yourself killed like them. Don't die alone. 
I failed Khatatas and he died blind and alone and mad. 
I failed Elias, who I shared so much with, who would probably call me self-centered if I made his death about me. 
I failed Valeus, who I watched rise, who preserved legend in his verses. He would blame me for not taking his side, but I was trying to keep either side from dying. How hypocritical, after I spent so long benefitting from their conflict. 
Vesk, who I saw such potential and similarity in. He would not speak, he had no voice box. 
Zikarn, one of the first to dedicate blood with me before the gods. He would feel nothing but rage. 
He would have asked me why I allowed Nyrithe to die, and I can’t even tell anybody why I mourn her, I couldn’t even tell her. 

I wasn't there for any of them. But I am here for you, my friend. I can't lose you too on my watch. Please turn around and fight another day. We can escape this hell together like all the other times-

I watched his lightsaber float towards the blue and green and I know his mind has already been made up. He is already too far away for me to respond, and I have already been shot once for this distraction. The next shot may take my life. A deserved reminder, a part of me thinks. Yet, there is Vaera, there is Suruthya, Aregra, Rekhen, and there is a pathway of escape before me, and once more, like a coward? Like a leader? Like a monster? Running from whatever the answer is, I ensure we are able to escape.

Creatures like me do not get the luxury of sentiment under such pressure. Draw the shame and agony of failure into yourself and let it become power, you're going to need it. I use this power to escape. I do not remember who or what I drained after the fact. I hope it was somebody dying, rather than another soldier we needed.

I wonder if this is going to be our end. We are weaker now, without the dead, and now we have lost at least half of our fighting soldiers. All of the people I failed to keep alive, all the ones I am currently failing to keep alive. I don't think the same way for anybody who I do not consider mine to a degree, but all of these people felt like that enough for me to feel how I am feeling. We have been sent to this wretched corner of the Galaxy to die. Most of us know this, and if they don’t, they will now. I cannot let this be it. For every time I have seen my world burn around me, this time I can actually try. If I fail, I suppose it will not matter. If we fail, I wonder how many of us will be alive to pick the pieces up. 

I hear Trisdane has died, over the din of it all. Luvane predicted it, the mad prophet that is my brother. Our bright fighter, holding the line.

I feel my friend go down. The connection is severed, I did not feel him die. 

The fires continue to burn like a second sun.

Maybe he is still alive...