Turbo lasers lay twisted, barrels askew, and dead bodies, most of them missing limbs, lay in various positions of death, already in the process of decomposing. The stench was unbelievable.

Hawk looked up into the pale blue sky. In orbit above this place was a similar graveyard, marked by gutted Star Destroyers and Frigates, and the shredded remains of fighters.

It had been a suicide mission. Everyone knew it. The Black Horse Regiment top brass had known it. But that was what a mercenary regiment was paid to do. And for all intents and purposes, the mission had been a resounding success.

With just a short hop from the Endor system, this system, Sorrow’s Vail had been set up as a major Imperial logistical support base for the new Death Star. Not that a monster as big as the Death Star needed logistical support.

Still, after the space moon’s fiery demise, there was barely enough of the Rebel forces left to cover protection for Endor’s moon. And when the Bothan spy network discovered this base, it was a sure bet the Imperials were going to be on top of them before the battered rebel forces could rally. Taking out the base was imperative.

Enter the Black Horse Regiment, anchored by the Frigate Ebony Flare. A mercenary regiment hired by Princess Leia. They had succeeded, but at a terrible price. The Ebony Flare’s destruction, symbolic of the regiment’s destruction.

Hawk was the sole survivor because of a twist of fate that had sent his B-wing fighter into the jungle beyond the base, flight control damaged, after his squadron had destroyed the depot’s main power generators. Stranded, looking to scavenge parts from the wreckage to repair his fighter, ducking the occasional fly-by of Imperial craft hoping to catch some stray rebel to learn Endor’s defenses.

Something I’d like to know as well, Hawk thought morosely. He started his descent down the rocky slope into the field of carnage. One thing in his favor: the Imperials were leaving the scene alone so as to lure unsuspecting rebels into thinking Imperial activity had ceased. Hawk was certain there would be probe droids hidden, but it was a risk he’d have to take if he was going to get off the planet. Oh, for the expertise of an astromech droid. The B-Wing had repair circuits as did all the fighters, but only the Y and X-wings enjoyed the luxury of having on-board R2 units.

However, his repairs were nearly complete. The only thing he needed now was a control circuit for the hyperdrive motivator. The good news was that one could be obtained from any fighter. The bad news was that they were fragile things, their photonic circuits susceptible to damage from too many laser hits as well as crashes.

Hawk unslung the hand-held sensor unit and scanned the area. It registered no lifeforms or electronic emissions and he reslung it and unslung his Imperial Repeater Gun. It was a personal weapon he’d acquire during a ground assault a few years back on some nameless Imperial garrison moon. One could never be too careful.

Half sliding, half running, Hawk finally made to the floor of the valley amidst a cloud of dust. It took him several hours and pawing through the wreckage of half a dozen fighters before he located an operational control circuit. A few minutes with the tool kit and it rode in a thigh pocket of his black flightsuit. His activity had eaten up most of the afternoon and soon it would be dark.

Hawk looked up into the sky and squinted briefly. Was that a flash of light? Long moments of nothing, then another, followed by a series of bursts. Seen from the planet, those flashes could mean only one thing: space combat. Hawk turned to sprint back up the slope when a flurry of electronic burps and beeps suddenly surrounded him. They were not friendly.

"Dammit, Solo, I thought you said this sector was an Imperial-free zone!" Foxfire yelled, rolling her A-wing to the right as a quad of green laser spears kissed her shields. The TIE Interceptor hung on her tail like a hungry mynock. She pitched down then immediately rolled left. The Interceptor fell for the feint and in moments Foxfire dropped unto its tail, a dual burst from her own craft sending fiery scrap metal across the debris strewn space.

It had been a classic ambush and who knew how long the Imperials had been lying dormant in the hidden container. Probably since the Battle of Endor.

"Switch out! Switch out!" Solo yelled, swinging his A-wing wide of the diamond slot formation. A TIE Interceptor swept past, close enough to trail tendrils if sparks from its contact with Solo’s A-wing. Solo immediately cut thrusters in a sit and spin maneuver and blasted the unshielded Imperial fighter. He hit thrusters on full, following the expanding ball of gas from the destroyed fighter.

"Got two on my tail," Moose said calmly, occillating back and forth under the intense barrage of green lasers, the A-wing’s miniscule shields taking a beating.

"Point oh nine. I’ll cover," Hardrive said. He was the only one of the four not flying an A-wing. It was agreed that a heavier fighter might be needed for this little recon jaunt. They were right. Hardrive cut across Moose’s flight path in a complicated scissors maneuver the put him slightly behind and to the starboard of the two interceptors pursuing Moose. One disintegrated under a double dual burst of X-wing laserfire and the other exploded moments later under a single proton torpedo.

The remaining two interceptors fled.

"We’d better make this quick," Foxfire said. Those interceptors mean there’s a bigger ship somewhere around here. One nap of the earth sweep." She angled her A-wing towards the planet below, shallowing her dive as the tiny craft kissed the atmosphere. The others were not far behind…

Hawk froze for only a split second before sprinting through the wreckage with a sudden flurry of green lasers pinging metal and smacking the dirt around him. A probe droid, black and insectoid rose up from the wreckage of a TIE fighter 20 meters ahead and the repeater gun stuttered with an electric crackle, the big rifle bucking slightly, even with the customized system of counterweights and recoil compensators designed to allow an unarmored person to use the weapon. A stream of accelerated ion particles ripped into the probe before it could get off a single shot and it exploded with pyrotechnic fury.

Hawk was already in a sideways dive over a pile of wreckage to avoid flying shrapnel, but a tiny piece scored a jagged line through flightsuit and flesh across his ribcage. Another piece caught him across the left eyebrow before he hit the dirt hard, out of reach of the rest that pelted around him.

The characteristic eerie warble emitted by probe droids sounded loud and Hawk rolled on his back, left eye closed against the blood flowing from his injury, and cut loose with a short 3 round burst. The probe skittered sideways, banging into the remains of a wall, then crumpled to the ground. Hawk rolled backwards to his feet and stretched into a headlong dive into a deep ditch made by a downed Y-wing, an instant before the Imperial device’s self-destruct button blew it to scrap.

Renewed fire from the remaining droids kept him down with the sound of sizzling metal and pinging ricochets. Hawk crawled along the ditch until he came to the Y-wing’s wreckage. As he turned to fire at anything appearing over the escarpment, a totally unexpected blast of hoots and whistles nearly startled the B-wing pilot out of his wits. He twisted around, his gaze sliding across the cockpit, grimacing at the remains of the Y-wing’s pilot, half his face a mass of red scar tissue and blackened flesh, to the R2 unit in its mount. The droid looked largely undamaged.

"What the hell--!?" he exclaimed before a volley of lasers forced his head down. "Are you damaged?" Hawk queried and was answered by a metallic burp that he didn’t need any translating to understand. "Good. You can help me fix my ship." A stray blast burned a hole not 2 feet away from his head. "—If we get out of this alive."

Snarling, Hawk suddenly scrambled up the escarpment and unloaded his weapon in a wide arc on full auto, holding the repeater gun sideways to let its fire walk laterally. He slid back into the ditch as several of the droids exploded, peppering the torn landscape with debris. A burning finger-sized piece of shrapnel arced over the escarpment and cored its way into his left upper thigh.

Grunting in pain, Hawk dropped the repeater gun and dug frantically at the hot metal, managing to get it out, singing his fingers in the process. He took a shuddering breath and passed out…

When Hawk slowly came awake, the R2 unit was standing over him. Blurry shadows moved in the background and he moaned, blinking rapidly. One of the shadows came over and coalesced into the figure of woman who dropped down into a crouch nearby, peering into his face.

"That was either very brave or incredibly stupid for you to take on a squad of Imperial probe droids, even with that repeater gun. I haven’t figured out which."

"Don’t feel bad," Hawk rasped. "You’re not the first." He struggled up into a sitting position, looked down at the bandaging swathed around his upper thigh. More covered his ribs and left arm.

The woman smiled and Hawk decided it was an altogether comely smile on an altogether comely face. "Didn’t anyone ever tell you that, generally, when things blow up, there’s usually a lot of shrapnel involved?"

"Didn’t have much choice. They just sort of appeared. It was shoot or be shot."

"Commander Avery Schroeder, call-sign: Foxfire, CO of the Alliance Frigate Wolf’s Den and Wolf’s Head Squadron." She extended her hand.

"Flight Officer Sacci Richter, CO of Black Horse flight, Black Horse Regiment."

Avery’s eyes went wide. "The mercenary outfit largely responsible for hampering Imperial logistics in the Battle of Endor. I heard they were destroyed to a man."

"Yeah, that fuss was us. And, almost to a man." He accepted her hand and they shook.

"How long have you been here?"

"Dunno. I’ve been trying to scavenge parts to fix my crippled B-wing—and dodge the occasional Imperial scouting party. Weeks? Months?" The R2 unit hooted. "This here’s Horse. We just met." The R2 unit hooted again and Hawk had a hard time figuring out whether it was approval or admonishment.

One of the other pilots came over, said, "We’d better get moving. The relief force for this sector is en route. Still, we don’t want to get caught by an Imp retaliatory force."

Foxfire nodded, looked back at Hawk. "You’re welcome to join up. If you’ll have us."

"Eh?" Hawk said, perplexed.

"Well," Foxfire began with a bemused smile, "I figure, a guy who can take out a squad of probe droids all on his own might have some pretty high standards for us to measure up to."

"If you can get me to a bacta tank, your standards are high enough… By the way, you have any techs that can modify a B-wing to accept a R2 unit?"

Definitely not the end…