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Rebellion (n)
/rəˈbelyən/
An act violence or open resistance to the Galactic Empire through spoken words, physical actions, or the publication of unauthorized literature. Illegal under law code 3.34.5 and punishable by imprisonment, hard labor, or death.
-The New Galactic Basic Dictionary
Published under his Lordship Sheeve Palpatine, Galactic Emperor
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Military was Pitch’s life. He’d started off as a cadet on the industrial shores of Kamino, his lessons as a youngling focussing on military tactics, medical basics for humans, and the proper way to shoot a blaster. His daily routine consisted of barrack checks every morning, walking in file to meals in the canteen, and calling out his designation number for attendance at the start of each activity. It had been simple, routine.
Comforting.
Unfortunately, he was coming to learn, it was nothing like the way The Rebellion was run. The standards for presentation were low, with many members wearing mismatched clothing from a wide variety of worlds– where one being would have half a kit of stormtrooper’s plastoid armor, another would be dressed in the barest of clothing most often found on the humid worlds of Kashyyyk, Ryloth, or Onderon. There was no rhyme or reason to the way things were set up.
Oftentimes he thought it was funny, the way things had turned out. He was a soldier, bred and brought up to fight for the very government he now waged war against, hidden in shadows and lurking in backwater worlds.
Pitch knew that there were many sentiments across the galaxy who saw no difference between the Empire and the Republic. To them it was just another governing body, another playbook of rules that had consequences if broken. He and the other members of this mismatched rebellion could only hope that deep down, there were those who could see the differences.
Differences in the foundation of the government that could only be seen from the inside, from the bitter and sticky pit surrounded by glamorous walls that, if examined closely, were akin to prison bars. This was the very place where the Rebellion had been born- a small, weak seed determined to see what lay beyond the gilded prison, hiding away in rotting soil that could bear no life.
The Rebellion favored small and hidden planets away from major hyperspace highways. Dark, often run down bases replaced the sterile and advanced technology of Kamino that Republic soldiers knew as home. Where each man had been trained and knew his place in the machinery of the GAR, here there was scant organization and entire squadrons full of shinies- a far cry for what used to be.
Pitch’s own squadron, labeled Sunrise, had a handful of strong members. There was Gilla, a rodian who knew her way around a piloting simulator, and Sparks, a resilient if not headstrong leader. Sparks was highly intelligent but sometimes pushed too far- he had yet to learn his limit. Sadina and Zeev… Well, they had yet to prove themselves.
Drawn into his thoughts, Pitch worked through the repetitive pattern of cleaning his blaster. The fine inner workings of the familiar machine brought a sort of comfort to him, one that couldn’t be matched in any other way as soft clicks could be heard with each piece fit into place. Pre-Imperial items had a way of making everything fit, designed for perfection and resilience- much like himself.
His blaster, aptly named Starfall, had been made twenty years prior and still worked wonders, making it legendary among the soldiers who were stuck with sub-par remakes from the last decade with sticky triggers and short blasting range. In fact, the modern red blasting charges were far less effective than their blue counterparts- cheap and mass produced on the same machines the separatists had used.
As Pitch reached for a rag beside him, he paused to stretch out his aching fingers- not much of a problem these days, but he knew it might cause complications due to his accelerated aging. The beginnings of arthritis had started to find home in his joints but he hadn’t told anyone yet. It’s not like there were any other vod he could tell.
Still, it wasn’t a hindrance to his work in the field. It didn’t get in the way of his shooting (at least, not yet).
(He wouldn’t tell anyone if it was a problem, though. He wouldn’t get decommissioned.)
A soft knock brought him from his thoughts and his head snapped up almost instantly. It was an odd hour of the day to be in the training room– most every sane person was in the mess to get their ration allotment or retreated to bed for the night cycle.
He was just getting up when the door slid open on its own accord.
Automatically and from years of practice, Pitch was on his feet and ready to stand at attention. Only, it wasn’t a superior to greet him, but a janitor.
She stared at him for a moment, orange eyes widening only slightly before she gained her composure. She was a short thing, almost an entire foot below Pitch’s head. Her face was full and round from youth, adorned with some sort of tattooed pattern across her cheeks and forehead.
“I’ll come back later.”
She turned on her heel and carted her cleaning supplies along, a broom balanced on her shoulder like a rifle, steps even and sure.
That was the first time Pitch met Jessa Quillan.
//
He came across her again in the canteen nearly two weeks later, sitting with Sadina.
It was a slow day, and he and Sunrise had just gotten back from a supply run in the mid rim. This was the first warm meal he had had in weeks, and was a little put off by the fact that the girls were talking so loudly.
“Hey Pitch!” Sadina paused her conversation as she nodded in his direction. “This is my bunkmate, Jessa. I’m telling her about the milk run we just did.”
Sadina was a young human from the lower levels of Coruscant, mainly known in the squadron for her wicked aim with a firepuncher. Despite her steady hand in the field and dry jokes, she was often full of energy and excitement while off the job. It was almost like she had two separate personalities- one for work, and one for play.
It was hard to tell that she had made it two years into the Imperial Academy before dropping out.
“Not much to tell,” Pitch grunted as he broke his ration bar in half. “Got a few shots at the Imps from a distance but they weren’t worth picking off.”
Sadina shrugged. “I say we should have nailed them. One less problem to worry about in the future.”
“You never know,” Jessa said, speaking up for the first time. “They may end up joining us later, so it could be a good thing you spared them.” She said this without much of a second thought, continuing to pick at whatever mush had been cooked into today's rations.
Pitch tried not to scoff at the comment. Who was she to say that Imperials could change? Those bastards were only in it for themselves, and most defectors were at such a low level they hadn’t even sworn into the Army ranks. Take Sadina for example- she’d made it two years as a cadet in the academy with the intent of dropping out from the start. She’d learned enough to have military knowledge but left the Academy before she could make a name for herself- staying safe in the shadows and being dismissed as another “lowworlder dropout.”
“Kid, anyone who joins the fight for the Empire is a lost cause. Choosing to believe in their ideas is a one way ticket to Mirialan hell, and for that there is no redemption. They can all burn for all I care.”
Pitch thought about his brothers who were forced to fight once the Jedi had fallen. They had lost their lives as slaves, forced to commit genocides in the name of the Empire. For a brief moment, he unwillingly thought of the way he and his brothers had been ordered to kill the Jedi. “Traitors” they had called the Generals….
The new Imp soldiers had outright chosen their life, knowing the damage they would cause and the lives they would end. Many of them had grown up with the Jedi as peacekeepers, as symbols of hope…. And still they believed in the lies the Empire told them. They were damned, and they had chosen it.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Jessa said, somehow still defiant. “People can change.”
“Ha! You think they want to?” He aggressively stabbed his fork into his tray, temper beginning to rise. “You’re still shiny and what? Fourteen standard years? Fifteen? You have a lot to learn about the real world until you’re ready for the field. You were barely even born when the Empire came to rise, so you didn’t see it for yourself.”
Jessa was standing now too, hands placed firmly on the table. Her stance was wide, as if she were ready to start a fight. Other Rebels had begun to look their way in curiosity as the air grew tense.
“I don’t know anything? You’ve been in the Rebellion for years now- you haven’t seen what real life is like in the galaxy!” Her round face was flushed with anger. “People are suffering every day! They choose the Empire because it promises safety! It’s still wrong, yes, but it’s all that they know! How can you expect people to choose between right and wrong when they’ve been indoctrinated all their lives? When the only options are to starve or join the Empire?”
Ordinary people- they don’t care about the politics of it all! They think we, the rebellion, are in the wrong because that’s what they’re told. They don’t even know half the crimes the Empire does on the daily because it’s never on the holonet! To bring down the Empire we need to spread the truth to those who don’t know it! Not kill people who don’t–”
“Stand down, soldier! That’s an order!” Pitch had had enough of this. He slammed his fists onto the table, rattling the plastic trays and silencing the entire canteen.
Jessa’s mouth snapped shut, but he could still see the fire in her eyes. He looked her up and down, daring her to say more. She didn’t.
“Get out of here and let me eat my damn lunch in peace.” Pitch waved a wild hand out to the rest of the canteen. “Go back to your business.”
He sat down again while Sadina made a motion for Jessa to leave. The young girl, looking quite annoyed, left without saying another word, footsteps unreasonably loud. A huff escaped Pitch’s lips as the chatter in the canteen resumed back to its regular noise level.
“Commander-”
“Not now, Sadina. I’m going back to my barracks. I’ve had enough talk for the day.” He left his half finished meal tray on the table, not caring what would become of it.
That night, he dreamed of his brothers trapped in the clutches of the Empire, unable to choose for themselves. He dreamed of Gunner, Bits, and Escape- their forgotten service to the Imperial cause, only abandoned once they were no longer of use.
He dreamed of the Imperial foot soldiers, men and women who had decided to join out of their own free will and self interest. He dreamed of them falling to his blaster fire…..
//
It was an unwritten rule that he and Jessa avoided each other in the following days. Unfortunately, the base consisted of just under one hundred people- making the task extremely hard.
Sadina did her best to negotiate between the two to no luck. Pitch didn’t care for Jessa- and she had nothing to do with his life as a soldier, so truly there was no point in interacting with her. Besides, she wasn’t even officially enlisted yet. From what he could tell she was only sixteen, stuck with janitorial duties until she was of age.
“I don’t want to hear it, Dina,” He muttered at the end of a training session with the rest of Sunrise. Since supplies were low and technology old, they could only practice aim and hand-to-hand combat. He found himself longing for the simulator on Kamino.
“She’s not bad, you know,” Sadina said. She ran a rag across her forehead and along her shortly cropped hair. One of her eyebrows was raised in expectation at Pitch. “She’s not your enemy, either.”
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I know that.”
“Do you?”
//
“Commander, I’m placing a new recruit into your squadron.”
Pitch stood facing the hologram of the Fulcrum symbol, back ram-rod straight and hands neatly placed at his side.
“As you know, the Rebellion is low on men. We’re still a small cell, and, though I know Mon Mothma has her own business down at Coruscant, we can’t risk connecting with her cells just yet. We’ve lost two Fulcrums this year- one stationed on Ilinda and the other on Panov IV….” Fulcrum’s modulated voice paused for a moment. “Your new recruit is not quite ready for the front lines yet. But I want you to train them as any other soldier so we can have them ready when they’re old enough. A few other squadrons will be facing a similar task….”
“Sir?” He didn’t know where this conversation was going.
“We as a Rebellion have certain rules depending on different species, but up until this point have set the minimum to seventeen standard years to those who currently serve in our forces. Rael– and Mothma as well, though I doubt she wants this plan to follow through- have put in an order for the age to be lowered to Imperial standard- sixteen.”
Pitch didn’t think much of it. He was eight standard when he started in the Clone Wars.
“I’m sending over the file of the cadet stationed at your base. Your job is to review it and schedule them into training with your squadron. If all goes well, the newer recruits will be ready to serve within six months instead of the original eighteen. Fulcrum out.”
The holo flickered before turning dark, leaving Pitch in darkness. Seconds later, a short transmission lit up the screen with a name in bold letters.
Quillan, Jessa
“You’ve got to be karking kidding me.”