New Blood: Black Memories

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(As always, my thanks to George Lucas and Lucasfilm for allowing me to play in this universe. I don't get any profit from this story, but I do get enjoyment out of writing it. If you enjoy reading it, let me know. Special thanks to Vickie Boyd for letting me use some of the characters and locations established in her Station Leave series.)

"I'm sorry, it's just, ever since we've been rooming together, I've noticed those scars. I was wondering where they came from."

"They're... They're relics of a past life. Who I was before I signed up for pilot training, well, it's not a life I want to go back to."

"I'm going for a run. I might stop by the hangar and say goodbye to Saar before he goes, as well."

"Yes, Commander," the Gran replied. "While I feel I have come to terms with what has happened, I think I would be better off taking a short break. I may re-apply for training at a later date, or find some other pursuit."

"Well, if you do decide to re-apply, let myself or Captain Johats know. We'll be happy to write you a letter of recommendation."

The Gran turned and walked up the ramp into the belly of the transport. He passed the ship's captain, a heavyset man with a permanent scowl, who slapped the controls for the door as soon as Saar was onboard.

"Who's that guy?" Aric heard. He turned, and smiled as Alton Thanas sketched a half salute in the air.

"That's Razor Dee, a somewhat unsavoury ships captain, but the one Saar selected to get him back to Coruscant."

Thanas shivered. "I'd rather take my chances jumping out the airlock, if I were him." He paused. "Did you hear something?"

The two men walked away, not noticing the shadow lurking in one of the hangar's niches. It stepped away from the wall, and stared after the transport as it lifted from the hangar floor, and eased through the magcon field, into the space beyond.

A careful watcher would have noticed the figure holding its breath until the transport accelerated into hyperspace.

Ibra Yoko climbed from the simulator cockpit, a half smile on her face. She slid to the ground, and placed her helmet on a ledge as she activated the hoist to pull her R5 unit from the sim.

"Don't DO that!" she spat, before pulling herself together. "I mean, I'm sorry, but..."

"Hey, it's okay. Really," Anders Swali said, holding a hand up. "I was watching the vid-feed," he added, gesturing at a monitor. "You seem to have done pretty good."

"They're kinda hard to shake, aren't they?" he said, with a sympathetic smile. "Still, twenty minutes. That's good."

"The Captain can make the time limit," she said. "Three quarters of an hour. A single flight against two squadrons."

"The Captain will be bringing his X-Wing to the next formal dance as his partner," Anders said. "That's how well they get on. Me, you, and the rest of the recruits... Well, I don't think any of us have his skill. We have to do the best we can.... Am I boring you?"

She looked up guiltily from her chrono. "No, sorry. I just have to get somewhere. Sorry," she added, dashing out of the simulator lounge.

"What about..." he started, then sighed. He walked over to the hoist, and began lowering the indignant R5 from it's position suspended in mid-air.

"You're cutting things fine, aren't you?" Enda Sherr said, as Ibra burst into their room. She watched as her roommate slumped onto the spare bunk.

"You know you can't miss the times, Ibra. If you go too long, you go into withdrawal."

"I know... I could feel myself going while I was in the sim..." she stopped, abruptly realising she'd said too much.

"Please don't do it again, Ibra. Not after all the hassle the Captain went to getting you on the squadron."

"I know," Ibra said, as she rolled her sleeve up. Her arm shook slightly as she held it out to Enda. "Now... Please?"

The squadron medic sighed as she picked up a syringe, half filled with a blue liquid. She tapped it to move any air bubbles, then walked over to where Ibra sat.

Nisha Destrophi sat in the pilot's lounge, staring vacantly out the window. She barely reacted as Alton Thanas and Carson Deniel entered the room, despite the noise the two men were making.

She continued staring blankly forward, apparently not hearing. They walked over to where she was sitting, and Alton tried again.

"It's the vaunted Thanas charm," Alton said. "I walk into a room, and women are struck dumb."

"That kind of thinking means you have something on your mind," Alton said, taking a chair beside her.

Nisha sat in silence, tuning out her squad mates banter. She stared out the window, at the point where the transport had entered hyperspace earlier that day.

Anders roamed the station restlessly. He was worried about Ibra, his wingmate, and had no-one to whom he could turn to talk about it. Before, he would have talked to Ta'a Capti, but that was no longer an option. The Hapean noble woman had died in their last mission, leaving Anders feeling emotionally vacant. His efforts to connect with other members of the squadron hadn't been successful, for whatever reasons, and he missed his friend more acutely because of it.

Then he remembered something Ta'a had said to him. The one person Ibra seemed to have connected with was her roommate, Enda Sherr. It seemed logical, though Anders hadn't managed it with his roommates. He headed off towards the residential area, and towards the room shared by Enda and Ibra.

"By the way, we have a request from the captain of Saar's transport to spend more time here."

Deysha Johats, the commanding officer of the New Bloods, looked up expectantly. "Yes?"

"Well," Aric continued. "I thought it would be good. We'd start making money from the place at last, and maybe he could spread the word..."

"I suppose it can't hurt. We don't want this place turning into a shipyard, but a refuelling stop, and place for a little rest... Yes. Collecting credits while we're here can only be a good thing."

"The ship? Well, apparently, the captain picked up that old Super Transport for a song, and is outfitting it to haul, ah, bulk cargoes."

"You ever know a smuggler who couldn't make a ship sly faster? By one means or another?"

"Well, no, I'm afraid she's not in at the moment. I think she went back to the simulator lounge, or something like that. I'm afraid I don't really know."

But Anders wasn't listening. He was staring past her, at something on the spare bunk.

"What?" she asked, nervously. She groaned inwardly as he picked up the loaded syringe, and stared at it blankly. As he tilted it downwards, a drop of the blue liquid dripped off the end of the needle, and he stared at it, uncomprehending.

The door opened rapidly, and Ibra rushed in, dropping her bag partway across the floor as she ran to the spare bunk. After a second or two, she realised that herself and Enda were not alone. She stared blankly at Anders as he held the syringe.

"You... you know?" Ibra asked, the agitation obvious on her face. Anderfs noted she was shaking slightly.

"What have you told him? How could you..." Ibra started to shake violently. Slowly, she folded up, and slumped to the ground.

Carson and Alton sat watching as Barchelli Cotay decimated opponent after opponent at holo chess. The odds had quickly shortened on the Rodian as he had shredded Cha Pion, Dael Y'Notens and Doma P'Tay. Now he was making short work of Tiel Payse, who eventually wandered off, muttering under her breath.

"Anders, pass me that syringe, now!" Enda barked, rushing to her roommate's side.

"What? What's going on?" he said, frozen as he watched Ibra curl into a foetal ball, shivering all the while.

Mutely, he passed her the syringe, watching as she tried to soothe Ibra's shaking form.

"Hold her arm steady for me, and pull her sleeve up. This has to go directly into a vein."

"And checkmate," Barchelli concluded. "With all respect to you all, are you sure you wish to continue this challenge?"

Carson looked around, and no-one answered his glance. Everyone had been sufficiently impressed by the Rodian's abilities on the holochess table to stay well away from a pounding such as he had received.

"That would be most acceptable. Fruit fizz, please," Barchelli replied. "The non alcoholic kind," he added hurriedly, as a grinning Carson left his seat. "I wonder what our missing comrades are up to."

"Well, you know how Anders feels about Ibra. He's probably somewhere, trying to get her to open up to him," Dael Y'Notens replied with a toothy smile.

Enda pulled the blankets over Ibra's unconscious body. She dabbed at her roommate's sweat covered forehead with a damp cloth, then turned to face Anders Swali.

"Well, I can't give them to you. It's Ibra's business, and if she wants you to know, then she'll tell you. I would suggest you don't talk to anyone else about this."

She looked at him blankly for a second, before replying, "Where do you think we got the medicines?"

For Anders, the next day's training missions were a disaster. Flying an A-Wing in the simulators, he took a TIE bomber torpedo at range, ending that run in less than thirty seconds. The next run saw him crash his X-Wing into an asteroid, leaving him with a score in the minuses for that day. He sighed as he walked back to his room, avoiding Aric and Deysha. He was sure he'd hear from them soon enough.

The candidates toasted the day's hot pilot. Dael had shot down four TIEs in the exercises, making him the best of the New Bloods for the time being. He sat amiably at his table, while Alton made a grandiose speech on his behalf. Looking round, he noticed which pilots were missing -again, he added mentally- and wished them luck, whatever they were doing.

Anders lay on his bunk, staring blankly at the ceiling. The door chimed, but he ignored it. When it chimed several more times, he gave up, and walked over to open it. He was surprised to find Ibra on the other side.

Dael and Carson meandered back towards their room, trading jibes with Alton and Doma P'Tay. They reached the door, and Carson tapped in the entrance code.

Dael snorted, and reached past his roommate to type in the code. When this also failed to open the door, Carson pressed the door chime.

There was a brief pause, and the two men heard a chair scrape back. The door opened slightly, to reveal Anders' haggard face.

"You mean this, don't you?" said Carson. He received an exasperated glance in reply.

Anders shut the door again, and turned to face Ibra. She sat in one of the chairs, he legs tucked beneath the chair, her eyes locked resolutely on the floor.

"I'd had a poor Galactic games the year before. Two seconds and a third were a poor come down, or so it seemed. I'd have been happy with that last year."

Ibra walked through the hall of the training facility. Her coach had just made the suggestion to her that it was time to retire. At thirty-two, the body wanted a rest. It wasn't that she couldn't compete with the best in the world, it was just that she no longer had that extra two or three percent to give her the wins she'd claimed only a year or two before.

So she had the choice. She was no longer absolutely the best. She could swallow her pride, and compete for just a place on the podium, as she'd achieved at he last Galactic games, or...

She looked at the tablets in her hand. Two small, innocent, innocuous clusters of pharmaceuticals, which would, maybe, make the best in the galaxy. Again.

The Super Transport Mark VI dropped out of hyperspace, and rotated to face Station 421. Razor Dee gave the order to begin docking, and went to check on the cargo area. As requested, the station would be receiving a number of items of cargo -electronics, piping, medicines and so on- as well as credits for the use of the docking facilities. Of course, Razor and his fellow crewmen stood to make a fair profit as well, if their passenger service took off as they hoped. Razor grinned as he thought of the profit to be had.

She nodded, mutely, then said "Over, and over again, for the next three years. At the last games, I was the best again. I won seven events, a record, but it was all down to the drugs. I stood on the podium each time, taking the trophies, and each time I felt so false. By the time of the last awards, I thought I would break down and confess. It was horrible.

"Then, when I tried to give up, I found out just how horrible it was. I was addicted, physically. I wanted to give up, so badly, but the withdrawal symptoms were terrible. I gave up athletics when I tore one of my calf muscles, trying to run without the drugs. I had to start taking them again to get by, but they retarded the healing process."

"Fighting the good fight, until some Imp pilot vapes me, and that will be the end of Ibra Yoko, pilot, athlete, and cheat."

"When my leg finally healed, a couple of months ago, I took to flying as a means to escape. I realised I'd fallen in love with it after the first flight, and when I tested out good enough for pilot training..."

He nodded. For Ibra, the need to fly was the only way to escape who she had become. Or who she had been.

"The side effects of the drugs were terrible. I lost my husband, my daughter," she said, quietly. "I was so angry with everything. I couldn't understand why they just didn't give me the trophy just for showing up. I needed to win, more than anything.

"One night I came so close to hitting Denyse, my daughter, and it scared me. It scared my husband even more. He left the next day, and I haven't seen them since."

Tears streaked down her cheeks as she stared back in time to a place where she had been happy.

"And it wasn't worth it. Knowing I'd cheated, how could I enjoy the victories? So, when I tried out for pilot training, I told the instructors about my problem. They said that if I made it into the squadron, they'd do their best to help me. They assigned Enda as my roommate, and now every few hours, I take a cocktail of drugs designed to wean me off the steroids. "

"Not noticeably," she replied, with a wry smile. It was her first since she'd entered his room. "I still feel the need, but it's like I'm replacing one addiction with another. I'm sure that's not healthy, whatever Enda and the medics I've consulted say. But I can't face giving up completely. It would be so painful."

She wept again, and Anders was at a loss for words. Gently, he took her in his arms, and held her.

The next day consisted of a series of two pilot flights to a nearby moon and back. The pilots flew through the moons canyons and craters as fast as they were able. Swali and Yoko came in near the back of the pack, with Chinchenza and Zander Berkal being the fastest by several seconds.

Nisha Destrophi had faired worst of all, overshooting a turn, and slamming her Y-Wing into the outcropping. The resulting damage to the craft had left her stranded on the moon, and the Y-Wing in need of a major repair job. Deysha Johats had been less than impressed, scuttlebutt said.

Word had spread that Razor Dee and his crew were making Station 421 a regular stop on their itinerary. Nisha had become even more quiet and withdrawn than she had previously been, which said a lot. Kirrsk Seyrak, her Shistavanen wingmate had tried to drag her reasons out of her, but she'd remained uncommunicative.

Leaving sickbay after her crash, she felt a presence behind her, then was spun round and slammed into a bulkhead. The breath left her body sharply, and as she inhaled, she caught a pungent, familiar odour.

"Hello, little girl..." came the voice. Deep, gravelly, crooning... She'd grown to hate that voice, al those years before.

"Always knew we'd find you, so we did. Nearly had you on Tattooine last year, but for a failed power converter. Now, what do you know? As soon as the old man starts to settle down some, you fall into our laps. The boys are gonna laugh at that, I can tell..."

He was huge, nearly seven feet tall. To Nisha, sprawled on the floor, struggling for breath, he seemed taller still. He reached down with a scarred arm, and plucked her easily from the ground. He held her level with his face, the twisted features so familiar to her from nightmares she'd never quite stopped having.

She kicked hard, catching the man between his legs. He dropped her, and she turned and ran as fast as she could away from him, as he clutched the stricken area, gasping for air between gritted teeth.

Nisha exploded into the pilots lounge, desperately trying to find someone, anyone from her squadron.

"Hello, my dear," he began. "Spectacular flying, today. You make me proud. You also made it hard for us to miss you. When word comes in of a wounded pilot, everyone is talking about it. And when your name came up, well, I could hardly believe my ears. Fortunately, everyone else seemed to hear the same thing."

He looked up and over her shoulder as the door opened behind her. She cursed herself silently for not running as soon as she'd seen him, but he'd always held an almost hypnotic hold on her. Right up until she'd stolen one of his ships and left him, and his crew, behind.

She turned slowly, knowing who it was behind her. The giant strode over to stand in front of her, and lowered his face so he could stare directly into her eyes. She shivered, and turned to face Razor again.

"Lack, my dear fellow, you seem to have scared little Nisha here," Razor said. She felt Lack's huge hands encircle her upper arms, and knew she was trapped again.

"That's good," Razor said, a wide smile appearing on his normally ferocious face. Nisha took no comfort from the change. "Just as I ordered. Now, I really think we should go back to the ship. Don't you?"

Deysha and Aric entered their office, to find Aloi T'Harr and Tiel Payse waiting for them.

"Cadets," Deysha said evenly, taking his seat. "What can we do for you this morning?"

"It's Nisha," Aloi began, an obvious note of worry in her voice. "She didn't come back to our room last night."

"We did, sirs," Tiel chipped in. "They say she checked herself out last night, at around seven station time. But no-one's seen her since."

"We told the other cadets, in case any of them had seen her. They're looking around the station now," said Tiel.

"Well, if she hasn't shown up by lunchtime, then we can start to worry, but she is an adult, and maybe she wanted time alone. Maybe she met someone in the lounge, as well," Deysha said, calmly.

"Call us if you've not found her by lunchtime, okay?" Aric said, as the two women left the officers' room.

"She didn't strike me as the type to go missing. Quiet, yes, but not a brooder. If we have nothing by lunchtime, I think we'll have to make it a full-scale search."

"Well, I guess we'll have to be out of here by lunchtime, then, won't we?" said Razor, turning to his crew. He had the place of honour, as usual, at the head of the table. At the other end, though, sat Nisha. The crew had gathered to listen to the conversation over the bug Lack had planted in Deysha and Aric's office. It amused Razor that they had met to discuss the use of Station 421 by him and his ship.

They've delivered Nisha back to me, he thought. And now they're going to tell me all about how they'll try and find her. Maybe I'll even offer to send some of our crew out with them to search?

He smiled at Nisha as she struggled against her bonds. Clearly she'd developed a rebellious streak away from her crewmates. He'd have to rectify that.

In the end, they had to give up searching. Deysha and Aric were furious and worried at the same time. The only place they hadn't searched was aboard Razor's ship, but his crew had assured them that Nisha couldn't have come aboard without them knowing, so that was that.

The New Bloods' time on Station 421 had come to an end. With astromechs controlling the two empty snubfighters, they flew silently away from the station, before heading back to Coruscant.

Deysha in particular dreaded his return, where he would have to explain why only seventeen of his twenty cadets were returning with him.

Razor watched their departure on the main viewscreen of the Station. He grinned as the ships went to hyperspace, and turned to face Lack.

They walked back to the Super Transport, now renamed the Nonnah's Quest. Razor in particular was looking forward to getting back on board, and beginning again his attempts to turn Nisha back into a productive member of the crew.

"Back to work," he said, with a grin at Lack. "And how are our first batch coming along?"

"Good. The boys in the lab reckon we can have them ready for sale in just a few more weeks."

"Very good. We stand to make a lot of money, Lack. And we have our little Nisha back as well. I'm a very happy man indeed."

Razor smiled as they approached the ship. With the New Bloods gone, the lighting in the hangar was on emergency power. Deep shadows cast over Razor's face, and his teeth gleamed sharply as his brow knitted into a deep scowl.