A new Hope

The hazy mist that came with dreams invaded him. He could see the tell tale signs of a dream. Familiar things that had no bearing on reality were imbedded in a haphazard pattern through out the landscape. It was as if his subconsques had a limited resource pool and pulled from life to create the reality he now stood in. Even armed with that though Gavin was scared. This nightmare was all to real to him now. The raven haired girl’s face seemed to take on a life of its own in anything he looked at. The mirror he passed onto a deserted Coruscant street did not reflect him, but instead it was the girl before she was horrible destroyed in the explosion. Gavin cast his eyes away just to bring them across the street to a billboard. The neon glowing letters brightly showed him the word that he now hated. DUTY was scrolled across it twice as big as he was and brighter than any star his mind could imagine at that second. Cursing himself he rushed down the ferrocrete slab sidewalk and turned a sharp corner only to stop dead in his tracks. The building that blocked his path was all to familiar. He glanced down and noticed his flight suit had been changed to light combat gear.
The thick protection vest and blaster rifle slung over his shoulder froze his hands in place. He was aware of his vision blurred by the night vision goggles that had not been there a second ago. As his dream eyes adjusted her saw the stairs that now walked up. The steps creaked several times in the old home as he and three other men crept up them. All of them were similarly dressed boasting black armor and antipersonnel weapons. One man in the back carried a heavy blaster and grenade launcher. The dark blue and black patch of the New Republic special forces sickened him when he caught sight of it. Gavin felt his hand go up in a fist and the other stopped.
He took a breath and then the chaos began. Shuffling quickly down the dimly lit hallway he and his squad stopped at the last door. A simple shaped charge secured on the locking mechanism shattered it and let the door slip open. Gavin pushed his men back as blaster fire and slugs slammed against the unoccupied wall. The second that the fury ended he stepped into the door jam and heaved a smoke grenade in. taking cover on the other wall the popping sound followed by the plume of white smoke meant that the grenade has gone off. The second man in his group stepped into the way and sprayed the room with an intense volume of fire from his heavy blaster rifle. Dropping to one knee the next man stepped up and swept the opposite end of the room as the second man. Once satisfied that that room was secure they stepped in followed by Gavin. The dance continued. Two more rooms were cleared in a similar way. In the end three nemodians, two defel bodyguards, a corellian and an ithorian lay dead in the apartment. Gavin flinched when he saw the flicker out of the corner of his eye. He turned and the dream became slow motion. The raven haired girl stepped out of hiding. One hand was clutched around a sack and the other obscured behind her. Gavin heard sergent Gent yell stop, but he knew she wouldn’t. he tried to close his eyes but they wouldn’t and the scene ended the same way. She brought her hand up and was cut down by three overlapping fields of fire from his squad. She hit the wall, but the small communicator she carried clattered to the floor. She lay twitching on the ground sick smoke curls rising from her body. He barked an order and felt the dream give and slowly meld into blackness. It was not his fault for her death, that was the official reasoning. She had been the one that had agreed to lead the republic guard to that building and end a vital sect of drug runners. Gavin, though could not help but see her face in the face of every young girl he saw on the street. He had killed before, but he had never fired on someone like that. He realized later that there had been four blasters firing despite his disgust. His combat training had acted on instinct.
The Republics solution to his sudden drop in performance was an out of the way assignment until he could be trusted again. So he was sent to the outer rim world of Galos. There he was to establish a link with the head of the government and “Smooth relations” with him. It was more a job of a political officer or some diplomat. He being a member of Wraith Squadron, though he was sent as a show of respect. Now he stood on the Capital citys only docking port.