There’s only one worthy Admiral in Star Wars, one who never received the ending he deserved, much less an origin story. I needed to do something to feel better about that.
“Closure”
He awoke to a world on fire.
He lay sprawled on the cramped floor of the command deck’s life pod, bleeding and struggling for breath through lungs ravaged by the heat of the inferno that was engulfing the remaining scraps of his cruiser and lighting the inside of the pod with a flickering, mesmerizing brightness. He’d been unconscious, but he didn’t know how long. Seconds? Minutes? Not much longer, or this pod would be so much molten slag.
He didn’t have much time.
In the glow of the death of his command ship, the death of his career, the death of the struggle he had dedicated his life to, he groped for the launch handle and pulled, jettisoning the pod into the darkness of space, and his consciousness into even greater darkness.
He dreamt. He remembered.
He remembered nearly forty years of his life dedicated to the cause. Forty years of sacrifice to the greater good. Forty years of that sacrifice being ignored.
He remembered forty years of being a sidekick. Forty years of being the butt of jokes. Forty years of the greatest military mind the galaxy had produced in a generation being nothing more than a punchline.
And he remembered one final minute of betrayal, watching them rescue her, pulling her to safety before fleeing the savage, brutal attack that had destroyed the fleet, and with it, their hope. Abandoning him.
As the pod made its way to the nearest inhabited planet, he prepared for what would come next. He pulled the gold braid from his uniform’s lapels and pried the gems from the badges on his chest. As he worked, he was surprised that he felt no regret at destroying this uniform that was a written record of his life’s work, to any who knew how to read it. Instead, looking at it, unique among the fleet, he felt nothing so much as disgust. Disgust at how they had dressed him up, adorned him like an entertainer, and turned what should have been a celebration of his service into mockery.
It occurred to him that in many ways, they were just as bad as those they fought against. Perhaps worse, since they were disingenuous, while at least the enemy was honest in their hatred.
Six months later, he sat at a table in the back corner of a rough cantina on a remote world. The tatters of his uniform had provided him with the credits he’d needed to get off the backwater planet the pod had taken him to. Once he’d made it to a civilized sector of the galaxy, he had access to the millions of credits they’d used to finance their futile resistance, as well as their communications channels and protocols. Then, it was just a matter of putting the pieces into play, and waiting.
Now, it was time to see if his months of planning would pay off. Would she come? Although it was already past the planned meeting time, he expected to have to wait for some time longer. He had prepared himself for disappointment, and wasn’t worried. He had another plan if this one failed. Any good officer always has a backup. He tried to get the bartender’s attention to order a drink, but as he raised his hand, he saw her step in the door and glance around. With unexpected relief, he turned his gesture into a half-wave, and she headed toward him.
She stood in front of him, looking much the same as when he’d last seen her. He looked much different, he knew, the burns and shrapnel having transformed his face into something grotesque and unrecognizable. “Who are you?” she demanded. “How did you know to contact us?”
He pulled off the hood cloaking his face, and met her eyes.
“Hello, Princess,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “You’re alive? How? What is this?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“This?” He shrugged. “It’s a trap.”
The former Admiral squeezed the trigger of the blaster he had been holding under the table, and smiled as her crumpled body fell to the floor.
As chaos erupted, and the guards she’d planted in the crowd bore down on him, far too late to do any good, he raised his blaster and thought of the seas.
RIP Admiral Ackbar 1983-2017
