A long time ago, in a comic shop very nearby...
Personal Datapad Entry 84278
I nearly gave up on The Dream last week. I have been fighting for freedom on Fondor since the Galactic Republic fell, which was no small feat for a Core World planet. But this was my home and I fought alongside my Jedi friends in the Clone Wars, so I knew what the Empire was selling was nothing short of tyranny. We started off as a small cell, but we were experienced, and we knew how to fight in an urban environment, which is all about small direct strikes against the Empire.
But all that changed when the Dark Troopers showed up.
Fighting droids is one thing, but these…mechanical terrors…are another. They’re tall, well-armored, and carry a small platoon’s worth of weapons on each of them. They started wiping us out, finding our safe houses and taking prisoners. They took my wife Milssa and son Cam; only a small group of us got away.
CC-5, my cyborg counterpart, got in contact with a group of Rebels who had come to Fondor before tracking droid part shipments, chasing down a mystery that I presume now was the Dark Troopers. I had asked them the last time they were here for help to destroy some AT-STs since they were undercover and docked at the Imperial base. They dropped the ball and barely took out half of them. If you ask me, they were green through and through, but we couldn’t say no to help. Not with Milssa and Cam’s lives at stake.
This Rebel Cell showed up when I was trying to steal a Imperial Transport for the prison break I was planning for Milssa, Cam and the others. When the Dark Troopers showed up, equipped with jetpacks, I thought we were done for then and there. But thanks to some fancy driving and stupidly bold heroics, we were able to get away. And since neither CC-5 or I could get close to the prison, they went it and got everyone out on the Transports as we planned, with maybe a little more shooting than even I thought was needed.
As much as it pains me, then and now in writing this down, Fondor was a lost cause. It had come to embrace the Imperial war machine thanks to leadership under the Versios and there was no letting go. The next day, we began evacuating our people, getting them off Fondor. The Rebel Cell did well, keeping the Stormtroopers from the nearby market away. But then an AT-AT showed up, trying to bring down the transports. It was a hellish bit of trench warfare to keep the Empire back but this Rebel Cell, they really came together, worked as a team and stopped that AT-AT with an electromagnetic pulse.
We’re here with them on Polis Massa, with people who once thought of me as an extremist. I thought they were too passive, too weak-willed to get out there and fight. But without this Rebel Cell, my family and I wouldn’t be here, to fight with them, to find a way to stop the Dark Troopers. I used to think keeping The Dream alive was my job to keep lit as a torch for all to see. But The Dream is what we must keep lit within each other, that the more of us who carry it in each of us, the stronger it will glow, a beacon that cannot be put out.
Now, I understand. Now, we fight. - Clark
Fridays at AlleyCat Comics is Star Wars Game Night, where we're currently playing a homebrewed Age of Rebellion RPG campaign. On nights where we're not playing the RPG, we're playing another Fantasy Flight Star Wars game such as X-Wing, Destiny, Armada, Legion, or Rebellion.