December 4012 ABY – Outer Dune Sea, The desert hums throughout the night.
Its voice is low, constant. A vibration that seems to rise from beneath the dunes themselves, not carried by the wind but born of the sand. The kind of sound you feel in your teeth before you hear it with your ears.
I followed Taren into the cabin, and the hum followed me.
Warm light spilled from the doorway, washing over the metal plating and scavenged wood that held the place together. The structure was simple, roughly welded parts fused with intention, not beauty. A place built for survival, not comfort. And yet, the moment I stepped inside, I felt something I hadn't felt in years:
Familiarity.
And the weight of it nearly made me turn around.
Inside, four middle-aged men sat around a dented durasteel table, half-drunk and halfway through a game of sabacc or poker, some hybrid they'd probably invented themselves over years of boredom and spice haze. Smoke curled up from cheap cigarettes clutched between stained fingers, coiling toward the low.
"Look who I found, boys," Taren said behind me.
A moment passed.
Then one of them stood, pushing his chair back with a creak. "Well, kark me," he muttered. "He did come back."
Another leaned forward from the corner, his eyes narrowing. "Lorenzo."
My name hit harder than I expected. Like a hand clapping over a wound I thought had healed.
They knew me. Before.
Before the saberstaff. Before the gladiator rings. Before I carved my name into history's underside like a scar.
"I'll be damned," one said, stepping forward. "The little sand rat we pulled from the wreckage. You've changed, kid."
A dry chuckle followed. Another added, "More like grown into your bones. You look like a ghost made of durasteel."
I tried to smile. It didn't stick.
"Been a long time," I said.
"You remember us?" asked the tallest one, the voice thick with smoke and time.
I nodded once. "Enough."
But I didn't say more. Couldn't.
Because the weight of this moment wasn't in their faces. It was mine. It was in the eyes they used to look at me, as if they still saw the boy, not the weapon he became.
And part of me wanted to keep it that way.
They don't know what I've done. Not all of it. And if they did… would they still open this door?
I stepped inside fully, closing the door behind me. The warmth of the cabin touched my skin, but I didn't let it in.
"You've been gone a long time, Lorenzo," one of them said. "Too long."
Another added, quieter, "The galaxy's changed since we last saw you. So have you."
I met his gaze and gave the smallest nod. "You don't know the half of it."
He studied me for a beat longer, then reached for a drink and let it go.
I took a seat near the edge of the room, near a wall patched with old Imperial hull plating. My eyes moved over the details, familiar tools, ration tins, a cracked training remote dangling like a trophy. Lives had been lived here.
And I didn't know if mine belonged among them.
What if I brought something with me? Not physically. Spiritually. A shadow that clings to the soles of my boots and poisons the air I breathe?
I looked at them again, these men who'd once risked their lives to rescue a child from the wreckage of a massacre. Who gave him food, shelter, and names to remember.
And what had I become?
A ghost in armor. A killer in the shadows of forgotten wars.
But here… they saw something else. Someone else.
And that terrified me more than any battlefield.
Because I didn't know if I could live up to it.