Star Wars_ X-Wing 04_ The Bacta War - Michael A. Stackpole [105]
“Still, if they’re saying the Corrupter was destroyed, that means its loss was the least of the problems Isard has.” Iella clapped her hands. “Maybe this mission isn’t going to be suicidal.”
Elscol’s face closed down. “We’re a long way from getting out, Iella, but getting shot up isn’t going to get you and your husband reunited.”
“What?” Iella tried to cover her surprise at Elscol’s comment because when she heard the words she knew part of her had been considering the mission in exactly that light. “I never …”
Elscol leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “Hey, do I look like some Xucphra clerk who’s going to believe everything you say? No. I’ve been where you are. I lost my husband to the Imps back on Cilpar, and part of me wanted to die with him there. I took off after the Imps for revenge, but always in the back of my mind was the feeling that when I died we’d be together again. Wedge saw that in me and saw the urge for self-destruction grow in me. When he kicked me out of Rogue Squadron, well, that woke me up; and I began to see a lot of things.”
Iella’s head came up. “Are you saying there’s no life after death?”
“I’m saying it doesn’t matter.” Elscol held her two hands out, palms toward the ceiling. “On one hand, if there isn’t an afterlife, you’ll be remembered for the things you did while you were alive. On the other, if there is an afterlife, you’ll be able to share all you did with those who died before you. Either way, living as long as possible and doing the most you can is the only way to go. I decided I didn’t want to be known here or in the afterlife for having quit. I don’t think you do, either.”
Iella frowned. “You’re right, but sometimes the pain …” She clutched her hands against her breastbone. “Sometimes it hurts too much to live.”
“Nonsense.” Elscol’s dark eyes sharpened. “Pain’s the only way we know we’re alive.”
“What?”
“If the afterlife is supposed to be special and wonderful and blissful—and there aren’t many theologies that suggest otherwise—then it follows that pain’s the only way you know you’re alive. Not letting the pain get to you, not surrendering to it, that’s the way you continue living.” Elscol brought her hands together, then glanced down at the floor. “It still hurts me, too, at certain times of the year, but I don’t let it overwhelm me.”
“I haven’t let it overwhelm me, either.”
“No, you haven’t. You’re strong, Iella, real strong.” Elscol gave her a half-grin. “It’s just that as things get going tougher, in the moments when stress is off, you’ll start to feel the pain. Fight it.”
Iella slowly nodded. What Elscol had said made perfect sense to her. While involved in an operation, the stresses of the operation would push everything else into the background. When the stress slackened, she tried to recover a sense of well-being, and would invariably harken back to her time with Diric. The joy would melt into melancholy, then that would congeal into sorrow and pain. I’d come to a point where surrendering to the pain would be more simple than fighting the Imps and everything else.
She realized that she’d not faced this problem before because when Diric had been taken by the Imps there was always a chance that he would be released and they would be able to continue their lives together. Hope had shielded her against despair and the pain of her loss. Circumstances are different now, but I’m also a different person than I was. I will survive and fight the pain.
She looked up and was about to tell Elscol the same thing, when a howling shriek filled the air and sent a tremor through her tower room. No mistaking that for anything else—TIE fighters are coming in. She dove for the doorhole and lying there on her belly stared out at the Vratix village. Other brown-gray towers were all but invisible in the thick foliage of the