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“My father and I arrived at the hospital as fast as we could, and we were allowed to visit her. We’d been told she had no chance, there’d just been too much damage. She knew that, but she lay there in bed just talking to us about what we’d be doing the next week and month. She wasn’t regretting the fact that she’d not be there with us, but pretty much letting us know that she would be, in our memories and in our hearts. The whole time she was dying, she just went on living. And when she finally closed her eyes, it came as a surprise to everyone, her included.”

Corran brushed a hand across his face, smearing tears away to nothingness. “Understand this, Gavin, the pain you’re feeling right now, it never really goes away. It will always be there, and you can find it whenever you want to, but, in time, the amount it dominates your life will shrink. It will become a small part of the memories you’ll have of Asyr, and the good memories will dominate. You can’t see that now, and telling you this now doesn’t mean much, but you need to hear it to know the sphere of pain you’re in isn’t inescapable.”

Gavin rested his head on his hands, with the heels of his palms grinding into his eye sockets. “It was in the squadron that the first person I actually knew died: Lujayne Forge.”

“I remember.”

“And I remember wondering if I could have saved her. I wonder the same thing about Asyr.”

“You’re not alone. But let me tell you, Asyr was wondering what she could do to save us. She was magnificent out there, Gavin, flying beyond herself.” Corran rubbed his left hand over Gavin’s back. “All of us knew we were in a hopeless situation, but she understood it and rejected it. It was as though she stopped being a flesh and blood pilot and became flight and fight and death all rolled into one. We didn’t fail her, nor she us, but some obscure rule of the universe broke her ship and grounded her back in reality. She was truly stellar and, after that performance, I don’t know that there was any way for her to return to just being mortal.”

Gavin sighed and sat back, raising his face toward the dim ceiling of the cavernous room. “That’s it, though, now, isn’t it? She’s no longer mortal. She joins my cousin Biggs and Lujayne Forge and Wes Janson and Dack and the others on the Rogue Squadron roll of the dead. The Bothans will have another Martyr to celebrate.”

Corran’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re afraid that they’ll take her away from you, right? You’re afraid the Asyr you knew will be forgotten as she’s memorialized?”

Gavin’s lips pressed together tightly, his goatee bristling. His larynx bobbed up and down once, then he nodded, splashing tears down his cheeks. His voice failed him as he first tried to speak. He rubbed his throat, then nodded. “I think I knew her better than anyone and that, with me, in private moments, she could relax. She didn’t have to be a Bothan hero. She didn’t have to be a pilot. She could just be herself. When we talked about getting married, adopting kids, she came alive.”

His voice trailed off and Corran sensed a flash of anger like lightning run through Gavin. “What is it, Gavin?”

He frowned. “She met with Borsk Fey’lya. She didn’t tell me what happened, but I think he tried to make trouble for her about adopting. I think she may have fought as well as she did at Distna in the hopes that no one, not Fey’lya, not anyone, could deny a hero of her stature what she wanted. She would have gotten her way, but now she’s dead, so the point is moot.”

“Maybe your chance to adopt kids with her is gone, but remember what was behind that whole plan: the fact that you’d make great parents. I’m not going to tell you that you owe it to her to continue on and prove her right, but you can bet the Emperor’s Black Bones that I’d rather see you teaching a child right from wrong than any of a billion ex-Imp bureaucrats.”

“Maybe it’s a plan for the future.” Gavin shook his head slowly. “Admitting there’s a future at all is the tough part right now. I don