At the Edge of Space

[Soto Terius]

There were few places in the galaxy where a man like Soto Terius could feel at home. Like many of the soldiers of the Rebel Alliance, he had left his homeworld years ago and, due to his actions since, could not safely return there.

For Soto, it was even more complicated: he'd staged his own death and those of his companions in order to protect their families. The Empire was known for it's ruthless reprisals against terrorists and collaborators; but how could they be punished if their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, had all tragically lost their lives in a pirate attack?

It seemed ridiculous if you thought about it for too long: an absurd chain of events that belonged in a holomovie, not in reality. Most defectors to the Rebel Alliance didn't go to such extreme lengths: they didn't need to. But then most defectors to the Rebel Alliance didn't walk into work one morning, climb aboard one of the Corellian Engineering Corporation's sandbox prototypes, and deliver it into the waiting hands of interstellar freedom fighters.

There were few places in the galaxy where a man like Soto Terius - a fugative; a terrorist; a ghost - could feel at home. But Terminus was one of them. The city was ancient, first built by explorers countless centuries ago, to mark the convergeance of the Corellian Trade Route and the Hydian Way at the southern edge of the galaxy. Those explorers had brought the echoes of their home with them, and if you managed to filter the truth out of your mind for just a few minutes, you could almost fool yourself that you were walking down some of the older streets in Coronet City.

Now was not the time for a stroll down memory lane, however. Soto was here on business; or at least, he was here with a purpose.

Following his target into a crowded thoroughfare he quickened his pace, weaving through the multispecies throng to advance on the human ahead. Effortlessly, his hands retrieved a small blaster pistol from within his jacket, a fluid and concealed motion making it ready without being noticed.

The target was barely a metre away now; a hand landed solidly on his shoulder, the blaster pistol shoved into his ribs. "Keep walking," Soto instructed, his words carefully modulated to cut through the noise but go unheard by anyone else.

Soto led his captive through a series of turns, moving ever further from the crowded streets. They left the tourist-friendly side of Terminus behind, and descended deeper into the backstreets: parts of the city that the civic welfare and law enforcement budgets never reached.

At last they turned into a dead-end alley: the kind of place that no one entered unless they absolutely had to; the kind of place that no one with half a brain would enter unarmed, knowing full-well what was likely to happen there. Soto halted, and let his captive continue a few more paces. "Turn around," he instructed, no room for disobediance in his words.

As the captive turned, Soto's persona changed in an instant. All signs of threat faded away just as readily as the gun fell to his side.

"Hello -" A smile even tugged at his lips. "- little brother."

[Rinzai Terius]

If Rinzai Terius was surprised in any way, his expression didn't show it. It showed a hint of narrow-eyed annoyance yes; but he had never been one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, his face, or any other part of his anatomy. Soto had always been the extravert; Rinzai the introvert.

Now free of the blaster rammed in his ribs, Rinzai slipped easily into his usual relaxed pose. However, his usual relaxed pose was considerably more tense than just about any other sentient being in the galaxy, arms folding across his chest and a subtle scowl forming across his brow.

"You're supposed to be dead," he said, his tone laced with accusation.

[Soto Terius]

Soto's smile broadened into a grin, flashing a set of pearly whites. "I got better," he quipped, holding out his arms a little in a static shrug.

His brother's expression didn't falter; but then, Soto could barely remember Rinzai ever smiling. When they were children, Soto had always been on the search for answers, challenging his mind with puzzles and mysteries. Rinzai meanwhile had completely lacked any kind of curiosity or ambition, and merely seemed content to exist. While Soto had failed to follow in his father's footsteps because he'd chosen not to, Rinzai had failed to follow in his father's footsteps because they'd been unable. Rinzai was a mechanic - a damned good mechanic - but he lacked the inspiration and imagination to be an engineer.

I guess we were both a disappointment, Soto idly mused.

His grin was tempered by force of will; but Soto had long ago learned not to let Rinzai ruin a good mood. Seven years had passed since he had last seen his brother: and while Rinzai apparently had no interest in a happy reunion, Soto planned on ramming one down his throat whether he liked it or not.

"So -" He trailed off, battling his way through the tirade of questions that his mind demanded he ask. "How have you been?"

[Rinzai Terius]

"How have I been?"

Rinzai barely got the words out of his throat, so thickly laced with sarcasm that you could chew. A few brief flashes of emotion passed behind his eyes as he considered how best to answer that question.

"After you 'died', CEC conducted an inquiry. Don't flatter yourself, they didn't care about you: they just wanted to know how their little Aurora science project wound up getting destroyed. And do you know what they found?"

Emotion finally broke through Rinzai's stoic mask; he laughed, though there was no joy in it. "Apparently, I signed off on a field test for some new hyperdrive gizmo. The three other approvers had all wound up dead; so it fell to me to step up as scapegoat, and take the blame for their favourite toy getting destroyed."

Advancing a step closer, Rinzai's hands fell to his sides, balling into fists. "I lost my job. And Linji? She was tired of all my 'screw-ups', so she left me. Dad never forgave me for letting him down, and letting his precious CEC down. Everything fell apart; I had to work on freighters, just to make ends meet."

Exasperation - or at least, as close to exasperation as the emotionally restrained Rinzai could ever get - contorted his features. "And for what? What was so important that you had to wreck my life and kill yourself to do it?"

[Soto Terius]

Rinzai had finally succeeded in wiping the smile off his brother's face. Soto's jaw clenched, and the muscles in his face bunched, hoping to get in on the action. His eyes fell away, looking at cracks in the pavement, stray refuse littered across the floor; anything to avoid looking his brother right in the eyes.

"I fought for the Republic," he muttered, his voice deep and quiet. "I helped them win their clone war. I watched good men and women - collegues, friends - die every day, giving their lives to protect galactic civilization."

His lips twitched, a bad taste catching in the back of his throat. "And then we let Palpatine turn the Republic into his Empire. I helped to pave the way for attrocities like Ghorman and Alderaan. I was a -" He searched for a word that was suitably vile. "- collaborator, and the worst part is, I didn't even know it."

Resolve and determination shone in Soto's eyes as he finally managed to look at his brother again. "I had to do something."

[Rinzai Terius]

Rinzai's arms folded across his arms again; not a relaxed stance this time, but one of judgement. "What did the Empire ever do to you?"

He gestured with a hand, forstalling Soto's protest. "You had it good, Soto. So good. You had the perfect job; the perfect life. You were the perfect son. You could have done anything. Had anything. But no."

"It was never good enough for you, was it?" He shook his head, despairing. "You and your morally righteous, holier-than-thou attitude couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? You couldn't just live the life you had, and be happy about it. You had to run off and join the Judicial Forces. You had to go and fight in the Republic's war. You had to go play hero, and to hell with all the rest of us who get fragged over in the meantime."

He moved even closer, glaring directly into Soto's eyes. Distain laced his words. "Let the Alderaanians, and the aliens fight their little rebellion. Let them plant their bombs, mount their insurrections, and play all their terrorist little games. You're better than that. Dad taught you better than that."

Silence fell as Rinzai delivered his killer blow. "He would be so ashamed of what you've become."

[Soto Terius]

"People are dying out there!" Soto exploded, a hand jabbing into Rinzai's chest to emphasise the point. "Every day! Entire worlds are struggling from their freedom... and here you are, worrying about the finer points of morality?"

Outrage saturated Soto so strongly that it pumped through his veins. His face contorted and twisted as he wrestled with what to say, desperate to beat some sense into his younger sibling. But while he and Rinzai had little in common, one trait they did share was their stubborn refusal to admit they were wrong.

Discipline kicked in, and wrestled the maelstrom of emotion back into the depths of his mind. He nodded, surrendering in the face of impossibility.

"Maybe you're right," he admitted, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder. "But I'm not here to change your mind."

There was a hint of a smile again. "I know a lost cause when I see it."

[Rinzai Terius]

Rinzai's eyebrow rose slightly. "The evidence would seem to suggest otherwise."

It was one last jab: the classic battle of siblings trying to get the last word in, and Rinzai was determined to win. So determined in fact that he missed out on the more significant part of that statement.

He frowned, searching Soto's face for clues. "Why are you here?"

[Soto Terius]

Soto let out a bittersweet laugh. "I guess you won't buy it if I say that I missed you?"

His hands and attention fell to the sachel slung over his shoulder; he rummaged through the canvas bag, eventually retrieving a small wooden box, that bore all the hallmarks of being hand-crafted by someone who knew what they were doing.

Soto held it out towards his brother, once again unable to look him in the eyes. "It's a message, for Dad," he explained. "I know it's too late, but -"

He trailed off; his shoulders slumped as all the life and fight drained out of him. He looked at Rinzai once again, but this time it wasn't as a soldier, an idealist, or even a brother: he was just a man, who hadn't been able to go home in a very long time.

"I'd like you to give it to him anyway."

[Rinzai Terius]

Rinzai was many things - arrogant, insufferable, insensitive - but he was not completely heartless, no matter how successful his tireless efforts to keep his emotions in check seemed to be.

He reached out, hand closing in the offered object; but he didn't take it immediately.

"You could always come home," he pointed out. "Deliver the message yourself."

[Soto Terius]

Soto's smile was tight lipped. "We both know I can't do that," he countered with a shrug, but the casual gesture was far from convincing.

Rinzai's words had struck a chord, though he would never admit it. Zen Terius had always been his moral compass; and while he had run off on his adventures - while he had refused to follow the path that his father had wanted for him, at least right away - he, like any other son, had always wanted to make his father proud.

He'd failed. And now there was no way he could ever redeem himself.

"The bald head and the beard may make me a little harder to recognise, but somehow I doubt it's enough to fool CorSec." He shrugged. "Corellia is no place for a dead man."

[Rinzai Terius]

"You've been a dead man since you sabotaged my Seacrest VSD action figures," Rinzai countered, and for once allowed himself a faint smile. "I never stopped you coming home before."

He fell silent, finally taking the wooden box out of Soto's hands, and staring down at it while he mustered his thoughts. "You've been running all your life, Soto. At first you were running towards adventure; and now you're just running away."

He fixed Soto with the kind of look that only a brother could give. "Make sure you stop before you get too far away to find your way back. And if you ever get tired of running -"

Another rare smile appeared on his face.

"My ship could always use another mechanic."

[Soto Terius]

Soto's eyebrows climbed in tandem. "Mechanic, huh?"

A grin broke out on his face and, before Rinzai could recoil away, he stepped forwards and wrapped his brother in a bear hug that would have put a Wookiee to shame. He held on a little longer than his brother would have liked; but he didn't care.

Eventually pulling away, he clapped a hand on his brother's shoulders. "It's good to know there's a Captain Terius on both sides of the law," he quipped.

He hesitated for a long moment, before plucking up the resolve to speak again. "Any chance you know of anywhere around here that serves a decent Corellian ale?"