It was very dark.
He had always thought that dying would involve a bright light of some kind, but apparently he had been wrong. He could see only faint shadows in the darkness.
He had made Obi-Wan promise to train Anakin, promise to guide the Chosen One. His padawan would not fail; of that, Qui-Gon was sure.
What would it be like, to be one with the Force? He supposed he was about to find out.
And yet… how could he be thinking these thoughts? Wasn't something supposed to be happening? Greetings from dead Jedi perhaps, or a sudden knowledge of all the secrets of the universe entering his mind?
The shadows were becoming lighter.
Where was he?
As the room settled into a dull grey, he looked around him. This didn't look like any kind of afterlife he'd ever heard of. It looked like… a corridor.
He stiffened, as he heard a cry. It was weak, as if the person – woman? – had been screaming for a long time, and her voice had almost run out.
He headed in the direction the sound had come from, touching his hand to his hip as he went. His lightsaber was there! Did lightsabers usually go with you when you died?
As he moved, he saw two figures leave a room, walking briskly away from him. He headed after them, but paused when he got to the door they had just exited. He looked through the small glass pane, and froze.
There, then, was the woman who had cried out.
He turned the doorknob, unsurprised to find that it did not open. He grasped his lightsaber, switched it on, and used it to break the lock before quickly entering the room. As he stepped in, a peculiar feeling came over him, one he did not recognise. It left him feeling vaguely ill.
The teenage boy sitting on the floor looked up as he came in. At first his face showed fear, and then it changed to surprise as he realised that his persecutors had not come back.
Qui-Gon knelt quickly, looking at the woman lying cradled in the boy's arms. She was perhaps in her mid-twenties; short, dark haired, unhealthily thin, and covered in signs of beating and torture. He doubted she was conscious.
"Who are you?" whispered the boy in alarm.
"I'm a Jedi. Qui-Gon Jinn. What's happened here; who's doing this to you?"
The boy looked at him strangely; perhaps not surprising, since he was evidently in the base of whoever had captured them. Somehow, he no longer thought this was the afterlife.
"The Sriilki," the boy answered hesitantly, obviously not sure if he could trust Qui-Gon. "They took us four weeks ago. They've barely touched me, but they hurt Jaina pretty bad."
"I heard her scream," Jinn told him grimly, and then surveyed them both. "We need to get out of here. I can use the Force to lift her-"
"Not in here, you can't," said the boy unhappily. "There's ysalamari next door. If you're a Jedi, you must have felt them."
"Ysalamari? What are…?" he stopped, shocked, as he realised what had been making him feel ill. He couldn't feel the Force.
"The bubble should stop once we leave the room, we just need to get her out of here," said the boy, seeming to understand what Jinn had just realised.
Qui-Gon started to speak, then shook his head. This could wait until later. Right now, he needed to get this child, and the injured woman, far away from this room.
He picked her up delicately, hoping that none of her injuries would be badly affected by it. He and the boy both got to their feet, and left the room quietly. As they stepped into the hall, he drew a relieved breath as he felt the Force sweep back into him. He noticed the boy do the same.
"You're Force-sensitive? Are you a Jedi apprentice?" He spoke in an undertone as they crept quietly down the corridor, both extending their senses to make sure that no enemies could creep up on them.
"You're holding my Master," came the bitter reply.
His Master? Surely this girl was not old enough to have a padawan learner to teach, especially a teenage one. Then again, he had recently entrusted Anakin to Obi-Wan… perhaps this boy had had a previous Master who had died?
They remained silent for the next few minutes, knowing that they could not afford to be discovered. Even though he could now levitate the woman with the Force rather than carry her, he was still in no position to be fighting the enemy.
When they passed a small room, he stopped in surprise as the boy darted into it. He opened his mouth to reprimand him, but the boy held up two lightsabers silently, and he nodded acceptance.
The boy seemed to know where they were going, which was fortunate, because Qui-Gon didn't have the slightest idea. They walked silently for a few minutes, and he was amazed at how seldom they had to hide in side rooms to let people go past. Apparently there weren't many guards in this place, wherever it was.
I suppose with those… ysalamari… keeping the Force from their prisoners, they were confident that they didn't need any more protection. Overconfident. At least they obviously have a weakness – pure stupidity.
Then again, neither prisoner had been in any kind of condition to attempt escape – even the boy, while uninjured, looked weak and malnourished.
As soon as they found safety, he really must find out the boy's name.
---
At last they found themselves approaching a huge hanger. Here, finally, were guards – four of them, well-armed and obviously military trained.
"Can you keep her levitated?" he hissed.
The boy shook his head. "I'm no good with telekinesis. None of my family are."
He wondered, briefly, how the boy knew his family; generally Jedi were taken away from their relatives as infants. Perhaps he had Force-sensitive siblings…
Sighing, he set the woman down in an alcove as gently as he could, using the Force to keep her unconscious as he did so. She was better off not waking until they got well away from whatever planet they were on.
He gestured to the kid to stay with her, and then walked towards the guards, igniting his lightsaber as he went. The hiss alerted them, and they pulled their blasters instantly, sending a burst of fire towards him. He deflected it easily, and then whirled his lightsaber at the guards. They were well trained and put up a strong fight, but ultimately they were no match for an accomplished Jedi Master.
He surveyed them lying at his feet – two unconscious, two dead – then quickly checked out the hanger before walking back to the hidden alcove and carefully levitating Jaina once more. The boy followed, and they entered the large area together.
"That's our ship!" the boy hissed, pointing at a small freighter. Correllian, he thought, though he did not recognise the exact design. It looked fairly new… other than the obvious laser scarring adorning its sides.
"Are you sure it's fit to fly?" he asked as he moved quickly towards it. After all, it looked as if it had been shot down.
"I heard some of the Sriilki say they'd repaired it," the boy answered. "They lost half their fleet in the recent battle at Kessel, so they're collecting every ship they can get."
He nodded, and waited as the boy lowered the ramp before walking up it, carefully levitating the woman up with him. The boy followed, and then quickly raised the ramp again, before typing in a quick code on a nearby terminal.
"The ramp's locked," he said briefly, before gesturing down the corridor. "There's a med station just down here."
They laid Jaina down carefully, and he leant over her, using the Force to try and make sure she rested easily. He could do no more for her until they were in hyperspace.
By unspoken mutual consent they headed for the cockpit, and the boy settled into the pilot's chair. Qui-Gon briefly wondered if the kid was strong enough for the job, but the efficiency with which he did the pre-flight checks quietened any fears.
Exiting the hanger was, thankfully, not a problem. It was a poor excuse for a hanger, really; obviously hastily constructed and made with such weak material that all it took was some laser fire to bring it down. Overconfidence again; the Sriilki obviously hadn't considered it of enough importance to use their limited resources on.
As they left, he could see guards running into the hanger, obviously attracted by the noise of the ship – and, probably, their dead colleagues lying outside of the hanger. They ran to the other ships, obviously intent on following the escaping freighter.
"Good flying," Jinn commented as the boy swerved around a tall tower that was in their way, heading upwards at top speed to evade their pursuit.
"My dad was a fighter pilot," the boy answered, not taking his eyes off the screen. "And my Master was, too. I've been well trained."
Another surprising piece of information about the boy's family. "I still don't know your name," he commented, as they reached the edge of the planet's atmosphere.
"Valin Horn," the boy answered. He spared a glance at Qui-Gon. "I don't know where you're from, but Jaina and I need to get back to Altus 7."
He nodded, and bent over the co-pilot's station. After a second, he realised that working out a trajectory meant knowing where he was now.
"Valin, where are we? What planet is this?"
Valin sent him another strange look, but answered briefly, "Kartesus Prime."
He nodded, and a few minutes later they were in hyperspace.
---
Qui-Gon stood up straight, his back twinging painfully for a moment after having been leaning over the woman for so long. Jaina – apparently her full name was Jaina Solo – was now safely in a healing trance.
"So who are you?" Valin regarded him curiously. "You saved us, but you don't seem to know anything about what's going on. You didn't even recognise Jaina's name."
He lifted his eyebrows. "Should I have?"
Valin snorted. "Everyone in the galaxy knows Jaina Solo; let alone every Jedi. She's Luke Skywalker's niece, for the Force's sake, not to mention the Yuuzhan Vong goddess."
"Goddess?" He blinked, and then registered the name Horn had mentioned. "Skywalker? Is that any relation to Shmi and Anakin Skywalker?"
Valin's eyes widened. "Anakin Skywalker? Darth Vader? Of course he is. Anakin's Jaina's grandfather."
"Darth…" Jinn suddenly felt weak. "What does Anakin have to do with a Sith Lord?"
Valin looked at him as if he was crazy, which maybe he was. "Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi who fell to the Dark Side," he recited, as if he had been taught this story in infancy. "He was the Emperor's apprentice for two decades and helped in the extermination of the Jedi. His twin children Luke and Leia had been hidden from him at birth, but he found out about Luke. He and the Emperor wanted to turn Luke to their side, but they failed. Palpatine tried to kill Luke, and Anakin turned on him. He died saving Luke's life."
"But…" Qui-Gon Jinn no longer felt like a capable Jedi Master. He felt stunned, and had to quickly sit down rather than risk falling.
"But… the Anakin I know… I just left him, an hour ago! He's a child…"
Valin blinked at him. "Um…" He obviously didn't quite know how to answer that.
Jinn shook his head. "I was dying, I know… the Sith ran his lightsaber through me… I thought I was dead, and then I just… found myself, here."
"Okay…" said Valin, obviously wondering if he had been hit in the head.
"I…" he looked at Valin, finally processing the 'grandfather' part of what the boy had told him. "What year is it?"
The answer staggered him.
He had come forward in time. Somehow, something… the Force?... had brought him forward. Saved him from dying, so that he could save this boy and his tortured Master.
He had heard rumours of such things happening, but never in his lifetime. Never had he ever expected it to happen to him.
Anakin… if what Valin said was true… it devastated him. The young, brave, selfless boy who had risked his life in the pod races just to get them off Tatooine… how could Annie have fallen to the Dark Side? And come back?
How could Anakin have children? If he had been trained as a Jedi…
Eventually he felt able to speak, and quietly told Valin what he had concluded. The boy gaped at him incredulously.
"You travelled through time?"
"It appears so."
"But… I… So you don't even know…"
"Know what?"
Valin shook his head in shock. "Master Jinn… everything's changed since your time. We've been through about 3 different governments, more wars than you can count, the Jedi Order was destroyed and rebuilt…"
"The Jedi were destroyed?" Jinn's words came out in a shocked gasp.
"Decades ago. I told you, Vader helped the Emperor do it. The Emperor was a Sith Lord. Only a few Jedi survived the purges… Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda trained Luke Skywalker, and he established a new Order."
Obi-Wan… well, at least it sounded like his apprentice had survived.
"I think you need to sit down and tell me everything," he said quietly.
---
Valin was sitting beside Jaina's bed when she awoke. He touched her gently, waiting until she focused on his face, and smiled softly.
"Good morning, Master."
"Valin… what…?" She sat up slowly and he supported her. "We're on the Trickster's Sword? How… what happened? How did we get free?"
"Master Jinn freed us." He turned to the other side of the cabin, and she turned with him.
The tall, robed man came forward slowly and bowed low. "Qui-Gon Jinn," he greeted her. "It's good to see you awake."
"Jaina Solo," she answered, and asked dubiously, "Who are you? Why did Valin call you a Master?"
"He's from the past." Valin's answer had her turning back to him in shock. "He's a Jedi from the old Order. Apparently the Force sent him travelling through time to help us."
She turned back to look at Qui-Gon incredulously.
"I know it's hard to believe," he commented, and came forward, retrieving a medi-pack from a nearby shelf. "I'm still not completely sure I believe it myself. Will you let me treat your wounds while your apprentice and I explain things? We gave you some treatment while you were unconscious but I think it's about time you had some more."
She nodded uncertainly, and allowed him to remove a bacta patch from her arm.
"I've put up Force blocks to stop you feeling too much pain," he explained quietly as he worked on her.
"Thank you," she replied, glancing down at herself. "If you hadn't…"
None of them finished the sentence, but they all knew that even after the healing trance she would still be in agony if he had not prevented her from feeling it.
"You were tortured pretty badly," he responded softly, washing a wound gently. "Were they trying to get information from you?"
"No. They wanted revenge," she answered simply. She was using what little energy she had to use the Force, to examine him and make sure they were not on board a small vessel with an enemy. She was almost surprised to find that all her instincts – her Force-inspired instincts – were telling her to trust him.
"She killed their Supreme Lord," put in Valin, seemingly proud of his Master despite what the act had cost her.
Jaina gazed at Qui-Gon. "You said you were going to explain what happened," she observed.
He nodded, and began.
---
Qui-Gon sat with Jaina as she lay on the sofa in the ship's lounge, her body supported by soft pillows. Lying in the tiny med station had driven her insane, so she had convinced the men to levitate her out of there. Walking was unfortunately still beyond her means, even after another session in a healing trance.
"You have had a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, for one so young," he said quietly. "First as the daughter of such important people, and then as a military officer, pretend goddess, and prophecy-named Sword of the Jedi. I am surprised that you agreed to take on an apprentice."
"Valin begged." Her tone was amused, even if her voice was still a little too weak. "I said no at first, but he can be very convincing when he wants to be. Corran – his father – wasn't really happy about it when he found out I finally accepted – he wanted someone older, and probably wiser. The Council approved it though, so there wasn't much he could do."
Qui-Gon smiled. "The will of the Force isn't always what we would expect."
Jaina nodded slightly. "I think it was the Force's will… I've needed him so often these past few months. And in that cell… I don't know if I'd be this sane if he hadn't been there. I just wish…" She shook her head. "He's so young, to have gone through that. It… it reminds me of…" She fell silent, not wanting to recount what had happened during her own teenage years, how her youngest brother had died.
They were both silent for a moment, then he deliberately changed the subject. "Valin's been showing me some of his skills. That illusion power of his is rather impressive."
She chuckled. "He's pretty good with a lightsaber, too. I think he'll be able to beat me in a couple of years' time."
He smiled back, and then sobered as he saw the pain in her eyes. It wasn't physical, the Force blocks were numbing her body, but the psychological pain of the trauma she had been through would be with her for a while.
He felt an urging from the Force, and reached out to grasp her hand. She took it thankfully, and he realised that she needed to feel human contact. He wondered what had been done to her that she needed so desperately to feel another person with her.
He wasn't sure whether it was better, or worse, than if she had flinched at his touch.
He talked to her quietly, avoiding possibly traumatic topics and trying to keep her as much at ease as possible. She seemed to enjoy his company for a while, until she grew too weary and he gently helped her into another healing trance.
He felt for this girl. He wondered if the Force had only brought him to this time to save her physically, or if there was another reason as well. He thought she might need someone there for her during her recovery. There would be others, of course… her parents, her brother, her former Master... but they were at war, all busy with important tasks. Valin would be there for her all he could, of course, but he was her apprentice – it was her job to be there forhim.
Perhaps he was needed for other reasons, too. It seemed this new galaxy could use all the Jedi it could get.
---
By the time they arrived in the Altus system, Jaina seemed much stronger, and was able to walk a little with the aid of the Force, as long as Valin or Qui-Gon supported her. Hopefully she would soon be in bacta, and then her physical healing would be completed.
Against his better judgement he assisted her to the cockpit, and lowered her carefully into the co-pilot's chair. While both she and Valin had already reached out to their relatives in the Force, she apparently wanted to be there when they spoke to someone on the planet.
Valin activated the comm. unit, and spoke briefly to the officer on duty, before another voice came on the line.
"Jaina? Valin? Are you okay?"
Jaina smiled at the sound. "Hi, General."
"We're both here, Wedge," put in Valin. "Jaina needs bacta pretty badly, but we're both alive."
"Thank the Force. Your parents said you were still alive, but no one's been able to find out where you were to rescue you, and with those blasted ysalamari around you…"
"It's okay, General," said Jaina calmly. "We had… another rescuer."
"Who?"
"We'll tell you when we land. I assume we are cleared?"
"Yes, of course. I'll meet you at the hanger. Your parents and Jacen aren't here right now, Jaina, but Luke is, and so are Corran and Mirax."
"Make sure there's a medic there too," said Valin, just in case the General had missed his comment about bacta.
"I will." The voice on the comm. sounded grim. "How badly is she hurt?"
Valin glanced at her with a grimace. "They enjoyed taking it in turns to get revenge on her," he said simply. "She's been in just enough healing trances to let her walk."
There was a curse from the comm. unit, then a resigned, "Okay. We'll see you in a few minutes. Antilles out."
---
Jaina was too independent to allow either of them to levitate her down the ramp, so she walked, leaning heavily on Qui-Gon for support. Valin walked on her other side, ready to offer any assistance he could.
A man in a general's uniform was the first to meet them, and he gently guided her to a medic, who sat her down on the gurney by his side.
A woman who was obviously Valin's mother threw her arms around the boy, clutching him to her tightly. Next to her, a man with a lightsaber on his hip seemed just as relieved to have his son back, although he was also looking with concern at Jaina.
Three men approached Jaina, two of them obviously Jedi. One was perhaps fifty or so, and the power Jinn sensed him led him to suspect that it was Jaina's uncle, the leader of the Jedi. The others looked to be in their late twenties and late thirties respectively.
"Jag!" Jaina's delighted movement to hug the youngest man annoyed the medic, who had been attempting to examine her arms. The emotions Jinn felt from her suggested that her relationship with this man went beyond mere friendship.
"Jaina…" Jag leaned in, hugging her as delicately as possible in consideration of her injuries. As he pulled away, she pulled him back, and kissed him fiercely. He looked momentarily hesitant, as if conscious of all the other people around him, then kissed back just as hard.
Finally they separated, and the other, so-far-unidentified man moved in, also hugging her. "It's good to see you alive, Jaina."
"You have no idea how good it is to see you, Kyp," she responded, hugging him again before turning to her uncle.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," he said gently, briefly embracing her before standing back to let the medic resume his duties. "Your parents have been going out of their minds. I sent them a message as soon as I heard you'd arrived in-system."
"Thanks, Uncle Luke."
"Valin isn't hurt, is he?" asked the one called Kyp… who, if Jinn remembered correctly, was a Jedi Master, and a close friend of Jaina's.
"Not any more. He was a bit bruised from the capture, but they never really touched him after that, and healing trances were enough to cure him."
Noticing that the larger group was looking their way, Valin and his parents came over to them. "Jaina…" said Jedi Horn, reaching out to clasp her hand briefly. "Thank you for looking after him. Valin says you saved his life when they captured you."
She smiled at her apprentice. "He more than made up for it in that cell. I'm not sure I could have survived it without him."
The people gathered there looked unsure what to say in response to that, so Master Skywalker turned instead to Qui-Gon. "I assume you're the one who rescued my niece," he said, extending a hand in greeting. "You have my thanks, mister…?"
"Qui-Gon Jinn," he responded, shaking the hand and bowing his head respectfully.
"And it's Master, not mister," put in Valin.
At her uncle's raised eyebrows, Jaina told him, "Qui-Gon's from the old Jedi Order. He's travelled through time."
There was a stunned silence for a moment, then General Antilles commented, "Nothing's ever ordinary around you is it, Jaina?"
---
Qui-Gon sat back against his chair, opposite Jaina, who now looked a million times healthier than she had before her dip in the bacta tank.
"So what will you do now?" he asked softly.
"Uncle Luke wants me to take some time off," she said. "Or time off Jedi style, anyway, which means meditation and a bit of light training for both me and Valin."
"That sounds like a good idea."
"What about you? Have you decided what you're going to do in this new and massively inferior galaxy?"
"It's not inferior, Jaina. It's been through terrible times, it's injured and hurt, but it still has life, still has good things. It still has the Jedi, and people like your friend General Antilles, fighting to make it a better place.
"In answer to your question, though… I think I was sent to you for a purpose, and not just to get you out of that cell. I think you and Valin need me – need me to teach you, to aid you, to support you, at least for a while. Your Order has done well for itself against all odds, and in some ways it may even be better than the old Order… but you've still lost a lot of knowledge, a lot of skills. I'd like to teach you them, if I may."
She looked at him silently for a moment, and he wondered if she was so independent that she would refuse him. After a moment, though, she said softly, "I think I'd like that."
He smiled at her, and then smiled again as the door opened and Valin came in, sitting down next to his Master and hugging her gently, glad to see her looking well.
The three of them sat there together, talking and laughing quietly. A few minutes later the door opened again, and Valin moved seats to allow Jagged Fel to sit next to Jaina, wrapping an arm tenderly around her shoulders. Kyp Durron sat down next to Valin, teasing him good-naturedly.
Qui-Gon felt a momentary pang for Obi-Wan, and Anakin, and Yoda, and all the others who had gone. He would never see them again, unless it were as apparitions in the Force. And yet, he could not regret where the Force had sent him, could not regret getting to know these people, making a difference in their lives.
He smiled as Master Durron began to tease Jag and Jaina. In the past, attachments may have been forbidden for a Jedi, but here, in this time, these people needed family, and friends, and lovers.
Jaina and Valin needed him, and just perhaps, he needed them too.
He grinned, and joined in as Valin, Jaina and Jag began to get revenge on the teasing Durron.
Who was he to argue with the will of the Force?