Prologue:

Escape from the Star Forge

The Ebon Hawk screamed away from the destroyed Star Forge, debris battering her hull mercilessly. Inside, her crew desperately held on against the wild jerking and shuddering of the ship and the continuous onslaught of her dangerously roiling contents. Huddled in the medbay, Carth braced himself—his feet pressed to the bulkhead and his back jammed against the bunk—desperately shielding the unconscious Jedi in his arms from the falling implements and supplies around them.

Her eyes remained closed and her body oddly still amidst the chaos. She had not stirred since Carth carried her from the bridge of the dying Star Forge, where he found her collapsed mere paces from Malak's lifeless body. Jolee's angry shouts unheeded, Carth had battled through the decaying ship searching for her. Finding her pinned under smoldering rubble, her body broken,—bleeding and barely breathing—had stopped his heart. The pilot again tamped down the rising panic he was becoming frighteningly familiar with and instead focused all his energy on keeping her as secure and safe as possible amidst the current tumult.

"Tell me again why we're up here flying this bird when we got ourselves a perfectly good pilot?" Canderous roared furiously from the cockpit as Zalbaar growled in agreement. "This seems like an inconvenient moment for napping!" The Mandalorian continued, frantically wrestling for control of the careening ship. Mission whirled on him in agitation.

"All that braggin' on how Mandalorians are the best damn this and the best damn that and now you gotta drive for five minutes and you're not up to it? 'Oh Carth, it's too hard. Oh, Carth, come hold my hand, you big, strong pilot!'" She chucked a bit of broken circuitry at the back of his head to punctuate her taunts. "If flyin' this heap of scrap is so hard then shut up and PAY ATTENTION!" She screamed, grabbing frantically for the nearest steady surface as a permasteel girder crashed into their starboard shield. Zalbaar howled in concern as an unsecured crate tumbled into Mission. "It's alright, Big Guy, it'll take more than Carth's box of beauty treatments to take me out!" She teased but her arm hung at an odd angle and the Twi'lek could not mask the pain coursing through her. Zalbaar keened again. "You just keep doing what you're doing, Zalbaar, and you'll help me just fine."

"How is she?" Juhani's softly lilting voice cut though the pandemonium; Carth risked a glance up to see her perched between the bunk and an emptied storage alcove. In the turmoil, he had not heard her approach. Dark blood stained the Cathar's tunic and hands. Some of it was her own. "Carth?"

"She's…fine. She'll be fine." He spoke more for himself than Juhani.

"Of course." She murmured reassuringly, "May I?" She swung herself around the bunk and braced herself beside him with a grace he usually would have wondered at. Not this day. At his small nod, she shifted slightly to free one of her hands and laid it tentatively on the unconscious Jedi's shoulder. Her eyes drifted closed as she centered herself, blocking out the shouts of the rest of the crew, ignoring Carth's hopeful gaze and focused only on her prone friend:

Battle. Blue light spilling over empty faces. Horror. Pain. Regret.

Acceptance.

Juhani exhaled swiftly.

"She is with us yet." She intoned gently, "But she is waiting."

"Waiting for what?" Carth demanded.

"I think…the end."

"No," he choked, "No! Stay with me, please…" The fear broke loose and his eyes filled with angry tears. "Don't you dare leave me like this …" He buried his face in her hair as grief wrenched agonizing sobs from his body.

"Carth," Juhani touched his back as tentatively as the jerking ship would allow; he did not look up. Her voice sharpened as she demanded his attention: "You must listen, Carth! I think she will not die, that is not what I mean to say. The end she waits for did not come: you did." The stricken pilot raised his head. "She expected death, knew it came for her and accepted it. But you were faster. She does not wake because she does not yet know she has anything to wake to."

"She's…she's not…" Relief flooded his features.

"She is not dying. Not today. As I say, she does not know this now but she will. Her injuries will heal, in time. Speak to her, hold her. Eventually, she will hear." Juhani smiled tiredly, "And perhaps do not tell her of what is become of the Ebon Hawk." She winked in a moment of uncharacteristic levity as she ducked to avoid a projectile that looked suspiciously like part of the hyperdrive. "I am thinking this would not please her. Though, perhaps, she would return to us more quickly if only to punish the Mandalorian for his carelessness with her ship." The Cathar's dig at Canderous rang loudly but sounded empty of the rancor with which she usually regarded the man.

"Or me, for letting the fool fly her." A wry grimace crossed his face; Carth knew he should have been the one at the helm but still found himself unable to leave her side.

"Perhaps."