Of the Forgotten

Chapter 1

Zonama Sekot: 28 ABY

On a beautiful evening, in one of the living world's vast tampasi areas, Danni Quee was studying the native flora with her datapad. Upon arrival of this world, her scientific curiosity was instantly peaked on how a planet could be alive, and she wanted to catalogue as much as she could before Zonama Sekot would have to jump into hyperspace. Surely, a hyperspace jump like this would be disastrous to the living world itself, as some of the older Ferroans had told her what had happened when Sekot had jumped Zonama out into the Unknown Regions decades earlier.

But it had to be done, Danni thought. Too much had already been lost in the war against the Yuuzhan Vong, and as one of the first people in the galaxy to have endured their wrath and live, she'd be one of the last people who wanted to see them convert the entire galaxy to their will. What she saw on Coruscant as one of the members of Luke Skywalker's strike team on the world after the Yuuzhan Vong took the planet was but a microcosm of what they could do to what worlds in the galaxy they had yet to take, and what worlds they've already taken.

"Credit for your thoughts, Danni," a familiar voice said behind her.

Danni snapped out of her reverie and turned to Jacen Solo. She smiled. "Not much I can share with you, Jacen," she said. "Unless you decided to get a degree in the sciences, I don't think we can have a fruitful conversation about the biological structure and physical properties of Zonama Sekot's flora."

"But that's not what you were thinking, was it?" Jacen asked.

Danni's mirthful smile disappeared at that. "You can read me like a book, can you?" She sighed, putting the datapad down to her side. "Jacen, I'm scared. I mean, how is Zonama Sekot going to resolve all this? The violence that the Yuuzhan Vong have brought upon this galaxy? And even if there was a surefire way that the Vong can be defeated, how can we be so sure that we'll win? We've lost so much already, I fear the worst."

Jacen approached her, closing the distance until they were centimeters apart. "We will win, Danni," he assured her. "In spite of all that the Yuuzhan Vong threw at the Jedi and the New Republic, they won't take this galaxy. The Force is with us, and that's what assures me that we'll win. It should assure you, too."

Danni smirked. "Oh, Jacen," she said. "Always the optimist, looking to the Force for guidance rather than thinking logically and factually with what's before his eyes."

"My optimism steered me right so far," he said. "Look at what we found." He spread out his arms to indicate the living ecosystem that surrounded them. "For most of your life, you believed this planet to be nothing more than a myth. And you know that the Force is as real as the cells that run throughout your body, and the innumerable molecules that make up a star. You feel it through you, Danni, and you've used it to your advantage in this war. If it weren't for the Force, you would've died back on Helska Four, and you know that."

"I do," she said, nodded, not looking at Jacen directly. Then she looked straight into his eyes. "But even with the Force in me, and all the good it's done for myself and others, like with Saba and the Wild Knights at Arkania and Borleias, I just don't have the same faith in the Force as you or the others do, Jacen. You, Luke, Mara, Saba, Tekli, and the rest; you're all true Jedi, and I'm not. What I guess I'm trying to say is that even with my Force potential, I never will be a real Jedi, Jacen, and even you must know that. I'm a scientist; always have been, always will be. Do you understand that?"

Jacen said nothing at first, and then just looked down at his feet before looking back up into Danni's eyes. "I do understand," he replied with a solemn nod. Then he turned and began walking away.

Danni caught him by the shoulder and gently pulled him back around. "Don't think I'm not grateful for my connection to the Force, Jacen," she said. "Like you said, if it weren't for that, I would've died by the hands of Prefect Da'Gara and his Vong lackeys. And I wouldn't have met you."

Jacen raised an eyebrow. "Danni?"

She titled her head inquisitively. "Do you remember, when we first met, how you saved me?"

"Yes," Jacen replied curiously.

"I'll never forget that," she said. "The fact that you saved my life..." Danni approached him, closing the centimetres between them. "And how you saved it." With that, she kissed him, and he revelled in it.

Three years earlier, Jacen had saved Danni on the Yuuzhan Vong-inhabited ice world of Helska IV via an ore miner borrowed from Lando Calrissian at Dubrillion. Thanks to the sacrifice of Jedi Knight Miko Reglia, who gave his own life against Vong warriors so that Jacen and Danni could escape Helska IV back in the ore miner, the two of them had been tightly pressed together in that cramped space for quite a while whilst a New Republic fleet engaged the Vong forces up in the world's orbit. All that happened between Jacen and Danni in that ore miner was that Jacen let Danni cry on his shoulder as she grieved for Miko, the only other Vong prisoner who was with her while the invaders tortured them.

Now, later that night, in Danni's cabin, more than that had happened between her and Jacen.

~o~

29 ABY

Months after Zonama Sekot had made its hyperspace jump out of the Unknown Regions, it had finally emerged back into known space, specifically the Coruscant system, which was, for now, the capital of the Yuuzhan Vong Empire. The living planet's appearance in the skies of Yuuzhan'tar–the name that the Vong had given to their new capital–had called back the fleet that was battling the Galactic Alliance's forces at Mon Calamari. Zonama had orbited for weeks around the living world while the Yuuzhan Vong remained quiescent, trying to figure out what to do while they were simultaneously being plagued by a heresy among their outcasts whose belief held that this living world would save them from their places.

The Galactic Alliance had taken advantage of the distraction that Zonama Sekot brought upon the Yuuzhan Vong as they retook worlds like Corulag in order to get ready for the inevitable final battle that would take place. In the meantime, after Luke, Mara, Jacen, Danni, and the rest who were on Zonama Sekot the past year had reunited with the rest of their family and friends, many of the Jedi were taking to Sekotan seed partners that would allow them to fly living starfighters against the Vong when they ultimately decided to attack.

Jacen was not among them. And that wasn't because he was immersing himself in the current of the Force via meditations as he usually did.

It was because he was with Danni, sitting next to her in their cabin as they both felt the presence of the life that was growing in Danni.

"I wish you didn't have to go," she said, looking away from her oversized belly to her lover.

" Ne neither," Jacen admitted. "But I have to. I need to see this through to the end. Uncle Luke would expect no less of me, especially since he and Aunt Mara have a son themselves, and they're risking their lives just like the rest of us are."

Danni sighed. "Did Sekot tell you that you have to go?" she asked.

Jacen nodded. "I talked to her about it," he replied. "And I might as well have been talking to Vergere, considering that's who Sekot spoke to me as. I have to do this."

Danni closed her eyes in order to compose herself before she opened them again. "You'll make it back for me, will you?"

Jacen nodded again. "I will. I promise you this. And the baby." He kissed her before there was a knock on the door of their cabin. They broke off their kiss and Jacen called, "Yes?"

"C'mon, kid," the voice of Han Solo, Jacen's father, said on the other side. "The Yuuzhan Vong are heading in. And Luke's gathering up the Jedi for a little speech before we all have to go." Han's voice contained no indication of what he felt about his son having a child just before this war was going to come to its end.

"Goodbye, Jacen," Danni said to her lover. "And may the Force be with you."

"And with you, Danni," he said before he kissed her on the forehead, rose up out of the sofa, and walked out of the cabin.

In spite of the situation, Danni felt reassured that Jacen would indeed come back. Maybe it was her gut instinct, maybe it was the Force, as he said, but one thing was for certain–no matter what would happen, she would have this baby with Jacen.

~o~

The Battle of Yuuzhan'tar had raged. But despite all of the losses on the side of the Galactic Alliance, the Jedi, and their allies, the Yuuzhan Vong were defeated after their Supreme Overlord had died. The remaining Vong forces invading Zonama Sekot had been pulled down onto its surface alongside all of the forces of the Alliance that came to combat them. Those Vong on the surface instantly lost their living weapons in the vast tampasis of Zonama, and Danni, who had been contacted by Sekot during the battle, had been told to deliver this message in the wake of the Yuuzhan Vong's defeat: Sekot had welcomed them home.

Several days after the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar, as the Galactic Alliance and the Yuuzhan Vong who decided to ally with them were collecting all remaining Vong throughout the galaxy so that they could be placed onto Zonama Sekot, those Jedi and their allies who had participated in the battle on Coruscant and around its space finally returned to Zonama. They all reunited with their friends and family after the worries of the conflict that had finally ended the Yuuzhan Vong War, and Jacen and Danni were no exception when they hugged and kissed after the former came off the docked Millennium Falcon.

When Danni pulled away from her lover, she noted the physical change in him, as if he had gotten older. "You're okay?" he asked her.

"Yes," she answered before asking him, "What happened to you, Jacen?"

He told her about his fight with Onimi–the true Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong who was using Shimrra Jamaane as his puppet in controlling the empire–and how he had experienced oneness with the Force when he killed the Supreme Overlord. The change in him was all that remained of his experience.

"The rest of the Yuuzhan Vong will be arriving here in the coming weeks," Jacen said, braking out of his brief narrative of his fight with Onimi. "In the meantime, we need to get ready for Zonama's return to the Unknown Regions. I know it won't be staying here."

"Me, too," Danni said. "But do you want to stay here?"

Jacen looked at his lover in wonderment. "What do you mean, Danni?"

"Well, I thought that we would raise this child together, Jacen, but after what you told me about your fight with the Supreme Overlord... I mean, don't you want to stay with the rest of the Jedi."

"I'm not going to do that," Jacen said with a shake of his head. "My responsibility lies with you and the baby. And as much as I want to expand my knowledge of the Force, and maybe achieve oneness with it again, we have to raise this child together, my love."

Tears welled in Danni's eyes. She visibly wiped them away before asking, "So what does the rest of your family say about this?"

"Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara don't mind," Jacen said. "Tahiri and Tekli are coming with us anyway. Jaina's happy for me, and Mom and Dad... Well, they're both happy that I'm at least making a responsible decision in all this. Dad's a little disappointed, though, that I won't be going with the rest of them to Kashyyyk for the celebratory feast after all this is over."

"Well, all we have to endure now is another crossing back into the Unknown Regions," Danni said. "Let's get ready for it."

"Yes," he said. "Let's."

~o~

After all of the Yuuzhan Vong remaining in the galaxy had been collected and placed on Zonama Sekot, the living world blasted off into hyperspace. The following couple of months were just as deadly as Zonama's crossing to the Coruscant system, but in the end, it had returned, though not in the same system as it left; the Bothans still carried their vow of ar'krai–total annihilation–on the Yuuzhan Vong, and they could tap into the Galactic Alliance records to find out where Mobus–the gas giant Zonama had once orbited–was located. This time, it was a completely different system, unnamed, with only a yellow star and three dead planets orbiting it for company. Zonama Sekot added itself as company as the only living companion to that star, settling itself into a comfortable orbit around this sun.

A week after Zonama had settled around the star, and the surviving population–Jacen and Danni included, complete with their unborn child–had begun repairs on their broken homes and burying their dead, Danni's water had broke.

She was rushed over into her cabin with Jacen and a former Yuuzhan Vong shaper, who had been with them alongside several other Vong and Ferroans as they were fitting repairs to their homes, had joined them to act as the midwife. It was a painful set of hours for Danni as she gave birth to her child, but Jacen was with her all the way, providing her support and helping her dull down the pain she was feeling through the Force.

In the end, the former shaper successfully delivered the baby out of Danni, and, after going through the rest of the post-birth procedures, placed the crying infant, wrapped in a makeshift towel, into Jacen's arms. "The baby is a girl," the Yuuzhan Vong told both Jacen and Danni, who was laying on her bed, slicked in sweat.

Jacen placed the baby in Danni's arms, and as she held her daughter in her arms, looking at her with love, Jacen asked her, "What should we name her?"

Danni thought about it for a couple of moments before saying, "Jorielle."

"Jorielle," Jacen repeated. "I like that name. Jorielle it is."

"She'll be strong in the Force," Danni said. "I can it in her."

"Me, too," Jacen said as he knelt next to his lover and daughter to regard the latter with the former.