Stars without number drifted through space. Against the backdrop sat a planet: rich in the greens and blues and cloud-whisps of a living world. Against the vastness of black space, it seemed small, brilliant, luminous, even with the dark patches on its southern hemisphere, scars of some past devastation. Wounded or not, it seemed like it could endure against empty eternity forever.

From the starfield, two bright lights seemed to blaze. They hung over the planet's pole like a pair of white eyes, and from those eyes nebulous gasses seemed to swirl. They circled around the bright eyes until they seemed to form a face, and soon shoulders flowed down to arms that stretched out on either side of the planet, as if to hold it tight. The arms closed around the green world and the eyes seemed to blaze, no longer pure white but the deeper red of a sick and dying star. Below the red eyes gasses and dust formed the shape of the mouth, and the mouth opened itself to speak:

"Mine."

The living world seemed to writhe in the arms that grasped it. Its greens turned sickly brown, its rich waters black. The white whorls of cloud-vapor disappeared, scattering into the nothingness of space. The arms held it tighter and the lips turned into a cruel smile.

"Mine."

One eye blazed red, the other tinted blue. The face seemed old and withered and twisted in an ancient and simmering anger.

"Mine."

And then she woke up.

Jaina sat upright in bed. She looked down at the form sleeping beside her. Jag was turned away, toward the wall of the Falcon's cabin. She rubbed her eyes, hoping the dream would go away with waking, like dreams usually did. But this one wouldn't. She'd had the dream to many times before lately, and it never went away.

Jaina knew she wouldn't get back to sleep after that, so she got up to use the 'fresher and change out of her night clothes. The Falcon was still in sleep-cycle, and its halls were dark and quiet except for the distant rattle of the hyperdrives. Her parents were tucked away in their own cabin, probably sound asleep in each other's arms. It was such a comfort, knowing they would always be together.

Jaina sat down in the Falcon's main lounge, in the booth next to the old dejarik holo-board. She ran her fingers across its checkerboard surface, tracing the old score lines across its surface.

It had been almost a half-century since Uncle Luke had come aboard her father's ship, almost twenty since her mother sat down with Gilad Pellaeon and Elegos A'Kla to negotiate the end to a war that had torn apart the galaxy. The Falcon had been a hunk of junk a half-century ago, a cobbled-together mess that kept flying through the love and devotion of her pilot. A half-century later, it was still the same. She thought it was the perfect ship for her parents, who had gone through so much, lost so much, time and time again, yet still kept flying.

It had been two years since her wedding to Jag, and they had, by most objective measures, been the best two of her life. The galaxy was still wracked by political uncertainty, Uncle Luke was still struggling to find the Jedi Order's place in things, and her poor cousin Ben was still racked with regret and heartache, but for Jaina they had been quiet and steady years. No more war and betrayal and death. Nothing except comfort, finally, after more conflict in her short life than any being deserved.

Maybe that was why the dreams were coming again. The universe didn't want to let her get too happy. The Force didn't want the Sword of the Jedi to get dull and rusty.

She couldn't tell Jag that she was dreaming. She couldn't tell anyone because she didn't know what she was seeing. She did her best to put it all behind her, pretend she didn't think about it every day. That was something she'd gotten very good at over the last four years.

She saw it sometimes, in her mother's or father's eyes, that brief moment when their thoughts would flicker back to the son who had not only been lost, but had been transformed into something so sinister and monstrous it cast a shadow over their brightest victories. But they never talked about Jacen any more. No one did. Everyone tried to pretend like he never existed. Like the wounds he had left in their hearts weren't still bleeding.

"Hey, sweetie," she heard the soft voice of her father from the doorway. "You're up early."

She looked up to see him standing in the shadows. He reached out and flicked on a set of lights, not to day-time brightness but bright enough to let her get a good look at his face. Even in the soft light she could the lines on his face, the heavy jowls, and the white in his hair. She didn't see her father that often lately, but every time she did she thought he looked old.

"Hi, dad," Jaina smile. She curled up in the booth, hugging her knees to her chest. "You're up early too."

"Not so bad," he shrugged and gave his daughter that Solo grin. "How's my girl doing?"

"Not so bad," she echoed, and returned the lopsided hereditary smile. "I just couldn't sleep, and I didn't want to wake Jag."

"How's he doing, anyway?" Han said as he walked over to the cooking unit and began to fix some coffee.

"Jag's doing good," Jaina said. "A little bored with civilian life, maybe, but good. Much better than when he had an Empire to run."

"I hear he's still keeping touch with Emperor Reige."

"He's Head of State, not Emperor, and he's a good man," Jaina said. "He just has his hands full. I think he hates Jag a little for putting him in the job in the first place."

Han shrugged, like he didn't believe any Imperial could really be all that good. "But still, Jag's not completely out of the game, is he?"

"Oh, nobody ever is, are they? The galaxy always needs us to hold it together," Jaina sighed. Her father walked over to the booth, two cups of coffee in hand, and sat down next to her. Jaina took the steaming mug in both hands and drank slowly.

"What is this?" she looked at her father. "It's pretty... strong."

Han chuckled. "Chadian Latte. I've been... experimenting lately."

"What, are you turning into a cook now?"

Her father looked a little sheepish. "Well, you know, we've got some spare time lately. So your mother and I, we've been trying a little, you know, um, cooking courses."

"Cooking courses?" Jaina cocked an eyebrow.

"Well, you can download stuff off the HoloNet. There's this really good Ortolan cook, and he's got this great instructional videos that we've-" Han stopped, shook his head, and laughed at himself. "Yeah, cooking courses, would you believe it? I think I'm more into it than your mother, actually."

"It's nice," Jaina sipped the latte. She was getting used to it already. "Sounds like something a normal married couple should do when they're not racing around the galaxy trying to save everybody all the time."

"Yeah, that's us now, a normal married couple." Han tapped his mug against his daughter's. "Turns out it's not so bad, is it?"

"Probably not," Jaina smirked.

Han took a long drink and said, "First you and Jag, now Zekk and Taryn. Seems like everybody's getting settled nowadays."

"We're all grown up," Jaina looked down at her mug.

"Don't say that, I feel old enough already," Han slumped in his seat and stared into his own. After a short pause, he said, "Shame Ben and Tahiri couldn't make the wedding."

"Important mission for Uncle Luke," Jaina shrugged. "Couldn't be helped."

"You don't think it's about Vest-"

Jaina held up a hand. "I don't know and I don't want to know. Uncle Luke is playing things close to his chest lately, and honestly, that's fine with me."

"Fair enough," Han said. "Well, I'm sure they'll be all right."

Jaina nodded. "I'm sure."

They sat there for a while in the dim light, drinking their coffee in silence. Eventually her father said, "Well, I'm gonna check the cockpit. We should be coming up on Hapes in a couple hours, I want to make sure everything's still set."

"Go ahead," Jaina said, and watched him as he rose to his feet. "Thanks for the coffee, dad."

"Anytime, darling," he winked at her and staggered off.

Jaina sat there for a while longer, curled up in the booth, drinking her dad's coffee. Eventually she got up and walked back to her cabin to kick her husband out of bed.

-{}-

The star system had no name. Some alpha-numeric designation, probably, the kind only known to a handful of interstellar cartographers. But no proper name. It seemed wrong to die in a star system without a name, on a mission the rest of the galaxy didn't know about, but as his X-wing slipped out of the hangar and into open space, Chell Radek was prepared to do just that.

Thankfully, he was far from alone in this. An entire squadron of X-wing fighters fanned out across Sunbeam's bow, then vectored toward the ghostly blue-white gas giant looming ahead of them. Fighter squads were taking off from the other ships too: newer E-wings from Phoenix, old K-wings from Revolutionary, even older BTL-A4 Y-wings from Lacentra. It seemed like they had dug up every fossil in the galaxy for this mission.

Radek included of course. He'd been a pretty good snubfighter pilot once, a long time ago. He knew his reflexes would have slowed with age, but he was about to find out just how much.

"Red Squadron, this is Red One," his squad leader's voice crackled over his headset. It had been over a decade since he'd heard that staticky sound. It brought back a lot of memories, many of them bad. "Red Squad, lock S-foils in attack position."

Radek found the switch. He felt their muted groan as his S-foils shifted and his laser cannons automatically began charging.

"I don't see them," said Harvet Kang, the old Gran pilot.

"I don't either," piped Teve Devroolan, a younger Rodian.

"Cut the chatter, Two and Six," Red One said. One was a human, like Radek, but unlike Radek, Doveranti had stayed in the Alliance military for ten years after the Yuuzhan Vong War ended, only to desert his post when Jacen Solo ordered him to fire on Kashyyyk.

Radek was glad to have sat out the last war. The one before it had been bad enough. His entire family had died in the Fall of Coruscant, while he was flying evac shuttles for anonymous civilians. He'd never been able to get rid of that guilt. At least now, hopefully, he would put his old ghosts to rest. Or they would put him to rest, which meant about the same thing in the end.

"Red Squad, this is Sunbeam," a voice from their base ship said. It was brittle and female, and probably belonged to her captain, Terra Vatrim. Another old war-horse.

"Our sensors are picking up targets at point oh-five-niner-gee."

"Copy, adjusting course," Red One said. "All ships, on my lead."

Radek clicked an affirmative over his comlink and followed the four red flares of Doveranti's X-wing. They said the targets were in orbit over the gas giant, but like Kang and Devroolan, he couldn't see anything silhouetted against its pale body.

"I'm still not seeing anything on scanners," muttered Do'varet, a Twi'lek who'd actually fought against Jacen Solo. This mission had made all sorts of interesting bedfellows.

"Me neither," Kang said. "Are we sure the recon flight got it right? This wouldn't be our first time jumping at shadows."

Before yet more pilots could complain, another voice came on: female, older, but firmer than Vatrim's. "All flights, this is Phoenix. Recon flights detect targets inside the second moon."

Radek checked his scanners again. The gas giant's second moon seemed to be mostly ice around a small iron core.

"All three Bothan ships are moving ahead to fire on the moon's surface," the voice continued. "Protect them while we flush out the prey."

There was no need to confirm an order from the flagship. All the squadrons, Red included, slowed their engines to allow the three Bothan Assault Cruisers to catch up. Their long, narrow, compact bodies were moving head-first toward the moon and Red Squad settled on the right flank of a cruiser called Fey'lya's Revenge. What it had been called originally he didn't know, but he figured it was a good rechristening, appropriate for its new purpose.

Radek hadn't been a fan of Fey'lya during the war, but he'd been piloting his evac shuttle over Galactic City when the Chief of State's death bomb had blossomed like a beautiful, deadly flower over the old Imperial Palace. It hadn't changed his opinion about the Bothan's botching of the invasion, but he had to admire the way he went out. Out of all the memories from that horrible day, Fey'lya's brilliant fireball stayed with him the most.

Radek only hoped he would take a fraction as many Vong with him.

He was judged out of his reverie by a transmission from Fey'lya. Captain Saiv'tu said, "All flights, red alert. Enemy ships escaping the moon. Shuttles and small fighters."

"I see them!" Kan squawked. "Whole bunch of skips, coming out of the north pole."

"Must've been hiding in the ice," Do'varet muttered. "I heard they used that trick... Where was it?"

"Helska 4," Radek supplied.

"Cut the chatter!" Red One shouted. "It's time to act like soldiers! Stay in assigned flights. Targets are coming in fast. Get ready."

Radek licked his dry lips eagerly and brought the heads-up-display online. Red holographic highlights traced the swarms of Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers flying right toward them.

Then they started spraying their fiery projectiles across space. The advance starfighter squads broke into a scramble. Radek tried hard to stay on the juking, jerking tail of his flight leader, the Tunroth Sovel Greepth. Coralskippers rushed past them in a dark blur. There was a flash of light on his port side, and a burst of static over his comm.

"We lost Eight!" Devroolan said.

"Six, Seven, hold close on me," Greepth said as he pulled his X-wing into a steep climb.

The force of velocity pushed Radek against the back of his cockpit. He hadn't flown combat in fifteen years. He'd gotten older, fatter, softer, slower, and he'd forgotten just how nimble and deadly the Vong could be.

Even though they haunted his nightmares, he'd forgotten.

The three X-wings snapped into a roll to avoid another swam of skippers. Greepth pointed his nose toward Fey'lya's pale hull, and the others followed. They skirted above the cruiser's protective shields and gave wide birth to the ship's heavy turbolasers as they pounded the icy surface of the moon. Radek checked his scanners and saw some larger ships pulling out of their hiding place inside the moon.

"Is this all of 'em?" Devroolan asked. Apparently he'd just noticed too. "Is this the whole fleet?"

"There has to be more," Radek muttered.

Before Greepth could reprimand them for chatter, a barrage of Yuuzhan Vong projectiles punched through Fey'lya's forward shields and detonated one of her turbolaser batteries. The explosion jumped up in front of the X-wings. Greepth tried to roll out of the way and Radek tried to follow, but his reflexes were slow. He could feel the singing heat of the fireball, even inside his vacuum-sealed cockpit. The inside of his cockpit screamed alerts as his shields threatened to overflow. But the light died away and he followed Greepth's engine-flares away from the cruiser, toward the open stars.

Then he noticed that Devroolan wasn't with them.

"Where's Teve" he said. "Where's Six?"

"We lost him," Greepth said severely. "He lost an engine and smashed into the hull."

Radek felt shocked and empty. He'd taken to Devroolan the most out of anyone in the squad. The Rodian had been brash and cocky, but he'd told great stories over ale and game of cards. He'd been the youngest, too, a breath of fresh air in a group of bitter veterans. Now he was gone, just like...

...Just like almost every other pilot Radek had flown with during the war. Just like his wife and daughters.

"Payback," he hissed, "I want payback."

"That's what we're here for," Greepth said. "Follow me. We're forming up with Red Lead. They're trying to cut off some of the Vong."

"Sounds good to me," Radek said, and fired his engines. He and Greepth lurched ahead to three X-wings up ahead. A glance at his scanned told him Kang was gone.

Sithspawn, he wanted to kill at least one of those skippers before it was his turn to go.

"Forming on your wing, lead," Greepth said.

"Glad to have you," said Doveranti. "Okay, boys, get ready. Warm your torps and aim for that shuttle analog at four o'clock."

"I see a fighter escort," noted Do'varet.

"Then we punch through," Greepth said.

Radek checked his scanners. The skips were already peeling off their shuttle and heading for Red Squad.

"Weapons free!" Doveranti cried. "Hit 'em! Hit 'em!"

Space became a light show: burst of red plasma, fiery missiles, and proton torpedoes riding on luminous trails. Explosions blossomed in space and the static burst on his headset.

"Lead is down!" someone said. "We lost Red One!"

"I can't hold it," said another, Do'varet. "I can't-"

"I forgot how-"

Something clipped Radek's wing, sent him into a spin. Stars, lasers, flame whirled around him. He tugged his joystick and fired his engines to straighten out his flight. When space returned to some semblance of order he saw the asteroid-like lump of the Yuuzhan Vong shuttle, approaching fast. If he didn't pull up soon, he was going to hit it.

He tugged on his joystick, and nothing happened.

He tugged again and heard a pathetic groan as his port thrust engines died.

This was it, a part of his knew. No Fey'lya-style blaze of glory. Nobody would name a ship after him. He would die alone in an unnamed star system and nobody would ever know.

But at least he could hurt the Vong.

He fired his lasers. He pumped out every proton torpedo he had. The shuttle's dovin basals seemed to swallow everything like the miniature black holes they were. Again and again, they seemed to take everything he had and soon they would swallow him up as well-

-and then a torpedo exploded against the shuttle's hull, sending out chunks of yorik coral and licks of flame. Radek grinned like a madman and gave his engines one last kick.

The stuff of nightmares killed his vision and swallowed up the universe.

Then the universe filled with a fire that never died.