Millions of light-years away, on the planet Bakura, a scream split the night.
"Master! Master, wake up! You're having a nightmare!" Sha'kenchi'ia Nyetka shook her master's arm in an attempt to wake her. With a gasp, Depa Billaba sat up and rubbed her face.
"Thank you, Chia," she said, addressing her Padawan by the nickname that was much easier to pronounce than her full one. "Funny, that I should dream of them…"
"Dream of whom, Master?" The young chiss asked, perching precariously at the edge of her master's bed.
"Of Master Ti, and Obi-wan," the woman mused. She had not recognized the others in the dream.
Technically Depa had far outlived her lifespan, but the force coma she had spent the better part of eighty years in seemed to have stunted her ageing. She had awaked to find herself in the care of several creatures who claimed to be Jedi, asking her to join them. It had been painfully ironic that the only way she had survived had been succumbing to the dark side.
"Of who?" Her Padawan reiterated. Chia, at age eighteen, was still as curious as ever. She was quite childish despite her age and skill in Vaapad, which Depa had passed on in reverence of her old Master.
"Old friends, Chia. Just old friends." She touched her greater mark of illumination. She had tried to cut it away, so many years ago when she gave in to darkness, but it had come back. It had been the cause of great stress to her for months, until she finally relaxed. She finally stopped thinking of herself as a failure who survived things like Order 66 and Operation: Knightfall by accident. The mark had returned to her forehead for a reason.
"They're dead?" Chia asked,
"Probably." She scratched her head. "Well, it's possible Master Ti could still be alive. Togruta's have a much longer lifespan than humans."
A knock sounded at the door.
"Come in," Depa said. The tall Whipid K'kruhk stepped in, his huge body blocking out the light from the hallway. Aside from her, Celeste Morn, and Ikrit, he was the only one still left from the old Jedi Order who had been a master.
A few Jedi who had been young Padawans when the purge occurred still lived, such as Ekria and Drake Lo'gaan, as did the children and grandchildren of many Jedi Depa had known. Bant and Rune, the two Mon Calamari Jedi, were both dead, but they lived on in their daughter Kima Eerin and left a legacy as the first legally and openly married Jedi couple. What she had heard of as a short, unhappy relationship between Fable Astin and Jaalib Brandl had left Kotor Astin, a young man with prowess to rival that of his mother, and Mia Astin, a devote healer, to the Jedi order.
"I heard you scream. Are you alright?" he asked, putting one huge hairy hand over hers. Depa jolted back to the present.
"Yes, thank you. I was having a nightmare."
The master of the new Jedi order narrowed his eyes. "Just a nightmare, Depa?" He questioned.
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"We both know that there are more Jedi out there. More than we have here, even though we are trying to unite them all and take Coruscant back. I dreamt of another Jedi order, this one headed by Master Ti, far away from us and many years behind. I dreamt that their entire order is in danger."
"I saw them fighting. They seemed upset and it looked like they were fighting a losing battle. I saw four or five beings…" she did her best to call back her dream, however unpleasant that was. A ship, outer space, a planet that was tinted purple, the dark side swallowing everything…"Master Ti, a very elderly looking Master Kenobi, and a couple I didn't know. A female Mirialian who had some kind of shoulder wound, a near-human who looked part Rattataki and was also female, and two children who were both human."
"The Mirialian had a dark lower lip and all her knuckle tattoos, didn't she?" K'kruhk said. Depa started.
"You dreamt of the same thing?"
"Yes. The Mirilian is Jedi master Luminara Unduli. I served with her during the clone wars. When she got married, I have no idea... The near-human is half Clawdite, though you were close. Her name is…Santi Steffen, I think. She was Master Ti's final apprentice. I do not know the children. Probably young force-sensitive's they found and trained."
"If they're in trouble, shouldn't we go help them?" Chia asked, her red eyes glowing in the darkness of Depa's room.
"We should," K'kruhk said.
"At-" Depa paused to look at her clock-"At three in the morning? K'kruhk, are you insane?"
"Maybe. But I know this: I will not let these other Jedi suffer without at least trying to help them. Wake the others. We must tell the leaders of the Rebellion where we are going and why, and we must leave soon. Chia, collect the other Padawans."
"Yes sir, Master K'kruhk!" The teenage chiss saluted him and scurried out of the room. Depa felt a slight headache coming on. Her Padawan and her oldest friend were always in cahoots, it seemed…
"Come on, Depa. You don't feel it? They need us," K'kruhk stressed. Depa sighed. She shooed him out of the room so she could change. And with that, the young Master of the new Jedi Order who was actually very old went to wake the rest of the Jedi.