Though she knew she had somehow managed to escape death less than a day ago, Elena had a hard time forcing her body to respond to her commands. She felt every cut, every bruise, every broken bone that had not yet been mended screaming with unbearable pain in her mind, but it was her impossibly heavy heart that kept her immobilized instead, weighing down her chest and nearly suffocating her with its intense suffering. For hours she had heard familiar voices sounding faintly all about her, maintaining solemn, low volumes as they conversed, so she was at least comforted with the fact that she was not alone in her moment of deepest despair. She needed answers, though, answers he had not given her before he had left her, and only with a mighty struggle did she finally will her eyes to open and take in her surroundings.

She was in the Dalon Medical Center, she surmised by the subtly recognizable logo on the far wall, and she was reclined in a bed with a handful of visitors surrounding her. General Aurin Jax was closest to her, softly speaking with his daughter Tavyna, and a number of Edgepoints circled around their commanding officer Saross Wip in a faint discussion. All wore the most somber of expressions though they had yet to notice that she had awakened, and it wasn't until she took in a pained breath that they all looked to her and immediately silenced, Jax and Swip stepping up beside her on either side of her bed.

Bitter, anguished tears were freely streaming down her face as she trembled with unimaginable grief, already well aware of the terrible news they were preparing themselves to share with her.

"My son," she breathed with a broken voice, her body's severely weakened state the only way she was able to restrain further emotion, "...my son is gone."

Struggling to withhold tears himself and very nearly failing, Jax gently picked up Elena's hand from the bed; his delicate touch still wasn't light enough to not cause her further pain.

"M'lady," he swallowed weakly, meeting her gaze with his eyebrows knit tightly together in sorrow. "I can't even begin to tell you...how much my heart breaks for you..."

She couldn't breathe, only able to gasp faintly once her lungs were desperate enough for a fresh breath. Never before had she experienced such a soul-crippling loss, one she felt so deeply as if her own life force had been mercilessly ripped from her and only partially restored. She had lost several close friends before, some of whom had strong connections to the Force themselves, but nothing could have prepared her for the void that her oldest son had left within her. Had it not been for her husband and her other three children needing her in the wake of their collective suffering...she might have lost the will to live altogether.

"He protected a medical center in Kirodai from taking any damage after the pirates targeted it," Swip explained with pain well evident in his tone and in his eyes that were reddened and bereaved. "He saved hundreds of lives, m'lady...at the expense of his own."

She nodded only the slightest bit, as even her smallest of movements shot an intense, sharp pain up and down her spine, but she had to as a way of accepting their reverence, their sincerity. Their condolences and sympathy they shared with her in their subtlest of expressions and in their heavily emotional words reminded her just how well respected Derek had been, even before his sacrifice. Both Swip and Jax had known him since he was only a few weeks old, and in his twenty-five years as the son of Paneau's High Commander, a member of the Rys'tihn Royal Family, and a pilot for the Edgepoint Squadron, Derek had made a positive impact on almost everyone he had encountered. His loss would be felt by many, not just by his immediate family.

"He told me...he had to protect them," Elena recalled his fleeting voice telling her through the Force in the moments after his death. She hadn't been conscious, only barely clinging to life herself after focusing the entirety of her efforts on keeping Dirani alive instead, but still she desperately clung to his words as they echoed in her mind, the last she would ever hear him speak to her. "And he asked me..." she trailed off as she briefly lost the strength to speak, "...he asked me to take care of his father."

She continued to tremble with unreleased sorrow welling up within her, but the distressed glance both Jax and Swip exchanged with each other instantly replaced her sadness with intense, urgent worry instead. "...where is he?"

Jax gently covered her hand he still held with his other as he hesitated, but she was too focused on his response to wince at the added pain the pressure caused her.

"He's here, m'lady, a few floors down in a critical care unit. Master Kanomin and Master Natiyr have been with him, keeping him stable after he collapsed."

Her reaction was instantaneous. She tightened her grip around Jax's hand and pulled against him as she felt fractured bones in her wrist crack further under the strain, sitting herself up though every other wound in her body seared anew and also fiercely protested it.

"No, m'lady, you must rest," Jax countered her movement with concern, looking to Swip to assist him in keeping her in place. "Please, you've a lot of recuperation to do still - - m'lady - - "

She blatantly ignored him, though, continuing to edge her legs off her bed with torturous pain as she forcefully shoved his and Swip's hands away. Her thigh muscles felt like they were being sheared in two as her feet dangled heavily above the floor, each micrometer of movement sending white hot agony through every nerve, but she didn't care. It took all her willpower to accept the pain she knew was coming the instant she bore any weight on her broken left leg, and her every breath shook as she drew on the Force to strengthen her resolve.

"Elena," Swip pleaded earnestly as he stepped up beside Jax to halt her, but she somehow found the energy to lift herself from the bed to stand - and would have fallen to the floor had it not been for Swip's grip on her upper arm. She cried out in pain and gasped to endure it, willing herself to remain on her feet as she held tightly to Swip and Jax and no longer heard their protests. With a tenuous step, she moved forward, only lightly pressing her left toes to the floor to reposition her right foot. Her progress was minute, so she took another shuffling step, bile rising in her throat as the insanely severe pain threatened to make her ill.

"Master Rys'tihn, please let us help you," Tavyna Jax added her soft voice to the mix, and still Elena refused as she slowly and stubbornly made her way out the door of her room. Beads of sweat were forming atop her forehead with her effort and suffering, her focus tunneling her vision straight ahead of her. She felt her stamina waning dramatically with each successive step she took, but her sheer determination to reach her husband's side, the last thing she had just promised her son as he had perished, kept her moving, little by little...

...until her body finally betrayed her and forfeited, collapsing her into a heap of pain and sorrow in the middle of the Dalon Medical Center's hallway. Broken and defeated, she could no longer contain her wailing tears and misery, openly weeping as she'd done only once before. Her entire body shook, wracked with aggrieved sobs that not even Jax's warm embrace could comfort or subdue. She felt him supporting her as her remaining energy dissipated, sitting with her on the floor with his arms wrapped around her as she wept, but her pain, both overwhelmingly emotional and physical, was now far beyond anything the Force or her friends would be able to remedy.


Returning to the New Dalon Palace for the first time in weeks was almost surreal for Mand, especially in light of everything that had just happened in such a short span of time. She never would have imagined enduring the tragedies that had so suddenly befallen them, losing both Derek and Cordira within hours of each other, and it had left her nothing short of numb.

Though she had initially advised against it, she had been making preparations with Ethan Redgrave to chase after Lucidia to rescue Cordira. Before they'd had the chance to leave, though, she had been recalled by King Verojec himself for a meeting of some kind. She'd had half a mind to ignore the summons and leave Paneau anyway, as Ethan had very nearly done, but Force-guided wisdom overtook her aching heart; she recognized that they had to be smart about how they tracked and eventually confronted Lucidia. She would need proper focus and strength, and blindly charging after the deranged old woman without first settling her grief over Derek's death and her guilt for having been unable to protect her daughter could possibly spell disaster for them all. Ethan had been exceptionally difficult to convince of the need for patience in their situation, so staunchly driven to find Cordira as soon as possible, but thankfully he had finally relented and remained at her side as she requested. As they reported to the Throne Room, Ethan and her daughter Arlen followed closely behind her, wordless and stoic from the overwhelming emotions they fought to contain, and even Mand was ill prepared to meet the scores of faces that turned to them upon their entrance.

"Mand," King Verojec greeted her solemnly as he stepped through the crowd of officers surrounding him. "...is it true? Cordira's gone?"

Beside her, she heard Ethan draw in a trembling breath as he struggled to maintain his composure. She called on the Force to steady her words as she nodded. "Yes, your Highness. Lucidia took her from the Kirodai medical center, and they are both no longer on Paneau."

The young king seemed truly saddened to hear her confirmation, his eyebrows furrowed together in sorrow as he glanced at both Ethan and Arlen on either side of her. Despite the officers and guards that still stood around him, he spoke with such care and admiration as though they were in a more intimate setting. "I owe Cordira everything," he breathed. "Her Guards saved my life, and the lives of my wife and children. We were still in the Estate when it was attacked. My Guard Vosir explained that Cordira had trained them to maintain a Force shield around us at all times...and they protected us from the blast and from the Estate's collapse. There's no way we would have survived without them, without what she had taught them. I am forever in her debt. Whatever it is you need to find her and bring her home...Paneau will supply it."

Mand nodded solemnly. "Thank you, Sire. We were just preparing to leave."

"You may want to hear this, Master Natiyr, before you do."

Turning to face the new voice that had addressed her, Mand watched a group of technicians step into the Throne Room behind her, towing with them a repulsorbed full of the mangled remains of an astromech. It wasn't until she saw a dark purple stripe on the droid's scorched body that she recognized who it had to be, and it made her gasp.

"Tops..."

The technicians arranged themselves just beside Mand, bowing deeply to King Verojec before the lead tech introduced himself.

"I am Milo Cistinipar, Master Natiyr, one of the technicians here in the Palace. After the Royal Guard recovered Derek Rys'tihn's body, they found this on him." He reached into his pocket and retracted a lightsaber hilt, but it was unlike any that Mand had ever seen. He handed it to her, allowing her to take possession of it as she inspected its intricate detail and unique design.

"I've never seen this before," she marveled. "It looks...ancient, made of extremely old technology. Derek had this?"

"Yes, Master, but it wasn't even nicked. It still produces a bright yellow blade. I trust that you'll return it to the Rys'tihns?"

She gave him a firm nod while she briefly continued to study it, and she clipped it to her belt beside her own as Milo moved forward with his report. "The Royal Guard also found Derek's astromech, Tops. They brought him to us immediately, but as you can see, he was severely damaged in the crash. We've been working on restoring his memory and personality circuits, but all we've been able to salvage so far is a message that was recorded just before the bombing of Dalon began. It's a message not from Derek, Master...but from your daughter Cordira."

Stunned, Mand stared unblinking at the small holo that Milo displayed in his hand from a portable projector, Cordira's noticeable, braided fire-red hair cascading over the shoulder of her dark blue flight suit. Her face was so conflicted and worn, and her mouth seemed to move several times without any sound; was the recording that degraded that its audio was out of sync or missing?

"...I have recorded this message more than a dozen times," Cordira finally began with obvious reluctance, her voice audibly quivering throughout, "but I'm still not sure I will say everything that I need to, the way that I need to. I have hurt and lied to each of you, and this message will serve as my sincerest apology, my final wish...and my last goodbye.

"I have been flying as 'Striker', as the Rallyes have called me, for the past few months, since my return from Coruscant. I chose to do so anonymously because of my...status. Because of what I am. I was not allowed to serve the galaxy and become a Jedi, because I am a clone, and I was not allowed to serve the New Republic in any capacity, again, because I am a clone. I felt that my service to Paneau, protecting innocent civilians from those pirates, would benefit the most from no one knowing who I was, since the message I had been given from the entire universe since I was a child was that I was not supposed to exist. I would show up when I was needed, I would do my job, then I would disappear without any fanfare. I didn't expect that the Rallyes would...adopt me, in a way, and I never, ever expected...that I would fall in love with one of them."

Though she hadn't intended to, Mand's gaze immediately fell on Ethan beside her. She had picked up on small clues about their relationship over the past few months, but she had never truly known just how serious they had become. Ethan's eyes were firmly locked on the ground in front of him as he clenched his jaw, unable to even look at Cordira's small holo as he wrestled with an uproar of internal conflict. Against her better judgement, Mand reached up and gripped Ethan at his shoulder, offering her silent support as Cordira emotionally continued on.

"I never meant to hurt you, Ethan," she breathed. "I couldn't bring myself to tell you about Striker because...in the back of my mind, I knew that though I loved you, and I knew how much you loved me, I still felt that I didn't deserve you. I wasn't worthy of your love, because I was already lying to you about something else, something I should have told you a long time ago, as far back as the night we first spent together..." She paused, losing the strength to speak, and Mand could feel her own breath freeze in her chest.

"I...I am dying."

Ethan physically reacted with a tremor that shook him to his core, and in Cordira's absence, Mand could only channel the Force's calming peace to soothe him.

"I have known it for some time now. I was in denial at first, but it was explained to me that the only reason I, an altered clone who was created as an experiment, have survived as long as I have was solely because of the Force. The Force itself has kept me alive all these years...until now. It has been leaving me, weakening me day by day, and all my efforts to counter it have done me no good. Over the past few months, I have come to terms with my fate, I've accepted it...and I am ready.

"So I have made my decision: I am going to leave Paneau with Lucidia, so she and her pirates will no longer hurt my homeworld. I am what she wants. I am the reason she has had them bombarding our cities and our neighbors. My life is not worth the millions of people who would be impacted by their ongoing attacks. If this is what it takes to protect Paneau...then I will do it."

Cordira hung her head just as the holo feed jumbled and screeched out of sync, but it recovered just in time for the rest of her message. "My final wish: I want none of you to follow after me. If Lucidia is as dangerous and deranged as I've been told, you are not to risk your lives for me. I have chosen this. I have chosen to protect my family, my friends, the people I love in this manner. Please...do not waste your time and resources to find me, because I will not survive much longer anyway. Lucidia can do whatever she wants to me, and it will make no difference. Please, I beg all of you...do not try to find me. I am not worth it.

"Mom and Dad, I know this won't sit well with either of you. You both fought so hard for me before I was even born, and you shared your knowledge and your skills with me when the Jedi Order would not. I would not have made it this far, though, without your guidance, so do not blame yourselves. I'm sorry that I am the one letting you down.

"Aruun and Arlen, you two are going to be incredible Jedi Masters some day. I wish I could be there to see it. I am so proud of the beautiful young women you've both become. Go change the galaxy. It's yours.

"And Ethan," she concluded with a final tremulous breath, her words weak and slow, "...if only we'd had more time. You saw in me things I still don't see in myself, and that gave me the strength to make this choice. If you were here with me right now...I would marry you on the spot. Thank you for the most amazing months of my life. I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my final days. I do love you, Ethan... Don't forget that."

With a sad, distant look in her eyes, Cordira disappeared as the holo shut down in Milo's hand, leaving them all in a wordless daze. Mand's heart ached fiercely; she couldn't stand to lose her daughter in such a way, but Cordira had made her wishes very clear. She was sacrificing herself for the good of others, just as Derek had done...

"Master, we have to find her."

Startled, Mand turned to Ethan wide-eyed. "Ethan...you heard what she just said - "

But he wore a panicked look. "You don't understand - "

"We should respect her wishes - "

"It's not about her wishes!"

"Ethan!"

"Master, she's pregnant."