Just as Kyp and Allana were about to deliver the wining stroke, she stood up from the dejarik table.
"Something's wrong— or about to go wrong— we need to get to the loading ramp."
"Chewie and I'll get to the cockpit." Kyp handed Allana his violet lightsaber. "You check out the loading ramp."'
"Got it." She raced to the cargo bay and opened the ramp just as the party emerged from the spaceport doors.
Tahiri was in the lead, several paces ahead of Valin and Threepio.
"Come on, goldenrod, let's speed this up!" Valin tried to pick up Threepio, only for the droid to refuse such a treatment.
Zekk closed the doors of the spaceport behind him, and ran to help Valin carry Threepio.
Bringing up the rear was Ben Solo, holding a barely-conscious Jacen in his arms.
"We gotta make a quick escape— get ready to jump to lightspeed when the door closes!" Allana ordered.
She received no indication for certain that Kyp had heard her, but she was certain that he did all the same. Tahiri grabbed one of the poles in the loading door as she stumbled inside, slightly out of breath.
"Darth Keera knows we're here," Tahiri panted.
Allana glanced out as Valin and Zekk entered and set Threepio down. Artoo rolled up to greet his old friend. Zekk then ran down the ramp as Ben approached, holding a blaster out.
Ben slowed to a walk as he entered the ramp, and Zekk withdrew.
"Close the loading ramp," Ben ordered.
Zekk was about to when Allana slapped his hand. "Where's Nellith?"
No one answered her immediately, and Zekk closed the door.
"Where's Nellith?" Allana repeated, her voice rising to a shout.
"She decided to try to fight Keera," Tahiri said. "We tried to tell her to stop, but she wouldn't listen."
"We had to leave her." Zekk leaned against the side of the cargo hold a moment. He gave Allana a look of sympathy. "Or else this whole mission would be for nothing."
"We should turn around, we can end this, we can still save her— all of us could go against Keera and win—"
Before she could make a command, the ship recoiled from the leap to hyperspace.
Before Allana could fall over, Valin caught her.
"No," she whispered. It was too late. She stumbled forward, out of Valin's grip, and dropped to her knees.
She'd lost her sister again, after only a few days.
"If only I'd been there," she whispered. "We could've taken her on together."
"And you both would have been captured." Valin crouched down beside her. "And Hapes would have lost the heir they needed."
"'Destiny has but one throne,' I know." Allana closed her eyes.
"What?"
Allana had forgotten the secret that her parents had kept of it, in that moment of grief and anger.
"Before Nellith and I were born, it was prophesied that I would take up the seat of something called the Throne of Balance, and would become the Jedi Queen." Allana sighed. "Sometimes, I dream of it. Things are different, though. My hair's red, my dad's dead, and there are other people I don't recognize. But Jaina's there. That's the most common one. There are others, too, though. Like little shards of other possibilities of how I could have been born, and where and when."
"A shatterpoint." Valin's voice was reverent.
"Sort of." Allana's eyes flashed open. "But I'm tired of waiting for my destiny to come like dilapidated fairytale. And I'm done hiding and being afraid of Darth Keera."
"We all know how powerful she is," Valin reminded her. "She burned our home, destroyed our lives—"
"And we can't let her get away with that." Allana closed her eyes again, let out a deep breath, and nodded. The path forward seemed clear now, for the first time. "Not for revenge. For justice."
She opened her eyes and looked to Valin. "I know you didn't trust her when she came back. But she's proven her loyalties now. She's as much of a Jedi as the rest of us."
"She is," Valin admitted. He then looked almost angry. "Maybe we don't want you to get in trouble because we care about you— I don't care about your destiny or title, I care about you, I don't want you getting hurt—"
"I know," Allana said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I know there's more to it than that, that plenty of people in this galaxy love me. But here's the thing— even on that first awful night, lots of people were looking out for me. Tenel Ka, Chewbacca, even Mum and Dad, even if I didn't see it then."
"And you can't throw away the sacrifices they've made—"
"And I won't." Allana smiled sadly. "But don't you see? No one's been looking out for Nellith. We needed to. We need to now. The Jedi— we're all one family, we care about each other. Now the family needs to come and save her."
Valin let out a low whistle. "I don't think many Jedi are going to take you up on that, after what she did. It's pretty obvious what she was— Jacen pretty much told us."
"She was Thea's apprentice, wasn't she?"
"Not quite."
Allana blushed as she looked up to see that Zekk was still standing there. She retracted her hand back to her side awkwardly.
"She was an Empress's Hand." Zekk opened his eyes. "The practice came from the Emperor, back during the Empire itself. Have multiple apprentices who aren't trained in the super powerful Sith stuff, but can still do your dark side bidding around the galaxy."
"But not willingly— Nellith didn't choose to, did she?"
Zekk shook his head. "Thea took another page out of Palpatine's book there. Brainwashing, mental connections— nasty stuff. They do a lot of it in the Shadow Academy she's set up."
"Why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you help any of them?" Allana demanded. "Why did you wait three years—"
"I didn't." Zekk moved away from the wall. "I tried to help her— it was a slow process. The indoctrination, it goes deep. But one day, Nellith was able to break out of it. She couldn't live with what she'd done."
"You used the Force to wipe her memory," Allana realized. The puzzle pieces were clicking together. "She asked you to. So she wouldn't have to remember what Darth Keera made her do. So she could move on, show up as some miracle Jedi hero."
"Yes." Zekk nodded. "I set up the cryogenics, and got ahold of Dr. Xux. Arranged for a pickup, oversaw it myself, to make sure the Princess Leia knew what they'd gotten."
"How did Keera not know what you'd done?" Valin asked.
"I made it look like Nellith had just escaped. Which, was pretty much what happened." Zekk crossed one leg over the other, and he stared at his bootlaces for a moment. "Thea— she won't got prying in my head. Or she didn't. She trusted me too much."
She could sense his guilt. Just because the actions were for the general good of he galaxy didn't make them not hard to swallow.
"And now Nellith's about to get brainwashed again, isn't she?"
Zekk shrugged. "Or she'll take Jacen's place in the bargain."
Allana's blood ran cold. "Then it was for nothing!"
"Not nothing," Valin assured her. "Jacen was our leader, before Nellith showed up."
"I don't think he's in any shape to lead."
They all turned to see Tahiri standing in the doorway.
"He's asking for you, Allana."
Allana nodded, and she got to her feet. She followed Tahiri into the bedchambers of the Falcon.
"Where's Dad?"
"Master Solo kicked Kyp out of the cockpit. He's now sulking in the gunner's seat again."
"Ah." Allana nodded, and she entered the dark room. She already saw evidence that her father tended to her brother. All physical wounds were healed. But she could still see the faded blood stains.
Allana felt her heart go into her throat.
What had he suffered at their own sister's hands?
"He's been going in and out," Tahiri said. "Master Solo and me— we think it's spice or some sort of drug. Probably a hallucinogen, based on what he said when we found him."
"I guess there's nothing we can do but let him sleep it off?"
"Yeah, but he made me promise that we'd be here, you and I— he specifically asked for you," Tahiri said. "Wanted to know that we weren't going away."
"Oh." Allana approached his bedside, and took his hand. Jacen didn't move or change at all. But she had a feeling it helped all the same.
But as she waited with Tahiri in the dark, she couldn't help but think that for all they had gained, they had lost something equally precious.
She could only pray to Allya that the Force would offer some protection to the sister she left behind.