Cloudy skies were a rarity in Galactic City, but the masters of Coruscant's weather control must have chosen today to brew up a storm system and unleash millions of gallons of water to help municipal sanitation crews do their scheduled scrub-down. Allana knew that some Coruscanti looked forward to 'cleaning days,' as they were called, because it meant a break from the carefully manufactured clear skies that spread over the endless city the rest of the time. Back when she'd spent too much time on the capital Allana had agreed with them, but right now the gray clouds that swelled low and swallowed the tops of skyscrapers seemed to rob Galactic City not just of its light but of its spacious majesty.

It was, if nothing else, a fittingly gloomy background for her meeting with the triumvirate. The battle at Orelon had cost the Alliance dearly. Eight capital ships had been destroyed and over a hundred thousand soldiers lost in exchange for less than thirty thousand Hapan loyalists, all in a rescue operation that was supposed to have been bloodless. Before Allana was called in for her audience Admiral Lekwash gave them his statement, and when he stepped out of the chamber and saw her waiting the Quarren's eyes narrowed on hers, then looked away, and he passed neither advice nor warning as he left.

When she stepped through the door Allana saw the triumvirs at their curved table with a panorama of grey towers and low clouds. A fourth being had joined them there: Senator Avic. As Chair of the Defense Council he had every right to be at this review, but that Allana hadn't been warned in advance made her wary.

"Welcome, Master Djo," Kyrr Esch said tiredly. "Thank you for coming."

"Thank you for inviting me. I'll answer your questions as best I can, though I'm sure Admiral Lekwash gave you a better summary of the battle than I ever could."

"The admiral's given us his thorough review," said Sevlis Morr.

"Given the circumstances, I believe his performance was exemplary."

"A hundred thousand lost," Darris Sevold said grimly, as if that enough was condemnation.

"They died in the line of duty, bravely. They died to save Alliance citizens."

"Is that what the Hapan loyalists are now?" asked Morr. "Our people?"

"They are. As soon as they arrived on New Hapes, the leaders of the surviving loyalists officially petitioned to become residents. As Queen of Hapes I've approved that petition. They are therefore Alliance citizens."

"Yet they were not, at the time of the battle," Sevold pointed out.

Allana tried to evaluate the human triumvir in the Force. He'd always been stand-offish around her but according to Avic, he'd approved of the Defense Chair's operational plan for Orelon. She had the sense that his normal truculence was being amplified by regret.

"They're alive now because of Alliance action," she said, letting her gaze pass across the table. "Men, women, children, all of whom would have been slaughtered by Serissa Lohr's forces. The loss of life is tragic, but the action was not."

"Admiral Lekwash made the same argument," said Morr.

"Then we're in agreement."

"From a tactical standpoint, his actions were more than sound," Avic said. "When the Hapans sprung their trap he was placed in an extremely difficult situation and did everything he could to both protect his ships and accomplish the mission's original goal."

Allana sensed a but coming and it was Sevold who made it. "A necessary duty of any military officer is making hard choices. Sometimes he must decide to save some and leave others to die."

"If we'd have pulled out, all those civilians would have died. That would be a stain on our conscience."

"Tsi, we are well aware of the moral arguments," Esch said. "And I assure you, we will give them proper weight. Nothing can be done to change the events at Orelon. And, I think, Admiral Lekwash will suffer no penalty for his actions." He paused, as if giving the other triumvirs a chance to object, then said, "The extent that this informs future Alliance policy is what we must determine."

She understood the full import of his words. After suffering this wound- frankly minor compared to the total scale of its military capability- the Alliance might come away scared and isolationist, reluctant to involve itself in future well-intentioned risks. She'd heard that a group of three thousand senators had already petitioned to create an official inquiry into the triumvirate's misuse of authority in sending the fleet in the first place. None of the triumvirs were warmongers, but they were already being labelled as such.

"There are other unanswered questions," Sevold said. "We hope you might help."

Her foreboding deepened. "I'll do anything I can."

"The trap the Hapans sprung was elaborate, layered, and well-timed. They brought more than enough ships to destroy one suborbital mining station and a picket defense fleet. We find that curious."

"Naturally we're not accusing you or any of your close allies in alerting the Hapans to our mission," added Avic, "But somehow they knew to lay a trap. They might have gotten knowledge from a spy among the loyalists."

"That's… possible."

"Do you have another idea?" asked Esch.

"Possibly."

"It's not like Queen Djo to be laconic," said Sevold. "If her majesty has something to say, please say it."

"During the escape from Orelon, we managed to capture one high-ranking enemy."

"Which we?" asked Morr.

A good question; even Allana was sometimes confused by her layered allegiances. They weren't going to like the answer. "The prisoner is currently in custody on Ossus."

"And you never thought to tell us until now?" Sevold's voice was brittle.

"He surrendered specifically to a member of the Jedi Order I'd sent to help with the evacuation. I've not been to Ossus to see him myself, but I understand he'll only talk to a Jedi."

"We do have ways of… compelling information," Morr said darkly.

"Not from this one. But I assure you, whatever the Jedi learn from him, I will personally tell you."

"We expect continuous updates, then," said Sevold.

"You'll have them," Allana said, and she could sense the distrust coming from them all, even Esch and Avic. They were generally favorable toward the Jedi but they didn't like secrets. In warfare and politics keeping too many could end as badly as spreading them wide.

But this one would have to be handled by the Jedi, and Allana had a feeling what would come next. It was exactly the kind of thing the Jedi would need Alliance help for, but after Orelon they wouldn't get it. And deep down, a grim part of her wondered whether the lives won and lost at Orelon had been worth it after all.

-{}-

Jade Skywalker stood before the locked door and moved no closer. She was afraid of what she'd find inside. When she stretched out with the Force very hesitantly she could sense him, but he made no effort to touch her back.

"At first he refused to answer any questions until he spoke to you," said K'Kruhk.

She shifted to see the two Jedi behind her. They both towered over her, a Whiphid and a Wookiee, fierce-looking for their claws and teeth and shaggy brown-furred hides, but she'd even known Master K'Kruhk and Grand Master Lowbacca as wise and gentle souls, capable of fighting fiercely but only when they had to. Only K'Kruhk and a handful of other Jedi had been in the room beyond since they'd locked Darth Terrid inside. He was the only one to have gotten any results.

"We finally reached an agreement," the Whiphid said. "We'd allow him to see you once he explained why the loyalists found the bodies of two Sith aboard their station."

"Two?" Jade could only recall the one killed by grenade at the start of the fight. Once they'd disabled the shield generators and fled she'd barely thought of the Sith. The crisis had grown too wide.

"They found two side-by-side in a corridor, a human and a Codru-Ji," explained K'Kruhk. "The bodies of several guards were around them, but these Sith seemed to have been killed by lightsabers."

Jade remembered seeing that Codru-Ji fight. With four blades he'd been a cyclone of red and deadly light. Killing him would have been no easy feat. "What did he say?"

"He said that Sith turned against Sith at Orelon. He said he belonged to the losing side."

It explained much and begged many more questions. Lowbacca, silent until now, gave a low roar.

"I know, Grand Master," Jade sighed. "If there is a schism in the Sith… We have to take the opportunity to exploit it. Master K'Kruhk, did he tell you anything else?"

"No. I asked a simple question and received a simple answer. It was the trade I'd asked for."

"And now it's up to me."

Lowbacca reminded her that of all living Jedi she'd known the young Terrid best. She wanted to saythat Arlen had trained him as an apprentice and Arlen was on Ossus too, but she knew there was no way out of this, not when Terrid had requested her and her alone.

"Have you done anything about his leg?" she asked,

"His left thigh-bone is fractured in two places but not broken. We have it set in a bacta cast."

A cast would keep it straight but unless they went to the bone it wouldn't mend fast. The Jedi Temple had healers who could mend the fractures and leave the leg perfect in less than an hour, but of course they hadn't done that yet, not for a Sith Lord.

She was glad. Healing was something they could negotiate for, if it came to that. More importantly, he was a little less dangerous with a damaged leg. Not enough, but a little.

"Okay," she sighed. "I'll do it. You'll be recording, won't you?"

"If we'd placed one in his cell he might have destroyed it." K'Kruhk held out a coin-sized audio transmitter. She plucked it from between two claws, tucked it into the folds of her robes.

"All right. Let's go." She tapped the controls to the door. The panel slid open. She walked through and it slid shut, and then she was alone in the room with Darth Terrid.

The Chiss was sitting on a padded bench with his back to the wall and both legs stretched out in front of him, heels resting on the cold stone floor. Stun cuffs bound his ankles and his wrists. Jade sat on the bench against the opposite wall, a good three meters apart. It had been eight years since they'd last sat across from each other like this, during the flight to Coruscant aboard Abeloth's hijacked star cruiser. When he lifted his head she avoided the arresting glow of his eyes and examined his face. It seemed rougher, more gaunt than she remembered, but maybe her impressions of him were still overlaid with the teenage boy she'd called friend. He was the same age as her, barely forty standard years, but he looked so much older. The Dark Side, they said, was not kind to the body. They said it wasted you from the inside-out, and as she looked at Terrid's face she believed it.

What he said next surprised her. "I think I spoke to your father once in this room. Or one much like it."

"Why would he have locked you in a cell?"

"I wasn't locked in. But he wanted to talk to me what had happened on Varadan."

Varadan. So much had changed there. Her first master, Mjalu, had been killed. She'd seen met her mother's killer for the first time. She, Wharn, and Jodram had barely escaped alive. It was all so long ago, a quarter-century, and she went weeks without even recalling the planet's name.

"I remember Varadan," she said. "We lost a great Jedi there and I had a friend who blamed himself for what happened. He had a hard time after that. He was angry, at himself and at the Sith, and for a while I was afraid he'd get seduced by revenge. But I realized that wasn't right. He hated himself for failing and wanted to prove to himself and everyone else that he was better than his faults." She took a deep breath and said, "That Jedi was my friend. His name was Wharn. And he wasn't you."

"I am what Ran'wharn'csapla became."

"If that's true, then you're right back where you started. You just said so."

Terrid laughed, dry and brittle, like she'd told a sick joke.

"Why did you want to see me? What do you have to tell me you couldn't tell K'Kruhk or Arlen?"

"You'll be able to know I'm telling the truth. You can read me better than the rest, can't you?" He hunched forward, elbows on knees. She avoided looking at his eyes.

"Maybe," she said. "Start talking."

He spread his chained-together hands. "Ask. You know what I told K'Kruhk, don't you?"

She nodded. "Sith killing Sith. I can't say I'm surprised. How'd you end up on the losing side?"

Another dry laugh. "I was their leader."

She stared at his bitter smile and the tightness around eyes but she still didn't meet them. She felt him in the Force: not the frustrated self-punishing drive she remembered from Wharn but an almost resigned and angry self-hate.

"Have the Sith been in the Hapes Cluster all this time?" she asked.

"Thirty-seven standard years," he confirmed.

"They've done a good job hiding themselves. We only learned about you a week ago."

"From the Reboam survivors?" Another laugh, fainter. "I let them go, you know. So I could trace them to their final base and then we'd eradicate them all. It never occurred to me they might pass word of us to the Jedi. But I've been…. Short-sighted. In so many ways."

Jade wasn't in the mood to humor a Sith Lord stuck on self-pity. "The Alliance lost a lot of good people at Orelon. The Jedi lost four good knights. And I can't even tell you what the loyalists lost. How did the Hapans know we were coming?"

He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Why were you there, Jade Skywalker? To help the people who murdered your mother? To show them to forgiving, self-sacrificing virtues of the Jedi?"

The sight of those doomed parents saying goodbye to their children would never leave her. "Those people didn't kill my mother. They're victims, just like her, victims of the Sith. Now tell me, how did the Hapans know the Alliance was coming?"

His face twisted like he was going to laugh again, but he stopped himself with a tired smile. "Ah, there was no trap, not for the Alliance. Your timing was just…. Unlucky. Or lucky. Maybe the Force orchestrated everything just to put you and I together in this room."

"I don't believe that," she lied. She wasn't sure what she believed.

"We had no idea the Alliance was coming. We didn't know you were there either."

"And all those Battle Dragons hiding in the Transitory Mists?"

"For me." He raised both hands, tapped his chest. "For us. For the Sith whose… ambition outstripped our wisdom."

"These other Sith you fought, who do they serve?"

He took a deep breath and released. "A former Jedi of the Old Republic. His name is Darth Krayt."

Jade shuddered. She'd heard that name, been told about him by her father, her grandfather, her aunt. Luke Skywalker had battled Abeloth with him almost sixty years ago. Jaina Solo had driven her lightsaber into his back on Zonama Sekot. There had never been a body to prove his death and all the time the Jedi had been painfully uncertain about his fate.

Jade, though, had never been uncertain, not since her vision on the planet where they'd found Abeloth. Just like her grandfather before her, she'd seen a vision of the future where a man in Yuuzhan Vong body armor was sitting on a Throne of Balance, surrounded by Sith acolytes. On her return to Ossus she'd spoken with Jaina and found what she'd feared: her description of the man on the throne matched Darth Krayt.

"Where is he now?" she asked.

Terrid sighed. "You must understand. Krayt is an absent father. He's been sleeping in stasis for decades, watched over by his most loyal servants, while the rest of us- his so-called One Sith- must labor toward a dream we'll never live to see."

"Doesn't sound very Sith-like. Too selfless."

"Exactly."

"And that's why you tried to rebel."

"This Sith promised me the power to remake things as I wanted. Then they made me the servant of a Darth Lord who never even speaks to his minion." His chained hands curled to fists. "I wanted to be better and stronger than I was. Krayt's vision offered me nothing."

For man who promised to tell the truth he was being very evasive with his answers. "You didn't answer my initial question. Where is Krayt?"

Another laugh, short this time. "Where else would the Sith go to work in secret? They've taken over the old Jedi base at Shedu Maad."

It made sense. She'd half-expected it, which was why surprise didn't distract her from the they he'd used. "Describe the Sith base."

Terrid nodded and, in more detail than she'd expected, explained the changes the Sith had made to the Jedi academy there. He described not only the old pyramid they're repurposed but the two new ones they'd built and the military-grade defenses placed around it using Kuati tech. Jade had never been to Shedu Maad herself but Lowbacca and other Jedi listening to her audio-feed had, and they'd know if what he'd said was plausible. Next he described the deep subterranean chamber beneath the main pyramid where Darth Krayt slept, guarded by heavy stone doors and the ever-watchful eye of his most trusted servant, a female Chagrian named Darth Wyyrlok.

That part surprised Jade. Her father had told her about another Chagrian by the same name, a male who'd also been Darth Krayt's loyal aide sixty years ago. Ben Skywalker had killed that one on Zonama Sekot.

She didn't know what to make of that. If Terrid was lying it was an odd lie to tell. When he finished his description he hunched forward a little more and said, "That's the extent of the Sith presence there. Now you know what you need to do."

"What do you mean?" She still couldn't look into his eyes.

"You know what I mean. So does whoever's listening. I've told you what you need to smash the One Sith and destroy them, forever."

"You want us to do the job you couldn't, is that it?"

She expected him to laugh or sneer but the comment seemed to pile weight on him. His head lowered a little; his face drew longer. "They broke me once. Then they remade me and then they broke me again. Does it surprise you that I want to see them hurt?"

"No. But if you think we're going to rush to Shedu Maad and kill Krayt just because you say so, you've really forgotten how the Jedi Order works."

His head fell even lower and his shoulders shook with a sigh. As she stared down at the back of his neck he said, "The Queen of Hapes is a Sith."

Seven words shook her more than anything in this conversation. It was so incredible she groped for reasons to deny it. "The Hapans purged themselves of Force-users centuries ago."

"Sometimes the Force manifests from nowhere. Sometimes it slips through generations unnoticed."

Then she remembered the Chalks, Elliah and Hogrum. The Force-sensitive siblings had elected to come to Ossus instead of stay on New Hapes, to Jade's pleasant surprise. They were distant relatives of Queen Serissa, sharing some great-grandparent.

It was believable. It was also terrifying. If Serissa was a servant of Lord Krayt then the entire Hapes Cluster was effectively a miniature empire for the Dark Lord.

"I've spent much time in the Fountain Palace. I know its secret corridors. I know her rooms." She heard Terrid's anger and felt raw hatred. "You'll have to launch two strikes. Destroy Krayt and Wyyrlok at Shedu Maad. Destroy Darth Saydel in her palace."

If Serissa was Saydel then attacking either would be incredibly dangerous. The Jedi were powerful warriors, but they had nothing that could battle the entire might of the Hapan military. From her last conversation with Allana, they couldn't expect help from Coruscant either. The bloody nose received at Orelon seemed to have cowed the Alliance.

"You're asking too much," Jade whispered.

Terrid's head snapped up. His red eyes caught hers before she could look away. "That's why I wanted you here, Jade. If I told this to any other Jedi they'd think I'm lying, that I'm setting them up for a trap. But I'm not. Touch me with the Force, Jade. Look into my mind. Feel what I feel, and you'll know I'm telling the truth."

"You can't expect me to-"

"Do it!" he shouted.

She did; not because he commanded but because he was right. There was only one way to know the truth, so she placed her hands flat on her thighs in a basic meditative pose, closed her eyes, breathed deep and steady, and reached out to touch this mind that was so dark and foreign, yet was all more the more awful for the faint echo of the boy she'd known.

He didn't resist when she looked into his mind. She found all she'd felt tentatively before: the frustration and self-disgust and bitter resignation; the rage simmering beneath that, ready to fire up hotter than ever with the smallest spark. He wanted to hurt. He wanted revenge.

And she pried deeper. She found flickers of memory at the surface of his thoughts. He was tumbling through the clouds of Orelon VI and when he landed on the station's surface she felt the crack of his leg so sharp it might have been her own. He was in his starfighter over the gas giant, tense with anticipation. He was speaking to a human in black robes with a bald scarred face that looked faintly familiar. And he was leaning close to a beautiful black-haired young woman in royal robes, running his hands over her body and feeling the heat of her breath against his face. Something in their passion felt like a dark inversion of the stable, enriching love Jade had shared with Jodram. This memory filled the Sith with the harshest anger of all: rage at the worst kind of betrayal.

And as her mind withdrew from his she felt a touch of something else, something that stirred memories of the friend lost long ago. Mixed with all the indignation and anger was the shame of a boy who'd aimed so high, to a place he could never reach; a boy who refused to accept failure and tried to rectify any way he could.

And it struck her that this was the cruelty of the Sith manifested. They claimed to offer power but really gave out corruption. There had been other parts to the Wharn she'd known- curiosity, empathy, generosity- but the Sith had beaten those all from him long ago, leaving only stubborn soulless ambition.

"Why are you crying?" she heard him say.

Suddenly she was out of his mind and back in her own. She was staring at him from three meters away as they sat on their benches. His face was twisted in anger. She reached to her own and felt just a few specks of tears, barely spilled from the corners of her eyes.

"Don't cry for me, Jade Skywalker," Terrid sneered. "Don't cry! Don't pity me! Don't!"

She jerked to her feet. As she stared down at him she spoke slowly to keep her voice from cracking. "We'll consider everything you've told us. I… I know you were telling the truth. In everything."

He stared up at her, just stared with those narrow red eyes. Even when they'd been young she'd found their featureless glow disconcerting. Now she felt she looked through them, into everything Terrid was now and had been before.

Without a word she broke their stare, stepped through the door, and locked it behind her. The hallway beyond was graciously empty. She fumbled into her robe, found the audio transmitter, and switched it off. Then she slumped against the wall and tried to get her emotions under control. Though a door now separated them, Terrid might still be able to sense her pity.

-{}-

Elliah Chalk had insisted that, rather than disembark with the old nobles at New Hapes, they continue riding with their rescuers to the Jedi Temple on Ossus. Her brother had objected, not because he wanted to stay on New Hapes or because he believed the old horror-stories about Jedi, but because he thought they'd have nothing to do.

After two local days on Ossus, Elliah was willing to concede Hogrum's point. Despite that she wasn't bored, at least not yet. The Jedi were less rigid and more gracious than she'd expected. They hardly seemed like an elite military order and even less like a cult. Entire chambers, from sunlit gardens to monastic cells, were set aside for mediation. When she wandered the halls she encountered what felt like only a scant handful of fellow humans. She'd never seen aliens before except on holos and like the Jedi they'd usually been exaggerated and villainous. Over the past two days she'd seen huge furry creatures four times her size and squat gray-skinned ones half her height, yet the plain brown robes they wore seemed to bespeak not just a unity among them but equality. From a distance she'd glimpsed the supposed Grand Master of this Order, a giant long-furred humanoid, but he wore the same plain robe as anyone else.

The Hapan loyalists had clung to aristocratic pretension because they had nothing else to cling to, and Elliah had wanted to get far away from that. Now she was as far away as possible and she felt absolutely bewildered. But at least she wasn't bored.

Something major was happening. Apparently the Jedi had taken a prisoner at Orelon- one of Serissa's henchmen, a Sith, whatever that meant. Jade Skywalker had tried to explain it to her at the station and Elliah had partially grasped it, but while Jade was on supposedly Ossus, Elliah hadn't seen anything of her. She was probably busy with the Sith she'd captured.

It was a mild balm to know she wasn't the only one on Ossus without purpose. The three so-called Imperial Knights that helped pull her and Hogrum off the sinking station seemed to be stuck here with no ride back home. On their first day together the Knights, probably from lack of anything better to do, had sat down with Elliah and Hogrum and explained who they were, what they were doing on the Jedi ship, and why they were emphatically not Jedi, even though they had a lot of the same powers and followed the same teachings. Subtle differences in mystic philosophy went over Elliah's head, but she knew a political schism when she saw one.

Apparently there was something important going down in their corner of the galaxy and they all ached to be there and help. She didn't know how much they could do; the oldest one, Treis, had only a few years on her. The middle one, Roan, was her age exactly. And also, apparently, a Prince of the Empire.

Elliah knew regal pretension too and she definitely saw it in Roan, but he was different from the young Hapan nobles she'd known. She saw it in that conversation the first night. She saw it more when she ran into him the next day.

Her free-range wanderings led her into a lush and surprisingly spacious garden. Late-afternoon sunlight fell through high windows and dyed the green leaves and colorful flowers into shapes of gold and bronze. They'd had hydroponics chambers and artificial gardens at Reboam and Orelon, but this felt different. Just being here made her feel vaguely hopeful, though she had no idea what future she could have now.

She found Roan by himself, standing on packed soil near the slanting transparisteel, watching the sun set over the desert.

She didn't say anything, but he knew she was there and turned. The Force, she figured. What she and Hogrum shared with each other, these Knights could do so much better.

"I'm sorry if I disturbed you," she said.

"No, it's quite alright," he said. Stiff, reserved, maybe a little haughty, but not like the aristocrats she'd known. Despite being born a prince he seemed a little uncertain about what that meant, even though he tried to hide his uncertainty; from her and maybe himself. More, she knew he was worried about his brother, who was apparently stuck behind enemy lines far away. These Imperial Knights, and probably the Jedi too, weren't ones to sit safe and secure in their fancy gowns and send disposable soldiers off to die.

"It's a lot better view than anything I've seen in years," she muttered. "But you probably don't know what that's like. What was the capital of your Empire called?"

"Bastion. It's a temperate world. Rain, sunshine. Forests, fields, oceans." He paused. "I've heard Hapes is pleasant."

"I think so… I'm not sure how much I remember. When I was a child, I spent all my time in Fountain Palace. I haven't been there in seven years but I still remember every room I could get into, every secret passage Hogrum and I used to find. But outside the Palace… I don't know." She looked out the window. "What kind of palace do you live in?"

"I don't," he said. She looked at his face and saw something new: wry amusement.

"Your father's an Emperor but he doesn't have a palace?"

"We have… an estate. But we've been at war, like I told you, so we've had limited resources, and my father thinks it would be bad taste to build himself a palace when he's supposed to be fighting the enemy."

That sealed it. These Imperials were nothing like Hapans. She found herself favorably disposed. "Who was emperor before your father?"

"There was no emperor."

"How could you have an Empire without an emperor?"

Roan gave her something else new: a single dry laugh, like she'd stumbled on a private joke. "It's complicated. I can't believe you've never heard of the Galactic Empire."

He said it with a little smile and she wasn't sure if she was being condescended to. "I knew there was an Empire a hundred years ago. And I knew that it fell."

"Not entirely."

"I'm sorry, Hapan history is…. skewed. And I didn't have much time for education running from Serissa's armies for the past seven years."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you. And I'm sorry you can't get back to your people."

"We've been told to stay put for now. My father told us that." He didn't hide his resentment.

She offered, "He wants to keep you safe."

"I know. That's what worries me."

She didn't know what he meant. A little awkwardly she said, "I know you've been in lots of battles. Maybe this is different."

"Vitor is out there," he said. "I don't know where. But somewhere. And he's in grave danger. My father doesn't want to risk losing us both."

"Ah," Elliah said, because nothing else came.

"And Vitor…" Roan scowled, shook his head. "My brother's been acting… strange. I don't know why."

The silence between them felt tense. The sunlight was getting deeper and darker, casting the desert outside in harsh but beautiful reds. She said, "I hope he comes back."

Roan swallowed hard and nodded. Then he said, "Excuse me," and turned away.

She watched him disappear down a winding path, watched the lush garden hide him from view. Then she turned her eyes back to the desert. They were stuck on Ossus together but Roan's situation seemed an inversion of her own. He knew what he wanted to do and where he wanted to be but couldn't. After seventeen years Elliah knew what she did not want to be, but it seemed the only life waiting for her.

She felt for him, even though she barely knew him. He was stiff, reserved, definitely haughty sometimes, but also interesting. She didn't feel as adrift with him as she did with all these alien magicians in their brown monk's robes. It was a small thing, but it meant a lot.

-{}-

After accepting that he'd come to the research station in Zonama Sekot's southern wastes for something bigger than himself, Kol Skywalker almost began to enjoy his work. That wasn't the say he enjoyed his mostly-boring role as carrier of objects between the Alliance and Yuuzhan Vong laboratories, but he could better appreciate how his small actions helped the greater process of healing the poisoned biosphere. And once he appreciated his place, he started finding other things to appreciate too. He was finally staring to understand scraps of Nei Rin's shapers' jargon, and their equivalent terms used by the xenobiologists.

During some lunch breaks the research assistant, Neita, would invite Kol to sit with her. She'd ask him earnest questions about what it was like for the Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong living together on this strange planet. The senior scientists, the reedy Ho'din and chirping little Mrlssi, asked him their own questions, mostly about his experience with the planet's so-called governing intelligence. Kol regretted that he'd had none personally, which left them disappointed, but he told them what he'd heard second-hand. The only one of the Alliance scientists who still seemed annoyed by his being around was the other human research assistant, a young man named Rennis. Kol couldn't tell why he was disliked but he could guess. Jedi weren't popular in some parts of the Alliance. His father was particularly and unjustly reviled. Nobody was advertising that Kol's father was Jodram Tainer; Tahiri had told him not to mention it at all. But still, some of them must have figured. Maybe Rennis had lost a loved one when Abeloth attacked Coruscant. Maybe he had another reason to dislike Jedi. It hurt Kol to be hated for something that wasn't his doing, and he was too afraid to ask Rennis what had caused his spite.

That was a small scar, though, compared to everything else. Once night fell and the scientists and shapers retired for dinner and rest, Kol and Nei Rin would sometimes go into the dark laboratories. Or, more accurately, Nei Rin would drag Kol back to the shapers' lab and enthusiastically explain the day's progress, even though he still only understood a fraction of it. He didn't mind; he enjoyed seeing the girl's passion.

One evening, after about a week of working, Nei Rin led him down the connecting corridor and into the Alliance laboratory. Kol was surprised when she pulled herself onto a stool near the largest work table and began looking over the datapads the scientists had left after ending their day's work.

"How much of that do you know how to work?" asked Kol. He didn't expect to see her use Alliance technology so readily. Master Shaper Neshri Yim refused to work their cold metal datapads at all and insisted his assistants transfer the data to his organic qahsas.

"I can work them easily," the Yuuzhan Vong girl said as she tapped the buttons and scoured the screen. "I have seen you use them often enough."

"Okay. But how much of that do you, you know, understand?"

"How much do you understand, Jeedai?"

More of the words, less of the meaning, but he got her point. Nei Rin went back to reading over the datapad. Kol shifted awkwardly as he stood in the dark laboratory. He didn't know what the scientists would do if they found the two children in here after hours. He didn't think it would be anything severe- they were all on the same side after all- but it would still be embarrassing to get caught.

While Nei Rin worked he closed his eyes and stretched out in the Force. It didn't come as naturally to him as it did to Nat, let alone Jaina or Tahiri, but after slowing his breathing and calming his mind he could search for other people nearby. He felt minds still awake but distant: the Alliance researchers, his great-aunt and Tahiri, the Jedi who helped run the facility. Of the Yuuzhan Vong shapers and the girl next to him he felt nothing. That bothered Jedi who came to Zonama Sekot to the first time but it didn't worry Kol. Partially he was used to it, but more importantly he believed the assurances from Tahiri and Jaina that the Yuuzhan Vong did exist in the Force, in their own way, even if they'd been effectively quarantined to a different plane of it when their race turned to war. Kol didn't understand what that meant exactly, or how it had worked, but was certain Nei Rin had a mind and soul just like he did, even if his senses were too limited to find it. He hoped that one day these people would be able to go back into a galaxy that accepted them. It would heal the wounds in countless hearts and maybe even heal the Force too.

It was a hope sweet enough to get lost in, and when Kol eventually opened his eyes he found the stool and table vacated. He looked around and found Nei Rin hunched by desk in a corner.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Kol whispered.

"Is there a problem?" She kept looking at the new datapad she'd found.

"Everything at that station belongs to that one assistant, Rennis."

"And?"

"I don't know. He might keep his personal stuff in there."

"Why would I want to read personal things? I am shaper. This file here is very scientific."

"Well. Okay then." Kol still didn't like it but he wasn't sure how to tear her away.

"Is there a problem with Assistant Rennis?"

"No. I mean, I don't know. He doesn't like me, that's all."

She glanced up from her pad. "Why would he dislike you, Jeedai?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm a Jedi."

"Foolish reason. Your people liberating mine from our bloodthirsty false gods."

"I know, but some people… well, that have their reasons. Or think they do."

"Like they have reasons to dislike the Yuuzhan Vong?"

"No. I mean, yes, kind of-"

"I understand what you mean." Nei Rin looked back at the datapad. As she kept reading she mused, "We all hope this project can mark a new cooperation. If we succeed in restoring this ecosystem together it would be a wonder. If we could restore the ecosystems on the all the Alliance worlds my people seeded during the war…"

She trailed off; apparently something on the pad had grabbed her attention. Kol saw her point clearly. The situation on Arquilla that had tangled up Nat and Arlen was a perfect example. The Duros and Tynnans there wouldn't have to fight if they could just go back to their homeworlds. And if the Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong together could make that possible-

"Ah," said Nei Rin.

"Ah? Ah what?" He looked over her shoulder. The text on the pad was gibberish to him.

"This datapad. It collects a thorough genetic analysis of nearly sixty different samples of Yuuzhan Vong-form life. Plants, fungi, animals, us." She tapped her chest.

"Okay? And?"

"There is a program here. It runs simulations predicting the interaction between our biots and different artificial and naturally-occurring substances from Alliance worlds."

Kol still didn't get it. "What's the problem?"

She put down the pad and looked at him. "Jeedai, all the substances being tested are poisons."

"But… what kind of poisons? I mean, lots of stuff that's harmful to Vongformed life is harmless to humans and vice versa. Right?" He was pretty sure he'd heard that before.

"The test substances…. Many of them are innocuous if used on species from your galaxy, but all are predicted as harmful to Yuuzhan Vong."

There seemed no good explanation for that. "What should we do?"

She picked up the datapad. "We must show the Master Shaper. And the Master Jeedai."

"Wait, wait, let's just…. Think about this."

"They must see this. Now."

"Hold on. Let's just wait until tomorrow morning, when they're all awake and thinking clearly. And you can't take that datapad. Rennis would notice."

"Can you copy the files?"

"I think so. Hold on." Thanks to his week as an errand-boy, Kol knew the scientists kept a drawer with spare blank data-cards. He found a card, plugged it into the datapad, and copied all the data he could.

"We'll show this Jaina and Tahiti first thing tomorrow," Kol told her. "After that he'll probably want to talk to Rennis and the other researchers. There could be a good explanation for this."

"I would like to hear it," Nei Rin said darkly.

"Yeah," Kol whispered, "Me too."