When the round hatch cracked open light fell inside the crippled escape pod, blinding her. Shuddering from cold and huddled in one corner, Ania shielded her eyes until she dared crack her fingers and peek through.
"Just one in here," a voice said. Two faces were visible through the open hatch, looking inside. One was green, spiny, with a long snout. Rodian. The second was flat and brown with leathery skin. A Nikto. Travelling with her parents across the galaxy, Ania had seen just about everything.
"It's just a child," said the second voice, the Nikto's. "A girl."
"Are you sure?" asked the Rodian.
"Sure I'm sure. You can't tell?"
"Humans all look the same to me."
The Nikto gave a suffering sigh, then reached into the pod. "Come here, girl. Take my hand."
Ania stared at it. This felt like a dream. Everything felt like a dream since her grandfather had followed her out of Fast Start's cockpit. Maybe she really was dreaming, or maybe she was dead.
"Take my hand, come on," the Nikto said.
There was no place else to go. She reached out, took it, and let him pull her out of the pod. Her legs trembled and she readied herself against the pod's exterior. They were in some big hangar space, where several more escape capsules had been brought in.
"W-Where am I?" she asked.
"You're on the station. Torn Station," the Rodian said. "We're trying to clean up the big mess the Imps left behind."
"We should bill them," grumbled the Nikto.
"Yeah, I'm sure they'd be happy to pay. Listen, girl, what ship were you on? Do you know if anybody else made it out?"
She forced her mind to focus on those last awful moments. Alarms wailing, lights dying, the ship losing gravity and then atmosphere. Her grandfather, that slow white-bearded old man who'd shown up out of nowhere, had suddenly moved faster than anyone was supposed to, pushing through the air on unseen power, propelling himself and Ania toward the escape pods.
She remembered panicking and asking where her father was. Even then, deep down, she must have known he was dead. And her mother-
She'd never even seen the ship her mother was using. It was her grandfather's, she remembered. That just brought Ania's thoughts spiraling to the old man. She remembered him throwing her without really throwing her. She remembered being carried by an invisible force and thrown into the escape pod, and she remembered the hatch sealing automatically as the hull breached. She remembered her last sight before it closed: the old man looking relieved.
Ania tried to remember her grandfather's name and realize she'd never heard it. Now she never would.
"Hey, kid," said the Rodian. "Your ship. You remember the name?"
"Take it easy. She's shocked out of her mind." In a softer voice the Nikto asked, "Do you have any family, girl? Anyone who might've come through?"
Not her father. Not her grandfather. "M-My mother," she got out. "Maybe…"
"Okay. That's good. What's her name?"
"Marin. Marin Solo."
"Okay, thanks. We'll see what we can find. What's your name?"
"Ania."
"Okay, good. Come on with us. Come over here."
The Nikto put a hand on her shoulder and guided her away. She stumbled toward the far bulkhead where several dozen beings of different species were huddled, all shocked and trembling, survivors just like her. She scanned their faces for her mother's and didn't find it. She was the only young person there and she stood apart from them all. She leaned back against the wall, slumped down, and hugged her knees to her chest.
Her father dead. Her mother gone. She'd been with them, always, as long as she could remember. She'd never even tried to imagine life without them.
The Rodian and Nikto stepped away, then bent close for conversation. They seemed to think they were out of earshot but Ania could just pick up their conversation.
"We've only got a couple more pods," the Nikto said. "I don't think we're gonna find her mom."
"Yeah, me neither."
"What do you want to do with her?"
"How am I supposed to know? That's not my job."
"Stang it, she's a kid."
"She doesn't look that young. Let her fend for herself."
"You said all humans look the same."
The Rodian shrugged. "They kid's not my problem and she's not yours. She's just one more nobody."
The Nikto nodded grimly, acquiesced. "There's lots of lost people today."
"Exactly. It's not our problem. She'll fend for herself, just like everybody else. Come on, let's open the last pods."
The walked away and didn't look back. Ania hugged her legs to her chest, pressed her chin into her kneecaps, and tried to stop shivering. She wanted to deny all those horrible things they'd said but she couldn't. They were exactly right. She had no father, no mother. No ship. No droid friends. No one to help and no one to trust.
Ania Solo was on her own.
-{}-
Though the adults in the room were all talking over her and past her, Marasiah tried to follow them with utmost dignity. She was still Princess of the Empire and heir to her father's throne. She had to be. She had no idea what else she could be if she wasn't.
"We'll have to move fast to establish allies," her father said. "Veed and his Sith masters are consolidating control of the fleet but if we move quickly we can sway admirals' allegiance."
They were aboard her father's star destroyer. After their flight from Coruscant, they'd met up with Admiral Fenel's flagship Resolute in Bastion's orbit. The admiral, Treis Sinde, and her grandmother had joined them on the Jagged Fel.
"I know Admiral Challon is with us," Fenel said. "And General Jaeger. I can't speak for Sha Dun. I assume Yage is a lost cause."
Her father nodded grimly. "We may be able to sway Sha Dun yet. If we can hold Bastion, we can draw others to our cause. The people of the Empire respect strength."
"With all due respect," her uncle Hogrum said, "Krayt and Veed control Coruscant and the heart of the old Alliance. They have the strong position. Ours is weak."
"We will only get weaker if we don't stand and fight," Fenel snapped.
"I wasn't suggesting we run, admiral."
"If we make a stand as Bastion, battle will come," Marasiah's grandmother said. She'd been listening thoughtfully until now, and the former empress' words commanded attention. "Admiral Fenel, do you have the strength to defend Bastion against a siege?"
"With Admiral Challon's ships and my own, yes, I believe we do."
"Against all of Veed's fleets? Against the Sith?"
"The Imperial Knights are not afraid to battle Sith," Draco said, but Marasiah caught a little tremor in his voice.
"If Krayt and Veed try to take Bastion from us, it will use considerable resources," Roan said. "They'll be spread thin elsewhere."
"That will do us no good," Hogrum said. "Who else can fight them? Who can we ally with? The Jedi? Admiral Stazi's renegades?"
"Stazi and the Jedi can't even help themselves," said Sinde mournfully. "They'd only drag us down."
"They are also not our allies," Fennel said. "His Majesty is the rightful Emperor. For him, and us, there are only servants and traitors."
They were harsh words, but Marasiah's father nodded agreement. "There's no point in working with Stazi or the Jedi now. We must consolidate our fleets and find those within Krayt's empire who will help us quietly."
"That is true," said the elder Marasiah. "But what about Bastion?"
"We can hold it," Fennel said firmly. "With all the ships still loyal to Your Majesty, we can withstand a siege, even if it lasts months. Years."
"And then what?" asked Hogrum. "If we throw everything into defending Bastion we can do nothing else."
"We can't just sit on our hands and let Krayt have the capital," the admiral snarled.
"Yes," the emperor's mother said. "We can. And we should."
Everyone stared in surprise, everyone except the emperor himself. Roan said, "Go on."
The elder Marasiah sighed. "A stand at Bastion is what the Sith want. They can trap us here and keep us impotent. We'll be alone. Who will rally to our cause? The people of the Alliance won't care. No one will. Your empire, Roan, the empire of your father and grandfather, will become irrelevant before it's ground to nothing."
They were harsh words. Fenel and Draco looked ready to interject, but Roan's expression was thoughtful. Marasiah realized this was what her father had been thinking all along.
"There are other options," Roan said. "If we surrender Bastion- temporarily- it will free our resources for other actions. Hit and run attacks. Raids to gather supplies."
"We'd fight like insurgents, then." Fenel's voice dripped distaste.
But the Emperor nodded. "We are not in the position to challenge Krayt yet. But we can bide our time. Rebuild. I know these Sith. They will turn on each other in time, and when they do we'll be ready to save the galaxy from their chaos."
"Where will we go until then?" Draco asked. "Where can we hide?"
"The Unknown Regions," the elder Marasiah said. "We still have family there."
"Chiss family," Sinde specified. "What about Fehlauur? He's loyal to Krayt, just like the rest of the Moff Council."
"There are factions within the Chiss Ascendancy," Roan said. "Frequently, one knows nothing of what the other is doing."
It sounded a little like the Empire, but the princess kept that thought to herself. Dignified and silent, she listened to the adults go on. The emperor articulated his tentative plan. Only Fenel and Sinde dared question parts of it, and even then with the most polite language. By the end of the meeting the plan had become an order, and everyone broke off to do their part in carrying it out. The Imperial Knights and all the emperor's loyalists were to withdraw from Bastion, save a handful of spies who'd stay behind and feign allegiance to Krayt.
And then all of them would leave the Empire behind for places unknown, with only a promise of return to keep them going.
No one was excited to carry out these orders. Marasiah could feel that clearly, but they all did it because that was their duty. After the chamber had emptied of everyone but the princess and her father, Roan turned to her and said, "You were very quiet, daughter."
"I was listening."
"I know, but you have to learn to do more than that. What are your thoughts on all this?"
"I think… you made the right choice."
"Why?"
"It's what Grandmother said. If we bottle all our ships to defend the capital we can't do anything else. We'd be sure to lose. So we have to gather the people loyal to you, regroup, and hope."
"Hope?"
That word shouldn't have sounded so bitter. "Hope the Sith turn on each other. Hope your other admirals realize what a mistake it is, siding with them. But…"
She hesitated. "Go on," he said.
"The Sith fight with treachery and deceit." She felt chill and hugged herself. "They strike through the people closest to us. How can you trust anyone?"
Roan laid both hands on her shoulders. "I should have seen through Niin. I will always regret that. I will make sure the people we bring to Chiss space are loyal."
Marasiah wasn't sure how he could guarantee that. She wasn't sure of anything. Even while this war had raged she'd felt safe on Bastion, impregnable like an emperor's daughter was supposed to. Her mother's death had changed all that and she wondered if she'd ever feel safe again. But she sensed her father needed affirmation, so she gave him a nod.
"One day you will become Empress," Roan said. "By the time that day arrives, I will have regained what I have lost. You will inherit it all, Marasiah. The entire galaxy will be yours."
She felt nothing but hard conviction from him. That gave no comfort either. She tried to think of what she could become besides princess and monarch, but nothing came. She was no longer sure if she wanted to walk that path, but she'd have to regardless. For Marasiah, like her father, the path had been set from the start.
-{}-
Cade Skywalker drifted through the void and waited to die.
Black space spread around him, dotted with endless stars. He'd never seen so many. There was nothing between him and them except empty space and the thin transparent faceplate of his vacuum suit. The far light seemed cold and distant, the darkness welcoming. His body spun slowly as it drifted and sometimes he'd tilt to face the green and brown world beneath him, but Cade could never look at Ossus for long. The pain of his father's death there would come back, and he'd turn his eyes against to the dark.
He didn't know how long he'd been in the void. It had probably been days. At first he'd attempted a Force trance to conserve oxygen. He'd struggled against his fresh and awful memories, but eventually settled into a vague and troubled sleep. When Cade awoke he was still in the void, still over Ossus. His lips had gone so dry they'd cracked, and he'd passed beyond hunger to an aching hollowness. His body was so weak he could barely move his limbs. The next time he drifted off to sleep he knew he'd never wake.
Cade found he didn't mind dying like this, alone in the void. It was peaceful here, far from everything. Far from the Sith who wanted to kill him, the greedy Imperials who wanted the galaxy for themselves, the Jedi who wanted to solve everyone's problems and made them worse instead.
Far from his father.
He stared into the dark to forget, but sometimes the memories came back. Fighting with his father and Master Sazen on the landing platform. His father barking at him, commanding him to run. The shuttle packed full of terrified younglings and Shado wrestling with the controls.
The pain of his father's dying moments.
All that came after that was awful too. Master Sazen had been dying from his injuries. Cade had refused to let that happen. Desperate and aching and angry from his father's death, he'd called on the Force to mend Sazen's wounds. The strength that had passed from him to Sazen had been a fierce, painful energy, but it had felt good. Dark or light, it didn't matter to Cade. It had saved his teacher.
The mending energy passed, but the anger had not. In a red rage, Cade had grabbed his lightsaber and rushed to the Twintail fighter tucked into the shuttle's hold. TIE fighters were attacking the ship from all sides, preventing their escape. Shado had shouted at Cade, telling him that to take one fighter against so many TIEs was suicide.
We take what is given, Cade had said. He'd learned that from his father.
So Cade had gone into the void. With his starfighter and his anger he'd shot down fighter after fighter, taking lives and loving it, all the while knowing it would never bring his father back.
But anger gave him power. Anger gave him purpose. Cade took what he was given.
When his Twintail exploded he'd grabbed the ejection lever and shot himself into space. He couldn't remember why he'd done that. When his ship had burst around him he could have stayed where he was and died with it in one simple white-hot flash. Then he could have joined his father in the Force, or dissolved into oblivion. Either would have been simpler than living.
Maybe it was so he could have this moment. Cade was going to die in the void but he was at peace. He felt drained of dark anger as he floated, hollow and cold, emptied even of grief. Only memories could hurt him, and soon they'd be gone.
This is good, he told himself. This is alright. Better to die in the void that live the legacy that had been left to him.
Time passed. Thought and memory faded.
And then it stopped. Cade didn't notice at first. Ossus, which had been drifting slowly across his vision as he drifted through the void, was holding steady before him. Then something glared in the corners of his sight. His eyes fluttered shut, then opened slowly. Bright light shone from behind him and glared on the backs of his hands, the shoulders of his suit.
He found the Force and twisted his body around. The bright light hurt in his eyes and he raised a hand to block it. There was a single starship ahead of him, long-bodied, rugged. He tried to feel the minds inside. They weren't Jedi, weren't Sith. They were strangers who meant nothing to him.
The ship grew larger. They were reeling him in with a tractor beam. Quiet sadness filled Cade Skywalker as he realized he was going to live.
-{}-
Hyperspace slipped past as an endless river of shadow and light. K'Kruhk watched it from the cockpit of the Sekotan flier and felt as though he had been dragged in its undertow his entire life and never fully emerged from the current.
A century and a half ago the Jedi Order had fallen, a dark Empire had risen, and K'Kruhk had found himself a survivor entrusted with the care of frightened younglings. He's done everything he could to shepherd them to safety and for a time it had appeared he'd succeeded. But in the end he'd failed them, and he'd spent decades crippled by that failure. It had taken him years more to become a true Jedi again, and to fully participate in Luke Skywalker's new Order. At first he'd been terrified that history would repeat, but gradually his paranoia had waned and he'd allowed himself to enjoy being a Jedi again.
And now, a century and a half later, K'Kruhk was back in the same place again.
He had every reason to despair, yet as he stared at the endless river he found that he did not. He let the river take him back in time, a century and a half, to a place of darkness and light. In his mind it was still vivid after all these many years:
Mortars scream through the skies of Saleucami. Shelling of the Republic redoubt has not stopped for ten standard hours. It is midday but smoke and ash fill the sky and swallow daylight. The explosions never stop.
He shelters from them beneath a rocky overhang. Master A'Sharad Hett sits beside him, tired head bent forward, legs splayed out. He clutches a lightsaber with either hand, but has barely the strength to grasp them.
He asks the human, "Do you believe the rumor that there is an architect of this war behind Count Dooku?"
Hett blinks himself awake. "You mean a Sith?"
He nods gravely.
Hett considers this. His eyes grow clouded and eventually he says, "I think this war doesn't need Sith. The corruption of the Senate, the greed of the Trade Federation and Techno Union, Master Dooku's pride… The galaxy is full of darkness and chaos. Master Windu says that is the natural state of things, and that we Jedi must create light and peace ourselves. Only through us can there be order."
It sounds terribly like the so-called wisdom Sora Bulq and Count Dooku's other minions have tried to spread. With great power comes the desire to enforce one's will on other beings, and one can easily slip into the darkness thinking he is doing light.
"Is it truly the Jedi's order to give?" he asks.
Hett looks down at his lightsabers. His hands tighten around them.
"Sometimes," Hett says. "Perhaps."
He makes a low rumble, indicating disapproval. "Such thinking may lead you do a dire end, Master Hett. Remember the fate of your father."
Unlike most Jedi, A'Sharah Hett knew his parents. Sharad Hett was a Jedi turned Tusken, killed in a battle against Tatooine's gang lords. It is a sensitive spot, and he immediately regrets jabbing it.
"You never knew my father," Hett says harshly.
"I know. I apologize. But remember… with the desire for control comes enslavement to ego. The conviction of righteousness becomes a delusion that justifies the worst horrors."
"I know all that, Master K'Kruhk." The human sighs.
"The Force is so much more than a tool. It is our sustenance. As long as we remain open to the light it will nurture and guide us, even in our darkest moments."
Hett looks at him sidelong, suspicious. "When did you become an optimist?"
"I'm endeavoring to change my ways." Lips flex around his tusks, a Whiphid smile. "It is not easy, but someone need to be one, in times like this."
"Maybe so." Hett smiles too, but it's very tired. "And if this war really is one giant Sith trap?"
He feels a chill. Optimism can only do so much. "Then there are darker times ahead. But we'll still have the Force. As long as it speaks to us, we can endure."
Hett looks wistfully at the black clouds, the flash of distant bombs. He sighs and says, "You came to me about doing a scouting mission."
"That's right."
"Then it sounds like we've chatted long enough. Thank you, Master. I'll try to remember all that."
With a groan, Hett pushes to his feet. He still has a lightsaber still in either hand. Together they set out across the rocky field the narrow place on the horizon where darkness meets light.
K'Kruhk stepped out of the cockpit and into the flyer's hold. Every head turned toward him and every face pleaded for comfort. Among all those children Khat Lah stood out, but his need was the same as theirs.
"It will be another day before we reach the hidden temple," K'Kruhk told everyone. "Don't be afraid. We will get there, and we will be safe from the Empire. All your fellow apprentices should be there too."
He projected strength and warmth in the Force. On most of their young minds it worked easily, but Khat Lah was still full of questions. He made a gesture and the Yuuzhan Vong withdrew himself from young Eli Horn's side. Together the warrior and the Jedi Master stepped into the empty cockpit. Outside, light and shadow continued to flow.
"The apprentices must stay in the hidden temple," K'Kruhk said. "It is the only safe place for them. They are the future of the Jedi. I only hope enough masters survived to train them. As for you, Khat Lah, you cannot only sense the Force, you can use it. You showed that on Ossus."
"Perhaps," the warrior said uncertainly. "I do not know what I did. I willed the lightsaber to move… and it moved."
"You're just beginning to unlock your potential. Do you want to continue?"
Uncertainty vanished. Khat Lah nodded.
"That is good. I'm sure we can find a place for you at the hidden temple, if you wish."
He looked reluctant. "I am no youngling. I understand why they must hide… but I would feel a coward to do myself."
"What would you do instead?"
"I know Master Nei Rin was away from Ossus during the attack. She may be on Euceron still, or elsewhere. I want to find out if she survived."
"Of course. We may go looking for her."
"We, Master Jeedai?"
"Yes. We, I think." He looked out the viewport to the blurring dark and light. "I'd thought I'd seen and experienced everything the Force could offer… But you are something new, Khat Lah. I cannot understand you at all, and you have no idea how precious that is to someone as old as I am. I would teach you, if you'd let me. And, hopefully, I can learn from you as well."
The Yuuzhan Vong bobbed his head. "I would be honored. Only…"
"Yes?"
"I do not want to put you in danger, Master."
The Whiphid snorted. "I am not so old I cannot take care of myself."
"Yes. But these are dark times for the Jedi."
"I know that better than you over could. I have seen the destruction of the Jedi Order once before, but I have also seen it rise. Remember this above all else. We who use the Force are not meant to be its masters. We are as fallible as any other beings and poorly suited to rule. The Force is more than a tool. It is our sustenance. Stay open to it, and it will guide you through these harrowed times."
K'Kruhk drew deep breath and looked out the viewport, where light and dark continued to flow. "As long as the Force speaks to us, the Jedi will endure."
