Jariah Syn didn't consider himself to have a long list of virtues, and patience wasn't on it. As soon as Cade and his companion passed through the gate and disappeared into a wall of light, he started getting anxious for their return. They said time passed differently on the other side of the gate, that it moved faster somehow, which skewed Jariah's expectations the wrong way from the start. Hours went by and they didn't come back through the gate. Night turned to day and back to night, and they still hadn't come back.
He wasn't the only restless one. Deliah tried to distract herself with busy work on Mynock. She'd enlisted Lowbacca, and when Jariah found them they'd climbed out on the staship's red wing to remove the tracking device placed there. After their standoff with Eli Horn on Tython, they and the Sith apprentice had placed trackers on each other's ships to ensure that neither tried to run out on their awkward partnership; now that the Sith kid was in parts unknown, it seemed like a good time to remove his handiwork.
Jariah crawled out of Mynock's open hatch and stepped across the broad wing toward Deliah and Lowbacca. He watched as the Zeltron's cutting-torch sheared through the tracker's magnetic clamps and the Wookiee pulled the thing free with a mighty tug.
"Glad to have that off," Jariah called.
"You and me both." Deliah shut off her torch and rose to her feet.
"You want to work on the other one?"
He jabbed a thumb toward the Sith's scout craft, parked next to Mynock just past the canyon rim.
Lowbacca gave a roar, and Deliah agreed, "Yeah, best to keep it on. Never know if that cheeka will make a run for it."
"She doesn't look like she's going anywhere. First she finds out her buddies are all dead, then her boytoy leaves her behind." Jariah gave a snarling smile. "Poor schutta looks like some kid who lost her favorite toy. Almost feel bad for her. Almost."
Lowbacca added a few more whuffs. Never drop your guard around a Sith, especially one who still had two lightsabers.
"Yeah, that's a point," he admitted. Stepping to the edge of the wing he looked down, past the canyon rim, at the gate below and the torchlights scattered around it. Some Yuuzhan Vong and Kwa were still gathered at the arch, as though keeping vigil. Talon was nowhere to be seen and probably sulking in her cave. Jao Assam and the droids were likewise absent.
"Is Threepio still doing translation work?" he asked.
"Best I know," said Deliah. "I think the Imp's with him."
"Studying ancient lore, no doubt." He looked at Lowbacca. "How come you're not down there, being all scholarly?"
The Wookiee explained in a series of woofs and barks that he preferred to keep his mind busy in different ways. He'd always been a tinkerer, more interested in machines than ancient history.
"You're a Wook after my own heart," said Deliah, "But what all those old scrolls might have something that'll get the Force back. Don't you care about that?"
Lowbacca huffed. Of course he cared. When the gate had lit bright he'd barely restrained the urge to leap through it, but he was also dealing with power far behind the ability of a mortal Jedi to understand. If anyone could come close it was probably Cade, so for now he'd resigned himself to wait until Skywalker's return.
Jariah still wasn't comfortable thinking of his friend as a cosmic keystone, and neither was Deliah. The Zeltron muttered, "We'll just see what they come up with. Hope it won't be too long."
Lowbacca roared a question. Deliah and Jariah exchanged glances, and the Zeltron shook her head. "We could make another run out of the system and get some updates… but I'd rather not. I wanna be here when that gate lights up and Cade comes back."
Lowbacca woofed. Their devotion to their friend was admirable.
Jariah wasn't used to compliments from a Jedi. He'd once hated Jedi passionately for killing his dad, but he told himself he'd gotten over that and accepted that his pa hadn't been the hero he'd remembered.
"Well," he grunted, "Cade's the koochoo who dragged us into this. Someone's gotta watch out for him."
Something moved down below, and Jariah leaned over Mynock's wing for a better look. In flickering torchlight he spotted the Sith cheeka herself walking slowly across the canyon floor toward the gate. A pair of Yuuzhan Vong warders stayed exactly three meters behind her, and a few more stepped closer.
But Darth Talon didn't do anything. She just stopped in front of the arch, stood there, and stared at it. After a minute she sat down in a cross-legged pose, like she was meditating, and continued to watch the gate.
Gradually the Yuuzhan Vong around her relaxed. Jariah looked away too. Even her kind was groping for answers. It should have been a comfort, because it meant she was less dangerous, but instead it was a reminder that whatever was happening on the other side of the gate, it was far, far beyond what Jariah could wrap his head around.
Not that he wanted to. He was a man who lived his own life and had no desire to be tugged around by old gods or a shapeless cosmic will. It would be a bad day for the galaxy if any of those mystic powers ever met a barve like him. Whatever was going on there, it was something he was better off not understanding.
Still, Jariah hoped there was someone out there, on some plane of existence, who could.
-{}-
One moment she was asleep, buried beneath bed-covers that were warm and soft. She stirred at the sound of thunder, distant and dull against the sharp patter of rain against the bedroom window. Then the thunder sounded louder, and over the thunder was the rattling of objects on the bedstand inches from her head. Then, finally, came a roar overhead, only barely muffled by walls and ceiling, as something tore the air apart.
That was when she realized it was not a dream. She rolled onto her stomach, pushed hands against mattress and shoved herself up. She twisted and threw bedsheets off her, off her husband. He still lay asleep, his back facing her. Thunder sounded again, closer, and the building tremored.
"Jacov," she said, shaking his shoulder, "Jacov, get up!"
He shuddered, opened his eyes, rolled to face her but didn't rise. "What? What's going on?"
Thunder again. She rolled completely out of bed, raced bare feet across carpet to the window. She threw open the curtain to show the cityscape outside. Lights moved through the night sky, exhaust-flares from overhead spacecraft. Fires were scattered incandescence across the citys and smoke was invisible against billowed clouds. War had come to their home at last.
It was the realization of her most awful fears. For a second horror froze her; then she spun to her husband, still sleep-stiff and struggling out of bed. "We need to get to the basement," she snapped. "We need to get Kyra!"
(And that was when Kyra started to understand. This was a dream but more vivid than life; every sight and smell and sound seemed crystalized, perfected.)
Jacov fell out of bed and barely landed on two feet. She was already past him, pushing through the door and sprinting down the short corridor to her daughter's bedroom. Her loose nightgown flailed around her as she pushed through and half-fell onto Kyra's bed. The girl was fast asleep but her mother's shove woke her up. Kyra jerked half-upright and met her mother's terrified face with a blank stare.
(I look so small, Kyra thought.)
"Kyra, come on, you have to get up," she said, and wrestled the five-year-old girl out of the bed.
"What's happening?" Kyra whined, confused. "What's wrong?"
"Marla!" a voice called from behind, "Do you have her?"
"I have her," she said, and steered Kyra by the shoulders out the door.
"What's happening?" the little girl repeated. She twisted her shoulders and stareed up at her mother with big dark eyes. They pleaded for explanation and compelled total protection.
(It should be impossible to see through the eyes of the dead.)
"I've got jackets!" Jacov called from the hall. She pushed Kyra ahead. In the dim overhead light they could see him at the far end, hoisting an armful of long coats.
"Where are we going?" Kyra asked, hoping for a concrete answer.
"We're going down to the basement," said Jacov. They gathered at the door and threw on light jackets to protect them from the cool and rain.
"But why?" the girl whined as her mother pulled arms through sleeves.
Over Kyra's head, she exchanged glances with her husband. There was no way to explain to Kyra that the city was being bombed and the war between the Empire and Alliance- a war neither of them had a stake in or really understood has finally reached them.
(It should be impossible to feel what my mother felt.)
"Something's happening, a really bad storm," Jacov said. Thunder pounded through the walls. "We'll be safer underground. Let's go."
He took Kyra's hand, opened the door, and pulled her through. All three of them stepped onto the exterior walkways that tier the outside of the apartment block. Wind and cold rain lashed their faces and pattered their coats. Jacov led the way toward the lift shaft at the far end of the building. They kept Kyra pressed against them as they hurried, terrified anything might happen to her, even here.
(Still dreaming and twisting in her coiled bedspread, Kyra realized that anything is possible with the Force.)
A howling sound filled the air as they got close to the lift shaft. As Jacov stabbed the button to summon the car, she dared look skyward. The sky was still dark, but she could see three starfighters flying low. They unleashed chains of green laser blasts that lanced down into the city, disappeared for a moment inside the night-dark cityscape, then became gouts of flame that tore up streets and collapsed buildings.
(Small thrust-flares, close together, tinted red. TIE fighters, Kyra thought. She'd never known for sure until now.)
The lift- which has been shuddering up the tube toward their floor- suddenly stopped. She gasped as lights began to go out across the city. The plague of total darkness spread fast and she realized they must have knocked out a power control station. She looked back down the walkway and saw all the lights inside the apartment tower have gone out.
"Dammit!" Jacov swore and punched the lift control panel. "We'll have to take the stairs! Come on, hurry!"
This time Kyra didn't protest and didn't question. She was too scared to do anything except run with her parents halfway back down the walkway until they reach the entrance to the stairwell. Eleven storeys down to the basement. Steps were tricky for a five year old girl with short legs.
(I never knew what was going on, Kyra remembered. She recalled that much at least from that horrible night. The stairs kept coming and coming fast and she was terrified her rain-slick shoes would slip and she'd fall into an unstoppable dive. Emergency lights in the stairwell were so dim, and it was nearly impossible to see each step. She didn't remember how tight her parents had held both hands, or how much they'd slowed their own descent to help her.)
They'd only got down a flight or two before the stairwell became suddenly crammed with people, all of them trying to clamber down to the same basement. Suddenly they found themselves lagging behind a pair of old, stout Jeodu; they took up nearly the whole width of the stairs and were causing a bottleneck of frightened, desperate people behind them.
Holding tight to Kyra's hand, looking back all the time, she saw the terror and urgency in the people piling behind them and became afraid it might start a panic, a stampede.
Jacov saw it too. He let go of Kyra's hand, fell a step behind them, and gave her shoulder a soft shove. "Get her through. I'll catch up."
She gave her husband a short nod, then slid her body sideways and barely slipped past the plodding old Jeodu. She tugged Kyra through the gap; the girl stumbled on the slick step and fell into her mother's breast.
(Kyra remembered that too. Soft and warm and comforting, the last touch of her mother she ever knew. And now that she knew the moment was coming she yearned to break away. She wanted the dream, the nightmare, the vision, whatever this was to end, to end now, before it became too horrible to bear. Before she was forced to live her mother's death.)
She lifted her daughter up, held her close with both hands, and carried her down the slight of clear steps. There was still a crowd filling the stairwell ahead but at least the crowd was plodding ahead slowly but surely to the safety of the basement shelter. Still clutching Kyra tight, she allowed herself a moment of relief that they might get through this night alive.
That was when the world broke in two. The entire stairwell rattled, slamming her and Kyra into one wall and sending others off their feet. Suddenly rain pounded down on them and she looked in confusion and shock and disbelief. A cloud of dust fell on her upturned face; she took one arm off her coughing child to brush her own face clear, and when vision returned she saw night-black clouds underlilt by a burning city, starfighters howling horribly overhead. The stairwell climbed up one full flight, then disappeared. Above that, walls crumbled and smoke furled from the burning wreckage of the metal stairs themselves.
She couldn't see her husband. No one was coming up behind her, not even the old Jeodu couple, but through the darkness and smoke she couldn't be sure.
Indecision tore her, stealing time she couldn't afford. She looked back down the stairs and saw the crowd surging forward, more intent than ever to escape into the basement shelter. She carried Kyra to the next landing, bent low, and set the child down.
She stared into her child's eyes, stroked her soot-darkened face, and said, "Go ahead. I'll be right behind you."
"Where's Daddy?" Kyra asked.
(The sound of her own voice made Kyra want to cry.)
"Daddy's fine, I'm going to get him now." She tried to sound brave for her daughter. "Go ahead, I'll be right behind you."
"But Mommy-"
"Go," she said, and gently pushed her daughter down the first stair. Kyra stumbled two steps more, into the back of a younger Jeodu, who didn't seem to notice the human girl clinging to the back of his robe.
She took one last look at her daughter, then turned and charged back up the stairs to find her husband.
(And now Kyra twisted in her bedsheets, sweating in the cool air, silently screaming for her mother to stop and turn around and go back to her daughter. Everything could have been different if she had. Everything could have been better. Just a few steps the other way.)
She bounded up the stairs, three at a time. She plunged into choking, blinding smoke and tried to bat it away with her hands. She stumbled and fell and caught herself on a metal stair-plank. She glanced back to see what she'd tripped over and saw the body of one of the old Jeodu, awkwardly slanted across the stairwell. She couldn't be sure from the haze, but it looked like green blood was gushing from a wound in his conical head.
She panted her husband's name while crawling further up the stair on all fours. In her panic she barely noticed the growing howl of another TIE fighter.
(The vision wouldn't change. Screaming and sobbing in her nightmare Kyra begged the Force to end the vision and let her wake. She begged it for mercy.)
She climbed up and up and suddenly she was at the place where stairs turned to twisted flash-melted metal. Her hands found the metal before her eyes and the heat burned her palms instantly black. Pain was overwhelming. She tried to scream out but when she sucked in for air all she got was choking smoke.
(The Force was not merciful.)
The TIE's howl was so loud it erased nearly everything. She heard the lasers a half-second before they hit. The concussive force of the explosion slammed her in the back before she knew what was happening, and then she was in the air, arcing through it. She was thrown out of the stairwell, over the crumbling walls, and onto the slanted wreckage of an outer walkway. She landed on one shoulder hard enough to crack it, and the ribs beneath her twisted arm shattered. More pain, agonizing. Her body, too limp and broken to stand, rolled helplessly down the walkway before stopping.
She lay face-up. She tried to move her legs but something was broken. When she twisted her hips white pain shot up her spine. Something warm trickled out of her mouth and down the side of her face. It had to be blood. That was when she realized she was dying and could do nothing about it.
Nothing except stare into the rain and the black storm-clouds.
(Kyra felt her mother's death. She felt the agony of burnt hands and broken bones as just as if it had consumed her own body. Even worse than the physical pain was the knowledge that her husband was dead. Maybe her daughter was too, and if she'd survive Kyra would be without her parents or anyone else to care for her, an orphan helpless against a galaxy gone mad.)
Kyra's mother took a long time to die, and the vision held Kyra to the end. She felt the encroaching cold and darkness, and she felt the steady resignation that took her mother in her final moments. All the love, all the striving, all the sadness and joys of life had all been for nothing. She hated it but there was nothing she could do. The world crew colder and darker. Eventually- though not soon enough- even the pain went away.
By the time oblivion took her, the rain had stopped.
And then the Force released Kyra. The vision was gone but the pain was not, and she lay in her twisted bedrolls, curled into a fetal position, and trembled. Her mother's dying pains echoed through her nerves, as vivid as they'd been in the dream.
She felt someone crouched over her, Skywalker or Khat Lah, and she felt a hand caress her face. It seemed like someone was trying to use the Force to calm her and relieve the pain, and very gradually the echoes began to dim. She thought someone whispered soothing words, but she couldn't made them out.
Kyra lay there for hours until the memory of her mother's dying agony finally faded from her body. It was like a second death.
-{}-
The Sekotan flyer wrenched violently as its dovin basals struggled to swallow the latest round of laser blasts. The enemy had boxed them in on all sides like a pack of ravenous akk dogs. There was no escape now; the angry Duros militia was determined to make someone pay for the ruin of their world, and a shipful of Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong were the ideal victims.
In a way, he thought, they might deserve it for what they'd done. The Ossus Project promised paradise and had delivered hell. He still didn't understand how or why, but it was a disaster the Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong both would have to pay for.
In a rush of despair he felt they deserved to pay for it. Then he remembered his son Eli in the ship's hold, and the resolve to live returned to him.
It returned, as well, to Khat Lah. The young warrior standing beside him lurched forward and stroked the communications villip mounted on the pilot's organic console. The surface of the black orb rippled to take the form of a flat, scowling Duro face. This was Ren Burr, the militia captain he'd tried to negotiate with a minute ago.
"I am Khat Lah, warrior of the Yuuzhan Vong and architect of our actions on your world." It was a lie; Khat Lah was just a bodyguard for the shapers, nothing more. If anyone should take responsibility for this mess it was he- Reikar Horn, Jedi Knight- but Khat Lah proclaimed, "I will leave this ship and surrender myself to you if you let the others go."
He opened his mouth to tell Khat Lah not to be stupid but the Yuuzhan Vong held up a hand and asked Ren Burr, "Will you let them pass? You will have to destroy this ship otherwise. I offer myself as a sacrifice."
The captain's face twisted in indecision before he said, "Only when we have you in our possession."
"As long as you let them go, I will surrender peacefully. If you do not-" Khat Lah growled, bearing teeth, "I will not."
He shut off the connection and handed the villip to the fly's cop-pilot, who said, "Warrior, you honor us with your sacrifice."
"Go with the gods." Khat Lah snapped a salute, forearms crossed, wrists against shoulders. His companions returned it. Then he turned and hurried out of the cockpit.
He immediately followed Khat Lah. The flyer's main hold was packed with people, many of them wounded by the monstrous plants and animals that had sprung up on Duro like a nightmare made manifest. The Yuuzhan Vong was making straight for the dorsal airlock, taking long-legged steps over prone bodies, paying them no heed as he marched to his death. His companion followed after him, slowing just a second to look at this son. Eli was strapped into an impact couch affixed to the far wall. His five-year-old's feet danged over the edge and above the floor, making him seem even smaller than he already was.
(And Eli remembered this. His last image of his father is emblazed in his memory even after so many years. He remembered Khat Lah charging forward, determined toward some end he- Eli- did not then understand. And he remembered the way his father slowed, just a little, when his eye's locked with his son's.)
And as he looked at Eli he understood, truly, what had to be done. To protect his son and all these people aboard, he had to be a Jedi. He had to atone. He had to save lives and he'd failed to save them on Ossus. And in that instant he knew what he had to do. He could save all of them, even Khat Lah.
(And his father turned away, and Eli's heard broke. He knew what was coming next, and he knew that this dream, nightmare, impossibly vivid Force-vision, wouldn't release him until it was through.)
It was just a short turn from the hold to short hallway that ended in the airlock. As soon as they stepped toward it he said, "You can't do this, Khat Lah. I won't let you."
"There is nothing you can do for us, Jeedai. Do not worry. I am prepared for my fate." The young warrior looked proud and strong and fearless, like always, but he could hear the tremor of repressed fear in that voice.
"There are other ways out of this." Try to reason with him, even though it probably won't work.
"No, there are not," Khat Lah said.
The airlock and pressurization chamber was one of the few non-organic parts of the ship. Khat Lah tapped the metal control panel to open the metal door. He immediately opened the supply closet where the vacuum suits were kept.
Give him the offer, once last time. "You don't have to do this," he said from behind.
Khat Lah turned and looked the Jedi in the eye. "Among my sect, we revere no one more than the Jeedai Ganner, who stood bravely against thousands of Yuuzhan Vong and fought until they killed him, all so his Jeedai friend could escape. There is no higher act that sacrifice."
"It doesn't have to be yours."
"We both know it does, Jeedai."
He lowered his head, as though accepting defeat, then took a step back toward the chamber exit. Khat Lah relaxed and turned attention back to his vac suit.
(Don't do it, Eli screamed silently in his nightmare, but he could not stop his father's resolve.)
That was when he moved, locking one arm around Khat Lah and throwing the big warrior off-balance. Khat Lah dropped the suit and raised both arms to defend. He released the Yuuzan Vong, jump-stepped back, and raised one foot for a strong kick that sent the warrior stumbling out of the airlock vestibule and back into the corridor.
Before Khat Lah could spin around, he slammed the controls and locked the chamber door. With a snap of the fingers and a touch of the Force he turned the door's control panel to a shower of sparks.
"Jeedai!" Khat Lah pounded on the door's porthole window. "What are you doing?"
"Tell the pilots to run as soon as I'm off the ship." He raised his voice to be heard through the thick metal. "I don't think they'll kill me… So watch over Eli until I return. And if I don't… Tell him I did what I could."
"Jeedai Horn!"
Khat Lah pounded on the door, but that was all he could do. On the other side, he stuffed legs and arms into the vacuum suit and zipped himself tight. He grabbed the helmet, turned back to Khat Lah, and gave him a brave smile. "We all have to do our part, my friend, and this is mine."
(It shouldn't be your part, Eli thought.)
The look on the Yuuzhan Vong's face was heartbreaking. He turned from it, sealed his helmet and suit, and faced the heavy airlock doors. He checked his suit over one last time, then used the Force to wrench open the airlock's seal. Air rushed out and he rushed with it. He was swept out among the stars and the hungry Duros militia ships all gathering close. One was already on the flyer's flank and swooped in to grab him.
The ship was so close, and they'd pull him in soon. Instead of facing it he used the Force to tilt his body in the other direction, to face the Sekotan flyer. He felt a tractor grab him, reel him in. As he was drawn from the flyer it wrenched hard to port, rolled out between two Duros ships ahead, then nimbly dodged a volley of laserfire before breaking into a fast, clear shot for the edge of the gravity well. Laserfire still whipped past their ship as a few Duros gave pursuit.
(Eli remembered the wrench of inertia and the burst of panic, and he remembered wondering where his father had gone to, never imaging that he was already as good as dead.)
He felt light, free, triumphant. He didn't know what horrible sin he'd committed on Duro to doom that planet, but he felt absolved of even that.
He was a Jedi Knight. He saved those who couldn't save themselves, most importantly young Eli. With that conviction, he turned his body to face the airlock as it swallowed him whole.
His bravery faltered when rough hands grabbed him and pulled him through the vestibule. After the chamber pressurized more bodies piled in. They emanated raw anger through the Force and a savage hunger for violence. They'd been hurt; they wanted to hurt back. He tried to use the Force to calm the angry crowd, as he'd done many times before, but their spite was like nothing he'd ever felt before.
They wrenched his helmet off so he could look with clear eyes on the dozen flat, angry Duros faces ringed around him. That was when he first felt mortal fear.
(Eli trembled in his sleep. He'd felt everything thus far with perfect vividness. Now he would feel his father's every pain. He never found out exactly how his father had died, only that it had been ugly.)
"You are no Yuuzhan Vong," the closest Duros snarled.
"I am Reikar Horn, Jedi Knight. I spoke with Captain Burr a minute ago." He raised his hands and sent calming influence through the Force.
"Burr told us we were getting a Vong," snapped another Duros.
"I am a Jedi. I oversaw the project on Duro. I can help you."
"That's what you said when all this started!"
The first Duros lunged, grabbed him by the collar of his vac suit, and through him against the wall. His head snapped back into the bulkhead; pain blossomed through his skull as the Duros pressed his face close and growled, "'We'll help you,' you karking Jedi said! You and your pet Vong! You said you'd save our world and you ruined it! We trusted you!"
Dazed, he said, "This was not the Jedi's fault-"
"Then why didn't you hand over the karking Vong?" another one shouted.
"The Yuuzhan Vong are innocent. They've done nothing wrong."
"Like hell!" A Duros came in swinging from the right side. He tried to block the blow but it slammed into his flank, just beneath the ribcage. The one holding his vac suit kept him from keeling over in pain.
(Eli felt the pain as if it were his own. No one was there to hold him and his body curled up tight in his bedspread.)
"You invited those monsters into our homes," that first Duros snarled, "We trusted them because we trusted you. You ruined us!"
"Wait, please-"
A third Duros snapped, "Don't tell us you can explain!"
He opened his mouth but didn't speak. He couldn't explain. He didn't know what had happened at Duro. He didn't know if the same disaster was repeating on the hundred other worlds on which the Ossus Project was taking place. When he'd thrown Khat Lah aside and gone out the airlock, he hadn't been thinking of any of those things. He'd only wanted to save his friends, and his son.
He said, "I-"
The first Duros punched him in the face. His head cracked against the bulkhead again. As he groaned the one on his right punched his stomach again.
"Please," he croaked, and summoned the Force to calm them or at least to try-
Another Duros lunged in on his left. He felt the closed fist hit first; then the felt the cold of the vibro-knife as it slid through his vac suit and skin and into his stomach. Pain and bile surged through his chest. The Duros who'd been holding him up stepped away and he half-fell forward. He tried to summon the Force still, to clear his mind through his pain, but it wouldn't come. It wouldn't save him.
(Eli cried cold tears as he dreamed. He'd give anything to change this fate, even just to escape it, but nothing comes. He prayed to the Force- to the Whills, to whatever old gods speak on this unreal world he was trapped in- that this dream can end.)
Realize filled him with sadness, and then fear. Then another Duros came in from behind and stabbed another blade into his back and through his kidney. Pain exploded. He tried to scream but didn't have the breath. He pitched forward and collapsed on the deck.
(The Force was not merciful.)
They gathered around him. Like a pack of hungry akks they came in for the kill. Some delivered kicks, other bent low for punches. He tried to curl into and fetal position and protect his head and neck but they kept coming at him. Someone else came and stuck him with a vibroblade, and fresh blood gushed out to add to the red pool already spreading around him. It moved fast across the slick floor, and as they kicked and punched and beat him his face, now twisted in dying agony, became washed in blood.
Still they kept at it, beating and pounding him until the pain dulled. Vision dulled. Darkness claimed the fists and boots and falling knives and finally claimed everything, even regret that he'd never see his son again.
(Numbness was a gift, Eli knew. Otherwise his father might have tried imagine- just for a moment- what it would be like for his son to be a child in a war-wracked galaxy without his father. Yet even if he had, he'd have never imaged what his son would become. That, too, was a mercy.)
When the vision ended Eli could feel every punch and kick, even knife-thrust. He felt someone hold him down and pour calm into him with the Force. His eyes broke open and he saw them leaning low over him, a silhouette against bright starlight. The looming shape recalled the Duros who'd killed him- killed his father- and with a wordless shove he tried to push them away. The figure stagged back, struck by an invisible blow, then bent close again, pinned Eli to the ground, and poured the Force into him.
His father's remembered pain retreated slowly. Gradually his vision cleared and Eli realized it was Khat Lah bent over him, doing whatever he could to heal the son of the man who'd died in his place.
And he realized how, just a moment ago, he'd shoved Khat Lah away.
"It… I…." His jaw chattered. He opened it wide, took deep breaths, and allowed Khat Lah to calm his shaking body before he spoke again. "I... did it… the Force…."
"It has returned to you," the Yuuzhan Vong said in a sad voice. He looked over his shoulder; Eli could dimly made out the form of a long-haired young woman, Kyra, standing along at the edge of the hill, looking out on the alien landscape, lost in her own awakening.
Khat Lah stroked his forehead tenderly, brushing hair from his sweat-damp face, and said, "Among my people it is said that every great gift must be paid for with pain. I hope, for your sakes, this is your last and only payment."