The Coordinates
Anna hisses as the thick drops of liquid meet her scalp. A sharp, burning ache spreads into her skull from the points of contact.
"Hold still, this should only hurt for a minute," Cal admonishes.
She tries not to squirm as more drops of searing stim fluid dribble onto her head. Little by little, the throbbing pain dissipates from where the trooper clubbed her with the rifle. Cal places the empty stim canister on the lounge table.
"Want another one?"
Anna scowls. "Honestly, I think the concussion hurts less."
"Suit yourself," Cal laughs. "More for me."
Anna leans back on the couch cushions, closing her eyes as the burning sensation of the stim gradually transitions to a pleasant chill. Her mind drifts immediately to the memory of the masked woman and her blade of blazing red. She swallows.
"Cal… who was that back there?"
She feels the couch cushion sag as Cal takes a seat beside her.
"That was an Inquisitor," he says in a low voice. "A Force-sensitive specifically trained to hunt Jedi."
She opens her eyes to find Cal's expression has hardened into a somber mask.
"Was she the one who killed your friend?" she asks quietly.
"No. No, that one's dead." Cal pauses for a few breaths before meeting her gaze again. "I've fought a few Inquisitors before. None of them were like that, though."
"You mean the crazy spinny lightsaber she had?"
That gets a slight chuckle out of Cal.
"Actually, every Inquisitor gets one of those. No, I meant the… ice."
Anna doesn't know if the statement should surprise her, but it doesn't. She's seen Cal do some incredible things with the Force, sure, but what that Inquisitor did felt different, somehow—more raw, more primal, like watching a breaking tidal wave. The memory of icicles gleaming crimson under harsh emergency lighting flashes behind her eyes, and suddenly she wants a change of topic.
"Where are we going now?"
Cal seems to relax slightly. Maybe he wanted the change of topic, too.
"Nal Hutta—for real this time," he says. "The Mantis needs repairs after that comet field."
"And then?"
Cal shrugs. "We find somewhere to lie low. Stay ahead of the Empire."
"And what about the data BD-1 pulled from the database?"
Cal pauses, then sighs. Anna's heart sinks.
"He's uploading it to the ship computers as we speak. There isn't much of it, and it's heavily corrupted from the power cut." He wrings his hands unconsciously. "I'm not sure what we'll be able to get out of it."
"It'll be enough," Anna says quickly, nodding to herself. "It has to be."
Cal looks like he's on the verge of saying something else, but he nods along with her, his eyes fixed on the table.
"Cal?"
He glances up.
"Thank you. For everything. You didn't have to do this."
"I know." Cal shoots her a halfhearted smile. "You should thank Cere and Greez. They're the ones who needed convincing."
The captain's voice rasps over the intercom.
"Alright fellas, sit down and buckle up. Next stop, a hive of scum and villainy."
The couch vibrates slightly, signalling the ship's re-entry into realspace.
"I should get up there," Cal says, rising from the lounge table.
"Wish I had a seat in the cockpit so I'd stop getting thrown around," Anna grumbles half-jokingly.
"Yeah, Merrin said that all the time, too."
The words are solemn, but there's a teasing light in Cal's eyes. He disappears into the cockpit, leaving Anna alone on the couch once more.
She picks up the empty stim vial on the table, idly flipping it between her knuckles as she watches the yacht plunge downward toward the green-gold orb of the Hutt homeworld. As the bow meets the first layers of atmosphere, the view is quickly obscured by dense green clouds. The rest of the descent passes in an opaque soup of swirling mist.
The whine of the engines changes pitch as the familiar sounds of the ship reconfiguring to land resonate through the walls. A tangle of tarnished pipes, mismatched roofs, and narrow alleyways rises into view through the haze of fog outside the windows. The floor gives a gentle jolt beneath Anna's feet as the landing gear meets the ground.
Cal returns from the cockpit, fiddling with the straps of his respirator as he secures it over his face. Greez emerges behind him, glancing over to Anna with his arms folded.
"Hey kid, maybe stay inside this time. Don't know if you've been down here before, but the air ain't great for ya."
Anna starts to protest, but Cal cuts her off.
"Anna, I'm with Greez on this one. Besides, there's always a chance someone with the Haxion Brood might recognize you."
"You've got a bounty on your head ten times bigger than I do!" she exclaims.
"Try thirty," Cal retorts through his mask, "but I can defend myself." He pats his hip with a cheeky wink.
Anna folds her arms indignantly. BD-1 peeks out from over Cal's shoulder and chirps a long message.
"He says your impression of me will probably benefit if you don't come." Cal blinks. "Hey, wait a minute, what are you trying to say?"
The droid argues back with a series of beeps.
"Just because you know what it's like to have the funding of the Jedi Council…"
Cal's voice fades away as he steps out of the cabin and down the exit ramp. Anna bolts up and moves to follow—then takes a single whiff of the outside air and turns right back around.
"Ugh, you weren't kidding," she chokes to Greez through a fit of coughs. "It smells worse than rancor farts out there."
"That's methane for ya," Greez laughs, punching the button to close the doors. "There's enough of it here in some places that the air'll explode if you try to shoot a blaster. Always bring a knife if you've got business on Nal Hutta."
Anna grimaces. She had a rather nice knife before, but she lost it on that last spice run.
"How you holding up, kid? I can't imagine you're used to all this business with lightsabers and getting shot at every five minutes."
The concern in Greez's voice takes her off guard. She raises her eyes and finds the captain wearing a gentle expression that she hasn't seen on his face before.
"Actually, I get shot at all the time," she replies with a dry laugh. "But I have to admit, the lightsabers are new."
Greez nods.
"This crew is a great gig, kid." He opens and closes his mouth a few times before he finds the right words. "Listen, I know what it's like to be all on your own. After my grandma passed, I didn't have anyone until I joined this crew. This family. I… I'd hold onto this if I were you."
"Thanks, Greez." Anna smiles delicately. "I've never had anyone help me as much as you guys have. It's so nice but…" She clasps her hands nervously at her waist. "Why? Who am I to you?"
Greez looks at her, pausing for a moment.
"There's that whole hand-of-destiny thing that Cal keeps going on about…" He shakes his head and chuckles. "But between you and me, kid, things just haven't been the same after Merrin disappeared. With you here, the ship feels a little less empty, you know?"
Anna frowns. Is that why they're helping her? Is she exploiting their sorrow over a lost crew member? A twinge of guilt twists her stomach.
"Greez, I…"
At that moment, Cere ducks into the lounge.
"Anna, a word, please?"
"Sure!" Anna says quickly.
She follows Cere into the cockpit and to the communications terminal. The other woman sits down in front of the station, pivoting the seat around to face Anna. She takes a deep breath, fidgeting with the ends of her braids. The last conversation she had with Cere here didn't exactly go smoothly.
"Hey, I'm sorry for storming out last time," Anna blurts before she can stop herself. "That was rude of me. I'm sorry if I… I'm sorry. You don't owe me any of your help."
She shifts from foot to foot as Cere regards her silently. Finally, the other woman exhales.
"I'll be honest with you, Anna. I don't agree with this aggressive course of action we've been taking. Frankly, I think we're being reckless, and trusting too many things to dumb luck. But… I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to get to the bottom of this every bit as much as you do."
Anna's eyes widen in surprise. Cere presses on in a hard, matter-of-fact tone.
"I don't know if the Force brought you to us like Cal says. Frankly, I don't care. But I do know this—flying around the galaxy trying to stop the slaughter of Force-sensitives by racing the Empire's death squads is a war we cannot win. If your vision really did happen—and that seems to be the most plausible explanation at this point—that means your father stood up to Darth Vader. Whatever organization he was a part of could be allies to us. That means finding them is our new priority. That is the mission, and I won't let my feelings get in the way of seeing it through."
The former Jedi's gaze is every bit as sharp as it was on Dathomir. Anna doesn't dare breathe.
"Which reminds me." Cere swivels her chair to face the screen, and Anna finally notices the lines of scrolling text on the comm terminal. "I managed to decrypt some of the data BD-1 pulled from that Imperial archive."
Excitement flares in Anna's chest. "What did you find?"
Several lines of text become highlighted with white boxes at Cere's key-presses.
"There isn't very much of it, but an impressive amount of the data is uncorrupted. The droid was clever with his search algorithms."
Anna squints at the highlighted fields.
"Wait, these are coordinates, aren't they?" she gasps.
"Very good." Cere glances back toward her, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "But they're more than just coordinates. It's an entire hyperlane—one not on any of the maps we had before."
"Where does it go?" Something tells Anna she already knows the answer.
"A planet in the Unknown Regions. The archive had it labeled-"
"Arendelle," she breathes.
"Arendelle," Cere nods. "The hyperlane itself was labeled with some 'Operation Dark Sea'." She lets out a hard chuckle, her dark eyes gleaming with excitement of their own. "The encryption layers were littered with warnings. This data is so classified, how classified it is is classified. We're onto something big here."
"When can we go?" Anna asks excitedly.
"Nothing can stop you, huh?" For the briefest moment, Cere's hard façade cracks. "With the repairs we need for the ship, we'll be here a while," she says gently. "Go get some rest. I'll talk to the captain about finding this hyperlane."
Anna turns to leave the cockpit, practically vibrating with excitement. Her heart thunders in her ears. This is it. It's finally happening.
It was only a week ago that she first stepped foot on this ship, yet already it feels like an entirely different life. The Anna before that day had a simpler existence, without Jedi and stormtroopers and Inquisitors. Now she's looked death in the eye, not to mention bee beaten up and shot at more times than she wants to remember.
She's done her own share of killing, too. She grimaces at the thought.
She walks into her bedroom and closes the door. Sitting on the edge of the cot, she reaches into her cloak and retrieves Sir Jorgenbjorgen, staring absently down into the doll's tiny button-eyes. The answers that have evaded her for thirteen years are so close now, closer than she's ever dared to dream before. But more than that, for the first time in her life, she's surrounded by people who actually care about her. As she turns to look in the cockpit's direction through the pale wall of the bedroom, a smile stretches the corners of her lips.
She has friends.
Even if she's only a replacement. She sighs, pushing down the nagging sense of guilt with a frown.
Suddenly, the full fatigue of the day hits her like a sack of bricks. Kicking off her boots and shrugging out of her cloak, she flops onto the bed still wearing her travel gear. As her mouth opens in a jaw-cracking yawn, she decides she doesn't care. Crawling atop the deliciously soft mattress, she barely makes it to the pillow before her eyelids flutter closed.
"... wake up, wake up, wake up!"
"Anna, go back to sleep!"
"I just can't! The sky's awake, so I'm awake, so we have to play!"
"Go play by yourself!"
"Do you wanna build a snowman?"
Anna's eyes open and she finds herself nose-to-nose with Greez's scruffy face.
"Agh!" She scrambles backward on the mattress, clutching the blanket to her chest.
"You were talking in your sleep," Greez states, chuckling. "Weirdo."
"Really?" Anna furrows her brow in concentration, trying desperately to hold on to the dream, but the voices are already fading from her memory. "What did I say?"
"Something about waking up. Saved me the trouble. You snore, by the way." The Latero turns to leave. "We're about to make the jump through that hyperlane of yours, figured you'd want to be awake for this bit," he announces as he steps out of the bedroom.
Anna sits up on the bed, grimacing as she pulls stray strands of hair out of her mouth. How they got there with her hair still braided is a mystery for another time. Pulling on her shoes, she steps out into the cabin to find the familiar void of space greeting her from the windows. Apparently, she's managed to sleep through the whole takeoff.
"You're up!" Cal greets, rotating the copilot's seat to face her.
"How long was I out?" Anna asks with a yawn, stretching her arms behind her head and groaning as she feels the vertebrae of her neck pop in sequence.
"We left Nal Hutta six hours ago," Cal laughs, "and that was after all the repairs, refueling, and a fresh paint job."
Anna freezes. Was she really out for that long?
"Where are we now?" she asks sheepishly.
"We just jumped from Dantooine," Cere chimes from the comms station. "The hyperspace route from BD-1's data starts here."
Greez flicks two switches on the dashboard in front of him, starting a deep whine that reverberates through the hull. BD-1 scurries to the scomp port on the copilot dash and inserts his leg into the keyhole.
"All plugged in, BD?" Greez asks as he moves his hand to grip the throttle. "Let's see what this secret route is all about." He glances over his shoulder toward Anna. "Sit down, kid. This one might be rough."
Anna barely has time to comply before Greez pushes the throttle lever all the way down. The floor shakes as the hyperdrive screams to life from the stern, plastering the stars beyond the cockpit into blurred streaks of light.
This time, the shaking doesn't stop—it only gets stronger. The captain's knuckles are white as he clutches the control sticks on the arms of the pilot's seat, the hull around them rattling and groaning with sounds of straining metal at a decidedly concerning volume.
"Nuts, unstable calibration vector!" Greez growls. "And we just spent an arm and a leg to have the central hub realigned."
"You look like you can spare a few of those, Greez," Cal quips. Anna barks a laugh despite her churning stomach.
"Ha ha, laugh it—yeesh!" Greez yelps, jerking the sticks hard to avoid a massive shadow jutting into the swirling tunnel ahead of them.
Anna grabs hard onto the edge of the bench, her eyes just about popping out of her head. What was that?
"We just left range of all emergency comm arrays," Cere shouts. "We're on our own out here."
"Better hope your droid didn't skip a node in the hyperlane data," Greez grumbles to Cal as the ship whips around a gut-wrenching bend.
BD-1 lets out a disgruntled string of beeps from his position jacked into the scomp port on the dash. Anna's stomach does an unpleasant flip as the Mantis skirts around another half-corporeal shape looming from the electric blue miasma. The edge of the inky blob seems to bend and distort as it zooms past the window.
"What are those things?" she asks fearfully.
"Mass-shadows," Cere replies. "Gravity wells from stars and planets cast images into hyperspace. Hyperlanes usually try to avoid them."
"Usually," Greez mutters.
"What happens if we hit one?" Anna asks in a small voice.
"What happens if we hit a planet?" Cere deadpans.
"Oh."
She hugs herself a little tighter. At least now she's too nervous to throw up. The ship careens around another bend.
"Greez, look out!" Cal exclaims.
Anna's heart stops at the sight of the two arcing black walls speeding toward them from the tunnel ahead.
"Hold onto your butts," Greez says in a hard tone, pulling hard on the flight sticks.
The ship spins around at a dizzying rate, aligning with the tiny crack of blue between the surfaces of roiling darkness. The cabin lights flicker as the Mantis threads the gauntlet, and for a brief instant Anna swears she sees everything around her distort outward like space itself is being stretched. Greez continues to rotate the ship, coaxing the ungainly dorsal fin jutting out the top of the hull through the twisting black corridor by a terrifyingly narrow margin.
Then the walls are gone, opening up to reveal to the familiar blue tunnel of the hyperlane once more. The cockpit is silent for what feels like ages, interrupted only by the continuing groans of protest from the hull. Finally, Greez lets out a sigh.
"Did we make it?" he asks nobody in particular.
Suddenly, the ship's rotation jerks to a halt.
"Whoa!" Greez shouts, fighting the flight sticks.
BD-1 lets out a rapid series of chirps.
"He says this is the end of the route!"
Cal barely has the chance to finish his translation before the glowing blue whirlpool in front of them tears open with a blast that shakes the ship, enveloping them in the dark void of realspace. For a moment, the only sound in the cabin is the falling whine of the hyperdrive as it spins down. Anna struggles to calm her rapid breathing, clenching her teeth as her stomach does acrobatic flips.
"Yeah, let's not do that again," Cal says shakily.
"Gonna have to if we want to get back to civilization," Greez replies in a grim tone. He taps buttons on one of the dashboards to his left, frowning. "Where the heck are we, anyway?"
Anna stands from the bench, walking forward into the cockpit until she's right up against the glass.
"We're here," she murmurs. A faint sense of vertigo pushes at her perception, like she's straining to grab onto something that's just out of reach. She's so close.
A panorama of inky darkness dotted with stars fills her vision, punctured by the bright point of a yellow-white sun. Long, iridescent wisps streak the spaces between the stars, pulsing with shifting kaleidoscopes of colour. The sight makes her excited, giddy like a child.
The sky's awake.
"Anna, do you know this place?" Cere asks from behind her.
"I know those lights…" she murmurs, almost in a trance. "I think… I think I've been here before."
"If the archive data is correct, we should be somewhere in the G4 sector," Cere says.
"Well. The lights are pretty and all, but there's nothing here, kid," Greez huffs.
In the distance, a soft white glimmer catches Anna's eye.
"Look, over there!" she exclaims.
"Looks like a planet." Cal leans over the dashboard, squinting.
BD-1 chirps and hops excitedly as he projects several lines of code into the air.
"Arendelle," Anna breathes. The little droid gives a happy trill as she rubs the top of his head affectionately. "That must be it! Greez, can you take us closer?"
"Aye aye." Greez eases the throttle forward and the roar of the engines increases in volume. "Next stop, random planet in the middle of nowhere."
The pale orb grows slowly through the forward window. Two moons orbit at a distance, amber crescents lit from the left by the light of the distant sun. The cockpit drifts back into silence for a while.
"Anna, what do you think you'll find there?" Cal asks softly.
Anna doesn't answer immediately. She takes a long breath. "Answers."
She doesn't take her eyes off the planet. It's close enough now that she can see fractured continents formed from shards of grey and green, blanketed by dense swathes of cloud, interlaced by deep blue waters. Glittering caps of snow stretch down from the poles in gradients of white.
"No transceiver activity on any of our operable frequencies," Cere reports. "Either this place is uninhabited, or they don't use the same comms tech as the rest of the galaxy."
Unease trickles into Anna's mind like cold water. As she continues to stare at the approaching planet, she begins to make out dark imprints marring the surface under the cloud cover. Craters. Faint smears of grey extend out from the circular scars, stretching uniformly parallel to the equator, giving them the image of falling meteors.
The craters are everywhere.
She feels a small four-fingered hand rest on top of hers on the dash.
"You sure you want to go down there, kid?" Greez asks gently. She gives a firm nod. The captain removes his hand. "Alright. Grab some seat."
"Here." Cal gets up from his chair with a lopsided smile. "You know where we're going better than I do."
Anna plops herself down into the seat, watching as the blue-green marble widens into an arcing horizon that fills the cockpit window. The Mantis skirts along the boundary between day and night, dipping down beneath the highest of the thin clouds. Translucent waves of vapour part before the bow, showering the cockpit glass with a fine haze of ice crystals. As the yacht punches below the final layers of cloud, rays of sun wash over her face, and her breath catches.
The landscape below is shattered. Windswept plains of fragmented stone stretch into the sunrise, clad in brown-green overgrowth speckled with patches of more vibrant colour. At this altitude, the crater edges form jagged mountain ranges that curl inward like the teeth of colossal sand worms, hanging over vast pools of opaque shadow. Snow glimmers from the tips of the mountaintops, glimmering clear and grey under a cold blue sky.
She knows this place.
"Keep going north, toward the snow," she murmurs to Greez.
The captain raises a questioning eyebrow but pushes down on the flight sticks nonetheless, easing the Mantis lower toward the ground. Mountain peaks pass close below as the clouds grow denser. Green is replaced with grey and white as the air fills with drifting motes of ice. Structures peek up from the snow-covered hillsides—broken girders of stone and metal, reaching for the sky amidst fields of rubble like the rib cages of enormous beasts, long dead. Something hurts inside at the sight.
This isn't what home is supposed to look like.
"You all right, kid?"
Anna blinks rapidly to clear unbidden tears from her vision.
"Can we land here?" she asks stiffly.
Greez holds her gaze for a moment before nodding. "Sure, I'll find us a spot."
The ship takes a steep dive beneath the shadow of a towering mountain, taller than all the surrounding ones. Snow and ice obscure the cockpit as the craggy ground rises to meet them, stirred up by the blast of the Mantis's exhaust wind. The landing gear crunches softly as it meets the frozen ground, and the engines spin down with a fading whistle.
"Atmosphere looks breathable from here," Greez says, poking at one of the ceiling displays.
"That's good enough for me," Anna answers, leaping up from the seat.
She dashes back to her quarters to grab her gear. Pulling the strap of her blaster holster tight across her chest, she throws her cloak over her shoulders and begins stuffing her hair into the hood.
"Can I come with you?"
She finds Cal standing in the doorway, poncho already in hand.
"Don't you mean 'can we?'" she asks, raising an eyebrow.
BD-1 pokes over Cal's shoulder with two short beeps.
"I'll take that as a yes." Cal grins, pulling on the poncho with practised speed.
Anna nods, and they walk side-by-side back into the cabin to the familiar jingle of Cal's lightsaber. Cere is waiting for them at the exit.
"Be careful out there, both of you." The older woman looks to Cal first before her gaze settles on Anna. "I hope you find what you're looking for. For all our sakes."
Cere strikes the exit button with her fist and the door cracks open with a howl of icy wind. Flakes of snow swirl in from outside, melting in tiny points of cold as they land on Anna's face. She hesitates a moment in front of the open doorway, glancing sideways toward Cal.
"You ready?"
"I was gonna ask you."
"I was born ready."
Squinting in determination, she steps out into the snow.