The Pilgrimage
Hyperspace physics are weird.
It's really hard to keep track of the path Greez charted from Tatooine to Ilum. Even with the galaxy map right on her terminal, half the jumps just don't make any sense. Short, straightforward forays into hyperspace will have them traversing entire sectors in mere hours, only to be followed by series of crazily sporadic jumps that seem to inch them across the grid at an impossibly slow pace.
Sometimes, pockets of shadow like those from the Arendelle hyperlane appear in front of the Mantis. Anna makes a point to not stare at them for too long.
The short stretches of time that they spend out of hyperspace are spent in pitch darkness, in regions of space so far from the nearest star that space looks identical in every direction. The sight leaves a hollow feeling in Anna's chest. They're so utterly alone out here. They could disappear without a trace so easily. It's a familiar feeling.
The journey to Ilum will take 90 hours according to the ship's nav computer. Greez barely leaves the pilot's seat except to snag bites of food during particularly smooth stretches of hyperspace. The rest of them spend their time around the holotable, trying to cobble together a plan.
"What do we know about the Imperial presence in the sector since you were there last?" Merrin stares hard at the starmap of the Ilum system projected into the air between them.
"Seemed like the Empire was moving in big time." Cal moves his hands to his hips, keeping his eyes fixed on the holomap. "They were drilling into the crystal caves."
Anna raises a hand. "I searched the database for Imperial transmissions talking about Ilum. From the looks of it, they've set up a major mining operation there."
"The Empire wants kyber crystals," Cal mutters with a grave nod. "Guess those Inquisitor sabers don't grow on trees."
"From the amount of crystals they're mining, I'd say they're building way more than just lightsabers," Anna frowns.
"Are you sure there will even be any left for you?" Merrin asks, raising her eyebrows. "What if we go there and find nothing?"
Cal shakes his head. "The planet's entire core is kyber. They can't have depleted it all. We'll just need to find another entrance to the caves."
"You make that sound like it's easy." Merrin laughs humorlessly.
"It's what Padawans had to do for thousands of years," Cal counters, raising his eyebrows. "It's not just scrounging around looking for pretty rocks. The crystals resonate with the Force. When the right one finds you, it'll call to you." He turns to look at Anna. "You just have to listen."
"Just listen?" Merrin huffs, folding her arms. "You Jedi were so keen to give your initiates impossible tasks."
Anna nods slowly. "I think I get it." She brushes a thumb over the hilt of the Inquisitor saber at her hip, feeling the faint presence of the crystal within its housing of metal.
"Finding a place to land will be tricky," Cal pushes on. He gestures to BD-1, who chirps and zooms in on the holomap with a twist of his scomp link. The stars pan away as an image of Ilum fills the air. "Most of the Empire's mining is concentrated around the equator. If we head for the poles, we should be able to avoid the garrison."
BD-1 beeps some kind of warning, poking his head toward Cal in an urgent gesture.
"Negative seventy degrees?" Merrin says incredulously. "You won't make it five steps in those temperatures."
"The caves are warmer than the surface. There are geothermal vents that carry heat up from the core. We just have to find a way in." Cal glances around the table with a slight grimace. "It's not the greatest-sounding plan, I know, but between an army of stormtroopers and a blizzard, the blizzard is probably easier. If worst comes to worst, we can always try blasting our way down."
His eyes settle on Anna for a moment longer than the others. Is he waiting for approval?
"Like you said, Merrin." Anna forces a cheeky smile. "If Cal did it once, how hard could it be?"
Merrin stares back with an expression stern as stone. Finally, she rolls her eyes.
The discussion continues for a long time. The best path to the ground from space, the precise amount of power the Mantis needs to keep its engines from icing, the fastest way to get out of the system once the mission is over—all of it must be planned to a tee. Anna wraps the details around her like a blanket, trying to find comfort as the words flow over her. She can feel Cal's anxiety despite his confident words, hear Merrin's skepticism in the tone of her voice. None of it helps Anna's own frayed nerves.
Eventually, they go back to their separate corners of the ship.
Hyperspace has a way of making you lose track of time. She stays awake until she can't keep her eyes open any longer, and when sleep finally takes her, it's mercifully free of nightmares. She does this twice through the journey, and every "morning" after, she meditates out of habit. She laughs to herself when she realizes she hasn't done this in space before. It's an odd realization. After all, no planet has ever been her home more than the vast expanses of nothing between them.
Not even Arendelle.
It's like the two disjointed halves of her life are finally coming together. Street rat and princess. Stowaway and Jedi.
Still just a speck amongst a sea of stars, in the end.
The truth is, there's a thousand ways this could go wrong. Sure, that's been true for everything she's done for most of her life, but it was a lot easier to ignore the consequences of failing when it was just little-old-her on the line. This mission is so much bigger than her. She can't screw up this time—or the next, or the next. The lives of all the Force-sensitives in the galaxy are on the line. She can't afford to fail.
Merrin's right. It's suicide. Maybe not this time, maybe not the next… but the chances of any of them surviving to see the end of the Galactic Empire are so slim they might as well not exist.
But that's not new either. Back in her old life, Anna saw so many people die of so many things—people not so different from her at all, blasted or shanked or overdosed on spice or cut to pieces for looking at some big-wig crime lord the wrong way. She always pushed it aside, closed her eyes, plodded ahead with blind optimism and her blaster raised.
She can't afford to keep her eyes closed any longer. But that doesn't mean she has to give up her hope. An odd calm washes over her.
Her entire life has been a long dance with death. The difference now is that it means something.
The Force feels different here than it did out in the desert. It's larger, more distant, less of a presence and more of a shape, a breeze without wind, drifting between the stars and planets like something lost. She can feel the other members of the crew, too, like candle flames in the dark.
One of which is a lot closer than it should be.
She opens her eyes just as the door to her quarters slides open, framing Nightsister Merrin in the doorway.
"Merrin." Anna's voice is still thick with sleep. Instinctively, she scoots back a little from where she's kneeled at the center of the floor.
The Nightsister raises an eyebrow. "Are you afraid of me?"
"What? No, of course not!" Anna pushes herself to her feet, suddenly acutely aware that she's wearing the Nightsister's bedclothes, just as she has been for months. What does Merrin think of that? "You just startled me."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Merrin shrugs.
She strides slowly into the room, seeming to glide as she moves to stand beside the nightstand. Her eyes glance around for a moment before landing on Sir Jorgenbjorgen, currently lying beside Anna's blaster on the tabletop.
"Greez was terrified of me when I first came on board," Merrin continues with a dry chuckle. "But I suppose the horde of my dead sisters that I woke to attack Cal Kestis didn't give him the most… favourable first impression of me."
Anna's eyebrows shoot up her forehead.
"Well, my first impression was you swooping in to save us from those bounty hunters," she stammers. "Much more favourable."
"Yes, I suppose so." Merrin raises her gaze to meet Anna's. The other woman's stillness is unnerving.
"Did—do you need anything?" Anna puts her hands together and takes a step forward. They're about the same height, but it definitely doesn't feel that way.
"Just wanted to talk." Merrin's eyes never stray from Anna's. "I've known Cal and Greez for years, but you I barely know at all."
"Oh! Well…" Hi, I'm Anna, the random street urchin who came and stole your room and your clothes, and is trying to get with your hopefully-ex-boyfriend "… what do you want to know?"
Merrin tilts her head, and for an instant Anna's terrified she actually said everything out loud.
"Why are you still here?" the Nightsister asks abruptly.
Anna blinks. "Wait, what?"
"Why are you here? Why did you agree to be Cal's apprentice? Why are you risking your life on a suicide mission?"
Anna opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again. "Merrin, you saw what the Empire did to my people. They slaughtered my family!"
Merrin shrugs.
"You have plenty of reason to hate the Empire, this is true. But that does not tell me why you chose this path out of all paths." She folds her arms. "Tell me, how do you know you can trust the Jedi? The Jedi were murderers, too, you know. They've fought a thousand wars, slaughtered billions in the name of their creed. How do you know they're a better alternative to the Empire to begin with?"
"I don't trust the Jedi." Anna takes a step back, folding her arms. "I trust Cal, and that's enough for me." She glares at Merrin defiantly.
Merrin studies her for a moment longer. The angular tattoos on her face make her calm expression look positively vicious.
"The Inquisitor on the prison ship," she states quietly. "She felt different from the others. She wielded a strange magick."
Anna's breath catches in her chest. Dread washes over her in a cold wave.
"Is that what this is about? Are you saying the Inquisitor is a Nightsister?" Even as the words leave her tongue, she knows they aren't true.
Merrin shakes her head right on cue.
"Her magick didn't feel like anything I've known the Nightsisters to do. It was more raw, unrefined. Like yours." Merrin's eyes pierce into hers, and Anna's blood turns to ice. "I don't think you are the last of your people, Anna."
Anna stands frozen as the Nightsister's words echo through her head, deepening the dread until it's nauseating.
"Look, I have no idea who or what that Inquisitor is," she says through her teeth. Her hands are fisted at her sides, trembling. "All I know is that she's been trying to murder us for a long time, and it's starting to get seriously annoying."
Merrin finally breaks the stare.
"I would have a hard time killing another Nightsister, even if she was a servant of the Empire." The Nightsister's voice is soft now, almost pitying. "A confrontation is coming, Anna. When the time comes, you may have to make that choice. I don't envy you."
Merrin pivots before Anna can respond, moving back to the door with gliding strides. Despair rises in acidic bubbles in Anna's chest. She opens her mouth again, but she can't find any words before the door slides shut on the other woman's back.
When the ship drops out of hyperspace, she's in the galley chewing on a strip of dewback jerky. A familiar rumble runs through the hull as the electric blue light filtering through the lounge windows is replaced by the deep black void of realspace. Immediately, the hyperdrive goes silent, the hum of the engines dropping to a faint whisper.
"Get on up here, fellas," Greez announces over the intercom, more somber than usual. "This is our stop."
Footsteps echo off the metal flooring behind her. Anna stands from the dining table as Cal emerges from the corridor behind her.
"This is it." His eyes search hers. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I'm ready to get this over with." Anna nods firmly. "Let's do this."
They march into the cockpit, past the holotable and the bench opposite the kitchenette where Merrin is already sat in her usual spot. Anna glances at Cal as they pass the threshold, and Cal raises an eyebrow in response. She hasn't told him about the conversation with Merrin. She doesn't really want to think about it right now.
Ilum fills the cockpit window, a gleaming grey marble of ice and stone. Anna sucks in a breath at the sight of the jagged trench carved into the planet's equator, so deep its black shadow is easily visible even from this distance. Flecks of gleaming durasteel dot the expanse of space between them and the planet, twinkling in the light of the system's distant yellow sun.
Exhaling, Anna sits down at the comms terminal, forcing herself to focus on the information streaming down the screen in front of her.
"That's a lot of star destroyers," she mutters.
"I'm running her as quiet as I can," Greez answers in a strained voice. "Let it be known—I do not like this one bit."
Some of the dots on the display start blinking red. A notification streams across the bottom of the terminal, and Anna opens it with a keypress.
af6d8eb1 [Omen]: ORDER 157th squadron HEADING 011 -234 479
Goosebumps run down her arms.
"Greez?" she calls over her shoulder, her voice rising. "They're sending a fighter squadron our way."
"Kriff!" The captain runs a hand over his forehead. His others flit over the dashboard, flipping switches and dials. "They probably detected the energy signature when we dropped. They're sweeping us with long-range scanners."
"What's going on?" Merrin steps cautiously into the cockpit behind them.
"Now would be a really good time for us to be invisible, Merrin," Cal says urgently.
The Nightsister gives a curt nod before turning to focus her attention on Anna.
"Give me your hands."
Anna swallows. Here it comes again.
She turns the seat around and slowly lowers her hands onto Merrin's waiting palms, clenching her jaw as the Nightsister's fingers close over hers. Merrin wastes no time.
"Sisters, mother, give me your strength."
"Fighters are scrambled," Greez calls, his hand hovering nervously over the throttle. "We're about to be in hot water here!"
That same unnatural chill washes over her, radiating from Merrin's hands as strands of green light blossom from her tattoos. The singing sounds again, but this time Anna screws her eyes shut and pushes back. She's had enough creepy visions for a lifetime.
"Anna, this won't work if you fight it. Let it in."
Guess not. Gritting her teeth, Anna opens her eyes and lets the melody resonate through her.
Instantly, her vision goes dark, replaced by flashes of gnarled bones, twisted flesh, and red sunsets. There's no story to the song this time; the images shift and weave too fast for her to understand, dancing and spiralling in hypnotic patterns.
"Anna? Anna."
Then she can see again, and the sudden clammy sensation of Merrin's hands almost has her breaking their hold. She blinks to clear her eyes, finding the Nightsister's still lost in a green haze.
"Anna, are you okay? You're shaking."
Cal has turned his chair to face them and is looking between Merrin and Anna with a concerned expression. Anna realizes she's trembling.
"What… what happened?" she whispers, fighting back another shiver as the cold continues to flow through her in waves. "Are we safe?"
"TIEs flew right by like we weren't there," Greez pants, breathing hard. "I'm getting us the heck out of dodge before they come back."
Ilum grows and rotates in the window as Greez pulls on the control column, easing up on the throttle with careful nudges of his other hand. The engines remain eerily silent. Merrin's ritual must be working.
"Moment of truth," the captain mutters.
One star destroyer drifts past the window, then a second, close enough for Anna to make out the jagged details of their triangular decks. She hardly dares to breathe as she watches them slip by.
"Got some chatter on Imperial frequencies," Greez says. "Can someone take a look?"
Anna gives Cal a pleading look, glancing pointedly down at her trapped hands. Cal nods and gets out of his seat, reaching over her shoulder to tap the keypad at the terminal. A gruff female voice crackles from the speaker.
"...lost them, sir!"
"Well, then find them! Do you want to be the officer who reports the loss of that ship to Lord Vader?"
"No, sir. Right away, sir. They can't have gone far."
"Scramble another squadron! We'll search the whole damn sector if we have to."
"Yes, sir!"
Greez blows out a long breath. "That was too damn close."
"We're not out of the frying pan yet," Cal grumbles. "Can't this thing go any faster?"
"I'm working on it, alright?"
Gradually, the gaping ravine at the planet's equator falls out of view as Ilum's curving horizon straightens to a line. Anna's stomach floats unpleasantly as she feels the ship start to pitch downward, filling the cockpit window with the roiling mass of wispy clouds far below. Merrin still hasn't moved.
"Hold onto something, fellas," Greez says grimly. "This one's gonna be rough."
The walls rattle and flashes of flame dance over the outer deflector shields as the Mantis plunges into the atmosphere like a comet. The whole ship jolts as the bow pierces the top of the clouds, showering the windshield in fine grains of ice. Merrin's eyes snap awake at the impact, and immediately the scream of the engines assaults Anna's ears.
"Can you let go now?" Anna hisses.
Merrin blinks at her, then obeys. The Nightsister leaps to grab onto the nearest handhold as another bout of turbulence rocks the cabin. Anna hastily turns the chair to face back toward the terminal and locks it in place, holding onto the arm-rests for dear life. The world beyond the window is an opaque mess of ice and mist.
"I hate flying," Merrin states matter-of-factly.
"These clouds are seriously screwing with the sensors," Greez grumbles. "Some kind of-"
A streak of blinding white light streaks across the windshield with a crack that leaves Anna's ears ringing. She squeezes her eyes shut to clear away the afterimages as the Mantis is tossed to the side like a piece of tinfoil.
"... electrical interference," Greez finishes in a strained voice, battling the control column with his whole body. "Fuck."
"On the bright side, there's no way the Imps are tracking us through this," Cal chuckles weakly.
The cockpit lapses back into the howl of the wind and the whine of the engines. Anna squints out the window, waiting for the clouds to clear.
They don't.
Abruptly, the seat pushes into her from below, as if she's suddenly five times her normal weight and falling off a cliff at the same time. The engines raise in pitch as a plane of white and grey rushes up at them beyond the windows. BD-1 lets out a panicked cry from the dashboard. At the last possible moment, the advancing wall falls away with a sensation like Anna's stomach is being pulled up her esophagus. Greez flicks a switch on the ceiling and beams of white light shoot out from beneath the cockpit, barely cutting twenty metres through the swirling fog and snow.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Greez announces through the whine of the engines. The hull groans as the ship rotates into landing mode around them. "Welcome to tropical Ilum."
The gear meets the snow with a grating crunch as the engines spin down, their noise slowly replaced by the scratching sounds of the blizzard on the outer hull.
"We made it," Anna says dazedly.
"That's step one." Cal pushes himself out of the copilot's seat. "Come on. Every moment we spend down here is dangerous."
He extends a hand down to Anna. She can feel the metal joints moving under Cal's leather glove as he pulls her out of her seat.
"Hold the fort, Merrin," Cal says as they pass her by.
"Don't need to… tell me twice." Merrin is hunched over with her hands on her stomach. Her skin seems an abnormal shade of green—one that definitely isn't because of her magick.
"Hey, no hurling in the cockpit, you hear me?" Greez growls.
"I'll be fine, Greez," Merrin responds icily.
Anna lets out a quiet laugh as they walk back into the lounge.
"Merrin's still working on her space-legs, huh?"
"Mhm. Just don't let her hear you saying that. Wait here."
Cal gestures to the couch before jogging off toward the crew quarters. A few moments later, a large lump of fabric comes flying back toward Anna out of the dark hallway. She catches the bundle in both hands, unfolding it to reveal a huge winter jacket painted with some vaguely yellow logo that's long since faded away.
It's a lot heavier than it looks.
"Almost took my head off there," she grumbles.
"Just testing those reflexes," Cal smirks. He has a large backpack slung over his shoulder and another jacket tucked under his arm. He sets the backpack down on the lounge table with a heavy thud.
"What's in there?" Anna asks, the words muffled through the jacket she's struggling to fit over her head.
"Plan B. Seismic charges."
"You think… we'll need them?"
Anna finally manages to find the right holes for her arms. She clips the row of fasteners along the jacket seam, all the way down to where the hem hangs to her ankles. The sleeves swallow her hands when she puts her arms down.
"Better safe than sorry." The smile slips from Cal's face, replaced with that somber expression he's been wearing for the majority of the trip. "You ready?"
"Just one more thing."
Anna stands from the couch and hurries back in the direction of her room, fumbling with the door panel in the jacket's oversized sleeves. Approaching the nightstand, she takes her blaster and slings the holster over her chest, adjusting the strap to roughly fit it over the jacket. Picking up Sir Jorgenbjorgen, she turns the little doll over in her hand before and stares down at it for a moment.
"You're coming with me, little guy," she whispers, slipping it into her breast pocket.
Returning to the lounge, she finds Cal fully encased in a jacket of his own. There's a pinching feeling up her leg as BD-1 clambers onto her back to sit on her shoulder.
"You sure you don't need a jacket, too, buddy?" Anna laughs. BD-1 responds with something that sounds suspiciously condescending.
"Get that hood up," Cal cautions as he moves to the door control. "And put on those goggles in your pocket. This wind'll give you frostbite faster than you can say freeze."
The hood of the jacket positively swallows Anna's head. She slips the goggles over her eyes, wiping at the grime at the edge of the glass.
"Ready when you are," she announces, tightening the drawstrings on the hood with a tug.
BD-1 chirps an affirmation. The exit ramp opens with a low moan and a blast of freezing air. Suppressing a shiver, Anna steps out into the whirling blizzard.
Sorry for the late update; it took me a while to be happy with this chapter. I have one more chapter draft that I'm comfortable publishing before I run out of pre-written material, so this fic might go on hiatus in the near future since I am still very busy with school. Hope everyone is hanging in there and staying safe! Thanks for all the love so far :)