19
Wedge tried to ignore the voices arguing in his mind.
They had been at him for what seemed like hours, each trying to convince him that they were right.
The first voice, it sounded like his own, told him to give in to the pain that had been with him for days. There is no shame in giving up. Just let go, and you can be with your parents again. There's no point in fighting death. Accept it, just like your friends before you.
Visions of all the pilots who had died fighting beside him or while under his command rose up in his memory like ghosts to torment him. He knew all along that one day his luck would run out, as theirs had. I guess today is the day, he thought. But he was having some difficulty organizing the words into a sentence that he recognized.
The other voice, which sounded a lot like Corran, told him not to surrender to the despair that gripped his soul. Come on, Wedge. Don't give up now. You've come this far, you can hang on a little longer. Fight for your life!
He wanted to fight. He had fought all of his life. But it was so much easier to resign himself to death. At least then the pain would go away. If only the pain would go away.
Someone make it go away!
When Corran finally came back to his senses, he was sure that he wasn't where he expected to be. He tried to look around, and immediately wished he hadn't. A wave of dizziness washed over him, accompanied by a healthy dose of nausea, so he decided to lie still. But then he remembered his vision and what he had seen. He sat bolt upright, no longer worried about the dizziness.
"Whoa, Corran. Power down." Tycho had a hand on each of his shoulders, holding him back.
"Where am I?" The lights overhead were bright and the walls a plain white. He fought to focus on his surroundings.
"You're in the medical bay. Mirax practically called a full-scale emergency. You scared her to death."
Death. The word hung in the air in front of Corran, mocking him. Tycho didn't seem to see it.
"I had better go get her. If I don't, I may be ejected out into space."
Tycho left through the main hatch, and Corran finally managed to sit up without too much queasiness. A few moments later, Mirax flew through the door, the ties on her robe fluttering in her wake.
"Corran!" She launched herself into his arms, threatening to drive him back down into the bed. He could feel her trembling as he wrapped his arms around his wife.
"I'm all right." He looked over Mirax's shoulder to see Tycho re-enter the room, followed closely by Ajene. "How long have I been here?"
Before Tycho could answer, Mirax withdrew from him and punched him roughly in the shoulder. "You scared the hell out of me! I woke up and you were screaming in my head. What did you do?" She hugged him again. "Whatever it was, please don't ever do it again."
Tycho finally managed to get a word in. "Mirax woke up and said that you were having a nightmare. She tried to wake you, but you were unconscious and barely breathing. She called for medical assistance, and the medics managed to stabilize your condition. But before I knew it, I was nearly a pilot short. That was about an hour and a half ago."
"What time is it now?"
"It's about 2230 ship time. Now can you tell me what in the name of the Sith is going on?"
Tycho's question was a valid one, Corran knew. But he wasn't sure how to answer it. "It's still a little fuzzy." He propped up his pillows behind him and leaned back. "I was thinking earlier about the dream I spoke to you about the other day. I thought that maybe my mind was trying to tell me something. So I decided to try and...well, sense Wedge, I guess. I suppose I knew that I didn't have the training to do it safely. Now I know I was right. I wish I had never even thought about it."
Mirax separated herself from him again, but she kept her hand in his. "That's what you were going to try, and you wouldn't tell me about it?"
"Yeah. I didn't want anyone to know about what I was planning because I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to do anything. I tried and tried until I was exhausted, but I couldn't sense him at all. I did manage to sense you in the next room, though."
Ajene looked a little confused. "Did I miss something, here? How can he sense anyone at all?"
Tycho looked at Ajene, then back at Corran, taking a deep breath and shoving his hands into the pockets of his day uniform,
Corran shrugged. "I learned a while back that I'm Force sensitive. My Grandfather was a Jedi Master on Corellia during the Clone Wars. I'm untrained, but I've been known to tap into it before." Ajene looked at Corran, and as with most people who found out about his gift, she looked at him with different eyes. "Ajene, my Jedi heritage isn't generally known. There are only about five people outside of the Rogues who know, and for now I don't want it to get out."
"I'd hope by now, Corran, that you'd know I can be trusted." She approached his bed with a look somewhere between a question and a plea. "I need to know. What happened? Did you ever manage to sense Wedge?"
Corran shuddered, and a lump formed in his throat. He swallowed a couple of times to try to remove it without success. "Well, you see, trying to use the Force on purpose has never really worked for me. I only seem to be able to tap into it in extreme situations. The only time I can remember doing anything like this was when I was escaping from the Lusankya. And that was only influencing one mind, not leaping across light years to touch the mind of another person. It's hard to explain. But somehow, I...I think I was meant to be there."
He sighed and took a deep breath before continuing. Mirax sat beside him on the edge of his bed and gave his hand a squeeze of support. "I tried and tried to reach out to Wedge, but as usual the Force remained just outside my grasp. Maybe it was doubt or anxiety that stopped me from progressing further, who knows? I eventually gave up and went to the bedroom and fell into a restless sleep. But my emotions were all over the place, I guess. All kinds of things were swimming through my head. When I was somewhere between being asleep and awake, the Force came to me. A dream started, except...it wasn't a dream. I don't know how to explain it. It was like someone was playing a holodrama for me; I could see it but couldn't really play a part in it."
"Even in this dream state, I knew I had to find Wedge. My mind expanded out through the ship and I kind of hovered in the middle of nowhere. There were all these voices, maybe the thoughts of the people on the ship and the planet. It was kind of overwhelming at first, but I concentrated on Wedge and eventually managed to pick him out." Corran thought about it for a moment, trying to put his thoughts into an order that he could express coherently. "Actually, that's not quite accurate. I thought I heard a familiar voice in the crowd. When I tried to concentrate on that one voice, he came in a little clearer. From what I felt, he's alive...now."
He stopped speaking as the memory of his friend's suffering sent an ache through his body. He brought up his knees and wrapped his arms around them. Tears began to build in his eyes.
Tycho managed to look confused and concerned at the same time. "What do you mean by now?"
"He was in so much pain, Tych. It ripped through me and I couldn't bear it. I could reach him, but I didn't have the defenses that a Jedi would have to create a shield against the assault of emotions and feelings pouring out of him. And I was only feeling it second hand! And then...then..." The words caught in his throat. He leaned his forehead on his knees, and the tears began to flow at the fresh and vivid memory of the agony that Wedge was suffering and his brush with death. He felt Mirax's arms wrap around him, and he released his knees to hold onto his wife. She buried her face in his shoulder, and her own warm tears flowed through his tunic.
Ajene spoke, her voice heavy with emotion. "Corran, I need to know what happened."
He brought his head back up and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hands. He took a deep breath and looked from Mirax to Tycho, his gaze finally settling on Ajene. He saw her flinch as his eyes stared straight into hers. "I felt him die. He was there, the pain was there, and then there was nothing. He just slipped away from me. I hoped I had made a mistake and searched desperately for him, but could only sense another person nearby. I was pulled into that person and I saw Wedge's lifeless body through his eyes."
He took a moment to compose himself, wiping away the final tears straggling down his cheeks. "I don't know who that person was, but he tried to revive him. I reached out to Wedge as well, as much as I could. I wanted to try to find any trace of his mind, to try and coax it back to life. It didn't seem to be working, but suddenly he was back, and so was his suffering, stronger than ever. I tried to withdraw again, but I think Wedge unconsciously seized onto me and held me there, sharing his pain with me for a moment, taking comfort in the fact that I could give him some relief."
Mirax sat heavily down on the chair beside Corran's bed, sobbing quietly into her hands. Ajene just stood where she was, anguish plain on her face. Tycho stepped over to her, putting an arm around her shoulder, and she leaned on him for support. Corran pushed on, feeling that he had to get the experience out in the open if he was ever going to be able to cope with the emotional turmoil it left behind.
"I'm not sure what happened after that. I tried everything I could to free myself from him, to try and claw my way back to my own body. I must have latched onto Mirax and pulled myself back to my body through her. The shock might have overloaded my senses, putting me into some kind of temporary comatose state." He looked up at Tycho and saw pain in his eyes that reflected his own. "We have to get to him. He's..." He had no words to convey to them the misery he had felt. Mirax's sobs became louder, so he stepped out of the bed and took her up in his arms, unable to give any word of comfort to her. He had none for himself.
Ajene broke away from Tycho and walked to the door, but didn't leave the room.
The grief and sadness in Tycho's eyes quickly hardened into anger. "We're going to get him back. And someone is going to pay dearly for what they've put him through. I swear it!"
Corran, holding tightly onto Mirax, looked over at him. "I hope so."
Ajene ran from the room, unable to listen any longer.