Cryos waited impatiently as the ship came in for a slow landing.
Kentra and Yamna stood silently, they could both feel it now. Cryos could feel the tension in the air, but he still couldn't tell what was wrong.
The small transport ship finally touched down on the landing pad and the hatch opened. Several more moments passed before Pahrac slithered out, followed by Traitin. Both looked sullen.
"Hay!" Cryos said cheerfully. "I saw the Death Star explode! Good job guys!"
"We… experienced some problems." Traitin grumbled.
"But you guys made it!" Cryos still wanted everything to be ok. "Now where's Mazzark? I bet he surprised you, huh Pahrac?"
"Yes, he did." Pahrac said softly. "Until the end, he surprised me."
Cryos's smile slowly faded. "What do you mean 'until the end'?"
"We could not get into the final chamber to initiate the self destruct sequence." Pahrac said. "There was only a small hole into the room. I could not fit through. Mazzark volunteered for the job, even knowing the room was full of deadly radiation. I stayed with him until the end. It was very quick, he never made it out. He was truly a brave warrior, and I feel honored to have known him."
"But… no…" Cryos sunk to his knees. "That shouldn't have happened."
Cryos gave off a sudden flare of energy and flew into the sky. Moments later he was above the atmosphere.
……………………………………
Hours later, Kentra floated up to him in her spacesuit.
He had found a deep crater on one of Courosant's moons to sulk in. He'd been wondering how long they would leave him alone.
Kentra had tracked him down on her own.
She sat by him and held out her hand, revealing the tiny earpiece and throat patch Washu had designed for communication in vacuum so many years ago.
Cryos put them on but didn't say anything.
"You wanna talk?" Kentra asked.
"Not really." Cryos put his hands behind his head and lay back in the moon dust.
She lay next to him and sat in silence for several minutes before saying, "I've lost a lot of people over the years. It never gets any easier."
"No, it doesn't." Cryos agreed. "But I suppose I should be used to it. I just didn't expect Mazzark to die on the mission. I was worried about Traitin, but Mazzark was too good. I never thought it would turn out like this."
"I'm sorry." Kentra inched closer to him. "It can't help that you couldn't even recover his body. At least then you'd have something to bury."
Cryos sat up suddenly. "What did you say?" He demanded.
"I'm sorry?"
"After that."
"You'd have something to bury?"
"What is this, a comedy routine? In between those!"
"You couldn't recover his body?"
"Of course! That's it!" Cryos exclaimed and leapt to his feet.
"I don't follow…" Kentra said.
"That's alright, just come with me!" Cryos grabbed her hand and flew back to the planet at top speed.
He spotted a group of Kentras resistance troops rounding up a large troop of Yamna's army. With their leader gone, they offered little resistance.
Cryos landed next to the group leader with Kentra still in tow.
"General Kentra!" The man exclaimed. "We are arresting Yamna's troops. We trust you defeated her?"
"Actually, no. She's on our side now." Cryos responded even though the question was not directed at him.
"But…" The man stuttered. "She's the enemy!"
Kentra stepped in. "She was being controlled by the ghost of an ancient Sith Lord. We defeated him with her help. She has earned a chance at the very least."
"Enough of that though." Said Cryos. "Have any of you seen Draco?"
"He came by a few minutes ago." The man responded. "He was muttering something about weevils stealing his socks… what that is supposed to mean I have no idea."
Cryos sighed. "Very well, carry on then." And with that he flew away.
Kentra was right on his heals. "Will you tell me what you're up to?"
"I don't want to get my hopes up any more than they already are. It's a long shot, but there's still a chance."
He flew to Imperial Tower, and after a brief stop in the kitchens where he filled his pockets with fresh fruit, and another to pick up his staff, went to the highest antenna on the roof.
Sure enough, Draco was napping there, using a sock as a sleeping bag.
"Five more minutes!" He squawked.
"No more minutes. Spaceship now." Cryos responded and used the elastic in the sock as a slingshot to fire the tiny lizard into the air.
Draco transformed into his spaceship form. "I'd better get overtime for this." He rumbled.
"Sure, I'll pay you double." Kentra reassured him.
"Yay!" He cheered and Kentra and Cryos climbed into his mouth.
They were circling the blasted remains of the Death Star before Draco exclaimed "HAY!"
"What is it?" Kentra asked.
"Double nothing is still nothing."
She feigned surprise. "So it is! How about I triple it then?"
Draco gasped. "You're the best boss ever!" He exclaimed.
"You're good at this." Cryos muttered to her.
"Years of practice." She responded.
Cryos chuckled, and then spoke loudly. "Draco, I want you to scan the wreckage of the Death Star. We're looking for remains of living creatures."
The tactical display lit up. It appeared that most of the people on the Death Star had managed to escape before it exploded, but those that hadn't were spread evenly over the inside of the quantum armor shell in a thin jelly-like layer.
Cryos decided to gamble that the armor around the room Mazzark had died in might have survived.
"Scan for a small piece of biomatter near the core." He ordered.
Draco was silent for a few moments. "I don't see-" He began then stopped. "Wait, I found something. Very small."
The location appeared on the screen.
"I'm going out." Cryos announced and dove into the airlock.
It didn't take him long to find the location Draco had indicated. Most of the inside of the Death Star was vaporized, leaving only the shell and some of the outermost structure. But the quantum armor around the main control room had protected it.
Mostly anyway.
Even the quantum armor had cracked under the intense pressure. Cryos was able to pull the crack wide enough to get inside.
Once in, he quickly found what he was looking for.
A small, black lump lay in his palm as he flew back to Draco. Just one glance said that the creature was dead. If the radiation hadn't killed him the intense heat had fried him, leaving him nothing but a six legged charcoal briquette.
"I'm sorry." Kentra said when she saw the remains in his hand. "You didn't really expect him to be alive, did you?"
"I kinda hoped," He admitted. "but no, I didn't expect it. However, that's not why I brought him back. The Lalz have an interesting system of reproduction. Unique in all the Universes I've seen. They develop two to five self-fertile eggs inside their body that only hatch after their parent's death."
"But any eggs would surely have been destroyed by the radiation or the explosion." Kentra said.
"Lalz eggs are truly amazing in what they can survive. Heat, cold, radiation, no problem for them. I don't know what they're made of but I should get Washu to analyze it cause its nearly indestructible. Now, lets see what we have.
Cryos closed his eyes and said "I'm sorry, my friend." as he crushed the tiny body in his hand. It crumbled into dust easily, leaving three tiny white spheres.
He breathed on them, saying "We have to get them to room temperature." And rolled them in his hands to warm them up. The heat of the explosion had dissipated quickly in the cold of space.
After a few minutes of this, he stopped and looked at them for signs of movement. He was quickly rewarded when one of them wobbled and cracked.
Within minutes, all three had hatched, leaving the tiny baby Lalz blinking in the light and staggering around on Cryos's palm.
He held out a piece of fruit he'd collected from the kitchens and they attacked it with vigor, sucking the juices with their tiny tongues.
When all three had eaten their fill Cryos slid them into the cavity in his staff. "Babies need their sleep." He explained.
Kentra had been watching this whole process in amazement. "That's impossible." She declared.
"Never underestimate the Multiverse." Cryos cautioned her. "It has a way of surprising you."