The Forsaken

by Hunter Kid

I always found it striking that Luke had so much ability with the Force, yet his twin sister did not. My conclusion is that Leia's powers are latent, and this story explores what could happen once she begins to experiment with her powers.

2. Laughing Snake

Part II: Laughing Snake

We think we're awful smart, we think we're awful wise,

but when we're least expecting, comes the big surprise.

Lady Luck's in heaven and we're her little toys,

so break out the wine and fill your glasses, boys!

--Petronius, The Satyricon

When Leia opened her eyes, a tremendous pain blossomed in her head.

Han leaped from his chair and was at her side in a blink. He said something that was drowned out by the sudden flash of pain.

When it subsided, focused her eyes on her fiance and smiled. "Hello, Han."

He grinned at her. "So...you're, you know, okay? Luke said that there was some pretty heavy damage in your room, and we were talking, and we figured that there was some kind of attempt on your life, so I've been pretty worried and we-"

She interrupted him, not rudely. "I'm fine, Han."

"Right." He smiled, a little embarrassed by his outburst of emotions. "Right, well, I just...well, we were worried about you."

She turned to Luke, who was fixing his intense blue-gray eyes on her.

"Who attacked you?" he asked tensely.

She smiled lightly at him. "What, aren't you even going to say hello, brother?"

"I think Han said a long enough hello for both of us. Who attacked you?"

She leaned back in the bed, tired. Attacked me? she wondered, her head spinning. What does he mean...?

The memories came back to her in a rush. The fire. The Force. Channeling it out through her arms, destroying her chambers, incinerating everything in her path. But why did Luke think that someone attacked her...?

Luke's features softened. "Leia, look, I know you've got to be exhausted, but this is important."

The Force. She remembered the amazement of the incredible feeling of power when she had released the wave of fire, her own incomprehension that she was the one channeling the destruction, that she had progressed that far that quickly.

Then she understood what Luke was asking. He must assume that I couldn't be responsible for that damage, so an attacker must have wrecked my room and knocked me out. That made sense.

"Luke, c'mon," Han was saying, his hand on his friend's shoulder. "She just woke up, and you're barraging her with questions already. Give her a break."

"Han, it's important and you know it," Luke hissed, scowling. "What if he comes back, did you ever consider that? Maybe next time she won't be able to protect herself with the Force!"

Han sighed. "Look, I don't think that this-"

"Luke," Leia interrupted him for the second time, "it's okay. The...attacker, he was consumed by the fire. He's dead."

She wasn't sure where the lie came from, or why she told it, but it seemed the right, the natural thing to do. Something deep within her told her not to tell Luke that she had been the cause of that destruction.

Han smiled smugly. "What'd I tell ya, Luke?"

Luke didn't respond.

"Luke, really," she told him, her voice as honest and truthful as it ever was, "I saw him die. He won't be coming back."

I can't tell him, she mused sourly. Not after he specifically told me never to use the Force as a direct attack weapon. She knew that he would likely stop teaching her altogether if she learned that she had so flagrantly disobeyed his instruction, and she no longer felt as if she could live without training in the Force.

Her brother seemed to relax, and if any suspicion lingered in those blue-gray eyes, it was buried deep down. He had learned to trust his sister, after all.

--

There were numerous conferences and meetings that Leia was scheduled to attend that day. Explaining that she needed rest, she went to none of them, shutting herself away in her chambers instead. In private, she knew, she could gather her thoughts, analyze her new, strange feelings.

Except now that Han had returned, there wasn't a great deal of privacy to be had. He was seated in a chair in their quarters when she arrived, carefully tinkering with his blaster. It looked as if he'd managed to get ahold of a stronger power cell, and had decided to go ahead and make other modifications to the weapon while he was at it.

When he saw her come in, he looked up, a gruff smile on his face. "Welcome back, your worship."

She scowled at him. "Don't call me that, Han."

He raised his eyebrows, then shrugged. "You're the princess, princess." He turned his attention back to his blaster. "So, aside from nearly being bomb fodder, how were things while I was gone?"

"Nice and quiet," she returned icily.

He ignored the edge in her tone. "Must've driven you up the wall. Is Luke a competent teacher? It seems to me like he'd be too nice to be a teacher. You have to be pretty firm, you know?"

"Luke teaches," she stated shortly. "It does the job."

"Great," he said, pulling at a small wire in the blaster casing. "I guess it goes without saying that you're at the top of your class, being the sister of Luke Skywalker the great Jedi knight."

She stood and stared at him in flinty silence.

He looked at her again, frowning. "Hey, look, I can understand you're being a little unsettled after being attacked by some nut with a bomb and all, but what's with the attitude? I thought you'd be happy to see me, after I've been gone awhile, you know?"

She didn't respond.

He sighed. "Look, if I've-"

Before he could complete his sentence, she had spun on her heel and stormed out of the door, growling softly to herself.

He rubbed a slightly greasy hand through his hair. "Right," he mumbled sourly. "Obviously I'm missing something here."

--

Wedge flicked on his comlink to the other pilots of Rogue Squadron. "Rogue Three," he said, referring to Jason, "we're approaching Endor, and we'll hit the atmosphere in about three minutes, thirty seconds. Can your bird take it, or do you want me to radio for help from home base?"

Jason had sustained a minor hit that had come distressingly close to hitting his primary stabilizers, and had succeeded in making his R2 unit mostly useless. He'd had a hell of a time getting the correct coordinates for the jump to hyperspace by manually entering the data into an antique compiler, but had managed to make it back to Endor in one piece, much to his and his companions' relief. None of the other X-wings had been so much scratched in the encounter with the pitiably equipped craft of the so-called Ariskandran Federation.

It had been a rather pathetic battle. The rebel pilots were far less skilled flyers than imperials, and had allowed themselves to be caught in the crescent that the twelve X-wing pilots had formed, forcing them to maneuver vertically and allowing Wedge's squad to get off an initial volley of shots. The pilots, who were not trained to avoid blaster fire, did not evade well and the first few shots took down three of the stolen shuttles. When the remaining three wheeled around for an attack, Rogue Squadron had already reformed, sandwiching them neatly in the middle. It had been target practice, pure and simple. It had only been by unfortunate chance that Jason had been hit; a purely lucky shot from the commander of the opposing 'fleet.'

"I think I can hold it, Rogue Leader," Jason replied. Wedge had figured that he was going to say that: the taciturn young man was about as resolute and stalwart a pilot as any Wedge'd ever known, and he generally refused to accept help even when it would have been the wiser choice.

Like now.

Wedge wasn't one to attempt to make another pilot's decisions for him, though, so he simply nodded. "Good, Three." He scanned the readouts he was getting from his R2 droid. "Twenty seconds to atmospheric breach."

For routine landing procedures, the R2's largely handled everything, leaving little for the pilot to do but monitor the feedback from the droid and onboard scanners and make sure everything was proceeding normally. Jason, with his malfunctioning droid, however, would have to handle his landing entirely manually, which Wedge was sure would grate on the young man after the stress he'd had to deal with to make the jump to light speed.

Jason seemed to handle it smoothly enough. Following routine manual landing procedure to the last detail, he took it slowly and carefully, using more power than was probably necessary in his forward shield to make sure the heat didn't affect his damaged craft. He kicked in the antigrav braking system gently, his eyes flashing back and forth from the cockpit window to the readouts from the atmosphere scanners to power monitors for the antigrav engine.

Wedge was relieved that he had managed it. It was a simple enough task, surely, but he had been a little worried that his companion's damaged craft wouldn't be able to hold up.

"Rogue Leader," Jason radioed him. Wedge, who had instructed his R2 unit to descend along with Jason to make sure he didn't falter, flickered his eyes over to the other X-wing pilot, who was scowling furiously as he carefully flipped levers and switches in the cockpit of his craft. "I've got a little problem here. Just lost power in my port engines. Auxiliary power's gone, too."

"Damn," Wedge cursed to himself. He knew it was too good to be true; nothing ever seemed to go off without a hitch of late. He opened the comlink channel. "Rogue Three, listen carefully. Pull up the full readout from your ancilary rear shield generator. Is it completely functional?" It should have been perfectly functional, of course, but then, there was no reason that Wedge could see for the port engines to be malfunctioning, either. Jason had almost lost his primary stabilizers, but that was nowhere near the port engines. The X-wing design, durable as it was, had virtually no redundancy in its engines systems, and Wedge was perfectly aware that the fairly inexperienced pilot would have an almost impossible time landing the craft with only his starboard engines, since the loss of the port engines would very likely burn out the stabilizers and send the craft into a tailspin unless he maneuvered it exactly right.

"Affirmative, Rogue Leader," Jason said, quickly doing as the older pilot instructed him. "Eighty-five percent."

That was less than perfect, but it would have to do.

"Now open the small panel below the thrust gauge," Wedge told him. "Flip the manual engine command switch. It's the third from the right. Hit the two green buttons above the switch. Then move the two levers to the right of the switch to the 'off' position. That should bring up an options display over your primary engine analysis screen." He strained to remember the annoyingly intricate procedures that he hadn't had to use in a very long time, knowing that they had ceased training pilots in the antiquated processes, assuming that a completely disabled R2 unit meant the pilot was probably dead anyway. "There should be an option there to disable your ancilary rear shield generator. Select it. Close the options box. Now hit the left green button again, and move the right lever to the 'on' position. This should bring up a bunch of weird technical data on your analysis screen, and a yes/no box. Select no. A hologram of your ship will pop up, along with more technical gibberish. Touch the ancilary generator on the hologram, and hit no again when an options screen comes up. It will then ask you if you want to manually override the generator. Select yes. Now hit the left green button again. Another options screen will come up. Select 'reroute power,' then hit the gray 'link' switch next to the green buttons. Another options screen will pop up. Select 'port engines' from the list, and 'yes' when it asks you whether to alter the output type. Now move the left lever to the 'on' position. Select 'yes' on the activation screen." He wiped the sweat from his brow. "Your port engine should have about sixty percent power restored."

"Fifty-three," Jason said, obviously tremendously relieved as his craft steadied itself. "Um, Wedge?"

"What is it, Rogue Three?" Not another malfunction, he prayed silently.

"Thanks, man. I owe you one."

Wedge grinned at him. "Damn straight you do, kid. Now shut up and land that thing."

--

Leia arrived in the training room two hours early, and was relieved to find that she was alone. She needed time on her own, to think, to remember, to analyze the things that had happened to her in the past few days without Luke or Han or anyone else bothering her.

The memory of the fire in her room was still a bit blurry, and she could not, for the life of her, remember why she had suddenly decided to torch her own quarters. There hadn't been an attacker, as she'd told Han and her brother, she was certain of that, but the recollection of it was vague and uncertain. It just didn't make any sense: she had never been the type to throw tantrums, to break things when she was angry. She considered herself a very reasonable, rational person.

And, of course, aside from that, she had no idea how she had managed to throw a wave of fire with such tremendous power. She was a novice, for God's sake, barely even in training yet.

But she had.

However vague the overall picture was to her, she remembered very clearly the feeling as the torrent of fire coursed through her body and out her hands. The unbelievable feeling of control, of strength, was simply overpowering.

And what of afterwards...?

She sighed. She thought that she had simply fainted after throwing the fiery wave, and her next memory was that of awakening with a splitting headache in the medical center, Han and Luke staring worriedly at her.

But...

No.

There was something else, something she'd forgotten. It teased her, on the edge of her conscious memory, just out of her grasp. A voice, a familiar voice was all that she could bring to mind. Grabbing onto that fragment of the memory, she stared at it with her mind's eye, analyzing it, trying to recall whose voice it had been, what they had spoken of, what exactly the voice had sounded like.

It had been deep, she remembered that much. Deep, and ominous, and somehow...hollow.

Dark.

Evil.

Darth Vader. The name seared her mind, and she found that her breathing was ragged. A dream. I spoke to Darth Vader in a dream...no, he spoke to me. What did he say? He spoke to me, and told me...told me...what? What he tell me?

She ground her teeth in frustration. She sensed, she knew that what he had said was of overwhelming importance, but she could not remember.

I must remember, she told herself grimly, closing her eyes, trying to bring together the shards of the dream.

By the time Luke arrived, fifteen minutes before the start of the training session, her recollections were no better.

--

That session, Leia fought a slightly older woman, about thirty or so, named Aurens Locke. She was considerably taller than Leia, and obviously stronger; the sleeves of her training shirt had been ripped off, and her arms were lean and wiry, without an ounce of fat on them. She also moved with an athletic grace that told Leia that she was probably very fast in addition to her other advantages.

"You ready?" Locke asked her, a cocky look on her face. That look told Leia that she was no doubt one of the better saber-wielders in the class.

Leia nodded, extending her energy blade, and she soon found the truth of her assumption.

Locke was not only surprisingly skilled with the lightsaber, she moved much faster than Leia could have anticipated. In fact, Leia had never seen anyone move as fast before in her life. She spun, slashed, moved from short to long range, attacking with the speed and temerity of a swooping falcon. And she hit hard. Leia, caught off-guard by her unexpectedly rapid movements, took several forceful blows, staggered backwards, and Locke, moving like a panther, kicked her legs out from under her and somehow managed to pivot while the luckless Leia was still in midair. Locke spun, slamming her forearm down on Leia's sternum. She landed with a loud thump on the floor, the wind knocked out of her. Locke brought the humming saber to her throat.

Leia was better prepared for Locke's blazing speed the next round, for all the good it did her. She parried Locke's first volley of strikes, then took a heavy hit when Locke feinted with the lightsaber and hop-stepped forward, slamming her foot into Leia's stomach. Hopelessly trying to regain her balance, she quickly fell prey to Locke's rapid-fire follow-up attacks, hitting her in the thigh, the chest, the shoulder, the neck, the calf, the midsection. She once again was knocked to the floor as her opponent cut her forward leg out from under her with her lightsaber, then hopped forward lithely, sending Leia reeling with a massive kick to her ribs.

She lay there on the ground momentarily, scowling, feeling a dark anger bubble up inside her. There had to be some weak point to exploit, something that would take Locke off-guard enough to allow Leia to go on the offensive. But there was nothing: closing quarters, as was Leia's general strategy against the giant Sabrul Mantier, would not work against Locke and she knew it. For one, Locke was a lot faster than she was, and, while taller, was not so much taller that she would be unable to adequately defend herself at close quarters. And Locke was much better with her feet than Mantier was, both in keeping her balance and in the quickness of her movements; her kicks were so effective because Leia didn't even see them coming before they smashed into her.

I could use the Force, she thought, scowling inwardly. This arrogant woman would not last a second if I used the Force.

Then she sighed. But I won't. I can't. Luke has forbidden me to do so.

So she pulled herself wearily to her feet, activating her saber once more. She was, of course, still allowed to use the Force to simply enhance her abilities, but, although she had training for endless hours attempting to do so, she had felt not so much as a...spark... She frowned as she felt something tugging at the edge of her mind, some aspect of the half-remembered dream that she could not quite recall.

Locke smiled at her. To Leia's eye, it was a singularly nasty, condescending smile. "Are you ready?"

Leia gave a short, angry nod, lunging at the infuriating woman. Her three strikes seemed in slow motion compared to the snake-like movements that Locke used to parry them, then counterattack ferociously. It felt as if she was being pummelled on all sides at one time, and she felt Locke's lightsaber sizzle painfully first against her ribs, then her shoulder, then her legs and her arms and her head and her throat-

The Force was there.

Leia seized ahold of it, and felt the blazing essence of it course powerfully, wonderfully through her body.

Locke's next attacks, two false strikes with the saber, a sweep, and a strong forward slash, seemed laughably slow to Leia, then, and she, seemingly stumbling backwards, evaded the first three with ease, then chopped sideways at the forward slash. Locke's features betrayed her surprise as Leia suddenly danced to her unguarded side and whipped her saber at her legs. She did not nearly manage to block it in time, and it stung painfully. Attempting pitiably to regain her dominating position, she twirled to one side rapidly, only to be met once again by Leia's humming weapon. It hit hard against her abdomen, and nearly knocked the wind out of her, and Leia mercilessly pressed the attack. Moving with tremendous speed and power, she spun her shoulder to one side, avoiding Locke's attempt at counterattacking, and caught her opponent's wrist in a vice-like grip, then used her torque to painfully twist Locke's arm. She cried out, but Leia ignored it and brought the buzzing saber down on her elbow, then slid it up her upper arm to her neck, sizzling against her skin the entire way. Locke tried to jerk backwards, to no avail, Leia's small hand still clamped viciously on her wrist. Leia smiled venomously, chambering her leg and slamming it down on Locke's right knee. It cracked and she screamed as she felt the bone split.

Before Leia could wreak any more damage to Locke's now helpless form, Luke intervened on her behalf.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Master Skywalker demanded, his blue-gray eyes hurt and angry. Aurens listened to him through a haze of pain, not even noticing that all the other students had stopped their own matches, watching the spectacle unfold before them. Not only were they all stunned at the naked viciousness the seemingly kind princess has displayed, some of them were hoping to see the Master show his prowess for the first time.

"Training," Princess Leia responded, a sadistic grin on her face. Fury burned hot in her eyes as she squared off against the Master, her saber humming and buzzing. "Want to train with me, brother?"

Brother? Aurens wondered, dazed.

"What is the matter with you, Leia?" Master Skywalker growled, not touching his own saber. Aurens absently wondered whether it was real or a training weapon. "You just broke Aurens's knee, and you're smiling about it!"

Leia laughed. "It was great fun, brother. What I'm about to do to you will be even more fun."

"What do you-"

He was cut off as Leia lunged at him, lashing out with incredible speed. The students watched breathlessly as Master Skywalker smoothly parried the blows with his lightsaber, matching her speed with ease. She swung her training saber in an overhand arc that the Master easily caught and threw aside with his own weapon, then stepped forward and slashed twice. Neither attack hit the princess, but Aurens didn't think either was meant to. Instead, they sheared long, crackling slices in her training outfit, putting to rest any doubts that Master Skywalker was not fighting with a fully functional lightsaber. Before she could even think, let alone react, the Master had chopped at her weapon, knocking it out of her hand, cracking, splitting, and shattering the metal hilt of the saber. It fell in pieces to the ground, nearly ten feet away from them.

About the same time as the destroyed weapon landed, Leia's eyes rolled back in her head and she fell forward, limp, into Master Skywalker's arms.

--

Aurens remembered little from that point onwards. For her, there was only the pain from then on, as Vastiar, Iris, and a young man called Jeikar had lifted her from the ground onto a stretcher that Jeikar had retrieved from one of the neighboring rooms. They had taken her to the medical center, she vaguely remembered through the haze that clouded her memory, and she had been given some sort of shot from one of the attendant droids, and...

And then she'd woken up.

She sat up, surveying her surroundings. A small medical droid was running several surgical tools through an internal cleaner, and she saw that her knee had been entirely repaired by the little machine. She was grateful for that: she would not have wanted to go about for the rest of her life with a mechanical knee, regardless of how everyone insisted that you couldn't even tell the difference. On the far side of the room, partially cloaked in shadow, Vastiar stood, engaged in a quiet conversation with Jeikar. When he saw that she was awake, he smiled genuinely at her. Jeikar, a black-haired boy who couldn't have been older than sixteen or seventeen, grinned cheerfully at her and waved.

"Welcome back to the realms of the living," Jeikar said to her. His face, not particularly comely, lit up when he smiled, making him appear even more boyish than usual. "How's the knee?"

"Better," she responded, returning his pleasant grin. "It was nice of you two to stay here and watch over me. How long have I been out?"

Jeikar shrugged, running a hand through thick hair black as ink. "Just a few hours. Not that long. We were just talking about how amazing these new medical droids are; how they can heal even pretty bad wounds like yours so fast, you know?"

Vastiar licked his lips. "We've also been trying to figure out what happened. To you, I mean. A lot of people were watching, but none of them are quite sure."

That was odd. "It was pretty simple," Aurens told him carefully. "The princess grabbed hold of my wrist and kicked my knee in. It broke."

"No, no." He waved her explanation away. "I don't mean that. I mean why the princess suddenly decided to kick your knee in. I've always been a pretty good judge of character, and she's always seemed so..." He flailed about for the word.

"Nice?" she suggested, her voice more than slightly sour.

He nodded. "Yes. Nice."

"I always thought so, too," she said, sighing. "And we were just sparring - I was beating her, actually - when she suddenly went crazy on me." She stared at the ceiling, thoughtful. "The weird thing is that she suddenly got a lot better. And I don't just mean that she was hitting harder because she was mad, I mean that out of nowhere, her movements were a lot more fluid, her balance was better, her reflexes were sharper. I'll swear to it that her skill level increased, too."

"That is definitely weird," Jeikar agreed, deadpan.

"You don't believe me."

Jeikar shrugged. "Well, I mean, it's not that I think you're lying or anything, but...I mean, how would she suddenly just get better, you know?"

"No. I don't know. That's why I said it was weird."

"Maybe she just got in a few lucky shots," the black-haired boy offered. "That makes more sense to me."

She nodded. "Makes more sense to me, too. But it wasn't what happened." She glowered at him. "Look, I was on the receiving end of her sudden murderous impulse, you got it, kid? Don't tell me what I saw and didn't see."

None of them spoke for several moments.

"So...are you going to keep training?" Vastiar ventured, at length.

"Yes."

He nodded approvingly. "Good. But...you're not worried that she'll go berserk on you again?"

She stared piercingly at him. "Would you be worried, Vastiar?"

Vastiar nodded emphatically. "You better believe it. Next time you might wind up dead, or have to get a limb replaced."

"And would you continue your training?"

He smiled faintly. "Of course. You think a little thing like death would scare me off from an opportunity of this magnitude?"

She snorted back laughter, wondering if he was being pretentious. "I do, however," she muttered darkly, "mean to get to the bottom of this. I'm going to have a talk with Master Skywalker, see what he knows about this. Today. I know he's close to the princess." Then she frowned, her eyes clouded. "And she said something that's bothering me."

"Oh?" Vastiar raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Princess Leia called the Master 'brother.' What could that mean?"

"It could mean that he's her brother," Jeikar interjected helpfully.

She laughed shortly. "Not too fucking likely."

"Maybe it's like the thing that patients develop with their doctors," Vastiar suggested, grinning sardonically. "You know, when they start thinking of their doctor as their parent? Maybe murderers start seeing their victims as their brothers right before they slaughter them."

She started to climb out of the bed, sighed. "That wasn't funny at all, Vastiar."

"Thank you." He looked inordinately pleased.

--

But when the three of them made it back down to the training room, Master Skywalker was nowhere to be seen. In fact, almost everyone had left, and the sole figure still present was Sabrul Mantier. They had entered quietly, and if he noticed them, he did not show it, absorbed in his practice.

He was practicing in a manner none of them were familiar with: it was an intricate, dance-like series of movements with his lightsaber, graceful and powerful. It looked as though he had combined a series of combat movements into a long pattern, combined with some of the exercises that the Master had them go through every session. He bore a striking resemblance to a stalking panther, with his soft footfalls and deadly grace.

They stood, transfixed, watching the old man go through the complex pattern.

When he had finished, he turned to look at them.

"Have you, uh, seen Master Skywalker?" Jeikar asked, embarrassed that he had been caught staring.

Mantier sighed. "He left with the princess Leia. I fear she is not well." He turned his intense gaze to Aurens. "And it appears you've had your leg healed. I'm glad it didn't have to be replaced."

"So am I," Aurens responded emphatically. "And I'd say that the princess isn't well. She went nuts."

He didn't speak.

"We were just sparring normally, you know, and suddenly she gets all crazy. And I swear that she actually got better, you know, more powerful. Not just the adrenaline making her stronger, either; I'm saying that she suddenly was able to move faster and strike harder. Exponentially faster and harder."

"Her knee was cracked up pretty bad," Jeikar put in. "The princess hit it really hard."

Mantier nodded. "I know. I was watching."

"Well," Aurens grumbled, miffed, "you seem pretty calm about the whole thing. Princess Leia goes on a murderous rampage, breaks my knee, and tries to kill Master Skywalker, and you don't seem bothered at all."

He sighed heavily, tucking his lightsaber into his black band belt. "I am bothered by it, Aurens Locke. More bothered than any of you, I suspect."

She snorted. "Oh, did Leia break your leg, too, when no one was watching?"

Mantier shook his head sadly. "It is not the results I'm speaking of, Locke. In all your righteous wrath, have you stopped to think what might have caused her sudden bloodlust? Or did you think it simply popped up out of nowhere?"

"Well, I..." she trailed off, staring at him. "I'm...we're not sure. That's why we're trying to find Master Skywalker. We figure he might know."

The old man nodded. "He does. So would Iris, or Galtan, or Sandros."

She tried to call the images of those three people into her mind. "'Iris, Galtan, or Sandros?'" she repeated, puzzled. Iris was an older woman, middle-aged, fair with a saber but not nearly as good as she was. Galtan was a lean, whiplike young man in his early twenties with skin black as night and extraordinarily sharp reflexes. Sandros she did not know. "Why? What part do they play in this?"

"No part. But they are the only three people, other than myself, Master Skywalker, and Leia, who can feel the Force with any strength yet."

"So?"

Mantier looked at her levelly. "Think about the class you are taking, Aurens Locke."

She frowned. "You're saying that the princess used the Force on me?"

He shook his head. "Not at all. She used it on herself to make herself stronger; I understand she's been attempting to do so for quite some time. Today, she succeeded."

"And the Force suddenly turned her into a murderous psycho. Somehow, I find that hard to believe." She scowled. "And if it was true, why the hell are you even here, Sabrul? Why would you want to mess with something that dangerous?"

"Master Skywalker has said that the Force is not dangerous unless misused," he responded imperturbably.

"That's pretty vague," Jeikar pointed out. "Who the hell gets to define 'misuse?'"

"I'm not sure," the old man admitted, "but I've always thought that the Master meant for us to judge it according to our own consciences. And he said that anger, aggression, and fear were three ways to misuse the Force, as well as attacking directly with it."

Vastiar nodded, troubled. "I remember him saying that, too, because I was a little worried that my own attempts to use it as a battle weapon would lead me to the dark side. Anger, aggression, fear." He looked toward Aurens, his gaze thoughtful. "Your defeating of her would have aroused all three, don't you think? Come to think of it," he realized, "I remember that the princess used to be far and away the best fighter in the class. She was even able to thrash you, Sabrul. But then, she sort of...lost it. It was like she went from being the best to being one of the worst. I remember, because I was watching this guy who I knew wasn't very good beat up on her pretty easily."

"Soar," Jeikar offered. "The quiet guy. I know who you're talking about. I remember seeing her spar him a couple days back. He's a great shot with a blaster, but a terrible swordfighter."

"Exactly. So she takes a fall, and her pride's hurting pretty bad, so she's fighting Aurens here, and when she starts getting beaten for the umpteenth time, she loses her temper, uses the Force in the way that she knows she's not supposed to, and goes berserk." He frowned. "But I don't understand why she would have attacked Master Skywalker."

Mantier's brows knotted. "The princess Leia used to do this little trick where she'd concentrate and fire off these little kinetic blasts. It really helped her in the fights that we had. But Master Skywalker forbade that one day to her, out of the blue. I guess that could explain her misgivings toward him."

"So it all fits," Jeikar concluded, looking pleased. "Just a long chain of bad luck and bad circumstances."

That did not seem to make the old man feel better. "I don't know," he rumbled, sighing. "It just seems all wrong, somehow. When I said that this bothers me more than any of you, I did not speak in jest. I can feel the Force and I know none of you can yet, so perhaps that gives me a different perspective, but..." He shook his head. "This just seems ominous, to me."

"We should still talk to the Master about it," Jeikar admitted, "but I think our explanation makes it all make sense."

It did make it all make sense.

And it was all wrong.

--

"The princess sends her regrets, and says that she will not be able to attend the meeting."

Commodore Jaire ve'Ternas rubbed his aching temples. "'Not able to attend the meeting?'" he repeated darkly, favoring the messenger droid with a carefully controlled glare. "And why is the princess not able to attend the meeting?"

"The princess has taken ill, Commodore, and she sends her regrets." The droid was a gold-brass color, and had a singularly irritating voice.

"Yeah, she sends her regrets. Wonderful. I heard you the first time." He sighed. "Why did she send you to tell me this instead of contacting me over the holophone?"

"I am C-3PO, Commodore, human-cyborg relations, one of the princess's most trusted servants, and I assure you that she-"

"Forget it," Jaire cut him off, glowering. "Look, fine, the princess is ill. Tell her I hope she gets well soon, and inform her that this is important, and that I need to meet with her as soon as she is better. Understood?"

The droid nodded. It had a jerky, almost spasmodic way of moving. Protocol droids like this one had seemed almost to be built simply to annoy everyone within earshot, and were one of the primary reasons that the commodore avoided the use of droids in general. "Very good, sir," it told him, waddling slowly out the doorway with a very self-important air about it.

Captain Richard Strager slammed his fist down against the reinforced steel desk of Jaire's office. "I don't fucking believe this," he grated furiously. "She cancelled. A week ago, we'd finally managed to convince her of the urgency of the situation, and now she gets sick and cancels. I don't care if she has the Goddamned palakastic plague! She said she was going to be here, she swore that she was going to be here!"

"She's a princess, Strager," Commodore Jaire told him dryly. "She's no doubt accustomed to doing as she pleases."

"Great reason." Richard snorted derisively. "Look, Commodore, I understand that you think she'd be the most open to hear our plea out of all the Council members, but do we really want to rely on someone that...capricious?"

Jaire shrugged. "Not at all. But since it's either that or nothing, I'll take my chances with her." Then he frowned. "But it certainly does bother me. How sick can she possibly be? I saw her training with Jedi Master Skywalker only a few days past, hale and healthy as a horse. And surely I'd have heard something if there was a new epidemic running loose."

"I don't trust her," the captain grunted.

"I don't trust anyone," Jaire snapped. "But I know the princess to be a true and honorable patriot, and I feel very strongly that she will be sympathetic to our cause, Captain! This is too important to enlist the help of someone with wavering loyalties. I cannot understand why the princess has cancelled on us, and I intend to find out, but for now, we stick with our original plan. I will get the meeting rescheduled for the morrow, and I will get the princess to attend, one way or another, Strager."

Richard Strager sighed. "I hope so, Commodore. And if she is playing us false..."

Jaire shook his head sharply. "No, Captain. She is not. She would not. That I feel sure of."

The captain stood up abruptly. "I wish I shared your confidence, Jaire. I really do."

With that, he gave a perfunctory salute and exited the small office, leaving Commodore Jaire alone with his thoughts.

--

Leia awoke slowly, groggily, and found herself staring at her brother's somber visage. He was seated on the edge of her bed, his eyes mostly unreadable, but she saw an accusatory cast far in their depths.

I wonder what for, she thought, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Maybe he found out the truth about the fire in my chamber...

But that was not it, she knew, the instant that he spoke. "Why?" he asked, his voice full of pain, frustration, and incomprehension. He sounded like a man lost and confused, like a man betrayed by a close friend.

By a sister.

The memories came back to her all in a rush. She remembered reaching out to the Force, the incredible euphoria as it permeated her being, of finally being able to regain her battle skill, and then the surge of hate that had overwhelmed her, and even after she had clearly beaten her opponent, she had grabbed her wrist and...

She closed her eyes, shuddered. The hideous crack that Aurens Locke's knee had made as she had kicked it sideways resounded in her ears, followed by the woman's shriek of pain. And then Luke had stepped in to stop her, and she'd...

I attacked him. The thought was like a lightning bolt through her mind. I attacked my brother.

And she had intended to hurt him. She had wanted to hurt him, wanted so badly to cause him pain, to make him suffer, and she remembered the surging roar in ears as she'd charged him, channeling all the power of the Force that she could muster into her arms, into the lightsaber. The feeling of incredible hate, and the elation she'd felt as she wanted to rend him limb from limb, and...

Leia stared at the suffering eyes of her brother, and was suddenly overwhelmed by an unimaginable sorrow, and regret, and bitter guilt.

"Luke," she whispered, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks, not caring. "Luke..."

"Why?" he asked again, hoarsely, accusingly.

She jerked up, crying, and fiercely hugged him. "I'm so sorry, Luke," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..."

He returned her embrace, sighing softly.

Had she looked at his eyes then, she would have seen there the reflection of the dark fears that ate at his soul.

--

"Sir?"

Admiral Galrond looked up from his plain wooden desk to see Lieutenant Iskary's crisp form standing in front of him, Iskary's ever-present polite but determined expression gazing down respectfully at him. He set down his pen. "Yes, Lieutenant?" Iskary being who he was, Galrond knew that he wouldn't interrupt his writing unless it was something important.

"Rogue Squadron's mission was successful, Admiral," the lieutenant reported. "The so-called Ariskandran Federation's fleet has been exterminated, and we did not sustain any casualties."

"Mm-hmm," Galrond mumbled, looking directly at the younger man. "Obviously that's not all you have to tell me."

A hint of a smile brushed at Iskary's thin lips. "No sir, it isn't. I thought you might be interested to know that Princess Leia Organa has been neglecting her duties as a Councillor of late."

The admiral didn't show any sign of surprise. "Nice little tidbit. Why did you think I might be interested to know that?"

"May I speak frankly, sir?"

He gave a cursory nod. "I encourage all under me to speak frankly, Lieutenant."

"Sir, you've often spoken about disagreeing with the princess's ideas. Might this not be a possible way to get her removed from the Council, and thus remove her as a threat to you?"

Galrond stood up, facing the lieutenant. The admiral did not cut an impressive figure, and he knew it: he was short, ungainly, and more than a little overweight. His limbs were just this side of stunted, and his face was far from being pleasant to look at. Yet there was an air of dignity about him that made others stop and listen. "I disagree with the princess, Lieutenant Iskary," he said, firmly. "That does not mean I am ready to stab her in the back. Perhaps you are not familiar with the princess's career, Lieutenant, but I assure you, it has encompassed things that you and I can barely even dream about. Or have nightmares about, I should say."

"What do you mean, sir?"

The admiral sighed heavily. "Have you ever had a nightmare about watching, powerlessly, as your homeworld was blown to pieces?"

"No, I haven't, sir."

"That happened to Leia, Lieutenant. And let me tell you something else you may not know: Princess Leia Organa was tortured, given mind control drugs, subjected to unimaginable pain by Darth Vader himself. You know what he wanted?"

"No, I don't, sir."

"He wanted the location of the Alliance's base. And you know what else? She didn't give it to him." The admiral sat back down, shaking his head. "In any case, Lieutenant, the point is that I am not going to backstab the princess. I hear she has simply taken ill in any case."

Iskary nodded. "As you say, sir."

Galrond went back to his writing. "You are dismissed, Lieutenant."

Long after Lieutenant Iskary had taken his leave, the admiral had stopped writing, and instead sat, his chin resting contemplatively on his steepled hands, thinking about the rumors that were beginning to wind their way up to him that suggested that he was wrong, that the princess had not simply 'taken ill,' that something was truly amiss with her. The rumors were conflicting and ridiculous, but somehow ominous all the same. One of them claimed that the princess had taken up a toy lightsaber and attacked Jedi Master Skywalker. Another said that she had suffered from a bout of insanity and broken a woman's leg. Another said that she was dead, and that Skywalker had killed her. No, another disagreed, Skywalker had just broken her legs for insubordination. No, said a third, Leia had been an imperial sympathizer all along and had organized an evil plot to assassinate Skywalker. Another proclaimed that Leia was really a reincarnation of Darth Vader, and was in cahoots with Skywalker, intent on bringing the downfall of the Alliance.

The rumors got more and more wild and farfetched, as rumors have the tendency to do.

What Galrond worried about was that the rumors would damage the princess's ability to function as a Councillor. Who, after all, wanted to follow the lead of a Councillor who they believed was Darth Vader reincarnate? Galrond truly believed what he had told Iskary, that although he and Leia disagreed often and sometimes severely, he wished no trouble on the woman, who he viewed as a great, if politically misguided, patriot.

He decided that it would be wisest to call a meeting with the princess and discuss it with her personally. After all, they said that within even the strangest rumor lay a grain of truth.

--

Rance smiled at him. "Wedge, you're letting your paranoia eat away at you. You need to relax."

Pasik Tars nodded, swirling his blood-red cocktail slowly. "Yes, Wedge. You definitely need to relax. It's like there's this little black stormcloud emanating from you, and God help me, you're ruining the evening for all three of us."

Wedge smirked. "I sure wouldn't want to do that, seeing what party animals the three of us are."

"Ouch, sarcastic humor." Tars took a small sip from his drink. "The stormcloud just fired off a lightning bolt."

She raised an eyebrow. "That was sarcastic humor? I think I caught the sarcasm, but I know a good joke when I hear one, and that was nothing like a good joke."

"That's because it was sarcastic," Tars told her, grinning. "It's meant to be bitter and mean-spirited but somehow also funny."

"Well, that wasn't," Rance responded, drinking her ale in big gulps. "So I'm rating it as a bad joke."

"But it wasn't a joke in the first place," Tars explained to her patiently. "It was sarcasti-"

She gave him the evil eye. "Enough of your semantics already. You want to take this outside?"

"Hmm." Tars looked pointedly at his cocktail. "Not unless 'this' is my drink. And even then, I'd prefer to stay in here where it's nice and light. It's all dark and creepy outside."

She raised an eyebrow. "'Dark and creepy?' What kind of starfighter pilot are you, sitting there all afraid of the dark?"

Tars grinned. "Space isn't creepy, my dear Rance."

"And nighttime on Endor is? What, are you afraid one of the local teddy bears is going to come out and eat you?"

Wedge snickered at hearing the Ewoks referred to as 'teddy bears.' They both turned to stare at him in mock amazement.

"My God, was that a laugh?"

"In the name of all that's holy, I believe it was! Rejoice, therefore!"

Wedge's humor dried up like spilled water on a hot day on Tatooine. "Undoubtedly, that means that both of you want me to buy you drinks."

Tars chortled. "You know, I like this guy. He volunteers to pay for the drinks without me even having to ask."

"I dunno about that," Rance said, smirking. "It's kind of unnerving how I can't even tell when he's employing your so-called 'sarcastic humor' and when he's just being Wedge."

"Has it occurred to you that they might be one and the same?"

"In fact, I was about to say that, but I was afraid he would make me the subject of one of his bitter and mean-spirited but somehow also funny jokes. Except it wouldn't be funny. That would just make it worse."

Tars lifted his cup. "Well, then, a toast to bad jokes."

Rance grinned. "And sarcastic humor."

They both drained their cups to the dregs.

Wedge sat and brooded.

Nearly thirty minutes passed before Wedge said another word to his ever-more-inebriated companions. "Rance, Tars."

Tars, who could hold his liquor fairly well, smiled broadly at his Squadron Leader. He looked more than a little tipsy in spite of his tolerance for the alcohol.

Rance, who couldn't, snickered at him inanely.

Wedge cleared his throat, before speaking carefully. "Do you know what I think?"

"I didn't know you thought at all," she commented in between giggles, then collapsed in a fit of helpless laughter. "Thought...at...all!" she repeated to herself, howling with laughter. "Thought at all! It doesn't get any funnier than that, boys! How's that for sarcastic humor, Wedge? Thought...at all!"

He studiously ignored his drunken squad-mate. "I think that something big's going down."

"Y'hear that?" Rance asked, laughing so hard she was crying. "Something big's going down! Looks like Jabba the Hutt's doomed, Tars! Get it? Get it? Big? Jabba? Big?"

"Luke Skywalker killed Jabba the Hutt some time ago, as you would have remembered if you weren't so damned drunk," Wedge muttered sourly.

"Jabba the Hutt is dead?" Rance demanded in mock surprise, then clambered to the top of their table. "You hear that, all you pathetic slobs?" she roared, swaying unsteadily on the table. "Jabba the Hutt is already dead! Well, we don't care! We're patriots! One death isn't enough! Jabba the Hutt shall die a second time! Let's kill 'em all, the worthless bastards! Three cheers, boys!"

Several of the more drunken patrons of the bar cheered, not caring in the slightest what they were cheering for, only noticing that there was a drunk, attractive woman dressed in a rather revealing tank-top standing on one of the tables.

"Rogue Ten, reporting in! We're pumped up, Rogue Leader!" Rance announced, giving a booming laugh. "Where's the target?"

Wedge mumbled something unprintable under his breath.

"Hutt!" Rance shouted, parading around on the tabletop. "Hutt! Hutt! We want Hutt! Hutt! Hutt! We want Hutt! Hutt! Hutt! We wan-" She slipped and fell off the table, cutting herself off mid-cheer, but the other intoxicated patrons had already taken up the cry, pounding their mugs furiously against the wooden tables. There was an audible crack from the back of the establishment, then several angry shouts, followed by more cracks, then a loud 'thump.' A young man slid across the bar face-first, shattering no small number of glasses, then managed to get to his feet, picked up a stool, and bashed the man nearest to him. The man growled, caught the stool mid-swing, and sent a fist into the young man's stomach. A friend of the young man jumped to his defense, tackling the puncher from behind, who spun and threw him into the gathering crowd of onlookers. At that point, chaos erupted, as the patrons cheerfully started beating each other's heads in, all the while inanely shouting, "Hutt! Hutt! We want Hutt!"

"Oh shit," Tars muttered, rolling up the sleeves of his flight suit. "There's a brawl coming our way, Wedge."

Rance pulled herself up from the floor, laughing and bellowing some incomprehensible battle cry as she charged into the fray.

"Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me?" Wedge complained, as he was dragged into the mob.

--

Vastiar's dorm room was a small, pathetic thing. It was a completely unremarkable cube shape, scarcely long enough to fit a bed in, made of the same dull gray concrete that everything else was made of in the Temple-turned-Alliance-headquarters, and it had a miserable strip of fluorescent lightning overhead that was half burned out, so only half the room had any appreciable light in it, and even that wasn't very appreciable. At least, Vastiar didn't appreciate it, seeing as how small and pathetic the room in general was. The Council, in response to the numerous daily complaints from other people who were living in equally pitiful dorm rooms, kept saying that the new Alliance quasi-capital - Vastiar thought that was a riot, them calling their headquarters-under-contruction a 'quasi-capital' - was nearing completion, and pretty soon everyone was going to have a nice, big, well-lit, warm chamber to live in. Everyone with an ounce of sense knew that it was a load of bull, since something as complicated as a quasi-capital obviously was going to take longer than just a couple months to finish. The Republic wasn't built in a day, after all. But since it looked like they wanted to build their 'New Republic' in a day, it would undoubtedly be a joke when it was finished. Probably something like the Old Republic, right before the Emperor had just about single-handedly crushed its worthless old Senate.

He shared the dorm with a young man named Taren, who thankfully was clean and well-groomed. Taren was actually one of the few people that Vastiar liked in the Alliance, the others being Aurens, that kid Jeikar, and Master Skywalker. And old Sabrul Mantier, who was just so damn impressive that Vastiar found himself actually looking up to him; not like he looked up to Master Skywalker, since he was the only remaining Jedi and all that, but like the old man was a god or something. Thinking about him, he didn't seem so impressive, but actually getting up-close-and-personal with the old guy with something else entirely. He just had that aura. Vastiar thought he remembered some other folks around that he could stand, but he couldn't seem to dredge their names up from his tired mind.

Princess Leia, now. She had sort of an aura, too, but he figured that was probably just his imagination playing tricks on him since he'd seen her break Aurens's knee and attack the Master and all. And he couldn't remembering noticing her having any special aura before she'd attacked Aurens and Master Skywalker, and, since he hadn't actually seen her since then, he decided that his mind was indeed playing tricks on him. But, even so, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something somehow evil about the princess's aura. Not that she actually had a dark vortex swirling around her or anything like that, but it was just this eerie feeling he got when he was around her. Or had gotten. Or rather, had remembered having gotten, which probably meant that he hadn't gotten it at all and he was just making things up in hindsight. He did that a lot. Pretty soon, he was sure, his creatively-addled memory would have the princess sprouting horns as he walked by and dripping blood from a pair of fangs. And she'd probably have claws, too. Lots of so-called 'evil' things had been portrayed as clawed, so that had no doubt become associated in his mind with anything evil. Needless to say, regardless of whether or not Leia really did have skulls spinning around her head or whatever, he didn't have any great love for the woman.

Taren, though, he did like. His full name was Taren Auscarandos, and he was actually a pretty good-looking guy, with nicely-combed short blond hair with a little wave in it and all. He was pretty skinny - actually, he was very skinny - and didn't look all too strong, and his voice was kind of puny and girlish, but he still managed to look good just the same. He was nice and everything, too. He didn't lie, and he was basically friendly and trusting. He was the kind of guy that you lent stuff to and didn't worry about getting it back, because he was just so honest-looking.

Vastiar's mind always spun out in every which way when he was tired, like now, so he just lay on his small, pathetic little bed - hard as a rock, naturally - and let his mind spin. It was certainly more enjoyable than thinking about how he was lying in a small, pathetic room on a small, pathetic bed where it was too damn cold and the lights didn't work right, or about Princess Leia's evil aura, which probably didn't exist but managed to rile him up all the same.

So, instead, Vastiar lay and dreamt about star travel, about the only thing that he truly enjoyed, aside from the newly-discovered obsession of the Force and Jedi training. He hadn't been lying to Aurens when he'd told her he was only nineteen, but he was also a great deal better traveled than most nineteen-year-olds were, and had a cargohold's worth of real-world experience more than them, too. It wasn't all star travel, unfortunately; a lot of it was miserable, gritty land travel, on some sputtering land speeder or lousy hovering passenger freighter that traveled about a foot per hour and broke down every other minute or so. And it hadn't been some pleasure cruise, either. Before joining up with the Alliance as a droid technician, he'd worked on the planet Varista, a miserable, desolate rock which had the dubious distinction of being possibly the only planet in existence where it rained just about all day, every day, every year. And it wasn't just a normal day, either; Varista, the miserable hunk of rock, rotated so damn slow that each day lasted ninety-six hours. Ninety-six hours of rain every day for a year was enough to drive a man mad, especially since his job had been as a scout for Ironwarp Corporation, which had him out in the damn rain just about every damn hour of every damn day. And that wasn't the worst of it. As a scout, his assignment had been to warn Ironwarp about any imperial troops in the area, which had made him feel like a total ass, because no self-respecting imperial cruiser was actually going to land on the pathetic little world and try to expose Ironwarp's pathetic little small-time black market operations, which were so small-time they hardly even warranted the name 'black market.' It was more like the gray market, and probably not even that. It was hardly even a market. More like just 'gray.' And the fact that he'd been working for a group that called themselves Ironwarp Corp didn't exactly fill him with pride, either, both because it was a ridiculous, pompous name that sounded completely stupid, and because Ironwarp described nothing that the pathetic little outfit did in the first place.

But he'd kept up with the job until he'd managed to get enough credits to get himself off that sad, rainy world, at which point he'd discovered his long-standing love for star travel. There was really something to be said for the sheer wonder of it all, what with being able to observe first-hand the beauty and just utter massiveness of the universe. Of course, no one ever said anything about the sheer wonder of it all, the unappreciative bastards. He was glad that they didn't, though, because they would have no doubt said it in a way to make it sound really stupid and corny and just have taken all the wonder out of it. Right after he'd left Varista, that was right about when he'd become such a dedicated individualist, mainly because up there with the stars, a guy could actually dream of being someone, of doing something important, and not just trudging along in the miserable damn rain all day for a pathetic outfit that called themselves Ironwarp and thought that they were black marketeers, but were really just a bunch of posturing, puffed-up gray bastards trying to feel all important but only succeeding in looking like posturing, puffed-up gray bastards.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a knock on the door of the dorm room. "Yeah, who is it?" Taren called out, looking up from a book he was reading. That was how pathetic the dorm rooms were. They didn't even have terminals, and you actually had to read books, for crying out loud, which was just about impossible to do, what with the miserable, half-burned-out lights and all.

Instead of saying who he was, like any polite would-be guest would have, the guy on the other side of the door just said, "Is this Jarron Fern's room?" He had this really deep voice that sounded awfully familiar.

"Jarron Fern?" Taren repeated inquisitively, shaking his head. "No, it-"

"Yeah, I'm Jarron Fern," Vastiar interrupted him. Before he'd taken up the name Vastiar, which was right after he'd left Varista, he'd been called Jarron Fern. He'd dropped the name because it sounded like the name of someone who'd been assimilated, and because he wasn't particularly keen on remembering his unhappy, pointless days on rainy old Varista.

Taren looked at him blankly. "What do you mean, you're Jarron Fern?"

"Old nickname I went by when I was a kid," Vastiar explained, smiling dryly.

"That sounds like you all right, Jare old boy," the man outside the door was saying. "Don't you recognize my voice? C'mon, open up, pal." Vastiar did recognize his voice, but he couldn't quite place where he recognized it from. Probably some puffed-up gray bastard from Ironwarp Corp.

When he opened the door, though, he was surprised to discover that the man standing there was not, in fact, a puffed-up gray bastard. Well, he was something of a bastard, but he wasn't puffed-up or gray. Vastiar's face broke into a wide grin and he warmly clasped the hand of the man standing there, who laughed and asked him how he'd been.

"Old friend, Vast?" Taren asked, looking at the two with interest.

"Yep," Vastiar said, clapping the man on the shoulder. "This's Jakros Stevrul, an unscrupulous bastard if there ever was one. Jakros, meet Taren Auscarandos, my roommate."

Taren raised an eyebrow. "I'm honored. What kind of introduction is it to say someone is an 'unscrupulous bastard if there ever was one?'"

Vastiar grinned. "Me and Jakros worked together for this sad little outfit on Varista called Ironwarp Corp, and Jakros here conned the bastards at Ironwarp out of a king's ransom and made off with it in some smuggler's starship before they knew they'd been had. Slickest piece of work I ever saw. We always swore we'd get off that rain-soaked rock, and old Jakros beat me to it by a year or more."

Jakros was looking at Vastiar curiously. "Taren called you 'Vast.' You traveling incognito or something?"

"Nope. Changed my name."

"Any particular reason?"

"Jarron Fern's a pathetic name. Jarron Fern's the name of someone who's been assimilated." He silently dared Jakros to disagree.

He didn't. Instead, he decided to be a wiseass: "I was thinking of changing my name, too, actually. I've always wanted to be called the Death Master of Ice, after all. If that's taken - and you know it is, since it's such a great name - I'll settle for Black Doom Dragon, or even Serpent of Destruction."

"How droll. Your jokes have obviously not gotten any better since I saw you last."

Jakros grinned. "Hey, you should talk. You changed your name to 'Vast.' What the hell's that supposed to mean? A vast what?"

He snorted back laughter. "I changed my name to Vastiar, not Vast, you old bastard."

Jakros walked into the small, pathetic dorm room and shut the door behind him. "Good God," he commented, gazing around at the room. Actually, he didn't have to do much gazing, since the room was so pitifully small that he could pretty much see it all without even moving his head. "I've been in cockpits bigger than this place. Why the hell you live in this dump, Jare?" That was what he'd always used to call him. 'Jare.' That was even worse than Jarron. Jarron sounded at least a tiny bit original; 'Jare' sounded so assimilated he might as well have turned himself into a droid and gotten it over with. It wasn't like Jakros was trying to offend him, but Vastiar couldn't help but taking offense anyway. He was pretty touchy when he wanted to be.

"Why do you think, Jak? Did you bother giving this place the once-over before you landed? This whole damn temple is a dump!"

"Okay..." Jakros said slowly. "So why do you live in the temple at all?"

"I'm involved," Vastiar said shortly.

"In anything in particular? Or just kind of generally involved?"

Vastiar rolled his eyes. "I'm in training to be a Jedi, if you must know."

Jakros stared at him. Taren watched them both amusedly.

"What?" Vastiar said, suddenly defensive.

Abruptly, Jakros broke into booming laughter. "Jedi!" he repeated, gasping. "Oh, man, I swear, I thought you were being serious for a second there, Jare! I..." he trailed off as he noticed that there wasn't a trace of humor on his old friend's face. "Don't tell me you were serious."

"I was."

"You're in training to be a Jedi."

"Yes."

"A Jedi. One of those mystical guys with the laser swords who mumble about the Force all the time."

Vastiar scowled. "Yes, goddammit, Jak. A Jedi. A mystical guy with a laser sword who mumbles about the Force all the time. That's what I'm in training to be, damn you, and I'm loving every minute of it."

"But..." Jakros shook his head. "I thought you wanted to be a space pilot and all that, Jare."

"I do," he said blandly. "But it can wait. It's not every day you get the opportunity to learn to be a Jedi."

Jakros was still shaking his head. "Jare, who the hell says they want to teach you to be a Jedi? Open your eyes, pal, you're being conned."

"Luke Skywalker."

"Who the hell's Luke Skywalker? Some damn charlatan, I'll bet. You've got to be a charlatan with a name like Skywalker."

Vastiar snorted. "You don't even know the guy, Jak. Don't stand there and judge him, because trust me, you're not fit to. This guy's the real thing. You can meet him, if you want to. He's teaching anybody who wants to learn."

Jakros laughed. "Anybody, huh? 'Be a Jedi in twenty-one days!' Sorry, pal, not for me, even if this guy is legit."

He shrugged. "Well, your loss, then." Then he looked at his friend curiously. "So why'd you decide to come here, anyway? How'd you even know I was here?"

"I got a few connections," he explained vaguely. "And it's not like you're real hard to find."

"No," Vastiar agreed, "I'm not. So why are you here? I assume you didn't just fly a few hundred light-years to have a bull session with your old pal Jarron."

Jakros coughed, giving Taren a sidelong glance.

Vastiar rolled his eyes, sarcasm lacing his voice. "Jak, don't worry. Taren's an okay guy. I'm sure he can keep whatever top-secret information you're privy to to himself."

Jakros hesitated, then shrugged. "Ah, what the hell. Your judgment of character was always pretty good." He narrowed his brows. "Okay, here's the deal, Jare. This source that I trust, he thinks that something big's about to break loose."

"This source that you trust?" Vastiar repeated. "Okay, Jak, no offense here, but please don't try to be all conspiratorial about this. If you're going to tell us the deal, give us the whole deal. Who's this 'source you trust?' Darth Vader?"

Jakros scowled slightly. "His name's Han Solo. He's a Corellian smuggler, a little disreputable, but I trust him. I've done business with him once or twice, and he's reliable and surprisingly honest. He's also the guy that smuggled me off Varista. Anyway," he continued, "Solo thinks that something big's about to break loose, like I said. He's kind of disenchanted with the Alliance, although he tries not to show it, the phony bastard, and I was talking to him one night about a week ago at this crummy cantina on Commenor right after we'd finished a pretty damn profitable deal. He was a little drunk, and was talking about how the Alliance had just retaken Commenor and how great it was and all that, and then he got to talking about the 'new threat to the Alliance.' Said it was this confederacy created by these hardcore quasi-anarchists in the Roulander system, and that they're mobilizing an assault fleet to destroy the Alliance before it can consolidate its power. Kept talking about how the Alliance is doomed and that the war will drag on and on and all that other stuff. Pretty depressing bastard, Solo, when he gets drunk.

"So that's why I came back here, Jare. Believe it or not, I do care about the guy that kept my sorry ass going all those miserable years on Varista, and I felt like I had to warn you. Jare, if this goes down and this Roulanderan confederacy or whatever they call themselves does smash the Alliance, that makes you and all the other guys here traitors."

Vastiar shrugged. "Jak, anytime you take a side in a battle, the other side's going to call you a traitor. It doesn't bother me."

"That's fine, but I wouldn't have felt right if I hadn't told you. I didn't want you to get blindsided, you know?"

"Yeah," Vastiar said, grinning sincerely at his oldest friend. "I know." He paused, then added: "Since you just arrived and all, how would you feel about sharing a room with me and my roomate here?"

Jakros looked skeptically at the small, pathetic room, then grinned back. "Ah, sure, what the hell. It ain't worse than the shithole we lived in on Varista, and it's too late to find a room for myself anyway."

--

Surprisingly, Wedge Antilles was up early the next morning.

Most days on Endor were very pleasant, but that was not the case today. The long hours before dawn were unusually cold, and a chill drizzle fell drearily from the sky, which was a flat, sullen darkness now, and would be a flat, sullen grayness once the sun rose. The vibrant jungles of the moon even seemed strangely subdued: the cold rain had driven the creatures of the forest back into their dens, and the plant life hung heavy and somber as the drizzle slowly had built up and weighed them down.

Wedge could hold his liquor better than most men, although in this case, that mattered little, since Wedge had scarcely taken a sip from his wine the previous night. His spirits had been dampened by the fears and suspicions that never seemed to leave him.

He pushed open a small side door to the barracks that he shared with several other pilots, striding slowly, soberly out into the rain, his dark eyes distant. His speeder bike was resting in a shallow gully immediately to the right of the barracks, and he walked toward it. It was one of the imperial relics, one of the few that the Empire had actually used on Endor that had not been destroyed on the assault on the imperial soldiers stationed here. The Alliance had ordered their engineers to copy, and improve upon if possible, the speeder bike design and distribute them to any Alliance personnel who needed quick transportation over the moon. Speeder bikes were considerably cheaper to maintain and provide fuel for than air transports, after all. But the Alliance engineers had not released the new speeder bikes yet, so Wedge had one of a limited number available to the Alliance.

He was walking up to his bike when he was startled out of his contemplations by a voice. He glanced behind him to see who it was, and was surprised to discover Rance Se'karlen jogging toward him. Considering how drunk she'd been the night before, her hangover actually seemed comparatively minor, although it was obvious that she wasn't exactly enjoying life at the moment.

"Hello, Rance," he said dully.

"Um, Wedge," she began, panting from her exertions. "Look, I, uh, just wanted to, well, you know..."

He sighed. "Apologize?" he suggested sardonically.

"Yes." She smiled self-deprecatingly. "Apologize. For last night."

"You should apologize to Tars, not me. He's the one with the black eye."

"Tars isn't awake yet. He always sleeps in after he's been drinking the night before."

He nodded, then began to pull himself up onto his speeder.

"Wedge," she said, "I really am sorry."

"I'm surprised you even remember."

She smiled wryly. "Oh, yes, I remember everything I do when I'm drunk. My burden, I suppose, eh?"

"I suppose."

"Do you accept my apology?"

He hesitated, then nodded, shrugging. "Sure, I guess so. Why the hell not, right?"

"Because I remember you said you had something important to tell me - us - and I kind of, well, cut you off."

He snorted back laughter. "Cut me off, and made a bunch of bad jokes, then jumped up on the table and started a bar brawl."

"Yeah," she said, embarrassed. "That, too. So, I just wanted to let you know, I'm sorry about all that. You still, you know, want to tell me whatever it is you had in mind last night?"

He looked at her for a few moments, then gave in. She was the sort of person that it was impossible to stay mad at: she was impetuous and thoughtless, but had a good heart and made a genuine apology later if she'd hurt anyone. She was also very pretty. Her skin was flawless and slightly tanned, and her eyes were partcularly striking: large and sort of an amber color. She was of average height - a bit shorter than he was - and slender as a whip, with high, proud breasts and long, wiry limbs. Wedge thought that she would have looked more attractive with long hair, but even as it was, with her short, thick, tousled auburn hair rain-slicked and unwashed, she was one of the best-looking women he had ever seen.

There was actually three speeder bikes in the gully. Wedge did not know who the other two belonged to, but he didn't comment when Rance mounted one and started the engine; he knew her to be an excellent pilot, and knew that she wouldn't damage it. He nodded to her, and the speeders bolted into the jungle.

Although he was dressed in a sturdy hide jacket over his worn flight suit, the cold rain became much more pronounced as he raced along on the hovering speeder, jabbing into his unprotected face and lightly clothed legs with unexpected ferocity. His helmet, strong and tough as it was, did little to ward the rain off his head, and his short dark hair was soon dripping icy water down his face and neck. For all the cold, though, he felt better than he had since the day Luke had led Rogue Squadron to attack the trio of Platinum-K6's holding a freighter hostage. Of all the men he could have chosen to lead him, he liked being under the command of Luke Skywalker the best, and wished that he had not forsaken his place at Rogue Squadron's head in favor of training a bunch of kids to be Jedi knights.

But he didn't think of that now, his eyes fixed ahead of him on the trees of the jungle, racing by, dodging, swerving, barrelling around them, accelerating ever faster, barely feeling the icy tendrils of water dribbling down his skin. He glanced for a split second to his right and saw Rance racing alongside him, helmetless, grinning with the exertion.

"You think you're pretty fast, don't you, Antilles?" she shouted, exhilarated, then gunned her accelerator and pulled ahead of him.

Rising readily to the challenge, he likewise maxed out his engine, his muscles taut and his eyes straining to discern the trees ahead of them through the freezing winds and rain. He hadn't thought to be going this fast so he had neglected to wear his flight goggles, and was now seriously regretting that decision. Rance, who was known for her incredible reflexes, seemed to be having less trouble, and laughed as she weaved swiftly through the trees and the brush, racing farther and farther ahead of Wedge's speeder with every passing moment. He grimaced and tried to straighten out his path to regain lost ground, and barely managed to swerve around an ancient, gnarled tree that stood like a rock in his path, letting off the accelerator for a moment, then jumping to max speed once again, very nearly knocking himself off his own speeder with the acceleration; it felt something like running into a cement wall.

Rance, traveling about with about as much speed as was possible with the speeder bike, was likewise not wearing goggles, although since she wasn't wearing a helmet, either, there wasn't a steady stream of freezing water blowing into her eyes like there was from Wedge's helmet's protruding front. She still had the rain itself to contend with, though, as well as the unsettling knowledge that, helmetless, if she lost control for even a moment, she was probably dead. Not that this seemed to bother her in the slightest. The fiery excitement burned hot in her eyes as she guided the speeder through increasingly tight twists and turns as they wound their way deeper into the thick jungle, and the speeder's repulsors' trademark humming sound had changed to a sharp whistle at the speed she was traveling.

Wedge, determined not to lose, gathered up his courage and flitted toward a thick stand of old, wide-trunked trees that Rance had avoided entirely, banking sharply to her left and going around the stand and losing considerable time, if not speed, in the bargain. He could tell that the stand was possible to maneuver through, but he was also well-aware what a daunting task it would be, and that he probably faced some serious broken bones, if not flaming death, if he wasn't quick enough with the speeder's controls. Before he could dwell on those sobering facts for more than a split-second, however, the stand of trees was already upon him, and he jerked the handles sharply to avoid a light-barked tree half-hidden in the shadows, startling two exotic-looking birds out of their favorite retreat, squawking indignantly in protest. His senses as acute and focused as they would ever be, Wedge skillfully darted through three staggered, closely-spaced trees, then just missed a fourth, swerving rapidly to one side. A fifth loomed suddenly ahead of him, he swung aside. A sixth, an agile swerve to the left. A seventh, easily dodged, then an eighth and a ninth straight behind it, swathed in cloaking shade, that he barely managed to detect in time to maneuver in between them. Their rough old bark came within a hair's breadth of grazing the sides of his speeder. The tenth, eleventh, twelveth trees were placed in a more forgiving formation, and he danced around their trunks swiftly and surely. The thirteenth, he evaded with a sharp move to the right.

Then he was free of the thick stand, and racing beside Rance once more.

She looked at him for a second, surprised either that he had managed to catch up with her, or that he had had the guts to go through the stand of trees that she had avoided entirely. When her eyes darted back to the jungle ahead of her, there was a vine-adorned tree straight ahead, and she pulled to one side, somehow managing to avoid contact with it. The granite boulder behind it was not so forgiving, and she wasn't able to maneuver aside in time. The edge of her speeder bike grazed the boulder, and she was sent, careening, spinning, toward two trees in the rapidly approaching distance. Wedge slowed and watched, enraptured, waiting for the inevitable collision with the trees that would end his squad-mate's life in a roaring explosion.

But it didn't come.

Instead, Rance, miraculously keeping her sense of direction, somehow managed to maintain sharp enough thought to manually disable her right engine. The thrust, now being provided solely by the left engine, not only counteracted the spin, steadying the bike, but it sent the speeder into a sharp right turn, avoiding the trees by a safe margin. Safe from immediate danger, she killed both engines and coasted her speeder slowly over to Wedge.

"I'm impressed," he said, after a moment of respectful silence.

"I'm not," she replied, smiling dryly. "But I am alive. I'll have to make do."

He didn't respond to that, sitting quietly astride his speeder, thinking.

"So," she prompted him, her captivating, intelligent amber eyes boring into him, "are you going to share your thoughts with me from last night, Wedge?"

He sighed and hopped off his speeder, then nodded. "Yes, I am." He paused, trying to think of the best way to phrase it. "Rance...I think the Alliance is fracturing."

"Fracturing?" she inquired, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

He looked at her intently. "It's something I've noticed for awhile now, but haven't really been able to put a finger on. The political factions within the Alliance have always had their disagreements with each other, but up until recently, they've been relatively minor. I guess since there was always the threat of the Empire looming over us, we put aside our differences to fight for the common good."

"So you're saying that now that the Empire's dissolving, the common good is gone and the political conflicts will get worse?"

He shook his head. "No. What I'm saying is that the political conflicts have already gotten worse. Most people aren't even aware of it, but at the highest levels of the Alliance, there are now very sharp divisions between the leaders in how to best proceed in building a government to rule over the 'New Republic.' They've even given themselves names: Admiral Willard's faction calls itself the Federals, I know, Drayson's is called the Liberators, Ackbar's faction's the Primists, and so on. And the faction warring's getting worse every day. Two days ago, there was a purported attempt on Admiral Drayson's life. Everyone, including Drayson himself, denies it, of course, but even so...

"And that's not the worst of it, assassinating the political leaders. The Federals, in particular, are very dogmatic in their beliefs, and I've heard a few of the mechanics and pilots talking of open revolt. Open revolt, Rance! Six months after we win our decisive battle against the Empire, people within our own military are ready to fight yet another rebellion, this time against the ones that they helped become the victors last time."

She nodded somberly. "Ridiculous, I agree. Another war..." She shook her head sadly. "No. It can't have come to that, not so soon."

"I don't think it has, either," he said. "But I think it's heading that way. Even Captain Strager, our own commanding officer, I'll swear is acting oddly of late. It's like he's trying too hard to appear as if he's following orders."

"I've noticed that, too," she agreed. "You think he's doing it to mask something underhanded?"

He sighed. "I don't know. I can't say. Maybe. It's possible."

"Nothing concrete, though."

"No," he said, sighing again. "No, nothing concrete. Just a cargo hold full of suspicions, paranoia, and allegations." He stared at her, at her gorgeous amber-colored eyes. "You know what it's like, Rance?"

"Like what's like?" she asked curiously.

"This whole situation." His voice turned more than a touch bitter. "It's like there's this giant, coiled snake, poised to strike, and it's laughing at us, at me, at you, at Tars, at all of us, because we're trapped, Rance. We're caught in the middle with no way out. If infighting in the Alliance does break out, where does that leave us, the Alliance's pilots? We lose no matter what happens, we poor souls who actually believe in the Alliance as a whole, not just some petty faction."

She nodded slowly. "And what will you do if infighting breaks out, Wedge Antilles?"

"I don't know," he responded sadly. "I really don't know."

--

"You have a job here?"

"Yes, I have a job here," Vastiar responded irritably, tightening the belt of his brown technician's jumpsuit. "Don't look so surprised, Jak. What, did you think I had some huge trust fund from working on Varista that I could live off of for the rest of my life?"

"Well, no, but..."

"Well, I don't. Tell you the truth, I just barely had enough for fare on the passenger ship that got me off that damn rock. Unlike you, I'm not the kind of guy who swindles the guys that he's working for."

Jakros grinned. "Hey, I'm not that kind of guy, either. But it was Ironwarp. C'mon, those bastards deserved to be robbed."

He shrugged. "Say what you want. I'm no thief."

"Not a good one, anyway."

"Not one at all, you old bastard."

"But I bet you wish you were. I mean, I'd wish I was if I wasn't."

"That's because you're an unscrupulous bastard."

"An unscrupulous bastard with his own starship."

Vastiar shrugged, strapping on his tool belt. It jangled. "A starship, huh?"

"Yep."

"I'll be damned. Didn't know you'd conned those gray bastards for enough to buy your own damn starship. What make is it? You know, what model and all?"

"Anchor-12."

Vastiar raised an eyebrow. "Anchor-12iMX or Anchor-12L?" The Anchor-12iMX was one of the newer craft from Trakkom Enterprises, an innovative outfit that was based in one of the fringe systems and thus had escaped nationalization by the Empire. Neither the Alliance or the Empire had opted to use the craft as a combat fighter, since it was, after all, nominally a cargo freighter, but it certainly could have functioned easily enough as an attack craft. It was only medium-sized, larger than X-wings and TIE fighters but considerably smaller than the command cruisers, but it was equipped with formidable laser and missile batteries, and the newest upgrade, the Anchor-12iMXr, also had an ion cannon mounted on its belly. The Anchor-12iMX also featured a top-of-the-line, highly stable hyperdrive and had optimized the sublight engines for rapid evasions. The Anchor-12L was a sublight-only hauler manufactured by the now-defunct Davleros Corporation and was an obsolete, utterly pathetic trash heap of a ship that traveled about as fast as the Sarlacc digested its victims. In other words, not too damn fast.

So, naturally, Jakros responded, "12L."

"In other words," Vastiar said dryly, "your 'starship' ain't worth a damn."

"Well, what the hell'd you expect?" Jakros demanded, miffed. "12iMX my ass, you old bastard! You have any idea at all what those things cost? How the hell am I going to get enough credits to buy one of them?" He sighed. "And anyway, my L isn't the shitheap you probably think it is. It's in the best shape I've ever seen a 12L in, and I've made enough money to retrofit the old thing with a hyperdrive."

"I hope so. Sure isn't much of a starship if it doesn't have a hyperdrive."

"Exactly. I just did a few local runs out in the Roulander system, which is where old Solo dropped me off at, then got an engineer to stick a hyperdrive in the old thing. Works like a charm. You'd never know it wasn't supposed to be there."

"12L's aren't made for hyperspace, Jak. You're lucky it didn't implode or fall into a black hole or something, since there's no built-in coordinator."

Jakros shrugged, pulled a thin hemp cigarette from his pocket and lit it. "Hey, the old compiler works fine for me, Jare. And anyway, since you're so concerned for my welfare, you'll be pleased to know," he took a couple puffs on the cigarette, "that as soon as I've got enough credits, I'm trading in the L and getting something new."

Vastiar clipped a blaster holster to his tool belt, securing it tightly. He glanced at Jakros's cigarette. "I'm surprised you could find one of those."

"Don't be." Jakros grinned. "You can get these things pretty much anywhere, now. Merchants are even selling 'em openly and all, with the Empire's edict that said they were illegal gone. Funny thing is, now that the legit guys can sell them in the open market, the pirateers are all broke as hell because no one wants to buy the crummy hemp that they sell."

He nodded. "Yep. I wonder why they even bothered to outlaw the things in the first place."

"Don't ask me. Was stupid, but at least it was pretty harmless. Ineffectual, you know? I'm surprised they didn't outlaw eating and shitting while they were at it."

Vastiar chortled. "I wouldn't have put it past the bastards. Anyway, you said you were getting something new after you saved up some credits?"

"You bet. I mean, I like the L alright and all that, but let's face it, that old piece of junk's just no good in a dogfight."

He raised an eyebrow. "You get into a lot of dogfights? What the hell you hauling?"

Jakros laughed. "No, haven't gotten into any dogfights yet. Probably won't, either, if I can keep a cool head and not piss anyone off. But I want a new ship all the same, if for no other reason than that the old L's just boring."

"I can believe that. What kind of ship you looking to buy?"

"I don't actually know yet. Can't decide, you know? I mean, hell, I love the new Anchor. Not the upgraded 12iMX with that crummy ion cannon and all, I'm talking about that completely new model that Trakkom just put up on the market. Anchor-KRX. Love that thing to death."

"Yeah?" Vastiar wasn't particularly up-to-date on advances in starfighter technology, and hadn't even heard of a ship called the Anchor-KRX. "What's so special about it?"

"Bunch of stuff," Jakros responded, obviously warming up to a favorite topic. "For example, you know how the 12iMX had those old PinArc-3's as tertiary stabilizers? Well, the guys at Trakkom finally wised up and junked those things, and now they've installed Arium-X's in their place, and let me tell you, the KRX can turn so much faster than the 12iMX that it isn't even funny. The primary stabilizers have been upgraded, too, so they're four-point-five times as strong as the old ones, which is completely amazing. This thing could just about fly into a black hole and stay perfectly level.

"And they replaced those outdated Incom laser batteries with these suped-up rail guns that this little company, RemecerTek or something, in the Roulander system developed, and I cannot even begin to describe to you how absolutely bad-assed these guns are. They don't have the brute force of that thing that the Empire stuck on their Death Star - you know, the weapon that blew up Alderaan - but they shoot these little shells so damn fast that they supposedly can take out a fully-shielded Star Destroyer in about two shots. And they're rapid-fire. I didn't even know a rapid-fire rail gun was even possible to make, but these guys at RemecerTek did it, so these guns can send out a goddamned rain of death. One guy could probably take out a whole damn fleet of Star Destroyers if he knew what he was doing, you know? And I'll tell you what else, you know how the 12iMX's were officially classified as freighters? Well, the KRX's outer shell is actually based on this old imperial ship called the Platinum-K6, which was this experimental fighter craft with a tracking system built into its hyperdrive that no one ever got to work right, and the P-K6 was a pretty damn small ship, so the KRX's aren't nominally freighters anymore. That means that Trakkom stopped putting in that fat, heavy cargo bay, so the KRX can maneuver a hell of a lot faster than any of the other Anchor ships."

Vastiar smirked slightly. "You can't afford a 12iMX, but you're looking to buy this KRX that's even better? Good luck, Jak."

"I didn't say I could afford it, wiseass. I just said that you better believe I'd like to have one. It's not too damn likely I'll get one, I'll admit, but I'm not too worried, because let me tell you, there's a bunch of other, cheaper, fighters that I like just as well. Like that Raider-5M2, you know, the last model that Incom made before the goddamned Empire nationalized the poor bastards?"

"I know. They're one of the Alliance's primary attack crafts. Everyone here calls them X-wings."

Jakros laughed. "X-wings, huh? Well, it's a hell of a better name, I'll give 'em that much."

"An X-wing wouldn't make a very good freighter, you know," Vastiar informed his old friend dryly.

"Yeah, yeah. I just said I liked them and all, not that I was actually going to go out and buy one. I'll probably just end up getting something sturdy, you know, but not flashy and all that. Like an Alcras-B or something, with a lot of cargo room but not so good at stuff like dogfights. I'll work my way up the ladder. Start with my shitty old 12L, work my way up to an Alcras-B, then maybe a 12iMX if I can line my pockets and all."

"Not a KRX?"

"Nah. Like I said, you know, KRX isn't much of a freighter. Hell of a ship, though. Hell of a ship."

Vastiar finished lacing up his boots, and then they both sat against the bed in the dorm room in silence. Taren had already left for the day; he did mostly clerical work for one of the Navy lieutenants. Didn't seem to mind the work, though, and never complained. Vastiar didn't care much for working as a droid technician, but it sure as hell beat what he'd been doing on Varista, so he was sticking with it for now. It allowed him to continue studying under Luke Skywalker, and he'd have probably worked as a scout in the rain again if that was what the Master required.

Vastiar and Jakros had talked late into the night, reminiscing, laughing about old times and shared misery on rainy Varista, pulling tricks on the gray bastards are Ironwarp and all. Jakros had said that he only intended to stay for a short time - two or three days or so - before he had to head out again to finish some business he was on. Contract hauling, no doubt. He'd urged Vastiar to dump the Alliance, but he'd steadfastly refused.

Then Jakros said something unexpected: "Jare, your ambition is gone."

"No," Vastiar replied, shaking his head, "it's just channeled in a different direction, now."

"The direction of your Jedi training." It wasn't a question.

He nodded. "That's right. My life revolves around Master Skywalker's training. All my ambition is channeled in that direction." He smiled slightly. "I'm an energetic, ambitious guy, Jak, but even I've got my limits. Training in the ways of the Force saps an unbelievable amount of your vitality from you."

"I still say you're being conned, Jare."

"And I still reply that you're in no position to judge me or Master Skywalker." He stood up straight and tall. "Jak, you want something from me, don't you?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"I want you to come with me, Jarron." Jakros's voice was earnest and guileless. "Remember, back on Varista, how we always said that we'd become space pilots one day? Jare, this is our chance to do just that! Trust me, I've been up there and I've made the pilot's life my own, and it's as good - no, better! - than we ever dreamed on that miserable mudhole! Jare...up there, there's this indescribable feeling that you get, when you're sailing along with the stars, a hundred billion miles away from any other living being, it's...it's..."

Vastiar's eyes closed, and he said the word with a quiet reverence: "Freedom."

"Yes, freedom!" Jakros affirmed. "That's a good word for it. You're free up there, Jare. Like you can never be here on Endor, or on Varista, or on any planet in the entire galaxy!"

"I know, Jak," Vastiar said, more than a touch regretfully. "I've never been a pilot, but I know what you're talking about just the same. Staring at a clear night sky, scattered with stars, you can feel it, and it pulls at you."

Jakros nodded eagerly. "Exactly, Jare! So come with me! You'd make a good pilot, I'm sure of it, and you could be my partner until we've saved up enough to buy you your own ship, and then we-"

"No." He cut him off sharply. He softened his voice slightly before he continued, but there was still a hard, final edge about it. "Jak, don't misunderstand, I want to. The stars cry out to me louder than you can possibly imagine, stranded here on Endor with those endless, clear night skies over my head, and I would like nothing better than to forsake everything here and trek the galaxy with you. But I can't. I must continue my training here; my training is the whole of my existence for now. Later, perhaps, after I've completed my training, after I've become a Jedi like Master Skywalker and he can teach me no more, then I will join you as a star pilot. But not before. This is too important. Far too important."

"Jare, I...I mean, you, but..." He flailed around for the right words, frustrated. But when he stared into Vastiar's fiery, determined eyes, his eagerness seemed to burn itself out all of a sudden, and he sighed bitterly. "Jare, I think you're throwing your life away on a con, you know that?"

Vastiar nodded. "I know."

"It's just such a waste. Look...Jare, Vastiar, whatever you're calling yourself now...just...just think about it, okay?"

"I will," he promised.

But they both knew that his mind was already set.

--

Aurens was at once relieved and worried that Princess Leia was not in class that day.

When Master Skywalker stepped to the front of the assembled students, now numbering almost a hundred, a respectful silence fell over them as they waited for him to speak. Everyone in the class respected the Master, of course, but today it was a bit more pronounced, as the majority of them had witnessed how he'd rescued her the previous day, and soundly defeated the princess without taking or giving so much as a scratch to either combatant.

The Master was typically cheerful and good-natured, but today, his face looked weary and despondent, depressed. He looked years older, and he led them through the customary warm-up exercises with little enthusiasm or animation, giving only a cursory greeting and introductory speech to the three new trainees, all of whom looked slightly uncomfortable with their somber teacher.

After the exercises, Master Skywalker stood at the front of the class and cleared his throat.

"Some of you," he began, his voice about as warm as an icicle, "are undoubtedly wondering what transpired yesterday. Although I respect her privacy, I feel that it is important for all of you to know what has happened to the princess. Simply put, she is not well. I do not know what effect her illness will have on her status as a Councillor, and I request that none of you delve into or try to influence the matter in any way. These are her private affairs and we should allow her to conduct them as she sees fit, or as dictated by her current state of illness." He sighed, and Aurens noticed that he was speaking slower than usual, and his tone contained some strong emotion, buried beneath the icy barrier that he attempted to project. She couldn't quite discern it, though. "However, Princess Leia will not be continuing her studies to become a Jedi. I did not make this decision easily or gladly, but I feel that further training in the ways of the Force could only hurt her, and, possibly, one of you as well, so I cannot in good conscience allow her to continue training."

Sadness, that was it. Sadness and regret.

"That being said," he continued, his voice still stiff, cold, and formal, "training will go on as usual. All of you, retrieve your practice sabers from the crate. I will inspect you as you spar. And," he added, "I will be switching your sparring partners if you have sparred the same person more than three days in a row, or if you and your partner appear to be mismatched. Sparring the same person over and over, or sparring someone a lot better or worse than you, is something I wish to avoid."

Aurens chose Vastiar for her partner, and they trained.

--

Leia sat with Han Solo, her fiance, in their chambers.

It was partially refurbished, but evidence of the fire that had destroyed it was still all too plain: the scorch marks on the walls, the blackened carpeting, scattered debris that had not yet been cleaned up. A new bed had been brought in, though, and although it was not as luxurious as the old one had been, it served its purpose. Han sat on the new bed, now, his face and thoughts unreadable. Neither of them had spoken to each other, yet, not since the...incident.

Han's ruggedly handsome face was uncustomarily weary when he finally did break the silence, but his voice was firm and strong. "Leia," he said, "Luke told me what happened."

She smiled bitterly. "I figured he might."

"Don't condemn him for it, Leia. He just thought it was important that I hear it."

"Hear it? Han, everyone has heard of it, or at least some twisted version of it. It's echoing around the halls of the temple, getting further and further distorted with each telling of the story. Can you believe," here her smile actually contained a trace of true mirth, "that some of these fools believe I'm a reincarnation of Darth Vader?"

"Yes," he replied bluntly. "Yes, I can believe that some of these gossipers would be willing to believe that. What would they say, I wonder, if they were to learn that you were the daughter of Darth Vader?"

"I am not the daughter of Darth Vader," she responded sharply. "I am the daughter of Anakin Skywalker."

He smiled blandly. "They're one and the same."

"No, they're not. Not in my mind."

"How do you know that? You certainly never met your father before he became Darth Vader."

She turned from him. "But I feel as though I have. Or perhaps it's just my imagination creating a picture of what I would have wanted him to be, but no matter. To me, he is not the same person as Darth Vader."

Han seemed amused by that. "You've put a man you never knew on a pedestal, have you? Well, it's common enough, I suppose."

She didn't respond.

"Leia," he said, "Luke felt that it was important that I hear an undistorted version of the story. That's all."

She shrugged. "I can believe that. But why do you assume that Luke knows an undistorted version of the story?"

"Are you saying he doesn't?"

"I'm saying I suspect that he doesn't." She turned to face him, her dark eyes glittering. "What did he tell you, Han?"

"He said that you attacked him with a practice lightsaber after breaking a woman's knee. That you lusted for blood. That you truly wanted to hurt him."

She nodded. "All true. But does he know the cause of my actions?"

"If he did, he didn't tell me."

"I doubt he knows. I'll bet that he has some interesting theories cooked up, but I don't think he knows the truth."

"Oh? And what is the truth?"

She didn't answer him, instead turning and walking towards the door, her thoughts clear and focused and strong, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. Luke had forbidden her to continue her training that morning, just like that. She had somehow knew that he was going to say it, but when he did, it still hit her like a ton of bricks just the same, and the dark anger that she'd felt in her fight with Locke roiled deep within her once again. It was the anger that cleared her thoughts, that allowed her to concentrate so well. The anger, she knew, that was the key to the Force that she had been missing before, as she'd stood those long hours, alone in her room, reaching out to it in vain.

But her anger allowed her to finally grasp that which had eluded her for so long, to drink at the wonderful spring of power that was the Force. She did not hold onto the Force now, and had not allowed herself to since her encounter with Locke, in fear that it would once more make her lose control. There was elation in the Force, certainly, and the most wonderful feeling of power, but she knew all too well that she was far too inexperienced to even hope to guide, to control that immense power, to use it for her own ends. Instead, she was swept away in the flood of the Force burning through her body, completely at the mercy of its every whim.

Soon, though. Soon she would have the power under control, and then even Luke could not forbid her to access the Force.

"Leia, tell me," Han was saying, looking at her earnestly. "What is the truth?"

Without sparing him so much as a glance, she strode coldly from the room.

--

Sabrul Mantier saw her before she saw him.

He stood one of the six large service bays of Endor's flourishing commercial spaceport. Previously known as Taregiena'le City, the spaceport had come to be informally styled Freeport since the Alliance had set up their working government and command headquarters on the forest moon. Sabrul Mantier was the head mechanic of Dock 14-South, and was discussing the repair of a malfunctioning X-Wing with one of the newer mechanics when he looked up and saw Princess Leia's short, graceful form striding unhurriedly towards the Lower Terminal, where spacecraft took off and landed, and where passengers would load and unload. Excusing himself politely, he caught up to the Princess's slight form in a couple of steps with his long legs.

"Princess."

She turned and gazed coolly at him. He was not quite sure what he had been expecting, but her eyes were not fearful or angry in the slightest. Rather, she looked at him with a gleam in her eye that was almost cold, but somehow profoundly respectful at the same time. "Hello, Sabrul." She did not smile, but there was something about her, a subtle shift of the way she carried herself, that betrayed a small tinge of amusement.

"You have come to Taregiena'le," he said. He had been living on Endor for a long time, and it had never sat quite right to him to call the place Freeport. It was and always would be Taregiena'le, to him.

She did smile, now. "I have."

"To leave?"

"To leave."

He slowly nodded his head. "I thought you might choose this course."

She looked at him levelly. "Did you, now?"

"Yes. I don't think any of the others suspect, not even Master Skywalker."

She did not respond.

"I...know what it is like to want vengeance, Princess." He sighed. "I spent most of my life trying to get revenge."

She shook her head violently. "No. I'm not looking for vengeance, Mantier. You're wrong."

"Am I?"

"Yes. Yes, you are. I am leaving for my own reasons, not to seek out vengeance."

"What reasons are these? What could possibly be more important to you right now than performing your duties as a Councillor? The people of the Alliance need you, Princess!"

She turned away. "They don't need me. I've done all I need to do for the Alliance. I've done more than my share!" She faced him. "They will do fine without me."

He did not answer her, and at length, she shook her head, turned, and began to walk away. Before she was out of earshot in the noisy airiness of the service bay, he suddenly called to her.

"Leia!"

She halfway turned, looked at him over her shoulder. It was the last time he would ever see her.

"May the Force...may the Force go with you, Leia."

A ghost of a smile touched her lips as she disappeared into the darkened corridor that led to the Lower Terminal.

--

--