Tahiri had started dreaming again, vivid dreams that stayed with her after she woke. They were always bad dreams, just like they'd been in the bad old days in the late stages of the Yuuzhan Vong War, after Anakin had died and the suppressed memories of Riina Kwaad had begun to struggle for emergence. Back then, so many of her dreams had involved her being back aboard the worldship at Myrkr, where everything had changed forever. Sometimes she'd dreamed that she was wandering alone through the Vong-formed environ-ments inside the old worldship; other times she'd been sure she was being chased.
Those dreams had gone away after she'd accepted Riina Kwaad as part of herself, her Yuuzhan Vong half, but now, over ten years later, they'd come back again. And it was all because of Jacen.
When he'd offered to take her back in time with the strange Aing-Tii Force technique called Flow-walking, she'd been skeptical. The Jacen she'd known during the Yuuzhan Vong War, the one who'd once told her she'd always be family, was already gone. The Jacen who'd come back from his five-year journey to learn about different Force techniques was more coldly pragmatic, more serious and determined, more manip-ulative. She'd known there was an ulterior motive behind his offer to take her back to Myrkr, but she'd given in any way, because after more than ten years, some wounds still hadn't healed.
And so he'd taken her all the way back to Myrkr itself. The planet, always lightly-populated with sentient life, was now abandoned, its surface partially reformed by Yuuzhan Vong life. The giant worldship, which Jacen told her was called Baanu Rass, hung derelict in orbit over the green planet. It had been an old worldship fifteen years ago, which was why it had been converted into a shapers' testing ground in the first place; after the Yuuzhan Vong had all moved to the living planet Zonama Sekot at the war's end, Baanu Rass' hull had shattered, leaving much of its insides exposed to the vacuum. Jacen had led her inside, and together they'd retraced their steps to the places they'd gone through over a decade ago and using the Force skills he'd gained from the Aing-Tii, he'd taken her back in time to see Anakin again, and it had been more real than she'd imagined.
Like any addict, she'd told herself she could do it once, just the first time, and never do it again. But of course Jacen, or Caedus, or whatever he was in the end, hadn't let her do that. He'd kept dragging her back and she'd kept letting him, because his Flow-walking meant she could see Anakin in the flesh again, Anakin from over a decade back, and she, invisbly touching the flow of events, could push her decade-younger self into doing what she should have all those years ago.
In watching her younger self, she'd almost been able to feel Anakin's touch and warmth, more vivid than any memory could provide.
She could give him that kiss at Myrkr over and over and over again, that kiss she'd promised to give him when he came back but never could. The fact that she'd never been able to fulfill that promise had gnawed at her for years, but through Flow-walking, through Jacen and Caedus, she'd been able to think she'd kept that promise after all.
But of course it was all a lie.
Jacen and Anakin were both gone now, but Myrkr was still with her. In her dreams she sometimes found herself wandering through dense grashals, listening to sounds of distant battle- the thrumm of lightsabers, the war-cries of Yuuzhan Vong soldiers, the explosive burst of detonating thud-bugs- but no matter how hard she tried to find the source of the battle she never could.
Other times she wandered along through swamps, across dusty ridges, through dark catacombs, chasing the sound of a voice she thought was Anakin's but could never be sure. All too often, she found herself chased by voxyn, the hideous hybrids created by melding Myrkr's native vornskyr with Yuuzhan Vong fero xyn, creating hideous Force-sensitive Jedi-hunting beasts with massive acid-dripping jaws, tails like whips, and eight sets of claws that could tear a spaceship's hull apart.
Once she'd even been a Yuuzhan Vong herself, wielding an amphistaff and battling Jedi with green and blue and gold blades whose faces were somehow always obscured by shadow.
The voxyn dreams were the worst, so of course they came the most often. In one dream (she knew it was a dream but that changed nothing) she found herself running through some artificial town that should have been full of human and Bothan and Gotal slaves but wasn't. The voxyn was after her and she had to climb up some ladder and kicked the ladder down right in the face of the monster as it tried to jump up onto the rooftop after her. As the voxyn howled hungrily beneath she heard a voice, a voice that must have been Anakin's, telling her to follow.
Somehow, she knew the direction from which the voice came, and she followed. She jumped from rooftop to rooftop, the voxyn swiping at her heels all the while. She climbed up to higher storeys and slipped inside broken windows and crawled through the dusty innards of the abandoned town, the voxyn always howling outside and Anakin always urging her on until she finally found a hole that led deep into the ground.
She threw herself in. Suddenly the voxyn was right behind her; its long snout stuck through the hole and snapping at her, acid dripping from its double-rows of serrated teeth, but the beast could not fit its whole body through.
She stared up at the voxyn's jaws in fear until suddenly two hands took her shoulders and pulled her deeper into the dark. Suddenly she was in some low cavern, as tight as that locker in the space station where she and Anakin had kissed for the first time, and now it was Anakin again, she could feel it and know it even without seeing him or hearing his voice.
"Thank you so much, Anakin," she found herself babbling as she reached in the dark until her fingers touched the smooth lines of his face, still remembered so vividly after so many years.
"It's all right, Tahiri. You're safe now." It was like he was whispering in both ears.
"Oh, Anakin, I'm so sorry," she panted.
"Sorry for what?"
For everything. For letting him die, for being pathetic and weak, for letting herself fall into despair once he was gone, for letting Jacen trick her, for killing Gilad Pellaeon and Lon Shevu, for capturing Prince Isolder so Jacen could murder him, for betraying everyone she'd ever known and despoiling everything she'd ever loved just because of her desperate need to get back to the past.
Because it was Anakin (because it was all a dream) he didn't have to hear her say it. He stroked her cheek with a warm, rough hand and said, "It's all right, Tahiri. You don't have to worry ever again. You'll be safe here."
"Oh, Anakin," she felt cold tears in her eyes, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I just couldn't forget you, Anakin. I couldn't… I couldn't…."
Words choked in her throat. Anakin stroked her face again and gently whispered in both ears, "It's all right, Tahiri. I still love you."
"I don't deserve it."
"Shh, Tahiri, don't cry."
She felt his breath on her face, smelled the scent she could never forget. She felt warm lips on hers and opened her mouth to take him all in. She closed her eyes even thought it was pitch-black and savored it, lost herself in it, indulged herself in this dream just like as he'd indulged in Jacen's flow-walking delusions because delusion and dreams were all she'd ever have any more.
An eternity of dream-time later the kiss finally ended and she cracked open her eyes. Suddenly there was light again, coming from she knew not where, light that illuminated the rough cheek of the face in front of her; the tight cold lips, the fringe of dark shaggy hair, the sunken yellow eyes-
She jerked back but Jacen grabbed her chin and held her in a tight black-gloved grip. Sneering, breath pulsing in her face, he said, "Don't cry, Tahiri," and he spoke with his voice- the voice of Darth Caedus- but she heard Anakin's too. It was like either brother was whispering into either ear and she watched Caedus' twisted lips say again, "Don't cry, Tahiri," and heard Anakin say it too.
"Let me go," she tried to say, "Let me go!"
"You will always be family to us," Caedus said, and she heard his bitter mockery and she heard Anakin's comforting caress.
Finally, she woke up.
She stared at the ceiling of her cell, the came ceiling she'd woken up to after all the other bad dreams for the past week. Her sheets hadn't been changed in all that time and she'd stopped almost noticing the reek of the sweat-damp cloth.
Almost.
She sat upright, stretched, and tried to think about something besides her latest dream, even though this cell was just permacrete walls on all sides and there was nothing to distract her.
She took off her sweaty, smelly clothes and tried doing exercises on the cold hard floor. It was some-thing. It gave her a way to focus her restless energy, anyway.
Her cell lay deep beneath the Fountain Palace on Hapes. She was being treated as a Galactic Alliance prisoner of war, and her fate was to be decided by the Hapans, which she supposed she was glad for; it was far better than being a prisoner of the Imperial Remnant, especially after what she'd done to their Commander in Chief.
What she'd done for Jacen. For Anakin. For herself. She didn't even know any more. The simple fact was that she'd murdered an unarmed ninety-year-old man.
Her crimes against the Hapans were much less reprehensible in comparison.
She'd done everything she could to comply with her captors. She'd told then everything about Caedus' battle plans and security arrangements, though how much good that would do she didn't know, since Anakin Solo had been battered beyond repair during the last battle and Caedus was dead.
She knew nothing about the state of the war otherwise. She hadn't seen Ben Skywalker, to whom she'd surrendered, or any other familiar face since her capture. In a way that was easier; she was confessing only to strangers and didn't have to bow her head in shame before men and women who'd once looked on her as family.
She's completed her exercises and put her bad-smelling but dry clothes on again when there was a knock on the door. They weren't asking for her permission to enter, of course. They always came in ten seconds after knocking; they were just giving her the courtesy of a warning.
Two grey-uniformed Hapan guardswomen stepped inside. They looked down on her with aristocratic Hapan disdain as she remained seated on her bunk, bare feet brushing the hard floor.
"Well?" Tahiri asked eventually. "What is it this time? Have you picked my punishment yet?"
"Your fate has been decided," a voice said from outside. Tahiri knew that voice. On instinct, she jumped to her feet. Cold shot up her body but she kept herself still and her face blank as Queen Mother Tenel Ka walked into the cell.
"Your Majesty," Tahiri swallowed, and snapped a bow.
Tenel Ka had been a few years older than her at the Jedi Academy and she'd always found the stoic red-haired warrior woman-slash-Hapan queen more than a little intimidating. Right now, all she could remember was the look of fury on Tenel Ka's normally controlled face when shed found Tahiri battling Leia Organa Solo in the Fountain Palace when Tahiri had attempted to arrest her on Darth Caedus' orders.
"At ease, Miss Veila," Tenel Ka said. Miss Veila. Not Lieutenant Colonel Veila, the rank Jacen had given her when she'd joined his Galactic Alliance Guard. Not Jedi Veila either. And certainly not Tahiri.
Tahiri nodded but didn't relax. She swallowed and asked, "What is my sentence?"
Tenel Ka regarded her for three long heartbeats before she said, "You have been sentenced to live, Miss Veila. In light of your cooperation with our investigators, and the cessation of hostilities, you are to be released."
"Cessation? You mean the war's over?"
"Indeed. Without… the Chief of State, the Galactic Alliance military quickly sued for peace."
So they weren't going to say his name, then, Jacen or Caedus. Good. Tahiri preferred it that way. "I'm glad for that. I can't tell you how glad."
"Indeed. However, I've received notification from the Alliance that the GAG rank you'd been assigned is no longer viable."
"You mean I've been dishonorably discharged?"
"I believe so. I should also note that the Imperial Remnant has requested that you be extradited for the murder of Grand Admiral Pellaeon."
Tahiri swallowed. "And?"
"I will be doing the Remnant no favors."
"I understand. I… I was aboard Anakin Solo when… When he learned about the nanovirus the Remnant was planning to use. He was determined to do everything he could to stop it."
"He did," Tenel Ka said, voice shaking for the first time.
Tahiri hesitated, unsure of what next to ask. There were so many questions about the state of the galaxy now that the war was ended, not to mention the state of the Jedi and the Solo family. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to know right now. She wasn't sure how much of it even mattered any more.
She settled with the most practical. "When am I to be released?"
"Not until tomorrow, Miss Veila. There are still some affairs that need to be processed."
"Of course. I'm… I'm in no rush."
The queen nodded. "Very well. If you'll excuse me, I have a ceremony to attend. I only wanted to deliver the news to you personally."
"I appreciate that, Your Majesty. But… what ceremony?"
"A funeral," she said. "For my father. And my daughter."
Tahiri stared. She'd known about the Imperial plan to attack the Hapan royal bloodline. She had no idea the attack had been partially successful.
A new heaviness settled over her. She'd almost- almost- gotten used to being responsible for the deaths of Pellaeon and Shevu. But this was different. She'd been the one to engineer the capture of Isolder, thus making possible both his death and the creation of the nanovirus. She'd done it because Isolder would be a valuable hostage that might force a cease-fire with the Hapans. She'd never imagined it could end with all those deaths.
She told herself that, and immediately recognized it for a lie. She'd known what a monster Caedus was then, that he was capable even of murdering an unarmed hostage. She'd done it to impress him, to earn a little of his favor and his Flow-walking. What's more, she'd done it to impress herself, because she'd known she'd already turned her back on the Jedi and had at least been trying to be good at something, even if that some-thing was as awful as being a Sith.
It was shocking how easy it had been to let go of the old rules, to justify things, to look the other way when her conscience or better judgment nagged at her.
Tahiri couldn't bring herself to say she was sorry. Sorry didn't even start to cover it.
Instead Tenel Ka gave her a tiny nod, turned, and walked out of the cell. Her guards followed behind her and they closed the door, locking it tight, leaving Tahiri alone once more with the weight of all she'd done.