Slowly, Ami's senses began tuning back in to their surroundings. Her ears - the first to come back - picked up the sounds of crackling fire and creaking metal. Her nose caught whiffs of something burning, but she couldn't tell what it was. She felt cold, hard stone under her body and something heavy pressing on one of her legs. A foul, acidic taste filled her mouth, which heralded the return of everything she'd eaten that day; once she recovered from being awoken so violently, she began attempting to pull herself up and take stock of her surroundings.
Grabbing hold of the edge of the tipped Cloudjumper's ramp, she simultaneously lifted her torso off the ground and kicked at the large piece of metal pinning her left leg down. When her leg was finally free, she balanced herself on the wall and hopped around the ship, grimacing at the pain suddenly shooting into her leg as it regained blood flow. The first thing her eyes caught sight of was the once-beautiful Ithorian jungle that waited a short distance outside the hangar doors, its sacred, verdant majesty now reduced to a smoldering shell of its former glory. The large patch of grassland between the hangar and the jungle was littered with plant debris, pieces of ships, and bodies. Lots of bodies.
Ami turned to the inside of the hangar, praying that there would be no more dead people inside. On the opposite side of the hangar, where the doors into the main fortress were located, rose a huge cloud of black smoke that was beginning to float in her direction. She saw the crashed TIE fighter that had knocked their ship into the wall, no longer on fire but still menacing to behold. The rest of the hangar was empty except for various cargo containers, tool boxes, and pieces of metal that had been flung inside from damaged ships.
With a jolt, she realized she hadn't seen her mother yet. She circled the Cloudjumper, limping as fast as possible with her injured leg, but still found no sign of her. An image of her mother crushed under the hull of the TIE fighter hovered in Ami's mind, but she pushed it away. The enemy ship had crashed too far away to have hit either of them, so her mother must have been flung along with the Cloudjumper.
"Mom?" Ami yelled, voice quavering. "Mom, are you here?"
Her voice received no answer, so she closed her eyes and tried to reach out with her mind. Mom! Mom! she cried, feeling the Force propel her thoughts further than she could imagine. She waited, listening quietly for an answer, opening her mind to her surroundings.
Nothing.
Fear was creating a huge knot in her stomach, but she pushed it down, desperate to connect with someone - anyone - to bring her reassurance that she wasn't the only living, sentient being left after that battle. Breathing deeply, Ami once again reached out, but this time searching for anything that remotely felt like a person. After a short time of silent meditation, she began to feel the faint impression of an infantile mind poke at her from somewhere outside the hangar. Slowly, she made her way out, averting her eyes from the burned and blood-spattered corpses scattered amidst the debris.
"Hello?" Ami called, pausing to listen for an answer. "Is someone out here? Answer, so I can help you."
She sensed fear, building stronger with each passing second, emanating from a large piece of gray metal to her right. It was too big to be from a starfighter, but too small to be off a cargo ship. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized it must be the transport ship the children and politicians left in, and the thought of one of them being alive spurred her feet onward. Pushing through the pain that was still throbbing through her leg, she circled the metal chunk, looking for an opening, a hole in the ground, something that would allow her access to the being trapped inside. The more she circled, the more she realized there was no opening at all. What could she do to help the young one escape?
"You could use the Force to lift it up," she said, startling herself with how loud her words sounded amid the silence of the dead. "Don't think, feel. Uncle Luke taught you how to do this ages ago. Let's go."
Once again, Ami closed her eyes, drinking in the silence of the jungle - filled with dead people - focusing her mind on the current of the Force, surrounding her - and the dead people - drawing it around the still-steaming chunk of gray metal - that probably contained dead people -
"STOP!" Ami screamed, slapping herself on the forehead to try and drown out the thoughts of death invading her mind. Her fearfulness was what had kept her from training with her uncle and brother, and it was what kept her from truly bonding with her mother. No one could understand the anxiety, foremost of her feelings, that nagged at her mind from waking to sleep; it even invaded her dreams, causing incessant nightmares. Between the ages of 5 and 6 years old, she had a recurring dream about a tall, faceless man in black robes who killed everyone in her family except her: as soon as the faceless man would come close enough for him to kill her, she would fall into a dark abyss, alone but for the shadow children who kept her company in all her nightmares.
Her parents had taken her to see many wisemen, shamans, psychics - you name it, Ami had sat in their chair or waded in their pools. Even her uncle had attempted to interpret her dreams, but everyone's answers were still the same vague, unsatisfying explanations: she was afraid of death, she felt lonely, her unconscious mind was trying to tell her to let go of something she held dear, yada yada yada. After a while, everyone gave up; it wasn't until a blind Jedi named Oryx Mourner declared her a Seer that they began to realize the implications of her dreams and premonitions. She hadn't envisioned the Faceless Man in almost six years, yet she could still feel his pull on her family, like a dark undercurrent brushing the tips of their toes.
But today… Today, despite what seemed to be the culmination of everything she'd ever feared and predicted, was the day she would overcome her anxiety. She didn't know how much time had passed since the First Order attacked, but it had been long enough to leave alive only her and the entombed child she was attempting to rescue. Ami moved around the piece of ship until she felt the last rays of the afternoon sun on her back; she could always rely on the sun and moon to help her connect to the Force when nothing else could. Closing her eyes once again, she gently flipped her palms up to face the sky and began to focus on the energy all around her, binding her and the earth and the heavens together as one; she was the earth, pushing the invasive metal bits up toward the heavens. She was the heavens, pulling the ships toward herself, back where they belonged.
Ami opened her eyes to a surreal sight: every piece of ship - TIE fighter and X-Wing alike - was floating in the air two feet above the ground. Twitching her fingers, they all flew several yards into the burnt maw of the jungle where they were destined to be devoured by rot and decay.
Her knees buckled, landing Ami face-down in the mud. She felt physically and mentally exhausted, like the only kind of sleep that would re-energize her was a ten-year coma. Luckily, the mud was wet enough to get sucked into her windpipe when she tried to inhale, which forced her to cough and push herself to her feet once again. Directly in front of her, not more than a foot away, lay a small, purple Twi'lek child, shivering and wild-eyed and covered in dirt.
"Ilyaa!" Ami screamed, scooping the little girl up into her arms. Her skin was like ice to the touch. "Can you talk? Are you ok? Tell me what hurts." She scanned the ground for any blankets or articles of clothing to wrap the nearly frozen toddler in, but could see none that weren't already taken; her range of vision was beginning to be severely limited by the fading light, and she realized with horror that they had no food, no safe shelter, no water, and no way to defend themselves from whatever predators lurked in the night.
Suddenly, a robed figure emerged from the woods several yards away. Ami couldn't make out their face, or even what race they were, due to the growing darkness. Panic set in and Ami hobbled as fast as she could toward the hangar opening, praying that whoever she was running from couldn't see her. She heard rapid, pounding footsteps growing louder behind her, and a scream finally forced its way out just as the stranger caught up to the two injured children.
"Shhh, it's okay!" a kind, gentle voice reassured. "I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help you."
Ami recognized that voice!
"Uncle Luke!" she screamed, spinning around to face the Jedi. His ice-blue eyes lit up when he realized who she was, his scarred face melting into an expression of relief.
"Ami!" Luke breathed, wrapping both children into a warm embrace, careful not to smother the smaller of the two. "You're still alive, thank the Force. Admiral Statura told me you were dead! Your parents and brother are sick with grief." A long, low rumble in the jungle behind them warned of imminent danger. "We have to get out of here as quickly as possible - is there anyone else alive here?"
Ami, speechless in her relief, shook her head.
"Then quickly come with me. Artoo has the ship waiting in a clearing not far from here - we have to get both of you out before anyone comes back to pick over these remains." Luke gently took the still-shivering Ilyaa from Ami's arms, nestled her between the folds of his over-tunic, and turned and ran back to where he'd emerged mere seconds beforehand. Ami, exhausted as she was, managed to keep up with him out of sheer desperation. The day was not yet over, and she still felt the gnaw of anxiety in her gut that told her there was more agony to come.
The sun continued to set, and the jungle undergrowth grew more and more dangerous the further in they went. While trying to leap over a tall tree root, she smacked her head into a low-hanging branch and fell, dizzy and disoriented, between the roots of the tree. At first, she couldn't move: her mind felt detached from her body, and her vision spun. When the world finally stabilized, she realized Ilyaa was laying on her abdomen, both of them cradled in her uncle's arms as he ascended the ramp to his ship.
"What's happening?" she muttered groggily, "Why are you carrying me?" She tried to lift her head to look around, and felt pain like someone had embedded a knife through her eye, straight to the back of her brain. She heard a groan escape her lips and dropped her head back down, hanging over her uncle's arm. Ilyaa began crying, which was the first noise Ami had heard her make since before the attack.
"Amidala!" Luke said, panic evident in his tone, "You must stay conscious. Don't give in to the desire to fall asleep. As soon as we are up in the air, I will take you somewhere to find medical treatment, but for now I need you to stay with me. Do you understand?"
Ami, vision fading in and out, let out a high-pitched whine that was supposed to communicate: yes, but I don't want to.
"I know, princess, I know you are so tired. You've been very brave today, but I need you to keep being brave until I can get you some help."
Luke laid the two children on what felt like a cushioned bench, and Ami watched hazily as his back disappeared into a different compartment. She picked up the sound of distant astromech bleeps, and felt the rumble of the ship's engine as they rose into space, leaving all the death and destruction behind them. Ilyaa was laying on top of her, arms locked around her neck, still shivering from the cold. With great effort, Ami grasped the top of her heavy green skirt and started inching it up from her ankles; when she had a good amount of ruffles gathered, she pulled them up over Ilyaa's body, exposing her own stockinged legs to the cold of space. She draped her arms over her companion's tiny frame just in case the ship ride became bumpy, and rasped out whatever songs came into her head.
Slowly, Ilyaa fell asleep, but Ami kept singing in an effort to keep herself awake. It seemed like hours had passed since they'd left Ithor, and it was becoming harder and harder for her to keep her eyes open. You've done enough, her brain said, I think it's okay if you sleep now. Just for a little bit. No one will notice. This was turning into the most difficult and torturous part of her day: exhausted, eyes and mouth dry, head throbbing with pain, and a very fuzzy recollection of the events of the past hour all contributed to a feeling of pure misery.
She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. "Uncle?" she rasped, barely above a whisper. If only she had some water! "Uncle?" she tried again, this time marginally louder, and it seemed to work; she listened as her uncle's footsteps grew closer, until he was finally kneeling down next to her.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" he queried, brushing the hair out of her face with his mechanical hand. She saw his eyes quickly flit down to her bared legs. "Are you cold? I'll get you a blanket."
Ami nodded her head and tried to speak, but her throat was so dry at this point her efforts were in vain. All that managed to escape her lips was a low, growl-like sound, so she brought one of her fingers up to weakly point at her mouth.
"Ah, I understand." Luke said, "I'm so sorry I haven't come to check on you in a while. I'll go get you a blanket and some water, and I'll be right back. Okay?"
Ami once again nodded, her head feeling increasingly heavy with each effort to move. Her uncle left a parting kiss on her forehead and walked a few steps toward the back of the ship. Bending down, he lifted a floor panel and rummaged underneath for a few moments before straightening and turning back, holding a dark blue blanket and what looked to be a canteen filled with clear liquid. She took the canteen as Luke spread the blanket over her and Ilyaa, and spilled water all over herself. Her uncle gently pulled the canteen from her grasp and slipped his arm under her shoulders, lifted her torso up to a sitting position, and helped her drink the water.
"Feel better?" he asked as he lowered Ami back to the cushions.
"Yes," she whispered, "Better. Wha-… What's happening?"
"I received a communication from Admiral Statura. He wanted me to let you know that your mother is fine." Luke paused, struggling with how to say what had to come next. "Everyone believes you're dead, Ami. Apparently, when they pulled your mother away from the wreckage of the planet, she was the only life sign that appeared on their sensors. That's why they didn't rescue you or your small friend…?"
"Ilyaa," Ami replied, "Y-… You told them… we're alive?"
Luke shook his head. "It's complicated, sweetheart. Admiral Statura has reason to believe that the attack on the base was to kidnap you. There was a similar attack on the planet where Ben goes to school, but fortunately for us he was traveling with your dad. They're both safe, but many other people have died. The Admiral thinks it best that no one knows about you, not yet, not until they figure out if it's safe for you to come back home."
Ami nodded, eyes drooping. "I'm glad… They're safe…" she breathed, no longer able to keep herself awake.