At any minute, the morning light would begin to show through the opening in the Jedi Temple's ceiling. So many mornings Tess had watched it rise over the Dantooine mountains through her bedroom window, pretending she was several feet up in the air in a palace like the one on Alderaan, wondering if it was sunrise there, too. If Uncle Bail's daughter—the princess—was watching it.
Of all thoughts, Tess didn't know why that one came up. It's funny what decides to resurface when one believes their life, as they know it, is over. And how time moves so slow that you can catch every detail.
Tess didn't know how many of the rogue Imperials had cornered her here, but after hitting her head on the hard ground one of them could have looked like three.
They were yelling at her. Screaming.
"Murderer!"
She was. She knew it. But the lives she took—Chid Deltrod, Boba Fett, maybe others in battles—none of them were really great concerns of Imperials, were they?
"Murderer!" screamed the same voice. But this time it sounded familiar.
Tess' eyes finally began to adjust as the morning began to peek through the skylight, and she saw the face of her sole attacker.
"Nath—" Before Tess could finish saying her friend's name, his hands were around her throat. She clawed at his wrists violently, gasping through the pressure on her neck.
"You killed my father!" cried Nathen. He put all his weight into choking the life out of Tess.
Tess' confusion over the situation snapped her back into a will to live, and she once again tried to reach out for her lightsaber through the Force. It flew into her hand moments later, and she clocked Nathen on the back of the head with it.
Nathen was shocked by the blow enough to release his hands from Tess' neck, and she took the opportunity to roll out from under him, scramble to her feet, and ignite her lightsaber.
By the time Nathen could realize what happened, he wasn't cornering a little girl in the dark anymore.
With the light of her weapon, Tess could see Nathen's anger-red, tear-stained face.
"What happened?" she asked him gently, realizing her lightsaber was all she needed to demand an answer. She had to hold it with one hand while the wounded one was tucked into her tunic.
His shoulders heaving, Nathen's hand dove to the ground to pick up his blaster. He fired three shots, shouting with each one, but even with just one hand Tess could block the blasts. She then tossed the blaster across the room with the Force. His failure made him even more furious.
"They were after you, bitch!" Nathen screamed. "They were trying to find you!"
Tess struggled to connect the dots. Once she did, she felt the tightness of guilt in her stomach.
"Rogue Imperials," she realized aloud.
"It might as well have been you," Nathen sneered. "If it weren't for you, my dad would still be alive."
Tess bit her lip, her eyes welling up with the very familiar guilt of people getting hurt because of her.
"I'm sorry…" she whispered. There was not much else she could say.
"I'm surprised you haven't killed yourself by now," hissed Nathen, walking closer as if Tess' weapon wasn't even there. "With all that you've done…the people you've killed."
"Most of what they say about me isn't true," Tess muttered as if she was trying to convince herself, too.
"Well," Nathen scoffed. "The big black scorch mark covering where the Rift Skyrail used to be on Teyr and the two thousand toasted corpses are hard to blame on anyone else but the spawn of the Emperor."