Chapter Seven

Forest Moon of Endor

Sliding had never been a pleasant experience for Quinn Mallory. Falling down a twisting tube of light might have been fun once or twice, but it got old quickly. Especially when you never knew where you would end up.

This was worse. Every slide sent spikes of pain through his head, and they got worse with every jump.

Quinn appeared right under an Imperial Walker surrounded by storm troopers. Before the startled soldiers could react, Quinn dropped a satchel charge, set for 1 second to detonation, and slid off into the light. By the time the charge blew up, he had done the same to another cluster of soldiers. He jumped again, and set another charge by the force field generator. Then he staggered before he could set the bomb's timer. The pain in his head had increased tenfold. Blood was running down his nose. The slides were killing him.

Must go on, he told himself. He set the timer with his now shaking hands. Blaster fire almost got him; some of the Imperials had seen him reappear near the facility and were shooting at him. An instant later, blaster and phaser fire from the treeline knocked the storm troopers down. Quinn's friends were attacking to support him.

"Dammit. Not... in the plan," Quinn muttered. Or was it in the plan. It was getting hard to think. He looked at the satchel's charge timer. He'd set it for five seconds, and there were two seconds left.

"Whoops."

He slid away just in time, or maybe not quite in time. He felt some of the blast and heat follow him through the dimensional jump, and when he reappeared behind a tree, he could feel blood running down his back, and burns on the back of his neck. Funny thing was, the pain of his wounds was nothing compared to the agony in his head. He could barely see. Getting up was one of the hardest things he'd ever done in his life.

The station was burning, but it still stood. The Imperials might fix it. Even worse, a squad of storm troopers and the last walker were attacking his friends. Quinn looked at his bag o' bombs. Two left.

"Just two – no, three... more slides," he said, wiping blood off his nose.

Slide one. He came out screaming in agony, dropped the bomb right in front of the advancing soldiers, jumped away. Slide two. He materialized next to the burning station and dropped his last satchel charge. One last slide. He pushed with his mind, and nothing happened. He couldn't even walk away, could barely see the bomb's timer as it ran towards zero.

"Wade..." He had to see her one more time. He pushed, and felt something break inside him.

The station blew up a few seconds after Quinn's next to last bomb took out the last Imperial squad. Wade shot one of the fleeing solders, then heard a body collapsing behind her. She turned to see Quinn. He wasn't moving.

"Quinn!"

He wasn't breathing, either.

Death Star

"Liar. Filthy liar," Sith Luke hissed. His light saber was a whirlwind, feinting and striking with a ferocity that drove Obi-Wan back. Luke's swordplay was very much like Obi-Wan, so much that facing him was like fighting a mirror image. A younger, less well-trained mirror image. The Sith had only trained for a few months, after all, had never enjoyed the full depth of a Jedi's education. Ordinarily, this duel should have been over in seconds, Obi-Wan's skills were clearly higher and better-honed.

But the Dark Side was tipping the scales.

That was the temptation the Sith offered those strong in the Force. Hatred and fear allowed an adept to channel levels of energy that normally took decades to achieve. The Dark Side was the easy way, allowing even a half-trained boy to drive back a Jedi Knight in a savage flurry of light saber strokes. Obi-Wan winced as a near miss left his tunic smoldering, a third-degree burn in the skin and flesh beneath. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Qui-Gon similarly beset by the relentless Darth Vader. Obi-Wan could only spare a glance to see his former teacher's plight, and then he had to somersault away to avoid being cut in two by Luke's attack.

"You were a sanctimonious old man," Luke snarled as the duelists paused briefly. "And you're even more pathetic now." His tone became petulant. "I trusted you and lied to me."

Obi-Wan's patience was wearing thin. "Luke Skywalker, you're a whiny little b..." Luke charged him before he could complete his sentence. That, however, was just what Obi-Wan had planned for. He ducked low, and used the Force to push Luke forward, increasing his momentum and catapulting the young Sith into the air. Luke flew over Obi-Wan and slammed against a wall with enough force to knock his light saber off his hand and leave him stunned on the floor. Before Luke could recover, Obi-Wan stood over him, his light saber inches away from the Sith's face. Luke reached for his light saber, but Obi-Wan made a gesture and the weapon flew into his waiting hand.

"Neat trick," Luke said between clenched teeth.

"It does come in handy," Obi-Wan replied evenly.

"You beat me," Luke admitted. "Finish it, then." He braced for the killing blow he would have delivered if their places had been reversed.

"I probably should," the Jedi replied. "But there might be hope for you yet. If given the chance, you could see your crimes for what they are, and perhaps even try to redeem yourself. Death would rob you of that chance."

"What? You stupid fool!" Luke tried to leap to his feet, but Obi-Wan pushed with his mind and slammed the Sith back against the wall, hard enough to knock him out.

"Maybe not all that much hope," Obi-Wan muttered, and turned his attention to the battle between Vader and Qui-Gon. He was just in time to watch the two combatants spin in the air in a move as perfectly stylized as a complicated dance maneuver, almost beautiful in its elegance, except that a dance maneuver didn't lead to death and dismemberment.

Darth Vader's light saber struck Qui-Gon's right arm, severing it at the elbow. The pain would have paralyzed any normal man, but Qui-Gon seemed not to notice. Even as his limb spun away, he gestured with his left hand. The Force grasped the light saber held in his severed right hand – and sent it towards Darth Vader. The Sith Lord tried to parry. The desperate maneuver saved him from being cut in half. Instead, Darth Vader's right arm fell to the ground in a shower of sparks and smoke. The two crippled duelists landed in similar crouching positions, facing each other, both too weak to fight on.

Darth Vader looked at Obi-Wan, and past the Jedi to the crumpled form of Luke. "My son," he said, and was there a trace of feeling in his mechanical voice?

"Luke Skywalker lives," Obi-Wan said. "As you may live, if you turn aside from the Dark Side."

"Mercy is a weakness," Vader replied, but his tone lacked conviction.

"Mercy is the only strength that matters," Qui-Gon said.

Obi-Wan started to nod – and a physical impact combined with a bolt of burning energy knocked him to the ground.

Starship Enterprise

Nobody was more surprised than Picard when the force shields protecting the Death Star winked out of existence just before he gave the order to open fire. He didn't let it show, of course. One of the burdens of command was the need to remain calm, or at least maintain the appearance of calm. He suppressed both the gasp of surprise or the urge to grin in savage satisfaction as the volley of phasers and torpedoes struck the Death Star and carved a Star Destroyer-sized hole into the planetoid. It wasn't enough to destroy it, of course, but now, for the first time since the battle was joined, they had a chance.

"Fire at will," he said, much in the same tone he would have during a training exercise.

"Captain, the Death Star is targeting us."

"Evasive maneuver Alpha. Full impulse. All weapons fire as you bear. Concentrate on the main weapon." Their only hope now was to become as hard a target as possible, and hope the Enterprise's weapons would damage and confuse their sensors to make a target lock impossible. Picard feared that all they were doing was kicking and screaming on the way to the gallows, only postponing the inevitable.

So be it.

Data's Mind

Roden Fell was running for his life.

Nothing is free. Roden Fell had seized control of the android, but he, for all his powers, could only be in one place at a time. To take over Data's body, he had to give up his own. Nothing remained of Roden Fell but an empty set of clothes. The possessed Data now contained Roden's twisted, monstrously happy mind. He had plenty of ideas about what to do with the android's superhuman body now that he was in the driver's seat.

Except, the damn tin man was fighting back.

Data's memory and programming were holographic in nature. Among other things, that meant that as long as even a portion of his consciousness remained, it had the potential to replace all that was lost. And Data was no furiously making copies of himself, taking back the places Roden Fell had replaced with his own dark essence.

For an outside observer, the battle was rather undramatic. Roden Fell disappeared, leaving his clothes behind, Data's expression became cheerfully evil for a minute or so, and then the android stopped, frozen in place. This went on for another two minutes or so.

Inside Data' mind scape, things were rather more exciting.

Roden Fell found himself beset by ghosts from Data's memories. Klingons and Ferengi attacked him with beam weapons or their bare hands. Monsters and humans, friends and enemies, entities beyond human comprehension and the more mundane places and people all started appearing around the dark man, attacking him without mercy. They weren't real in a technical sense, but such distinctions were lost on the dark man. He had to fight back. And, being what he was, he fought well, leaving a trail of broken bodies behind him.

"Is that the best you've got?" Fell yelled defiantly.

"Oh, I think that would be me," a prissy-sound man said behind him.

The dark man turned around and found himself facing a man in a Starfleet captain's uniform. Seemingly a man, but Roden Fell saw more than a human could, and he could immediately see the near infinite power behind the illusion.

"My, my," Q said wonderingly, observing the dark man much like a researcher watching a guinea pig. "You are a bit of a cold sore on the face of universe, aren't you?"

"You... you can't be here," Roden Fell said. "You're just another memory."

"Well, yes and no. You see, for certain orders of being, memories have more than an evocative effect. They also have an... invocation effect. So, for some intents and purposes, you poisonous little worm, I am here. At the very least, I'm here enough to deal with you. Want to try to go mano a mano with me? It would be more of a workout than I've had in a while, and I could use the exercise."

Roden Fell considered this for a second. Then he fled. His essence left Data's mind to wherever Fell/Flagg went when defeated.

Data appeared next to the satisfied-looking Q.

"Thank you," Data said. "I cannot tell if this was a bluff my mind generated, or I am thanking the real Q."

"Don't strain your positronic brain trying to figure it out," Q said. "You know the old expression, you live on in people's memories? It's a little more true in some cases than in others."

Q vanished, and Data returned to reality, right where he had confronted Roden Fell of whom nothing remained by a set of empty clothes.

Time to get back to work.

Death Star

Sith Luke woke up in time to see the Emperor about to unleash a blast of dark energy on an unsuspecting Obi-Wan Kenobi.

To those with strength in the Force, physical appearance was secondary to the imprint of someone's soul. To Luke's senses, the man in his prime he had encountered was no different from Old Ben Kenobi, the wizened teacher who had taken a confused boy and shown him an entire new universe of possibilities. Underneath all the hatred and disappointment was a hard core of love and respect. What Luke saw when he regained consciousness was his old teacher in danger. He didn't think. He didn't consider the lesson Obi-Wan had tried to teach him moments before, or the darker teachings of the Emperor and the shell of his father Darth Vader. For one moment, Luke was the simple farmer boy from Tatooine. And the simple farmer boy saw his friend and teacher in danger.

Luke jumped, a Force-assisted leap that knocked Obi-Wan out of the way of the Emperor's attack. The unleashed Dark Force had to claim someone's life however. Luke's flesh was consumed by it. His nervous system flared with the light of a supernova and burned out, leaving behind a smoldering shell. It was over in less than a second, and yet for Luke it was time enough to know that he had done well.

Luke Skywalker died smiling.

Starship Enterprise

It wasn't working.

The Death Star sensors were locking on, slowly but inexorably. The Enterprise's maneuvers had bought its crew a few minutes, but soon the enemy would finalize a targeting solution, and the Enterprise would share in the Defiant's fate.

When the ship shook violently, almost throwing Picard off the command chair, he briefly thought the inevitable had already happened. But he was alive on his next breath, so clearly the Death Star hadn't struck. What..?

"Captain, a Super Star Destroyer is on an intercept course. We're taking heavy fire from it; shield strength is down to forty-three percent."

Picard glanced at the screen that showed the advancing juggernaut, 1.6 kilometers long, it's turbolasters blasting away. And yet its threat was dwarfed by the Death Star. In fact...

"Alter course! Take us straight into the Star Destroyer!"

"Captain?"

"Divert power to shields and take us there!"

Picard's crew followed his orders. They were all smart enough to know how slim their chances were, and to understand Picard had found a chance, however small.

It was rather simple, actually, a three-sided race to see what happened first. Either the Death Star would fire and obliterate the Enterprise, the Super Star Destroyer's turbolaser batteries would overwhelm the ship's shields and do the same or...

"Death Star is firing," Riker said tersely.

Or the Enterprise would manage to interpose the Super Star Destroyer in between.

The planet-destroying blast struck. The Super Star Destroyer was the first victim: neither its size, shields or armor spared it, and it blew up spectacularly. The Enterprise was hit next, but the Star Destroyer's destruction had served its purpose. Only a fraction of the Death Star's blast actually hit Picard's ship.

Even a fraction of that power was bad enough, however.

Picard numbly looked at the damage reports. The shields were down. Giordi in Engineering had been severely injured when the reactors overloaded. One warp nacelle had been sheared clean off the ship. Auxiliary power was keeping the ship alive and under power, but not for long. The Enterprise was temporarily safe, enveloped by the expanding gasses of the obliterated Star Destroyer, but it was a temporary retrieve.

"I've done what I can," Picard muttered. It would be up to others to save the day.

Death Star

The Emperor's next bolt slammed into Qui-Gon, knocking the wounded Jedi on his back but not killing him outright. Obi-Wan's former teacher was out of the fight, however.

"It's over, little Jedi," the Emperor crowed, unleashing more bolts of energy. It was all Obi-Wan could do to dodge the attacks. Sooner or later, the Emperor would score a hit, and it would be over.

Darth Vader struggled to his knees, his eyes fixed on Luke's remains for several moments. When he finally looked away, it was to regard the Emperor, who was too busy taunting Obi-Wan to pay notice.

"Now you understand the power of the Dark..." The Emperor's words were cut off suddenly, as he felt brutal pressure constricting his windpipe. He glanced towards Darth Vader whose outstretched hand was squeezing, serving as a focus for the Force. Desperate, the Emperor unleashed his power on Darth Vader.

The two masters of the Dark Side of the Force struck at each other like maddened beasts, Darth Vader continuing to apply telekinetic pressure even as his flesh-and-metal body melted away. The Emperor's neck broke. An instant later, what little was left of Darth Vader relaxed and stopped moving.

Obi-Wan hung his head for a moment. Darth Vader slaying the Emperor seemed... fitting, somehow. In many ways Anakin Skywalker had been one of the Emperor's worst victims. Obi-Wan sketched a salute to the two dead Skywalkers, and ran to Qui-Gon's side. The older Jedi was alive but unconscious.

"I can carry him."

Obi-Wan turned and saw Data. "The ship will self-destruct shortly," the android explained. "There is a escape shuttle nearby, set aside for the Emperor's use. I believe he no longer has any use for it."

"But we do," Obi-Wan said gratefully.

Starship Enterprise

The end was spectacular.

The Death Star exploded seconds before it was ready to fire again. Its destruction took the fight out of the Imperial Fleet, which scattered in all directions, every ship trying to escape on its own. The Rebel fleet hunted down many of the survivors, ensuring that the might of the Empire was broken once and for all. The Enterprise managed to jury-rig enough systems to limp away on its own, after taking in the vessels with the rest of the Eternity Legion on board, and rescue all the survivors from the Defiant that could be found.

Kira Nerys was not among the survivors. Along with many others, friends and companions.

The Rebel fleet held multiple celebrations on the larger Mons Calamari cruisers. Some had proposed setting down on Endor, but nobody wanted to share space with the still-dangerous Ewok cannibals. Leia was thinking about sending a mission later on to try and undo the damage her brother had inflicted on the natives. The Enterprise held a more muted gathering on Ten Forward. The victory had been worth it, a galaxy and perhaps an entire universe had been spared. But Picard could not help but counting the cost.

Picard noticed Wade sitting listlessly by herself. He walked over. "How is Quinn doing?"

"No changes. Doctor Crusher chased me away from sickbay, said I needed some time off. I'll be back there in a few minutes, though."

"We'll do what we can," Picard promised. Quinn had fallen into a coma, and so far nothing any of the Legion's technological, magical or psychic resources had made any difference. The current theory had been that Quinn's Slides had somehow stripped him of something. His soul, perhaps, scattering it across the Multiverse. There had also been severe neurological damage, but that had been repaired without improving his condition.

"We'll do what we can," Picard repeated. It sounded hollow to his own ears.

The watch nurses did not notice the apparitions taking shape next to Quinn's bed. Something made them not pay attention to the events transpiring there.

Anakin and Luke Skywalker's Force thought forms hovered next to Quinn's bed. Father and son looked as they had in better days. They also looked far happier than they had ever been in life. They watched Quinn's still form.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Luke?" Anakin asked. "There will be a price, a... diminishing effect for both of us." Father and soon had only experienced a tiny glimpse of their future, but they had learned that much. Sacrifices made now would have long-lasting consequences.

"This man paid his price, unquestioningly." Luke replied. "We can't do any less."

Anakin nodded in agreement. They gathered their power.

On Ten Forward, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Wade all stiffened as they sensed the Force being used nearby. Qui-Gon relaxed first.

"What is happening?" Obi-Wan asked.

Qui-Gon smiled. "A good thing." He walked to Wade, who had stopped listening to Picard and was trying to pinpoint the source of Force-energy she had sensed.

"Sometimes good deeds are rewarded," he told her. "You should go to sick bay."

Wade's haunted expression brightened with a glimmer of hope. She looked questioningly at Qui-Gon, and he nodded. Eyes brimming with tears, she rushed off.

On sick bay, Quinn opened his eyes, catching a glimpse of two men he'd never met, knowing immediately what he owed them. The two men disappeared, and he looked around, finding himself alone.

But not for long.

THE END