Chapter 7

What's Left Behind

Tahiri tried to comprehend what she had seen. It had looked like Anakin, her best friend in the world, had just fallen over a cliff because a Yuuzhan Vong had stabbed him. But that was impossible. She'd just felt his presence in her mind a minute ago.

She tried for the third time to contact her friend since she hadn't felt his presence disappear in the force yet. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be if she didn't feel him die. She felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Kirk.

"Tahiri, we've got to go, the Yuuzhan Vong are coming this way."

"We can't!" She yelled at him. "Anakin's still down there? Or have you forgotten why we're here?!" She went back to the ramp. "Open this, I'm going down there."

To her surprise, James punched the button. Kirk's face became incredibly livid. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" He walked across the cockpit until he was facing James directly. "I gave an order to leave, so why are you openly defying me?"

"Didn't you hear Tahiri? Anakin's not dead. So we can't leave him behind. I don't like this any more than you do, Jedi, but we're here to get the other stupid JedI, so let's finish this." He hefted his blaster and remained where he was, adamantly glaring at Kirk.

"You're going to obey me."

"Or what?" James countered. "Shoot me?" He gave him a satisfactory smiled, "Good, then I can join my parents. Does that work for you?"

Kirk's hands shook. He was losing control, it was Tahiri's scream that broke their quarrel. James and Kirk both whipped their heads to face her.

"Tahiri?" Kirk inquired, his voice gentler now. James had also lost his edge. Tahiri sunk to the floor. Her face was streaked with tears, a wry almost tired expression on her face.

She lowered her gaze. "We can go now." She wiped her face. James tried to get a better look at her face to see what was wrong and Kirk was staring at her in silent understanding. He felt her anguish like it was his own because it was so heavy laden. Even James' expression was lost, he could see her shaking.

"He's gone." She blurted. "I tried to reach out to him and killed him. Just now he-" She pressed her hands onto the floor, now vibrating, then she broke down completlely. Kirk put a blanket around her and lifted her to her feet.

"It's okay, Tahiri. It's not your fault." He gestured to James. "Can you look after her? I have to get us out of here."

"Right." James nodded. He knew this wasn't the time to fight. "Come on, Tahiri." He supported her as they made their way to her bedroom on the ship. After a while, he left, thinking Tahiri might want to be alone.

She did. More than anything right now, Tahiri didn't want to talk to anyone. She lay back against her pillow, her face was dry now, her entire body felt numb. It was surreal. Suddenly a presence that had been with her, even if she couldn't reach his mind, was gone. A gap was there in the force, like she could step through it and come back to where she was, the air blowing through the hole and making a low moan. Right now she couldn't even manage a moan herself.

Tahiri could only think about how much she wanted to tell Anakin. More than anything, she wanted to tell him she'd never thought twice about his name, even when he told her what it was and what it meant to the rest of the world, she never cared. She'd only known Anakin Solo, so she couldn't judge her best friend by someone she didn't know, that would be unfair and not only that, she knew Anakin Solo to be the most warm hearted person she'd ever known.

That despite he'd thrown his father against a wall, she knew Anakin was still himself. He probably felt the pain of not being understood in terms of being the youngest of all the Solo siblings. She couldn't bring herself to tell him that she knew all of that about him. That she'd felt all those pains through their bond. Tahiri wanted to tell Anakin that he was never overshadowed by anyone to her. That he always stood out in every room, no matter who was there, the first person she noticed was Anakin.

"Why didn't I tell him?" She whispered before passing out from exhaustion.

Zekk sat watching the radar. He found it hard to be calm out in space, which was odd for him since he was usually unafraid of anything. But the Yuuzhan Vong made his skin crawl. Zekk had seen what they'd done to other Jedi, to innocent civilians and to the planets. Whole civilizations had been reduced to ashes and their inhabitants made into slaves.

Their delivery made things harder for Zekk to swallow. They had to deliver weapons and on top of that, protect the ship delivering them, lest the Yuuzhang Vong show up and Zekk knew they would. Danger and risk never evaded them for very long and if it did, it was only a precursor to something apocalyptic. Much like the time Zekk was captured by the Second Imperium and even though he never intended it at first, he slowly found himself destroying everything he had once held in his hands and as a result his palms would always be tainted. He started to drift as he heard a clacking noise from behind and turned his head slightly, though he didn't need to, he already knew who it was.

"I thought you could use some company." Jaina said, holding up two cups of coffee. She took the seat next to him and handed him one of the Styrofoam cups. He took it gratefully.

"Thanks." He gave her one of his fun loving smiles although he felt so much worse than that. This mission was anything but fun. He hadn't felt enjoyment since the whole Yuuzhan Vong war began, no, maybe even before that. The Yuuzhan Vong war only made feelings he'd been trying to keep at bay rise to the surface.

"You're awfully quiet." Jaina observed, taking a sip of her own coffee. Zekk shrugged.

"I'm just not in the mood to talk." He surprised himself by how honest he was when he was around Jaina. He could say certain things and sometimes he'd spill out everything at once when he really didn't feel like it. It was subconscious.

Jaina gave him a look that told him she knew he had a lot on his mind but wasn't going to ask. "Fine by me. I'm pretty tired." She sighed and then suddenly laughed.

"What?" He gave her a quizzical look.

"We always end up on one of these missions and every time we scrape by the most life threatening situations. I don't get how. We just have that kind of luck."

Zekk knew as well as she did that it wasn't luck. They were trained JedI and on top of that they always worked something out because they had quick thinking skills and they'd been running into trouble since they could breath. Zekk had grown up on the rough streets among other orphans and the Solo twins had always been tagged by threats of people wanting to destroy the stable Republic or just common assassins. Through their connections to Tenel-Ka, a Dathomir warrior and princess they faced an assassination attempt on several levels and had been kidnapped. Jacen, Tenel Ka and Lowbacca had even been pushed down one of the shoots at Cloud City and Jacen had narrowly escaped death when he lost his grip and fell past the pole where Lowbacca and Tenel Ka were hanging by being rescued from the sky. Jaina and Jacen were better friends than anyone could ask for, they made getting through tough situations easier because they knew how to rough it, despite their initial backgrounds as the prestigious children of Han and Leia Organa Solo.

"Well," He said instead, "We'd better hope that we get the same kind of luck now."

"Because we're going to need it." She finished his thought. He smiled at her. Suddenly as if on cue the radar beeped. He leaned forward and typed on the command board to bring up a enlarged image of the space where the radar was beeping.

Jacen and Tenel Ka came into the cockpit. Jacen scratched his head, he looked as though he'd been trying to sleep.

"What's going-" He looked at the radar, "Sith, it's the Vong and they're not coming in for a cup of tea."

"We will definitely need luck now." Jaina said. Zekk gritted his teeth, and swore to himself. They couldn't let the Vong capture the supply ship, or themselves for that matter. Jacen fingered his lightsaber.

"Looks like we're the ones throwing the party." He gave his friends a Solo grin, "Let's serve drinks." Jacen hoped that he wouldn't have to tell his friends that he too wasn't too sure about their odds this time around. They weren't in a place where escape was particularly easy or at least not without a severe price

Tahiri sat on the stone overlooking the water below, a nice spot in the Academy's expansive forest where she felt she could be alone. It worked too. No one came looking for her, she'd been out by the water for hours, thinking or just staring at the water.

They'd returned from their trip and Tahiri wandered off on her own to find herself at a small waterfall that no longer worked, so it was now a small place ideal for swimming near the temple where she and Anakin had once gone when they first met. They'd been searching for the place they'd both seen in the same dream. They'd bonded so well then, Anakin even managed to reach into her mind to pull her out of the river to save her life.

What made her so distant from Anakin now? She could have just told him that their friendship was really important. No, it was more than that. If it had really mattered, she'd have figured out that Anakin was upset and helped him. She'd have been able to stop his death from occurring. Anakin's death was her fault and she knew it. She'd let him down and wasn't there when he needed her most and that caused him to get killed. When they should have been conquering the galaxy's problems together, she was too busy arguing pointlessly and was too stubborn to speak her mind. She knew she talked a lot, that was a fact, but she didn't ever say what was consequential. She rubbed her forehead. What an idiot I've been. Have I always been like this? Another thought occurred to her, Did Anakin realize all this time that I wasn't saying something and kept quiet about it? She sighed and slumped on the rock she was sitting on, she drew her knees up to her chest. She would never know what Anakin was thinking… and she would never be able to talk to him about her thoughts either.

She turned abruptly as a crunch of rocks and twigs behind confirmed the presence she'd have sensed if she'd wanted to pay attention.

"Before you say anything. I wasn't following you. It's easy to notice one of the few people you know in a strange place when they're not there. Even a non- Jedi would notice." James came up behind her and sat down on another rock, leaning his clasped hands on his knee and dangled the other leg over the ledge. Tahiri half expected James to start to lecture her on how a Jedi should be able to handle grief or at least how stupid she was acting, but he didn't say anything. He just remained silent without asking or even paying attention to her.

Tahiri surprised herself by breaking the silence. "You never told me what happened to your parents."

He gave her a sidelong look that was almost a smile. "You never asked." He leaned back a little, "It was the Vong. I already knew that from the beginning. It was just hard to accept that no one was able to do anything. The Vong came and captured a lot of us, and it was the Peace Brigade who bargained to get me and some other kids out of there. So, I owe them. My parents though…" He sighed, "They died. Someone else who escaped later on said they were killed at some point. I wasn't there."

Tahiri averted her gaze. Just like I wasn't with Anakin.

"So, what's with the guilty look?" He asked. Tahiri shook her head.

"You wouldn't understand."

He fixed her with a look of skepticism as he arched his brow, "Try me."

She spoke slowly as though she felt any minute speed would shatter her mouth. "We've been friends since I first came to the Academy. After a long time, and going through everything anyone could possibly go through as Jedi, as family, and as best friends, I still wasn't there when he needed me. I wasn't there…" She suddenly felt herself realize what she had said, that she just wasn't a good enough friend, nowhere near as good to call herself Anakin's "best friend." Her shoulders shook and she trembled lightly and when small trickles slid down her face, she hid her face. "Why… why didn't I just say something to him?"

James gazed down at the water and the reflections that were cast in its body. Their own silhouettes and the moon as it shone through the trees. "You're lucky." Tahiri looked up at him. James' gray eyes were soft, but sad. He had a faraway gaze as he stared down at the water.

"A Jedi always gets a second chance. Because the force never abandons you, even if you abandon it." He pushed himself up and walked away. Tahiri continued to sit by the water until she wiped her face and started back to her room.