Prologue

Tionne raised her lightsaber just in time to deflect a pair of blaster bolts back at the stormtroopers. "How does the Empire kill all sense of self-preservation?" she gasped as she dodged flame tongues dancing out of the corridor walls.

Smash! A red blade came down, forcing her to block and roll away under the brute strength of her enemy. Said enemy proceeded to make a twenty-meter leap onto an extended walkway and run off.

To the starboard docking bay, her analytical mind supplied. Gathering the Force around her, she jumped to follow.

The now-erratic artificial gravity of the almost-destroyed Doomgiver made Tionne painfully crash into the edge of the walkway rather than replicate her enemy's graceful landing. Cursing, she climbed over, checked that she still had the lightsaber, and resumed pursuit.

Krima Blane-Fyyar's special ops chief, Desann's apprentice enhanced with Artusian crystals, and all-around bitch-locked three successive pairs of blast doors behind her, forcing Tionne to cut through each. By the time she made it into the bay, she was drenched in sweat and flush with adrenaline. At first, she thought it was too late, but then she noticed one of the shuttles' rear ramp still in motion, closing up.

A burst of Force speed hurled her forward, leaping and rolling aboard just as the hatch closed. The small vessel jerked as it launched out of the hangar. Blane, making her way to the cockpit, fell back and realized Tionne was there.

"You!" she snarled, whipping out both lightsabers. Red clashed with orange, and then Blane kicked Tionne several meters, and hurled one of the weapons at her. Tionne ducked, and the red shaft buried itself in a bulkhead. Alarms went off-she must have damaged something vital.

Taking the opportunity, Tionne raised her hand and flipped a small switch, causing a hatch to slide open next to Blane. When the Empire Reborn officer turned at the noise, Tionne used all her strength to push her forward through the open door. Rushing up, she yanked the release lever, sending the escape pod with Blane aboard to be picked up by New Republic forces.

In the cockpit, the droid pilot raised a blaster, and she cut it down. Strapping in, she found the Rogue Squadron frequency and called out:

"Rogue Squadron, this is Tionne. I'm aboard the shuttle just launched from the Doomgiver's starboard bay. Krima Blane is in the escape pod I just dropped. Be advised, she still has one lightsaber. Over."

"Understood. Heads up-our sensors show your shuttle's drive is unstable. Maybe you should find an escape pod yourself. Over."

Tionne glanced at the panel. Red where it wasn't out entirely, many lights were blinking furiously, and when she tried to work controls, they didn't respond.

"Will do. Over."

But at that moment, something inside the ship groaned, and the shuttle underwent another jolt of acceleration. When Tionne looked up, she was gazing not at the starfield of the Yavin system criss-crossed by New Republic ships and pieces of the Doomgiver, but into the endless, restless white-blue turbulent sea of hyperspace.

This was not a normal hyperjump. Tione tried to pull out, but not a single control, up to the emergency engine shutdown, responded at all. And the initial jolt of a jump, instead of smoothing out, turned into an exacerbated vibration coursing through the ship. When the long-range comms also failed to respond, Tionne headed to the engine area. Severing the right power conduit with a lightsaber would turn off the hyperdrive.

She just began looking to see what to slice when the ship buckled and threw her off her feet. A powerful shock pierced her left arm and she lost motion in her fingers there. She focused on the Force to keep the pain down. It helped, but tired her out even more than she already was.

The ship threw her again, then, mercifully, the art-grav gave out completely, making her weightless. She swam through the air, bumping painfully several more times on her way back to the cockpit. She clenched her mouth upon looking through the viewport. Dark blue of an ocean world alternated with the black starfield of space, but on each rotation, the blue got closer. She was falling to the planet.

Any remaining hope of a soft landing vanished when every light in the cockpit winked out. Tionne never had particular affinity for telekinesis-she could do it, but it was always an effort,, and in the state she was in, exerting direct control on the surfaces was out of the question. She could, however, use the Force to manually release the clamps on the shuttle's tri-wings, letting them unfold as the vessel spun. The crash would not be that of a rock impacting the planet head-on, but of a high-speed, really hot glider tossed at the mercy of wind and rain. And the only way she wouldn't be killed on impact was if she strapped herself tightly into a seat that wouldn't be torn off the deck.

Unconsciousness finally took her when she snapped in the last restraint. It was short-lived, though, as the descent into the thicker layers of the atmosphere cause the return of felt gravity and shaking as the ship was thrown about in its chaotic descent. Tionne gripped the handlebar with her good arm and continually supressed the pain with the Force in the other, avoiding looking at the flames raging on the ship's outside.

The impact came at a surprise, and was accompanied by a terrible noise as the hull buckled under the strain, and surrounding water steamed on the overheated surface. Tionne freed herself and stepped into the rapidly rising cold water pouring into the ship. Another jolt knocked her off balance and she splashed into the water.

The pain in the arm was too much now even for the Force to handle. Tionne came to awareness when she inhaled some water and reflexes kicked in, lifting her face back into the air. There was more pain, this time in the lungs, and now that the outside fire was quenched, she was in complete darkness.

At least until she took the lightsaber off her belt and ignited it. The orange blade didn't show much except what she already knew: the shuttle was sinking. Climbing out of the water for a little bit and honkering on top of the instrument console, she plunged the weapon into the front viewport, and started cutting through the transparisteel. She knew she had to work quickly-another hole meant t he cockpit would fill even faster, and she hand no idea how deep she was already. So, the moment she was done she leaped out of the way of the stream into the remaining air pocket and began rapid breathing, disregarding the pain. She needed to build up an oxygen reserve so that when the inbound stream stopped, and she no longer had to swim against the current, she could hold long enough to reach the surface.

She remembered consuming the last pocket of air, and diving under. She remembered getting out and kicking off in the direction she hoped was up. She did not remember reaching the surface, or how long she was in the water.

She remembered something impossible, though. She remembered coughing up water into the face of Master Luke Skywalker.