I feel like I should establish, just before this chapter in particular, that Part II of this fic really delves into some of the content shown in the (canon) expanded universe as well. In this chapter, examples include the darksaber and the planet in the Monsua Nebula. You don't need to be familiar with them to understand where it goes, as it has been for the rest of this fic, but for the people who do recognise them, I just want to make it clear that it is intentional.


It was a few days and a few parsecs after they'd docked with General Kir-Bataar's flagship that Matthias was sitting in his dorm and staring at the crate he'd. . . acquired. . . from the Rebel base.

Then he removed the lid and peered inside again.

The dim light of the cabin he shared with Wylan filtered inside and gleamed off the edge of scuffed metal - a silvery colour now turned grey. Matthias ran a reverent finger over the curve of the substance. It had been so long since he'd seen beskar - especially armour made out of beskar. Mandalorian armour.

It had been so long since he'd worn it.

Carefully, gently, as if the pieces of the armour was a squalling baby rather than a tough-as-durasteel metal renowned for stopping blaster shots, he lifted it out of the crate. Examined the gauntlet he was holding. How had the Rebellion gotten hold of it? Who had the armour belonged to? It was Mandalorian, there was no doubt about that; the T-shaped visor and style was unmistakeable.

And the crest on the breast plate, still gathering dust at the bottom. . .

He ran his fingers over the familiar design of the stylised wolf. The crest of Clan Helvar, once burned into his brain as thoroughly as Mandalore's snow-capped peaks, was embellished in rusted red, half scratched off.

What battles had this armour seen? What legacy did it hold? Not even from its previous owner - Mandalorian armour was recovered and reforged over hundreds of years to each new user's liking. Matthias's parents had been killed in a skirmish between the clans when he was too young for them to help him forge his own. He'd been sent to a newly-instated off-world Imperial orphanage to be raised in a herd of kids who would one day serve as stormtroopers or other Imperial officers.

Matthias hadn't wanted that. When he'd finished his training under Brum - a Protector from the Concord Dawn system - he'd run off to find some Imperial family he could be a grunt for - and found Wylan.

What it all meant was that Matthias had never worn Mandalorian armour before.

He hesitated before strapping the gauntlet to his left forearm, but he did it all the same.

Once he'd finished , he tried to take a deep breath and was surprised at how easily it came. The armour wasn't as heavy or constricting as he'd expected, though it was by no means light. He tried to twist his upper torso and the armour moved with him. When he went down on one knee, it bent accordingly.

Despite himself, a grin tugged at his lips.

As he was in the process of taking the armour off, his attention snagged on something in the crate. He hadn't bothered putting on the vambraces - Mandalorian vambraces were known to hold a few thousand tricks designed to combat the Jedi, and he did not want Nina randomly strolling in and getting the wrong idea - but they weren't the only items left inside. There was one item that appeared to resemble the hilt on Nina's lightsaber, except it was smoother, sharper, more geometric. . .

Oh, mother of moons. . .

Eyes wide, Matthias stared at it. Then, hardly daring to touch it, he lifted it out of the crate and pressed the activation button.

A humming filled the dorm as a plasma blade was ejected from the lightsaber's hilt. It wasn't shaped like Nina's - it was flat, with sharp edges, and limned with white. Electricity danced over it.

The blade itself was black, like a slice of a starscape wielded by a god.


Inej rapped on the door to the out-of-the-way cabin Kaz and Jesper had been temporarily assigned and tapped her foot as she waited for him to open it.

He did so soon enough, face set in his signature scowl. He still favoured one leg over the other: the ghostly remnants of his limp. She'd thought the wound was healed, but maybe not. Maybe it never would be.

Kaz would survive. Kaz could survive anything.

"What do you want, Inej?"

She didn't bother denying that she wanted anything. By this point, asking each other for favours was a new staple in their relationship. "We still need an official base, and I've been set a nice easy scouting mission to a few systems without Imperial occupation. Only thing is, we're using a stolen lambda shuttle just in case, and those things are a right pain to fly on my own. I need you to co-pilot."

Kaz frowned. "Why did you come to me? Why not Jesper or your beloved Nina, Matthias - hell, even Wylan? Anika?"

"Anika's dead." She tried not to let saying it aloud affect her; it was hard enough watched the minute change in his expression without breaking down herself. "And funnily enough, Kaz, I'm asking you because I want to go with you. You're my friend. I enjoy spending time with you."

His stunned expression was priceless.

"And we need to finish our conversation from the other day," she added. "So you have that to look forward to."

Despite his undoubtable reservations, a smile tugged at Kaz's lips. "Just co-piloting?"

"Just co-piloting," she affirmed. "That's all I need you to do."

"Alright, then," he said, leaning against the doorway and meeting her eyes fully. Inej was vaguely surprised at how quickly he'd capitulated; he seemed. . . mellower. . . today. "When do we leave?"


"The Ganath Cloud, the Trindello System, the Moons of Ovise. . ." Kaz's dark eyebrows flicked up as his eyes scanned the datapad. "Is this a scouting mission or a sightseeing tour?"

"Oh, be quiet," Inej bit back, though there was no spite in it. She didn't feel as tense as she had in recent times. The Death Star was gone, the Rebellion was moving forward, and the Empire was scrambling to pick up its pieces. And Kaz was treating her like they were friends. Things were looking up. "You know the fact that they're Legacy worlds with beautiful scenery only has an effect as far as that it means the Empire has to get through layers and layers of bureaucracy before touching them."

"They blew up Alderaan and dissolved the Imperial Senate, Inej," Kaz returned. "I doubt they'd be any more willing to respect a Legacy world than a centre of culture and commerce like the Planet of Beauty."

Inej sighed. "Don't remind me. But until they do," she eased the shuttle round slightly, so they had a spectacular view out of the viewport of the purple-and-blue cloud of dust before them, "it makes it that much harder for them to find us. Everything tiny thing could alter the fate of this war."

"Oh, yeah?" Kaz sat back, arms folded. "Give me one example of how that's true."

The example came easily to mind. The Rebellion had suffered so many tragedies, and Inej had spent so much time wondering what she could have done to stop them, that she had quite a range to select from. "Anika died light-speeding through that Star Destroyer to allow the Rebellion to escape. If she hadn't, where would we be now?"

Kaz had the sense to stay silent.

Inej glanced down at the console - half to try and break the awkward stillness that had descended, half because she genuinely had to be cautious. "There's a few blips on the scanner behind us. Could be interference?" And here she was doubting herself. She gripped the controls tighter. "Run a full sensor sweep."

"Inej, it must just be a glitch." Kaz seemed just as grateful for the change in subject. "Even asteroids avoid coming this far into the Outer Rim."

"Run it anyway."

"There's nothing out here-"

"Attention, unknown shuttle. You do not have clearance for this sector. Identify yourself."

"You were saying?" Inej gritted her teeth as the cruiser hailing them came into view, bristling with an escort of TIE fighters, and activated the comlink. "This is shuttle Invictus, out of the Blackfel system, on a classified scouting system. Transmitting clearance codes now." When she deactivated the comlink she commented to Kaz, "You're a terrible co-pilot."

"Noted." Kaz stared out of the viewport, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

Inej took the silence as a chance to voice her thoughts. "If there are TIEs and cruisers out here," she mused, "a Star Destroyer must be near. The Empire's reaching further into the Outer Rim than ever before."

"Finding a base will be near impossible for you, then."

"I'm sure we'll find a way." She tried to project an optimism she didn't feel. The Imperial cruiser was taking much longer than it should to reply. . .

"Shuttle Invictus," the comlink trilled. Inej held her back. "Your code is out-of-date, and you are not cleared to continue. Prepare for a boarding party."

"Karabast," Inej said, almost mildly.

Then practicality took over. "We can't let ourselves be boarded, or the ruse will be up."

"Then let's get out of here!"

She shook her head. "We can't lead them back to the fleet."

"Fine." Kaz ground his teeth. "How close are we to the Monsua Nebula?"

Inej glanced at the navicomputer. "A jump away, maybe two-"

"Great." Kaz's fingers flew over the navicomputer, punching in a string of coordinates so fast she couldn't make them out. "Jump here, then."

Inej glanced at the numbers then. She wasn't sure if the display was blinking or if her vision was glitching. She felt sick. "Are you sure-"

"Do you trust me?"

Kaz's eyes bored into hers. She swallowed, but she didn't answer. Couldn't answer.

He'd come back for her, but was it for her, or the Rebellion? And how much of it had been Jesper's idea?

A blast hit their rear repulsors. Inej scrunched up her face at the shuttle

She took too long to reply. Kaz's face fell, but he yanked the lever back to jump to hyperspace anyway.

Inej just slumped back in her seat and tried not to tremble. Stared at hyperspace until she'd steadied herself, then glanced over at him. "So, where are we going?"

"A planet in the Monsua Nebula. It's a hideout I found shortly after you left. Jesper's the only one who knows about it. And," he added, "we'll be safe from Imperials there."

She raised an eyebrow. "What makes you so sure?"

"Because the surface it protected by an atmosphere full of cyclones and super-storms."

"What?" At the lack of response, she spluttered, "Are you crazy?"

She thought Kaz's mouth might have quirked upwards minutely. "Storms never bothered you over Eadu."

"Those were storms! Not super-storms! This thing will never get through!"

"I have faith in your flying skills." He was either pulling off the most subtle deadpan ever, or he was sincere. One could never tell with Kaz. "Besides, that shot earlier damaged the hyperdrive. It still works, but no matter where we jump-"

"We'll be leaking a residual energy trace." Inej swore. "A fragging arrow pointing right to us. They'll easily track it."

"No clean getaway for us."

"But we can lose them in the storms." Realisation dawned. "And if they think we've perished in the landing-"

"-they won't be looking for us." Kaz sat back. If Inej didn't know him, she might have said he was smug.

She let herself smile, and before long she was sporting a full-blown grin. "We're saved."

"Watch it," Kaz warned. "I've done my part. You still need to tackle those storms."

Inej sighed, blowing out the breath between her teeth. "Right."


"You failed," Morozova said, "in every conceivable way."

Koroleva made to sneer, then remembered that her helmet was off and refrained from doing so. It was only here, in this room, that she ever removed it, but her most esteemed Emperor thought it pathetic. A way of hiding from Starkiller, and everything that came with that name. Easier to pretend she died in the Purges than to create some large elaborate backstory about why she switched sides.

(Easier to never have to explain herself to those who still lived - Tamar, Nikolai, Tolya - either.)

It was ridiculous. Koroleva never hid from Starkiller.

Starkiller hides from me.

"You're dismissed." With a lazy jerk of his hand, the Emperor sent out the Red Guards stationed around the room and studied her from atop his throne. He didn't look angry - indeed, he never looked angry - but there was a solemnity to the set of his jaw, the curve of his lip. And when he fixed her with a look, she felt shame flush through her.

They had a partnership going on. He would handle the political side of things, she would handle the military sides, and together they would rule the galaxy, as was the will of the Force. Bring peace and security to a war-torn society.

She hadn't held up her end of the bargain. She should be ashamed.

(Their relationship had always been like this, hadn't it? The handsomer, stronger, infinitely more charming Chancellor making the Jedi Knight feel insignificant and worthless in comparison, then happy beyond all joy when he called them equals. . .)

"I must apologise, Alina," the Emperor went on, voice suddenly honeyed and sweet. She ground her teeth at the use of her name - he was the only one who called her that, the only one who knew to call her that-

He'd wanted her to keep her name, when she Turned. He'd wanted the satisfaction of having the galaxy know that Alina Starkiller, the Hero With No Fear, legend of the Clone Wars, supported his Empire. That she'd joined him, and that they ruled together. He wanted it clear that he'd tamed a legend, not created one out of a figure in chrome armour.

"I must apologise," he went on, "because I forget your nature sometimes. I forget, occasionally, that failure is in your blood and your scars. Your parents were failures of humankind, weaklings who didn't want you and sold you for drinking money on some backwater planet. Well," he added mirthlessly, "I suppose backwater isn't quite the word for it, is it?"

She said nothing. She couldn't say if her trembling was due to anger or hatred - nor who the emotions were directed at. Him? Herself?

"You've been so successful during the last two decades that I forget how you failed to protect Mal, how you failed to be a Jedi. I didn't want to believe it, kept giving you vital assignment after vital assignment. I wanted you to be worthy of them. I wanted you to be like me." At some point, his gaze had slipped away into the distance, but now he refocused it on her. "I didn't want to be alone."

I didn't want to be alone. She shared the sentiment.

"You're not alone," she said hollowly. The words were a precise copy of the ones he'd said to her back on the day everything changed, when Mal was gone, the Jedi were falling, and only she remained. She'd thought she was.

But she wasn't.

Now, Emperor Morozova - Aleksander, he'd once asked her to call him, but she couldn't think of him that way - frowned. "Aren't I?" he asked, studying her. Seeing her for the inherently flawed person she was. A servant of chaos.

She'd sworn, back when the Clone Wars had newly ended and she'd sacrificed the order that had saved her from destitution in return for a safe galaxy, that she would never allow such havoc to destroy her life again. She'd given everything to this cause: hunting down Jedi dissidents (Sergei, Nadia, Marie, Zoya. . .), eliminating Rebels, cracking down on any star system that seemed prone to rebelling against their utopia, that threatened to destroy their hard-won order. Squeezing every last resource out of planets to maintain autarky and avoid trade disputes. Building up the military and recruiting (brainwashing. . .) new troopers everyday to live and die for their cause.

She would never let the galaxy suffer the way it had suffered under the Clone Wars. Not again. Never again.

And the Death Star.

The Death Star. . .

"You allowed our greatest achievement to be destroyed by a lone Rebel snub." Morozova's voice had changed now, was hard and unyielding. "You tracked Rebel command instead of eliminating them, thus giving them the chance to fight back!" He actually slammed his fist down on the arm of his throne then; she kept herself from starting, but he looked just as surprised as she was. He pointed one long, accusatory finger at her. "You let them destroy all that we have worked so hard to build."

The Death Star had been their final resort. It had been the deciding factor in imposing order and safety on their galaxy. If love or respect - gratitude - for the regime that kept war for their doorstep wouldn't keep the systems in line, fear would. So long as they saw no war.

Never again.

"It's increasingly clear, Alina," he said. She couldn't contain her flinch at the name this time, "that we are not equal. I perform my part far more adeptly than you perform yours. You must see it too; after all, have you not always refused a place on the throne at my side?"

There were a thousand reasons for that - the same reasons she wanted to keep her mask. She'd had enough of publicity, of being the galaxy's golden girl. But she reverted to her old lie to explain it.

"I-" don't want to deal with politics, she began to say, but he didn't let her finish.

"You are not my equal," he finished. "So I will not treat you as such. Kneel."

It took her a moment to register the words. Her world was coming undone. "What?"

"Kneel." His mouth flattened into a thin line. "You are not my equal. The Darth Koroleva who was my equal perished on the Death Star with Vasily Lantsov and the million workers that the Rebel pilot murdered. You do not have the rank worthy of standing in my presence. Now, kneel."

She knelt.

Hating him, hating herself, she knelt.

"Good. Your anger makes you powerful, Koroleva." Somehow, hearing him say her title was worse than hearing him say that name. "If you use it, perhaps you will not fail again." She narrowed her eyes at the floor.

"Now, go." She looked up, then; he glowered and she looked down. "Return to your precious fleet, but do nothing without my command. You are no longer entitled to your previous autonomy, your previous power; now, you are an extension of my will. A cog in the machine of the Empire. Do you understand?"

This time, she didn't hesitate. She said it grudgingly, rebelliously, angrily - but she said it promptly. "Yes, my master."

He dismissed her with a wave of his hand - less consideration than he'd even given his Red Guards. She was nothing to him.

She was nothing to herself.

She'd always been nothing, when scavenging on Jakku, when struggling to be a Jedi, when newly emerging as Sith, she'd never been anything more than-

She took a deep breath as she left the room.

They weren't equals. She didn't belong here, as a Sith Lord, in the Imperial regime, anymore than she'd belonged in the Jedi Order.

She didn't belong anywhere. Perhaps on the dry desert plains of Jakku, but not without Mal. And Mal was gone.

She'd joined Morozova to establish order. Or had she joined him because she wanted to belong somewhere?

And, more pressingly: where was the line between?


"You're insane."

"Really, darling Inej? I had no idea. It's not like it's the fifth time you've said it in the last minute or any- watch out for that mountain!"

Inej yanked the controls and they flipped round, bashing the side against the massive rock that had suddenly sprung to life in front of them but overall avoiding a near-fatal collision.

Kaz had gone milk white; his hands were gripping the head of his cane with vengeance and his eyes were wide. It was the closest Inej had ever seen him get to unnerved.

She scoffed. "Why are you so afraid? This was your plan!"

"I thought you were supposed to be a good pilot!"

"We're still alive, aren't we?"

She peered out through the pinkish-red haze the storm left clouding the viewport and slowed her speed. Thunder rumbled again - another lightning strike was imminent.

"Oh, skrag," she cussed, the old swear word slipping out without a thought. Kaz looked at her in surprise; it was a rare one, a word solely used by the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic. She'd never told him her father had been a clonetrooper decommissioned early on in the war for PTSD.

He didn't know what this Rebellion - the Alliance to Restore the Republic, the Republic her father had fought for - meant to her.

This Rebellion she was about to die for.

"Please tell me the storms aren't too thick," she gasped. "Please tell me we'll get into the calmer atmosphere soon."

He put his hand on the back of her chair. "Don't worry," he murmured. Perhaps it was meant to be soothing, but the effect came out harsh and unusual in his gravelly voice. "It's just a little further. Oh," he added, "and you'll like it when we do."

He was right - one both counts. When they broke through the storm, she couldn't help but blink at the scenery below them, like a jewellery box of rich colours about to overflow, and once they'd landed she scrambled off the ship, down the ramp, out into the open air.

And Inej couldn't stop staring.

They were standing on a lush expanse of grassy hills in a small glade surrounded by what might pass for mountains on this planet: jagged orange rocks shooting at sharp acute angles out of the ground. The air had the faint aroma of sweet-smelling flowers, though she couldn't identify which ones. Sunlight was bright despite the storms above and it was warm on her skin. The sound of trickling water had her turning and gasping at the side of the waterfall, about as tall as she was, gushing over the side of the ravine they were standing in.

"This is incredible," she breathed, turning round again, her eyes massive. "Who would ever guess that underneath an atmosphere like that, one of the most violent electrical storms I've ever seen, the planet's core would be a beautiful oasis."

"Jesper and I certainly didn't back when we first crash-landed here." Kaz was expressionless, but the way he surveyed the area, the way his shoulders held no tension. . . he was proud of this discovery. He gave something which might have passed for a laugh, had he been anyone else. "Jesper wasn't quite used to piloting under appalling conditions, yet. We've used it a few times since."

Inej caught a glimpse of pale green buds crawling up the side of one of the rocks. Wandering over without really thinking about it, she felt a smile stretch over her face as she peeled back a petal to reveal the dusty gold inside. "Candlewick flowers."

"They're your favourites, right?" Kaz had walked up behind her and was watching her run her fingers over the climbing plants. She nodded wordlessly.

"This place is a paradise. It could be a perfect base." Then her face fell. "Except now it's no longer a secret." She grimaced. "Our hyperspace trail will have led the Imps right to your doorstep. TIE fighters may not be tough enough ships to get through those storms, but they could decide the risk is worth it and send down probes. And that's too big of a risk to take with the Rebellion at stake."

"Not," Kaz said, "if we make them think we died in the storms."

She stared at him for a moment, then she understood.

A smile spread over her face.