"I already know that lightsabers are powered by kyber crystals," Kuwei huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. Nina sighed. Despite his family's legacy in scientific research and discovery, the kid seemed to have very little tolerance for learning. He was better at breaking things with the Force than doing. . . well, anything else with it. It was like he'd used up what little reserves of patience he'd had when he was imprisoned, and now he was loathe to sit still.
He didn't even know that much about kyber crystals. All of what he knew had come from listening in on his father's research, which was just as much fiction as it was fact.
"Yes," Nina said irritably, "but do you know anything else about them?"
Kuwei said snippily, "I didn't realise there was anything else to know."
Had Nina ever been this insolent? Zoya would have really hated that. . .
She grimaced. It was a silly question: Zoya had hated her at first. And insolence was practically her middle name. I guess the Force is giving me my long overdue payback.
"I mean, they're probably all gone now because of the Empire, anyway."
Nina breathed in.
Breathed out.
The Force is a bitch.
"We're done for today," Nina said decisively, standing up from the table. She got no protests from Kuwei as she strode out into the grasslands the base was established on. The sun was setting, and the reddish tint to the light, when filtered through the purple storms above, bathed everything in a bloody burgundy.
She was tense enough as it was without Kuwei fraying her nerves. They'd all seen the Barrel leave the system early that morning. She hadn't seen Kaz or Jesper since, though she had seen Inej.
Her friend had looked tired, with heavy purple rings around her eyes. Apparently she'd been up all night planning some mission.
And sure, maybe Kaz and Jesper had gone on said mission, but. . . Nina couldn't help but worry they'd abandoned them - again - and Inej was just too tired to process it.
Perhaps it was an absurd notion, but it gnawed at her all the same. An if it was true, if Kaz Brekker had left Inej behind again. . .
Well.
She was going to kill that sleemo.
She glanced at the sky again, at the way the burgundy was sliding into the indigo spectrum. She had a shift in the early hours of the next morning; she should probably head to her and Inej's dorm to get some sleep. At least there were pillows to punch in there.
But, of course, that plan had to get derailed pretty quickly.
"What do you want, Zoya?" she said tiredly, flopping onto her bunk. Her dead master arched an elegant eyebrow from where she was perched on Inej's bed. Strange, Nina thought, that Force ghosts can interact with their surroundings when ordinary ghosts can't.
A pause.
Not that real ghosts exist.
Another pause.
I really need sleep.
"Focus, Nina," Zoya snapped. "And stop worrying about your friend; she's resilient. If the smuggler has left, she'll get over it. It's probably the best thing for her. I'm here to talk about the lightsabers you retrieved from Genya."
Nina quirked an eyebrow in response to Zoya's raised one. Any given conversation between them seemed to be a battle of the eyebrows.
"Oh," she said, "so you're actually going to explain yourself? 'Something I buried long ago'." She snorted. "You could've been a bit more precise. Vagueness doesn't help anyone."
"But it's entertaining watching you struggle." Zoya said with a perfectly straight face. Nina blinked. Did she just- "And I can't explain why you needed to retrieve the lightsabers. I just know that you did. The Force works in strange ways."
Nina could have pressed the question. She could have kept poking, kept prodding, kept insisting more answers. It worked on most people.
But she knew that it didn't work on Zoya.
Instead, she said, "I didn't know white lightsabers existed."
She supposed her pink lightsaber was equally unorthodox, but this seemed different. The lightsaber crystals. . .
When she'd lit the twin blades, alone in the solitude of her dormitory, the purest light had bathed the room. They were a bright, brilliant white; two identical sunbeams caught and wielded by a warrior of Light. She'd wrapped her hands around the hilts, expecting to hear that peaceful song the crystals in all Jedi lightsabers sang.
Only their song wasn't of peace. It was of redemption.
"Alina's are the only ones," Zoya admitted, then answered the question Nina had really been asking: "The way they were made was. . . unusual. When Alina was first discovered by the Jedi, she was seventeen years old. She lived on a desert planet in the Inner Rim, Jakku, with a fellow scavenger - Mal, I believe his name was; I think he made her a music box purely out of pieces of scrap metal once - and it was honestly only chance that led to us finding her. I was chasing a Sith Lord I'd encountered - the first Sith Lord that had been encountered in hundreds of years, might I add - and I was lucky enough to meet Alina, who helped me defeat him."
Zoya's eyes were vague, distant - she was looking into the past, and could no more see Nina than Nina could witness events that had occurred before she was born.
"In person, Alina's power in the Force was like a star. It was impossible to miss. I didn't miss it, and the Sith Lord didn't either. And I was lucky again that day, because Alina sided with me against the Sith, and we won. Alina took the crystals from the Sith Lord's double-bladed lightsaber.
"You have to understand," Zoya elaborated, "that kyber crystals are naturally aligned to the Light Side of the Force, and in their natural state don't produce red blades. The Sith steal them from Jedi and have to corrupt them to make them serve their will. And Alina - somehow - managed to reverse what the Sith Lord had done to his. She healed them.
"So her blades are white."
"An exceptional Jedi," Nina drawled, "healed two lost causes. Believed in two lost causes. The Chosen One, the Hero With No Fear. . . A Sith Lord." She scoffed. "I guess things rarely go quite the way we expect."
There had to be more to the story. The way Zoya told it, it was a fairy tale - Alina was a fairy tale. The magical power of good versus evil, redemption, and magic space orphans, with no emotion behind it. Well, Nina had fought a fucking Sith Lord, and it didn't matter whether you had one or two magic space orphans on your side, that shit was terrifying. Having the upper hand didn't make it any less so.
But Zoya never seemed able to comprehend that other people's emotions and motivations were just as complex and layered as her own. So Nina didn't bother asking.
Zoya's attention had drifted again. She was already fading from view as she said, "No." She was almost gone when she breathed out, "Things never do."
"You contacted me, General?" Inej stood in the debriefing room with her hands folded behind her back, jacket bunching up under her arms.
Tamar's golden eyes were fierce, a frown carving furrows between her brows and lines into her cheeks. "Yes," she said, forehead still screwed up in thought. Then her brow cleared, and she gave Inej her undivided attention. "I need you to lead a squadron of X-wings on a mission outside of the system."
It was Inej's turn to frown now. "Lead a squadron? General, I'm not a-"
"You blew up the Death Star, Inej," Tamar said dryly. "You're the most qualified pilot on the planet."
Then she turned towards the holographic projector and switched it on. The circular device - Inej had always thought it looked somewhat like a sundial - displayed a star map, which Tamar studied intensely before zooming in on a particular cluster of systems.
"Tolya tells me his ships have had trouble passing through the Mandalore sector, and he's commissioning an envoy to speak to one of the systems there and convince them to join our cause." Tamar's fingers drummed against the edge of the projector as she zoomed in on one star system. "More specifically, the star system of Concord Dawn. If we're successful, hopefully they'll allow passage through the system and we can use it to travel through. If the mission is successful, you'll be called back to Starkiller Base. If not, Tolya will give you additional orders."
Inej raised an eyebrow. "Starkiller Base? You named our base after Koroleva?"
"You have objections?" Tamar's voice was forcibly neutral.
Inej shrugged. "Seems like a bit of a kick to morale, to be honest."
"Maybe," Tamar said, a smile playing on her lips, "but very few people know about the connection between the Knight Alina Starkiller and the Sith Lord Darth Koroleva. If anything, bringing back memories of the Jedi will boost morale. And if our base is found again, as annoyed as I'll be. . ." She grinned to herself. "At least I'll know that the name of it really pissed Alina off."
Inej couldn't help but grin herself. "Fair enough." Then she turned back to the star chart. "If they're in the Mandalore sector," she said slowly, "what allegiance do they have to Mandalore itself? And are they loyal to the Empire now occupying their homeworld?"
"It's a Mandalorian colony," Tamar said. "As for their allegiances, well, that's what we intend to find out." She moved her fingers deftly across the controls, the image in the holo shifting to be viewed from a different angle. A dotted green flight path blinked into existence. "And it's another reason we want you to go as Flight Leader. Mandalorian culture respects strength. You're not only the Wraith: you blew up the Death Star. They'll respect you." A moment, then she added with humour, "I'm sure my brother's pilots will be dying to meet you as well."
Inej crossed her arms and studied the star map. "There's more to it than that, though."
If Tamar was surprised at her perceptiveness, she didn't show it. Inej didn't think she was, anyway. Being perceptive was her job. "We also want you to keep an eye on that man in your crew - Matthias Helvar. He's Mandalorian, isn't he? He'll go with you."
Inej raised an eyebrow. "You don't trust him?"
"He's an Imperial defector," Tamar explained, without looking up from the holo. The light painted blue and green lines on her tan face, harsh cheekbones standing out stark. "And while Van Eck's loyalty seems to be assured by now, I don't know if Helvar's here because he believes in the Alliance, or because his young charge does. And if he's going to an Imperial occupied world, I'd rather not take that risk."
"Why would my going along on the trip change anything?"
"He knows you." Tamar's voice managed to be hard and soft at the same time - hard in that her words were implacable, unrelenting; soft in that the truth of them, the truth of human nature, seemed precious. "He's fought alongside you; you've won his respect. And if not, then you've come closer to doing it than the rest of us. It'll be harder for him to betray a friend than an unfamiliar callsign."
Inej took a deep breath at the truth of it. She believed he was with them - didn't believe Matthias would sell them out - but she could see where Tamar was coming from. Knew the measures she had to take to keep them all safe.
"All right," Inej said, shifting her stance. She uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on her hips. "I'll tell Matthias. He's already annoyed we sent Wylan off on the mission to Naboo without him."
Tamar nodded, her eyes drawn back to the star map. She'd zoomed out again, and now she was staring at the entire galaxy in one image. Concord Dawn was marked in yellow, while their current base was in green. The significant Imperial bases were marked in red. The red pins swarmed the other colours; the two systems shone amongst the sea of crimson, like pearls among pebbles.
Or like sparrows among sparrow-hawks.
"Concord Dawn's on the other side of the galaxy from us," Inej observed. "We'll need to leave soon to get to General Kul-Bataar's fleet in time."
Maybe she should take up Tamar's request to refer to them by their first names out loud, Inej thought at the look the General shot her. They were both generals, both their names ended in "Bataar"; it would probably be easier.
"Then you'd better leave immediately," was all Tamar said.
Naboo looked as beautiful as ever, its lakes and grasslands pristine. Wylan knew that they weren't exempt from the Empire's tyranny, that Morozova exerted fear to control them - the threat of destruction, rather than destruction itself - but it was still difficult not to be bitter.
"The time for the rendezvous is tomorrow at sundown, correct?" Kaz asked him. Wylan got the sense that the smuggler didn't really need confirmation, but he nodded anyway.
"Yes," he said aloud, eyeing the magenta stain the sinking sun painted on the atmosphere. "But we'll need time to set up our contingency plan, won't we? I don't want to walk in there and-"
"None of us do, lordling," Kaz said flatly. "I'm only here because it's my ship you're taking - the Rebellion don't want any of their ships potentially falling into Imperial hands, lest they learn something from it - but Inej would kill me if I let the only actual member of the Rebellion on this mission die."
Wylan swallowed nervously, more focused on the prospect of his (potentially) imminent capture and interrogation, but Jesper, seated in the pilot's seat, frowned.
"Kaz," he said slowly, "I want to be a member of the Rebellion."
Something in Wylan's chest loosened at the words, but Kaz barely blinked; he just cast his partner an irritated glance. "So? That's your choice. If you want to get yourself killed, I won't stop you."
Was this the sort of power Kaz's words had held over Inej before she left? Wylan wondered as he saw the hurt flit across Jesper's face. If so, no wonder Nina seemed so ill-disposed towards the smuggler - so protective of her friend.
Jesper said quietly, "You don't understand. I want to still be your partner. But I want to be a Rebel as well."
Kaz's head slowly turned to face him. "You want me to join the Rebellion." It was a statement. An interpretation of Jesper's halting words.
The pilot nodded mutely.
Kaz sighed, and a look crossed his face that told Wylan think he was thinking about Inej. Inej and Jesper seemed to be the only people he gave a damn about; Wylan had learned to discern purely from his facial features which he was thinking of when his face went soft.
The ship shuddered as they landed on the hills of Naboo's Lake Country, the grass green and vibrant. Kaz shook his head, and whatever gentleness he'd been harbouring was gone.
"We'll talk about this later," he dismissed, though his dark eyes lingered on Jesper for a moment. "Until then, you know the plan?"
Jesper reached for the blaster that had been sitting in the co-pilot's seat for most of the flight. His hand caressed the unusually long barrel - Wylan was by no means an expert on blasters, but that looked like it was set in the sniper configuration - before coming round to grip it properly. He raised the sights to his eye and peered through.
Beyond the ship's viewport, a lone shaak ambled past.
"Yes," Jesper said. "I do."
