Inej had never flown a snowspeeder in real life, nor had she flown it on a simulator, but the controls were similar enough. This Rebel cell had clearly had to modify a T-47 airspeeder to suit the unforgiving climate, and Inej had flown plenty of airspeeders before. She could do this.

She was more worried about Matthias.

"How do you fire this thing?" He sat in the gunner's seat, facing backwards; it was her job to fly and his job to shoot.

"You pull the trigger."

"Not helpful!" He fumbled with the mechanism again, and was rewarded with a bang. "There we go!"

"You're lucky you didn't hit a member of the squadron," Inej reprimanded, but her heart wasn't in it - it was too busy beating its way out of her chest at the sight of the five walkers headed their way.

One of said walkers turned its head and fired at them; it was more instinct than conscious thought that had Inej rolling, rolling, rolling, until the crimson bolt had passed harmlessly overhead and they were the right way up again.

There were blasts off to their left, and Inej glanced over to see another member of the squadron return fire. Please be down, please be down, please be down. . .

She cursed under her breath as the red and yellow smoke was swept aside to reveal the walker completely undamaged.

She turned on her internal comms. "This is Green Leader. Our shots can't penetrate those walkers' armour; we have to find another way. Use your harpoons and tow cables, it's our only chance of stopping them!"

"Affirmative, Green Leader," came the staccato reply, and then she was on her own again.

Well, not completely alone. "I need you to get us round," Matthias called. "Once I shoot at the legs, I'll need you to fly round it three times, get it truly tangled up in the cable. Then we can detach and watch it fall."

"Got it," she confirmed, then swerved a little to avoid another shot. The walkers were large up close: their entire landspeeder, able to fit both of them plus a lot of mechanical components inside it, was barely bigger that one of its legs. They sailed between them and out the other side with ease once they'd fled the line of fire. "Get ready to shoot in three. . . two. . . one. . ."

There were screams over the comms, then, and Inej flinched at the explosion just off her right flank, but Matthias fired anyway and all she could do was fly.

There were so many of them. The five walkers towered over the rest, but she could see them just as clearly: white snowtroopers and silver transports and even small ATMPs, loaded with enough firepower to blow the entire base out of atmo and back. Even as her pulse hammered in her throat, she could hear her father's voice in her head as he sat with her in his lap in the cockpit of the rundown old ship that had been their home. Fly, Inej.

She reached the tail end of the walker then turned sharply, and was flying parallel with them.

Fly, Inej.

She came round its front again, directly under its head where its cannons couldn't hit her, and the other walkers would be too afraid they'd hit one of their own to even try.

Fly, Inej.

She'd finished her first round now, then her second. . .

Third. . .

Just. . . keep. . . flying. . .

"Detach cable!" she shouted, and Matthias did.

The walker's front leg made to step forward again, but the cable bound them together. Its centre of gravity shifted towards the front, then over the front, and she laughed with relief as it collapsed face down in the snow, its back legs sticking upwards like a graceless animal's hindquarters. Another speeder flew past and shot at the unprotected juncture between its head and body.

It exploded into flames.

There were cheers across the comms; Inej grinned herself. "One down, four to go!"

"You're right," she murmured to no one in particular. "It's not over yet."


Nina didn't like the cold of Hoth anymore through the padding of her gear than she had during the trek into the base, but she had other problems. For a snowy, perpetually cloudy planet, visibility was remarkably good today. Certainly good enough for her to see those four-legged AT-AT walkers that spelled "doom" marching towards them.

"Hurry, Kuwei," she whispered to herself, her breath crystallising in the air before her.

They crept along behind the gunners, through the mini-trench that had hastily been erected; Nina did her best not to flinch at every shot that rang out over their heads. Some struck the wall of the trench, sending snow cascading downwards, the tunnel collapsing. . .

Focus. There was enough fear here as it was. She could feel it through the Force, like a sweaty shirt clinging to her back. The gunners' fear as they were picked off one by one and the walkers drew ever closer, Kuwei's fear as he crept along beside her. True to form, she felt no fear at all from the Imperial troops manning the walkers - they believed the Empire infinite, absolute. That they could not be beaten.

Nina was itching to prove them wrong. Inej already had proved them wrong.

Finally, they reached the shield generators. They were massive lumpy things, taller than hers and Kuwei's heights combined. The Rebels had done an adequate job of passing off such a bulky thing as just another rock form while inert, but when it was being used the entire charade was pointless: the Empire could easily detect the massive amounts of energy it exerted on their scopes, and the disguise only made their job harder.

Fortunately, the access hatch was low down, so Kuwei could reach it fairly easily, which left Nina to ignite her lightsaber and watch for incoming shots - the walkers' target was the shield generator, after all; the gunners were just a distraction.

Her goggles were meant to protect her eyes against glare, so through their tinted lenses the light her saber cast over the snow was crimson, like blood, passion. . .

Like a Sith.

She recoiled at the very thought, turned off her lightsaber, which was how she was distracted - and how she didn't sense her presence until Kuwei made a peculiar choking noise.

Only then was she aware that the cold she was feeling wasn't all physical; through the Force, Koroleva's presence chilled her very blood, turned her bones to brittle splinters of ice. The woman's silver armour reflected the grey clouds and snow mounts perfectly, the curved surfaces changing the angle of reflection, the shape of the shapes. She stood there, saber at her waist, her arm stretched out. She was a wrinkle in time; a mirage caused by heat or light distortion. A focal point of the unforgiving landscape around them more than a living entity.

But Kuwei was choking.

He grasped at his throat desperately, face already going purple. Koroleva raised her hand minutely and suddenly he was dangling several feet above the ground, his tools lying discarded and forgotten in the snow.

"Let. Him. Go." The words were spat like poison from her mouth; suddenly she was standing in the fighting stance, her lightsaber lit and held with both hands out in front of her.

Koroleva's head turned towards hers, that motion as minute as the last, and then her hand dropped to her side. Kuwei dropped too - dropped like a stone, thumping into the ground with a strangled cry. She could only hope the snow cushioned his fall.

Nina wanted to rush over to him, grasp his shoulder, massage his throat. . .but that would be a bad idea. Because Koroleva was still watching her, head cocked like a bird about to strike, and Nina didn't dare take her eyes off her armour-clad form for one moment.

Kuwei's wheezes had faded to near silence when Nina hissed, "You will pay for what you've done."

Koroleva cocked further. "You're angry."

She was. She was so angry. She wanted to shove her lightsaber through Koroleva's heart, down her throat. She wanted to rip her helmet off her face, tear her to pieces, tear her and her entire precious Empire to pieces. She wanted to tighten her hand and feel her breathing constrict into gasps, into wheezes, then not at all. She wanted Koroleva - Alina Starkiller - this woman to feel even an inkling of the suffering she'd been inflicting on Nina's galaxy for almost as long as she could remember.

And it terrified her.

Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. . .

I am angry because I care. Because I have people I love, places I love, because I have everything to lose and everything to protect.

Nina took in a deep breath. She ignored the way the cold winds of Hoth scorched her throat, the way the ice splinters in her bones seemed to shatter as she straightened. Held her lightsaber loosely in her right hand.

"Yes," she said. Koroleva hadn't attacked yet. Why hadn't she attacked yet? "I am angry." She took in another deep breath, and in that moment, she made eye contact with Koroleva. She didn't know how she did it, only that she looked into the woman's eyepieces and something clicked. "But it does not control me." A jibe as much as it was a moral statement; Koroleva flinched back, as if she didn't like the implied accusation that it did control her. It was slight, but it was what she needed.

She charged.

It was a swift, brutal move; throwing her body low, skidding across the snow, then throwing her saber high in a wide slashing arc, set to dismember Koroleva from waist to knee. . .

But there was a clash and a hum and Nina slid back onto her feet as yellow sparks leapt off their connecting blades, pink versus red. How could she have ever thought hers looked like the weapon of the Sith? Koroleva's was dark and congealed, like dried blood; there was something revolting and overwhelmingly common about the colour. All Sith had red lightsabers. Nina was the only Jedi with a pink one.

She was on her feet now, and Nina was a tall woman - as tall as her opponent, even - but Koroleva seemed bigger. She used the full weight of her armour to bear down on her, all of that force centred into the one point where their blades connected. And then the sabers were horizontal and Nina was fighting gravity as well as Koroleva, their combined strength inching the blades closer and closer to her neck. . .

The heat scoured the protective wrappings round her face; they tore in two, flapping behind her at first like a pair of wings before the wing stole them and they were gone, thrown high above the duelling Force-wielders, high above the AT-ATs advancing ever further, high and loose and free. . .

The wind tore into her face in lieu of the protection, and she gasped, icy knives crammed down her throat with the motion. But all was not cold: there was heat, too. Heat in the hum of their lightsabers, in the charred remains of her gear, in the yellow sparks jumping around.

Three of those sparks landed on her cheeks, just below her eye; she stifled her scream as she felt them eating into her skin and flesh. It felt like she'd cried molten tears.

Koroleva suddenly retracted her attack; unbalanced Nina staggered forwards, only to stumble again and struggle to parry when she was attacked from the side. Her own blade held perpendicular to the ground, Koroleva's pointed straight at her at her like a promise, Nina was crying real tears now. They aggravated the wounds on her cheek - Nina was sure they would scar.

She gave a sound that was half-gasp, half-sob when Koroleva retracted her attack again. She was so tired her bones ached; despite the freezing weather, sweat drenched her back. Her arm muscles trembled from the strain.

Her legs couldn't take it anymore. She collapsed onto her knees. Her lightsaber turned itself off when it hit the ground.

She squinted upwards as Koroleva loomed over her. If she was going to die, she at least wanted to look her death in the face.

Koroleva's lightsaber remained lit at her side.

"You know," the Sith Lord said, "I had hoped you were a better opponent. You were so fascinating. I wanted to see what you did." A pause, in which only the wind was heard, then, "I thought you were like me."

The words disarmed Nina more than she could ever express. Because it was true, wasn't it? Listening to Zoya's stories about the great Jedi Knight Alina Starkiller, about the scavenger alone in the desert, about a loss that had shattered her soul. . . Nina had seen nothing but loneliness in that tale.

Loneliness just like her own. Loneliness that came from being the last of your kind, or the first - the sole survivor of all that life in a lawless galaxy could throw at you.

Loneliness that led to the fear of being alone forever. The fear that drove you to seek solace in someone else, someone who was angry at all that had made them lonely. The anger that drove you to hate all that had led you to such a dark place.

The hate that meant you wanted to watch the galaxy suffer, just so you know you are not alone in your torment.

Nina hadn't taken that path - wouldn't take that path - because her loneliness hadn't been eternal. Alina Starkiller had turned to the only one who would help her, and been willing to do whatever he said. She'd held on, and been rewarded by not being alone anymore.

Inej. Matthias. Wylan. Jesper. Kuwei, who even now she knew was taking advantage of her distraction, of her leading Koroleva further away from the shield generator, in order to fix the shield. Even Kaz, for all their exchange of threats and over-protectiveness of their mutual friends. And the entire fragging Rebel Alliance, a faction of which is currently relying on us to finish this.

She wasn't alone.

So it was with a strong voice and a raised chin that she said, "I'm nothing like you."

She couldn't see Lady Koroleva's face, but she got the distinct impression that her lips had just pressed themselves into a snarl. Despite this, the next words were strangely flat, monotone, and Nina wondered how someone so steeped in anger and hatred could ever sound so apathetic.

"Then you will die."

There was almost a tiredness to them.

She struck, but Nina was ready. She'd had a moment's rest, and that was enough. There was energy in her arms as she moved them, and she parried, blocked, thrust. It was hardly ease that she fought with, but rather assurance. Her hit would find its mark.

"No, I won't," she panted as she blocked, thrust, parried. Thrust, parried, blocked. "Not here, not here. Not until I've killed you, and exacted vengeance for my master, for my friend, for the galaxy."

She couldn't speak; she couldn't breathe. The air had been ripped from her lungs with her words, and still she fought on.

"Revenge is not the Jedi way." The words were flat, colder than their surroundings - and strangely anticipatory.

Nina paused. It was a minute pause, not large enough for Koroleva to gain any sort of foothold, but it was powerful. And it seemed long to her.

Revenge wasn't the Jedi way. But neither was loneliness. Jedi shunned the Dark Side, rejected it, tried to stay as far away from it as was physically possible. And maybe the core beliefs of her order had been good and true and right, but they'd been twisted by the mentors she'd grown up with into something unhealthy. Something vile.

Because Nina wasn't the woman they'd wanted her to become. She was brash and reckless and irresponsible; prone to anger and fear and outbursts; passionate and fiery and blazing with her own self-righteousness. She fit the concept of Jedi about as well as Kaz fit the concept of a respectable entrepreneur.

Jedi ran from the Dark Side. Nina had walked right through it, held its hand, consumed nothing but what it fed her, during those shadowy times before she'd met Inej.

She hadn't escaped unscathed by the darkness, but she'd escaped stronger. Better. With a grasp on her own limitations and humanity which she hadn't had before.

The Jedi would reject her. The Sith would despise her. Nina was something in between, something that served only the will of the Force and the fickle concept of morality.

She would train Kuwei, she decided. But not as a Jedi. She would train him to use the Force, but none of their restrictive teachings, none of their shortcuts and rules that had never been adequately explained. She would train him, and together they could build a new order, one separate from both the Jedi and the Sith. Something better.

"I am no Jedi," she told Koroleva, and it felt like an oath. An oath sworn by the molten tears on her cheeks, by the snowy winds of Hoth, by the padawan who was even now finishing fixing the shield generator.

Its humming was the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard. A swarm of crickets here to welcome the new day.

She was so proud of Kuwei. So proud he'd fixed it. So proud he'd kept it secret. And so proud he hadn't objected to her claim. He'd trusted that she knew what she was doing. Nina was grateful for that.

She could feel Koroleva's rage, hate - fear - as she turned to behold him standing behind her, face flush and glowing, its contours highlighted by the electric blue light of the lightsaber held before him. For a moment, he looked almost magical.

Then a snarl twisted his beautiful face and he spat, "You will pay for what you did to my father!"

Foreboding flushed, cold and liquid, into Nina's gut. "Kuwei, no!" she shouted, knowing somewhere, deep inside her heart, exactly how this was going to go.

It was the same lightsaber Zoya had been carrying. It was the same form Kuwei used, his lightsaber clutched high and close to his chest - it had been one of the first that she'd taught him.

And it was the same move that the same Sith Lord using the same lightsaber pulled out, thrusting the blade through Kuwei's torso.

First my master, now my apprentice.

He gave a little oh, like he was surprised. His eyes went wide. They searched for hers, the way they had when they were training. Am I doing this right? Am I progressing okay?

His body slumped to the ground like a rag doll, the last breath that left his body a quiet gasp.

She felt his death like a candle flame keeping her heart alight had just gone out.

"Kuwei!" She stared in horror, eyes clouding with tears. This couldn't be right - the goggles must be obscuring her vision, must be altering what she saw, because there was no way this was right. She yanked them off, threw them to the ground, and stared through the glare, but the image didn't change.

Of course it didn't change.

You can't change the past.

"Kuwei. . ." She wanted to run to his side, feel for his pulse, tickle him like she would occasionally when he wasn't getting up for early morning lessons. She'd only known him a few months, but in her life of impermanence he'd become a constant - an irritating, teenage constant, but one she'd needed. Desperately.

And now. . .

Now. . .

She remembered climbing through that window. She'd been so reckless, so blasé towards how her life was going to change. Her life was always changing; what was one more change, right? She'd thought back then that even the blond Mandalorian she was flirting with - terrifying the wits out of - wouldn't be around for long, that it would only be that mission, then she'd never see him again.

Are you a Jedi?

His body had turned into a blur now; her eyes were swamped by tears. They dripped down her cheeks, ran into the crook of her neck, left her even wetter and stickier than before.

Are you? Are you a Jedi?

Have you come to save me?

She blinked her gaze free of tears, then looked back up at Koroleva. She was watching her, silent and still. She was enjoying this.

She wants to know that she is not alone in her grief.

Nina glared with all the fire in her fiery heart, and then her left arm snapped out. Not towards Koroleva, but towards Zoya's - Kuwei's - lightsaber, where it had fallen in a snowdrift.

Koroleva was just as fast.

Neither got there first. They were both tugging, yanking, but the saber just wobbled in the snow. It wouldn't move for either of them; it was almost as if someone else had locked onto it, someone untrained, who was barely managing to move it at all.

And then they did.

The lightsaber flew through the air, but not towards either of them. Towards the base, and the Corellian smuggler standing towards it.

And Nina wondered how she'd ever managed to miss that blazing Force presence as the hilt slapped into Jesper's hand.

He was breathing heavily - he'd clearly just run from somewhere - and was looking between her and Koroleva with a sort of poorly-concealed panic. But then he looked past them, to Kuwei's rapidly cooling body, and his face hardened into resolve.

He lit the lightsaber.