Galen strapped Death into the shuttle, then he proceeded to do the same for himself. He looked at the controls of the shuttle determining whether this was a good idea. But given the circumstances this was the only idea.

The controls, thankfully, were relatively simple. He pressed it and the engines throbbed throatily to life. He flicked another control and they took on a high-pitched whine as the engines engaged. He let go of the brakes and the ship jolted into the air, and then into space.

As soon as he was airborne he contacted his droid letting it know it could lift off and set a course for Kandar, with a message for Master Skywalker. It tweeted its acknowledgement and then blasted off leaping to lightspeed.

Galen laid in a course heading for Republic territory and also jumped, at full speed.

He did not know what to do. It was obvious they were onto his and Death's location, and that he was in a stolen transport.

He did not know whether he needed to head back to friendly space, and thus expose Death to the Jedi. Or if he should head into unknown and probably unfriendly space and put down on the edge as he trained and came up with a better plan.

Neither were perfect. But there was safety in numbers and safety in knowledge.

He looked at the kid, who was staring around the cockpit and the compartment with wide eyed excitement. Galen frowned, but there was no other choice in the matter. No other real choice.

He reached down for the controls to adjust the course, but the ship jolted hard, forcing Galen's body into the safety straps.

Death yelled in shock and in pain, sending out echoes throughout the Force. Alarms screamed in warning drawing Galen's attention to the control and status board.

The board lit up a deep red as the lights flickered out of existence bathing the compartment in Red.

Galen's eyes darted back and forth along the board as Death moaned and whimpered behind him in fear.

One engine was out of action, and most of the rear compartment was leaking atmosphere.

He was leaking fuel and the stresses placed on the ship was ripping it apart. And he could make out the worrying sound of metal screeching on metal.

He made one last look of the systems before shutting down the hyperdrive, the ship moaned in protest, the power band stuttered, but a normal starscape returned. It was spinning wildly outside his front viewer.

He chopped the throttle a bit and shut down the bad engine. He hoped by the Force that he had made it into a planetary system.

Yes!

It was a six planet star system. The planets were well dispersed throughout the boundary of the system.

This worried him. But he was losing power.

In the distance he could make out an orb in the vast depths of space, on a normal orbital plane, the fifth planet from the sun.

He adjusted his course and rocketed towards it, trailing sparks all the time. He dropped down the gravity well.

The orb grew rapidly and he was surprised at what he saw. The Planet itself was a crystal clear blackness, he could see down into it until his eyes ran into the thick foliage obscuring the ground.

The planet was black, dark, not a single bit of light penetrated it.

And as Galen approached it he was getting a massive headache, the Dark Side of the Force was permeating the area. Covering it, and twisting it, like a blanket.

But he had no other choice, his power was failing rapidly, and he was leaking a line of fuel as he approached the planet.

He toggled the status board again to check on what he had to work with as far as engines were concerned. The screen reacted quickly.

Two of his Repulsorlifts were destroyed on the port side of his ship. Two more were damaged on starboard, and one was destroyed. the damaged ones were firing intermittently. That left him with just four of the engines online in front of the vessel.

It would have to do.

He nudged his nose down a bit and shot through the planet's atmosphere. The ship's hull temperature shot up rapidly, the alarms screeching in protest letting him know that it was going critical.

Throughout all of this he maintained his perfect calm, Death grabbed onto this and calmed himself as well. Nailing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth.

They entered the lower atmosphere as bulkheads and plating fell off the ship and hurtled ground ward as they were grabbed by the planet's gravity.

The small shuttle shot towards the Jungle Canopy, Galen tried desperately to control its descent, almost panicking.

He was going way too fast.

As he tried to slow the shuttle down he also reached out with the Force, the ship's hull was sturdy, and for the most part intact along its bow.

Down it went, like a flaming arrow, beginning to pierce the upper canopy of the Jungle of Darkness. Its strong twigs raking at the shuttles bottom causing the panels in the cockpit to spark and the ship to rock violently.

He pressed down on a control and fired the repulsorlift coils jolting the ship up and trying to heighten the ships nose.

It worked to some extent and Galen used the Force at the key moment, just sending the ship up high enough.

Impact.

The ship screamed and screeched as it made contact with the ground, bouncing off of it and flipping in the air, rotating completely around and landing nose first in the dust.

The ship rocked violently. Its impact sent Galen bouncing around in his harness.

A loud snap made itself heard over the new alarms breaking out from all over the cockpit.

Galen went flying forward on the next impact, his head bashing into the control panel as it exploded in a shower of sparks.

The sound of a screaming boy greeted him into unconsciousness.

Kandar

Master Skywalker was awoken late at night at the report that Galen's fighter was approaching the planet.

He got up to greet his old friend, running down to the docking bay.

He was surprised to see no one there, the cockpit was empty, the cargo bay was empty. But in the ship was a message explaining some of Galen's whereabouts.

Skywalker scowled nervously, and then ordered a search and rescue mission to be launched immediately.

He cursed his friend, worried about his fate.

Corellia.

Arkadi was giving birth.

And Galen was not around to comfort or protect her. Just an old doctor smiling nervously down at her and a droid in attendance making what Arkadi assumed were soothing noises.

It had been several days since Galen was officially declared missing. The search was still going on, but after all the time that had passed no one was confident.

This had brought on a premature birth.

She was breathing, heaving hard, in out in out in out. Over and over again, her breaths coming in a pant.

The Doctor suddenly grinned.

The life form that had been growing in her was squeezing and wiggling itself free from her, wailing and crying as it went, separating himself from her body with a reckoning.

Arkadi could already tell that he was going to be a fighter, a warrior, and a protector. A Knight in shining armor.

So much like his father.

A tear went down her cheek at the thought as she could barely contain herself.

Finally he was free of her, and in her arms.

"So what's the kid going to be called?" The kind old doctor with his whiskers smiled down at her.

She grinned at the newborn toothily. "John" She said, still almost breathless.

The Doctor's eyebrows arched in surprise. "John?!?!" his look went contemplative. "Not the name I would have chosen for him."

"I know, its going to be unique. Not since the ancient days of Corellia, a great protector of the innocent." She said looking at the Doctor smiling gaily, full of new life.

"If you say so." The Doctor shrugged skeptically, heading out of the room to take care of his other duties in regards to her.

She turned her attention back to her son, cooing and rubbing his nose, loving him, and smiling down at him.

And she had no idea how right she was, one of the most pivotal figures in the History of the Galaxy had just been born in a small clinic on Corellia..