Galaxies Apart

Forty Five

"What are you thinking about?"

Her voice was lazy. He grinned. It was a lazy kinda day, so that was just fine. He draped the back of his fingernails over her lower back and watched her squirm beneath him. "Nothing," he replied.

She turned over, hands snaking out and grabbing his to prevent the tickling from moving on to pastures new. He saw the contentment in her eyes to simply have the chance to exist in this type of moment and wondered if she saw the same emotion reflected in his.

"Liar. You know I can read your mind."

"And here I thought I was the Jedi," he said wryly, and descended his lips to hers. She tasted like every victory he'd ever had, every smile that had ever crossed his face. Every time they kissed he found himself lost in wonderment that his life, his strange, eventful life, could have taken the necessary turns required to have brought them together; and he gave silent thanks that it had.

As a Padawan he had heard the whispers; that he had no biological father, that the midichlorians themselves had conspired to place him and give him life inside his mother. More than anyone else who had ever lived, he was meant to embody the Force itself and all it meant to those who answered its call; the sense of security, peace, fulfilment, and above all a purpose and a calling greater than any other.

Beneath him, here and now, was a woman who embodied all of those things. Padme was the Force to him. She was his whole life. His connection to something greater.

And yet…

She broke the kiss. "There it is again," she said ruefully. "What is it, Ani?"

He rolled, propping himself up on his elbow. Padme did the same, facing him. Behind her, Coruscant's infinite cityscape teemed with its life. One of the wonders of the universe, its likeness unequalled anywhere; to him, next to her, it paled into a distant second.

"We should be able to…to go outside, to tell our friends," he said, frustrated.

She smiled briefly, but the smile was tinged with shared pain. "I know," she said gently. "I feel that, too."

"How can something that makes us both happy be wrong?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "I don't pretend to understand the ways of the Jedi," she said simply. "You have a power I don't understand…and could never have."

"I would give up that power," he told her then, all trace of lightness falling away from him. "For you. For us."

"What?" she blinked, confused. "Ani, what are you saying…?"

"If there was a way," he continued, the words coming out in a rush now, "if I could stop being a Jedi, somehow…we wouldn't have to keep us a secret."

She laughed, lightly. He scowled at this. "And what would you do then?" she asked him, bemused at the very notion. "Being a Jedi is all you know, Ani. All you've wanted to be for as long as I've known you."

"It's not the only thing I've wanted for as long as you've known me," he told her.

She kissed him impulsively, her hands pressed against his head, dragging him close to her. He returned it fiercely, hungrily, even as the sunlight streamed in from the dizzyingly high Coruscant window and half a billion people whizzed by in transports; none of them, he knew, would know a moment like this, a love like his.

"I wouldn't let you," she whispered, when they had separated again. "I wouldn't ask you to do that."

"I-" he began, but her finger was pressed to his lips, requesting him to be silent so she could finish. He complied with her wish.

"But it means more than you know to me that you would be prepared to do that…" she glanced out at Coruscant, allowing worry to cloud her face, "…soon you'll be back out there, fighting this war…promise me, Ani, that you'll always come home to me and find time for mornings like this one. Promise me you'll always know what to say to me to remind me why I love you as much as I do."

He reached up for her fingers, still pressed to his lips, and held them gently in his hand. He kissed them, and nodded. "I promise."

They were kissing again after that, and this time they did not break apart; rather, more of their bodies intertwined on the bed until they became one mind, one body, one soul-

"Enough," Vader said.

His long shadow fell across the bed where Anakin Skywalker and Padme were making love. Their bodies froze in mid-coitus, a bead of sweat suspended perfectly mid-fall between them.

"Show me no more," Vader addressed the room. "I am tired of watching."

very well

The room, Coruscant, and his younger self all vanished into the formless ether he had found himself in (moments? months? years?) since the sensation of the lightsaber blade burning through him...

you were prepared to give it up for her

"I did," Vader said, a world of hurt in his voice. "Just not in the way I imagined."

would you like to see something different

"I would like to be left alone."

watch and you will understand

In the absence of any other choice, Darth Vader did exactly that.

---------------------------------------------------------

It began in the future, in a far-distant region of the universe.

They had evolved for fifty million years. After merely two of those fifty, they had burst forth from their home planet as a fabulously advanced race, unequalled in their native galaxy in art, literature, technology…

..and in ambition.

Spreading throughout the galaxy, they subjugated other races through force of personality or simply through force until none could stand against their mastery of the majority of habitable worlds available to them.

But with this strength, came maturity. With nowhere left to expand outward toward, finally this great species looked inward and began to change themselves, eventually evolving into something beyond their physical forms, tapping into long-dormant potential within themselves for telepathic and telekinetic abilities.

With this evolution of the species came a slow but wondrous collective awakening, an enlightenment. The ways of authority were replaced with democracy, and the galaxy they had once ruled unquestioned flourished under their stewardship, other races welcomed and treated as equals, peace embraced, conflict utilised rarely but always with terrible swiftness and lingering regret.

For many millions of years, this golden age persisted. Until something occurred which not even this mighty race could prevent; their home galaxy collided with another.

As the star systems of the galaxies collided, the effect was catastrophic. Stars were torn apart; massive asteroid belts ploughed through orbital planes, devastating world upon world. A rescue bid to save both galaxies was launched, stretching the race thin across space.

They did not expect the attack.

Enemy races, long jealous of their power, had secretly banded together and chose this moment to seize power. Using technology shared with them in the spirit of friendship, they obliterated the species' satellite worlds one by one, hounding them relentlessly, never affording them the chance to settle down on a new world or form a coherent defence.

Finally, their ancient homeworld fell, pulverized to oblivion, its many inhabitants dying screaming, a futile distress call of pain and loss that reached every single member of the race left in the stars.

Faced with extinction at every turn, the leaders of the surviving members of the species, now spaceborne nomads numbering less than thirty billion on a vast flotilla of refugee vessels, took a series of staggering risks to try and ensure the continuation of the race. They reactivated areas of research that had been closed off for many millions of years.

Racing against time suddenly short, they created a method of harnessing and focussing zero-point quantum energy to tunnel through space itself, in order to link together co-ordinates using a fold in the fabric of the universe – a wormhole. In this way, they hoped to open a doorway to another galaxy altogether and to start their civilisation anew. It was their last hope.

One problem remained. The power levels to generate even a single wormhole were staggering. To create a wormhole large enough for every ship to pass through would have been impossible, particularly with their enemies closing in from all sides. The solution was radical, desperate.

If the wormhole was too small for their physical bodies to pass through, then they would have to be left behind.

Linking themselves telepathically together, as well as to their most advanced technologies, the entire race shed their link to their physical existence, becoming life-forms composed of pure energy and thought, contained by their own sentient coherence rather than by flesh, bone and blood.

They were glorious, luminous beings.

Attaching themselves to a single colony ship in this state was possible. A few members of their species had made the sacrifice of remaining in physical form so they could be relied upon to oversee the creation of the wormhole and to target its destination. The enemy fleet arrived just as that single colony ship passed through the shimmering curtain…and vanished.

The physical members of the race were killed trying to activate the self-destruct sequence on the facility responsible for the wormhole's creation. Before they died, however, they managed to send the facility itself through its own portal, collapsing the wormhole at that end and preventing their enemies from following. This done, they succumbed to death in triumph.

Their joy was unfounded.

The gateway was spectacularly off-target. Far from the planned location, a galaxy relatively close by their own, the species was being transported out of all known space. In all probability their fate would be to be deposited randomly in the universe, left to rot in the void, stranded in the desert of the universe, left to gaze upon decayed star light already billions of years old.

But that was not the only shock which awaited them.

Not only were they hopelessly overshooting their intended spatial location, they were travelling through time. The collective consciousness of the species sensed the universe rewinding itself; supernovae reversing, black holes spewing matter into the cosmos, stars winking out, solar systems coalescing to accretion disks. All in a heartbeat.

They were now in a universe significantly smaller than the one they had left. The expanding frontiers of the unknown were contracting; incredibly, they were in danger of being deposited outside of existence itself.

Eventually – they had no way of measuring how long – the wormhole spat them out. And that single colony ship, filled with the sole remaining remnants of one of the universe's most powerful and most remarkable species found itself drifting through foreign stars alone, possibly more alone than any ship had ever been.

The Chlorians were stranded. Hopelessly, irreversibly stranded.

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

---------------------------------------------------------

Vader realised that what he was suspended in was not the shapeless ether of the afterlife.

"Chlorians…?" he breathed. "You're midichlorians?"

they are what we became

"I don't understand."

we could not function physically – had to learn how to survive in vacuum – stopped being separate beings – joined

As before, images flashed through his mind. The colony ship had sufficed to transport them through the ravages of the wormhole, and for a while they had stayed there, afraid of this new home, unsure of their abilities.

But when the facility – Site Zero – had appeared through the wormhole instants before the gateway had closed, that great energy cloud of sentience had diffused itself through the colony ship and survived the short trip through space to reach the station.

spread ourselves through this galaxy – so small, so far apart that we changed

He saw it. Instinctually seeking other life, they had expanded outward in all directions, and over the next few million years had eventually spread their immense single consciousness until it had penetrated every corner of the galaxy. So far apart, they had shrank to occupy the microscopic world, and yet each piece of that great benevolent intelligence remained irretrievably connected to every other piece.

we bonded with life

"And remade some of us in your own image. Granted us the powers you possessed as physical beings."

yes

Vader finally asked the question he had wanted to ask his entire life.

"Why did you create me?"

it was necessary

"For what purpose?"

A ripple of what he guessed to be surprise went through the formless ether as he asked the question, although for one moment he thought it might just have been amusement…or sadness…it was hard to tell. He felt like a speck of dust next to the biggest life-form in existence; which was, essentially, accurate…and yet, he felt somehow a part of this huge collective.

for now

"But…" he gestured with a hand-

A hand?

He looked down at himself for the first time in a long time, and a small involuntary cry of emotion left his lips. He felt it ripple outward into that massive presence and to his wonder, felt it reverberate throughout and an answering tendril of support and love extend itself back to him.

Tears filled his eyes.

you will have no need of it to fulfil your destiny

Anakin Skywalker hung in the void, sporting two fully functional arms and legs. The black suit of Darth Vader had vanished…and along with it, somehow, had the dark stain that wearing it had imparted upon Anakin's soul these last two decades. He ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the minute pull of each strand with awe.

Finally, he found the strength to speak. "Fulfil…my destiny?" he said. "But…aren't I dead?"

Definitely amusement this time.

for the moment, as you would understand the term, perhaps

"For the moment?" he repeated, hope rising within him of a kind he had almost forgotten had existed.

first you must listen – time is short…

---------------------------------------------------------

"Coming in, point three seven!"

"Watch your back, Rogue Eight!"

"They're coming in too fast!"

"I'm right with you, Hobie…hang in there!"

Wedge's heart was pounding, his breathing irregular. His radio chattered constantly with back-and-forth rat-a-tat chatter between his wingmates as they wheeled across the Death Star's surface, desperately trying to keep each other alive a few moments longer.

Rogues Four, Five and Six were in the Trench below. The rest, Wedge included, were providing cover and trying to prevent as many TIEs from dropping down into the Trench to pick off the trio of X-Wings.

He had fought the urge to be the first to try. He knew he had the authority to make that call and the rest of them would have fallen into line. But he knew the cold, hard facts, too; the odds of the first three pilots making a successful run, when every single turret and tower in that damn Trench would be intact and firing, were so close to zero it wasn't even worth calculating the difference.

He had to send his weakest three pilots on that first run. Made military sense. Perfect sense. So much blasted good-for-nothing sense that it was practically coming out of his ears and why didn't that make him feel one single damn bit better about ordering three men to their deaths?

"Coming up fast," Rogue Five said again.

"I'm in range…" came the voice of Rogue Six, who had point. Wedge knew the targeting computer would be beginning its seemingly eternal countdown before offering up the optimal firing co-ordinates.

"Wait – can't hold it – they're com-"

"Pull out!"

"Can't shake them!"

Wedge gritted his teeth and blew a TIE fighter to smithereens even as the first death call of one of his Squadron sounded in his ears. It was followed only a few seconds later by two more cries. He saw a brief fireball flare, the flames snuffed out by the vacuum as quickly as the life within had been ended by the flames.

And then, silence.

Another squadron of TIEs were screaming toward them, several amongst their number already barrelling downward toward that Trench, anticipating his next move.

Wedge forced his mouth to move. "Rogues Eight, Rogue Ten, Rogue Eleven…" he said, "…get set up for your attack run."

The first three had at least enjoyed some element of surprise. Eight, Ten and Eleven – he forced his own mind to call them by their numbers, not daring to think of their names – would not. They, too, would more than likely perish. And they knew it.

"Copy, Rogue Leader," was the only response he got from each one.

Wedge turned his X-Wing into attack position for the latest wave of TIEs, and swore again to himself that if it was the last thing he did, he'd bring this Death Star down.

---------------------------------------------------------

"Six minutes to event horizon, Grand Admiral."

"And the X-Wings?" Thrawn demanded.

The tactical officer was having difficulty maintaining his composure. "We…we think it's Rogue Squadron, Grand Admiral. We've destroyed three…" he blinked, looking down at his readouts, "…no, make that six of their ships so far. Six remain."

"Another two waves at the exhaust port," Thrawn concluded. "Unacceptable. Tell those TIE pilots to stop the remaining X-Wings dipping into that Trench at all costs. I am including suicide runs in that, Lieutenant. Make that clear."

"Y-yes, sir, Grand Admiral."

"Chamber Master," Thrawn continued without so much as a pause for breath. "I want you to target the station again. Fire when ready."

Pellaeon's eyes bulged. He saw the rest of the bridge crew react with shock also. Words of protest formed in his mouth, but the Chamber Master beat him to it.

"But…" the man gulped, "…but it didn't work – and if it makes that thing out there grow again…"

Thrawn gestured to Rukh. The Noghri was at the Chamber Master's side before the poor man could finish gabbling. Rukh's slender blade appeared between his fingers, poised and ready.

"I gave you an order," Thrawn said, so casually he might have been discussing the weather.

"Commencing ignition, Grand Admiral."

Rukh was back at his master's side almost instantly. Pellaeon, standing to the opposite side of Thrawn, risked a glance at his superior officer. He wasn't surprised to find Thrawn already looking at him.

"It survived one blast, Captain," Thrawn said quietly. "I am willing to gamble that it may not survive another."

"And if it does?"

Thrawn stared out at the ever-increasing spectacle of the portal, now filling the viewscreen before them. It almost looked to be reaching out, hungry to consume them whole.

"We're history," he said.

---------------------------------------------------------

He was losing.

Luke Skywalker had never truly faced his own mortality. He had been in dangerous situations, sure; the past five years hadn't exactly been an extended pleasure cruise of the Tarkellian moons. But he was facing it now, in the shape of the lightsaber blade of his own distorted reflection.

The man who called himself Ben Skywalker was by far the superior duellist. He could do things that Luke could only dream of. At every increasingly desperate thrust Luke threw at him, Ben not only had the answer, he found a way to turn those thrusts into defensive strokes, each one a lifesaver that Luke only just found himself able to make.

But not for much longer. He knew this. As did his opponent.

"The last thing I see in the galaxy I created…" his clone told him, "…will be your death at my hands."

Too busy staying alive, Luke couldn't find the words to disagree, and he wasn't sure that even if he could have he would have had the confidence to do so.

A particularly vicious swing by Ben coupled with a Force push sent Luke sprawling into the wall of the hangar bay. His head impacted, hard; his vision blurred, and he suddenly had the terrifying sensation of Ben plunging himself into his mind, attacking him from within as well as with the physical saber from without.

Already struggling to cope, Luke could only manage a weak parry, and when the saber flashed around once more, his grip was found wanting. He saw through eyes dimmed from strain and despair his saber fly from his hand, its blade deactivating automatically as it skidded to a halt hopelessly out of reach.

Ben's free hand flexed and turned, and Luke found himself constricted on all sides, able to do nothing but fall to his knees, helpless as Ben's lips set in a thin line and he raised the saber high above his head in readiness for a killing strike.

"This is the end," Ben told him, and brought the saber down.

The blade was caught an inch from Luke's head. Not blocked with another blade, but caught. By hand.

"No," Anakin Skywalker said, wrenching the saber effortlessly from Ben's stunned grasp, his entire body awash in a blue glow. "No, my sons…this is just the beginning."