Tython, 4 ABY

"Some mess you got yourself into, Skywalker," Cal Kestis said as he helped Luke extricate himself from the parachute. A BD-unit perched on his shoulder, looking quizzically down at Luke. As Luke and Cal worked together, waves lapped against the shore, and Luke could see the lights of his X-wing sinking beneath the surface. A jet of flame flared out of the water, and Luke traced the arc of R2-D2 soaring from the X-wing to the shore. Artoo landed beside Luke, rocking back and forth worriedly.

Luke placed his hand on the droid's dome, saying, "It's alright, Artoo. I'm ok."

"Who was that?" Cal asked as he untangled the last knot of the cables entangled around Luke's leg.

"No idea," Luke said, pulling his leg free from the cable and rising to his feet. He turned toward the water, feeling a pit of horror as he watched his X-wing vanish.

"Don't stress it," Cal said. "Those ships can sit underwater for years and still function. You're with the Republic, right?"

"How'd you know?" Luke asked.

"I was actually on my way to Chandrila. The whole galaxy is talking about it - Luke Skywalker, son of Anakin, killed the Emperor and Darth Vader," Cal explained, grinning. "Cere's also on her way, but she's coming from a lot farther out."

"Cere?" Luke asked, frowning.

"Cere Junda. Another Jedi and a friend of mine. Might be a few others on their way, as well. I heard your call and turned back on the route to Chandrila," Cal explained.

Luke looked away uncomfortably as Cal said, "So, you really did it, eh? Took down Vader and the Emperor?"

Luke hesitated, then said, "I guess you could say that."

"Must be quite a story," Cal grinned.

A rumbling sound spared Luke from elaborating, and both Jedi turned to watch Ahsoka's T-6 soaring over the hills behind them. The ship drifted downslope before slowing to hover over the beach. Luke and Cal held their arm up to their faces to shield out the sand kicked up by the shuttle's repulsorlifts. As the ship settled, its boarding ramp lowered, and Ahsoka raced down from the galley.

Jogging over to Luke, Ahsoka called out, "Luke! Are you okay?"

"I'm alright," Luke called out.

Ahsoka reached the two and she hesitated as she looked Cal up and down. "Who are you?" she asked, a note of suspicion.

"Cal Kesitis," he affirmed, tensing slightly.

"Ahsoka, this is Cal. He was on his way to Chandrila when he heard my call," Luke interjected. "Cal, this is Ahsoka Tano."

"The Ahsoka Tano?" Cal said in wonderment.

As Ahsoka nodded, Cal exclaimed, "I thought you were dead!"

"Somebody just gave it her best shot," Ahsoka said. "Where did she go?"

"I tracked her ship off the system. She jumped just after I landed," Cal said. "Any idea who she is?"

"No," Luke said. "But she seemed to know me. What was it she said?" Luke asked Ahsoka.

Ahsoka frowned, then murmured, "The Skywalkers are mine."

"Skywalkers?" Cal asked in confusion.

"My twin sister," Luke explained.

"Whoa!" Cal exclaimed appreciatively.

"I already called Leia. They're sending a frigate here with a squadron of troops to monitor," Ahsoka said. She glanced out across the water and added, "They'll get your ship out, too."

"Alright," Luke said. Luke turned to Cal and said, "It's my intention to begin rebuilding the Jedi Order. I would love to discuss our plans and get your feedback."

"Say no more! I'm in," Cal said. "You have no idea how lonely it's been hiding out all these years."

Luke grinned earnestly. A wave of fatigue washed over him, leading to a yearning for sleep. "Great. Let's talk more in the morning?"

"Where are you camped?" Cal asked as he gestured toward his ship.

"We're over that ridge in a grassy swale below the temple," Ahsoka explained. "If it's ok with you, I'd like a word with Luke."

"No problem," Cal said congenially as he jogged back to his ship. Luke and Ahsoka watched and waited as the freighter lifted off of the beach and then drifted up and over the ridge.

When the noise from its heavy sublight engine faded, Ahsoka turned to Luke, saying, "Are you alright?"

"Tired. A little shaken up," Luke admitted.

"I've met other dark Force-users like her before," Ahsoka explained. She frowned as she said, "But I've never seen one create lightning. Even Vader couldn't do that."

"That was the Emperor's power," Luke said.

"A Sith's power," Ahsoka corrected.

"But the Sith are dead," Luke said, his anxiety rising.

"I don't know if we can conclude that just yet," Ahsoka said thoughtfully. She gazed across the ocean, her mind racing through possibilities. A memory flashed of a young Leia, terrified at a nightmare of a shadowy figure. The image of Bail's face followed with the plea: Help her. I cannot overstate her importance. The echo of her promise to Ezra clashed against Bail's wishes. She could not accept that he was lost, yet what was there left for her to do?

"Luke?" Ahsoka asked.

"Yes?" Luke answered, pulling away from his own ruminations.

"If Leia wishes it, I will train her," Ahsoka declared.

"Really?" Luke asked, excited.

"You heard our assailant. The Skywalkers are mine," Ahsoka said. "Bail Organa asked me to help her. For the sake of both of Leia's fathers, I will train her if she wishes it."

"And the Jedi Order?" Luke asked.

"I'll give you my guidance and advice, but I am not now, nor will I ever be a Jedi. In time, you'll understand why, and I implore you to take what I tell you to heart if you do rebuild the Order," Ahsoka explained.

Luke smiled, then turned back to the water. A line of purple and orange had stretched across the horizon as they had talked, and Luke saw the green spark of the sun rising over the blue horizon.

Zelphi, 4 ABY

Ezra's mind swam through dead spaces – cold, empty caverns where a void lived in place of the Force. Lin's face, dead, blackened - eyes staring – turned toward him. Dead spaces on his dead friend's face. The dead face rolled toward him, the skin flaking off of the skull, and he heard Lin's ragged voice say, "That'll teach you."

Ezra awoke with a start, shooting bolt upright on a hospital bed. The IV's plunged into his skin disconnected, and the bacta packs attached to his chest ruptured. Ezra felt their warm liquid flood the bed, leaving him uncertain if he had wet himself. Despite the warmth, his body felt cold and clammy, and the Force was small, distant, and tinny – like music played through a commlink.

"Disgusting," spoke a cold, tired voice.

Ezra turned and saw Thrawn sitting, his right leg crossed over his left. Lieutenant Torris stood by his side, accompanied by a pair of death troopers.

"What happened?" Ezra asked, disoriented.

"You," Thrawn said, but he paused, attempting to maintain his composure. "You broke into my office, stole the Third Sight, left the settlement, and indulged in a selfish, pointless drug binge while the Grysk attacked our people."

Flashbacks followed Thrawn's words, and though they were disjointed and fragmented, Ezra recalled the assault and his mad rush to save Thrawn.

"Is everyone ok?" Ezra asked stupidly.

"Is everyone ok?!" Thrawn shouted as spittle flew from his mouth. The display of temper from the cold, controlled Admiral alarmed Ezra as much as the dream had. "Our refinery is in ruins! Our fuel supply has burned into the night. Half of our people are dead, and our food supply is destroyed!"

"Lin," Ezra uttered, horrified.

"Dead!" Thrawn yelled. A tense silence followed, during which Ezra became aware of the steady drip drip drip of bacta solution falling onto the floor.

"I'm. . ." Ezra started, before swallowing. "I'm sorry," he murmured, averting his glance.

"Sorry," Thrawn whispered as his controlled coldness reasserted itself. "Four years, we worked. Four years, we tested, researched, failed, and succeeded. It will take at least another four years to rebuild what we've lost, and with half of the manpower we started with. All because you could not control. Your. Urges."

"You didn't warn me. . ." Ezra began defensively.

"SILENCE!" Thrawn roared again.

Silence followed as the bacta continued to drip. The silence stretched on for minutes as Thrawn's gaze bored into Ezra's face. Ezra willed the courage, battling through his shame to meet the Admiral's eyes. He returned the Chiss's glowing, red, rageful gaze, fighting with all of his will not to look away.

"We begin again," Thrawn said. "We rebuild. And you will repay your debt to the people you've betrayed. Down to every last technician and stormtrooper."

Thrawn rose from his chair and paused, looking at Ezra with contempt. "Betray me again, and I will peel the skin from your flesh."

Thrawn turned and left the room, leaving Ezra awash in shame.

Ezra stepped from the skiff, his boots sinking into the burnt, ashen earth. The skiff shot away unceremoniously, leaving Ezra awash in a cloud of dust. As the dust settled, Ezra gazed across the ruined farm plot he had tended with Lin. The Grysk had torched both of the buildings, destroying his meager possessions and leaving the blathroots in ruin. The shed with the tools still smoldered in the milky pink twilight, and Ezra passed through the broken gate, walking the path between the plots. The hoes he had used as he worked alongside Lin were burnt and charred, and the compost heaps had been overturned, the contents also burnt from the fire that had engulfed his hut. Ezra picked his way over the rubble and found a stormtrooper helmet lying in the dust. The helmet had melted partially on the left side, and Ezra's sense was that Lin had not even had time to put the helmet on to defend himself.

Had I been here, Ezra thought to himself. He might be dead. Or he might have fought the Grysk off. Lin might be alive.

It's my fault, Ezra thought to himself.

He collapsed onto the ground, cross-legged, and slumped forward as he held the helmet between his hands. A dry, hot breeze blew across the plains, ruffling his. He sat for a long time, gazing at the half-melted helmet. Ahsoka's voice resonated in his ears, but for all he knew now, she was a hallucination brought on by the drug. He had been foolish in thinking he could reach her.

Do not be so hard on yourself, Ezra Bridger, a voice rumbled through the margins of his mind.

Ezra stood, unhooking his lightsaber from his belt. He swiveled in all directions, seeking whoever had said the words. As he searched, he saw nothing but dust and a burnt-out farm.

"Who's there?" Ezra asked warily.

It's natural to crave a deeper connection to the Force, the voice soothed.

Ezra ignited his lightsaber and twirled, believing that the voice was behind him. Instead of a being, he found only the ruins of a hut.

Patience, Ezra. Patience. The time will come when you shall find your way back. And when that time comes, I will be there to show you the way.

The voice echoed from nowhere, and Ezra lowered his weapon as the wind whipped at his hair. He had never heard such a voice before, and for a moment, he wondered if it was anything like the mysterious being he had met in his hallucination. Yet that being had warned against power, not empathized with the desire to seize it.

"Who are you?" Ezra called out.

Only the wind answered, echoing his question: whoooooo.

Ezra extinguished his lightsaber, and scanning the sweeping plains in the heart of the valley, clipped the weapon to his belt and began the long, arduous task of rebuilding the farm.

"Grand Admiral Thrawn?" spoke a mild voice in the darkness.

Thrawn turned away from the holograph of the cruel, byzantine, angular sculpture he had been regarding – one of the few works of Grysk art he had been able to curate. He looked over his shoulder and saw Lieutenant Torris standing at attention, waiting for permission to report. Thrawn had a sense of the man's eagerness, and he turned away from his contemplation of Grysk culture and psychology.

"Yes, Lieutenant," he said in his soft voice as he turned toward his subordinate.

"Sir, our investigation into Bridger's activities produced some curious evidence that I believe you should be aware of," Lieutenant Torris spoke in his crisp voice.

"Proceed, Lieutenant," Thrawn ordered.

"As you already know, Sir, Bridger retreated to a cave system on the north end of the valley for self-injection. Per our interview with Bridger, he reported that the initial effects were absent, and it was only after he moved closer to the cave's entrance that he experienced the effects," Lieutenant Torris explained.

"A curious circumstance, indeed," Thrawn affirmed. "What have you learned?"

"Our sensor crew ran a scan and found no initial deviation in lifeforms – at least on first glance," Torris continued.

"Unsurprising," Thrawn concurred.

"However, on a closer inspection of some organic samples, we did detect a rather peculiar anomaly," Torris reported.

"Which is?" Thrawn prompted.

"None of the organic specimens contained midichlorians," Torris affirmed.

Thrawn brought his fist to his chin, sinking deeper into thought. As he pieced the report together, he recalled the biological functioning of midichlorians, but did not see how a lack of midichlorians in the surrounding matter could have affected Bridger.

"Lieutenant are you suggesting that the lack of midichlorians in the organic matter found within the cave muted Bridger's connection to the Force," Thrawn asked skeptically.

"That was my initial supposition, yes," Torris affirmed, "but that supposition had no basis in evidence. But after running tests on ore samples recovered from the cave, we determined that the organic matter was merely a symptom, and not a cause."

"A symptom of what?" Thrawn asked.

"After drawing that conclusion, we returned and ran a second scan, this time for non-organic components. We collected samples of everything, and we discovered a mineral ore that we've never encountered before. I placed several organic samples in a containment unit along with the ore, ranging from microorganisms to local rodents. Initially, the impact was that the midichlorians became inactive."

"Intriguing," Thrawn said as the data began to coalesce into possibility. "And what happened as you sustained the experiments?"

"They are till ongoing, sir, but thus far, midichlorian activity did not just become inactive; the midichlorians themselves began to die," Torris reported.

"But wouldn't that kill an organism?" Thrawn asked.

"Yes, it would, unless of course that organism had already adapted," Torris agreed. "However, I believe we will be able to establish a threshold between inactivity and host death where we can destroy enough midichlorians to neutralize an individual's sensitivity to the Force," Torris said, completing his theory.

The two men shared a long, meaningful glance, and Thrawn turned to the shattered remains of Sabine Wren's creation. Bridger had proved a liability despite his limited usefulness – a problem whose solution Thrawn had yet to uncover.

"Excellent work, Lieutenant," Thrawn commended. "Continue your work and provide me with regular reports. If the application functions as you hypothesize, I would like you to scale up your research, beginning first with local fauna before proceeding to Zelphinians. Afterwards, if your research proves successful and this is what we anticipate, proceed to human test subjects."

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Torris said, snapping into a salute. Thrawn noted the enthusiasm in the salute, and he nodded as he dismissed Torris.

Thrawn listened as Lieutenant Torris's footsteps echoed and faded into the corridor. He turned back to the display of the Grysk artwork. He pressed a button on his desk, and the display faded while the dimmed lights brightened. He reached out to the Jedi Temple mask taken from Malachor and held the object in his hand. As he considered the object, a smile stretched across his thin, blue lips.

Deep Space, 4 ABY

REWRITE WITH EMPHASIS on voices in her head, cutting off Force to shut them out

The sleek, black freighter drifted through deep space, adrift through emptiness as its pilot slumped, cross-legged, on the floor. Before her, on the floor of the galley, sat a lightsaber, inert and inactive, but still an object of deep concentration.

Failure.

She tensed, her muscles constricting at the sound of the voice. She was not sure if she had imagined it or if it had come from within her. She knew the voice well, and pain had always followed admonishment when such a voice spoke such words.

Setting down the data pad, she knelt on the hard metal surface of her ship's galley, closing her eyes as she opened herself to the Force.

"My Lord? Are you with me?" she whispered.

Everything I gave you – wasted.

A memory arose in her mind. Electricity sparked around her body, and she saw his face, his teeth clenched, and his eyes maniacal with rage. The echo of the electric agony surged through her body, and again, the word echoed in her mind, detached from any speaker: failure.

"My Emperor?" she whispered again.

"He's gone," spoke a male voice from behind her.

Mara reacted instantly, springing to her feet and calling the lightsaber to her. For a moment, she thought a Jedi had stowed aboard the ship and intended to ambush her as she meditated. Her confusion mounted as she found nobody standing behind her.

"Who's there?" she called, raising her lightsaber as she settled into a defensive crouch.

"Forgive me," the voice said, and a blue light materialized before, coalescing into the form of Anakin Skywalker.

"You!" Mara hissed.

"Sorry for spooking you," Anakin apologized with an awkward shrug. "I'm not sure if you're ready to talk yet, but. . ."

"Leave me alone," Mara growled, backing away.

"Yikes," Anakin muttered. He recovered, saying, "You should know – the Emperor. He's gone. Really gone."

"Get off of my ship," Mara growled through clenched teeth, tensing as if poising to strike.

"You're free, Mara. He's gone where he can hurt you again," Anakin assured, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace.

She clenched her eyes, seeking a way to shut him out. Still, she felt his presence before her.

"I know what happened to you. He killed your parents, took you from your home," Anakin explained soothingly.

"GET OUT!" Mara roared, but she refrained from using electricity lest she damage her ship. Having no recourse to attack, she doubled her efforts to shut him out.

"You didn't choose this life. The Emperor took that away from you, just as Vader took your parents from you," Anakin explained.

"You!" she scowled. "You killed them."

"Yes," Anakin said. "After I lost my own choice. Before I became myself again. We're both free now."

Mara extinguished her lightsaber, then settled to the ground. An insistent whispering in the back of her mind reminded her of a Jedi she had tracked down; he was old and feeble, and he had refused to put up a fight. As she murdered him, she had the sense of the Force lying dormant and inaccessible; his connection awoke only at the second before death. Perhaps she could do the same.

As Anakin settled into a chair opposite her, she closed her mind off to him, seeking something deep inside of her, hoping she would be able to identify it.

"Mara, I know what you're trying to do," Anakin said. "My son. He's not what you think. He can help you."

"Get off of my ship," she whispered.

Failure, the Emperor's voice muttered in the recesses of her soul. She sought the source of that voice, and there – there it was, deep within.

"When you're ready, find him. He can help you. So can my daughter, and Ahso-"

With a Herculean effort, she severed the part of her that connected to everything around her. As she did, she felt Anakin vanish abruptly. Silence settled over the galley, and for several minutes, she was afraid to open her eyes. As she experienced her own fear, she tensed, expecting to hear the Emperor's voice. That voice remained as silent as the galley.

When she opened her eyes, Anakin had gone. She was alone, with the silence her only companion. The rich coursings and movements of the Force were also silent, leaving a hollow, dead sensation. The sensation frightened her, but less so than the voice.

She reached down to her belt, unclipping the lightsaber. She held the weapon – the Emperor's weapon – in her hands, wondering what she should do with it. She glanced toward the ship's trash compactor, wondering to herself. She stepped to the trash compactor, unable to take her eyes off of the weapon. She could destroy it, free herself forever. She waited, expecting hear his admonishment and the wave of pain that would follow.

Again, silence followed. She opened the door of the compactor and stood before it, wondering at what it might feel like.

You're free, Mara.

Free? There is no free. There is no escaping this. She slammed the door of the compactor and stashed the weapon. Leaving herself shut off from the Force, she stumbled to the bridge and entered the coordinates. Moments later, she vanished into space, hurtling through hyperspace at a speed nearly fast enough to escape the ghosts.