Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. Disney and Lucasflim do.

For a second time, Corban Jast ran to escape the assured death of a galaxy. The fading stars above dragged planets, moons, and ships into the ever-growing darkness of non-existence. They were lightyears away, but Corban felt and had even seen the black holes sucking away time itself before he came to this Outer Rim planet whose name had been lost to time. There were a few days, if not mere hours, before everything was gone. With them, gone would be light, darkness, and whatever in between existed in the Force.

His tattered cloak fluttering behind, Corban puffed and panted with every stumble. He already exhausted himself after running from the spaceport, through the tiny city on the ocean, to the open plains. Even in this place, the Force had abandoned him yet again as the destruction of the galaxy drained its light, darkness, and anything in between. Still, he had his keen senses and whatever he remembered reading from the archives.

"Come on, come on. Where is it?" Corban said with a mouth only watered by the sweat dripping down his dusk-colored face.

When his green eyes found nothing in the ever-growing darkness, Corban went for his lightsaber. Though the orange crystal was normal as any, the hilt was made of a strange organic material once made by invaders from beyond known space. Vong coral, it had been called.

Vong. The name would have made Corban vomit, once. Now, it served as a reminder of where he came from: another time, another galaxy, much like the one he was trying to escape from and yet so different. That galaxy had been his home before it died just like this one would.

Corban hastily followed the glow of his blade. He escaped destruction before. He could do it again. If only he could find the kriffing–

"There it is!"

Corban's exclamation rang across the quarry he stood atop of. If memory served him, the Empire mined out the area in search of something. That something had been why he traversed across more than half of a dying galaxy. Reaching the quarry, he almost gasped at that something, or rather three someones, staring right back at him.

In any other case, he would have spit at the majestic mural on the quarry wall as it reminded him of things so wrong with the Force. Now, he approached what had reappeared to the galaxy decades after its disappearance. He lined a free hand over the palm of a pale woman on the left and channeled, as he remembered reading from the memoirs of a 'Sabine Wren.' "Please, please, work," Corban begged the Force or whatever power would listen to him.

The painting lit up with the Force, dim as it was. Corban swore thick and thin lines on the mural alike flickered, but they also moved with what little power they had. The pale woman's head moved to the grey man in the center, whose hand lined up to the fist of the dark man on the right. The wolves resting in the mural's corners moved and-

A jolt turned Corban to what laid behind him. Everything there, from the sky to even the grass, was dying in an all-encompassing void. The hours Corban once suspected now became minutes. With fear, Corban ran into the circle of wolves spinning on the wall.

Everything became a blur afterwards. He couldn't fully comprehend it all, but he realized the void he had fallen into. Lines arched around a void akin to space, nothing like the emptiness Corban escaped from. Yet, in the brief seconds of his descent, he felt no calm seeing those lines shone erratically like a disrupted power circuit. He barely saw the ring-like circles along those intersecting arches. He barely heard the voices from each of those circles, save for one.

"... I think there's a…"

Corban focused on it with all the concentration he had learned from both in his galaxy and this dying one. Seconds drew out into minutes in a place where time had no meaning.

"... pass the caffa around! There's more than enough for everyone to…"

The light grew. Corban focused on the voices even more.

"... an, careful! You'll soak the…"

"Someone afraid to…"

A speck of nothingness came through. Even here, the decay reached into what had been the collective history of a galaxy. All the more reason Corban tried to find a way out.

Yet, the battle between everything and nothing grew.

And grew.

And grew until…

"Hey, I think I saw I see something right–"

Corban yelled upon his back hitting what felt like bushes or some foliage. Had he not been exhausted from escaping reality-wide destruction, he would have relied on the Force to soften his fall. After several moments of lying in dirt and twigs, he recognized its feel, its comfort, in the greenery of a forest surrounding him. He took in all in with deep breaths with hopes of healing his tired and achy body. During those breaths, the voices he heard before crowded around him.

"... I think I-yes, I see someone! Han, he looks like he's hurt!"

"Right, Leia. I'll call it in… Yeah, Chewie, it might be one of those days. Lando, can you…?"

"Got you covered buddy… This is General Calrissian. We need a med team… Well, believe it or not, someone just dropped in on us."

"Oh my word! Princess, just what…?"

"I don't know, Threepio. You and Artoo get Luke! He will want to see this."

Everything else became muddled. Corban couldn't tell how much time passed, let alone distinguish the features of a few heads looking over him during that time. The humid air stung at his skin, the plants he laid upon causing itches in his back, and sores kept his limbs still. Despite them all, Corban fought long and hard to stay awake as best as he could.

His patience paid off when a huge pair of furry arms scooped him off his feet. If he were better, he would have demanded to be released, even if he fell on his rear end. The arms carried him over to a stretcher held by a few new arrivals. One among them caught Corban's attention with seemingly plain, yet distinct features.

Blond hair. Grey eyes. And a Jedi's dark tunic.

"Y… you are…" Corban tried to say, but his voice, his arm, and the saber he held in it, dropped.

Whomever carried Corban gently lowered him onto the stretcher. The voices from before spoke again.

"He was holding that thing the entire time. I tell ya Luke, not even Chewie wanted to try taking that away."

"It really is strange, Han. Luke, what that man is holding... is that what I think it is?"

"I think so, Leia. Everyone move! The med team is here! Don't worry, my friend, you're safe here."

Corban groaned, feeling his stretcher rising off the ground. He settled himself in, just slightly to take note of the seven figures watching him go: a young man with a lightsaber, a princess of a dead world, a rogue beside his Wookie companion, a man of a lost city in the clouds, and two droids side-by-side.

All of them were well. All of them were alive.

With tears of joy pooling in his eyes, Corban Jast laid back in the stretcher. Everyone else and their words faded under his exhaustion. Even his own words fell into a mumble before sleep claimed him, they were words of hope and fatigue. "I'm here… I'm finally here."

And so, Corban Jast, once a Jedi of two futures, fell asleep in the past.

Green eyes snapped open to the gray walls of her cell. Despite a lack of windows, she had a clear vision of Coruscant outside. The months had been chaotic since… since what many were calling the Battle of Endor. In that time, the rival warlords had imprisoned her without knowing her true purpose or her true power.

At first, she wanted to wait for an opportune moment to escape. She never expected this sudden shift in the Force. It appeared so sudden, crying like a babe out of a dying mother before fading into silence. The silence left a distinct presence, a taste in her mouth she could never get rid of. Wherever it came from, whatever it was, this disturbance carried the presence of what she assumed was another Jedi, or at least one trained in their ways.

She wanted to kill it for that alone. She couldn't afford to lose another target.

So, the minute the door to her cell opened, she lunged at the clumsy Stormtrooper for a guard. "Wait, what are you–"

The man never finished before she snapped his neck. The Force pulled another Stormtrooper through the door, slamming his head into the far wall of her cell. Quickly, she grabbed both men's blasters. She would need them to escape and to…

"You will kill Luke Skywalker!"

She almost stopped from hearing the words in her mind. It was brief but she continued onwards. She would be sure to leave a trail of bodies in her escape, if only to leave a message to the foolish admirals and so-called moffs to not chase after her. The ruthlessness would be enough, or so she hoped.

Since childhood, she used whatever she could to achieve her master's wishes. Her master, old and covered in a dark robe, would tutor her in espionage and assassination. She was his agent throughout the Known Galaxy, throughout the Galactic Empire which he had ruled with an iron first.

The emperor was dead, but his Hand would continue to serve his will. She would eliminate both Skywalker and this strange presence.

This, Mara Jade swore.

AN: And that is that. More or less wrote this idea because (of course) my growing irritation with the franchise and fandom. I wrote this maybe a bit before or after SW Visions came out (I can't remember exactly). I hope to not write this, which is more to do with not wanting to write anymore than what I already have planned. Until next time, take care.

Raika out.