Chapter 3

Location: Jedi Outpost On Shedu Maad

Lando..."Lando"

Lando could tell someone was trying to get through the never-ending fog that had settled in to stay. He figured if he ignored whoever it was long enough, they would just go away and leave him to continue his futile attempts to heal his precious little boy through the power of his love and will alone. If he couldn't hear the voices trying to get through to him then they wouldn't try to be kind to him. They wouldn't try to get him to be kind to himself. If they couldn't breach his fog then They couldn't tell him that Chance was going ... that Chance was going to...

"Lando...Lando...Lando?" The kind gurgling voice of Master Cilghal finally broke through.

The Order's greatest healer had travelled up to the station within twenty minutes of Jagged clearing the shuttle with Lando's last living family member in his hands. The boy had been medivaced down to the Planet where the medical facilities of the outpost were superior to a space station's Med Bay. Cilghal had worked on the youngling for twelve hours straight, but no matter how hard she tried, the facts were the facts and biology was biology. "The facts" were:

This Boy's injuries were attended to with unparalleled precision, speed, and perfect technique. They had won in so many ways but had lost everything.

In the next hour Lando was going to have to be torn apart all over again.

"Lando" she started as she put her hand that was more flipper on his shoulder "I desperately need you to understand and believe me when I say that we have not held any effort back. We have treated Chance as if he was Master Skywalker himself. But there simply is too much internal damage."

She dipped her head so that her forehead was now gently resting against his

"He doesn't have long now"

she paused while his overloaded mind could process the new, heartbreaking data.

" Thaaa... Thaaatsss itttt..." Lando's voice began to groan and croak out from the pit of his shattered heart. " Immm all Alone now"

With her other hand grasping the side of his cheek she replied: "No Lando, No! Not alone!"

With that she half turned away from Lando, while not relinquishing her grasp on his shoulder, and said to the little Chadra-Fan behind her: "Let them in."

She would have normally and respectfully left the decision of whether or not to have privacy during this kind of tragedy to the family member having to endure it. But in a way, through his words and silent pleadings he had made the decision for her.

In Moments, Tekli was back with Jaina, Jag and...

"HAN! LEIA!" The Words barked out of Lando's mouth like he was trying to breathe in a lifetimes worth of air behind them.

Looking at his closest friends all he could do was mouth the words: "I can't, I just can't."

and the tears and pain gushed out like a broken damn. Leia embraced him as she had embraced her son's when only a hug from Mommy could make things better.

"Oh Lando, shhhhhh... shhhhhh... we got you, we got you."

Jaina had quietly grabbed a hand and kissed it and held on to it against her tear drenched cheek. Jagged, who never would be accused of being gregarious, didn't know what to say or do.

He wanted to run away and blast something, blast a whole lot of somethings, but he stayed, and that meant something to Lando. That's when he felt Jag grab his right shoulder in a tender grip strong as Iron. It was at that moment that he felt Han embrace him, well, all four of them to varying degrees, saying in his cracked voice: "We're not goin anywhere pal."

He stayed there, his one hand holding his son's hand and the rest of him being held by his friends. No! family!...The only family he had left.

Just then he heard the ICU's sliding door woosh open. At that he lifted his eyes up to see what looked like the whole Jedi order waiting just outside and in front of them was the being that had activated the doors. That one remaining person that completed this human patchwork quilt that kept him from loosing all molecular cohesion: Luke Skywalker.

As it so happened to be, the day Tendra and Lando Jr Calrissian died was the same Day that Luke Leia, and Han had returned to Shidu Maad. In fact the Calrissian Family had planned to be there to welcome the trio back from their impromptu... sabbatical? ... exile? Lando was not supposed to be here grieving his lost family. He was supposed to be with them: Dead. No, not in the all too real feeling of not being able to go on without them but in the reality that he was supposed to be traveling with Tendra and Chance until a last minute business detour had caused them to part ways with the intent to rendezvous at Shidu Maad.

For the last 25,000 years, interstellar travel had been an increasingly safer way to travel. Hyperspace accidents still happened, but they almost happened to older, rundown refugee ships, or shot up pirate skiffs. They just didn't happen to million credit exec shuttles. Now was the time for utter grief and despair but soon everyone would have to face the word everybody was thinking but nobody dare say: "Sabotage."

Generally speaking when a beloved family member dies in hospital, the whole wing is aware of it. A sound that is stored up in one's soul for this specific occasion is released and comes out of the poor wretch as some howl or wail but being neither.

There is no speaking in generalities when an event like this happens at a Jedi outpost. The pain is not expressed through sound waves alone, but also through the ripples or in this case, a tsunami in the force. For the exception of a few, all those on Shidu felt the moment Lando Jr died. Chance being taken from the wreckage alive had been a miracle that everyone was thankful for. It was one flicker of hope in the shadow of Tendra's Death. To have that miracle undone left everyone around feeling betrayed by hope. As a result hope was banished, and would have to exist as an exile