New chapter a little bit early for you because I have a big long work day tomorrow.

17: I'm very grateful you're still reading and reviewing. I do, truly, feel bad for upsetting you so much. I'm working towards some happiness and healing for all of us, although we're still a few chapters away. Thanks for the baby name inspo!

This section has been cut down a lot in length due to me writing entirely too much misery. Hope the flow is okay. I really appreciate all you brave soldiers out there still reading.

Chapter 29: Lost

Bail and Korkie sat late into the night watching the fire that Bail had coaxed into life in the empty bedroom that Breha had allocated their guest. Korkie had protested at being granted a bedroom in such proximity to the Queen's, but Breha had made the sensible point that the infant would be distressed by a sudden distance from her familiar guardian. Korkie, silently, had felt relief in his own chest. He would not have to say goodbye just yet. He'd never planned to become attached to the child but supposed that after weeks of responding to her every cry, it had been inevitable.

"I take it you weren't working alone?" Bail ventured. "To directly confront the Inquisitors?"

Korkie deflected his gaze to the flickering flames and pulled his loaned blanket tighter about his shoulders.

"I'm a capable soldier now."

"I don't doubt it."

But Korkie knew that Bail did doubt him – not in his warriorhood, but in his honesty – and that the great diplomat, who presented such a faultless front to a Force-blind listener, had a great number of questions jostling in his mind, hoping to be translated to voice.

"I have been working with allies," Korkie conceded. "But you must understand I don't want to get them into any trouble."

"You know I wouldn't cause you any trouble."

Korkie lifted his eyes to meet Bail's and saw honesty in that grey-blue gaze. Cere Junda would have said the same to her Padawan, years ago, before the Imperial torture chambers.

"Some things can't be helped," he told Bail.

"Yes. That's true."

And perhaps Bail, too, had heard of those atrocities, for he was earnest in his concession.

"I won't press you, Korkie. But if you have the chance, I'd appreciate you give my regards to Master Windu. To tell him that I admire his work and would like to support him in it."

Korkie opened his mouth and failed to speak. Bail watched him with a crease of worry at his brow. And in the silence – or perhaps in the pallor of Korkie's face, as he felt the blood drain from it – the truth screamed loud and Bail understood it.

"Oh, Korkie... Please tell me he didn't-"

"In our most recent mission," Korkie managed, in faltering explanation. "When we rescued your daughter."

Bail's head bowed under the weight of that tragedy; he folded forward in his armchair, supported his forehead in his hands. Korkie was not sure he had ever seen the Senator in anything less than perfect posture.

"And we cannot even thank him," he lamented.

Korkie gave a heavy sigh.

"There is always life in the Force."

And that truth had been ingrained in him on his every lifeday when they remembered the death of Master Qui Gon, but Korkie wasn't sure what it meant, exactly, or why people said it in moments like this. For there was always life in the Force but where was Qui Gon Jinn? Where was Mace Windu? Where was his father, who'd told him that love was never lost, that he would be with him forever?

Obi Wan wasn't with him anymore. There were shadows of him in that face in the mirror but he wasn't where Korkie needed him. His voice never spoke to him, never showed him the way.

"I had hoped to fight alongside Master Windu for a better future," Bail murmured. "A resistance, Korkie. Breha and I are readying this planet to stand against the Empire when the time is right. Our economy has bought us tolerance. The Emperor keeps an arm's distance from our affairs and with that leniency there is some scope to covertly lay the foundations for a resistance."

The flames flickered in his eyes as he looked up at Korkie.

"That resistance will be far stronger with the help of the Jedi. With yourself and any allies you have."

Korkie shook his head. Cere and Kix would be raising thirteen children on Tanalorr as he sat here in this palace. Anakin and the Lars family would be giving Luke and Leia every hard-fought gift, from leather sandals to scavenged machine parts to precious drops of water, that they could.

"I have no Jedi allies, Bail," he lied. "Mace was the only one."

Bail nodded soberly.

"They have been difficult to track down. I know that there are survivors, I find glimpses here and there, but…"

And the dangerous words blurted from Korkie's mouth before he could think any better of them.

"I don't suppose you've heard anything of Ahsoka Tano?"

Bail shook his head, softening with the emotion Korkie could not hide.

"I'm afraid not, Korkie. Glimpses, possibilities, as I said. Perhaps a sighting on Shili. But nothing certain. I'm sorry."

Korkie pressed his fingernails into his palms and exhaled a steadying breath. He felt a little as though an Alderaanian mountain was sitting upon his chest.

"No matter."

And of course it mattered enormously but there was no good to be done in admitting it aloud.

"I won't ask you what happened to Padme," Bail murmured. "I think I know. If she were alive, she'd have spoken to me. She'd be fighting."

Korkie had forgotten until that cascading flow of grief in the Force that Bail and Padme had been best friends. That they had corresponded since their teenage years, learned to navigate the Senate together.

"She fought as best she could," Korkie managed.

Bail did not ask any more of him. Korkie was glad not to voice the details. But he could not escape the sight of Padme's face, drained of colour, and the slump of her body, too weak to hold her newborn twins.

"I admire your work to produce the beginnings of a resistance, Bail," he offered. "But it's too early for me. The children I rescued from Arkanis, the refugees I've moved across the galaxy… there's too much at stake. I fear I cannot yet protect them from the Emperor, should I attract his attention. I didn't do very well the last time I ran into General Grievous."

Bail nodded.

"The people and places you are protecting, Korkie…"

He found a smile.

"I have no doubt you have given them all you can."

And Korkie knew what he would say before he said it. Saw the faces dancing before those misted eyes. The Duchess Satine Kryze looked so beautiful in Bail's memory, crowned with the wreath of Kalevala. And Obi Wan Kenobi looked so strong.

"Your parents would be proud of you," Bail said.

Korkie had fortified himself against the words and it did not hurt quite so much as the last time he had heard them, when Mahdi had taken his hand at the breakfast table.

"Thank you, Bail," Korkie acquiesced. "I hope that we can speak of resistance together again soon. When the time is right."

Had it only been a year ago, when Korkie had been hot-headed enough to berate Mace Windu for his caution on Ryloth's second moon? In a year he had lost so many, and grown so old.

"You are welcome on Alderaan always," Bail told him. "Ready for the resistance or otherwise."

Korkie smiled.

"I suppose if I ever have time for a skiing holiday…"

Eyes crinkling, Bail shared in the joke but returned quickly to solemnity.

"Even if you simply need a bed, Korkie. A place to rest."

And Korkie could not deny how his heart ached, looking at the bed they had made up for him. All those layers of luxurious softness that had been routine before they had become a precious rarity. He had been raised amongst silk and satin and the finest wool. This bed could have been his mother's, where he had slept once upon a time in the years when she had thought him so fragile, when she had loved him so much, that she would keep him by her side all night if he had shown even the mildest signs of illness. He had shivered and sniffled within silken sheets and hadn't had the faintest idea that he was the luckiest child in the galaxy.

"It is very generous for the Queen Breha to offer these fine quarters to a grimy nomad such as myself."

Bail beheld him, from his broken nose to tattered boots, with a fond smile.

"You will always be the Prince of Mandalore," he advised. "And perhaps now an honorary member of the House Organa too."

Korkie stayed only a single night in the palace of Aldera. The royal bedding did not bring him an easy sleep. He woke with each cry of the new Princess Organa and listened to the padding footsteps and murmurs of Bail and Breha, resisting the desire to rise and comfort the infant himself. He had felt this emptiness once before, when Anakin had returned to Tatooine impossibly alive.

So the next day Korkie taught Bail and Breha everything he knew of the child and readied himself, much to Breha's consternation, to leave again.

"If you could stay only a few days longer until her naming ceremony-"

"I'm afraid I really have a lot to do, your Highness."

Breha regarded him with quiet disapproval, both at his use of her title and at his sentiment as a whole. But she seemed to know it was a fight she would not win.

"Do you have any ideas, then?"

Korkie raised his brows.

"For her name?"

"Yes."

"I'm not fit to advise on such a decision, Queen Breha."

The Queen all but rolled her eyes, patting the fussing infant at her chest.

"You are more qualified than Bail or I, Korkie."

"You'll soon know her far better than I do."

Breha nodded soberly.

"I'd have liked to name her for one of my dear friends," she reflected. "For your mother, or Padme. But to do so, I fear, would bring danger upon us all."

Korkie grimaced his agreement.

"What would your mother have named you, Korkie?" Breha asked. "Had you been a girl?"

Korkie could not help but bark out a laugh.

"Don't go to my mother for naming advice, your Highness. She named me after a famous runt of Mandalorian folklore."

Breha gave a fond smile.

"And yet it is such a lovely name."

Korkie shrugged his half-hearted agreement.

"And had you been a girl?" Breha pressed.

"I don't know," Korkie admitted. "She never said. She didn't plan my name. She decided upon it while bleeding to death during my premature delivery."

Breha looked vaguely impressed.

"I see."

"I used to ask her for a sister," Korkie mused. "Before I knew she couldn't have any other children. I had a doll that I used to pretend was my little sister."

The memory was so distant, so foggy. He had forgotten it entirely until this moment in the nursery, listening to the Princess Organa's fussing give way to sleep. He saw precious glimpses of his mother's hands, reached for the sound of her voice.

"We named the doll Ariarne, I think. After my mother's youngest cousin, who died in the coup."

Breha laid the infant, who had begun to breathe quietly, down in her cot now and regarded her face pensively.

"Ariarne," she repeated. "Our mid-winter baby."

"I really didn't mean to suggest you should name her that, your Highness," Korkie countered, alarmed. "It's not my decision to make."

"I like it," Breha mused. "Ariarne Winter."

They watched the infant sleep in silence. And such a great sadness, such a strange sadness, welled in Korkie then.

He had lost too many. Said too many farewells. And yet this moment now felt somehow like another death. There was the hot pressure of tears behind his eyes. This child had survived and would live a beautiful life. Why did he cry for her?

He looked at the infant in her cot and thought of Mace Windu on Tanalorr. There would be nothing left of him now but ashes, blowing in the wind and settling on the lush fields. Korkie should have been beside him as he had burned. Korkie should have said goodbye to him properly. But he had given himself to this child instead and now he would give her up.

The child would live, he repeated to himself. The child would live and grow into someone spectacular. And Mace Windu, too, was alive somewhere. Somewhere Korkie did not know how to reach. Somewhere with his mother and with his father and with Ariarne.

Korkie blinked the tears from his eyes.

There is always life in the Force.

"I asked you a question, Second Sister."

But Trilla could not remember for the life of her what it might have been. The pain had abated and there seemed to be nothing left of her brain. How could there be? For her body had coursed with violent electricity for what felt like lightyears. The pain of it had seized her and it had been strangely blissful, in a way, to be consumed by it. But reality was creeping back now. The synapses firing fitfully within her brain. It was disappointing, really, to find that she still existed within this fragile skin.

"Give me one reason," Sidious repeated, "that I should not kill you now."

It might have been nice to die. The amnesia of electrocution for eternity. And Trilla suspected for this reason that the Emperor did not truly mean to kill her.

"Would you really be swayed by my words, Master?"

Trilla spoke with a dripping disrespect that she never could have mustered in the days that she had lived to please him. There was no hope of pleasing him now.

"I am angry, Master. It is all that I have left. As you wanted for me."

With the return of her consciousness had come the return of that flame, dampened to embers but not extinguished by Sidious's torture. She had delivered the blow that had killed Mace Windu but Cere Junda had walked away from her. Had inflicted this torture upon her. And as long as Cere Junda lived, Trilla was prepared to live too.

"I feel your anger, Second Sister," the Emperor drawled. "But I do not yet believe in your strength."

Trilla lifted her chin.

"You needn't, Master. I know that I have failed you. But I will soon prove my strength again."

Sidious lifted his hands and Trilla was seized and felled by Force-lightning once more. Her muscles were alive with fire and yet as cold as ice. She saw bright, dancing stars in her vision as the air was squeezed from her lungs.

And then, relief.

"You will do well not to return to me, Second Sister, until you can prove your worth with a valuable scalp."

The bastard, in the absence of a body to parade, refused to believe that she had killed Windu.

"I will bring you what you seek, Master."

Trilla would not waste any more days ripping children from their mothers, nor raising a generation of downtrodden soldiers. She would hunt down those who had hurt her – Junda first, and then the Prince that had dared to ally himself with her. She would track their re-badged ships and destroy their safe havens. It wasn't about Project Harvester anymore. It was not even about winning back the favour of the Emperor.

It was personal, now. It was about her and her pain and her anger and that deep, aching wound inside her that could not heal any other way. Trilla, who should have been dead, would devote herself in this new life entirely to the business of revenge.

Ben returned to Yaga Minor after almost two whole lunar cycles when Mahdi had been beginning to lose hope. He did not come to The Yagai Hive nor did he come to Mahdi's apartment and cause a scene like Mahdi had feared – and later, traitorously hoped – that he would. In fact, Mahdi happened upon him entirely by accident when buying a drum of industrial cleaning fluid to re-stock his A-LT unit at the same grimy service station where Ben was refuelling yet another new piece-of-shit ship.

Mahdi's eyes caught first on the golden hair, illuminated by the orange glare of the cheap lights in the falling dusk, and then on the elegant curve of the neck that he had kissed with such desperation in the men's bathroom in The Yagai Hive. Ben, bent over the fuel pump, had not yet seen him. And Mahdi was struck as he looked at him by a thought that made some bizarre joke of the dispute that they had argued a hundred times: Ben, today, with shadowed eyes and sunken cheeks, looked old. And Mahdi felt suddenly an awkward child in the schoolyard.

"Uh, hi," he ventured, before reaching for the familiarity of a well-worn joke. "Another second-hand ship? That's a great way to convince me you're not a spice-runner."

Ben lifted his gaze and his face cracked – slowly, falteringly, but surely – into a smile.

"Well, it's probably fourth- or fifth-hand, Mahdi," he told him. "But can still limp its way along the Kessel Run, you see."

Mahdi abandoned his drum of cleaning fluid at his feet and placed his hands upon his hips.

"The Empire's black market crackdown squad caught you in the last one?"

Ben grimaced.

"Something like that."

Mahdi decided not to ask anything more.

"It's good to see you in one piece," he offered instead.

Ben looked a little guilty.

"I've only been back a day or two. I was going to come visit you. I just needed a couple naps, or…"

"Or an actual night's sleep?" Mahdi suggested. "Forgive me, but you look kind of…"

"Revolting, I know."

"I was going to say exhausted."

Ben made a non-committal noise of assent.

"I've been meaning to ask you to breakfast, when you're up for it," Mahdi said, before he could lose the courage to do so. "Riyan's been asking after you."

There was finally a faint dancing brightness in Ben's eyes.

"Really?"

"I mean, an outwardly platonic sort of breakfast, but…"

And the light was extinguished just as quickly as it had appeared.

"Right. Of course."

Mahdi groaned.

"Is that really such a problem?"

Ben shrugged, detaching the fuel pump from his ship with a hiss.

"I don't know. Do you find it problematic to lie to your siblings all the time? Or is that acceptable to you?"

Mahdi felt hurt and faintly caught out. He'd been brave, blast it, asking this of Ben. He'd been trying to tell him how kriffing pleased he was to have him back.

"An omission isn't the same as a lie," he reasoned.

Ben snorted.

"Have you ever considered a career in politics, Mahdi?"

"No," Mahdi snapped. "Because I've been too busy keeping out of trouble to keep my siblings safe."

Ben rolled his eyes as he inserted his credits into the payment console.

"You and I have different ideas of safe and unsafe."

"If you had a bit of my caution," Mahdi reasoned, "then you might have less scars."

Ben arched a brow.

"And I'd look better with my shirt off?"

Mahdi flushed.

"I meant I don't like seeing you get hurt. You look like you haven't eaten in weeks. What happened this time?"

Mahdi was vaguely aware that he'd never in his life done something so bold as have a kriffing lover's spat in the middle of a karking service station yard. The Yaga salesman inside was watching them with faint suspicion. But Ben was unimpressed by his courage.

"Can't tell you, Mahdi. It would be unsafe."

"Right. Thanks, I guess."

This wasn't what Mahdi had waited all those weeks for. He hadn't the faintest idea how he'd fumbled it all so badly. He picked up the drum of cleaning fluid with a groan.

"Look," he sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm really glad you're okay and it's good to see you again."

Ben could have been thinking anything; his blue eyes gave nothing away.

"You're still invited for breakfast if you want to come."

"Platonic breakfast?"

"Yeah. But if you don't want to come, I can come to yours sometime instead."

Ben sighed, somewhat mollified by Mahdi's offer.

"Alright. I'll think about it and I'll comm you."

He rubbed hand across his weary brow.

"But the next time you think about telling me I'm too young for you, Mahdi," he advised, vaulting up into his ship. "Remember that you're the one having an adolescent sexuality crisis."

"Oh, kriff off," Mahdi grumbled.

And it only stung so badly, Mahdi knew, as he lugged the cleaning fluid towards The Yagai Hive to begin another deafening fluorescent shift, because Ben was right.

The apartment in tenth sector of Yaga Minor was missing three unofficial tenants and still packed well beyond capacity: still they slept two to a bed, still the 'fresher ran out of hot water by the time the latest riser stumbled in. And yet somehow it felt so quiet in those weeks after Arkanis. There was no more sparring in the garage and no more arguments about property damage penalties. There was no more experimental cookery and no more laughter. The Hidden Path had completed in many ways its most successful mission and had so many further victories on its horizon: refugee runs that would deliver Force-sensitives to true safety on Tanalorr. The thirteen children were by all reports doing well with Cere and Kix. It was summer in tenth sector and yet the apartment seemed to repel the sun.

"How's Mahdi going?" Kawlan ventured, over a bleak rehydrated dinner.

Korkie grimaced. He could hardly deliver the laughter Kawlan was seeking.

"Stalled again," he reported.

Which was more or less true. Whatever relationship he had with Mahdi was going along about as well as his latest scavenged ship: in fits and starts. Korkie had not accepted the invite to the platonic breakfast and Mahdi had come to the apartment instead, and they had gotten what they wanted from each other but not what they had needed, and then found something else to argue about instead. Which really wasn't what Korkie had needed for his mental health when Kawlan had suggested he go dancing and fall in love all those moons ago.

"What happened?" Kawlan asked.

Korkie shrugged.

"We'd be going along better if I were a woman, I suspect."

"I see."

Korkie chewed at an inadequately rehydrated protein cube.

"And he tells me I'm the kid," he grumbled, "and he's the adult."

Kawlan sighed.

"I think you're both still growing and finding yourselves."

Korkie rolled his eyes.

"It's not that kriffing hard, Kawlan. I don't think there's anything wrong with me. And I'm just a stupid seventeen-standard-year-old piece of jailbait."

Kawlan spluttered at his phrasing.

He had almost outgrown the title, Korkie realised. He was halfway to eighteen-standard now. Time was rushing on and he just didn't seem to be getting any wiser.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Kawlan ventured, "because I've had to infer everything you haven't told me about your real life… but weren't you raised by Satine Kryze?"

Korkie cocked a brow.

"So what if I was?"

Kawlan shook his head with a half-smile.

"She was a famous defender of sentient rights who I presume loved you very much."

Korkie snorted.

"I never even told her, Kawlan."

Kawlan looked faintly surprised.

"Do you think she knew?"

"Maybe. It just wasn't important. There was no need to talk about it."

Kawlan gave him a knowing look.

"Because you knew she'd accept you."

"Yeah."

"Do you see my point?"

Korkie sat back in his chair with a sigh.

"The problem with your point, Kawlan, is that you can't blame Mahdi's disapproving parents because he doesn't have any."

"I'm sure there's a good reason for how he feels, Korkie."

"You're of much more generous spirit than I am."

Kawlan rose and cleared the plates.

"I think you have generous spirit within you too, Korkie. I think it's just hard to find after everything that happened on Arkanis and now your relationship with Mahdi is suffering."

Korkie grimaced. Kawlan didn't know half of what had happened on Arkanis. He didn't have it in him to explain Cere's betrayal aloud.

"You could write a relationship column for the HoloNet, Kawlan," he grumbled instead.

Kawlan looked pleased by the suggestion.

"We'll call it Kawlan's Counsel," he posed.

"Kawlan's Commandments," Korkie suggested, rising to help him with the dishes.

"My first commandment," Kawlan decreed, "is not to be a dick to Mahdi when I'm sure he's already struggling enough."

Korkie groaned.

"And what about taking my side once in a while?"

Kawlan gave him a feigned cuff to the back of the head with a soapy hand.

"I'll take your side when you're being nice again."

"And I'll be nice again," Korkie grumbled, "when I'm not so karking stressed out."

Kawlan nodded. Korkie felt his compassion deep and warm in the Force.

"Everything's been hard without Mace," he voiced.

Korkie gave a stoic nod of his own and said nothing. He couldn't say it any better. There were refugee runs to make and Inquisitors to avoid and the memory of Korkie's great failure on Arkanis hanging over his head. Everything felt really kriffing hard.

And nothing seemed to get much easier, even as Cody and Kawlan pressed the Hidden Path determinedly onwards. That blasted Inquisitor from Arkanis had made a habit of showing up on every run they made – on Jabiim, where they offered refugees passage to Tanalorr, then on Bothawui, where they routinely made their fuel stops, and most disturbingly on Rodia, which they had taken to using as a jumping-off point before the perilous journey into the Koboh Abyss. They'd pulled off an escape each time but the margin was becoming ever-tighter.

They'd taken precautions as they'd dared to return to Tanalorr again, taking the long way and venturing into the sort of space where one couldn't help but wonder whether they had left the galaxy entirely. And yet trouble had somehow found them once more.

"Get off route," Korkie instructed. "We can't show her we're interested in the Abyss."

Boil had a sheen of sweat upon his forehead as he dipped and swerved to avoid the Inquisitor's pursuing cannon fire.

"And where am I supposed to take us instead?"

Korkie shrugged.

"Take the hyperlane to Christophsis. Then we've got a choice of heading inbound on the Corellian Run, heading galactic west towards Naboo or heading galactic south to…"

He frowned.

"What's south of Christophsis?"

"Spice Terminus," Trapper contributed, from the gun controls.

Korkie groaned.

"I'm personally less worried about where we're going and more worried about surviving the shoot-out," Kawlan contributed, voice muffled as he called upwards through the open trapdoor from the control room beneath their feet. "The shields are at half-power. And something's smoking."

A bred soldier like Cody was never meant to admit it, but they were really, truly, karking kriffed. Korkie spoke with a sort of deranged civility.

"It would be delightful if you could identify the source of the smoke, Kawlan."

There were clangs and muttered curses as their companion removed a panel.

"I don't think you'll be delighted to hear it," was the eventual decision.

Korkie grimaced.

"Hyperdrive or not hyperdrive?"

"Hyperdrive."

"Right. I'll take care of matters, in that case."

Cody cursed beneath his breath.

"You are going to take care of matters how exactly, Korkie?"

Korkie gestured at the weapons on his belt.

"The old-fashioned way."

He spoke with all the authority that his mother the autocrat had and Cody didn't know whether to argue or obey. The Hidden Path had lost its leader when Mace had died and they hadn't had the focus or clarity to re-organise themselves. They'd rushed in headfirst, mission after mission, flight after flight, in the silent hope that each life saved would somehow tip the scales in their favour, would make the loss of Mace Windu fractionally easier to bear.

Cody reached for his own weapons and fell into step with the young man.

"I trust you know we can't afford to lose you."

Korkie expression was dark and devoid of humour.

"We can't afford to lose anyone," he muttered. "We're stretched bare, Cody. Please don't come with me."

"I'm coming with you."

"It's a bad idea."

"It's a bad idea either way."

They were in all sorts of kriffing trouble. But talking about it was a waste of precious time.

The sheer audacity of Kenobi's bastard son was truly astounding; he had jettisoned himself from his doomed ship and attached his escape-pod, like some belligerent mosquito, to Trilla's own. Two blades of black and blue were carving their way through her hull. As though the stupid teenager was so impatient, so ready to die, that he could not wait five minutes for her to blow apart the larger ship and kill them all.

He leapt into the hold, followed by a clone soldier, and greeted her with his usual idiot's smile, perhaps a little strained.

"Where are all your buckethead friends?"

He gritted out the taunt as he wrangled the sheer speed of her 'saber strikes with his own growing strength.

"Have you been demoted, Trilla?"

He had learned her name. It shouldn't have infuriated Trilla in the way that it did. She suddenly cared nothing for the wounded ship gaining distance from her. With a cry of fury, she kicked him and relished the slam of his body against the wall. She might have killed him right there and then, had the clone not demanded her attention with an attack of his own. She shoved him violently with the Force, his blaster fire skewed wayward, and turned back to Korkie.

"Where is Cere Junda?" she demanded.

The young man's expression darkened as he met her blade with his own.

"I don't know, Trilla," he gritted out. "We don't work with her anymore. You're better off leaving us the hell alone-"

They both shook with the effort of their locked combat. His shields were better than his Jar'kai; Trilla could not read him. She was forced to release him, to whirl and contend with the clone soldier again, spinning her double-sided blade to engage both opponents simultaneously.

"Give me Junda," she snarled, "and perhaps I will indulge your request."

Korkie did not answer; with a tug in the Force a panel came loose and struck Trilla in the back. She hissed with pain.

"You stupid Mando-"

"I'm honoured you remember my heritage. All you ex-Temple-goers are always saying Jedi-this, Kenobi-that-"

She punished him for his impudence with a strike that had him gasping with the proximity of her blade to his fingers. The skin would be blistering but he did not acknowledge the pain. Outside the viewport, the fleeing refugees were little more than a speck now. Trilla was losing them and the worst of it was that she didn't even care. Sidious had told her that her anger would make her more powerful. But it had turned her to a hopeless mess.

"Your heritage means nothing," she spat. "You are lost."

She brought down her blade and was finally rewarded; the clone stumbled, wounded, and fell to the floor. And Korkie Kryze turned very suddenly to a new person entirely. She had never quite seen him like this. Angry. Frightened. Unbalanced.

"What's your plan, noble hero?" Trilla taunted. "How will you fix this mess of yours?"

He yelped with the pain of a sweep of the red lightsaber that he failed to evade. The blow was blunted but not deflected by his battered breastplate. Trilla would kill him and let it be another blow to Cere Junda when she finally faced her. Another young life to carry upon her buckling conscience.

"Do I look like I have a plan, Trilla?" he asked her.

She looked at him, a wild grin upon his face and yet such pain beaming through the Force, and was struck by the realisation that he was, perhaps, just as mad as she was.

The galaxy had owed them a miracle and they'd got it. Although it was, perhaps, unfair to chalk Cody's heroics up to a miracle. With a perfectly aimed blaster shot the Second Sister was disarmed at Korkie's moment of dire need and they managed a hectic exit back into their escape pod, leaving the Inquisitor's ship irreparably damaged by the hole they had cut on their way in and the Second Sister scrambling for an escape of her own.

"Good kriffing work Cody!" Korkie exclaimed. "I was worried she'd hurt you, but-"

His voice caught in his throat. Cody was seated beside him, his posture as military-perfect as always. But something about his silhouette in profile was not quite right.

"Cody…"

The clone gave Korkie a tight smile.

"I'm fine. It won't kill me. Just hurts."

And the pieces fell heavily into place in Korkie's aching mind.

"Cody! Your arm!"

For Cody was steering their escape pod with his left hand. He had no other.

"Can't ask to lose a limb a better way," he reasoned, with forced bravado. "I don't think it's bleeding at all. The lightsaber sealed everything right off."

But he could not lie away the whiteness of his face. Korkie could not find the words to speak.

"Don't look like that, Korkie," Cody pleaded.

"Like what?"

"Like you're angry."

Korkie gave a heavy sigh.

"I am angry. I told you not to come with me."

"I know."

"You could have died!"

"And you would have died without me!"

They fell into a miserable stalemate. Cody took his solitary hand off the steering console and activated his comms.

"We've taken out her ship. She'll be stranded. Meet us on the nearest moon?"

Kawlan's voice crackled through.

"Well done, Cody. That'll be the second moon of Iskalon. Catch you there soon."

"Someone better have the medi-kit ready," Korkie grumbled.

"Someone hurt?" Kawlan asked.

"Hurt but fine," Cody gritted out. "Everything is perfectly fine."

In truth, of course, nothing really felt even halfway fine, even as Cody accepted Trapper's jab of pre-drawn morphine and clumsy treatment of the stump of his arm with the packet of dressings labelled 'lightsaber wound'. (Kix, before taking up his new post on Tanalorr, had made sure to leave them with the galaxy's most idiot-proof medi-kit.) The pain waned but did not subside. Cody sat against the cold wall of their new ship and felt the throbbing ache of his lost limb. He watched Korkie pace back and forth, jaw tight and face ashen, fiddling with the map and navigator controls, restless and grieving.

Cody would gladly have given far more than his right arm for that boy. But although he had saved his life, he didn't feel as though he'd won. Didn't feel as though he'd done it right. He thought of his old friend – his first friend, beyond his brothers – and wished he could say sorry.

I tried to protect him, Obi Wan. I tried everything. But I couldn't quite…

He'd saved his life but the young man was wounded too. There was so much Cody had not been able to protect him from. From all the ugly things that no sentient, let alone no child, should ever witness. From the crushing weight of survivor's guilt. From the anger that enshrouded him.

I can't talk to him like you could, Obi Wan. I can't give him what he needs.

He was no father and no Jedi Master. Cody didn't know how to give anything but his broken body for the ones he loved. There seemed to be no way of winning anymore.

And with Korkie, too, matters were far from perfectly fine, even as they delivered the refugees into the care of their allies on Rishi, from where Cere would collect them and deliver them safely to Tanalorr. It did not feel fine over the days and then weeks that it took them – taking every possible precaution, which was to say taking every possible detour – to return to Yaga Minor. Korkie had placed Cody in danger and caused him to lose his arm and nothing could be fine until Korkie had made it right again.

"Something needs to change, Kawlan," he announced.

They were at work in their old garage, Korkie in a wrestling match with a stuck bolt in the engine of their most recently acquired ship.

"We can't afford to lose any more limbs," he pressed. "Not to mention any more lives. It's a miracle we all made it back to Yaga Minor this time."

Kawlan, at work sealing the many defects in the ship's coolant pipes, grimaced.

"It's dangerous work," he reasoned. "I don't know how we're going to change that. We can trial new routes, upgrade the shields, but-"

"I'm going to pursue the Second Sister," Korkie declared.

He saw Kawlan's mounting protest and pressed on.

"I think she's working alone after the disaster on Arkanis. She never has stormtrooper or Inquisitor back-up anymore. If I can defeat her, then I think we're safe again."

"If you defeat her," Kawlan stressed. "Which – and I don't mean to criticise you, Korkie – you haven't managed to do yet."

"This time, I will. I'll-"

"Not alone, Korkie."

Cody had emerged in the garage doorway, what remained of his upper arm freshly bandaged. They hadn't the money for a prosthesis yet.

"And before you get shitty," he warned. "I'm not volunteering myself."

He picked up a wrench with his left hand and got to work on Korkie's stubborn bolt.

"You need to speak to Cere about all of his, Korkie," he advised. "I'm no Jedi but I think I know anger when I see it. And I know that's a dangerous thing for you. You need to give yourself a couple of weeks on Tanalorr-"

Korkie scowled.

"Cere is the last person I'm speaking to about all this."

He did not want to speak to Cere and was even less enthused by the prospect of returning to Tanalorr and hallucinating everyone except his father again. He pressed on before Cody and Kawlan could mount further protest.

"Cere and I… had an argument, alright? And I just need you both to trust me when I say that I can't speak to her about this."

His eyes were swimming with sudden tears. He needed Mace, blast it. Mace had been the only one he could trust. The only one who knew the path forward. The only one strong enough to carry them there. And now the path was lost and Korkie had perhaps not felt this alone in a very long time.

"And I know I've been arguing with everyone and not very pleasant to be around," he went on, voice strangled. "So I'm going away. To get my armour. To stop the Second Sister."

He swallowed hard against the rising emotion.

"I'm going to make all of this right."

If you feel like yelling out all this angst, 'Lost' by Camp Cope will exorcise it for you. An apt namesake for this chapter.

Next chapter, our overtraumatised-developing-frontal-lobe Korkie will at least see his family on Tatooine when he goes to collect his armour. We visit Tanalorr. Cere rescues a famous recruit who I hope you'll be excited to see.

xx - S.