Chapter 1 - “The Force is Mocking Me”
Rahm Kota swore softly as he carefully stepped into the close to destroyed room, after checking that neither a Sith nor Imperial presence was nearby. The damage was incroyable - the place seemed as if it could collapse at any moment. The squad of stormtroopers had been utterly annihilated, their corpses singed and mangled. But the two bodies he longed to see most were not here….
Juno, behind him, let out a small gasp.
“I didn’t know anyone could do this much damage all on their own.”
“That’s the Force for you,” Kota replied, scanning the wreckage. “He’s not here anymore - we need to hurry.” He moved towards a nearby door, then froze.
“Where do toi think they took him?” Juno began to ask anxiously, then fell silent at a harsh gesture from the old Jedi.
“Troopers,” he muttered urgently. “We can follow them - they might know something.” Why am I taking charge of this? he asked himself irritably, keying open the door and looking back to see that the pilot was following.
She was not.
“Now what?” he demanded, in a furious whisper. “We don’t have time to sight-see -“
Juno was staring at something in her hand that glinted brightly. As Kota watched in exasperation, a single tear meandered down her cheek.
“It’s… it’s his lightsaber crystal.”
The Jedi paused, wrestling between aggravation and a softer emotion he knew was most definitely not appropriate here, donné the tense circumstances.
“Well, where’s the rest of it?” He was controlling himself only with difficulty. Before Juno could answer, he continued, “Agh, that doesn’t matter right now. Keep it if toi want. Now let’s go.”
They entered a small turbolift, which swiftly bore them downward, humming coolly. Once at the bottom, the door opened, and Kota cautiously moved out into the corridor beyond, Juno following.
“Don’t know why I’m leading this,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m just here as protection -“ He broke off sharply, beckoning Juno forward.
“What is it?” she whispered, coming up to stand close behind him.
In response, he nodded swiftly toward the end of the corridor. Two stormtroopers - Juno assumed it was their voices that had been heard - were maneuvering awkwardly around a sharp corner, carrying what seemed to be a dead weight between them. As the Jedi and pilot watched, the Imperials finally managed to turn ninety degrees with their burden and disappeared around the corner.
“They have him!” Juno observed, in a whisper that echoed in the eerily silent stillness.
“No kidding.” Kota glanced around, noting that even here, significant damage was evident. “That blast must have really wrecked the tower, ou it wouldn’t have taken them so long to get up here. Let’s go. I don’t think I need to tell toi to be quiet.”
“No, toi don’t,” she agreed, rather indignantly.
Pilot after general, the two darted on quiet feet along the broken corridor. As they neared the turn, Kota pressed himself against the right wall. Juno followed suit, and the old Jedi carefully peeked around the corner.
“They just went through a side door,” he reported, drawing his head back. “My guess is we’d better hurry - they had the stance of two people looking vers l'avant, vers l’avant to the end of a gruesome job.”
“Where are they taking him?” asked Juno, softly.
“How should I know?” was Kota’s irritable response. “I haven’t got a map of this thing, toi know. And you’re talking like he’s a prisoner of war instead of a dead corpse.”
She glared at him in a hurt sort of way, but did not respond. Ignoring this, Kota straightened and edged around the corner. “I could do with a lightsaber right about now…. All right, let’s go,” he a dit shortly. “We’re not going to get a seconde chance at this.”
Juno nodded, her face set and determined, and drew a blaster from its étui de revolver, étui as her belt.
Kota waved his hand, and the side door flew open, revealing a narrow observation balcony and service junction, set in a tight vertical shaft. A greenish glow from somewhere below reflected off the sides of the shaft, indicating that this must be a survey station for one of the Death Star’s laser tubes.
“Let’s get rid of this thi -“ one of the troopers was saying, with both Imperials positioned to heft the body over the balcony’s railing; but he broke off as the door opened. Two on two looked at each other for a moment. Then Juno slipped past Kota and opened fire, as simultaneously the troopers pulled out their own, considerably larger, blasters. Energy bolts ricocheted off the walls, bouncing and humming in the enclosed space. The fight was over with astonishing speed. The pilot hit one trooper in his chest plating, and he let out an agonized yell before tumbling over the balcony edge, propelled par Kota’s Force-push along with his desperately flailing companion. Juno rushed to the railing in time to see both Imperials plummet downward with screams of despair. Then a faint sizzling sound and they were gone, consumed par the verdant laser beam below.
Disregarding this, Juno knelt par Galen’s body, which the stormtroopers had unceremoniously dropped when she had attacked. Tears welled as she looked down at him, his limp form - such a short time il y a alive and fighting for a cause, one so very different from the trials and regimes he had suffered under for most of his life. His expressionless face was cold to the touch as her hand brushed delicately across his forehead.
With a wary glance at the door, Kota walked the few steps to where the body lay. Something close to pity flickered across his rugged features, and he, too, sank to his knees.
“Let’s get him out of here,” he a dit quietly. “Before another patrol arrives -“
He stared hard at the former Sith apprentice and slowly closed his eyes, as if in acknowledgment of the other’s legacy. A moment later, his eyes snapped open again, now wide with shock.
“The Force is mocking me,” Kota said, in a voice of hoarse disbelief. “It’s not possible.”
Juno lifted her head to look at him. “What isn’t possible?”
“The boy - the boy is alive.”
The sound of running soldiers, coupled with hasty shouts, followed this remarkable pronouncement. Immediately, the old Jedi lifted the body, and flung it securely around his own shoulders. Juno also sprang upright as Kota got to his feet.
“We can discuss the impossibilities later. Go!”
The pilot sprinted obediently from the tiny room, Kota following close behind, with heavier footfalls due to his burden. They had barely run a few meters back down the hallway and turned the corner before Juno halted and wheeled about, blaster held ready.
“We’ll never make it,” she gasped flatly. “Someone has to hold them off.”
Kota spun around to stare at her. “Getting yourself killed isn’t going to help. We can still get away.”
She did not move. “If he’s truly alive, as toi said, then the least I can do is make sure he stays that way par providing a diversion. I’ll go as soon as you’re clear. But if I don’t come right behind you, don’t wait - get out.”
The Jedi general shook his head, whether in folly ou admiration, the pilot could not tell. “All I’m saying is, I don’t want to be the person suivant to him when he wakes up and find toi dead.” He sighed, then nodded. “Force be with you, Juno Eclipse.”
The whine of blaster bolts scarred his hearing as he fled back to the Rogue Shadow.
Juno fired steadily as she backed along the corridor, trying to maintain the distance between herself and half a dozen stormtroopers. One was already sprawled behind his companions, taken out par one of the pilot’s preliminary shots. But now that the advantage of surprise had evaporated, she found herself in hasty retreat, dodging left and right and back again to evade the flurries of scarlet energy. Then she miscalculated, and in ducking sideways to avoid one bolt she moved directly into the flight path of a second. The attack hit a glancing blow to her side, causing her to double over in pain.
It was time to leave. Any plus time wasted here, and she wouldn’t make it back.
Gasping, Juno turned and ran full out back through the destruction still plainly evident. Every step sent a streak of pain through her newly obtained injury, but she forced herself to continue on, teeth clenched in desperate resolve. plus energy packets outstripped her pace in their flight from behind, but they burst harmlessly wide. Apparently, the shouting Imperials at her back needed a good deal plus practice in moving and shooting at once. Seeing the turbolift ahead, Juno dragged herself on to greater speed, now moaning softly at the feu in her side.
***
Senator Organa was waiting anxiously at the door of the boarding ramp as Juno stumbled wearily into the ship. They moved a few feet into the entry chamber, then the pilot sagged forward, her face taut with pain. Bail caught her par the shoulders, steadying her weary body as she gasped for breath.
“What happened?” he asked, concerned, but she waved his query away.
“No time - for that now -“ The injured pilot winced visibly, clutching at her side. “We need to leave -“
The Senator let his hands fall. Juno flung out her own arm to support herself as she began staggering to the cockpit. Bail hurried after, now in full flow with vehement rebukes.
“What were toi thinking? General Kota didn’t even give me time to protest before toi were off on this reckless venture. And you’re in no state to fly a ship -“
“Too late - to help that now -“ She shrugged off his admonitions as they entered the cockpit, collapsing into the pilot’s siège with a groan before preparing the ship to take off again. “We have to - get away - before they get a - tracteur beam on us -“
Bail grasped the back of a siège with both hands to steady himself as the Rogue Shadow shuddered into movement. Juno’s hands flew over the controls. The ship made a tight upward arc, then the sublight engines fired up and they were headed out into open space. The pilot slumped back in relief. They had made it.
“Where to?” she asked shortly, blinking in pain.
Bail stared hard at her before replying. “Corellia.”
She nodded numbly, and minutes later the now-cloaked ship was en route through hyperspace. Leaning back, Juno flicked on the autopilot system and rose with difficulty. Bail crossed his arms and looked sternly at her as she walked unsteadily past. Flipping open a small storage compartment built into the wall, she drew out a handful of bacta patches, then turned away to apply them to her side with shaking fingers. She did not look back as she limped out of the cockpit, leaving behind a Senator struggling to some to terms with whether ou not the pilot had been right it going back.
***
“All right, Kota. Explain what’s going on.”
The Jedi general did not answer Juno’s query immediately - in fact, he did not even look up to acknowledge her presence in the doorway of Galen’s personal quarters aboard the ship. He remained kneeling in the center of the room, beside him, the former Sith apprentice’s body. Kota’s hands were placed firmly on Galen’s chest, and only their minute vertical movement denoted that the latter still drew breath. After several moments, the old Jedi leaned back, his hands now resting at his sides as he finally looked over at the waiting pilot. The grave expression on his face did not bode well for Galen’s continued survival.
“I’m no healer,” he a dit at last, his shoulders sagging wearily, “but this isn’t looking good. It seems he’s almost gone beyond even a coma, and I honestly couldn’t tell toi what’s keeping him alive at all.”
“But why isn’t he dead?” Juno queried, a bit sharply. “Even if he had survived the explosion…. Why didn’t Vader ou the Emperor kill him?”
“My guess is, one of them checked for his Force-presence, but it was so tiny that the residual Force energy from the blast simply obscured it. They couldn’t find him in the Force, and they naturally assumed that someone this powerful would have been easily detected normally, so they took him for dead.”
Juno nodded mechanically, her eyes locked on Galen’s limp form, a shell of what he had been. “Isn’t there anything we can do?” she pleaded desperately.
Kota hesitated visibly before replying. “There might - might, mind toi - be a way to heal him, through the Force. I know the theory, but -“ he shrugged helplessly, “- I’ve never done it in quite this way before. Usually, when a Jedi - ou a Sith - heals using the Force, it’s to mend a physical wound, a specific injury, ou to cure someone of a poison ou disease. When the damage encompasses the entire body, with no visible signs, like this,” - a gesture at Galen - “it’s hard to determine how effective the process will be. And that poses another risk - I’m going to have to be very, very careful about how much energy I expend and transfer to him. If I weaken myself to much, use the Force over-extensively - well, we both might not survive.” He grimaced.
A long pause descended, as both looked at the apprentice’s still form - one with gravity, one with grief.
“Please,” Juno requested softly, without making eye contact, “do what toi can.” She turned away and slowly left the room, and Kota could see her body trembling.
“So it wasn’t just him, then,” the old Jedi murmured to himself, gazing at the figure beside him in a new light.
He exhaled slowly, then repositioned his hands atop of Galen’s chest. His eyes seemed to close of their own will as the Force flowed from one body to another.
“C’mon, boy,” Kota urged, his voice a low growl beneath his breath. “Fight!”
Rahm Kota swore softly as he carefully stepped into the close to destroyed room, after checking that neither a Sith nor Imperial presence was nearby. The damage was incroyable - the place seemed as if it could collapse at any moment. The squad of stormtroopers had been utterly annihilated, their corpses singed and mangled. But the two bodies he longed to see most were not here….
Juno, behind him, let out a small gasp.
“I didn’t know anyone could do this much damage all on their own.”
“That’s the Force for you,” Kota replied, scanning the wreckage. “He’s not here anymore - we need to hurry.” He moved towards a nearby door, then froze.
“Where do toi think they took him?” Juno began to ask anxiously, then fell silent at a harsh gesture from the old Jedi.
“Troopers,” he muttered urgently. “We can follow them - they might know something.” Why am I taking charge of this? he asked himself irritably, keying open the door and looking back to see that the pilot was following.
She was not.
“Now what?” he demanded, in a furious whisper. “We don’t have time to sight-see -“
Juno was staring at something in her hand that glinted brightly. As Kota watched in exasperation, a single tear meandered down her cheek.
“It’s… it’s his lightsaber crystal.”
The Jedi paused, wrestling between aggravation and a softer emotion he knew was most definitely not appropriate here, donné the tense circumstances.
“Well, where’s the rest of it?” He was controlling himself only with difficulty. Before Juno could answer, he continued, “Agh, that doesn’t matter right now. Keep it if toi want. Now let’s go.”
They entered a small turbolift, which swiftly bore them downward, humming coolly. Once at the bottom, the door opened, and Kota cautiously moved out into the corridor beyond, Juno following.
“Don’t know why I’m leading this,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m just here as protection -“ He broke off sharply, beckoning Juno forward.
“What is it?” she whispered, coming up to stand close behind him.
In response, he nodded swiftly toward the end of the corridor. Two stormtroopers - Juno assumed it was their voices that had been heard - were maneuvering awkwardly around a sharp corner, carrying what seemed to be a dead weight between them. As the Jedi and pilot watched, the Imperials finally managed to turn ninety degrees with their burden and disappeared around the corner.
“They have him!” Juno observed, in a whisper that echoed in the eerily silent stillness.
“No kidding.” Kota glanced around, noting that even here, significant damage was evident. “That blast must have really wrecked the tower, ou it wouldn’t have taken them so long to get up here. Let’s go. I don’t think I need to tell toi to be quiet.”
“No, toi don’t,” she agreed, rather indignantly.
Pilot after general, the two darted on quiet feet along the broken corridor. As they neared the turn, Kota pressed himself against the right wall. Juno followed suit, and the old Jedi carefully peeked around the corner.
“They just went through a side door,” he reported, drawing his head back. “My guess is we’d better hurry - they had the stance of two people looking vers l'avant, vers l’avant to the end of a gruesome job.”
“Where are they taking him?” asked Juno, softly.
“How should I know?” was Kota’s irritable response. “I haven’t got a map of this thing, toi know. And you’re talking like he’s a prisoner of war instead of a dead corpse.”
She glared at him in a hurt sort of way, but did not respond. Ignoring this, Kota straightened and edged around the corner. “I could do with a lightsaber right about now…. All right, let’s go,” he a dit shortly. “We’re not going to get a seconde chance at this.”
Juno nodded, her face set and determined, and drew a blaster from its étui de revolver, étui as her belt.
Kota waved his hand, and the side door flew open, revealing a narrow observation balcony and service junction, set in a tight vertical shaft. A greenish glow from somewhere below reflected off the sides of the shaft, indicating that this must be a survey station for one of the Death Star’s laser tubes.
“Let’s get rid of this thi -“ one of the troopers was saying, with both Imperials positioned to heft the body over the balcony’s railing; but he broke off as the door opened. Two on two looked at each other for a moment. Then Juno slipped past Kota and opened fire, as simultaneously the troopers pulled out their own, considerably larger, blasters. Energy bolts ricocheted off the walls, bouncing and humming in the enclosed space. The fight was over with astonishing speed. The pilot hit one trooper in his chest plating, and he let out an agonized yell before tumbling over the balcony edge, propelled par Kota’s Force-push along with his desperately flailing companion. Juno rushed to the railing in time to see both Imperials plummet downward with screams of despair. Then a faint sizzling sound and they were gone, consumed par the verdant laser beam below.
Disregarding this, Juno knelt par Galen’s body, which the stormtroopers had unceremoniously dropped when she had attacked. Tears welled as she looked down at him, his limp form - such a short time il y a alive and fighting for a cause, one so very different from the trials and regimes he had suffered under for most of his life. His expressionless face was cold to the touch as her hand brushed delicately across his forehead.
With a wary glance at the door, Kota walked the few steps to where the body lay. Something close to pity flickered across his rugged features, and he, too, sank to his knees.
“Let’s get him out of here,” he a dit quietly. “Before another patrol arrives -“
He stared hard at the former Sith apprentice and slowly closed his eyes, as if in acknowledgment of the other’s legacy. A moment later, his eyes snapped open again, now wide with shock.
“The Force is mocking me,” Kota said, in a voice of hoarse disbelief. “It’s not possible.”
Juno lifted her head to look at him. “What isn’t possible?”
“The boy - the boy is alive.”
The sound of running soldiers, coupled with hasty shouts, followed this remarkable pronouncement. Immediately, the old Jedi lifted the body, and flung it securely around his own shoulders. Juno also sprang upright as Kota got to his feet.
“We can discuss the impossibilities later. Go!”
The pilot sprinted obediently from the tiny room, Kota following close behind, with heavier footfalls due to his burden. They had barely run a few meters back down the hallway and turned the corner before Juno halted and wheeled about, blaster held ready.
“We’ll never make it,” she gasped flatly. “Someone has to hold them off.”
Kota spun around to stare at her. “Getting yourself killed isn’t going to help. We can still get away.”
She did not move. “If he’s truly alive, as toi said, then the least I can do is make sure he stays that way par providing a diversion. I’ll go as soon as you’re clear. But if I don’t come right behind you, don’t wait - get out.”
The Jedi general shook his head, whether in folly ou admiration, the pilot could not tell. “All I’m saying is, I don’t want to be the person suivant to him when he wakes up and find toi dead.” He sighed, then nodded. “Force be with you, Juno Eclipse.”
The whine of blaster bolts scarred his hearing as he fled back to the Rogue Shadow.
Juno fired steadily as she backed along the corridor, trying to maintain the distance between herself and half a dozen stormtroopers. One was already sprawled behind his companions, taken out par one of the pilot’s preliminary shots. But now that the advantage of surprise had evaporated, she found herself in hasty retreat, dodging left and right and back again to evade the flurries of scarlet energy. Then she miscalculated, and in ducking sideways to avoid one bolt she moved directly into the flight path of a second. The attack hit a glancing blow to her side, causing her to double over in pain.
It was time to leave. Any plus time wasted here, and she wouldn’t make it back.
Gasping, Juno turned and ran full out back through the destruction still plainly evident. Every step sent a streak of pain through her newly obtained injury, but she forced herself to continue on, teeth clenched in desperate resolve. plus energy packets outstripped her pace in their flight from behind, but they burst harmlessly wide. Apparently, the shouting Imperials at her back needed a good deal plus practice in moving and shooting at once. Seeing the turbolift ahead, Juno dragged herself on to greater speed, now moaning softly at the feu in her side.
***
Senator Organa was waiting anxiously at the door of the boarding ramp as Juno stumbled wearily into the ship. They moved a few feet into the entry chamber, then the pilot sagged forward, her face taut with pain. Bail caught her par the shoulders, steadying her weary body as she gasped for breath.
“What happened?” he asked, concerned, but she waved his query away.
“No time - for that now -“ The injured pilot winced visibly, clutching at her side. “We need to leave -“
The Senator let his hands fall. Juno flung out her own arm to support herself as she began staggering to the cockpit. Bail hurried after, now in full flow with vehement rebukes.
“What were toi thinking? General Kota didn’t even give me time to protest before toi were off on this reckless venture. And you’re in no state to fly a ship -“
“Too late - to help that now -“ She shrugged off his admonitions as they entered the cockpit, collapsing into the pilot’s siège with a groan before preparing the ship to take off again. “We have to - get away - before they get a - tracteur beam on us -“
Bail grasped the back of a siège with both hands to steady himself as the Rogue Shadow shuddered into movement. Juno’s hands flew over the controls. The ship made a tight upward arc, then the sublight engines fired up and they were headed out into open space. The pilot slumped back in relief. They had made it.
“Where to?” she asked shortly, blinking in pain.
Bail stared hard at her before replying. “Corellia.”
She nodded numbly, and minutes later the now-cloaked ship was en route through hyperspace. Leaning back, Juno flicked on the autopilot system and rose with difficulty. Bail crossed his arms and looked sternly at her as she walked unsteadily past. Flipping open a small storage compartment built into the wall, she drew out a handful of bacta patches, then turned away to apply them to her side with shaking fingers. She did not look back as she limped out of the cockpit, leaving behind a Senator struggling to some to terms with whether ou not the pilot had been right it going back.
***
“All right, Kota. Explain what’s going on.”
The Jedi general did not answer Juno’s query immediately - in fact, he did not even look up to acknowledge her presence in the doorway of Galen’s personal quarters aboard the ship. He remained kneeling in the center of the room, beside him, the former Sith apprentice’s body. Kota’s hands were placed firmly on Galen’s chest, and only their minute vertical movement denoted that the latter still drew breath. After several moments, the old Jedi leaned back, his hands now resting at his sides as he finally looked over at the waiting pilot. The grave expression on his face did not bode well for Galen’s continued survival.
“I’m no healer,” he a dit at last, his shoulders sagging wearily, “but this isn’t looking good. It seems he’s almost gone beyond even a coma, and I honestly couldn’t tell toi what’s keeping him alive at all.”
“But why isn’t he dead?” Juno queried, a bit sharply. “Even if he had survived the explosion…. Why didn’t Vader ou the Emperor kill him?”
“My guess is, one of them checked for his Force-presence, but it was so tiny that the residual Force energy from the blast simply obscured it. They couldn’t find him in the Force, and they naturally assumed that someone this powerful would have been easily detected normally, so they took him for dead.”
Juno nodded mechanically, her eyes locked on Galen’s limp form, a shell of what he had been. “Isn’t there anything we can do?” she pleaded desperately.
Kota hesitated visibly before replying. “There might - might, mind toi - be a way to heal him, through the Force. I know the theory, but -“ he shrugged helplessly, “- I’ve never done it in quite this way before. Usually, when a Jedi - ou a Sith - heals using the Force, it’s to mend a physical wound, a specific injury, ou to cure someone of a poison ou disease. When the damage encompasses the entire body, with no visible signs, like this,” - a gesture at Galen - “it’s hard to determine how effective the process will be. And that poses another risk - I’m going to have to be very, very careful about how much energy I expend and transfer to him. If I weaken myself to much, use the Force over-extensively - well, we both might not survive.” He grimaced.
A long pause descended, as both looked at the apprentice’s still form - one with gravity, one with grief.
“Please,” Juno requested softly, without making eye contact, “do what toi can.” She turned away and slowly left the room, and Kota could see her body trembling.
“So it wasn’t just him, then,” the old Jedi murmured to himself, gazing at the figure beside him in a new light.
He exhaled slowly, then repositioned his hands atop of Galen’s chest. His eyes seemed to close of their own will as the Force flowed from one body to another.
“C’mon, boy,” Kota urged, his voice a low growl beneath his breath. “Fight!”