• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“They’ll answer for all of that. Can I make my point?”

One corner of Zekk’s lips quirked upward. “I was wondering when you’d get around to it.”

The wry comment was so familiar, so normal. For a fleeting moment, Jaina remembered who they’d been just a few years ago—a fearless, confident survivor and a girl who ran toward adventure with heedless joy.

Two more casualties of the Yuuzhan Vong.

“It’s like this,” she said quietly. “For the last two years I’ve listened to Anakin and Jacen debate the role of the Jedi and our relationship to the Force. In the end, what did any of that amount to?”

Zekk leaned forward and rested one hand on her shoulder. She shook him off before he could speak empty words of consolation, or repeat cyclic arguments she’d heard too many times between Kyp Durron and her uncle Luke.

“Anakin started to figure it out,” she went on. “I sensed it in him after Yavin Four. He learned something there the rest of us don’t know, something that could have made all the difference, if only he’d had time to figure it all out. If there is such a thing as destiny, I think that was Anakin’s. He has always been different. Special.”

“Of course. He was your brother.”

“He is—” She broke off abruptly, shook off the stab of grief, and made the necessary adjustment. “He was more than that.”

Jaina took time to consider her next words. She wasn’t introspective by nature; this had been in her mind since Anakin’s exploits on Yavin 4, and she still couldn’t get her hands around it.

“With Anakin’s death I lost a brother, but the Jedi lost something I can’t begin to define. My feelings tell me it’s something important, something we lost a very long time ago.”

For a long moment Zekk was silent. “Maybe so. But we have the Force, and each other.”

Simple words, but with a layer of personal meaning offered like a gift, if only Jaina chose to take it.

“Each other,” she echoed softly. “But for how long, Zekk? If the Jedi keep having ‘successes’ like this last mission, pretty soon there won’t be any of us left.”

He nodded, accepting her evasion as if he’d expected it. “At least we’re going home.”

She managed a faint smile, and privately marked yet another difference between her friend’s perceptions and her own. Zekk had been born on Ennta and was brought to Coruscant when he was eight years old. He made his own way in the rough lower levels of the city-planet. Jaina’s parents had kept living quarters in the city’s prestigious towers for most of her life, but she had spent surprisingly little of her eighteen years amid Coruscant’s artificial stars.

To Jaina, Coruscant wasn’t home. It was merely the next logical move on the dejarik board.

FOUR

Within the confines of his XJX-wing, Kyp Durron stretched his lanky form as best he could. He settled back into the groove he’d worn into the seat over the course of two years and more battles than he would ever admit to fighting.

“How many has it been?” he wondered aloud.

A light on his console flashed, signaling a communication from Zero-One, the battered Q9 droid Kyp had recently bought cheap from the estate of a Mon Calamari philosopher.

IS THIS A REQUEST FOR DATA OR A RHETORICAL QUESTION?

Kyp smiled briefly and shoved a hand through his too-long dark hair. “Great. Now even droids are questioning my motives.”

NOT AT ALL. IN GENERAL, THE DISCUSSION OF PHILOSOPHY IS READILY DISCERNIBLE FROM A CALL TO ACTION.

“I’ve noticed that,” he said dryly.

TO AVOID FUTURE MISUNDERSTANDING, HOWEVER, PERHAPS YOU SHOULD GIVE DIRECT ORDERS IN SECOND PERSON IMPERATIVE; FOR EXAMPLE, “SET COORDINATES FOR THE ABREGADO SYSTEM,” OR “DIVERT POWER TO THE REAR SHIELDS.”

“How about ‘Report to the maintenance bay for a personality graft?’ ” Kyp supplied helpfully.

A moment passed. IS THAT AN ORDER OR AN INSULT?

“Whatever works.”

Kyp left Zero-One to ponder this and turned his attention to the task ahead. He took point position. On either side of his X-wing flew six pristine XJ fighters. These were Kyp’s Dozen, the newest members of an ever-shifting fellowship of heroes or rogues