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Voices. She must have dozed. Alee crept across the roof to listen.
"What do you mean, she disappeared," questioned Balnor's voice.
The barkeep's voice replied, "Not a trace. I tell you, she's a real witch."
"What of the crowd she tore through?"
A snort. "Tourists. They think it was a show staged for them. They were too busy applauding to notice which way she ran."
A marching cadence grew louder. Alee peered over the edge. Soldiers in odd white uniforms marched toward the cantina. Each carried a deadly-looking blaster.
The black-suited leader halted in front of Balnor. The squad stopped as one man - the clang resounded through the square.
"You're not needed Captain. I have this under control."
"Not that simple, I'm afraid," replied the captain in clipped tones. "The Emperor takes personal interest in any reports of Jedi."
"Then you've wasted your time. This was an impostor. I'm sure of it," Balnor returned.
"Impostor or not, the Emperor wants her captured. Alive is preferable. That is why Lord Vader is on his way from Coruscant to oversee the search."
"L-lord Vader," stammered Balnor. "Coming here?"
"Yes. Don't let her slip through the net, Balnor. You might not live to regret it."
Alee returned to her hiding spot. She squatted by the vent, tapping her teeth as she kept watch. Somehow, that black hole tossed her thirty years or so into the future, and scrambled her Force-sense. Now she was being chased by someone she'd never heard of whose favorite hobby was killing Jedi. They couldn't have all been destroyed. Some must be in hiding. Thirty years. I'm over sixty standard years old. Qui-Gon would be close to ninety.
"Age matters not. I have to find him. He's alive," she whispered. "He has to be. I'd sense it if he wasn't. But I can't sense anything."
Alee sat cross-legged and worked through Jedi relaxation exercises. Nothing worked. She could hear the Force ever so faintly, it brushed the edges of her mind, whispered around her, but its threads slipped through her grasp. It remained elusive, out of her reach, dancing away every time she drew near. Away.
Her eye's flew open. It's leading me away.
Alee scanned the spaceport from her rooftop lookout and longed for a pair of electrobinoculars. The fear grew bolder. At first she'd been able to sweep it aside. But the sight of so many white-suited sentries patrolling the spaceport brought it screaming back.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She could almost feel Qui-Gon place his hand on her shoulder and caress her with his thumb. Focus on the moment, he would tell her. Right. This moment - get to a ship. But go ... where. Never mind. Just focus. The fear fell silent.
As luck would have it, the south entrance was dimly lit. Even Jedi relish a little luck. Alee left the lone guard in a heap, thankful for her regular combat training.
Two ships were possibilities, but there was no cover near either. One even looked a little like her old VG-23. Wonder how many tourists it drew these days?
Alee squatted in the shadows. Tap. Tap. Tap. Need a distraction. Tap. Tap. Tap. She glanced back at the gate. If a patrol happened by, the cover of surprise would be blown. Tap. Tap.
Something screamed over head. Alee flattened against the wall. Another screamer. Then a white bird of prey. No. Some sort of transport. It folded its wings up as it touched down. The screamers circled once then landed aft of the transport. White troopers materialised from all over the darkened port, double-timing towards the ships.
The moment. This was it. Alee ran in a crouch toward the VG-23 styled ship and ducked under the rear landing gear. A guard stood by the closed landing ramp. She came from under the ship and grabbed him in a headlock. The twist and snap sickened her. His body crumpled .
"Should be a control panel, right around here. Ah. There it is."
She unscrewed the cover plate with her utility tool. A jumble of wires dangled inside. A flash of the tool's mini-light show her the colors. Hoping it was the same as her own ship, she crossed two wires and her fingers. The landing ramp lowered with a small clunk. She reattached the cover plate and slipped up the ramp. The second ship obscured her view of the goings on. But that worked both ways.
Sliding into the cockpit felt good. She ran her hands over the controls. Not so different from her own. Must just be a newer model.
Alee looked out. The cluster of white uniforms surrounded a large black shadow. She tried a Force probe. The shadow stopped and turned toward her. She shivered and slunk down in the pilot seat. Whoever it was could sense even the smallest vibration in the Force. For the first time, she was glad to be without her power. Fear flooded her as his gaze swept over the ships. He turned and the dread trickled away.
Soldiers ran past, headed for the south entrance. Next moment, Qui-Gon. Alee quickly powered up, listening to the whine of engines growing louder. She used repulsor lifts to climb to 50 meters. The ship swivelled in the air. She thumbed the fire controls and strafed the transport and one screamer. The other was already lifting off, returning fire.
Time to leave. She throttled back and shot towards space. This ship was faster than hers. Even so, the screamer was gaining. She juked the stick back and forth. The ship responded, jumping side to side. Laser bolts flashed past. The ship jerked as one found its target. She glanced down. Rear deflector shields were weakened. The winged eyeball flashed by and circled for another pass.
Something else on the comscreen, headed her way. She looked at the triangular blip on the sensor display. What a monster. It must be at least five kilometers long. She made a course correction and punched in the nav co-ordinates.
Fear slid into the co-pilot seat as she rocketed toward open space. The screamer was almost on her when the 'all clear' lit up. She pulled the hyperspace throttle. The queasy feeling she always got as the stars elongated to streaks of light was never so welcome.
Focus on the moment. Alee paced the small living quarters. She was headed for Coruscant. That was where the this Vader was coming from. If he was a henchman for the Emperor that Balnor mentioned, Coruscant was a bad choice. What would Qui-Gon do?
"Oh Qui-Gon, I miss you so much. Where could you be? Maybe
... maybe I can get back. Back to then. Back to us."
The emptiness inside grew until it touched her nerves; swallowed
them. Dread flooded into the void. She fell to her knees and doubled
over.
"I can't do this. I can't go on alone. I need you, Qui-Gon.
You're my soul."
"How can you simply pass by, Alee."
Alee spun and faced Qui-Gon. He stood two meters back, arms crossed, a severe look on his face. At his feet lay a pile of rags. It twitched. He arched one eyebrow.
She slid close and looked into his dark blue eyes. " Qui-Gon, you can't help every beggar on Coruscant."
Her hand ran over his brow, smoothing away the frown. He grabbed it.
"We can help this one. Here. Now."
"Okay." Exasperation tinged her voice.
She knelt and touched the rags. Wide eyes peeked out.
"It's only a child," she whispered.
She placed her hands on either side of the child's head and delved into black eyes. Pain. Fear. Death. Her parents' death. Alee's heart melted.
"Oh, Qui-Gon, I never realised."
He squatted beside her, hand on her shoulder. "You never looked."
"You're too easy on me."
"Yes." They both smiled.
"Back to my apartment for a meal?" she suggested.
"And a dip in the refresher."
"I'm sure Master Windu needs a new temple messenger."
Qui-Gon laughed. He rose, pulled her to her feet and held her gaze. "Alee-Nedra cy Nerac, I am very proud of you."
Proud of you...
Alee jumped to her feet. The moment was now. She had to abort the hyperspace jump. She ran for the cockpit, flipped controls to manual and took a deep breath.
"Here's hoping there's nothing too big, too close." She pushed the throttle and reverted to realspace. Her stomach lurched as lines became dots.
"Nothing too close. Hah. Try nothing at all." She cut the engines.
Alee had a major aversion to being between systems. The cold seeped in through her pores and froze her blood. The emptiness was suffocating. She shuddered, realising how closely outside mirrored inside - her inside. She was thinking, doing, but not living. Life without her Force connection was like walking through one of those old two-dimensional holovids - flat, a mockery of reality.
The computer beeped. It had finished scanning star charts to determine their location. She rested her elbow in her other hand and began tapping her teeth. Not too far from Corellia. But she didn't know if it, or anywhere, was safe. Or how far this Empire extended. Could it possibly cover the whole republic? No. She refused to entertain that possibility. Misgivings assailed her.
"Don't centre on your anxieties," she told herself. Alee took a deep breath. "Qui-Gon, if I talk to you like you're here, maybe it will help."
A whisper of air touched her ear. Her fingers flew to the spot. She felt the nick left behind by that laser bolt in the cantina. She rubbed it thoughtfully. The circulation system was turned off - it always made her feel colder. So how...
Alee shook her head. "You'd tell me to trust my instincts, Qui-Gon. So that means I stay away from the core worlds. I need information. Some hint to where Jedi might be hiding. A library."
She flicked through star charts on the comscreen.
"But where. Ah. Here's a possibility. Peace-loving. With large databanks - at least, they were in my day." She stopped, a catch in her throat. "Listen to me, Qui-Gon. My day. Our days. How could thirty or forty years change everything so much? For over a thousand generations we were guardians of peace. Now I'm supposed to believe we're gone."
Alee gave a hollow laugh. "Some museum curator is herding a group of youngsters past a display saying, 'And here we have an example of the extinct species, Jedi, now known to have been a ruthless parasite.'" She hiccuped. "I'm sorry, Qui-Gon, you know how bizarre my humor gets when I'm tired."
She thought his lips brushed the top of her head. Alee moaned. "Oh. I am tired."
She got the engines back on line while the computer calculated their hyperspace trajectory.
Her stomach flipped as dots became lines.Panic squeezed the air from Alee's lungs as the memories of five days before pushed into her mind. Coming out of hyperspace into an asteroid field. Even with her senses blocked to the flow of the Force, she'd been able to taste the horror, hear the screams. She'd stared at the remains of a world that had been her favorite retreat, and thrown up on the cockpit floor.
Alee fought to keep her stomach from heaving up again. She stared at the databank terminal and tried to concentrate on the Empire-sanctioned newsvids she'd found in the archives. Alderaan. Destroyed for collusion with rebel forces. How could they? A whole planet. How did they?
Concentrate on the moment. It was the only way to stay sane. She returned to scanning information on uninhabited systems, looking for ... something that might twig her instincts. Where would I hide?
Alee doubted she could return to this library a third time. The geological survey team story was wearing thin. The eyes of the facilitator bored into the back of her head.
Three jumps from Alderaan had landed her on the farthest Outer Rim planet she could think of. Bakura. When she'd hidden the ship and braved the capital, she was very glad she'd at least had the foresight to approach the system away from normal shipping lanes. It had been crawling with Imperial troops. She brushed the lightsaber concealed beneath her borrowed pilot garb and hoped she could slip away as quietly as she'd come.
System after system flashed on screen. No life support. Too cold. In the Core. Too hot. Surface destroyed by interplanetary war. Too ... Alee froze. Swamp. Highly unstable atmosphere. Unusual power fluxes. She memorized the co-ordinates. In case the library traced transactions, she continued to search, pausing at the odd system longer. Her mind raced. She knew that was the planet. She could feel it.
Feel it. Alee stretched her senses toward the Force. The thread snapped. She drooped.
Next moment, Alee... Reflected movement on the monitor caught her eye. The facilitator was talking to a bureaucrat of some stripe, pointing her way. An interrogation was the last thing she needed. Alee rose, casually stretched, and crossed the room to the refresh station.
Inside she looked around. No window. She stepped into a stall. The privacy barrier slid shut and locked. Floor-to-ceiling lights switched on, revealing a ventilation duct high on the back wall. It would be tight.
Alee climbed on the disposal unit and cut the grate off with her lightsaber. She squeezed into the shaft and snaked forward. Metal detailing on her suit scrapped along the bottom, the sound echoing loudly.
She spilled into a larger shaft. Several meters left, light suggested an opening. It led to the roof. Behind her, Alee heard yelling. The lightsaber sliced through the cover like a spoon through Sullustan pudding.
A run launched her into the air and to the next building. She lurched to her knees on the landing. Vaguely remembered pain shot up her left knee. She clutched it.
"Not now," Alee moaned and looked back. The jump had been under two meters. It should have been easy. She got up and hobbled across the roof to where a street hummed with landspeeders. Across was out, but down was a possibility. An elevated walkway hung above traffic, two stories down.
She headed down the central stairway and melded into the flow of pedestrians, letting them carry her across the walkway and into the next building. She saw a flash of white ahead and ducked into a lift headed down.
On the street Alee picked up her pace, anxious to get back to her ship. How wide an alarm did the library personnel sound? They were looking for a pilot. Well, they wouldn't find one. She ducked into an alley, left the uniform deep in the shadows and emerged on the next street, a regular citizen in simple tunic and leggings. Except for the for the military-style boots. Except for the fact every other woman wore long flowing robes. She kept her lightsaber hidden. No use attracting attention.
"Halt!" Alee had managed to get six blocks. Not bad, all things considered. She half turned and saw a patrol team trotting toward her. She spun and dashed into the street, darting around vehicles and beings. She cut through a crowd and around a corner.
Heart and feet pounded in her ears. The ache in her knee kept time. Shouts gradually faded. Traffic thinned. Must have lost them. She slowed to a fast walk and turned another corner.
Right into the arms of another patrol unit. One trooper grabbed her by the collar and slammed her against the wall. He pressed his arm against her neck. Her lungs heaved, hungry for oxygen. The other pulled his blaster.
"Thief or rebel?" the Blaster asked.
"Thieves aren't so obvious," answered the Arm. He applied more pressure and sneered, "Rebel scum."
Alee spat on one eye cover. A fist plowed into her stomach. Her knees buckled. His grip held her upright.
"Radio the base," he ordered.
Alee willed herself to remain calm. Focus on the moment. Find a distraction.
She buried her knee into his armoured groin. He grunted. His grip loosened a fraction. She grabbed his arms and swung him toward his partner. His body caught the laser bolt meant for her.
Alee jumped to the side. She spun, igniting her lightsaber as she went. The blade sliced off the end of the blaster as the trooper pulled the trigger. The heat-sealed rifle turned into a thermal detonator. Alee was tossed backwards. She struggled to her feet and crouched defensively. The soldier sprawled, unmoving.
A piece of shrapnel had grazed her forehead. Alee wiped blood away as she scanned the street. No traffic. It looked to be a warehouse district. She half jogged, half limped to the next corner. Rounding it, she slowed to a saunter. Two landspeeders glided by, heading to the city center. A rumble grew louder behind her. She hoped it wasn't a troop transport.
A market barge crawled past Alee, barely moving faster than she was. She hopped on the back and huddled between two crates.
"Qui-Gon," she whispered, "what brought me to this? I was so sure the cosmic Force had destined my encounter with that black hole. But what if it was only one possible path? Maybe if I had focused more on the living Force, as you encouraged me, I would have stayed by your side. We could have stood together against the darkness that became this Empire."
She fought to keep her eyes open. "I ache for us to be together again, Qui-Gon."
Her last thought was of craggy brows, bottomless blue eyes,
firm lips...
She felt his arms wrap around her and sank into the embrace.
"Let's see your identification." The metallic voice came from the front of the barge. "Carrying any passengers?"
Alee rolled off and slipped into the darkness.
