Ayli was used to worrying about her comrades. As a child in the rebellion, she’d been helpless to protect a lot of people she’d known. The situation hadn’t changed as far as she was concerned as she’d gotten older and more capable. The Empire had taught her that no one was ever really safe. 

Which, she reflected, probably explained why she had a wide assortment of contacts and associates and few friends. Also, possibly, she could chalk one or two (or more if she was feeling honest) failed relationships up to her reticence to risk caring that much about somehow.

So how in all the frozen hells of Hoth had Nix snuck in and made Ayli give so much of a damn about her?

It wasn’t any sort of Force Manipulation. Ayli knew that outside of someone’s presence Force Compulsions faded quickly – a little tidbit of knowledge she’d absorbed from Ravas who’d always found that fact inconvenient. Also there hadn’t been any force, mystical, social, or otherwise involved in her time with Nix.

They’d wound up married because they were both drunk idiots, and it had just worked for them in the moment.

And it had kept working. 

Which is shouldn’t have.

That wasn’t how relationships happened.

Ayli had seen it with Gewla and Vronmo after they’d all but officially adopted her. Their relationship was one of the strongest ones she’d ever seen and they’d both had to work it. According to them it had taken three years of unacknowledged courting on each of their parts before they were even willing to start calling what they were doing dating. Then it had been another five years before they were sure they wanted to be married, and decades since then building the enduring life together than they shared.

Drunken hookups on a casino planet did not lead to true love.

Not that Ayli loved Nix. 

No. It was textbook insanity to even think that.

“You might want to go easy on that scanner switch,” Zindiana said. “Breaking it off isn’t going to help them get here any sooner.”

Ayli snatched her hand away from the control panel.

“This plan sucks. Why did we agree to this?” she asked, unhappy to keep the growl out of her voice. All sorts of other dark thoughts rose with it and, lacking Nix’s calming presence, she felt like she was all wrapped up in them.

“It sucked less than the alternatives?” Zindiana said. “Are you starting to feel misgivings from the Force about it?”

Was she? Ayli took a deep breath and tried to push the anger and fear away. Those never showed her a clear view of reality she’d decided. 

“No. No visions. I just can’t believe we’re doing this,” she said. “I hadn’t planned on fighting a criminal cartel or taking over an automated fleet. This was supposed to a simple historical survey with some loot on the side to prove some University idiots wrong.”

Zindiana laughed.

“Oh have I ever been there,” she said. “They say the best revenge is living well, but there’s nothing quite as satisfying as publishing a paper with hard evidence to cram in the faces of people who thought your theories were bunk.”

“It sounds kind of petty when you put it like that,” Ayli said.

“It’s absolutely petty,” Zindiana said. “Petty can be  supremely satisfying though. Especially with the particular smugness that you find in academic circles.”

Ayli let out a sigh she hadn’t felt like she was holding.

“That’s true. Just hard to feel like it’s worth it when it blows up to all this,” she said, gesturing to the galaxy in general and all the parts that seemed to be arrayed against them.

“I’m not going to say they’ll be all right,” Zindiana said. “I don’t have your gifts with the Force, and I know how hollow those words can ring. I will say that our girls are pretty remarkable though, and if anything does happen to them, well it wouldn’t be the first time I had to wreck blood vengeance across the stars.”

Ayli huffed a laugh.

“Mine either,” she said, though her vengeance had really only been limited to a single planet, and the body count wasn’t that impressive she thought. “Wait, ‘our girls’? Does that mean you and Sali are official now?”

“We’re…hmm, you know we haven’t put a name on it really. She’s surprisingly agreeable to be around though. Not the sort of gal I’d usually share a bed or a bottle with, but my only complaints would be if I didn’t get to do either of those again,” Zindiana said. “I’m not sure if she feels the same, but it’s been fun so far.”

“Nix knows her better than I do,” Ayli said, “But I think it’s safe to say, Sali finds being with you ‘surprisingly agreeable too’.”

“Who knew a life of crime could be so rewarding?” Zindiana said. “If I’d known that getting thrown in jail would net me a hot pirate queen and a grand adventure with treasure and a fantastic ship I might have tried it sooner.”

“Awww,” Goldie said, “You think I’m fantastic?”

“Well, you’re the first ship I’ve been able to have a conversation with,” Zindiana said. “And the first one who ever saved me from a cartel’s Destroyer, so yes, yes I do.”

Ayli smiled at the flickering of colors that ran across the control panel – Goldie’s version of blushing it seemed.

“I don’t know if this helps or not,” Goldie said. “But we’re coming up on the planned time Mom had specified for how long it was likely for them to get the Preservationist  fleet here.”

“That was a guess on her part,” Ayli said. “We’ll want to give her some time past that.”

“She seems to listen to the Force a lot,” Zindiana said. “Do you think her timeframe was informed by that?”

Ayli was about to say “no” but stopped to consider why she thought that. Zindiana was right about Nix being somewhat effortless adept at sensing the flow of the Force. Was it that unthinkable that she was following it’s plan for how things would turn out?

“This feels more like Nix’s idea, if that makes sense,” Ayli said. “Freeing the Preservationist’s slaves from their collars was important to her and so she worked out how to do that and get us where we needed to go too. She might have been following the Force’s suggestions for the most likely paths to make that happen, but her estimates feel like her own. I think?”

“Works for me,” Zindiana said. “Everything I’ve learned about the Force is that dealing with it involves working in some pretty fuzzy spaces.”

“Maybe not so fuzzy,” Goldie said. “Sensors are saying we’ve got a fleet warping into the system now.”

“Wow she’s good,” Ayli said, her mood brightening in an instant only to come crashing down with Goldies next words.

“Problem,” the ship said. “It’s not them.”

“Who else…” Ayli started to ask and cut herself off. “Oh no. Not them.”

But of course it was.

“Afraid so,” Goldie said. “Klex battlecruiser inbound, along with at least a dozen other warships.”

“They have better repair techs than we anticipated,” Zindiana said.

“Or they’re running damaged,” Goldie said. “I’m reading some interesting plasma venting from the battle cruiser.”

“Are they badly beat up enough that we could take them in a fight?” Ayli asked, already knowing the answer but needing to hear it before she gave her next order.

“Not a chance in all of Hoth’s hells,” Goldie said. “They’re still a battle cruiser and I’m very much not. Also no element of surprise this time. Not to mention the other ships. Sorry.”

“No apologies needed,” Ayli said. “I am delighted beyond words that you have a reasonable estimation of your own capabilities. It’s seriously invaluable.”

“That does not leave us many good options, does it?” Zindiana said.

“That leaves us no good options at all,” Ayli said. “Which is why I’m taking us down to the surface.”

“The defenses around Praxis Mar are still quite active,” Goldie said.

“I’m aware,” Ayli said.

“They’re actually stronger than the battle cruiser,” Goldie said.

“Yep. I remember our scans,” Ayli said, flipping the deflector fields into an array which left the forward arc completely undefended.

“Anything I can do to help?” Goldie asked.

“If we take a good hit, deploy as much chaff as you can,” Ayli said. “It won’t fool them forever but if we can make them think we blew up even for a little while it’ll buy us time down there.”

“If we take a good hit, I may not need to deploy any chaff to make them think we blew up,” Goldie said.

“Want me to head to the guns?” Zindiana asked.

“No. Stay here. I don’t want to damage any of the defenses,” Ayli said. “If we can make it through, they’re going to be all that will slow down the Klex’s from following after us. Also, I might need you to handle the deflectors if they gets as bad as I think it will.”

“On it,” Zindiana said.

And she was. To Ayli’s surprise, as Zin took over control of the deflector arrays, she didn’t change anything about the pattern Ayli had setup, apparently understanding why Ayli had stripped them of protection in their forward arc.

“You can do this,” Ravas said, from the seat behind her.

It was the first time Ravas had appeared or spoken since she’d fled but Ayli wasn’t surprised by her presence. The encouragement though? That was unexpected.

With a silent nod of agreement or thanks or something, Ayli cranked the engines to full power and dove towards the array of defensive installations in orbit and mounted on the moons of Praxis Mar.

It was a death sentence.

Both the original architects of the temple and the Children of the Storm had been seriously invested in preventing unwanted visitors from reaching their holy site, and a blind rush forward at high speed was the most obvious of strategies for them to put in counters for.

All defenses had weak points though and opening herself up to the Force, Ayli felt them all.

She didn’t question the revelations or hesitate. The Goldrunner couldn’t fit through some of them, most of them, but Ayli plowed through more than a few of those, trusting the deflectors to handle the glancing shots she allowed to land in order to bypass the points where there was no chance they’d survive the coordinated fire.

The deflectors did their part, to the extent that they could. Nix had rigged them up well, and so they shielded the Goldrunner from more than their fair share of the explosions and turbolaser fire that crashed onto the ship. 

But they had their limits, and Ayli pushed them far past that.

Even with her Force enhanced flying, the load was too much for the starboard shields, which buckled and exploded. Goldie was giving status updates on the ship’s systems as they breeched the atmosphere, but since they were all varying degrees of terrible, Ayli tuned them out.

With only the rear and port shields energized, she was forced to put the Goldrunner into a dance that would have torn it to shreds if the inertial dampeners failed. With the deflectors pulling as much energy as they were from the Goldrunner’s systems, and the worrying failures of sensors on the engines themselves, Ayli wasn’t terribly surprised when the danger light for inertial failure blazed to life.

A moment later than engines quit entirely, leaving them in freefall. 

Fortunately, they were so close to the surface that most of the orbital defense could no longer target them.

The automated ground defenses on the other hand were more than happy to pick up the slack and blast the freefalling Goldrunner in places Ayli really wished they wouldn’t. 

As the ground loomed closer, she felt a familiar presence brush up against her mind and did her best to send a reassuring touch back.