Space battles are not especially comfortable places to be. Aside from the ever-imminent chance of winding up on the wrong side of a turbo-laser barrage, there was the fact that people tended to die in battles, usually quite a lot of them and the Force wasn’t especially fond of that. That it was all too ready to share the burst of agony on top of the miasma of fear and uncertainty and rage of everyone involved made being in a pitched battle less than enjoyable for Nix.

“Should we be heading in there to help out?” Goldie asked.

“Help out who?” Nix said, glad that they were only ‘near’ the battle which was unfolding rather than in it. At least for the time being.

“You can’t sense who the good guys are?” Goldie asked.

“I sense a lot of angry and frightened people out there,” Nix said. “Motivations though? Not so much.”

“I don’t think Ayli’s caught in that,” Ravas said. “I can’t sense her but the Dark Side ship would stand out even at this distance.”

“Can the evil Jedi hide their ship?” Solna asked. “They told us warping the Xah to cloak themselves was an evil Jedi trick.”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘Sith’,” Kelda said, “Though, to be fair, there certainly have been members of the Jedi order who fell to evil ends without naming themselves as Sith.”

“The Sith arts do include the ability to cloud minds,” Ravas said. “They can hide themselves, their actions, and their aims, but the shadow of the Dark Side is always perceptible. You won’t know that a Sith, specifically, is working against you, but you’ll always be able to tell that the Dark Side is on the rise.”

“I gather that’s how the Galactic Empire rose to power,” Kelda said. “A Sith incited the galactic civil war and Dark Side rose in the strife which followed making it impossible for the Jedi to discern the Sith’s movements and power plays against the overall misery in the galaxy.”

“I’m sensing a lot of misery out there,” Rassi said as a small frigate erupted in a bloom of fire and shrapnel.

“This would be a good hiding spot for the Dark Side vessel,” Ravas said. “But even against this background, it’s presence would stick out.” A worried expression crossed her face. “Probably.”

“Probably?” Solna asked.

“My training in the Sith arts was never, technically, completed,” Ravas said. “When I died, I was still an apprentice.”

“I imagine when you crushed your masters heart into grains of dust that would count as a graduation ceremony, no?” Kelda asked.

“In theory, yes, the only means for a Sith apprentice to become a master is to claim the position through murder, but I was no longer a Sith by then,” Ravas said. “Assuming that’s something I can ever be free of.” Kelda laid a hand on Ravas’ arm in a wordless should of support. “The important point though is that while most Sith would not be capable of hiding the ship in an area like this, I can’t be entirely certain that it would be beyond a Force Lich like Paralus.”

“Then we need to get in there right?” Goldie asked.

Almost as thought in answer to her question, one of the battle cruisers chose that moment to shatter into two pieces as it released the ball of plasma which consumed its midsection.

“They really should have taken their hyperdrive off line before the shooting started,” Nix said. “And no. We’re still far enough off that their scanners will be ignoring us. If we move in, both sides will assume we’re with the other and place us on their ‘To Be Exploded’ list. I know you’re tough, and I know you want to rescue Ayli as much as I do, but neither her nor I want you to get at all exploded, okay?”

“No,” Goldie grumbled in a tone that offered more agreement than her word did.

“Good, because if you two are willing, I think it would be worth trying to sense where Ayli is with the Force,” Nix said.

“We can try,” Rassi said.

“We can find her,” Solna said. “Rassi is really good at that.”

“You’re better,” Rassi said.

Nix let them argue back and forth while she led them back to the cargo hold. There wasn’t anything stopping them from trying the meditation in the cabin, except for how distracting checking the scanners would have been.

As they walked back to hold, Kelda spoke to Nix silently.

“If you have any fears, you will want to find what peace you can with them,” Kelda whisper to Nix in the Force.

“I know. I could affect that they see if I let fear or anger into our communion,” Nix said. “Letting go of those is easier said than done.”

“As a wise old Jedi master allow to assure you that with all your training, that will still be true. Ask me how I know.”

“Even a thousand years as a ghost doesn’t take the edge off things I take it?” Nix asked.

“Maybe two thousand is the magic number. We’ll see.” Kelda winked at her. “That said, our training does help. Use what you know and you all will be fine.”

“Thanks,” Nix said. “For everything so far. I know your condition isn’t exactly optimal, but I don’t know if I’d still be here if not for you and Ravas.”

“I doubt we would be either if not for you and Ayli,” Kelda said. “So just remember that we are with you. Always.”

They arrived at the cargo hold and sat down together in a closer circle than the one they’d danced.

“Okay, I think I understand what Ravas and Kelda are suggesting,” Nix said. “It’s important that you know that you don’t have to do this though. And I don’t just mean now. If you start to feel uncomfortable and want to stop, draw away, break the link. That’s not just for you. Negative emotions can cloud this sort of sharing and quickly twist it into something it shouldn’t be.”

“Like what?” Rassi asked.

“Seeing a vision of someone else, or somewhere else is an incredibly inexact process,” Nix said. “Fear could swing our vision around to the source of the fear or an image of how it might manifest. I’m worried, for example, that we can’t sense the ship because it’s crashed and they’re all dead. If I bring that into our meditation, we might see a vision of the ship in pieces on a planet and dead bodies all around it. It won’t be true, not necessarily, but it will feel true and that can lead to more fear and even worse visions.”

“How do we get rid of our fear then?” Rassi asked.

“You don’t,” Nix said. “There’s a time and place to reject fear and move past it by sheer willpower. That doesn’t banish the fear though, only time will really do that. Instead, for this, you want to acknowledge your fears. Some of them might be silly, but some may be well founded too. Remind yourself that you will deal with all of them but for now you don’t need the warning they’re giving you. You’re working on something else and will get to them when its their turn.”

“That sounds like we’re treating them like children?” Solna said.

“Sure. That’s a fine image for them. Picture your fears as little kids jumping around your ankles. They’re all certain that what they have to tell you is the most important thing in the world, but you know they don’t understand things like you do. You know they can wait and be good little toddlers for just a little bit.”

Rassi laughed and a the ghost of a smile graced Solna’s lips.

Nix closed her eyes and began to center herself, feeling the girls do the same beside her.

Extending her hands, Nix felt their minds join together at the shared touch. Neither Rassi nor Solna had quite mastered the fears but Nix could tell that they were both doing their best to find some distance from the worst of their imaginings.

“Let me show you Ayli,” Nix said, slowly forming an image, purely visual at first, of the woman she felt like she’d known her whole life and at the same time had only just met.

“Stars, she’s beautiful!” Solna said. Which, Nix felt was inarguably true, though she suspected some of her own appreciation of Ayli might have been leaking into the image Nix was sharing of her.

“She’s blue?” Rassi said with a giggle.

“And very strong in the Force,” Nix said, adding the impression of Ayli’s life energy to the image, which drew gasps from both Rassi and Solna. “Do you think you can find her?”

“Yes,” Rassi said.

“Let’s do this,” Solna added and she felt the two of them read out to the stars.

What they found however was not Ayli.

Within the star system but on the opposite end of the battle which raged before them, there was a presence, searching planets and the space between them just as they were.

Tentatively, the presence reached out, seeking the shape and source of the awareness Solna and Rassi were projecting.

Who are you? the presence asked.

Seekers, Nix answered, placing herself in front her wards.

We are seekers as well, the presence asked. There is no darkness in you?

There is darkness in all things, Nix said, but we do not bend to our darkness.

Nor do we, the presence said, we seek my partner and the one who abducted him.

We seek my wife and the one who abducted her, Nix said, gambling on trusting the presence largely because she felt the Force’s approval of them.

Your wife is a Jedi is she not? My partner is a Phantom Stalker.

My wife has Jedi training, though is not perhaps a Jedi exactly. And you and your partner are Padal Horizon Knights are you not?

Nix felt the walls between them fall down.

We should speak with ship comms, the presence said.

Agreed. Less taxing and quicker. Let’s rendezvous on the sunward side of the battle, Nix suggested.

Agreed, the presence said and withdrew.

“What was that?” Rassi asked as the three of them opened their eyes and broke the meditative link which bound them.

“We found someone else who’s looking for Ayli,” Nix said. “Monfi’s partner is out there, probably with her apprentices. We’re going to meet up so we can talk with laser comms and not be overheard by the battle over there.

“Laying in a course now,” Goldie said.

“You know where to go?” Nix asked.

“I’m guessing it’s the single ship that’s heading around the battle and well away from it?” Goldie asked. “I might have gone into active scanning mode since no on in the battle is going to notice anything sort of a target lock, and maybe not even that.”

Nix rolled her eyes, not so much at Goldie but at herself for not anticipating that.

To Goldie’s credit though, the scan did prove to be helpful and the course she worked out kept them well away from the battle’s ever shifting fringes while making quick time to the rendezvous point.

“Goldrunner, this is Corvid 1256,” the voice and image of a Xabrak woman said as a connection between the two ships was established.

“Greetings Corvid 1256, this is Goldrunner, Nix Lamplighter speaking,” Nix said, intrigued by the generic designation for the Horizon Knight’s ship. While it would have sounded boring to most people, to Nix it suggested they did a lot of more undercover work than she would have imagined there was call for.

“Greetings, I am Lasha and I believe we may have information which could be of use to one another.”

“Indeed. We’ve come from the Praxis Mar system, where I am pretty sure the ship which kidnapped our people was heading and they have no arrived there yet,” Nix said. “I’m hoping you’ll have better news on where their trail went.”

“Sadly, that’s what I was hoping to get from you,” Lasha said. “We followed their trail from Halphi to here. We found signs of them in two systems leading here, but we lost them in the Haldoni system.”

“That’s one jump before here,” Goldie put in helpfully.

“Yes,” Lasha said. “I can’t sense them here at all though.”

“There aren’t any other good hyperspace lanes out of Haldoni,” Goldie said.

Nix inhaled, breathing in calm and clearing her thoughts.

Ayli was alive.

She was out there.

And she needed help.

“Then we’re going to have start looking at the bad ones,” Nix said.