Solna was out of time. Her people, if she still wanted to call them that, were out of time. So why, she had to ask herself, was everything moving so slowly?

Sister Zindiana had dropped her, Rassi, and Tovos’ crew off outside the private landing facility which was serving as the Silent Enclave’s encampment and blasted back off to get Queen Saliandrus into space where she could help save Nix and Ayli.

Ravas and Kelda were gone as well, though they thought they might be able to make it back again if Solna or Rassi called for them, even if the Enclave’s cloak was still in effect.

That left Solna and her team with a clear view of their destination and nothing holding them back from approaching it.

“Waiting is going to get people killed,” she said, keeping her annoyance and impatience from her voice.

“The guards have arc-repeaters and thermal detonators,” Tovos said.

“They’re expecting a fight,” Rassi said. “They can feel the Death Shadows that are coming in the same as we can.”

“You’re right about them being ready for a fight,” Osdo said. “But arc-repeaters and thermal detonators won’t damage a Death Shadow. And they know that.”

“You think they’ve sensed us?” Solna asked.

“They saw the ship land,” Tovos said. “They know someone is here.”

“But we don’t greet strangers with heavy firepower,” Rassi said. “It makes too much noise.”

“We do when we know they’re hostile,” Tovos said. “The Enclave is on lockdown and they’re all bound into the cloaking field. I don’t know of any plans that call doing both.”

Solna considered that for a moment and tried to clear her mind. Worry was not going to see her through this. 

“You’re right,” she said. “Those are counterproductive to each other. The heavy weapons and high alert have to be making the cloak more porous. There’s too much killing intent with carrying them, and too many heightened emotions from just seeing one in someone’s hands.”

“And maintaining the cloak would have to require attention from everyone. Even the people who are handling the high explosives,” Rassi said. “So the question is, who are they expecting they’ll have to fight?”

Solna considered that too but Tovos found the answer before she did.

“Nix,” he said. “They’ve lumped her into the pile with ‘the Jedi’. When they sent us to bring her back, they told us to treat her exactly like one, including killing her before she could use her powers if she resisted. We never made it back but a strange ship shows up and takes off? They have to think that she broke us and tracked the Enclave down for revenge.”

“Then shouldn’t we walk in there right now and show them that you’re okay?” Rassi asked. “I mean they won’t want to see Solna or me, but you folks are still in good favor, right?”

Solna looked over the other former-Enclave members and saw varying looks of regret or disgust at Rassi’s statement.

“They left without us. Twice,” Osdo said.

“If we show back up now, without Nix in shackles, they’re going to know that we’re not on their side anymore,” Felgo said.

“They want us to be Lost?” Polu asked, his eyes pleading for the lie that his mind would no longer accept.

“They want us to be dead,” Yanni said, her voice quiet and still for a moment before she carried on. “It’s simpler if we are. They don’t have to explain anything. They don’t have to wonder why we didn’t come back on time. They don’t have to justify leaving us.”

“And there’s no worry that we’ve learned their secrets,” Tovos said.

“That’s not going to change though, is it?” Rassi asked. Meaning that waiting wasn’t helping them.

“It won’t,” Osdo said. “But the guards should be about to switch shifts since it’s almost sundown.”

“And the new guards will be better?” Rassi asked.

“See Muktong up there? He’s the one who gave us our weapon’s training,” Felgo said. “If Queen Sali is right, he’s got to be on one of the other assassin teams.”

“Which means the five other guards with him are probably the rest of his team,” Tovos said.

“We’re going to have to deal with him soon or later though, right?” Rassi asked.

“I’d prefer later,” Yanni said. “Especially if it’s after the rest of the Enclave knows that we’re there.”

“Harder to make us disappear,” Polu said.

“They’re leaving,” Tovos said.

“And being replaced with Degu’s team.” Felgo said the name as though it were a curse.

“Degu’s probably the leader of the other assassin team, isn’t he?” Solna asked.

“Has to be,” Tovos said. “The one that’s just ahead of us according to Queen Sali.”

“Which means he’s got less experience than Muktong,” Osdo offered hopefully.

“But still more than we do,” Felgo said.

“We’re out of time,” Tovos said, his eyes closed and his hands folded together in front of his face. “We’ve been out of time, but the Death Shadows will be here in minutes. We have to go.”

He rose from behind the embankment they’d crept up to and began to walk forward with purpose and a certainty that had to be at last half illusionary in Solna’s estimation. His team wasn’t put off by that though and rose to follow him.

“Let us deal with Degu and his people,” Osdo said. “You two need to get to whoever’s in charge now and tell them what they need to do.”

Solna still had no idea how they were going to make that happen.

She’d reached out to the Force, flagrantly violating the Enclave’s customs, only to feel a reassuring certainty that marching forward was the best action she could take. Maddeningly however, the Force was rather lacking in specific details for how or why things would work out well in the end.

“We’ll handle it,” Rassi said. “And if Degu’s team give you trouble, just shout for us. I’m not used to you jerks being nice to me and I’d like to see more of it.”

Tovos turned his head and flashed Rassi a rueful smile before turning to his comrades, “looks like we have our marching orders then.”

“Never orders,” Rassi said. “Just a request.”

Solna understood. They’d been forced into doing and being whats someone else wanted for too long. They need to work together, but that didn’t mean any of them should turn themselves into puppets of another.

Rassi held out her hand for Solna, a gesture that had never been unusual or them but was becoming more common and consistent with each new crisis they faced.

Solna nodded, took Rassi’s hand and rose, pulling their cloak in tighter and deeper than before.

The people of the Silent Enclave knew someone was out there – someone living – whether they had any sense of how many people that was remained an open question. As Rassi and Solna ghosted up to the frankly indefensible perimeter wall and leapt it with purely mundane effort, it became clear that noone was considering that anyone like them was a threat to watch for.

A short distance away, at the gate the private landing facility had put in the cheap fencing, Tovos and his team were greeting Dengu’s team. That Dengu radiated surprise loudly enough for Solna to catch a whisper of it was in part due to her actively working with the Force to enhance her senses, rather than passively absorbing information like she’d been trained too. 

More than that though it was a signal that Tovos had been right. His team was not expected to return. Wasn’t supposed to return. What was happening at the gate was not a joyous reunion. It was the opening round in a battle where the first blow was foregone conclusion and only who landed the final strike was at all uncertain.

Going to their aid was the last thing Solna wanted to do – she’d spent too long being angry with them for that to feel natural. And she had an important mission to do. And leaving Rassi was unthinkable.

So why was her stupid heart lingering on the whispers of her old enemies’ fates that she could still hear?

She scowled.

They’d better make good on their promise to Rassi and survive.

She’d kill them otherwise.

Rassi paused at a corner and cast a quick smile in Solna’s direction. They were so quiet that even with the connection they shared they weren’t leaking emotions to distract the other.

Which didn’t matter.

Rassi could still tell what Solna was thinking it seemed.

Rassi who was so incredibly quiet?

Rassi who couldn’t be calm and peaceful about returning to the Enclave? Who had to have a thousand worse memories of the place than Solna did.

Rassi who was not at all fighting the turmoil within herself that she normally had to?

No one had said Rassi was beautiful in Solna’s memory. Even Solna didn’t try to call attention to Rassi’s looks since she knew Rassi wouldn’t believe her and was sensitive to any comments about a body that people had said countless times was too large, too clumsy, and too unappealing for anyone to ever love.

Those people had been wrong. So very wrong.

Seeing the peace and confidence in Rassi’s eyes and the grace she moved with, Solna’s breath caught in her throat.

Her friend was beautiful beyond any words Solna had.

Which was a wonderful revelation at an absolutely terrible time.

“We are not alone,” Honored Jolu said from around the corner of the habitat they’d been sneaking past.

Rassi gave Solna’s hand a squeeze that made Solna’s heart skip a beat.

Also inconvenient.

What was her stupid brain doing to her?

“We are never alone,” Rassi said, sweeping their shared cloak aside and walking forward, without dropping Solna’s hand in embarrassment as they usually did.

“You?” Jolu’s look of surprise vanished behind an icy and emotionless wall.

“The betrayers! They’ve brought the Shadows to us again!” The cry came from a woman who’d never said more than three words to Solna or Rassi. Solna thought her name was Logi, or Lusa. She knew the two were sisters but she’d never bothered to work out which was which.

“Is that what you told them?” Rassi asked, looking only at Honored Jolu and ignoring the crowd who had gathered in the landing site’s central square.

From the voices which were rising in alarm, Solna’s guessed a good three quarters of the Enclave was present. From the absence of anyone on the central dias, she also guessed that the Elders had indeed abandoned the rest of the Enclave.

That Jolu had stayed behind was interesting, all the more so because Solna couldn’t sense anything from her old mentor and had no idea what Jolu’s true feelings were.

“Why are you here?” Jolu asked, her gaze firm and unrelenting.

“Because they need to know,” Rassi said, meeting Jolu’s gaze evenly.

“Get them!” someone called from the crowd and Solna felt a spike of killing intent rise.

But not from the crowd.

Atop one of the buildings, an air traffic control tower, a man was rising and bringing a blaster to his shoulder.

She acted without thought or hesitation.

She needed to protect Rassi.

And the Force was her ally.

She’d only meant to drag the rifle off course. To pull it from the man’s hands.

The Force however is a powerful ally and the man’s grip was quite a bit stronger than it should have been.

Everyone heard his cry.

Everyone felt the sniper’s shock of fear.

Everyone watched him fall, and some of them even saw what happened when he hit the ground.

There’d been no malice in the act. Solna hadn’t given in to her Dark Side (which was not at all unhappy with the results), but the fact that she’d killed a man wasn’t what sent a wave of undisguised terror through the crowd.

“Corrupt.” The word was whispered rather than shouted.

Everyone in the Enclave had grown up with the terror of the Jedi constantly hanging over their heads. Everyone had guarded themselves zealously against the slightest signs that they were changing the Xah at all.

And so all of them knew exactly what Solna had done.