Rassi found ghosts peaceful. That made less than no sense. For one thing they were clearly dead and yet still poking around in the living world which was as deep a corruption of the Xah as she could imagine. For another, they were Jedi. Jedi! Like, not the new fangled type Nix seemed to be. One of them, Kelda, was straight up wearing ghostly Jedi robes, and the other, Ravas, was surrounded by a chorus of memories both dark and light. 

And love.

Both of the ghosts sung of love by their presence. 

Not the wild hollering of first love, though Rassi could hear clearly that they’d never loved anyone but one another. Theirs was the quiet, abiding sort of connection that drowned out even the echoes of their deaths.

Kelda had come with news of a problem, something to do with Nix’s wife – and that was a concept that set Rassi’s toes and fingers tingling – but even with that and the dread concern it filled Nix with, Rassi felt peaceful in Ravas and Kelda’s presence.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” Nix kept her voice low and controlled but in the Xah she was screaming. “If you couldn’t find me, and Ayli couldn’t sense me, how did Paralus manage it? I don’t have any connection to him at all!”

“You must,” Kelda said. “Something you did caused a massive change in something he’s a part of. He wouldn’t be able to reach beyond the stars and manifest before you otherwise.”

“There’s zero chance anything I’ve done to him had more impact than what Ayli and I are to each other,” Nix said. “Or you and me. I’d still be completely ignorant of my connection to the Force if it wasn’t for you.”

“When he came for Ayli, she was in the Shadowed Cave,” Kelda said.

Ravas bapped her on the head.

“You let her take that test without us there to help?” Ravas asked.

“Yes, and she passed it easily,” Kelda said. “I told you she was ready. She even got her eyes back.”

“I’m sorry, what test is this? What did you do to her eyes?” Solna asked.

Solna who resolutely refused to accept that the Jedi were anything other than an abomination. Solna who had never so much as nudged the Xah in the slightest. Solna who nevertheless still called Rassi her friend despite Rassi’s increasingly frequent “mistakes” and “fumbles” with influencing the Xah.

Rassi did not understand her friend, couldn’t tease out the contradictions in her to get them to make sense, and didn’t really want to try in fear that she might unravel whatever it was that held them together.

“Ayli’s eyes changed color after some encounters we had about a year ago. Kelda’s been helping her fix that,” Nix said, clearly distracted as she…

Rassi could quite tell what Nix was doing. It wasn’t manipulating the Xah. That was easy to sense. Nix only seemed to be listening. 

Aggressively.

And then calmly.

And then more aggressively.

“Things are getting worse,” Nix said.

“I can return to her,” Kelda said.

“Or we both could,” Ravas said, with a not-terribly-subtle ripple in the Xah to indicate she intended to bring violence and mayhem along with her.

“No, she’s handling it,” Nix said. “I think.”

“What are you seeing?” Solna asked.

“It’s not sight,” Nix said. “It’s in here.” She tapped her chest. “I can’t do the manifest across the stars. I’m not strong enough and I wouldn’t be able to do anything there even if I could manage it.”

“And it would be wrong,” Solna said, which didn’t seem like the right thing to say or the right time to say it.

“I should be with her,” Kelda said. “If that tank caught up to her, she’ll need someone watching over her shoulder while she fights it.”

“She’s not fighting,” Nix said. “And she has someone with her. No. Someone’s. That’s got to be Bopo and, and someone I don’t know.”

“Monfi,” Kelda said. “He’s a Padal Horizon Knight. He’s hunting Paralus as well.”

“I thought the Horizon Knights were wiped out generations ago?” Ravas said.

“The galaxy is a rather large place it seems. The Jedi, the Sith, the Dathomiri Night Witches, the Silent Enclave, and so many other Force Traditions that people thought were destroyed are hanging in there just fine.”

“I think she’s been captured,” Nix said, her hands were steady over the ship’s controls, but Rassi could feel the tremors in the Force.

Jedi were supposed to be masters of their emotions. Cold and merciless as they bent the fate of the galaxy to their will (until it finally snapped back at them). If that was true, then Rassi could believe that Nix was no Jedi. Not from how Nix was pulsing the Xah around her like hands spasming into angry fists.

“Just tell me where they’re going and I’ll plot an intercept course,” Goldie said.

“Praxis Mar,” Nix said, closing her eyes.

And the disturbing ripples she was sending into the Xah ceased.

Nix wasn’t peaceful. Rassi could still sense the tension inside her, but she’d chosen to stop interfering with the Xah despite her emotions.

Which was something Rassi had never once managed.

“What kind of ship are they on?” Goldie asked, a nervous tension in her mechanical voice.

“I don’t know,” Nix said. “Something dangerous.”

“That makes two of us,” Goldie said.

“Was it her choice?” Ravas asked.

“I think it was,” Nix said. “Which means she’s counting on us to get her out of there.”

“We do not want to go back to Praxis Mar,” Kelda said.

“I know,” Nix said. “But they’ve got a headstart.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t catch them,” Goldie said.

“Ayli will buy us time,” Ravas said. “And she can buy you more if we’re there to help her.”

“If only we could go,” Kelda said, putting a hand on Ravas’s hand.

“What do you mean?” Ravas asked. “I can sense her clearly.”

“As can I. We could even get to Praxis Mar before her,” Kelda said. “And both are traps.”

“What do you…oh, well that’s, annoying,” Ravas said.

“Traps?” Nix asked.

“Whatever ship she’s on, it was the scene of a ghastly enough tragedy to turn it into a floating Dark Side Nexus,” Kelda said. “The moment we appear within it, Paralus will know we are there and will likely be able to manifest more completely because of the imbalance either of us would cause by being there.”

“We could fight him together,” Ravas said, but Rassi could hear the uncertainty in her voice.

“If he is backed by the might of Praxis Mar, we would have a challenging time of it. Particularly since he could likely drag us back there, turning us into hostages rather than assets,” Kelda said.

“I thought I was meant to be the pessimistic one,” Ravas grumbled.

“I’m not being pessimistic,” Kelda said. “We will fight him, but on our terms, not his.”

“Will your wife be okay on a ship like that?” Rassi asked, trying to imagine what could be awful enough to permanently corrupt the Xah if the Expunging Rite didn’t do it.

“She thinks she will be,” Nix said. “And knowing her she’s probably right, but I don’t like ‘probably’. Not for her. Goldie can you get Thirty Two on the line. Last I checked, he was in charge of the fleet Sali left to guard Praxis Mar.”

“Sending a holo-message out now. I’ll have an optimal hyperspace route calculated in about five minutes too.”

“Jump the instant the calculation is done,” Nix said.

“I’m making some guesses about what their path might be from Cellondia. Do you want to check them over?” Goldie asked.

“Nope. You’re going to think of everything I would, and I don’t want to lose even an instant.”

“Should we drop these two off somewhere?” Kelda asked, gesturing to Solna and Rassi.

Rassi flinched at that. 

From how they’d been talking about Praxis Mar, it sounded like a deadly dangerous place. Leaving the two people they could least depend on behind made a lot of sense, but it would mean she and Solna would be defenseless and alone on a strange world. 

If Primus Dolon regrouped and tried the Expunging Rite on them, they’d be dead before Nix would even know they were danger.

“We can’t do that,” Nix said, sending a wave of relief crashing through Rassi. “These two are under my protection, and for now, they still need it.”

“Can you protect them Praxis Mar?” Ravas asked.

“We can,” Nix said. “Alone, I don’t think I’m a match for this Paralus. Together though?”

“I doubt it is unaware of the strengths we possess,” Kelda said. “It has waited a standard year for the chance to assault Ayli and yourself. It was likely observing your actions for a great deal longer than that.”

“You should teach us how to fight it,” Solna said.

Which showed that she’d clearly been possessed.

Or had suffered the sort of grievous head injury that only occurred in the holos where no actual damage was done and yet the victim’s personality was completely reversed.

“What? We can’t…” Rassi started to say but was cut off.

“That’s a good idea,” Nix said. “And it will keep me from slamming the hyperspace button and just hoping we’re pointing in the right direction. Let’s go down to the cargo hold.”

“I know I’m normally the last one to ask this, but are you sure this is a good idea?” Ravas said.

“Oddly, yes,” Nix said. “I’m not sensing these two playing any special role in what’s to come, but try to sense them in general.”

“It’s easier to notice where they’re not,” Ravas said. “Please tell me you’re not planning to make use of that. Spies have a far higher mortality rate than most people understand.”

“Which is exactly why they will not be spying for us,” Nix said. “Or engaging with anything that we find which has anything to do with Paralus Stahl.”

“Why then would they need training?” Kelda asked.

“Three reasons,” Nix said. “First, I’m done with being blind sided. I can’t foresee everything that’s before us, but I can plan around the sort of problems which are almost certain to arise and running into unexpected problems is almost guaranteed to happen. Second, they deserve to know that they can defend themselves, without using the Xah even.”

“What?” Solna asked, as surprised by that as Rassi was. 

Rassi wrestled with the smile that tried to cross her face. Solna had asked for training “knowing” that Nix would refuse, or that the training would involve committing Jedi-style sins against the Xah, which would in turn prove that she was right to distrust them.

“I know you hold to your traditions, and I don’t want to take that from you,” Nix said. “I’m not going to change who I am, even if you think that makes me an abomination, because that’s my choice, but it doesn’t have to be yours.”

“Of…of course,” Solna said, looking more rattled than Rassi could remember seeing her in a long time.

“What’s the third reason?” Rassi asked.

“I said I don’t see you or Solna playing a role in what’s to come,” Nix said. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t. I’m not going to ask anything of you. You deserve safety and support, not to be used as tools or weapons.”

“Bending our fates with Jedi powers is worse than asking us to fight for you,” Solna said.

“Absolutely true,” Nix said.

“And our fates are being bent,” Solna said. “We’re not supposed to be here.”

“Also true,” Nix said, a faint smile spreading across her lips as she glanced at Kelda and Ravas.

“Then why are you doing it?” Solna asked. “I didn’t see it at first, but with this? There is no way we’re here at precisely the time you need more soldiers by accident.”

“I don’t think it’s an accident either,” Nix said. “But look at me, really look, and you’ll see, I’m not the one who was asking for the Force to change your destiny’s.”

Rassi did as Nix asked. 

Nix wasn’t lying.

And she wasn’t wrong.

“That’s all your doing,” Nix said, looking not at Rassi but at Solna.

Ayli didn’t crash into her friend Bopo’s home. Smashing through the front door and causing several thousand credits of property damage did not, necessarily, mean that she had “crashed” into Bopo’s house. 

Especially since what awaited them more than justified the destruction they brought with them.

Archivist Bopo was an older Galruxian, an offshoot species from the Rodians. She had gone back to pursue an academic career after working in starship manufacturing for the first several decades of her life. In her time as a researcher, she hadn’t lost an appreciable amount of the muscle mass she’d developed hauling ship components around, which made it all the more concerning to see her struggling to break free of the grip of the Hunter-Killer droid which had her gripped by the neck.

Ayli could have wasted time trying to reason, or threaten, or plead for Bopo’s life, but none of those held even the slightest chance of success.

So she threw her lightsaber.

It wasn’t entirely unreasonable. She’d suspected that Paralus would move against Bopo based on the fact that Bopo was Ayli’s primary connection on the planet. That Paralus’ droid accomplice would use Bargus Brell’s HK droid to do its dirty work was also more or less a given, since that’s what HK droids were built for.

There was still a chance that negotiations could have produced a peaceful resolution – Paralus was likely to have some demands he intended to make if nothing else.  Crashing through the doors however bought Ayli a moment of surprise that she couldn’t afford to waste.

The HK droid had a machine’s response time to dangers which lay within its prediction algorithms domain. Rather than dodging the flying laser sword, the HK unit simply swung Bopo around as a shield.

Which Ayli had anticipated it might do because, while she did not have machine reflexes, she could hear the warnings in the Force, and she could see what the obvious counter to her attack was. By giving the HK something it thought it could respond to though, Ayli ensured it would stay in position, which let her close the gap to it with a Force assisted leap.

Calling her saber back to her hand before it could strike Bopo wasn’t hard. Her hand was where it was meant to be. Unfortunately the HK unit saw the change in Ayli’s attack while she was mid-leap and it had weapon systems to spare.

Monfi swatted the first blaster bolt away before it could hit Ayli, and she caught the second on her blade.

The HK switched to jets of flame, but Ayli had the velocity to dive under it’s arc and take its left leg off at the knee joint.

Despite its heightened response time, there wasn’t any argument it could make against gravity pulling it to the ground, which dropped both it and Bopo on top of Ayli.

Acting as a cushion for Bopo wasn’t the worse thing in the galaxy, but the HK unit was significantly heavier than it looked.

Ayli had shut her lightsaber off when she dodged under the flame stream to avoid hitting Bopo by mistake. As the HK unit spun two of it’s chest lasers at her though, Ayli flicked the blade back to life, plunging it through the the HK’s central chassis. 

She wasn’t sure where it kept it’s memory banks, but she did know which compartment was the only one large enough to house its power supply.

With a Force assisted kick, she flung the inert carcass of the HK off herself and Bopo before the minor explosion in it’s chest reduced it to a pile of very expensive rubble.

“Y…yo…you…” Bopo tried to choke out, finding it understandably difficult to speak after being held aloft by her throat.

“It’s okay,” Ayli said. “We’ll get you out of here to somewhere safe.”

“I think she’s trying to tell us there’s a problem with that,” Monfi said, a pair of blasters in his hands.

“Indeed,” a chorus of mechanized voices said in perfect unison.

Ayli looked away from Bopo, following her friend’s wide-eyed look of terror to find at least a dozen more HK units emerging from doorways and alcoves, each with a clear shot at herself, Bopo, and Monfi.

Against one assassin droid, Ayli hadn’t felt too uncertain. Even before she’d learned to use the Force she’d encountered one of them and they weren’t as impossible to outfight as their reputation suggested. Against a dozen assassin droids, Ayli also didn’t feel much uncertainty, though for very different reasons.

“I am supposed to thank you for accepting my invitation,” the mechanized voice said. “I am also to instruct you that you are to surrender yourself, or this person, and everyone else you know and care about will pay the price.”

“Who am I surrendering to?” Ayli asked, inwardly groaning that they’d entered a negotiation phase despite her best efforts.

Not that negotiations were a bad idea in general. Negotiations were a fantastic thing when the parties involved each had a reason to seek an end to their hostilities. When it came to resolving differences between two parties who each believed themselves to be the aggrieved one, entering negotiations as soon as possible was always the best move.

The controller of the HK droids did not wish to resolve its conflict with Ayli any more than the Imperial Officers she’d stared at down the barrel of a blaster had ever been interested in pursuing justice. These negotiations were about asserting control and maneuvering to be sure Ayli didn’t have any counter plans in play, while she tried to buy what time she could and look for an opportunity to swing things back in her favor.

With over twelve HK units holding target locks on her though, Ayli didn’t need Force visions to show her those opportunities were going to be largely figments of her imagination.

“You are surrendering to overwhelming firepower,” the mechanized voice said.

“That’s a ‘what’, not a ‘who’,” Ayli said.

“Correct,” the mechanized voice said.

“Okay then Overpowering, why am I surrendering to you?” Ayli asked.

“The alternative is death,” the mechanized voice said.

Ayli laughed.

“Oh, sorry there, that one’s not going to cut it. Please try again,” Ayli said.

“Surrender or you will die, and your companions will die as well,” Overpowering said.

“Nope, see that’s not how this works,” Ayli said. “The choice you’re giving me is to either die here and do some damage to you in the process, or wait and die later after you’ve been able to get something that you want. There’s no logic in surrendering under those conditions, and you know that. So, like a good little machine, why don’t you play back the instructions you’ve been given to convince me to do what your master commanded you to get me to do.”

Ayli hadn’t been certain that she’d be able to provoke Overpowering but the blaster bolt one of the HK units fired at Bopo told her she had managed to hit a nerve. She felt almost as proud of that as she did bouncing the bolt back at the offending droid to send it toppling headless to the floor.

One down, lots left to go.

“Surrender now and you, and you alone, will be brought back to the one who seeks you,” Overpowering said. Ayli was intrigued that it hadn’t said ‘my master’ or anything of the sort. 

That Overpowering was an unfettered machine intelligence was horrifyingly obvious, but Ayli had still expected it to bow to the one who was really calling the shots, especially since ‘that one’ was a Dark Side Lich and Dark Siders were egomaniacs, the lot of them.

“Okay. Excellent. Now we have something to work with,” Ayli said. “My answer is no.”

“Then you will die.”

“Uh uh, not so fast,” Ayli said. “You haven’t asked me why my answer is no.”

“Your reasons do not matter. You will die,” Overpowering said.

“I think they rather do matter.” Ayli knew she couldn’t talk any of them out of the situation, but buying time meant buying hope and that she could definitely do. “Your orders are to bring me back. As a corpse might be a viable alternative but alive is the preference.”

“Preferences can change,” Overpowering said.

“They can. Mine are quite flexible in fact,” Ayli said. “But you still haven’t asked me why my answer is ‘no’.”

“Your reasons are immaterial. Surrender or be destroyed.”

“Again, your programming is coming up just a bit short.” Ayli knew that Overpowering wasn’t a droid, and if there was one thing the other unfettered machine intelligence she knew hated, it was when people assumed the limitations of a droid applied to them as well.

“I am superior to you by all measures.” Which was the kind of thing an entity would say when it had been told since it’s creation that it was nothing more than a tool.

“You need some help with understanding people still though,” Ayli said. “See, you’re not threatening me with death and destruction. That’s a given no matter what choice I make. The choice you’re offering is whether the people with me will be part of that death and destruction or not.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Which is why I have to say ‘no’. Because while you’ve made that offer, its purely empty words, and there’s no trust relationship between us which you can call upon to support your claim.”

“There can be no trust between us.” Overpowering seemed confused by why the concept had even arisen in the conversation.

“Sure there can,” Ayli said. “You can establish an easy trust bridge by letting these two go.”

“Ayli, what are you doing? Don’t be stupid girl,” Bopo said. 

“I’m not. I brought this trouble to your door, or what’s left of it. Let me take it away too.”

“Your friend can go,” Monfi said. “I have a vested interest in seeing how this plays out.”

Because if he was with her, his partner could follow them. 

It wasn’t a bad plan.

Ayli was terribly interested in having Horizon Knight blood on her hands, but she also knew Nix would kill her if she turned down backup when it was offered, especially since alone she really was likely to wind up dead.

“I’m sorry, in what galaxy do you think I‘m going to watch a bunch of bolt buckets walk one of my friends off to her death?” Bopo said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Because, of course she wasn’t.

Ayli wasn’t sure why that surprised her. Bopo had always been a sensible sort, with a knack for somehow still making the worst decisions Ayli had ever seen. 

Somehow that reminded Ayli of Nix, which left her questioning if she had a preferred personality type she liked to associate with and what that said about her.

“It seems I am in need of an alternate means of persuasion,” Overpowering said as glaring red floodlights streamed in through the windows from outside. A deep and multi-harmonic rumbling accompanied the lights.

“I recognize those engines,” Boppo said. “That’s an Assassin-class Corvette out there!”

The Assassin-class Corvettes were Imperial ships. Ayli knew them well. One had burned a city to the ground trying to root out the Rebel cell she’d been with.

“If you recognize the ship, then you know what it is capable of,” Overpowering said.

“You’ve moved up to holding the city hostage now?” Ayli asked, the smell of a hundred burning buildings rising from memory.

“Will that be enough to convince you to surrender or shall I destroy it to prove my sincerity and look for bigger or more personal targets?” Overpowering asked.

Ayli tried to sense where her decisions would lead her, but so many branches of her future were cloaked in the Dark Side that the Force did not seem like a trustworthy source to turn to for divination.

So she looked instead to her companions.

Monfi nodded his agreement, and while she hadn’t known him long, she appreciated his support nonetheless. It was Bopo who convinced her though. Bopo who had seen her make the dumbest of mistakes was looking back at her with confidence and a trust Ayli knew she couldn’t let down.

“We surrender then,” Ayli said. “Let’s go have a chat with your master.”

Nix had braced herself for an argument on two fronts. From Rassi, she expected disbelief fueled by the natural denial of the horror that had befallen her parents. From Solna, on the other hand, she’d expected a refusal to trust an outsider and the immediate dismissal of everything Nix said on the grounds that Nix wasn’t part of the Silent Enclave and therefor could never be trusted.

“What do you mean?” Rassi asked, the denial Nix expecting sweeping over her features.

Solna however simply looked away.

So that Rassi wouldn’t see the understanding in her eyes.

“Oh wow. Now is not the time for this,” Nix said. “I’m not quiet like you two and everyone is going to notice that in about a minute when they get the building fire under control. Please, just trust me. We need to leave.”

“You do,” Solna said. “Rassi’s not like you. She can be on the other side of the camp when they find you. She can be safe.”

“Sol, no,” Rassi said, her confusion turning to gentle certainty. “I’m never going to be safe here.”

“You could be,” Solna said, clearly trying to convince herself as much as anyone else. “You have been. We can make it work.”

“They’ll kill you too,” Rassi said. “I’m slipping. So much. People are going to know. And if my parent’s weren’t an accident, then I won’t be either. And they won’t stop at me.”

The shared sorrow between the two felt so mild to Nix’s sense, at least until she adjusted for how quiet each of them usually was in the Force.

Which was a good, if terrible, sign.

They were mourning the loss of everything they knew, and they would only do that if they’d already made their decision.

“Time’s up,” Goldie said. “I’ve got multiple groups converging on your position, and they are most definitely armed and dangerous.”

“Come pick us up then,” Nix said, drawing the Force into herself in a blatant display of Jedi-style power. 

The Silent Enclave would discover that Rassi and Solna was missing soon enough, but at least in this moment, Nix wanted their presence with her to be a secret.

“Inbound. Small problem though, you’re still inside and they’ve got you surrounded on all the sides that have doors leading out,” Goldie said.

“Then make us a new one,” Nix said. “Don’t worry about anyone in here. I’ve got that covered.”

“Oh I love you Mom! One door coming right up!” Goldie said, her glee radiating through the Force despite her mechanical nature.

“Uh, what does that mean?” Solna asked, looking away from Rassi with panic in her eyes as the future descended on them.

That was when one of Goldie’s proton torpedoes obliterated the wall behind them.

Nix, knowing exactly what she’d asked her daughter to do, was ready for that and caught both the debris and the blast wave with a wall of Force power that clanged louder than the bomb blast in the Silent Enclave.

“It means I will not let either of you be hurt and that we are getting out of here,” Nix said as Goldie slammed down outside the new exit the building had gained with the sort of force she would only use when there were no crew members to be splattered by it.

Rassi and Solna turn and looked eyes with one another. Their decision was already made and the look they shared was merely the confirmation of that.

Where Rassi went, Solna would follow.

Nix was pleased when that turned out to the the edge of space and beyond only a few moments later as Goldie blasted out of the atmosphere and began running the calculations for a jump to light speed.

“What about your friend?” Rassi asked as Nix led them to Goldie’s cockpit.

“I’m more her daughter really,” Goldie said over the intercom.

“What? Who is that? There’s no one else here!” Solna said, eyes darting to the viewports around as though she might catch sight of a stowaway grappled to the outside of the ship.

“Rassi, Solna, meet Goldie. She’s the ship we’re in,” Nix said. “And also my daughter.”

“That sounds complicated,” Rassi said.

“Not terribly, she built me. Isn’t that what mother’s usually do with their kids?” Goldie said.

“You…you exist in the Xah?” Solna said. “But that’s not possible. Droids, unliving things, they can’t be part of the Xah!”

“Generally a true statement,” Nix said. “But life is a lot more complicated than we usually give it credit for being.”

“Oh, Rassi, this is wrong. What had we done,” Solna said.

“Taken a very frightening step into the galaxy that is all of our birthright,” Nix said. “I know this is a lot, and there’s no need to try to take it all in right away. The key is that you’re safe now.”

“But we’re not,” Solna said.

“You will be in five…four…” Goldie jumped to light speed on four before continuing, “threetwoone. We’re in hyperspace now. Whatever problems you had, they are light years behind you and will have four hundred billion systems to try to track you through if they try to figure out where you’ve gone.”

“No,” Rassi said. “They’ll know. They always know where we are. People have fled to the stars before. It didn’t save them.”

“The Enclave must be kept secret at all costs,” Solna said.

“They’re not going to Expunge you,” Nix said.

“They could,” Solna said.

“No. They really can’t,” Nix said. “You’re with me now and the Expunging Rite isn’t one that either the Jedi or the Sith used.”

“Because it was a secret,” Rassi said.

“Not exactly,” Ravas said, appearing on the bridge in the open co-pilot’s seat. “I saw what Primus Dolon was beginning to work on and the rest of pretty easy to understand from basic principals.”

“Then you know how deadly it is!” Solna said.

“Deadly yes,” Nix said. “Practical? Eh, that’s more debatable.”

“I don’t understand?” Rassi said.

“The Expunging Rite, as you call it, is primarily used against recalcitrant members of your sect, correct?” Ravas asked. “People who have intentionally stunted their ability to manipulate the Force.”

“People who do no corrupt the Xah,” Solna corrected her.

“People who have reduced defenses against others manipulating the Force around them,” Ravas said. “The Expunging Rite capitalizes on this in a similar manner a martial art designed to be used against comatose targets might be designed if the aim was to produce a maximum amount of horror.”

“Think of it like a fighting style were you tear your opponent apart with your teeth,” Nix said. “It’s terrifying, and works perfectly well if the victim can’t defend themselves. Using it against someone who know how to fight though? If you’re lucky they’ll cave your face in with a punch the moment you come charging at them teeth first.”

“That…that can’t be right,” Solna said.

“It kills us because we’re weak?” Rassi said.

“Absolutely not,” Nix said. “The rite kills people because the person behind made an unforgivable choice. The victims are not at all fault. Being unused to manipulating the Force isn’t a reason for someone to die. We all have weaknesses, and it’s not our fault if others exploit those against us.”

“So we must stay with you then,” Solna said. “Because we are weak and only you can protect us.”

Nix knew that Solna was trying to provoke her. It was as much about searching for a reason to flee from the change before them as it was about defining where the boundaries were in a new relationship.  Knowing that there was a fathomless pool of fear behind her words made it, slightly, easier to remember that Solna was even more of a child than Nix had been at her age, and that gave her a path to the patience she needed, when a host of other alarm bells were ringing in her mind.

“Well, right at the moment we’re in hyperspace, so while leaving is theoretically possible, I’m pretty sure that theory states the best case scenario would be winding up stranded in interstellar space,” Nix said, wondering if she’d even get the hint of a smile from Solna.

She did not.

“We both know that’s not what you meant though,” Nix said. “You’re wondering if, like all the Jedi you’ve heard about, I’ve kidnapped a couple of kids to indoctrinate into my corrupt Jedi-ways. Is that about right?”

“No.” Solna’s scowl told Nix she’d more or less hit the mark though.

“Good. Since that would both be a horrible and a deeply stupid thing for me to do,” Nix said. “Which is why we’ll do this instead; I basically stole you. It was for what I believed was your own good, but you had no time to prepare and don’t know what tools you have to exist outside the Silence Enclave yet. Since I stole you, I’m responsible for you. That doesn’t mean I own you, and it absolutely does not mean you need to give up your beliefs or start training to become a Jedi or any of nonsense like that. What it does mean is that I owe you food and lodging. I also promised that you would be safe, and so, yes, I will defend you. Part of that, if you choose it, is that I will teach you what I know about how to foil the Expunging Rite, as well as anything else I understand about the Force.”

“And what do we owe you for all of this. What price do we have to pay?” Solna asked, clearly incapable of believing a word Nix said. 

Which on reflection, Nix couldn’t blame her for. Words rarely ever captured the full truth of a thing, and could so, so easily be slanted so that even the truth they did convey could misdirect the listener. Solna was right not to trust her, at least until Nix had the chance to fill the framework of her words with the clarity of deeds.

“You’ve already paid a hell of a price in leaving the Enclave,” Nix said. “The rest of the price is that I get to sleep at night knowing that the dying hopes of two loving people didn’t fall into the void.”

“And that’s all you want from us?” Solna asked.

“Oh I want a heck of lot more,” Nix said. “I would love to learn more about the Xah and the relationship your people have with it. It would be fantastic to have a pair of padawans as gifted as you two are. Heck, even having someone who was willing to clean out the heat exchange relays every five day would be a nice change of pace. None of that are things you have to do. Or should worry about at all until our current crises are a bit more settled down.”

“The heat exchange relay cleaning would be really nice,” Goldie said. “I can do a lot with the waldos but they are not good at dealing with those.”

“Where are we going to go?” Rassi asked, offering her hand for Solna to hold.

Solna shook her head at the offer, and Nix could feel her discomfort at admitting, even tacitly, the emotional weakness she was feeling.

“My wife and I have a home on an island with an old Jedi temple,” Nix said. “It’s not an abandoned village or anything, there are other people there, it just hasn’t been used as a Jedi temple in centuries.”

“So we won’t need to put on Jedi robes or anything?” Rassi asked a faint hint of disappointment in her voice.

“Nope. I prefer coveralls like this,” Nix said, pointing to her attire. “And Ayli, that’s my wife, wears all kinds of stuff. You’ll get to meet her when we get there. She’s been training with the other Force Ghost we know.”

“How many Force Ghosts do you know?” Rassi asked.

“More than they should,” Kelda said, manifesting beside Ravas. “And this one comes bearing problems I’m afraid.”

Ayli hadn’t stolen the speeder she was driving. Stealing something implied that someone owned it and, given that it wasn’t sufficiently locked down to prevent her hotwiring it, she had to assume that no one owned this particular bike. Some planets had individual scale public transportation after all, and as long as Ayli didn’t look into the laws in Haliph City she wasn’t breaking any of them.

That was definitely how it worked.

She was sure.

The sirens in the distance? Couldn’t be for her.

Nor was the shouting she heard when she rocketed away on the speeder likely at all related.

The city was having a bad day after all. Droids had blown up in a bunch of different places.

Places that she’d been admittedly.

But still.

And then there were the assassin.

Only one of whom was probably dead. 

Another might or more not have a fractured skull.

But he’d survive.

On the back of the speeder, Ayli’s new friend Monfi had his arms around her waist in a vice grip and his eyes shut as hard as they could be.

That did not make navigating traffic at high speeds any easier.

It also did not include Ayli to reduce her speed by any amount.

She was on a rescue mission after all.

She couldn’t claim to have a deep connection with Archivist Bopo but they’d known each other since Ayli attended her first classes in xeno-archeology. As with most of Ayli’s academic associates, they’d lost touch after she graduated, and had kept in touch more via following each others work than through direct correspondence, but Ayli had remembered Bopo fondly enough to suggest her as a source to check in with when Nix announced she wanted to search for other Force traditions.

Which meant Bopo was in trouble.

“Kelda, have you regained enough strength to manipulate physical objects yet?” she asked, knowing that her Force Ghost friend would be able to hear here despite the roar of the wind and the fact that there wasn’t really even space for two on the speeder, much less three.

“You’d like me to get the ship prepped for launch?” Kelda asked. Because Force Ghosts had rather good intuition. Who could imagine?

“Yeah. I’ve got the departure documentation loaded in the buffers. If you can send that and start up the engines as soon as I get to Bopo’s there might be some chance we get out of her without any more attacks.

“My associates have that covered,” Monfi said without opening his eyes.

“Do you think that, or do you know it?” Ayli asked, sliding the speeder under a transport lifter because stopping at an intersection was simply not on the agenda.

“The kill order that brought the assassins in was logged by one of Paralus’ minions. They’ve been neutralized,” Monfi said.

“You mentioned that before, which means you’re not working alone?” Kelda asked.

“Horizon Knight’s don’t. We are frequently outmatched by the things we hunt, so we hunt in groups.”

“Not unlike the Jedi,” Kelda said. “We would bring our Padawans along on safe missions, and other Knights if we sensed danger in the offing. Or, if we were feeling particular foolish, we would rush off alone to confront the problem.”

“A Horizon Knight’s mission almost always involves danger, so our apprentices follow us no matter what end we pursue,” Monfi said.

“Which was something else the Jedi didn’t approve of as I recall,” Kelda said. “Then a mere thousand years later, they let themselves be embroiled in a war and dragged their children along with them.”

“Wait, are you saying you have kids here? In Haliph?” Ayli asked, gritting her teeth at the extra time it would take to collect them all.

“My apprentice has long since flown off on his own,” Monfi said. “My partner on the other hand has both of her apprentices here, and the three of them tracked down Paralus’ associate, a man named Bargus Brell,  already. If they hadn’t the tank you noticed earlier would have been a problem long before now.”

As though the Force took some unholy glee in disputing statements like that, Monfi had no sooner said those words than the building in front of the speeder bike exploded outward as a droid operated tank burst through it and began blasting its main cannon at that.

Ayli’s lightsaber was in her hand before she was consciously aware of it.

She knew she blocked two of the tank’s blasts, mostly because she was conscious of the choices she made for where the ricochets would land.

Just because she was having a terrible day, didn’t mean anyone else needed to have their lives ruined or cut short by Imperial cannon fire.

Ayli shook her head.

It wasn’t the Imperials who were after her.

The Empire was dead.

The Rebellion had cut it’s head off, and burned every bit of its body they could find.

In the moment it took her to remind herself of that fact, Monfi had snapped to action, opening his eyes and extending a hand towards the tank. It didn’t explode like the (much smaller) recon droid had. Instead it’s main barrel simply bent downwards by the width of a handspan.

Which was enough to completely ruin the firing channel.

Ayli hoped the droid pilot would fail to process the damage properly and blow itself up with the next attempt to fire the main cannon, but it didn’t.

Instead four blisters rose on the sides of the tank and extended the barrels of the smaller secondary cannons to continue the onslaught.

Ayli knew how fast those could fire and the sort of damage they could inflict on unshielded bodies. Whether she’d be able to parry the onslaught with her lightsaber was something she wasn’t inclined to research however, so she banked the speeder into a hard turn, leaving the main road to crash down alleys in search of a more sheltered path to her destination.

“Should I still prep the ship?” Kelda asked.

“Definitely. We’ll be departing with a crew of three, not counting you.” 

“You mean five do you not?” Monfi asked.

“Nope. Three. You, me, and Bopo,” Ayli said.

“And my partner and her apprentices?” Monfi asked.

“You have a ship. We may need a backup. They should get that in the air. You can send them our coordinates and heading as soon as we have one.”

“Reasonable, but who is the third who’ll be departing with us?” Monfi had closed his eyes once more.

“Bopo’s a friend of mine from school,” Ayli said. “I’m also hoping she’ll have some idea where my wife might have gotten herself too.”

“As a Jedi you should be able to sense that directly shouldn’t you?” Monfi asked.

“I’m not a Jedi, but yes, I should.”

“Oh. I understand the question about Paralus attacking our connections,” Monfi said.

The alleyways weren’t designed to support traffic at the same speeds as the main thoroughfare. In Ayli’s view that was a mark in their favor since her pursuers would have a harder time keeping up.

That the narrow gaps of alleys and the sudden ninety degree turns meant that she had to focus too much on her piloting to think about what might have happened to Nix was also a blessing.

“I don’t understand though. They had to have neutralized Brell. If not we’d be swarmed with assassins by now,” Monfi said. “And I don’t sense anyone still connected to the contract.”

“Your partner did her job,” Ayli said. “Bargus Brell is well connected but he’s an idiot when it comes to tech.”

“The droid were under the control of the assassins though,” Monfi said.

“Some of them. Maybe most of the original batch,” Ayli said. “Bargus has a droid servitor though. A decommissioned HK bot. Give it the right commands and it could hack all sorts of bots around the city, from the taxi droid that took the first shot at killing me to the tank who just crashed through a building about three blocks back.”

“But someone has to be controlling the droid, don’t they?” Monfi said.

“Normally? Yeah. Droid that can kill people are kept on a tight lockdown. Droids that can control other droids to kill people are melted down to scrap on sight.”

“Which would suggest they wouldn’t be the problem here.”

“Yes. Except that I can’t sense the person who’s the problem here. Or even that there is a person whose the problem, which means…” She braked the speeder so hard its tail end flipped over its front as the spiraled out of the alleyway, dodging the cannon shot which had been waiting for them and expecting movement that was in the same star system as sanity.

“Which means Brell and his droid are both trying to kill us,” Monfi said a moment after Ayli twisted them upright into a landing which didn’t entirely destroy three parked cruisers.

 “Not the HK,” Ayli said. “That’s the access point. It’s too well known here. Whatever company that tank belongs to definitely has security in place to keep an HK out of their systems. Paralus must be working with a unrestricted droid of his own. That’s probably who brought the kill order to Brell in the first place.”

“A droid wouldn’t be any faster to get here than Paralus himself would though,” Monfi said. “Unless Paralus needed to be somewhere else though. Or couldn’t come here at all for some reason.”

“Just to verify, even if he’s good at hiding himself, there’s nothing special about a Lich that let’s them hide the Dark Side they exude right?” Ayli asked, splitting her focus despite it being a monumentally bad idea.

Well, monumentally bad for someone who wasn’t as good a pilot as she was.

“Not that the Horizon Knights have ever discovered,” Monfi said. “I don’’t think that helps us though. The Dark Side exists everywhere people do.”

“That’s true, but I’ve had a lot more experience than I’d prefer with Dark Side monsters. Even when you can’t see them, you can tell they’re around if you know how to listen for them.”

It was not as easy as Ayli suggested, nor was she practiced enough with the Force to be sure she could detect the monsters the Dark Side spawned reliably.

Except in this case.

Paralus Stahl was focused on her.

Something she’d done had forged a connection between the two of them. A connection that had allowed him to track her across the stars. A connection which let him foresee her actions to the point where he could have agents in place the moment she landed on a new world.

Connections, however, go in both directions.

She didn’t know who he was. Not really. Or what she’d done that placed her in his sights.

But she knew he was looking for her, and so she looked back.

Casting her awareness into the Force while driving at twice the posted speed limit down crowded streets wasn’t difficult. It didn’t require a special effort of will, or a special degree of talent. It simply required trust.

Trust in the Force.

She’d always listened to it when she was behind the controls of a vessel. It had taken being possessed by a Sith Force Ghost and a year of training under the tutelage of a trio of very dear instructors, but that had allowed her to hear more than distant whispers of the Force.

As her awareness rose outwards towards the stars seeking the heart of the malice which was directed at her, she gave control of her body over to the Force almost entirely.

Where once the Force had been a distant echo, from within the trance she embraced she caught glimpsed echoes of the world around her and piloting through it with perfect awareness of what was around her and what would be at every instant of the course she’d chosen.

The greater part of her awareness though was swallowed by the void between the stars.

Within the endless dome of the sky there were countless lives and distance on a scale to dwarf all understanding. Deep inside that though, she could feel the hate that sought her.

Hate that had an all too familiar home.

From across the light years, Praxis Mar was at war, and it was calling her home.

There were a variety of reactions Nix could have chosen from on being confronted by Darsus Klex’s return. Most of them were violent, with a few of them also being explosive. Despite the seething mass of emotions roiling inside her though, Nix chose one of the non-confrontational approaches.

“Go peddle your nonsense somewhere else,” she said, casting about for a path which would lead them to safety-by-way of Rassi’s friend Solna.

“I’m not here to sell you anything,” Darsus said. “Quite the opposite. I’m here to collect.”

Except it wasn’t Darsus Klex.

It looked like him.

It was his body.

No.

It was a projection of his body.

And every path forward led through him.

Which was inconvenient.

“Who is that?” Rassi asked.

“A dead man,” Nix said. “Not an important one either.”

“You seem distracted. Perhaps I should clear your agenda,” the thing that wasn’t Darsus Klex said and stretched out his arm.

Nix felt the Force coil and surge, not quite in the soul destroying manner of the Expunging Rite, merely with enough malice sufficient to kill in a more standard manner. The killing blow flowed into Nix but passed through her, following the connection she’d forged with Rassi, the intent on twisting the young girl’s throat until it collapsed permanently. 

In the first instant Nix cast herself against the flow. The rage simmering in her rose to meet the attack, intent on tearing it and the false Darsus Klex to pieces.

But he turned out to be strong.

A lot stronger than she was in fact.

With a sickening dread, Nix felt the assault crashing over and around her rage like a tidal wave, far too large for her to stuff back to its source.

Fortunately, fluid mechanics was a field she was well versed in on both a practical and academic level thanks to her eclectic experience and reading habits.

Shoving a wave back was a terrible idea. Redirecting a wave to a more useful direction though? That was a winning strategy.

So she sent the killing Force towards Primus Dolon.

Despite being on fire and in a collapsing building, Dolon still had the presence of mind to resist the deadly blow as well.

Which was curious.

The Silent Enclave wasn’t supposed to know how to manipulate the Force.

The Expunging Rite was a rite because it offered a clear external mechanism for directing the Force to destroy someone. The resistance Dolon offered was that of someone who was used to manipulating the Force with an incredible degree of precision and subtlety.

Not really a surprise that the leader of a sect who swore off using the Force to influence their fates would in fact be using the Force to influence his own fate, but it did stoke Nix’s anger a bit higher.

Which seemed to please the false Darsus Klex.

“I wonder if I need to anything at all,” he said. “You seem to be understanding the true nature of things on your own.”

“I understand that I do not have time to deal with you,” Nix said. “And I understand that you do not have time to spare either.”

“And why would you say that?” the false Darsus said.

“You’re rushing things,” Nix said. “If you wanted to kill me you would have gotten down to that immediately, without this pointless banter. If you planned to corrupt me, you would be making a better effort at it than this half-assed attempt.”

“I’m wounded,” the false Darsus said.

“Not yet,” Nix said. “I mean, you’re dead, so there’s limits to what I can do to you, but I’m willing to get creative if that’s how you want to play whatever this is?”

“This is corrective surgery,” false Darsus said. “Your light is a cancer that needs to be excised. Darkness or death, either will serve.”

Nix could feel the malice hiding behind the controlled demeanor of the man in front of her. That coupled with the memory of his please at her anger against Dolon gave Nix the key she needed to banish the Force projection he was using.

“You know there’s a service charge for everything right?” she asked, allowing a deep breath to uncoil the tension that was locking her into violent reactions. “I usually charge standard repair rates if we’re going with an hourly approach, but I don’t think contracting an assassination on yourself really counts as a repair? There’s probably also ethical and legal restrictions I’d need to check on so, maybe we can circle back to that once I’ve been able to do some research on the local laws wherever you are? I can submit a standard bidding form, but I’m not sure how I’d break the pricing out. Maybe transport, custom fees, and cleanup when I’m done? We can work something out I’m sure.”

“Uh, what?” Rassi asked.

“He asked me to kill him,” Nix said. “I don’t usually do assassinations. I’m a ship’s mechanic, so fixing things is more where my skillset is, but, and this is important, he did just try to kill you about a minute ago, so I’m provisionally on board with taking this particular assassination job.”

“I don’t think…” Rassi started to say and then interrupted herself, “wait, where did he go?”

Nix chuckled.

“Ran out of stamina,” she said. “That Force Projection trick isn’t easy. Could you feel how much Force was just radiating off him. It was meant to be intimidating but once I stopped focusing on all the murder that was in the air, I could tell it was a sign of how much energy he was putting into showing up here.”

“I don’t understand,” Rassi said.

“I’ll explain more later,” Nix said. “Right now, we need to get to Solna.”

“Okay, she’s in the light sculpturing lab,” Rassi said and started leading Nix out of the lab.

“Is anyone there with her?” Nix asked.

“Ask her where is it too and I can touch down next to it,” Goldie asked. “Oh, wait, no worries, I’m in their net. Got the location.”

“I think she’s alone,” Rassi said. “Everyone else is out in the streets looking for you, or heading towards the burning building.”

“Good.”

“I don’t know how we can get to her though?” Rassi said.

“Leave that part to me,” Nix said, breathing slowly and regularly to get herself back to a state where she could speak to the Force without anger or fear putting jagged edges on her words.

They reached the door out of the far end of the building Nix had been incarcerated in and discovered that Rassi’s senses were entirely accurate. There was a tremendous amount of commotion and it fell into three categories; those helping with the partially collapsed building, those forming a defensive perimeter in case the enclave was under some greater attack, and, the most worrisome group, those who were hunting for Nix.

In regaining control of her emotions, Nix had been able to quiet her presence in the Force enough that those who’d been drawn towards her like moths to a bonfire were momentarily confused. That they were all within her immediate vicinity was something of a problem though.

“They’re waiting for us out there,” Rassi said. “They know this is the exit that we’ll use. How are we going to get out?”

“We’re going to walk,” Nix said, breathing in deeply and closing her eyes.

I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

It was an old mantra, one Kelda had taught her, one which predated the Jedi, and one which was still able to fill her with the peace she needed.

When the Dark Side cloaks someone, it is a numbing of the senses. It wraps deadly intentions in impenetrable darkness and dims the awareness of those who might interact with those intentions.

Nix’s request to the Force came from a different place. She bore no hatred of the people who sought her harm. She wished for nothing to happen to them, no harm, no befuddlement, no terror at not being able to perceive their foe. She merely wished to pass by them in peace.

Silently voicing her wish to the Force, she gathered Rassi by her side, including the young girl in her wish by the bonds she felt with a child who needed to protected just as much as she herself had.

Together they left the building and calmly walked past the anxious people, and down the street filled with the shocked and terrified masses.

It wasn’t until they stepped inside the lab Rassi was leading them to that either spoke.

“How?” Rassi asked, looking at Nix with a wholly unfounded sort of awe.

“The Force can have a strong influence on mind’s which aren’t trained to think for themselves,” Nix said. “It helped too that we were giving them what they wanted.”

“They wanted to find us though, didn’t they?”

“Not really. They wanted to be able to say that they looked for us everywhere they could. That they followed their orders and did as good a job as anyone expected them to,” Nix said, following Rossi through the lobby and down a hallway. “None of them really wanted to face a Great and Terrible Jedi Warrior who’d cut them to pieces with her magic laser sword.”

“You don’t have a magic laser sword though?” Rassi said.

“Yeah. People are surprisingly confused by what a lightsaber is,” Nix said. “I mean, they look pretty, but a blaster will make you just as dead and can do it from a lot farther away. I’m also not particularly Great or Terrible, but you’ll get to see that for yourself I’m sure. Is this where she is?”

“Uh, yeah,” Rassi said.

“And she knows we’re here right?”

“Yes, she does,” Solna said, opening the door to the lab and blocking the entrance to it with her body.

Where Rassi was solidly built, Solna had the physique which suggested someone had found a pile of sticks and used them to assemble an overly bright and curious human being.

“And will she be coming with us?” Nix asked. The Force said Solna definitely had to leave the encampment with Rassi, but Nix wasn’t about to engage in double kidnapping unless at least the kids involved were in agreement with it.

“She will not,” Solna said. “Rassi, what are you doing? Have you gone insane?”

“No! Solna, I…I know how this looks, but we need to go. Primus Dolon? He’s going to kill you if you stay!”

“And he’s going to kill you, Expunge you, if you leave!” Solna said.

“I’d rather be expunged than let you die!” Rassi said, grabbing Solna by the shoulders.

Solna was half a head taller than Rassi but in terms of mass couldn’t begin to resist being pushed into the room.

So she grabbed Rassi’s shoulders and shook her instead.

“Don’t you ever say that!” Solna maintained her calm insofar as she didn’t move her hands from Rassi’s shoulders to her throat and start throttling her, and Nix admired the restraint. 

“I’m sorry,” Rassi said. “I don’t want either of us to die, but after today? I can’t stay here.”

“Why?” Solna asked and turned to Nix. “What did you do to her?”

“Swore I would protect her,” Nix said. “And you. No one is going to harm either one of you. Not without getting through me and all my Evil Jedi powers first.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense. You don’t even know her. Or me!’

“I didn’t,” Nix said. “Not until the Force, or the Xah if you prefer, showed me something I can’t walk away from.”

“The Xah doesn’t do that though,” Solna said. “It doesn’t make us do anything.”

“It’s not,” Nix said. “I’m making me do this. I have to.”

“Why? What did you see?”

“I saw how her parents died. I was with them in the Force and I know their last thoughts were the hope the she be protected and love.”

Rassi and Solna were both silent at that for a moment.

“But why does that mean we need to leave?” Solna asked.

“Because I also saw who killed them.”