Dozens of shuttles tore free of the hangar, climbing hard into the night sky.
Among them, one yellow Naboo N-1 starfighter stood out, its sleek silhouette and twin slender tail fins cutting an elegant line through the formation.
Tucked into the ventral socket behind Lance rode a standard astromech droid.
Several enemy fighters had already locked onto his tail, blaster fire chasing him through the air.
He read their movements through the Force and answered with the same instinct, sliding and rolling through the sky, bolts skimming past the hull close enough to feel.
The enemy numbers kept climbing regardless.
Ventral cannons lit up all along the blockade line, weaving a net of fire across the airspace.
The shuttle formation took heavy losses almost immediately, forced to break apart and scatter.
Ships that hadn’t turned in time caught direct hits and burst apart mid-air, wreckage trailing fire on the way down.
Screams carried faintly through the hull.
The sound of people who knew they weren’t going to make it.
Grogu pressed himself into Lance’s arms, shaking hard.
“Hey.
It’s okay.
We’re going to be fine.”
Lance kept one hand steady on the stick, murmuring what comfort he could manage.
The N-1’s handling gave him just enough of an edge to push forward through the formation, and after taking down two fighters closing on him, he slammed the console’s red control.
Sublight speed engaged.
The engines roared, power redlining almost instantly, the whole fuselage shuddering under it.
Twin trails of exhaust burned out behind him, and the G-force hit him like a wall, pinning him hard into the seat.
The starfighter broke atmosphere and slid into open space.
Behind him, maybe a dozen shuttles were still fighting to clear the blockade.
Most didn’t make it.
A handful were caught in tractor beams, frozen mid-flight, being reeled slowly toward the cruisers that had them.
In the end, fewer than one in ten made it clear.
As planned, each surviving ship scattered in its own direction and jumped to hyperspace rather than risk being wiped out together.
Lance didn’t waste time.
He locked a preset route, let the navicomputer finish its calculations, and dropped out of sublight the moment the coordinates resolved.
The hyperdrive engaged.
Space bent around him, stars smearing into long lines of light, and the N-1 vanished from the spot before the cruiser guns could ever get a lock.
In a dim, private office, Palpatine sat in an ornate chair, his face buried in shadow beneath a heavy hood, only a pair of scarlet eyes visible.
He watched the holoprojection on the table without a flicker of reaction, tracking the handful of shuttles that had slipped his grasp.
“A few of the shuttles escaped the blockade,” an officer reported, voice tight with nerves, clearly hoping to soften whatever came next.
“But we’ve taken dozens of Jedi into custody.
Interrogation should give us their destination soon enough.”
“Then I’ll look forward to your results.”
The channel closed.
Silence settled back over the room.
In the dark, something like a grin crossed his face, sharp enough to show teeth, his eyes bright with satisfaction and something colder underneath it.
A moment later, a Chagrian in rich, formal robes stepped into the doorway, a long staff in hand.
His skin ran grey-purple, textured like damp cloth, a pair of smooth pale pink horns curving from his brow, and two fleshy tendrils hanging from his shoulders, mottled blue-purple fading to soft yellow at the tips.
Mas Amedda, Vice Chair of the Galactic Senate.
Right now, though, he carried none of that authority.
He bowed low the moment he entered, eyes down, voice hushed.
“Chancellor.
My Master.
The session has already begun.
They’re waiting on you.”
The N-1 cruised on autopilot down a corridor of deep blue hyperspace.
Lance sat back and let out a long breath, though the images from the Temple kept replaying regardless, faces he’d known for years falling one after another in his mind.
The weight of it kept settling deeper, pressing down harder with every replay.
Combined with the chase that had nearly ended things minutes ago, he had almost nothing left in the tank, body or spirit.
He looked down at the small shape curled against him.
His mind drifted back to the hangar.
Troopers had kept pouring in without end, and to buy the shuttles enough time to clear, most of the remaining Knights had chosen to stay and hold the line.
There’d been no version of that where they walked away.
Even holding the line as long as they had, several ships still lost their thrusters before they could lift off.
Grogu’s had been one of them.
Lance pulled him free after clearing the immediate threat and brought him aboard his own fighter.
Small as an infant, he took up almost no space curled in Lance’s arm, no real interference with the controls.
Once the danger seemed to actually pass, the shaking finally eased out of him.
Lance rubbed his back gently.
“Grogu.
It’s okay.
We’re safe now.
For now, at least.”
Something in the words, or maybe just the calm underneath them, coaxed Grogu’s head up out of the fold of Lance’s robe.
Looking at him, Lance felt something in his own chest loosen, just slightly, the grief and exhaustion thinning out for a moment.
He reached down and rubbed the top of Grogu’s head.
Within minutes, his breathing evened out into something close to a snore.
Lance smiled despite himself.
“You really are just a baby, huh.”
Barely out of a fight for his life, and already asleep.
Except, technically, this particular baby was well past forty.
Older than Lance twice over.
By the old reckoning back on Earth, this would’ve made Grogu something like an uncle to him.
Not that anyone here would ever put it that way.
Grogu belonged to the same species as Master Yoda, one known for a lifespan stretching close to a thousand years.
Yoda himself was pushing nine hundred.
Measured against that scale, Grogu really was still an infant.
People spent entire lives chasing a fraction of that kind of longevity.
For some species, it came standard, no effort required.
The galaxy held stranger things still, species that outlived even Yoda’s by a wide margin.
Envy and wonder, both at once.
What some spent everything trying to reach, others were simply born already holding.
Lance shook the thought loose and pulled the edge of his robe over Grogu, tucking him in against the chill of the cockpit.
The quiet settled back in, nothing but the low hum of the engines.
Too much had happened for sleep to come easily to him, though.
His thoughts kept returning to his Master.
A bond ran naturally between Master and Padawan, one that let each sense the other’s safety and mood across real distance, sometimes even flashes of image or thought.
In battle, it made their timing almost seamless.
That bond only grew stronger with time and trust between them.
Right now, he could still feel it.
Thin.
Strained close to breaking, but not gone.
His Master was alive.
Probably hurt badly, and running on fumes, but alive.
“Hold on, Master.
I’m coming.”
He clenched his fists, pushing the worst of the anxiety back down where it couldn’t slow him.
When the channel had cut out, Plo Koon had been deep in a mission on Cato Neimoidia, out at the far edge of the galaxy.
And the N-1 wasn’t built for that kind of distance.
Its fuel reserves wouldn’t get him there in one run.
He was going to need several stops along the way.