Lance checked the instruments once, confirmed everything was steady, and let his eyes fall shut.
The Temple kept playing behind his eyelids anyway.
Faces he’d known for years, falling under blaster fire one after another, their last cries still ringing somewhere he couldn’t quite reach to shut off.
Something hot flared up from underneath all of it.
Revenge.
The thought alone was enough to speed his breathing.
His fists tightened, veins standing out along his forearms, something sharp and ugly settling into his expression.
Right as that feeling threatened to swallow him whole, Grogu shifted in his arms, restless.
It was enough to snap him back.
He looked down at the small shape against his chest and murmured, “Thanks, Grogu.”
Steadier now, he closed his eyes again, and years of meditation training pulled his breathing back into rhythm, clearing the noise out of his head.
He let his awareness stretch outward, sinking into the current of the Force itself.
Points of light bloomed into view, countless and small, drifting and threading together in his mind’s eye.
The Force, in its rawest form.
Every living thing generated some of it.
The portion born out of life itself was called the Life Force, while the current that ran through the wider universe, independent of any one creature, was the Cosmic Force.
Not two separate things really, just different scales of the same current, the same source.
Life gave rise to the Force, but the Force was never limited to life alone.
Even something as inert as stone or metal still carried a trace of it flowing through, resting on its surface.
Midi-chlorians served as the bridge connecting life to that current, letting the sensitive among them feel it, shape it, direct it.
Lance drew it into himself, and it moved through him gently, threading between cells, easing the exhaustion out of his body one layer at a time.
He felt himself grow lighter, steadier, his spirit filling back in like a tank refilling from empty.
He had no idea how much time had passed when the movement in his arms pulled him awake again.
Grogu was sitting up, small hands wrapped around his Master’s holoprojector.
“That’s not a toy.”
He pulled it free gently.
Grogu looked up at him, lower lip pushing out, eyes starting to shine wet, clearly winding up for a full protest.
Lance sighed.
Coaxing a child through anything wasn’t a skill he’d picked up in either life.
This was, without question, a problem.
He glanced around the cockpit.
Nothing but cold instrumentation, nothing remotely suitable to hand over instead.
Then his eyes landed on the hyperdrive control stick, on a small spherical fitting about the size of a quail egg.
That might unscrew.
He reached over, pinched it, and twisted.
It came loose easily.
He held it up between two fingers.
“This one you can’t eat.
Understand?”
Grogu’s eyes went wide instantly, both hands already reaching for it.
“Careful.
Never in your mouth.
Got it?”
He set the little sphere into Grogu’s palm, and the sulking vanished on the spot. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Grogu clutched it in one hand, waving his short arms with delight, chirping happily to himself.
“I really can’t say no to you, can I?”
Fine.
Let that memory stay buried.
You just get to grow up happy.
He shook his head, though the corner of his mouth had already curved upward without his permission.
A faint vibration ran through the holoprojector.
He frowned and looked it over.
It only reacted to a handful of things, and one of them was an incoming message.
Jedi comm technology like this bypassed relay stations entirely, meaning nothing could trace it back to a source.
Quiet, and safe.
He fed it a thread of Force energy.
It lifted off his palm, hovered in front of him, and unfolded with a soft mechanical whir.
A holographic image bloomed into view.
Obi-Wan, wrapped in his dark brown robe over the beige tunic underneath, though nothing about him looked put together.
His hair, usually kept neat, hung loose and disordered, and his beard had gone ragged.
Weariness sat heavy in his eyes, and his voice carried the same weight when he spoke.
“This is Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
A pause.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I have to tell you: the Jedi Order has fallen.
So has the Republic.
In their place stands the Empire.”
“This message is both a warning and an instruction to any Jedi still standing.”
His voice didn’t rise, but it held firm.
“Trust the Force.
Do not return to the Temple.
That era is over.
What comes next, none of us can say yet.”
“Stay clear of Coruscant.
Avoid being tracked.
Keep your location hidden.”
He paused again, his gaze somehow reaching past the recording itself, toward whoever might still be listening.
“But stay strong.
Trust, faith, friendship, all of it will be tested in the days ahead.
We endure regardless.”
Something steadied in his tone, a small, stubborn spark of certainty.
“I believe, firmly, that hope will find its way back to us someday.”
“May the Force be with you.
Always.”
Grogu’s expression had gone somber listening to it, something in his face suggesting he was remembering the Temple all over again.
Lance shut the projector off quickly.
Even without Obi-Wan’s warning, Coruscant was never an option. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Going back after escaping would be walking straight into whatever came next.
Still, knowing Obi-Wan had made it out gave him something solid to hold onto.
Wonder how many actually survived this.
The Order was gone.
Whatever standing or respect had come with that title, gone with it.
He’d never leaned on being a Jedi for status, but it had counted for something, whether he acknowledged it or not.
Not anymore.
From here on, I’ll be lucky if I’m not hunted like vermin.
Somewhere out in the Outer Rim, the N-1 dropped out of hyperspace, yellow hull catching the dim light of the void around it.
Ahead sat a small, misshapen body barely worthy of the word planet.
Kessel.
Too small to hold an atmosphere of its own, a thin haze of vapor trailing it as it turned.
Notorious for its spice, and just as infamous for the mines that produced it.
He hadn’t planned on stopping here.
It wasn’t the ideal spot to refuel.
But the fuel gauge left him little choice, and the location happened to sit right along his route.
More importantly, it fell outside Republic jurisdiction entirely.
He guided the fighter down, passing over a scattering of atmospheric processors pumping breathable gas into the thin air below.
Even with all that machinery running, the surface air stayed barely tolerable.
He set down on a landing pad at a fuel depot tucked between jagged rock canyons, pulled two breath masks from storage, and fitted one over his own face and one over Grogu’s.
“Stay put.
I’ll be right back.”
He climbed out, and the canopy sealed shut behind him automatically.
He pulled his hood up and drew his robe tight.
A worker droid rolled over almost immediately, barely a meter tall, thin-limbed, its head shaped like a mushroom cap.
“Need a refuel, sir?”
“Yeah.
What’s it running per credit to fill up?”
The droid started to answer, then paused mid-sentence, clearly catching some update from its owner.
“Apologies.
We’re short on fuel right now.
Can’t refuel you.”
“If it’s urgent, my boss can help.
He’s in the office there.” It pointed a thin finger toward a room glowing orange in the distance.
Price gouging, most likely.
Lance felt his jaw tighten slightly, though not with real anger.
Places run by criminal outfits and pirates rarely operated any other way.
He looked over at his astromech.
“Watch the ship, R4.”
R4-P18’s head lit up with a soft flicker.
“Beep, beep.”
Lance headed for the office, the worker droid’s optics following him the whole way.