Archive of Our Own

Jaina Solo had never had her own nightmare, though she was already nine years old. She sometimes wondered what kind of nightmares she would have, what scary pictures her brain might think up while she was sleeping. She was only afraid of exactly four things – bugs, snakes, the dark, and being stuck in small spaces – and even then, she wasn’t that afraid. But she was curious. She barely had dreams of her own. And the only nightmares she experienced were her twin brother Ben’s.

She woke up late one night with Ben’s bad dream spinning behind her eyes. Dark figures. Red light. A twisted form sitting on a throne in a cavernous room. A tug – turning into an insistent pull – of something impossibly strong…

It didn’t seem that bad to her, but she knew she wasn’t the one dreaming it. She felt Ben’s fear through their bedrooms’ shared wall.

She slid out of bed, and went into his room. Ben was curled up in a ball, shaking and sweating in his sleep. She picked up his emotions almost as if they were her own. He felt like he was being sucked underwater. He thought he was going to drown in the darkness. He was afraid. He was hurting. She wanted to help him.

“Ben!” She grabbed the nearest pillow, and hit him with it. Not hard, but still. “Wake up, dummy!”

He jerked awake. There was enough light in the room for her to see his eyes open wide.

“Jaina?” he said, like he wasn’t sure. “I was somewhere else… I – I – I saw – the man on the throne –”

“I know,” she said. “It’s OK, though. It was only a nightmare.”

He sat up, and rubbed his eyes. “You saw?”

“I always do.” She sat next to him, swinging her legs in the dark past the edge of the bed.

He squeezed his pillow to his chest. “Why do I get these dreams, and you don’t?”

“I dunno.” She gave a shrug that was big and dramatic, so he could see it with the light off. “But that means I’ll always be able to wake you up.”

“Promise you will?”

She stole his other pillow. She knew, without having to ask, that he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep if she left him alone. “I promise.”

*

Twenty years later, Jaina Solo lands her ship, Trickster, on the surface of a scrubland planet with no name. She is dressed in amber beskar armor, her lightsaber at her side. She is there to kill her brother.

She strides down Trickster’s gangplank with all the swagger she can muster, which doesn’t feel like enough. Still, it’s easy to walk with heavy, decisive steps with the weight of her armor and the jetpack on her back, though she brought just enough fuel to serve as an emergency escape if she needs it. The Knights of Ren have come to greet her. They stand in a silent semicircle. Each is dressed in black, with his own battered armor, helmet, and weaponry. Not quite uniform, not quite unique.

She’s sure they know who she is. She’s sure they knew she was coming. And if they knew, her brother did. Her goal was never to take him by surprise, but to catch him at the perfect moment away from his army, away from his master. Her intelligence told her he would be on a scouting mission today, with only his little club to back him up.

She has waited years for this. Bruising and callousing her body and mind. Learning how to take the offensive in a new way. Training to kill a Jedi, or a Sith, or whatever space between the two he occupies now. The Resistance fights the First Order. But Jaina is here for her twin.

She reaches the ended of Trickster’s gangplank. She hasn’t put on her helmet yet, so the Knights of Ren can see her face, have full confirmation of who they’re dealing with. She wants them to see that while she may not be at ease, she’s not afraid. Not of them.

“Hello, boys,” she says. “Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your way soon enough. I promised my wife I’d be home in time for dinner.”

They say nothing. They don’t move.

“Alright…” she says under her breath. “So that’s how it’s going to be.”

The second she steps onto the surface of the planet, they strike. But she’s ready. She jumps into the center of their circle, so their ranged weapons are useless unless they want to risk friendly fire. One tries it anyway, but she draws her lightsaber and deflects his blaster bolt with the lilac blade. Without breaking her stride, she ducks, rolls, and springs to her feet right behind the biggest guy.

She holds her lightsaber an inch from his throat. “Where is he?” she demands. “I’m not here to fight you, but don’t think I won’t if I have to!”

The Knights lower their weapons. Jaina doesn’t move until something starts to prickle the back of her neck…

She steps back, and turns around. A dark figure appears across the plain. From a distance, nothing marks him apart from the other Knights of Ren, but her stomach clenches when she recognizes his stride.

She expected fear of the man who has brought so much of the galaxy to its knees. She expected anger at the man who destroyed her life and killed her father.

What rises in her is a dreadful excitement. This is a chance to stop her brother, fulfill her training, and prove that this was the right path to take.

She slides her helmet over her head, closes her eyes, and lets the Force flow through her.

*

People didn’t tend to assume they were twins. Though the two of them shared a birthday, went everywhere together, and passed emotions back and forth as easily as words, they had a long list of differences. Jaina was slight, Ben was gangly. Jaina’s hair was dark brown, Ben’s was straight black. Jaina smiled at strangers, while Ben was quiet around people he didn’t know.

Jaina liked to poke at things, pick at little details. She could spend hours poring over blueprints, or learning a new set of ship controls in a simulator. She pulled objects that interested her apart and put them back together (though she got in trouble when she did so with her uncle’s lightsaber, even when it worked almost mostly the same afterwards).

Ben, on the other hand, pushed. Their father said he was good at cutting the Corellian Knot, whatever that meant. She just knew her brother could be stubborn sometimes. If they were both having trouble solving a problem one of their tutors gave them, Jaina ran herself ragged trying to figure it out, while Ben refused to focus and argued the problem wasn’t worth his time in the first place.

They didn’t share the Force, either. Not equally. Both of them were sensitive to the Force, and of course they were both going to be Jedi when they grew up. But it came more easily to Ben. He could move things with the Force before she could. He sensed things she didn’t know existed. He was stronger, and she didn’t like admitting it.

Worst of all, he was starting to get taller than her.

When they were eleven, right before they were sent to train with Uncle Luke, Jaina made the mistake of getting into a contest with Ben. They snuck off into Outbound Flight Memorial Park near where their family lived on Hosnian Prime, and challenged each other to use the Force to lift bigger and bigger rocks they found.

Jaina struggled with pebbles. Though she tried until she was red-faced and sweating, she couldn’t move anything bigger than her fist. Ben lifted every rock she pointed out like the act was nothing, and tossed a whole bench to prove he could. It made Jaina furious. It wasn’t so much that he could do what she couldn’t; it was the smug look on his face…

“This doesn’t make you better than me!” she snapped. He hadn’t said anything about that. But he was thinking it. She just knew it.

Ben gave her a serious look.

“I have a different destiny than you do,” he said.

“We’re both going to be Jedi,” she reminded him.

“But I’m going to be something even more,” he said. “I’m going to completely change how people use the Force. Like our grandfather did.”

“Do you mean Darth Vader? He was the bad guy, remember?”

“Yeah, but he was powerful. He remade the Jedi Order.”

“By killing people. Do you want to kill people?”

“No!” he said, like she was the one who wasn’t making sense. “Obviously I don’t, but –”

“Being a Jedi as about helping others. Not burning everything down.”

Ben snorted. “Your perspective is too small. That’s why you’re so weak.”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” Jaina’s anger bounced off her brother’s, ricocheting in a growing feedback loop.

When their parents found them, they were covered in dirt, screaming wordlessly at each other, trying to land their awkward, inexperienced blows.

“Hey! Hey, you little animals, break it up!” Han shouted, as he and Leia yanked them apart.

“She head-butted me!” Ben raged, his black eye already blooming. Leia struggled to keep him from jumping back on Jaina.

“I did not! You hit my forehead with your face!”

“Enough!” Leia said. She had her arms tight around Ben’s waist. “Honey, stay out here with Jaina. I’ll go get Ben patched up.”

Leia dragged Ben away, and Han made Jaina sit on the same bench Ben had raised up earlier. Jaina blurted the whole story to her father. By the end, she was crying angry tears.

“Why would he say that about Darth Vader?” Jaina said. “He was evil. He destroyed most of our family.”

“You’re right, sweetie,” Han said. “You’re right. But Ben…thinks big. He doesn’t always hit the mark, but he’s eleven. Force powers or not, you’re kids, and you don’t actually know anything yet.”

“We’re not babies, Dad.”

“Sure you’re not. Ben wants to go places, change things, and he’s still figuring out how he wants to do it. Trust me, your mom and your uncle are going to give him an earful about calling on Vader’s name, and hopefully your brother will grow out of being such an idiot. Do you think he actually wants to hurt anyone?”

“He doesn’t,” Jaina said. “I would know.”

“Well, there you go.” Her father ruffled her hair. “No more fighting, you hear me? You don’t punch family without a good reason. And good grief, kid, you never punch anyone with your thumb inside your fingers.” By the time he’d finished walking her through how to fold her hands into a fist and throw a solid punch, her tears had dried.

Ben surprised her later, by pulling her into a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” he said, and she felt how much he meant it.

“I’m sorry, too,” she mumbled.

“When we start training for real, I’m sure you’ll get stronger. I’ll help you.”

“I know you will.” She grabbed both his shoulders, and looked him right in his swollen eye. “And if you becoming anything like Darth Vader, I’ll kill you.”

Ben laughed in her face, so of course she had to shove him. But the fight that came next was the fun kind. Within a few minutes, they were both on the floor, cackling, and aware of how much they’d forgiven each other.

*

The first time Jaina faces her twin in years, they can’t look each other in the eye. She doesn’t know how he sees through that mask. At least the beskar helmet has a visor. And what a vision they have become, to each other and to their past selves. She looks like a faceless bounty hunter. He’s a black-robed specter of fascism and destruction. She wonders what he’s thinking as he looks at her. She has heard it said that every villain is a hero to themselves, but she doesn’t know how he can see himself as anything heroic.

Then again, she’s wearing lightsaber-resistant armor. Which Jedi almost never wore in the history of the galaxy, because Jedi weren’t supposed to be fighting other Force-users. Jedi were warriors, yes, but they were equally healers and teachers. Jaina used to picture herself flying through perilous asteroid belts like her father, using the Force to run impossible rescue missions, taking people to safety. She knew she’d have to fight. She didn’t imagine herself in restrictive armor, having spent years begging to learn from Jedi-killers.

Her brother doesn’t greet her. He ignites his lightsaber.

All three blades crackle in the dry air. She recognizes the bones of the build from centuries-old crossguard lightsabers she has read about. Some of those were elegant. Her brother’s is not. He has bled his crystal so badly he must need those crossguards as vents to keep the hilt from burning his hand. For a second, she wonders how the lightsaber functions in combat. She’s going to find out soon enough.

*

“There’s an art just to drawing your lightsaber,” Luke told Jaina, the first time he ever sparred with her one-on-one. “Both the physical act itself, and in deciding whether to ignite the blade at all. Not every fight is worth getting into.”

Jaina nodded, eager to start. She was using a training lightsaber, but her head was full of designs for the one she was going to make, as soon as she was allowed to. She wanted to grow the crystal herself, to use the Force to build matrices out of a purple mineral bath she already had stewing on her worktable. The blade would be hers down to the atom.

“I want to study defensive fighting styles,” she said, “since there aren’t any dark side Force-users to duel anymore. I’ll be protecting people from blaster fire once I’m a Knight. Jedi these days mostly fight against soldiers and droids, right, Uncle Luke? I’ve been reading about forms that use a reverse grip…”

He gave her a patient smile. “Let’s start with the basics, Jaina.”

Jaina had been at the Jedi Temple for three years. She missed her mother and father more than she let anyone but Ben know, and even her parents’ extended visits never felt long enough, but the temple had long since become her home. The planet her uncle had found for the temple was otherwise uninhabited, with long, mild seasons. The temple itself rose from grassy hills, surrounded by smaller huts used as dwellings.

Jaina challenged herself and her connection to the Force every day, and was surrounded by people who were doing the same. She itched to join the Masters, Knights, and older Padawans on off-planet missions. The galaxy was full of refugees who had to be protected, assassins who had to be stopped, and a dozen Imperial remnant groups who had to be shown that the Empire wouldn’t be allowed to rise again. To help with all that, Jaina needed to learn to hold her own in a duel.

Lightsaber practice was in a small wooded area, a safe distance from where anyone lived. It was a circle of packed dirt worn down by hundreds and hundreds of footsteps. With time and attention, you could tell who had trained recently. There were usually skids at the edge of the circle where Jaina’s fellow Padawan, Voe, jumped into the ring at the start of practice. Master Sebatyne’s tail left distinctive lines in the dust. Kyp Durron’s boots scarred the earth. Master Tionne’s light bootprints were always followed by imprints of six-year-old Tahiri Veila’s bare feet.

Luke adjusted Jaina’s hands on the hilt of the training lightsaber, and she turned on the blade. Her heart fluttered with delight at the hum of the power source, and the blue glow from the crystal.

“Alright.” Luke ignited his own green lightsaber. “Now, do exactly what I say. I don’t want to lose another hand.”

“Ha, ha.”

By the end, Jaina’s arms burned, and her wrists ached. She had a lot to learn, but in the short time she’d been practicing, handling the lightsaber against an opponent had gotten easier. Luke corrected her when he had to and gave her advice, but he didn’t lecture her.

“You’re going to be smaller than most of the people you duel,” he said. “Don’t let them use their reach to their advantage. Get close.”

“Like this?” She pressed forward, and Luke nodded. She tried a disarm move he’d shown her, but the training lightsaber slipped out of her hand. The blade switched off, and the hilt tumbled away.

Jaina reached out with the Force. She tried to keep the lightsaber from rolling far, but she didn’t quite make it. She still sometimes had trouble using the Force to catch an object that was moving quickly. Even though the lightsaber landed right in the palm of her hand once she got her grasp, her face burned with anger and shame. She was fourteen. She should have been better at this by now.

Meeting Luke’s eyes was hard. She was sure he was going to criticize her. Catching objects with the Force would have been easier if she was stronger, but that was no excuse for being sloppy.

“Can I ask you a question?” Luke asked, after a long pause.

“Of course.”

“Are you jealous of your brother?”

The question almost made her take a step back. “No!” she blurted, and it was the honest truth, because she would have been too surprised to lie anyway. “Not really, anymore. Why did you ask me that?”

“Ben is stronger than you are.” He didn’t say it unkindly. “And he’s your twin brother. And you’re part of the most recent generation of Skywalkers.”

“Solos, too,” Jaina reminded him.

“Solos, too,” he agreed. “You’re impressive, don’t get me wrong. Don’t ever, ever think that I’m not proud of you. You’re one of my smartest students, you’re one hell of a pilot, and you’re stubborn as a bantha, which is usually a good thing. But not feeling powerful enough…can make a Jedi tempted to reach for what they shouldn’t.”

“You’re talking about the dark side.”

He nodded.

“I don’t…I don’t want power,” Jaina said. “I want to be better at what I can already do.”

“You’re not drawn to the idea?”

“No. Though I think Ben is, sometimes.” Their twin bond was weaker than it once was, but Jaina had a pretty good idea of his state of mind. Then she realized what she’d said. “I’m not telling on him!” she added. “Everyone is tempted by the dark side eventually, right? Even you. And you’re you.”

“I am me,” Luke said, with a slight smile.

Jaina held up the training lightsaber. “Can I practice with this on my own?” she asked.

He considered. “I suppose,” he said. “Keep it in the practice area. Forms only; no sparring.”

She gave him an eager nod, and he left her alone. As soon as he was out of sight, she threw the training lightsaber away from her as hard as she could.

At the height of its arc, she reached out with the Force to drag the lightsaber back. She didn’t get it before it hit the ground, but as soon as she’d pulled it back into her hand, she threw it again. And grabbed it, and threw it, and grabbed it, until her mind blistered, and she felt confident she’d never fumble using the Force to catch a lighstaber again.

*

They don’t rush each other right away. Jaina watches her brother’s posture and stance, waiting for the shift or twitch that will announce how he plans to move. She’s sure he’s watching her with the same eye. If he’s decisive, or brutal, or exploratory, she’s ready. There’s little she hasn’t thought of or planned for.

He takes one step forward.

She steps forward too, on guard.

His arm twitches. She sees it. Luke taught her not to make the first move, to wait until there was no choice but to engage. She has since come around to the idea that the best defense is a sudden and brutal offense.

She takes that offense, lunging forward, aiming for his heart. Fantasies of a quick end to this fight flit through her head before her brother blocks the blow.

She keeps going, pressing forward, even as he keeps parrying. Her blade brushes the edge of his sleeve.

He draws back.

“I heard you got married,” he says. His voice is distorted. She would groan at his dramatic streak, under different circumstances. He doesn’t have to do that. He’s not Darth Vader. He’s not on life support.

Jaina keeps her lips pressed shut. She can’t help herself from answering in her head, though. Yeah, Jagged and I missed you at the wedding. We would have invited you, but we knew you were busy destroying life in the galaxy as we know it.

She sees an opening, and strikes. He parries.

“Have you spoken to General Organa lately?” “General Organa,” he calls their mother. “Rumor has it you don’t get along.”

He tries circling to her left. She used to have a blind spot there. Not anymore. That bad habit was wrung out of her on Mandalore. He strikes at her, and blue sparks fly when she deflects him.

“You cling to Skywalker’s old ways.”

They aren’t his ways, or he’d be standing here with me.

Jaina isn’t sure if she’s a Jedi anymore. The man who trained her has fled, and she has no temple, no comrades. This isn’t what being a Jedi Knight was supposed to be. The only way forward for her now is to abandon her grief over what is behind her.

*

Ben’s lightsaber clashed with Jaina’s. White light burst where his blue blade crossed her purple one. She turned to the side so his momentum carried him past her, then tried to get around his guard. He blocked her. He twisted the hilt of his lightsaber, and bore down at just the right angle while pushing at her with the Force. She wound up on her backside, disarmed, Ben standing over her.

She laughed.

“OK, fine, you win,” she said. “Best two out of three?”

“Whatever your ego demands.” He grabbed her hand, hauled her to her feet. When they were younger, they’d kept an intense tally of who won more duels. Eventually, they realized neither of them was ever going to pull ahead long enough to be “better,” and it was immature to keep score…out loud, anyway. Jaina hadn’t lost count mentally, and knew she was two points ahead at the moment.

The leaves on the trees around the practice yard were darkening with the change of the seasons. The wind blew cold at night. But practice had gotten so intense that Jaina had to take a second to wipe away the sweat on her forehead with the sleeve of her robe. She kept an eye on Ben, though, knowing he’d fight dirty and claim it as victory. She held out her hand, used the Force to snatch her lightsaber, and switched the blade on. She smiled at the snap-hiss. She nearly always did.

They circled each other. Jaina reached out with the Force, trying to get a handle on what Ben was feeling, whether he was going to move first or wait for her to do it. Though she could feel that he was alert and focused, she picked up on very little in the way of intent. Their bond had started to weaken seven years ago when they began their training, and was almost gone.

But not completely. “Stop trying to cheat,” Ben warned, as he launched a sudden offense. Jaina blocked him, and he retreated.

“You aren’t aggressive enough,” he said.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I should be ruthless against you. You think Mom and Dad would forgive me if I stabbed you? Because it gets pretty tempting sometimes.” With the blade still on, she threw her lightsaber at Ben like it was a javelin. He jerked back to get out of its path before he was impaled. As soon as he moved, she used the Force to pull her lightsaber back – and pulled Ben’s out of his hand while she was at it. “And you aren’t aware of when someone is trying to distract you.” He made a noise of protest, but she pointed both blades at his chest. From a safe distance, of course. “And that’s my win,” she said. “Tiebreaker’s next.”

She turned Ben’s lightsaber off and tossed it back to him. Now it was his turn to wipe sweat off his face. His hair was stuck to his forehead, because he was too vain to pull it back like she did.

“So you can still pick up stuff from me through the Force?” Jaina asked.

“Sometimes,” Ben said. He ignited his lightsaber. He tried to land a blow immediately, take her by surprise, but he swung too wide and she parried. “I feel more from you than the average person, but not as much as when we were children.”

“Does it bother you that we aren’t as connected as we used to be?” she asked.

He didn’t answer for a few seconds. “I think it’s just part of growing up,” he said, which wasn’t “yes” or “no.”

She used the Force to jump over his head, landing behind him. She planned to hit him in the back with the pommel of her hilt, to knock him down before he got his bearings, but he whirled around, and their blades met again.

“Do you still have nightmares?” she asked.

He took even longer to answer. She took the opportunity to try to duck under his guard.

“Everybody does,” he said, moving out of her reach.

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ben, Jedi visions aren’t something to –”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.” His overhand strike could have brought her to her knees. When she deflected it, his lightsaber scorched the ground at their feet.

“Oh. Alright.” She didn’t like being shut out like that. But Ben was an adult; a Jedi Knight. He was entitled to his own business. “I have my own nightmares now, you know.”

They drew apart, back to less aggressive stances. “What are they about?” Ben asked.

“I have a recurring one where I’m sucked out an airlock and suffocate in open space.”

He winced in sympathy.

“I’d tell you more,” she said, “but I don’t want to say anything too personal. Someone has been watching us from the shadows for the past few minutes.”

“It’s been ten, at least,” Ben said.

They switched off their lightsabers and turned to look pointedly at the shadows of the trees just outside the sparring circle.

A figure stepped forward. It was a woman, who had been blending in with the trees’ shadows thanks to her all-black uniform. She had brown skin, and a gnarled scar on her forehead that ran into a white streak of hair down her scalp. She was beautiful, with striking cheekbones, and was unabashed at having been caught spying.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” the woman said. “I’m here with the Chiss Ascendency delegation.”

The Chiss. A loner, humanoid species on the edge of the galaxy, whose government had given itself the lofty name of Ascendency, and who had war and politics down to a fine art. Jaina knew they were making cautious treaties with the New Republic now that the Empire was gone, though the Ascendency was skittish about that one fringe Imperial remnant that refused to be wiped out, the First Order. Jaina hadn’t heard the Chiss were sending anyone to the Jedi Temple, but she wasn’t a diplomat. Her missions tended to involve her cutting through swamps, sneaking through air vents, and fending off hostile droids. Leia Organa liked to say she gave up hope her daughter would have a career in politics after the state dinner where Jaina showed up with grease under her nails, dropped a hydrospanner from her dress pocket during an ambassador’s speech, and made faces at Ben when no one else was looking until Ben had choked on salad. After that, Jaina was rarely asked to make appearances for dignitaries. But if said dignitaries were as attractive as this one, she’d have to rethink her behavior.

“Do you need something from us?” Ben asked the woman.

“I heard Jedi Kights in combat are an impressive sight,” she said. Her posture was straight like a durasteel bar had replaced her spine. “I came to take a look. I have to say, I’m not disappointed.”

Something fluttered in Jaina’s chest. She wished she wasn’t so disheveled, and that she’d done more to her hair than day than yank it back in a plain braid. “Um, yes. I mean, thank you. One second; Jedi business.” Jaina grabbed Ben’s elbow and turned him around to hide their conversation. “Which of us is she trying to flirt with, do you think?”

“I think it might be you.”

Jaina clenched one fist in victory. She turned them around again.

“This wasn’t combat,” she said. “Just sparring. And if I knew I had an audience, I would have put on more of a show.”

“I’m not bored, believe me,” the woman said, and her eyes caught Jaina’s and didn’t let go.

“Aren’t Chiss usually more…blue than you are?” Ben asked. “No offense meant.”

“And none is taken. I’m the first human to graduate from the Academy. My name’s Jagged Fel. Yes, those Fels, but don’t worry, I’m not as fond of the Empire as most of my father’s family. I’m a pilot, not a politician.”

Ben was a foot taller than Jaina was, by then. He had a habit of resting his arms on the top of her head when he wanted to get under her skin. That was exactly what he did as he said: “I doubt the first human to come out of the Chiss Academy is just a pilot.”

“I’m just a very, very, very good pilot. And a top military strategist of my class, and a go-to liaison to other systems.”

Jaina swatted Ben away. “Are you here for long?” she asked.

Jagged shrugged. “I might be here a while. The Chiss Ascendancy has developed an interest in Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Order. Our leadership would like to know whether we can count on the Jedi as allies.”

Jaina put her shoulders back, and tried to look like the picture of a courageous Jedi Knight. “I don’t speak for Master Skywalker, but the Order’s bound to be receptive to what the Chiss have to say. The Jedi have always come to help people in need.”

“That’s not strictly true,” Ben said.

“It has been when the Jedi were capable. That’s what the light side of the Force drives us to do.”

“That’s not how the Force works.” His tone had changed; he wasn’t just trying to give her hard time.

Jaina crossed her arms, and turned to glare at him. “Don’t tell me how the Force works, Ben.” With all her might, she tried to send him the message: Now shut the hell up and go away so I can flirt with the hot pilot.

Either her expression or the Force made him understand. He shook his head, and moved past Jagged to walk back to the temple. Without breaking stride, he glanced over his shoulder and gave Jaina a thumbs-up. Good luck, he thought at her.

Jaina smiled. “Sorry about that. I’m Jaina Solo. Yes, those Solos.”

“Was that your older brother?” Jagged asked.

“My twin. He’s an asshole,” Jaina said fondly.

Jagged gave her a long look Jaina couldn’t read. Everything about Jagged was striking and enticing, from her scar, to her cool demeanor, to the way her eyes were bright and deep at the same time…

“You’re pretty,” Jagged said.

Jaina’s heart began to hammer. “You’re pretty, too. And very direct. I like that. I mean, I like that you’re direct. But I also like that you’re pretty. Appearance isn’t everything, and I’m sure you’re a wonderful person, and I’d like the chance to get to know you better, I’m saying you’re an attractive –” Jaina cleared her throat. “Do you have any first aid training?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because I think I need some emergency assistance removing my foot from my mouth.”

Jagged tilted her head. “How about you show me around instead?”

Jaina nodded, and clipped her lightsaber to her belt. “Anything in the name of diplomacy, of course.”

*

Jaina keeps going, pressing ahead. Her brother’s fighting style is effective, but he can’t stop himself from showing off. His lightsaber is a red blur as he whirls and jabs. All the times they sparred when they were younger, he was never like this. He didn’t have this intensity, the darkness in his movements. That’s good. The less of Ben Solo she sees, the easier this will be.

When he retreats, pulling back from her with his guard still up, she’s worried instead of relieved. She hasn’t hit him yet. He has no reason to go easy on her. This is a trick. What she can’t tell is whether he wants her to feel safe when she isn’t, or whether he wants her to charge forward and make a mistake that gets her killed.

The realization that her brother would try to kill her was cold and startling the first time she had it, but she’s used to the idea now. He already killed her father, looked right into Han Solo’s eyes as he ran him through, and they hadn’t even been in combat. Of course her brother will kill her if he gets the chance.

“Jaina…” he says.

She will not listen. She tries to let the words become meaningless noise, no different than the crunch of her boots on dead grass or the whistle of the wind. He has nothing to say to her that would make her stop fighting.

She has imagined it, though. The times she’s caught herself staring at nothing in Trickster’s cockpit, or sobbing with her face pressed into her hands so her Mandalorian trainers won’t catch the jetiise crying. She has imagined what Ben could say, what it would look like if she got her brother back. If he spoke to her the way he used to, if every word he said wasn’t harsh and guarded.

She knows that if he took that mask off and said, “Jaina, I’m so sorry. Stars, what have I done?” and meant it, that all the fight would be gone from her. That if he looked her in the eye, she’d turn off her lightsaber and forget everything she has made herself learn in the six years since she lost him.

And that’s really what makes her feel like the weaker one.

“Jaina, stop,” her brother says. “Stop fighting me. You may not believe this, but I don’t want to kill you. What I’m doing is inevitable.”

For a second, she thinks he’s telling her to surrender, that he’s saying she won’t win the duel. But he continues:

“Our bloodline comes with a destiny you have never accepted. I’ve always been the one to get the nightmares, to be hounded by the whispers of everything our family was meant to be. But you never even tried. Don’t look away any longer. The dark side has power to spare. If you come with me, you can still be a part of it.”

Once, her brother knew her. Once, he counted on her to stop his bad dreams.

Her fury burns in her so badly that she wants to loosen her armor. Instead, she lashes out, driving her blade forward. Her brother parries and retaliates with a blow that could take off her hand, but it glances off the vambrace on her forearm.

“Beskar armor,” she spits, the first words she has said to his face in a long, long time.

*

The last time she was happy slipped through her fingers like a shard of melting ice.

It started with her and Jagged on the run from squadron of stormtroopers. The First Order hadn’t fizzled out like a polite fascist splinter group, and their forces were popping up in unhelpful places. The New Republic was having serious talks about ceding territory. Jaina’s mother was furious. But at the moment, Jaina was focused on her and her girlfriend not being shot by the white-armored soldiers charging through the halls of the military base that orbited Chandrilla.

“Stay behind me!” Jaina shouted at Jagged. Jaina called on the Force, letting it direct how she moved her lightsaber to deflect the blaster bolts the stormtroopers were firing.

“In here,” Jagged said. A door slid open behind them, and they retreated through it. Jaina used the tip of her lightsaber blade to melt the control panel, locking the stormtroopers out.

“This hasn’t gone as planned,” Jagged said. Which was one way to describe abject failure. The First Order had forced the Republic troops to evacuate on the other side of the base. Only Jagged and Jaina were left. “We need to accept the base has fallen, and concentrate on escaping.”

There was the sound of blasterfire hammering the door. But something had occurred to Jaina.

“The First Order sent so many troops…” she said. “And this place doesn’t have that much strategic value…but one advantage to being a senator’s daughter is knowing the badly-kept secret that the Chandrilla satellite houses a lot of intelligence operations. It’s not the base they want, it’s the data!” Jaina said. “If we can wipe the system before they break through the door, their victory will be useless.” She glanced at the terminal on the other side of the room, and realized a flaw in her plan. “Except I’m not much of a slicer. And I definitely don’t have access to Republic intelligence files.”

Jagged looked at the terminal, and gave a short sigh. More like a huff. She walked over to it, set her blaster on the console, and began to enter information.

Jaina crossed her arms. “So the Chiss have access to Republic intelligence files?”

“We know a few codes,” Jagged said. “The Republic knows we know,” she added. “We only know what they allow us to know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s very realpolitik.”

“Right.”

Jagged hit one last key, and the screen began to flash. Jagged turned the chair around, the corner of her mouth curling. “The Ascendancy wants to stop the First Order, too. Besides, anything for you, darling.” She winked.

“Did you just wink at me?” Jaina asked.

“Was it bad?”

“No. It was cute. It was really cute.”

Something warm and buoying rose in Jaina. She had an idea, one she hadn’t considered so seriously before, but which felt right. Today had been a good day for bursts of inspiration.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jagged asked.

“Jagged Fel,” Jaina said, sitting next to her girlfriend, “if we survive this, will you marry me?”

Jagged cupped Jaina’s face with both hands.

“Jaina Solo,” she said, “if we don’t survive this…I’ll still figure out a way to marry you.”

“So that’s yes?”

“That’s yes.”

They kissed, and the moment was joy and bliss until another round of blasterfire pounding the door.

Jaina pulled away, and cleared her throat. “Then let’s survive. The wedding will be easier to plan.”

She drove her lightsaber into the floor, and cut a hole to the lower level. Luckily, the base had several bays of escape pods, and it wasn’t too hard for a Jedi Knight and a Chiss Ascendancy colonel to get past a surprised group of stormtroopers.

When the escape pod burst from the base, Jaina’s adrenaline was still soaring. She pulled Jagged close, kissed her with all the passion she felt. For six years, she had loved this unflappable, intelligent, beautiful woman with a fervor she had trouble wrapping her mind around sometimes. In the moment, Jaina wanted nothing more out of her life.

A few seconds later, though, Jagged broke the kiss off. Her reluctance was palpable to Jaina, but she turned out to have something important to say.

“There’s TIE fighters, dear.”

Jaina cursed, and lunged for the pod’s piloting system. She overrode the autopilot, but a TIE fighter was coming in fast. Escape pods had limited maneuverability and no weapons.

“It’s about to get bumpy!” Jaina shouted, pulling on the yoke.

As soon as she did, the TIE fighter exploded in a blast from a plasma cannon. Jaina swiveled the escape pod around the wreckage, and a circular ship that was as familiar as any member of her family entered the viewport.

The comm system lit up.

“Hey, kid,” came the voice of Jaina’s father. “Your mother sent me to check on you.”

“I had them,” Jaina answered.

“Sure you did,” Han said, and in the background, Chewbacca let out a similarly sarcastic roar.

When she and Jagged boarded the Millenium Falcon, Jaina knew the mature thing to do would be to be calm, and break the news in a composed way. Instead, she grabbed Jagged’s hand, and looked her in the eye. Jagged smiled, and nodded.

“Dad, Chewie, I asked Jagged to marry me, and she said yes!” Jaina said.

Jaina watched her father, waiting for his response. She was grinning so hard it hurt, but when her father just shoved his hands in his pockets and looked to Chewbacca, Jaina started to worry.

“Welp,” her father said, “I guess Leia wins the pot.”

Jaina glanced at Jagged.

“I’m sorry, what?” Jaina asked.

Chewbacca rumbled.

“No, you’re right, she should have done this a lot sooner,” Han said. “But hey, rules are rules, Leia wins. We’ve had a bit of bet going. Y’know, about when you two would finally get engaged,” he said, like that explained everything.

“Dad,” Jaina said. Jagged was sucking hard on her teeth, like she was trying not to laugh.

“Hey, hey, hey, no one was betting against you, it was just about timing. Ben and Chewie thought one of you would break down and ask last year, and I thought you might keep dragging your feet. It wasn’t for a lot of credits! Though I guess with all of us it’s gonna add up.”

“Everyone was in on this?” Jaina said.

“Well, not Luke. Principles, I guess. But he agreed with Leia, so that shows you what principles will get you.”

Jaina shook her head. “All of you are impossible. Every last one of you. Impossible.”

His face broke into a warm smile. “And proud as hell.”

Chewbacca grabbed Jaina and Jagged and pulled them into a double hug, lifting both of them off their feet.

“We have to tell everyone,” Jaina said. “Ben and Uncle Luke are both at the temple right now, so we can tell them at the same time. Jagged, you should be the one to start the call to your parents, because your father doesn’t like me.”

“He likes you just fine,” Jagged said.

“And obviously we have to let Mom know she won the –”

The pain came from nowhere and hurt everywhere. The Force was screaming at Jaina, and she hit the ground as her knees buckled and her body was sent into agony. She stared at her hands, and the floor beneath her. She expected to see blood or torn flesh. This was like a physical part of her was being torn off.

“Jaina?!” Her father’s audible panic added to Jaina’s fear. She realized she’d been yelling in pain, and forced her mouth shut.

“Give her space,” Jagged said. “Get medical supplies.”

Could they feel it, too? Jaina took in long, centering breaths. She reached out with her mind. There were answers in the Force, if she slowed down and concentrated.

“It’s Ben!” she gasped, a second before she consciously realized it. “Something’s wrong with Ben!”

But there was more to it than that. So much more.

“Is he hurt?” her father asked. “Is he alright?”

She shook her head. “He’s…he’s…” He’s dead, Jaina wanted to say. It was her first thought. She knew it wasn’t right. She had felt something from Ben. Rage. Hurt. A profound sense of betrayal. All of it tinged with the dark side of the Force.

The remnant of their twin bond was yanked out like a broken tooth. And then Ben was gone. Not dead. But gone all the same.

*

The dark side has power to spare. If you come with me, you can still be a part of it.

Jaina lashes out at her brother with an overhand strike. It’s the first time she moves against him in anger, and the emotion makes her sloppy. She leans too far into the motion, and overbalances. She leaves herself vulnerable. Her brother is too close to stab her, but he knees her hard in the stomach and uses the Force to throw her to the ground.

Her head crashes against the inside of her helmet. She doesn’t lose her lightsaber, but her brother’s Force-grasp pulls her to her knees before she can regain her bearings.

He raises his hand. Beneath her armor’s gorget, beneath the neck of the jumpsuit she wears underneath, invisible fingers squeeze her throat. Her brain immediately panics at the lack of oxygen, at the throttling sensation, but she won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her jerk or hearing her gasp for air.

He tilts his head to one side. Her body language must be giving her away, even if she won’t struggle like a bug in his grasp. He knows he’s having an effect. He moves his arm back, slowly, and she can’t resist him. Her feet drag across the ground as he pulls her.

She remembers a time when she was a teenager, and her bootlaces somehow got tied together in a horrible knot. Tugging at the strings only tightened the snarl. What had fixed it was jamming a needle into a single lace, wiggling the lace free a millimeter at a time until the whole knot relaxed.

She jams a needle into her brother’s grasp, feeling with the Force to find the little imperfection, the slightest slip of concentration.

And long seconds later – seconds where her thoughts grow blurry and her vision darkens – she breaks free.

*

Jaina knew the lives she and her family lived were strange and dangerous. She knew that one day violence or political upheaval could hurt someone she loved, maybe in a way that left her no chance to help or even say good-bye. What she never expected was how, overnight, nearly everything in her life could fall apart. Her father had flown the Millennium Falcon straight to the Jedi Temple, but when they arrived, there was no one left to help. The fire had even burned itself out by the time the Falcon touched down, leaving the shell of the temple, and the immovable fact that nothing was going to be the same again for anyone.

With a Force-user like her brother on their side, the First Order was able to make a decisive push across the galaxy, until the New Republic’s non-existent spines folded under the weight of their own corruption. No one but the Resistance was going to do anything about the First Order, or their Supreme Leader, or his new star student.

The New Jedi Order was over. A few of the inhabitants at the temple when Ben attacked Luke had survived, and a few more had been lucky enough to be off-planet like Jaina. For the most part, they scattered, the Knights and Masters shepherding the students to safe corners of the galaxy, and Jaina had a hard time blaming them for doing so. It was Luke she was angry at, for disappearing after leaving cryptic clues behind, running off to stars-knew-where, like he wasn’t suffering anything the rest of them weren’t suffering. The only thing that kept that anger from corroding her from the inside out was centering, meditation, trusting in the light side of the Force to lead her where she needed to go. The things that Master Luke Skywalker had taught her.

Luke hadn’t said what precipitated Ben’s turn. Jaina decided it probably wasn’t anything in particular. The whispers and nightmares Ben had refused help for must have gotten the better of him that night.

The week before Ben turned, she’d seen him sitting by the lake, and seen him sit by patiently (for him) when Tahiri wandered up to chatter about what was on her mind that day. Ben had practiced sparring against multiple opponents with Jaina and Voe, meditated with Master Durron, and helped Tionne unload her ship after a mission. He’d been a little withdrawn recently, yes, but she’d thought that was just Ben being Ben. And now all the people in those memories were dead, except for Jaina and whoever her brother had become.

She should have known. She, out of everyone, should have been able to tell he was falling to the dark side. Years and years ago, she’d promised to always wake him up from his bad dreams. That she had failed so badly baffled and frightened her. She wondered how long Ben had been faking his normalcy.

A worse thought had occurred to her, though: that none of it was ever fake, that he’d cared for them all right up until the moment he slaughtered them. The dark side required pain and enormous sacrifice, so Ben must have decided his Order, his home, his family would do. Just like Darth Vader.

Her mother threw herself into her work, which was the Resistance, now. Jaina wanted to join, knew she should, that her skills and training would have been invaluable…but she couldn’t. She couldn’t put on a brave face like Leia Organa could, stand tall as the Heroic Last Jedi in the Imperiled Galaxy, and act like the new right hand of the First Order wasn’t her twin brother.

Her father…disconnected. It was just a matter of time before he wandered off and started getting in trouble. At least Chewbacca would keep him from getting in too much.

Jagged was still there. Jagged was the same, and let Jaina feel what she had to, and didn’t try to fix it. But the Chiss Ascendancy would no longer turn a blind eye to one of their colonel’s gallivanting through a civil war in her spare time. The Ascendancy entered a policy of isolationism. The New Republic, the Resistance, and the First Order could sort themselves out, and the Chiss would deal with who was left standing.

“We’ll have to get married in a Chiss ceremony,” Jagged told Jaina. They sat, holding each other, in Trickster’s small bunk. Jaina had been living in her ship since the destruction of the temple; nowhere else felt safe. “You’ll have to officially be an officer’s wife. That’s the only way my superiors will tolerate it. And, Jaina, if I have any hope of long-term influence, it’s necessary that they see me as –”

Jaina held up a hand to stop her. “You don’t need to justify anything to me. Jagged, I’d marry you in a Sarlaac pit.”

Jagged lay her head against Jaina’s chest. “I’d prefer a different venue.”

“It’s all we’re going to get, if we book on short notice.” Jaina gave a weak laugh to match her weak joke.

“What are you going to do now?” Jagged asked.

Jaina closed her eyes. She wanted to say she didn’t know, but she knew. “I’m going to have to go away for a little bit,” she said. “Get some things started if I have any hope of – of taking care of my brother.”

“I understand,” Jagged said. “Do what you have to do. So long as you come back to me.”

“I will. You know I will.”

Jaina’s father, on the other hand, didn’t understand.

“Mandalore?” he said when she told him. She waited until the last minute, when she was standing right in front of Trickster, about to leave Hosnian Prime. “Mandalore?”

“It’s a good idea, Dad!”

“Then explain how, because from where I’m standing, I don’t see it!”

“Mandalore has a history of conflict with the Jedi. Even when the Jedi were wiped out, the Mandalorians didn’t forget. There are people there who know how to fight Force-users and win. I’m not strong enough now to do what needs to be done. But if I can learn an unexpected way to fight –”

Her father jabbed a finger in her face. “You may be a fancy-pants Jedi Knight, but you are still my little girl. I know you, Jaina Solo. You were meant to solve problems, stick up for the little guy, and wisecrack while doing it. If you become a cold-blooded Jedi killer, you are going to regret it.”

“But Kylo Ren –”

“Don’t call him that.”

“He has more power than I’ve ever had! And the dark side is only going to give him more. I can’t face him as I am. We were trained side by side. If I’m going to kill him, I need new tactics.”

“Why do you want to kill him?”

She stared. “Are you serious?”

“Why does it have to be you? There’s other stuff you could be doing. Help the Resistance. Rebuild the Jedi.”

Jaina shook her head. “I’m not a teacher, like Luke. I’m not a leader, like Mom. I’m not a powerhouse, like…like some other people. But I think I can do this.”

“I thought the revenge business wasn’t good for you Force types. That if you kill someone when you’re angry, it can do terrible things to you.”

“It’s not revenge. I’m not angry. I don’t know why, but I’m not angry at all. I’m sad. I’m so, so sad. And I don’t know where to put it.”

“I know, kid,” her father said.

She put one foot on the gangplank. “You do understand, don’t you?” She was surprised at how pleading her voice sounded. 23 years old, begging for her father’s approval. “You know why I have to do this?”

“Be careful,” he said. “We don’t want to lose you, too, Jaina.”

She put on the cocky smile she’d learned from him. “Don’t worry. Mandalore’s not that dangerous if you don’t have a bounty on your head.”

“Yeah, that’s not what I meant.”

“I’m not powerful enough for the dark side to bother with.” She had a better idea now, of how much of her brother’s life had been spent yanked in either direction by both sides of the Force. Compared to him, the Force had…ignored her. But she appreciated the freedom that had given her. She wasn’t going to make the wrong choice like Ben had.

“That isn’t what I meant, either.”

She hesitated, then stepped forward and threw her arms around her father. “I’m still going. Take care of yourself.”

“Oh, come on, sweetie,” he said, “it’s not your job to worry about me.”

*

Jaina jumps to feet, but her brother is ready for her. Their blades cross, so close their hilts are almost touching. Her brother presses forward, trying to overwhelm her with sheer physical strength. She can feel the heat of his lightsaber.

She glances down for her first clear view of the structure of the lightsaber’s hilt. Her eyes widen. She hasn’t seen such a haphazard build on a lightsaber in a long time. Half the components are exposed. The contents and the casing are poorly matched.

She has a wild daydream of stopping the fight, taking the lightsaber from him, opening it up, and spreading the contents out on a worktable. She wants to fuss over the weapon like it’s a wounded animal she’s also annoyed at.

How are you walking around with this attached to your belt every day, Ben? In her mind, he looks like he did before. No mask, no black robe. His elbows on her worktable. Are you not planning on having children?

But can you help me fix it? He would grab for something, probably the crystal. She’d have to drag it out of his reach.

No. I’m going to tell you exactly what’s wrong with it, piece by piece. And then you’re going to re-build it yourself. You’re a Jedi Knight; you should have a little more patience.

*

Mandalore was a crucible. Jaina found a group of Mandalorian warriors who remembered how much their home had suffered under the Empire. They were willing to teach the right skills to someone who was striking against the Empire’s successor.

She learned to react with different instincts. She learned to fight like there was nothing in the world but her opponent. She learned to move, sleep, live inside armor that was impervious to a lightsaber. She had to fight without honor, structure, or ideology.

She had no family while she was on Mandalore. No one loved or pitied her. That was fine. She needed the clarity that came with that.

Jaina thought she would have trouble recognizing when she was ready. In the end, that wasn’t her call.

We’ve taught you what you need, jetiise. Whether you succeed or fail is up to you.

*

Jaina is face to face with her brother. So to speak. She calls on the Force, but can’t keep him from shoving the intersection of their lightsabers toward her. He rotates his grip. One of the crossguard blades on his hilt dips down, burning into the rift above her armor’s chest plate. The polymer beneath melts, and collapses onto her skin.

She can’t help but scream. The pain is like a shot from a blaster, but protracted. And it sticks. The material is welding into the skin between her collarbone and her heart. When she moves her arm, her skin is stretched, and rips. After a second, the smell of liquefied fabric and burned flesh wafts into her helmet.

Jaina acknowledges the pain. Accepts the pain. But the pain is for later. She lets everything go except the weapon in her hand and the man in front of her, who is not her brother, but her target.

That helmet is cosmetic more than anything. Jaina is certain. And if it’s modifying his voice, that means there’s wiring in the face, which isn’t reinforcing.

She twists to the side, so the force he’s exerting carries their grips toward the ground and destroys his balance. She rocks her head forward and smashes her forehead into his. The crack that results is satisfying, and so is his yell of pain. She slams her elbow into the back of his neck.

And then he’s gone, fifteen feet away, his blade dragging across the ground. A black line in the earth marks his path.

He rips off his mask and tosses it aside. His forehead is bleeding, but that isn’t what surprises her. A nasty wound, sealed shut, cuts across the right side of his face. The scar it’s bound to leave will canyon his face forever.

She isn’t stunned that he met some violent attack since she has seen him. She’s struck by the reality that he could change so much, even physically, and she has had no idea. When they were twelve, Jaina fell while running in the woods and broke her ankle. Ben came within a few minutes to help her back to the temple, breathless, and limping because his own ankle had bruised in sympathy.

Her brother raises his lightsaber and keeps her at a distance. He’s probably expecting her to use her smaller size to her advantage, to try to get in close. Instead, she ducks and rolls behind him, so far away he’s barely within her reach, and slices at the back of his leg. She knows just where to cut the thick tendon stretching from his heel.

The howl he makes is so loud and animal that it must damage his vocal cords. His knee buckles.

The Force guides her, and she rises. She feels nothing. The man in front of her is no one. This isn’t revenge. She’s not angry.

She drives her lightsaber down. She already pictures how the violet light will disappear when she runs him through.

The red static of her brother’s lightsaber blocks her strike. Frustration jolts through her like an electric shock. How? She had him vulnerable, on his knees. She was ready.

He’s holding his lightsaber over his shoulder, in a reverse grip. He turns his head so that his gaze meets her gaze. His eyes are wide and the fire in them is raging. Let it burn, she thinks. Let him burn himself down so she doesn’t have to do it. Because now, she’s afraid of how much she wants to.

*

“Han confronted Ben at Starkiller Base. And Ben killed him.”

The grief whelmed Jaina, threw her into the air, and dashed her on rocks. She’d made a conscious effort to not think about her father dying, even as his hair turned white, and he complained of stiff joints and weak eyes every time he spoke to her. The thought that her brother would walk right up to their father and impale him was beyond her ability to picture.

She knew it was naiveté on both counts: youthful denial that her parents were mortal, coupled with her last hope that her brother might have lines he wouldn’t cross.

She didn’t cry when her mother called to tell her everything that had happened at Starkiller Base. She sat still in Trickster’s pilot chair, trying to remember her training in the face of the emotions rushing at her. Her devastation would not own her. Her rage would not take her over.

“Did you see him?” Jaina asked.

Her mother shook her head.

“Are you…are you alright, Mom?” What a ridiculous question to ask. Kylo Ren had murdered Han Solo, and the First Order had destroyed five planets in a twisted reenactment of the annihilation of Alderaan. Jaina couldn’t imagine what her mother was feeling.

“From the time I was born, I’ve seen my family tear each other apart across planets and decades,” Leia said. “I’m not alright.”

“Mom, I’m so sorry. I – I just don’t understand it sometimes. How things got so bad. And it’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to anyone, and I’m sorry –”

“Jaina. Sweetheart. I know. That you’re still out there, using everything Luke taught you to keep fighting…it makes me so proud. But to help me, I want you to focus on the big picture.” Her mother’s expression was hard to read in the hologram. “Do you know about Jedi history? About how the Order was structured during your grandfather’s time?” she asked.

Darth Vader was the last person Jaina wanted to be thinking about. “I know some of the history, but I was never an expert.”

“Familial attachments were forbidden, in those days,” Leia said. “Jedi younglings were all recruited. They were orphans, or given up by their parents. There would have been no such thing as a family of Jedi like ours. Of course people in the Order cared for and protected each other, but when Luke rebuilt the Jedi, one of the first things he decided was not to keep the ban on marriage and children. Do you know why?”

“Because that’s a terrible way to make people live?” Jaina suggested.

“Because Luke saw, with our father, what a powerful weapon love can be against the dark side. He wanted to give the Jedi every chance to arm themselves with that weapon.”

Jaina bit hard on the inside of her mouth, to keep the tears from flowing.

“I know you don’t believe me, but I still love Ben, Mom. I love the part of him that’s still my brother.”

“I believe you. Tell me, where are you right now?”

“I was on my way home from Ryloth.” “Home” was a planet at the edge of Chiss territory, where she and Jagged lived in officers’ housing. “I’m sure you heard about the blockade the First Order set up there. I helped a few other pilots get through using smugglers’ routes that…that Dad told me about.” A few hours ago, that detail hadn’t been painful. Of course, her father had taught Ben about those hidden routes, too. Had Ben forgotten, or was it a deliberate mistake? Or maybe he just wasn’t in charge of the blockade, and she was thinking too hard about it.

“Now, listen to me.” All of a sudden, her mother had turned into an authoritative general. Her mother’s ability to be a commanding presence used to intimidate Jaina; now it impressed her, especially in this kind of aftermath. She wondered if it was something she’d ever be able to do. “There’s a young woman and young man who’ve just joined the Resistance – they’re powerful in the Force. She recovered the last piece of the map to Luke Skywalker’s location and is on her way there. You should go with her. Bring Luke back. Help train a new wave of Jedi.”

Jaina was already shaking her head. “If Luke was going to come back, he would have done it years ago. I’m not abandoning my plan. Especially not now. Ben has to be stopped. And as soon as I get a chance, I’ll stop him.”

“Ben’s just as tempted to come back to us as he ever was to leave. He’s not past the point of saving.”

“That’s up to him.”

“Jaina –”

Though the guilt made her sick to her stomach, Jaina turned off the hologram.

Her mother thought she’d given up on Ben. Jaina would have done anything to have her brother back, but…he’d killed their father. Ben could return from the dark side, if he wanted to. You always could. But “could” and “would” were stories with different endings. If there was anyone capable of turning her brother away from what he’d become, Jaina would gladly shake their hand. Jaina wasn’t that person.

She’d delayed for too long, and let herself be distracted by everyone else in the galaxy who needed her help. Five planets were now dust. She gripped the armrests of the pilot’s chair, until her fingers hurt and there was nothing left in her but resolve.

*

Kylo Ren can barely stand, and watching him struggle gives Jaina fierce joy. His breaths are loud and ragged, and he’s only just parrying when she strikes at him. The world around him feels tainted and corrupted. She knows he’s fighting her off with the raw power of the dark side.

The pain just below her collarbone is screaming for her attention. She can feel she’s bleeding. But she has to keep fighting a little longer. She has almost worn Kylo Ren down. This is what she has trained and prepared for since the night he destroyed the New Jedi Order, destroyed most of her family.

Jaina raises her lightsaber to block Kylo Ren’s counterstrike, thinking of her lost friends in the Order, both the ones who are dead and the ones who will never return.

She jabs toward Kylo Ren’s heart, thinking of her parents, whose love she thought was eternal.

And she strikes again, thinking of Ben, the brother she used to have. The scared little boy who needed her help, and the brave Jedi Knight who helped others, and how they were the same person, a person she wants in the universe instead of the angry dictator she sees now.

He blocks her with his arms raised too high. She plants her boot in his stomach, and pushes him with all her physical and Force strength.

He falls.

His lightsaber flies into her hand. She spares its exposed conductor wire and cracked left vent casing a single disgusted glance. The hum of the three blades on his lightsaber joins the sound from her own lightsaber. She should feel triumph, but the Force is sending her a fresh wave of warning.

Because the Knights of Ren have returned. They come into view as soon as she realizes what the Force is trying to tell her. Their lightsabers snap on in a wave, like lights on the night side of a planet.

Rather than seeing the Knights’ arrival as a rescue, Kylo Ren is enraged.

“Stay back!” he roars. “I have this under control!”

The Knights of Ren stop, but they don’t lower their weapons. Jaina wasn’t expecting an audience, but she’ll deal with them once she’s done with Kylo Ren. She might be too injured to fight them all of at once, but if nothing else, she can activate her jetpack and get the hell back to her ship.

She lowers the lightsabers slightly. Kylo Ren is on his back, weaponless, and bleeding. He might have a counterattack in mind, but she sees no sign of it yet. She’ll give him a chance to surrender. He won’t take it. He’ll go down fighting. That’s fine. She draws in a breath to make the offer.

And one of the Knights shoots her.

She jumps back, blocks the first shot, and moves fast enough to keep the second from hitting her helmet, but it catches her in the back instead. The blaster bolt doesn’t penetrate her armor, but it does knock a hole in the jetpack’s tank. Fuel begins to dribble onto the ground like weak rain. It will all be gone in the next few seconds.

A choice she didn’t expect to have to make is laid in front of her. If she takes off now, she’ll have enough fuel left to get back to Trickster. She can stay, and finish this. But without her escape route, she’ll probably die here, too.

If she stays, she’ll become one last family name on Kylo Ren’s death toll. His final sacrifice to the dark side.

She throws Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. Her aim with the Force is perfect. The blade arcs toward his chest – and stops millimeters from his outstretched hand.

She thought it might.

She engages the jetpack, and takes off backward toward her ship, spraying fuel behind her as she goes. The jetpack dies when she’s 12 feet in the air, and sends her crashing against Trickster’s gangplank.

The pain makes her vision go dark, or maybe that happens when her head hits the inside of the helmet again. She calls on the Force to dull her pain. A blaster bolt flies over her head as she rolls over and gets on her knees. She draws her lightsaber, and deflects a battering of blasterfire. She retreats into Trickster. When the gangplank closes, her body cries out to fall. To collapse, curl up on the floor, and let the pain and blackness take her.

She pushes into the cockpit, grabs the controls without sitting down.

“Take me home, baby,” she whispers as she engages the autopilot.

Trickster launches through the atmosphere. Jaina sits in the pilot’s chair, watches the stars appear in the viewport, and lets herself feel everything she has been pushing back.

It’s too much. Her mind disconnects from her body. As if from a distance, she watches Jaina Solo come apart. She doesn’t cry, because she’s past tears, but she shakes, quivering with rage and sorrow and pain.

She yanks off her helmet. It clatters on the floor when it falls through her numb fingers. She wants to take off the rest of the armor, but the chestpiece is still stuck to her skin. She senses the bleeding has stopped, but her jumpsuit is wet with blood down to her stomach. Jaina knows better than to try to remove the armor from the burn without a medical droid. She leans back in the pilot’s chair, and tries to clear her mind enough to go into a healing trance.

When the world goes away, she isn’t in the blank trance she was trying for. She’s in a dark room. It’s so large and full of shadows that it might go on forever. She reaches for her lightsaber, but she’s weaponless.

Jaina turns around, and is face-to-face with Ben. Relief floods her.

“There you are. Where did you go?” she asks, like she doesn’t know.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he draws his weapon. The hilt is cylindrical and the single blade is blue, like it was when he was a Jedi Knight.

But when he steps forward and runs her though, red light engulfs her vision, and pain overtakes her mind.

She wakes up in the pilot’s chair. Though she is still in her beskar armor, she puts a hand to her stomach where Ben stabbed her. The plate is intact. Trickster’s cockpit is well-lit, and quiet. Jaina is alone.

It was only a nightmare.