He focused on the astronomical coordinates written on it. “Is that what I hope it is?”
“Probable coordinates for Brisha Syo’s habitat. Care to go there and have a picnic?”
“Definitely. You tell the tall fellow with half a name. Should I invite your parents?”
Jaina nodded. “I think they have a right to be there.”
ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO
Allana’s breath came in gasps and she rolled over in her bed, her eyes closed, her face flushed.
In his chair beside her, Caedus winced. The nightmares had come again for her. It had been two days since her collapse, and she’d alternated between deep sleep and troubled dreams. The medical droid had said it was a not-unusual reaction to emotional trauma, but those dispassionate words did nothing to ease the pain Caedus felt.
Then Allana’s eyes opened. She looked around, confused, trying to make sense of her surroundings, and caught sight of Caedus.
She drew away from him, huddling against the wall. She reached for her thigh, her hand coming up with the injector pen her mother had given her long ago, the self-defense weapon with which she had once subdued a dangerous assassin.
She was brandishing it against htm, her own father, and Caedus felt a pain as sharp as if she had plunged it straight into his heart.
Emotion made his voice hoarse. “Good morning, Allana. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
She lowered the injector but did not return it to its hideaway sheath. “I want to go home.”
“This has to be your home for the time being. You’re safer here than anywhere.”
She shook her head. “I’m safest with Mommy.”
“Bad people keep coming for you when you’re with your mother. You need to be here.”
“They all died, didn’t they?”
Caedus nodded. “Many people died. And though I tried to get you far away from them, I couldn’t get far enough away.”
“You were…” Allans struggled for the words. “You were bad. I hate you.”
Another stab to his heart. “No, you don’t. You can’t hate someone who loves you. I love you, Allana.”
“No, you don’t! You took me away from Mommy. You said you had permission and you lied. You’re the same as anyone else who wants to hurt me. I hate you.” She raised the injector again.
“No. Allana, you can’t. It’s not possible, and I’ll tell you why.” Caedus remained in his chair by force of will. Every instinct made him want to hold the little girl, to comfort her. … every instinct but the one that told him she needed to be free to decide, free to act. “You’re right that I took you without permission. But I don’t need permission.”
“Yes, you do!”
“No, I don’t. I’ll tell you why. And you’ll believe me, because I can’t lie to you about this. You’d know it if I lied. All you have to do is open up your heart and you’ll know how I feel. You’ll know the truth.”
Defiant, she kept her injector at the ready. Her expression dared him to reach for her.
“Allana, Tenel Ka has the right to decide where you go, and what you learn, and how you are to be protected, and she has that right because she’s your mommy. She has had that right for all your life so far.
“I have the same right… . because I’m your daddy.” Allana froze, her expression transforming from defiant to unbelieving. She shook her head.
Caedus waited, pouring his love for her into the Force, trying to send it through his eyes into hers. He nodded. “You always knew you had a daddy. Your mommy had to keep who it was a secret. But now you’re old enough to understand it. I’m your daddy.”
He felt the fear within her, the lingering pain from the events of two days earlier, begin to erode. Allana lowered her injector. Through the Force, he offered her nothing but the truth-for the first time in months, perhaps years, there was nothing of Sith training to his thoughts, nothing of the Jedi, no strategy, no planning. There was only what he felt.
She came to him, clambering over the bed and into his lap. She put her arms around his neck. “Daddy.”
“Yes. Your daddy, forever and ever.” He held her to him, stroked her hair. “And when the war is over and the bad people have been taught how wrong they were, and everyone is happy again, we can tell everyone that I’m your daddy. And you can sit right next to me and help me decide how things are going to be for everyone. Won’t that be nice?”
KORRIBAN, WORLD OF THE SITH
On a ruin of a planet, they stood in the ruins of a citadel-themselves the ruins of an ancient organization, the Sith Order.
In a circular meeting chamber, its stone walls darkened by age and weathering, they stood in a circle, dark hooded robes obscuring their identities. It was an unnecessary precaution; there was no one present who was not part of their Order. But legends and records had taught them the merits of caution, of maintaining customs of secrecy and self-preservation even when in their safest havens.