Into the Black

The bolt hit somewhere aft and the entire ship bucked hard to starboard.

Quinel’s hands flew across the controls, fighting to keep the Stray level as something crashed to the deck plating somewhere behind them. Another impact, this one closer. The shields flared bright against the viewport’s edge—a sickly green wash of energy that faded as quickly as it appeared.

“Shields at seventy-six percent,” Dez reported from the copilot’s station, his mechanical fingers dancing across his console.

Quinel jerked the controls hard to the right, the Stray responding instantly as she banked away from another incoming barrage. Through the viewport he could see them—angular silhouettes against the smoke-filled sky, their twin ion engines screaming as they closed the distance.

“I hate fracking TIE fighters,” he growled.

“Technically,” Dez said, his tone as dry as Tatooine sand, “the fighters themselves have committed no crimes. It is the morally corrupt Imperial pilots who—”

“I don’t care who’s flying them. Right now they’re hurting my ship and I hate them for it.”

They’d been in the air less than five minutes. Five fracking minutes since they’d blasted out of that hangar, and already half the TIEs over Outpost City had picked up their scent. The Imperial forces had been mopping up—executing the last pockets of resistance, burning what was left of the colony’s spirit—but one ship lifting off? That was enough to get their attention.

More than enough.

Green bolts streaked past the viewport. One grazed the dorsal hull and the impact sent a shudder through the deck plating beneath Quinel’s boots. Another hit aft, close enough that warning lights flashed across his console.

“Shields at sixty-three percent,” Dez reported. “Port stabilizer damaged. Handling compromised.”

Quinel felt it immediately—a subtle drag to port that he had to compensate for. Of course it was the stabilizers. It was always the fracking stabilizers.

“Recommend evasive action,” Dez added.

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” Quinel banked left, then right, weaving through the incoming fire and fighting the damaged stabilizer with every move. Below them, the ruins of Outpost City spread out like a wound—burning buildings, collapsed structures, streets littered with bodies. Eight hours. The Empire had spent eight hours turning this place into a graveyard.

And they weren’t done yet.

“We can’t keep this up,” Quinel said, spotting something ahead through the smoke. Mountains. A range of jagged peaks rising from the planet’s surface like broken teeth. “Get ready. I’m going to try to get you a shot.”

“Captain, I feel compelled to point out that our forward-facing laser cannons require a clear line of sight to—”

“I know, I know. Just give me a minute.”

He gripped the controls tighter and banked the ship down and to the left, aiming for the mountains. The Stray responded—temperamental old girl that she was, she always came through when it mattered—but the damaged stabilizer made every adjustment a fight. Behind them, the TIE fighters adjusted their pursuit vectors, their engines howling as they followed.

Four of them. No, six. More peeling off from the squadron that had been dogging them since they launched from the spaceport.

Quinel rolled the ship, compensating for the drag as the inertial dampeners handled the rotation. Then he dove straight toward the mountain range, holding his course as the rocky peaks rushed up to meet them at terminal velocity.

“You’re going to get us all killed,” Dez observed.

“Dying isn’t on my list of things to do today.”

The mountains filled the viewport. Quinel could see individual rocks now, the texture of the stone, the shadows of deep crevasses. His hands were steady on the controls even as he fought the stubborn stabilizer. Behind them, the TIEs screamed closer.

Fifteen hundred meters.

One thousand.

Five hundred.

He pulled up on the controls at the last possible second, the Stray leveling out so close to the mountainside that he heard the grinding shriek of stone against the ventral plating. A rocky outcropping scraped across the ship’s belly, the sound making his teeth ache.

Behind them, four of the TIE fighters didn’t pull up in time. They exploded into balls of flame and spinning debris, the shockwaves reaching the Stray’s aft shields and giving them one more hard shove forward. The remaining two managed to pull out at the last second, breaking off to rejoin their squadrons.

Quinel let out a whoop and pumped his fist into the air. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“I would advise against premature celebration,” Dez said. “Two more squadrons converging on our position.”

The celebration died in Quinel’s throat. He glanced at the sensor readout—already cluttered and incomplete, but clear enough to show what was coming. More TIEs. A lot more.

He slowed his speed slightly and dove into a deep canyon, the walls looming high enough on either side to block out the stars above. The Stray fit through with meters to spare—barely—and Quinel didn’t waste time second-guessing himself. He poured on the speed, the canyon walls blurring past as he flew, every turn requiring extra compensation for the damaged stabilizer.

Behind them, multiple TIEs followed them in. Most of the squadrons pulled up, not willing to risk the tight confines, but enough followed to make things interesting.

Quinel focused on his piloting, every muscle in his body tense as he threaded the Stray through the nightmare of jagged rock faces and sudden turns. The canyon twisted like a serpent, dropping away beneath them and then rising again, narrowing and widening without warning or pattern. The stabilizer fought him on every adjustment, but he knew this ship. Knew how to coax her through when she was hurting.

Two TIEs pulled ahead of the rest, their green plasma bolts grazing the Stray’s aft shielding as they tried to get a lock.

The ship’s power flickered.

“Shields at fifty-one percent,” Dez reported.

“I’m aware.” Quinel’s eyes flicked across his instruments, then back to the canyon ahead. There had to be some way to turn this around. Some way to—

There. An opening in the canyon wall, narrow and dark. Tight, but the Stray might fit.

Might.

“Hang on,” he said. “This is going to be close.”

Behind them, the TIEs were still firing. Ahead, the opening rushed closer.

Quinel lined up his approach, hands fighting the controls, the damaged stabilizer protesting every input. He tried to roll the ship ninety degrees to present her narrowest profile—overcompensated for the drag—heard the screech of metal as the starboard side scraped hard against the rock face.

“Sorry girl,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

The Stray shuddered, alarms screaming, but she pushed through. Barely.

The two TIEs pursuing them tried to follow. They collided in mid-air, their impacts creating a fireball that lit up the narrow passage like a miniature sun.

The explosion triggered something—a chain reaction in the rock itself. Quinel heard it first, a deep grinding rumble that resonated through the canyon walls. Then he saw it: massive chunks of stone breaking free, tumbling down from the heights.

Debris pelted the dorsal hull. Something hit hard enough to send a fresh cascade of warnings across his console.

“Captain! Dorsal sensor array offline. Scanning compromised. Shields at forty-two percent. We have issues—”

“No we fracking don’t!” Quinel interrupted, pulling up hard on the controls, sending the Stray shooting straight upward at full burn, fighting the stabilizer every meter of the climb. The canyon walls closed in behind them like a closing mouth, thousands of tons of rock collapsing in on itself.

The remaining TIEs that had followed them in tried to pull out—tried to escape the sudden avalanche—but the damage was done. Multiple explosions lit up the canyon below as fighters were crushed or collided with falling debris. The destruction spread like a wave, the entire canyon network beginning to collapse.

The Stray was pelted by rocks of varying sizes but held together, her shields absorbing the impacts as she climbed. All the TIEs that had followed them in had been destroyed. Quinel could see their final moments on the rear cameras—pinwheeling debris, expanding fireballs, the canyon swallowing them whole.

They shot back up into the sky just as the canyon floor disappeared entirely, collapsing in on itself with a roar that he felt more than heard.

But there was no time to celebrate.

The rest of the TIE fighter squadrons were waiting above, their formations spread out across the darkening sky.

Quinel aimed the Stray directly at them at full burn, his vector pointed starward, still compensating for that damned stabilizer. They didn’t expect it—the freighter coming straight up out of the collapsing canyon like a missile, climbing toward space with her engines burning white-hot.

“Now Dez!” he shouted. “Blow them out of my fracking sky!”

“I would be delighted to.”

Dez opened fire with the forward laser cannons, red bolts streaking into the gathered mass of TIE fighters. The Imperial pilots tried to bank away in sudden surprise, their formations breaking apart as they scattered.

Dez’s shots were precise. Methodical. One TIE exploded, then another, then three more in rapid succession. Some of the fighters banked hard into each other in their panic, wing panels colliding and sending both craft spinning into uncontrolled dives. Others were caught up in the explosions of their wingmates, the chain reactions creating a cloud of flaming debris that the remaining TIEs desperately tried to avoid.

The Stray flew right through the chaos, her shields flaring as burning wreckage bounced off her hull.

Quinel let out a string of excited curses, his heart hammering against his ribs as the planet fell away beneath them. “How many did you get?”

“Fourteen confirmed kills,” Dez said. “An additional eight destroyed by collision or secondary explosions. The remaining fighters are breaking off.”

“Damn right they are.” Quinel couldn’t keep the grin off his face as the Stray climbed higher, the atmosphere thinning around them. The stars grew brighter and clearer through the viewport as they punched through into the black.

“You know,” he said, still riding the adrenaline high, “for a minute there I actually thought we might not make it.”

“Your confidence is inspiring.”

“Come on, you know me better than that. How many times have I ever gotten us killed?”

“That is an entirely illogical question.”

Quinel was about to respond with something appropriately sarcastic when Dez spoke again, his tone shifting.

“No TIE fighters in pursuit. They’ve broken off completely.”

“See? Told you we’d—” Quinel glanced at his sensor readout, what little of it was still functioning. Dez was right. No fighters. Nothing behind them at all.

That didn’t make sense. They’d just destroyed over twenty Imperial craft. The Empire wouldn’t just let that go.

“Sensors are sketchy, but… it looks like they’re pulling back,” Dez said quietly.

Quinel looked closer. The sensors were damaged—half the readout was garbage data and static—but there was enough to paint a picture. Multiple contacts lifting from the planet’s surface. Drop ships. Assault craft. TIE fighters returning to their carriers.

Three massive signatures in orbit. The Star Destroyers. They’d spread out around the planet in a wide triangle, and now—

Now they were repositioning.

Quinel’s blood went cold.

“No,” he whispered. Then louder, his voice cracking: “No, they’re not. We need to get out of here NOW, and I do mean right fracking now!”

“They’re going to glass this world,” Dez said. It wasn’t a question. Just a statement of fact, delivered in that same calm, mechanical tone.

“There’s nothing we can do for them.” Quinel’s hands were already moving across the controls, bringing up the navigation computer. “We have to get out NOW or we’ll be joining them.”

An alarm started beeping—shrill and insistent. Quinel looked back at his sensors and felt his stomach drop.

One of the Star Destroyers was coming around the curve of the planet, its massive wedge-shaped hull blocking out the stars. Even at this distance it was enormous, a city-sized monument to Imperial power and brutality.

“Star Destroyer incoming,” he said, his mouth dry. “And I think they’ve seen us.”

“It would appear that your analysis of the situation is quite correct.”

The Star Destroyer’s forward turbolaser batteries were rotating towards the planet below.

“Dez, calculate us a jump out of here.”

“Where to?”

“I don’t care, anywhere, just get us out of here!”

Dez’s fingers blurred across his console, entering jump coordinates into the ship’s navigational computer. The calculations were complex even for simple jumps—one wrong number and they’d fly straight through a star or slam into a planet at lightspeed.

And right now, every second counted.

The Star Destroyer loomed closer through the viewport, growing larger with each passing moment. Quinel could see the individual details now—gun ports, sensor arrays, the rows of viewport lights along its flanks.

“They’re powering up their forward turbolasers,” he said, watching the energy readings spike. “Hurry up, Dez.”

“I’m working at the fastest possible speed.”

The Star Destroyer opened fire.

Lances of emerald death shot through space—not at them, but past them. At the planet below.

Turbolaser fire rained down on Ghauba like judgment from an angry god. Massive bolts of energy that could crack open capital ships slammed into the planet’s surface with devastating force. Quinel watched in frozen horror as the bombardment began, dozens of turbolasers firing in sequence, then hundreds as the other Star Destroyers joined in.

Base Delta Zero. Orbital bombardment. They were going to burn the entire planet.

“Frack!” Quinel slammed the controls to the side, banking hard as more turbolaser fire streaked past them. The Star Destroyer wasn’t just targeting the planet—it was firing at everything in orbit, turning the space around Ghauba into a death zone.

Green bolts as thick as buildings shot past the Stray’s viewport. One came so close that its proximity triggered the shields, the near-miss knocking their deflectors down to fifteen percent and rattling the entire ship. The already-damaged stabilizer took another hit from the blast wave—not destroyed, but knocked further out of alignment.

An alarm shrieked. The Stray’s handling got worse, the drag to port becoming a constant pull that Quinel had to fight with both hands.

“Dez!”

“Thirty seconds, Captain.”

Thirty seconds. It might as well have been thirty years.

The planet was dying below them. Quinel could see it through the viewport—the turbolaser blasts hitting the surface, each impact creating explosions visible from orbit. The three colony cities were burning. The atmosphere itself was beginning to glow orange-hot as the onslaught continued.

The colonists who might have survived up until now—out of the fifty-five, maybe sixty thousand people who’d been alive just hours ago.

All of them dying. Right now. As he flew through this storm of green death trying to save his own skin.

He could barely keep the contents of his stomach in place as he tried to outfly the turbolaser blasts, wrestling with the crippled stabilizer. They streaked past on all sides—above, below, port, starboard—a forest of emerald beams that slammed into the planet’s surface with devastating force.

“Coordinates locked,” Dez said, his voice cutting through Quinel’s spiraling thoughts. “Approach vector calculated.”

Quinel gunned the engines, angling away from the planet and toward clear space, fighting the stabilizer for every degree of adjustment. Away from the bombardment. Away from the death.

But he couldn’t look away from the viewport. Couldn’t stop watching as the planet burned.

“Come on, dammit,” he muttered, his hands white-knuckled on the controls as he fought the damaged ship. “We can do this…”

Another turbolaser blast screamed past, so close he felt the heat through the viewport. The Stray’s shields flared and held—barely—but the stabilizer was making every maneuver a desperate struggle. He had to anticipate the drag, compensate for it, fight the ship to keep her on course.

Below them, the planet’s atmosphere was burning. The bombardment showed no signs of stopping. If anything, it was intensifying.

“Just a little more…” Quinel yanked the controls, avoiding another stream of fire. His heart was trying to punch through his ribcage. His hands were slick with sweat. His mouth tasted like copper.

The Stray barely avoided another near-miss, the blast close enough that the electromagnetic pulse from it made half his console lights flicker.

“We’re clear!” he shouted.

The stars suddenly elongated, stretching into lines of light as the hyperdrive activated. The blue tunnel of hyperspace swallowed them whole, and Ghauba—the Star Destroyers, the bombardment, all of it—disappeared.

They were safe.

Quinel sagged in his seat, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath. He could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, could feel his pulse throbbing in his temples. The blue glow of hyperspace washed over the cockpit, casting everything in an otherworldly light.

They’d made it. Somehow, impossibly, they’d made it.

“We made it,” he said aloud, as if speaking the words would make them more real.

“Yes,” Dez agreed. “Though barely.”

Quinel’s shoulders sagged. All those people. The colonists who’d been trying to carve out a life on the Outer Rim, as far from the Empire’s reach as they could get. They’d fought. They’d resisted. And the Empire had burned them for it.

Every last one of them.

“They didn’t have to do that,” Quinel said quietly. “The slicers are dead. They could have just… called it a loss and moved on.”

“The Empire does not accept losses,” Dez said. “They make examples.”

Quinel closed his eyes. He could still see it—the green fire raining down, the planet’s atmosphere igniting. He’d seen a lot of horrible things in his life. The Siege of Felucia. The so-called Jedi betrayal. The slow, grinding brutality of the Empire’s rule over the past three years.

But this… this was different. This was genocide. Methodical. Calculated. And for what? To send a message? To prove a point?

“Those poor bastards,” he whispered.

Dez started to say something—probably some attempt at comfort, awkward and logical in that way only a droid could manage—but Quinel couldn’t hear it right now. Couldn’t focus on anything except the weight pressing down on his chest and the taste of bile in the back of his throat.

Too many dead. Too much lost. And the two slicers—they’d given everything to save their daughter, and now the place they’d been hiding was ash and everyone they’d known there was gone.

“I’m going to go check on the kid,” he said quietly. His voice sounded as worn down as he felt.

He turned in his seat toward the cockpit door—

—and froze.

Tammea was standing in the doorway.

Her small hands were pressed over her mouth, her purple eyes wide and unfocused. Her skin had gone deep purple—nearly violet in the blue hyperspace light. She was trembling.

She’d seen it. Force damn him, she’d seen all of it.

Quinel’s stomach dropped.

---

Tammea sat on the couch in the common area, hands pressed to her temples, trying desperately to make sense of the world.

The ship was moving—she could feel the vibrations through the deck plating, the subtle shifts as they banked and rolled. There was weapons fire. Explosions. The constant shriek of those Imperial fighters her mother had been so afraid of.

Her parents were gone.

The thought kept circling through her mind, unable to find purchase. Unable to become real. Deklaen—who’d visited when he could, who’d carried her on his shoulders and taught her how to slice basic systems and always made her mother smile—was dead. Shot down in a moment, his smile frozen on his face as he fell.

Her mother—who’d held her when the nightmares came, who’d taught her how to manage the overwhelming flood of others’ emotions, who’d loved her fiercely and without reservation—was dead too. She’d felt it. That horrible moment when her mother’s presence just… stopped. Like a light going out. Like a hole torn in the fabric of reality itself.

She couldn’t feel them anymore. That constant, comforting presence was just gone. There was only emptiness where they should be.

The ship lurched hard. Tammea was thrown from the couch, hitting the deck with a gasp. Her shoulder flared with pain. She pulled herself up and grabbed onto the overturned table, trying to steady herself.

Another blast rocked the Stray, nearly knocking her off her feet again.

Tammea held onto the table edge with both hands, her purple eyes wide as the ship shook around her.

She tried to reach for her parents again, stretching out with her empathy the way her mother had taught her. Maybe she’d missed something. Maybe they were just far away, too distant to feel clearly.

Nothing.

The hollow space inside her chest grew larger. She couldn’t even cry anymore. There was just… nothing. Numbness. An emptiness that felt like it would swallow her whole.

The ship lurched again. She needed to focus on something else. Anything else. These emotions were too much—too big, too sharp, too overwhelming. If she stayed in them she’d drown.

Tammea closed her eyes and reached for Quinel instead, trying to feel his emotions more clearly. It was hard—the empathic overload made everything muddy and indistinct—but she caught flashes. His fear. His determination. The way he was fighting to keep the ship flying, to keep them alive.

She remembered how he’d talked to her in the cantina. Kind. Patient. He’d looked at her like she mattered. And he’d loved his ship—she’d felt that so clearly, the pride and affection when he talked about the blue and purple paint job.

She’d told her mother and Dek afterward that she had a good feeling about him.

Her feet were moving before she realized she’d made a decision. Up the stairs. Toward the cockpit. She needed to see. Needed to know what was happening.

The cockpit door was open. She stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame to steady herself, and watched.

Quinel was flying. Really flying—hands moving across the controls with practiced ease, his eyes flicking between the viewport and his instruments. She’d never seen anyone fly like this. Even when the ship protested, even when something seemed to be fighting him, he made it work.

They dove into a canyon—the walls so close she heard metal scraping rock—and Tammea’s breath caught. But Quinel didn’t hesitate. He threaded the ship through impossibly tight spaces, rolling and banking, his fear controlled and focused into this single task.

She felt his spike of triumph when TIE fighters exploded behind them. Felt his brief moment of joy—almost reckless, like he was enjoying himself despite the terror.

Tammea clung to that feeling. Clung to his confidence and skill, using it as an anchor against her own grief.

They shot upward through collapsing rock, debris hammering the hull, and broke free into open air. More TIE fighters. Quinel’s command. The droid—Dez—opening fire. The chaos of the enemy formation breaking apart.

She felt Quinel’s excitement. His relief as they climbed higher, the atmosphere thinning, the stars growing brighter through the viewport.

Beautiful stars. Twinkling and bright, just like her mother used to say. Starlight. That’s what her mother had called her sometimes. My little Starlight.

Tammea pushed that thought away before it could hurt.

For just a moment, she let herself breathe.

Then everything took a turn for the absolute worst.

The scanner readings changed. She felt Quinel’s confusion turn to horror in a single, terrible moment.

And then she saw it.

Through the viewport, as they broke into space, she could see the planet below. See the massive ships in orbit—the Star Destroyers her mother had talked about in whispered, frightened tones.

Green death began to rain down from the sky. Turbolaser fire. Hundreds of beams slamming into Ghauba’s surface with devastating force.

The planet was burning.

Tammea watched, frozen, as what remained of the cities began to die. Outpost City. The smaller settlements. Everywhere. The green fire fell like judgment and the world burned beneath it.

Kybuss. The mechanic who’d let her watch as he worked on ships, who’d explained how engines worked and never talked down to her.

The other colonists. The ones who’d given her family a place to stay these past two months. The families with kids her age who she’d played with in the streets.

All of them. Dead. Or dying. Right now.

Because her parents had been there.

The thought hit her like a physical blow. Her parents had brought the Empire here. They’d been the ones the Imperials were hunting. And now everyone was paying the price.

Everyone except her.

She remembered her mother pulling the spacer aside in the town hall, touching his cheek. Something had passed between them—some agreement or promise—but Tammea hadn’t heard the words. She saw her mother’s face in her mind now. That last smile, sad and loving, as she’d told Tammea to be strong. She heard Dek’s voice—always calm, always gentle—telling her about the stars.

They’d died to save her. And now their world—everyone they’d known, everyone they’d tried to protect—was burning because they’d been here.

It should have been me, Tammea thought. The words rose up from that hollow place inside her chest. I should have died with them.

The guilt crashed in like a tidal wave. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The empathic void where her parents should be suddenly felt like it was pulling her in, drowning her, suffocating her—

Quinel turned in his seat and found her standing there, watching. His face went pale.

Tammea turned and ran.

---

Quinel watched her disappear down the stairs, his mind struggling to catch up with what he’d just seen. The horror on her face. The purple skin—a sign of distress he was quickly learning to recognize. The way she’d stood frozen in the doorway, watching.

She’d seen the bombardment. Watched the planet die. Witnessed genocide from the cockpit of his ship while he’d been too focused on flying to notice she was there.

“Ah, hell,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face.

He looked at Dez, who had cocked his head to one side in what might have been curiosity. The droid was watching the empty stairway where Tammea had disappeared.

Quinel thought about Damika’s final words. Her plea over the comlink. Remember your promise.

He’d promised to keep her daughter safe. To protect her. And he had—he’d gotten her off Ghauba alive. But now she was somewhere on his ship, traumatized and alone, and he had absolutely no idea how to help her.

He pushed himself up from the pilot’s seat, his legs shaky and unsteady. “I need to find her.”

Dez didn’t respond. Just watched him with those blank photoreceptors as Quinel headed for the stairs.

He didn’t find her in the common area. The table was on its side, its contents scattered across the deck. The couch was empty.

He checked the galley. Empty.

His quarters were still locked—the door hadn’t been touched. That left the second room, the one with the broken lock that he kept meaning to fix.

Quinel pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The room was dim—just emergency lighting along the floor strips—and cluttered with storage crates that had fallen over during their escape. He heard her before he saw her: a soft, hitching sound, barely audible over the ship’s hum.

He found her behind a stack of overturned crates in the corner. Curled into a ball on the floor, rocking back and forth, her hands pressed to her temples like she was trying to hold her head together.

Quinel stood there, watching her, feeling completely helpless. Utterly useless.

He thought about when he was her age. Nine years old on the streets of Corellia, alone except for his speeder bike gang. Just a scrappy kid with no family, virtually alone, learning to survive any way he could. He’d had no one to comfort him. No one to hold him when the nightmares came. He’d learned to bury it all deep down and keep moving.

But he couldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t tell her to just toughen up and deal with it. That wasn’t the answer. That had never worked for him.

He remembered what her parents had done when they were running through the streets. The physical contact. The stimulation. Her mother had carried her, rubbing her back, keeping her grounded against the empathic overload.

Would that help now? She barely knew him. Would she react poorly if he touched her?

Quinel slowly crossed the room and crouched down next to the girl, careful not to crowd her.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. The words felt inadequate. Hollow. “I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t save any of them.”

Tammea looked up. Her eyes were red from crying, her skin still that deep purple shade. She stared at him without blinking, her hands still pressed against her temples.

“But I promised your mother that I’d look after you.”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Just kept staring.

Quinel ran his hands through his hair, trying to find the right words. They didn’t come easily. They never did.

“Look, I’m not good at this,” he admitted. “Don’t have much experience with kids, and I never really got to be one myself.” He met her eyes, going for honesty because it was all he had. “But I gave your mother my word. And I don’t break promises.”

He paused, then added quietly: “The Stray is my home. The only one I’ve ever known. But it can be your home too, if you’ll let it. I know you have no reason to trust me right now. I know you’re scared. But I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe.”

Tammea held his gaze. She wasn’t crying as hard now—just sniffling a little, her hands slowly dropping from her temples to rest on her knees.

Quinel didn’t move. Didn’t want to startle her.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she gave a small nod.

It was barely anything. The tiniest dip of her chin. But it was enough.

“Okay,” Quinel said softly. He leaned forward slowly, telegraphing his movements, and awkwardly wrapped his arms around her. “Okay.”

She was so small. Fragile. He could feel her trembling against him as he held her.

For a moment nothing happened. Then she broke.

Tammea cried against his chest—deep, wrenching sobs that shook her entire body. Her small hands clutched at his coat, holding on like he was the only solid thing in a universe that had just come apart.

Quinel held her. He didn’t know what else to do. Didn’t know what to say that would make any of this better. So he just held her and let her grieve, one hand rubbing her back in slow circles the way he’d seen her parents do.

He’d failed so many people. Made promises he couldn’t keep. Watched people die when he’d sworn to protect them.

All the people he’d lost. All the ones he couldn’t save.

But he had Tammea. She was alive. That had to count for something.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “You’re safe now. I promise.”

She cried harder at that, her grief pouring out in waves that seemed like they’d never end. Quinel just kept holding her, kept rubbing her back, kept murmuring reassurances that he hoped more than anything were true.

Eventually—after what felt like hours but was probably only minutes—her sobs began to quiet. She didn’t pull away, just sagged against him, exhausted and wrung out.

Quinel kept holding her. Kept rubbing her back. And he made a new promise to himself, silent and fierce:

This one he wouldn’t fail. Whatever it took. However hard it got.

---

Two hours later, the Stray dropped out of hyperspace, hanging in the emptiness between systems. Just a brief stop—long enough to send a message and make sure they weren’t being followed.

Quinel was in the cockpit with Dez, checking sensors while the ship hung motionless in the black. They’d made multiple jumps already—three so far, with two more planned—bouncing around the Outer Rim to shake off any Imperial pursuit that might be tracking them.

Tammea was in the common area. He’d carried her there after she’d finally cried herself out, settled her on the couch, and draped a blanket over her. The climate controls were acting up again—the ship was too cold—and he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable.

Her eyes had been closed when he left her. Quinel hoped she was resting. The kid had to be exhausted after everything she’d been through.

“All clear,” Dez reported from his station. “No Imperial signatures on sensors. What functional sensors we have remaining, at least.”

“Good.” Quinel pulled up the communication terminal and started composing a message. Short. Cryptic. The HoloNet was monitored, even the premium access channels, and he wasn’t about to give the Empire more information than necessary.

He typed: Need a favor or two. Will explain when in person. Be there in half a day.

The recipient was listed simply as Garaath—no last name, no additional details. Anyone intercepting the message would have to work to figure out who that was and where “there” might be.

Quinel sent it and sat back, waiting for the response. It came less than a minute later: docking coordinates for Cloud City’s lower levels, along with contact information for a trusted mechanic if needed.

He allowed himself a small smile. Garaath always came through.

“What’s our move when we get there?” Dez asked.

Quinel leaned back in his seat. “I could do most of the repairs myself, but we’re going to need those sensors recalibrated. Stabilizer needs proper parts too, not just the patch job I did. And we need work—credits are going to get tight if we’re not hauling cargo.”

“Already calculating the jump to Bespin,” Dez said. “And the girl, Captain?”

Quinel was quiet for a moment. “She’s crew now. She stays with us.”

“The Imperials may attempt to locate her.”

“Maybe.” Quinel stared out at the stars. “Then again, they just glassed an entire planet. They got their message across. Might decide hunting one kid isn’t worth the effort.”

“Or they may decide that leaving any survivors sends the wrong message entirely.”

“Cheerful as always, Dez.”

“I merely provide realistic assessments of our circumstances.”

Quinel sighed. The truth was he didn’t know what the Empire would do. Didn’t know if they’d bother tracking down one orphaned Zeltron girl. Didn’t know if they even realized she’d survived.

All he knew was that he’d made a promise, and he intended to keep it.

“Your current emotional state aside,” Dez observed after a moment of silence, “you did fulfill your primary objective. You got the small organic out.”

Quinel raised an eyebrow. “Careful. Keep talking like that and I might think you’re developing a conscience.”

“But Captain, I can’t possibly do such a thing,” Dez replied primly. “As a droid, I lack the capacity to form what organics would call an ethical morality.”

The navigation computer beeped, the display confirming the calculations were complete.

“Coordinates locked,” Dez added. “Ready when you are.”

“You just keep telling yourself that, Dez,” Quinel said as he pushed the jump lever forward. The stars stretched into lines of light, and hyperspace swallowed them once more—the blue tunnel streaking past as they continued their journey to Bespin.

Quinel watched the readouts for a moment, confirming the jump was stable, then stood and headed down the stairs into the ship. There were repairs that needed doing—the stabilizer needed more than the quick fix he’d managed, and he wanted to check the sensor array damage—and it was a long flight to Bespin.

He passed through the common area, glancing at Tammea as he went. She was still on the couch, eyes closed, blanket pulled up to her chin. Her skin had returned to its normal light pink shade, her breathing slow and even.

At least she appeared to be resting. He hoped she was actually sleeping, but somehow he doubted it. Not after what she’d been through.

Quinel continued aft toward the engine room. He had work to do, systems to check, damage to assess. They’d survived Ghauba—barely—but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

Still, they were alive, and they had a destination.

Whatever came next, they’d face it. The three of them.

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