The first breath of Kashyyyk air hit me harder than I expected.

  It wasn’t the humidity—though it wrapped around my lungs like a warm, damp cloth. It wasn’t the smell—thick with earth and sap and life so dense it felt like another presence pressing against my skin.

  It was the relief.

  Pure, sharp, unsteady relief.

  ? ? ?

  The three transports sat on the duracrete landing field like exhausted beasts—metal plating still scorched and warped from the gravity run, engines ticking with the heat of near-failure. Repair crews crawled over their bellies like medics tending to survivors.

  And everywhere—descending the loading ramps, milling in loose circles, staring at the canopy above them—were the miners. Ten thousand of them. Or close enough that the air trembled with the sound of so many bodies finally allowed to breathe.

  Some stood still, dazed.

  Some knelt and pressed their hands to the ground.

  Some cried—silently, or loudly, or into someone else’s shoulder.

  And some just walked.

  Not far.

  Just walked, as if reminding themselves that no one was going to shout at them to stop.

  I leaned on the side rail of the landing platform, watching the flood of them move into the reception zone, waiting for my lungs to believe we weren’t still in danger.

  Toran came up beside me, the faint smell of coolant and smoke still clinging to his jumpsuit. His arms were crossed, his posture stiff, but his eyes—his eyes kept drifting over the crowd as if counting them one by one.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “No,” he said honestly. A beat. “You?”

  “No.”

  We stood like that for a while, leaning against the warm metal, letting the wind bring us the sounds of a thousand different versions of relief.

  Behind us, the landing field buzzed with soft, subdued conversation. Jedi, medics, Wookiee volunteers, and exhausted crew drifted like ghosts between groups. Nobody spoke loudly. Nobody celebrated. The victory was too fragile to touch.

  Kirana Ti stood not far from us, her arms loosely folded as she spoke with Captain Reethe and Nien Nunb. Her face was unreadable, but I could feel the tension in her—like a bowstring held taut too long.

  Kyle stood by the far ramp with a stack of datapads, overseeing the offloading of injured crew. He moved slowly, deliberately, as if still carrying the weight of the engine room fight in his shoulders.

  Kyp was alone, sitting on the edge of a cargo container with his elbows on his knees. His head hung forward just enough to hide his expression. No one approached him. Even the Force around him felt… wary. The way an animal gives a wide berth to another still smelling of lightning.

  And Meral—Meral was somewhere in the middle of it all, talking to a pair of Wookiee medics who towered over her. She kept nodding too quickly. Her smile flickered like a faulty panel light—there and gone, there and gone.

  Toran must’ve followed my gaze.

  “She’s shaken,” he murmured.

  “So are we,” I said.

  “Yes. But she actually touched the memories.”

  That was true.

  I’d fought.

  Toran had fought.

  Kyle and Kyp had fought.

  But Meral had seen.

  Every time she picked up an object during the crisis—every time she brushed a dropped tool, or a piece of clothing, or a body—she saw the betrayal, the fear, the quiet conversations in hidden corners, the desperation of miners convinced that turning on their fellow slaves was their one chance at something better.

  No one should have to carry that.

  Toran exhaled sharply. “Let’s go to her.”

  ? ? ?

  We walked across the landing field. The ground underneath us was solid—real ground, not durasteel. Each step felt heavier than the last.

  Meral saw us halfway across and waved, but the motion was tired, without her usual bounce. Her hair was pulled back in a loose tie, some strands stuck to her temple, her tattoos dull under the humid light. Her eyes were too bright and too distant at the same time.

  “Kae,” she said, voice small. “Toran.” Then the smile collapsed halfway. “You’re okay.”

  “So are you,” I said.

  She didn’t answer.

  Not directly.

  Instead, she asked, “Did you know people think in colors? Real colors. Not emotions—memories. Like this miner—one of the ones who was working for Zann—every time he thought about what he was doing, his mind went yellow. Sick yellow. And then it got darker, browner, like rot on fruit. And then nothing. Just black. No sound. No motion. Just a door closing.” She swallowed. “I saw that. I saw a lot of doors close.”

  She was trembling. Meral never trembled.

  Toran didn’t say anything. He just stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. She froze, as if waiting for something to shatter. And then slowly—slowly—she leaned into him, her forehead pressing against his shoulder.

  I stood with them, unable to think of anything useful or wise to say.

  So I said the truth.

  “You saved thousands,” I whispered.

  Her shoulders tightened.

  “I saw the man who installed the hyperdrive lockout,” she said softly. “I saw him laughing afterward. Laughing. Because he thought what he was doing would buy him freedom. It didn’t matter to him that the others might die for it. He thought he deserved to be free even if they didn’t.”

  “That’s not your fault,” I said.

  “But I saw it.”

  “You saw it,” I said again. “And then you stopped it.”

  She didn’t answer right away.

  Then:

  “I know,” she whispered. “I just don’t feel it yet.”

  A shadow fell across us. Kyle.

  “Good timing,” he said quietly. “Luke wants all of you in the main hall.”

  “Why?” Toran asked.

  Kyle gave the faintest, smallest smile.

  “To thank you.”

  And then his eyes drifted to Meral. “All of you.”

  We followed him.

  ? ? ?

  The main hall in the Wookiee compound was built around a living tree—wide enough that you couldn’t wrap your arms around it even if a dozen of you tried. Its roots twisted into the floor like thick, gnarled cables. Every surface smelled faintly of sap and resin and life older than anything I knew how to imagine.

  Lando Calrissian stood near a rough wooden table at the center. He looked like he’d aged ten years since we left Kessel. His usually immaculate jacket was wrinkled, collar unbuttoned, hair messy. Nien Nunb stood beside him, rubbing his hands together anxiously.

  Luke was there too.

  He didn’t look surprised to see us. Or relieved. Or overwhelmed.

  He just looked… present.

  Grounded.

  The way only Luke Skywalker could.

  As we entered, the three of them stepped forward.

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  Then Lando inhaled sharply and said:

  “I owe you my life.”

  Kirana arched an eyebrow. “Not really. We owed it to the miners.”

  “No,” Lando said. “You don’t. That’s the part you always get wrong.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Ten thousand people are alive because of you. And I’m alive to see it. So is Nien. And the miners aren’t in chains anymore. That was the point.”

  Nien Nunb nodded vigorously, gesturing with wide hands as he spoke in his rapid-fire Sullustan.

  Luke translated quietly: “He says he had no idea the Zann Consortium was that deeply entrenched. And that he is grateful beyond words.”

  I glanced at Meral.

  She looked embarrassed.

  She also looked like someone who needed to hear this.

  Then Luke turned his gaze toward me.

  Not hard. Not probing.

  Just seeing.

  “You did something difficult today,” he said.

  “I did what I had to.”

  “Yes,” he said gently. “And not everyone understands what that means.”

  I felt heat crawl up the back of my neck.

  He knew.

  Not everything—but enough.

  He could feel the shift in me.

  The coldness that had guided my hand.

  The terrible clarity that had settled in my bones.

  The reaper’s echo.

  Kirana stepped closer. “We’re not done processing all of it.” Her tone was firm—protective.

  Luke nodded in acknowledgment. “You don’t have to be.”

  Lando shook his head slowly. “I just… I keep thinking—if even a fraction of what happened had gone wrong…”

  “It didn’t,” Meral said.

  Her voice was quiet.

  But steady.

  She stepped forward, fists clenched at her sides.

  “It didn’t go wrong,” she repeated. “Because we didn’t let it.”

  Her chin lifted by a single determined inch.

  “And because we’re Jedi.”

  Luke’s expression softened.

  “Yes,” he said. “You are.”

  The words settled into my chest like slow-falling snow.

  Jedi.

  We weren’t Knights. Not yet.

  But this was something else.

  A recognition earned the hard way.

  Through sweat and fear and choices we’d carry for the rest of our lives.

  I felt Toran beside me, his hand brushing mine lightly—almost like a question. Or maybe a promise.

  I didn’t pull away.

  Lando exhaled. “Ten thousand people walk free today,” he said quietly. “That’s not something the galaxy sees often.”

  Nien said something to him — short, soft, almost teasing.

  Lando groaned. “Don’t say it like that. I’m not crying. It’s the humidity.”

  Nien patted his shoulder sympathetically.

  Luke’s gaze drifted over us again.

  “Rest,” he said. “All of you. Tomorrow will bring questions. And decisions.”

  He didn’t have to explain.

  ? ? ?

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Tomorrow, the New Republic would ask for reports.

  The miners would need placement.

  The crew would need debriefing.

  The compromised ones… would need different handling.

  And the three of us—me, Toran, Meral—would have to decide what we wanted this to mean.

  But tonight... Tonight was survival.

  Tonight was breath.

  Tonight was freedom bought twice over.

  And we were still standing.

  ? ? ?

  The hall emptied slowly, like water draining from a basin. People drifted out in loose currents—quiet, grateful currents carrying exhaustion and something gentler beneath it. Relief, maybe. Or disbelief. Or the kind of hope no one dared touch yet.

  Kirana left with Captain Reethe to help coordinate the miners’ settlement lists. Kyle followed soon after, already deep in discussion with a Wookiee technician about repair protocols. Kyp vanished the moment no one was watching him, which was exactly the moment everyone expected him to.

  It left the three of us alone for the first time since the hyperdrives almost fell apart under our hands.

  Toran leaned against one of the thick root-pillars, arms folded, head tipped back. His eyes were closed—not in meditation, but in the heavy, sagging way someone lets go only when they know someone else is watching the room.

  Meral sat on the floor with her legs drawn up, her arms around them, her chin resting on her knees. Her ribbon-tie had come undone and hung loosely around her shoulders. She looked like a child who had grown too fast and didn’t know how to fit her limbs yet.

  I sat cross-legged opposite her, feeling the heaviness in my shoulders slowly bleed into the floor.

  For a while, none of us spoke.

  The tree hummed around us—quiet, ancient, warm. Not with the Force, exactly. Just with life. With age. With a presence that had seen storms come and storms go and never once considered bending.

  Finally, Meral let out a breath that trembled.

  “I keep seeing it,” she said. “Over and over.”

  Toran opened one eye. “Which part?”

  “All of it,” she said. “The flashbacks. The memories. The way the saboteur saw the rest of us. The way they thought of the others—like pieces, not people. And the way they justified it. As if destiny owed them more than anyone else.”

  She shook her head hard enough that a strand of hair flew loose.

  “And then it’s gone. Just… gone. The memory ends. Like someone slammed a door. And I’m stuck on the wrong side trying to remember if it’s my thought or theirs.”

  Her voice cracked on that word — theirs.

  “Meral,” I said gently, “it’s not going to sit right today. Maybe not tomorrow. But you held on. You didn’t disappear into those memories. You came back.”

  She looked up at me, eyes red-rimmed.

  “I didn’t feel like I was coming back. I felt like I was drowning in someone else’s past.”

  And there it was—the truth she’d been swallowing whole since Silver Gull’s bridge.

  “You didn’t drown,” Toran said quietly. “You saved us.”

  Meral stared at him for a long, still moment.

  Then she slapped his knee lightly. “Don’t say it like that. You make it sound heroic. I was just doing what I had to.”

  Toran smiled faintly. “That’s the definition of heroic.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No. The definition of heroic is what you and Kyle did in that engine room. What Kyp did with those asteroids. What Kae’rin did in that engine shaft, cutting the wrong line on purpose.”

  I flinched.

  Even in the dim light of the hall, I felt the heat rise in my cheeks.

  “That wasn’t heroic,” I said. “That was math and panic.”

  “No,” she said simply. “That was choice.”

  And suddenly the room felt too small.

  Because she was right.

  And she didn’t know the half of it.

  ? ? ?

  Toran must’ve sensed it—through the Force, or through the way my breath hitched. He pushed off the pillar and sat down beside me, shoulder brushing mine.

  “You did what you had to,” he said softly.

  There it was again—those five words.

  Everyone kept saying them.

  Everyone kept meaning them.

  And yet inside me, there was something else.

  Something colder.

  Something that had whispered a truth sharper than any blade.

  To prune rot is mercy.

  To leave it is cruelty.

  Cut the knot.

  I swallowed hard.

  “What if it wasn’t only what I had to?” I asked quietly. “What if it was what I was becoming?”

  Meral’s brows knitted. “What does that mean?”

  Toran didn’t ask.

  He already knew the shape of what I wasn’t saying.

  “Kae,” he murmured, “you didn’t slip.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

  He took a slow breath.

  “I was in your head when you made that cut. Not inside your thoughts—just… next to them. You were clear. Steady. Focused. There was no rage. No cruelty.”

  I stared at my knees.

  “There was something,” I said.

  “Something isn’t the Dark Side,” he replied. “Something is what we all carry. Especially after surviving something like that.”

  Meral nudged my foot gently with hers. “I saw the results of your decisions, Kae. You saved a ship. That’s what matters.”

  I wished I believed that as easily as she said it.

  But part of me wasn’t ready.

  Part of me kept hearing the Reaper’s whisper in the quiet moments between breaths.

  Cold. A little sinister. And entirely absolute.

  Choice is a blade.

  Use it cleanly.

  I shook my head, trying to clear the echo.

  Toran leaned closer. “You’re not alone in this.”

  I looked up at him—and realized how close he was. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of him in the air between us. Close enough that I could see the faint scar under his jaw, the one he tried to cover with his collar.

  Close enough that the bond between us pulsed—quiet, steady, alive.

  I didn’t pull back.

  He didn’t, either.

  Meral cleared her throat in a way that was deliberately too loud.

  We both jumped slightly apart.

  “Oh good,” she said, smirking faintly. “Your brains are working again.”

  I groaned. Toran rolled his eyes.

  “Subtle,” he muttered.

  “Me? Never,” she said. Then her smirk softened into something gentler. “I’m glad you two are still capable of awkwardness. Means the galaxy hasn’t ended yet.”

  For a moment—just a moment—it felt almost normal.

  Then a shadow moved near the doorway.

  Kyp.

  ? ? ?

  He leaned in the threshold without stepping fully into the hall. His silhouette was sharp against the dim corridor behind him. His expression was unreadable—tired, weighted.

  He didn’t come to us.

  He waited for me to go to him.

  And I knew why.

  “Kae’rin,” Meral whispered, nudging me.

  “I know.”

  I pushed myself to my feet, legs stiff, heart beating too quickly.

  Toran gave my hand the briefest squeeze before letting go.

  As I crossed the hall toward Kyp, the air around him seemed different—charged, brittle, like the aftermath of lightning on a clear night.

  He didn’t smile.

  He didn’t need to.

  “Kae’rin,” he said quietly. “Walk with me?”

  “Yes.”

  We stepped out into the twilight corridor, where the air smelled of rain and wood sap. The lights were soft here, woven into the architecture like candlefire.

  Kyp walked a few paces before speaking.

  “I felt something,” he said.

  My breath caught.

  He didn’t elaborate.

  He didn’t define it.

  He didn’t accuse.

  He just said it like a fact waiting to be understood.

  I didn’t answer.

  I couldn’t—not without lying, and lying to Kyp Durron felt like carving a mark in stone where everyone could see it.

  Finally—I found my voice.

  “So did I,” I whispered.

  Kyp exhaled. It wasn’t relief.

  Or disappointment.

  Just acknowledgment.

  Then he said:

  “There is a line between decisive and dangerous.

  People like us… we walk it more often than most.”

  I swallowed.

  He continued, “But the fact that you’re scared you crossed it? That’s the part that matters. That’s the part that keeps you from slipping.”

  I looked down at my hands.

  The hands that had cut a man’s arm.

  The hands that had chosen the path of least mercy.

  “They didn’t hesitate,” I whispered.

  “They wanted to harm others,” he replied. “Hesitation can cost lives.”

  “That’s what scares me.”

  Kyp turned to face me fully then, arms folded.

  “You know what would scare me?”

  His voice dipped.

  “If you enjoyed it.”

  I looked up sharply.

  “You didn’t,” he said. “I saw you. Even through the chaos. You did what was necessary. And afterward you looked… haunted.”

  He paused.

  “Haunted is good. Haunted means human.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, to deflect with a joke by reminding him I wasn’t human — but the words wouldn’t come.

  He let the silence stretch, then added:

  “You’re not alone, Kae’rin. None of us are. Luke built this place so that no one walks into their shadows alone.”

  Something in my chest loosened—just slightly.

  Kyp offered a faint, tired smile.

  “You’re stronger than you think,” he said. “Just make sure you stay kinder than you fear.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “Kyp?” I asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you almost slip today?”

  He didn’t answer for a long time.

  Then:

  “Yes,” he said softly. “But then I didn’t.”

  And that was enough.

  For both of us.

  ? ? ?

  He left me at the far end of the corridor, walking into the Kashyyyk twilight like someone who knew his own shadows too well to let them touch anyone else.

  I stood there for a while, listening to the faint hum of life around us—the distant creak of branch walkways, the soft rumble of Wookiee voices, the rustle of leaves moved by the warm night wind. The enormity of what we’d survived pressed against me, not as fear but as a weight waiting to settle into its final shape.

  When I returned to the main hall, Toran and Meral were still where I’d left them—though Meral was no longer curled up. She sat cross-legged now, posture straighter, head lifted. Toran leaned back on his hands beside her, one knee hooked loosely upward. Their conversation stopped as soon as I stepped inside, not because I had interrupted something secret, but because they had been waiting for me.

  Meral’s eyes flicked toward me, searching. “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  It wasn’t wholly true, but it wasn’t false either.

  I was… more okay than before.

  Toran patted the ground next to him. “Sit.”

  I did, lowering myself into the warm wood floor that had absorbed centuries of footsteps and stories and burdens heavier than ours. The tree made a soft groaning sound overhead—as if shifting to listen.

  Meral leaned her shoulder against mine. Toran’s knee brushed mine. We sat close, the kind of close only people forged by fear and fire can manage without speaking.

  It felt natural.

  And necessary.

  “I think I’m angry,” Meral said suddenly.

  Toran blinked. “At what?”

  I knew what she was going to say before she said it.

  “At them,” she murmured. “The miners who turned. The ones who betrayed the others. The ones who knew what would happen to all of us and still chose it.”

  She picked at the frayed end of her sleeve.

  “They were free,” she whispered. “We saved them. And they still chose chains. Worse—they chose to lock the rest of us into them.”

  Her voice shook—not with fear, but with indignation.

  “They were given a chance,” she said. “A real chance. And they used it to hurt people.”

  Toran opened his mouth, then closed it, unsure.

  I said the thing no one else wanted to say aloud.

  “Freedom isn’t something you can hand someone,” I murmured. “Not really.”

  Meral looked at me sharply.

  “You can take off the shackles. You can open the door. You can give them a path out.”

  My throat tightened. “But what they do with that… that’s theirs. And not all of them will choose what you think they should.”

  “Then what’s the point?” she whispered.

  “The point,” I said softly, “is that we still try.”

  Silence expanded between us—not uncomfortable, but thoughtful. Heavy. Real.

  Meral’s eyes glistened in the dim light.

  “I just wish,” she said hoarsely, “that the ones who wanted to be free didn’t almost die because of the ones who didn’t.”

  Toran’s jaw clenched.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

  We sat there in that hard truth for a long moment.

  Then Meral straightened, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, and said with a shaky attempt at humor:

  “If anyone ever tries to tell me the galaxy is simple, I’m punching them in the throat.”

  I snorted. Toran chuckled. The tension in the room eased a little, like steam bleeding from a pressure valve.

  “There she is,” Toran said softly.

  “There who is?” Meral demanded.

  He tilted his head. “You.”

  She made a face. “I was always here.”

  “Not like this,” he said gently.

  Her expression wavered, then settled.

  “…Okay. Maybe not like this.”

  She leaned her head onto my shoulder. It felt familiar, but different—heavier, more honest.

  Toran watched us both for a moment, something warm and unreadable flickering in his eyes.

  I met his gaze.

  Held it.

  The air between us tightened in a way that wasn’t uncomfortable. Just… full.

  Full of the things we weren’t ready to name yet.

  His voice was quiet when he finally spoke.

  “Kae’rin,” he said, “today was—”

  “Awful,” I finished.

  “And good,” he said.

  “Terrifying,” I added.

  “And honest,” he murmured.

  We both smiled—not wide, not bright, but real.

  Then Meral groaned dramatically. “Would you two please pick one mood and stick with it? I’m fragile.”

  Her voice cracked a little at the end, betraying more truth than she meant to. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Toran did the same on her other side. She let herself collapse into us with a long, exhausted sigh. For a while —minutes or maybe longer— we sat there, the three of us held together by shared silence, shared relief, shared wounds still bleeding beneath the surface.

  Outside the hall, the night deepened.

  A low rumble of Wookiee voices drifted in waves through the open doorway.

  Somewhere, a child laughed.

  Somewhere else, someone cried softly, the sound carried by the trees.

  The world was still moving. Still vast. Still uncaring. And yet — sitting there with them, I felt something small and stubborn take root inside me. Not hope or courage. Something quieter. And heavier.

  A truth.

  Freedom is never clean. It is never simple. It is never guaranteed.

  You can take off someone’s chains. You can walk them into the light. You can break the systems that bind them.

  But you cannot choose for them. Not who they’ll trust. Not what they’ll believe. Not the shape their freedom will take.

  Only they can.

  And that — that is the weight of it.

  Meral shifted, resting her cheek on my shoulder. Toran’s hand brushed mine once—light, hesitant, warm—before staying there. Not gripping. Not claiming. Just present.

  The hall lights dimmed another notch. The air cooled as night wrapped around the giant tree like a soft blanket.

  My eyelids grew heavy.

  Toran’s breathing slowed.

  Meral’s heartbeat steadied beneath the fabric of my sleeve.

  And for the first time since stepping onto those transport ships, I let myself feel something I’d been holding back.

  Gratitude. Not for surviving. But for not surviving it alone.

  Tomorrow, the work would begin again.

  But tonight... Tonight, the galaxy could wait.

  We were here.

  Together.

  Alive.

  And free.

  Corty, whose novel Star Wars: The Age of Peace has shown me that there is still room for good Expanded Universe/Legends fiction. Corty has shown nothing but support throughout the past few months I've been writing - so if you haven't yet, please go and read The Age of Peace, too!