The Bonadan Years

The cantina was loud. Music thumped somewhere behind the bar, glasses clinked, a dozen languages overlapped and canceled each other out. Ace sat on the bench with his boots hooked around the rung, hands wrapped around a dented cup he wasn't really drinking from. He was ten now. Old enough to be allowed inside if he kept his head down. Old enough that people assumed he knew how to leave if trouble started.​

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Red, half-way through one of his stories, leaned back beside him, grin easy and practiced. His jacket was scuffed, his hair a little too neat for Sector 9G. He looked like someone passing through... which meant he was dangerous in a different way.​

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"--It wasn't just one war." He said. "That's the thing people forget. It was everybody."​

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Ace leaned in a little, elbows on the table now. Red ticked things off without naming specific details. No one like him ever did really.​

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"'Bout twenty years back. You had the Galactic Alliance." He said. "Big, loud, talking about unity. Jedi with them. Not all robed monks, either... real ones. Generals. Commanders."​

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His hand swept to the other side of the invisible board.​

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"Then the Maw. Sith-backed. Dark fleets. Nobody ever agreed what they actually wanted, just that they were dangerous and very sure of themselves."​

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He swept again.​

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"New Imperial Order popped up too. Different banners, same discipline. And there was more, too many to name. Mercs, systems picking sides, planets trying to stay quiet." Red snorted softly. "Didn't matter where you were. You were in it. If you were lucky enough not to be? You still felt it."​

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Ace frowned. "You fight?"​

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Red shook his head. "Nah. I was too young. Old enough to know what was going on. Roughly."​

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"Holos everywhere." Red went on. "Recruitment pitches. Victory speeches before anyone'd actually won. Cantinas like this one arguing over who the 'good guys' even were." He shrugged. "In the end, yeah. Alliance came out on top. But nobody walked away untouched."​

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Ace stared at the tabletop, tracing an old burn mark with his finger. Jedi. Sith. They weren't stories or ancient relics, they were real. People who could shape the galaxy and did. The explanation slid into place with unsettling ease. The things he felt, the way the world sometimes moved a half-second early for him. The weapon that was left with him, the one he'd kept hidden.​

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One of his parents must have been Jedi, then. Or both. When Red left, the cantina noise rushed back in to fill the space. Ace stayed put a moment longer, letting the story settle. Not as history, but as a warning.​

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Wars ended... Things didn't. And if the Force was real... if it tied people to sides whether they asked for it or not... then knowing was dangerous. So he kept the knowledge where he kept everything that mattered.​

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Hidden. Quiet. Waiting until he understood what it was really for.​