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[Judah Lesan Jr.]

Wearing: xxx
Weapon: xxx
Tag: Sonti Delst

six months ago

"We're running out of room, Sonti!" JJ exclaimed as another child ran up the ramp to his ship. "How many more?"

So much had changed in the Core since the fall of the Galactic Alliance. Corellia was no longer safe. Imperial warlords swept through the sector looking to replenish the ranks of their fractured fleets while Sith forces brought devastation to the Core Worlds wherever they appeared. Judah and Sonti had been caught in the middle of it. Now the children under their protection were too.

They had run out of time.

It was not that placements no longer existed for the countless orphans left behind by the galaxy's wars. The Lesan property and praxeum simply could no longer serve as the transition point they once had. What JJ and Sonti had built into a refuge had become a target instead.

Cold air swept through the hidden mountain complex tucked beneath the foothills of Coronet Peak as frightened children hurried aboard the ship.

Then a shadow passed overhead.

Another ship.

"Sonti, we gotta go. Now!"


present day


The children were safe.

JJ reminded himself of that every time the memories returned because it was the only part of Coronet Peak that still brought him any peace. Some had been placed with families beyond the Expansion Region while others disappeared into isolated settlements far from the violence spreading through the Core. Every child under his care that day had survived.

It still had not been enough.

The ones they never reached lingered in his thoughts far more than the ones they managed to save.

The ship had become home after that. JJ and Sonti drifted from port to port now, rarely staying anywhere long enough for Imperial patrols, local authorities, or wandering Sith to pay them much attention. Some stops were little more than aging fuel depots built into barren moons while others were overcrowded trade stations filled with refugees, smugglers, merchants, and people desperate enough to disappear into the constant movement of the hyperlanes.

JJ preferred those places.

Nobody looked too closely at travelers when everybody around them was trying just as hard not to be noticed.

The steady hum of the engines filled the cockpit while hyperspace stretched beyond the viewport in endless ribbons of blue light. A half finished cup of caf rested beside the pilot console as JJ sat alone in the worn chair studying local traffic reports scrolling across the holodisplay.

Another world waited ahead of them.

Another temporary place to disappear.

He leaned back quietly and rubbed a tired hand across his face. Sleep had become inconsistent over the past several months. Some nights exhaustion pulled him unconscious the moment he closed his eyes while others left him staring at the ceiling of the ship listening to the engines cycle through the dark.

Coronet Peak usually found him on those nights.

Not the evacuation itself. Not the escape.

The realization that there would never be enough time, enough ships, or enough Jedi left to save everyone caught in the middle of the galaxy's collapse.

Every system they passed through reminded him of it. Imperial remnants carved territory from the chaos while Sith warbands burned through vulnerable worlds unchecked. Refugees crowded transport lanes faster than anybody could help them, and JJ still caught himself scanning worlds for places large enough to shelter people again despite knowing exactly what happened to anything good that remained in one place too long.

A warning light blinked softly across the console.

JJ exhaled quietly before reaching forward to pull the ship from hyperspace as another world slowly emerged beyond the stars.

"Strap in… we're about to land."

 

[Sonti Delst]

"Aaah, frak..."

Sonti's normally chipper voice popped over the ship intercom.

"Hold on," she added quickly. The faint shuffle of tools and parts were layered over the distant sounds of the humming engine. She was definitely in the one of the mechanical bays. "I'm changing a power coupling."

The intercom switched off as quickly as it had come on. In just a few minutes, bare footsteps echoed softly down the hall leading into the main hold. "Thought I had more time," Sonti commented as she walked through the cockpit to her chair to his left, sat down, and strapped in. "Sorry 'bout that, Master." She looked over at him sheepishly, then moved her hand to brace against the dashboard as their ship shuddered back into realspace. Her gaze panned to the planet that had appeared ahead of them. "Where are we?"

Sonti thought a lot about that day too. It wasn't that the memory of what had happened didn't weigh as heavily on her as it did him; instead she bore it differently. She hadn't experienced anything as chaotic as that for a few years, one of the last times she had gone with Malcoma and Damris on a raid of a slaver's safehouse. They had rescued only three women on that trip—out of the dozen or so there. No one should have known that they were coming, but one of the owner's goons had been in the right place at the right time to interrupt what had been a carefully-planned freedom operation.

Malcoma still refused to talk about that, at least to Sonti or her sisters.

Point is, Sonti was no stranger to desperation and the trauma that it caused in the body, especially the mind. Its echoes could grind you to a halt if you let them.

She could not let them.

But it was a relief that Coronet Peak had had a good ending.

And another question, while it was on her mind: "You haven't heard anything from Mother, have you?" She thought about specifying "my", then remembered that Mal was all but legally JJ's step-mother too. Whether or not he wanted to call her that was another question. Either way, her meaning was probably understood.

When they had been looking for foster families for the Corellian children, Sonti had thought to contact Mal. She had heard from Vahleet a few months before the Sith Covenant's invasion that the headmistress had sent them all to Denon. No one had answered her call at the time, but Sonti assumed that her sisters were busy enough reestablishing business on a new planet. And she herself had grown too busy shortly after to try to contact them again.

Judah Lesan Jr.​

 

[Judah Lesan Jr.]

Wearing: xxx
Weapon: xxx
Tag: Sonti Delst

JJ glanced sideways as Sonti dropped into the chair beside him, though his attention never drifted far from the viewport. The blue haze of hyperspace had faded behind them, replaced by the slow rotation of Ord Mantell hanging against the darkness ahead. Cargo traffic crowded the orbital lanes while warning beacons and docking signals flashed across the holodisplay in overlapping streams of light.

"Ord Mantell," he answered quietly. "Or close enough to it."

The ship shuddered faintly as he guided it toward the outer traffic lanes. One hand rested against the controls while the other adjusted the throttle with the kind of familiarity that only came from spending too many months living aboard the same freighter.

"And you don't gotta apologize every time you take apart our ship."

A faint smile pulled briefly at the corner of his mouth before fading again.

Before bringing them further into the traffic lanes, JJ looked over one final time to make sure Sonti had actually strapped herself in. Satisfied, he eased the freighter forward while another cluster of cargo ships drifted across their approach vector.

The truth was he trusted Sonti with the freighter more than he trusted most mechanics they had encountered drifting from port to port. Keeping the ship operational had become its own routine over the past several months. Parts were scavenged where they could find them, repairs were handled midflight more often than either of them liked, and every system aboard the vessel seemed determined to fail at the worst possible time.

Ord Mantell at least offered anonymity.

Nobody looked too closely at strangers in a system crowded with smugglers, drifters, bounty hunters, and refugees trying just as hard to disappear into the noise of the galaxy.

Sonti's question lingered in the cockpit for several seconds before JJ answered.

"No," he admitted quietly.

His eyes remained fixed ahead while another freighter drifted across their approach lane.

"I haven't heard anything from Mal."

The name still felt more natural to him than anything else ever could. His mother had been gone long before Mal entered his life, and some habits settled too deeply into a person to ever fully change. That did not make Mal any less family. It only made the language around it complicated in ways JJ rarely knew how to explain.

His jaw tightened slightly before he continued.

"I haven't heard anything from dad either."

That worried him far more than he liked admitting aloud.

Judah Lesan disappearing into dangerous situations had never exactly been unusual. JJ had spent most of his life watching his father throw himself into wars, rescue operations, and impossible fights that should have killed him years ago. Silence this long felt different though. There was a weight to it that sat wrong in his chest no matter how many times he tried to dismiss it.

JJ stared ahead at the crowded traffic lanes surrounding Ord Mantell while distant ships moved like scattered lights against the void. Somewhere beneath the clouds and pollution sat another temporary stop filled with people trying to survive the collapse of a galaxy that no longer seemed interested in saving itself.

"It's been too quiet."

His fingers tapped once against the controls before he finally glanced over toward Sonti again.

"Alright," he said with a quiet sigh. "One more time before we land. Who are we supposed to be today?"