The Eternal Vigilance (The Maw)

[Aidan Darkfire]

This was something Aidan had never thought he'd ever see before. The view was terrifying in an existential sense, representing guaranteed death if something went wrong. But it also had an absolute sense of beauty to it, the accretion discs of the several black holes all twisting and tangled and feeding into each other.

"How...how is something like this even stable?"

Aidan's stomach dropped as he stared, not exactly answering Sandy's question, but answering enough for her to understand that no, he'd never seen the Maw before, and he was already lost in it. Absentmindedly, he fiddled with the hilt of his staff saber, both nervous and entranced. This was not something he had expected when they set out for their mission from Nar Shaddaa. Aidan had wanted to escape authority and see the galaxy for a long time, but he was completely unprepared for it.

[Aidan Darkfire]

Aidan admittedly didn't know an exceptional amount about space travel, but his gut told him the answer.

"I don't think we have a choice."

Slowly, he allowed himself to relax from the view he had transfixed on, going through some of the calming and meditative techniques he'd been taught. It was a little more difficult than at other times, but Aidan still managed through. He began to reach his senses out, feeling the eddies and pulls of the Force that mirrored the space in front of them. In the Force, the black holes themselves weren't voids or absences, but rather highly concentrated spots of energy representing enormous mass compressed past its Schwarzchild radius. 

Aidan opened his mind, allowing his companions to make use of what he could sense, letting them enhance themselves by using him as an extension of their limits. It was only something he'd done a handful of times before, but at the least he was familiar with what was required of him.

[Aidan Darkfire]

The question jarred at Aidan's concentration, pulling his focus away briefly and causing a slight disruption to their connection. The ship slowly veered slightly off of its safe heading, but as he snapped his attention back to the task at hand he was able to help fix it.

"I'm...not sure...valuable ship...probably shouldn't..."

It was all he could manage to mutter as he rededicated himself to feeling out the strong gravimetric currents, finding a path of safety among the turbulent cosmic waves. Maybe Kel would have something to say on the matter, but Aidan couldn't afford more than that, lest he risk their entire mission again.

[Aidan Darkfire]

Aidan appreciated Sandy's praise, but there were much larger things to worry about right now. He moved with the rest, speaking up as they entered the ancient spaceship.

"Hey, by the way...I know you both probably feel the Dark Side's influence here, and I just want to say I'm not entirely sure it's just from the region. On approach...well, I thought I noticed another small ship docked on the far side of this thing. I could be imagining things, but...well, I think we all know I'm not. Keep on your toes."

Aidan looked around the hallway they had docked to, lit by nothing more than low powered lighting. Much of the ship would have been in an energy-conserving mode, awaiting full reactivation. That was the logical explanation of course, but it didn't make seeing it any less spooky. After seeing literal zombies on Gala, Aidan wasn't sure what to expect from the Force anymore.

"Well...I've never been on this thing. If I was, it was as an infant, but at the least I don't remember it. Do either one of you two have any idea which way we should head first?"

[Aidan Darkfire]

"Hey! Whoah!"

Aidan moved quickly, getting between Sandy and the woman, but he kept his eyes on the stranger for obvious reasons.

 

"Look, what she said is true, but this ship was also left here, intentionally for a long time. The only people that are going to have any use for it is the Jedi, and if you're looking for a salvage claim or anything, they're likely going to be your best option for getting some kind of reward out of this floating metal heap. But that also only happens...if you work with us. So...how about we put the blaster away, yeah?"

Aidan had worked the space lanes for a while before finding employment with the Imperial Knights, and he remembered a lot about intergalactic code and scavenger's rights, and while the Jedi were wise to try and hide this ship, they did also open themselves up to a lot of legal loopholes in doing so if someone ever found it. Of course, everything he'd said was also true, not many people could even begin to understand the systems on the ship or how to work it, and it would be unworkable without the control holocrons, anyways. That made it an interesting relic, but near worthless to salvage teams once they made this realization. It was a large floating hunk of metal at that point, and more money could be made from mining asteroids.

[Aidan Darkfire]

"Aidan."

It was the one thing he said in reply, through a forced smile with gritted teeth. Unbearably naive? Yeah, okay lady, like I didn't just save your butt from the business end of a lightsaber. You're welcome. He decided to not speak much more after that, having accomplished his goal of calming the woman down to the point where she would talk. Though deep down, a part of him regretted it. Whether it was the Dark Side here whispering at his inner emotions or his own subconscious, he wasn't sure. He still couldn't shake the feeling that something was just...wrong.

 

Aidan started to walk away from the group a bit, not too far, just scouting the hallways for maybe a working console that still might have been hooked into the primary ship systems. At the least, a cursory diagnostics could tell them a lot about the state of the Vigilance. It would also likely net them a workable map. He let Sandy know through the Force what he was doing, but otherwise let her do the talking.

[Aidan Darkfire]

Finally, Aidan found a working console in a T-junction, though without accessing it he couldn't know whether or not it was actually connected to anything usable. As expected, the console was locked down. The Jedi really had prepared for the worst when they'd hid this vessel. Desperate times called for desperate measures, though...

As he tried to login to the console, however, the only warning that something was happening was the shrill whistle from Kel's R5 unit as the blast doors around the junction closed off, and vents opened from the ceiling allowing large streams of water to jet into the room, rapidly forming a large puddle on the floor that grew with each passing second.

Great. The Jedi had trapped the place, too. What were they so worried about that justified this level of secrecy? Was it some kind of knowledge contained within? If it was the ship itself, surely the Jedi could have simply built another over time... However, none of this applied to the current situation. Clearing his head, Aidan looked around, paling a bit when he realized a loose cable hanging down from the ceiling. If that had power running through it, and it likely did, he'd not only drown, but he'd be electrocuted as well. Badly.

Panic began to set in, enough to where his companions would easily be able to feel it, but then he began to think rationally. He had a lightsaber, he could cut his way out. The water supply wasn't endless, it was likely only meant to fill the room and then some. Activating one silver blade of his saber, he jabbed the blade at the door, only to be surprised as the blade promptly cut off once it jammed a few centimeters in. Quickly he checked his hilt, thinking the problem was with his saber, before trying again with the same result. The realization quickly set in with him: this was a Jedi vessel, the doors were lined with cortosis. And not just cortosis alloy, but raw cortosis, effectively rendering this escape plan useless.

Super. They'd thought ahead. The water was halfway up his calves by now, and his thoughts whirled. The Force felt far away from him, not offering any hints or insight to what he needed to do. He could hold his breath, likely for a long time if needed, but when that wire made contact with the water, it wasn't going to be pretty. He couldn't think, every single plan he started to devise ending in failure.

But this was a Jedi vessel...and he was forgetting the core tenets of the Jedi. Sandy had tried to teach him back on Nar Shaddaa some of the absolute basics with his visualization of the tree. The tree represented...harmony, working with the natural order rather than burning down the natural order and trying to supplant it with one's own will. The water was waist deep now. Aidan couldn't always control what happened to him, but he could accept it and move past it, move through it.

He could accept it, and move through it.

It was risky. The Force offered him nothing. It was something he'd never attempted before, and something that required complete trust in something he could never hope to fathom. It was a pure act of faith. The water had reached his upper chest now, when it reached his eyeline it would meet the exposed conduit. He reached out, allowing himself to fall into the embrace of the Force. Like their approach to the Vigilance, he felt connected to everything nearby, he felt the Light side, the Dark side, the black holes, everything. For a brief moment, he found the eye of the storm. He knew this was a Hail Mary at best, and nothing but surrendering himself to the full will of the Force would get him through.

The water touched the conduit briefly a few times, the ripples catching it and making contact, the first few nips lashing out at Aidan's body viciously. But he accepted them, allowed the energy to course into him, through him, and with help from the Force around him. No harm came to him, as the Force allowed him to absorb some of the energy, and redirect the rest. But this was merely the first drops of rain from the hurricane, as the water finally made a full connection with the live wire, and the ship's power grid suffered a momentary dip as a large amount of energy was grounded and dispersed throughout the mostly flooded room.

The cascade of electricity was unlike anything Aidan had felt before, but despite it all, despite the temptation to flinch or acknowledge it, he allowed it to happen. His trust in the Force strengthened with every passing second, and after an indeterminate amount of time he felt grated drains activate beneath his feet, allowing the water level to rapidly fall. The trap release had been triggered with the jolt of electricity, disarming the room.

After a moment, once the water was gone, the blast doors unsealed themselves, with the R5 unit waiting on the other side for him. Aidan was soaked, but he was strangely calm. He felt better than he'd felt in years. And it wasn't because of the Force absorbing the energy  and filling him with a bit of vigor, it was simply because he'd made a critical realization, one that hung in front of his nose since he'd been alive but he was simply too blind to see it. The kind of realization that only a Jedi makes: it wasn't about him. It never was.

 

He stood, giving the R5 unit a slight smile. "Yeah, buddy, I'm okay. I mean, I guess I could use a towel, but we can worry about that later. I'm fine. Let's go back and find the others, okay?" The droid whistled an acknowledgement and began trundling back as Aidan followed, lightsaber hilt still in hand. Whatever they faced, whatever awaited them here, he was ready. 

[Aidan Darkfire]

Even as Aidan felt the new cry for help, he was calm. Initially he was wary, as there should have been nobody on the ship other than salvagers that had come with the woman they came across. Still, against his better judgment, he decided to try to help, even knowing this was likely another trap.

 

Calming his thoughts, he reached out, feeling the ship connected to him from the gravity generators in the deck plating to the atmosphere recyclers overhead. The door's closing mechanism was a simple design, and with a slight pull Aidan managed to disconnect the wiring powering it. While the door no longer threatened to seal shut, it was still heavy, and Aidan had to concentrate to lift it up enough to where he could crouch underneath. It wasn't exactly an easy task as he'd never attempted to move something this large before, and he felt himself strain under the weight of the thing.

He ignited one of his silver blades to light the room behind the door, calling out to whoever had cried out for help. "Hello? Keep talking, I'm coming to get you out of here..."

[Aidan Darkfire]

Darkness had stained this place. Even as Aidan inhaled, knowing something was wrong with the air he breathed, the very room he was in began to shift and change, filling with voices, people, from long ago. Cries of tortured anguish, sorrow, strong emotions that refused to loose their grip on this plane of existence. These emotions washed over him, covering him, but he was a rock against the waves. The voices cried against his ears, but he was unmoved, even as the scene turned to a barren and dying field.

He was often too late. He couldn't always help people, even his friends. He couldn't even help Frond, despite trying desperately. He'd only known the tree-being for hours, but he'd felt guilty at what had happened at the time. But what Sandy had told him was true, it wasn't his fault. Sometimes things happened, and despite all the trying in the world even the entire united Jedi Order wouldn't be able to fix it. It was hard to live with these things. Slowly, the waves began to slough away at the rock.

And then came his father. It was fitting that his father would show up in whatever this was, an illusion, hallucination, or something else entirely. His own issues with his father had haunted him his whole life. Those problems were not his, though, they were his father's. He had let them go several days ago on Nar Shaddaa, finally coming to terms with what his childhood had become. He knew which choices were his own responsibility and which consequences weren't. His father demanded to know what he was playing at? Fine.

"Bold words from someone who played at being a family man. Your legacy was thrust upon me, it wasn't something I chose. Now we both live with the aftermath."

The words held no enmity, no spite, no bitterness, though they rang true as if they had every right to be. It was simply the truth, just like the truth his father had confronted him with. Aidan simply sat down, not ignoring the man, but accepting what was happening. If this wasn't real, then there was no use fighting against it physically or emotionally. He would find the chink in the armor, the way out of the labyrinth, but it would take him time. Time was also all it took for water to erode stone.

"You know, I've wanted to talk to you for a long time. One final time. For a long time I wanted to yell at you, scream, curse you out, fill you with every bad experience I've had to deal with over the years because of your utter lack of effort at being a competent parent. Now...I just want to tell you I forgave you. I wish you could hear it, actually hear it, not simply just be some figment of nothingness I'm probably talking to like a crazy person."

Aidan managed a faint smile. The mental image of that was pretty funny to think about, much less if he were to get caught by someone. Even if they had thought he was crazy, the absurdity of it was still amusing. The whole galaxy could be falling apart around them, but the little absurd amusing moments would still ring true. What were they if not random dancing patterns of particles in a sea of nothingness? Nothing really made sense, but in that chaos there was peace: nothing had to make sense. Happiness derived from simplicity, from little moments of calm and pleasure amidst the chaos, not from some grand scheme or overarching consciousness that had higher plans. That was how he saw the Force, and he took comfort in that simplicity. It was a lot easier than coming to terms with a sentient entity that would allow so many to go through so much pain and loss.

"I don't really care anymore whether or not you're proud of me, or whether or not I'm living up to your name. I don't measure myself based on you anymore. Frankly, I'm not sure what I measure myself on, but every waking moment I can choose to do good. No, I don't always succeed, and I might never again succeed. I might die today. But that's okay...I will have lived, and to some my actions will have mattered, even if they eventually get forgotten and lost in the great forward march of history. I can be, for a short while, a source of comfort and happiness. And it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about that, because I'm okay with it."

 

He could now feel something inside him, the toxin giving him heart palpitations, burning in his veins as it flowed with every beat. So that's what it was, he thought to himself. Sandy had taught him the fundamentals of Force healing, but he'd never tried to heal himself. There was no time like the present to learn though, and he felt the illusion begin to take a much stronger grip on him. He might not have been in control of it, but he was in control of himself. Waves crashed on the shore, eating at what was, but life often provided the roots to prevent the water from taking its due. 

 

"I miss you. And I love you. I really do. No matter what happens, you were my father, and what little I knew of you was spent in joy. I'll never forget that."

Aidan closed his eyes, delving deep into the flow of the Force, focusing inwards on himself. This would take time. 

[Aidan Darkfire]

He almost managed to ignore it. He heard the voices, clear as day as if they were real and right next to him. Kirlocca's voice stung the deepest, as Aidan had a special connection to the Wookiee who practically raised him and the young Imperial Knight missed him deeply. But when Sandy cried out, he could take it no longer, the emotions welled up inside him to the point of bursting as he leapt forward from where he sat, silver blades meeting Sandy's own as he began defending her.

The onslaught was relentless to say the least, blow after blow, parry after parry, never counterattacking to strike true but merely to drive back. The four Jedi were more than a match for the two, and very quickly Aidan felt his strength drain from him. The thought flew through his mind questioning if the toxin he'd inhaled was the culprit behind his loss of strength, but he had no way of telling.

"Stop! All of you!" They didn't. "Mother, please! You wouldn't do this!" She continued. "Master Kirlocca, you of all people told me to trust in the Force above all else, does it really tell you to do this?" The Wookiee fought on. "Masters, stop this insanity!" His words fell on deaf ears.

At a glance in desperation, Aidan looked to Sandy, worrying for her, but that was when he caught it. He was tethered to her, a very faint tie, translucent and ethereal, binding them together. He had feelings for her, feelings he hadn't resolved. This wasn't trusting in the Force like he had quoted Kirlocca seconds before, this was him attempting to fight fate, to assert his will. 

He was the seed of the Dark Side inside of Sandy Sarna. He had caused this. Maybe not in totality, but in part. Enough to make him guilty in the scene that played out before him. Finally he remembered: this was an illusion, he was dancing on strings like a puppet. Summoning the strength of the Force to himself, he let out a strong shove that sent all of them back several steps, before extinguishing his blade, and kneeling down.

"If this must be done, then you must hold me accountable as well. I submit myself for judgment."

One by one, they came forward, readying their blades. Trust in the Force above all else. He remained motionless, allowing them to continue. Trust in the Force above all else. If this was going to happen, he needed to allow it to happen, to accept it and move on instead of fighting it. Trust in the Force above all else.

 

Their blades burned as they cut into him, but it was Sandy's blade that hurt the most.

 

Trust in the Force above all else.

[Aidan Darkfire]

The pain was still fresh when next Aidan opened his eyes, but before him there was no longer the visage of a council chamber or murderous Jedi. He was back on the ship. His muscles ached, his head spun, but here he was, back on the Vigilance, in the room he'd been lured to. In the corner was the youngling's mangled corpse, and a curious device that had to have been the device that was used as the toxin-dispensing trap sat on a nearby table.

Slowly he stood, moving out of the room as best he was able, it took significant effort to lift the door up again. Now the hallways were dimmer, power to the section having been cut. Was it the Sith? Everything that had happened pointed to there being a saboteur on board who was obviously versed in the arts of the dark side. As he walked along, questions sprang into his mind. Where was Sandy and Kel? Or even for that matter, the astromech droid Kel had sent with him? How long had he been incapacitated? Somewhere on this ship there were answers, and the Imperial Knight was dead set on finding them.

As he wound another corner though, he realized the opposite had come true: the answer had found him. A dark figure wearing a half-cloak and a mask stood before him at the far end of the hallway, a lightsaber hilt in each hand. Aidan stiffened, reaching for his own hilt as the other began to take several steps towards him. Two red blades ripped into existence with a vicious snap-thrumm, almost all but verifying this was the Sith that had caused them so much trouble. Aidan activated his own silver blades, but as his left shoulder was still injured he only could hold it and defend himself with his right arm. Hastily he called out, hoping to stop the advance of the masked figure.

"Stop! What have you done with Sandy? I don't want to fight you, you don't have to do this!"

The figure took several more steps at a brisk pace, finally reaching striking distance before lashing out, both blades caught on an overhead block by Aidan's staff saber. A cold, mechanical voice echoed from the mask, the reply chilling Aidan to the bone. 

 

"You don't have a choice."

 

Aidan summoned all the strength he could muster, leaning heavily on the Force to deflect and block the flurry of blows the Sith next rained down upon him, but with every strike and block he felt himself being slowly driven back. There was no error, no room to counterattack, the Sith's form was perfect. The Force gave no hints like it normally had, no guidance to his weary body, only allowing him enough strength to lift his saber to meet the foreboding red blades again and again. The Sith advanced with fury unmatched, silent as the grave but fighting with deadly efficiency.

 

As the seconds bled into minutes, the only answer Aidan could come up with became glaringly clear: retreat. Aidan called upon the Force once more to blast the Sith back, but the Sith endured, shrugging off the blast. It didn't create as large a window as Aidan had hoped, but he took the opportunity, turning on his heel and fleeing down the corridors he'd come from. At a brisk walk, the Sith followed, blades still lighting the hallways, coming for their quarry.

 

Panic began to fill Aidan's mind. He couldn't hide, not from another Force user. He could run, leading the Sith on a merry chase around the ship, but the Sith had seen far more of the ship than he, and even if he could keep moving, chances are he would only die tired. He needed an ambush, to create his own opportunity. Aidan was the only one who could solve this, and as much as he relied upon and trusted in the Force, he knew the Force wouldn't automatically solve every problem he had. The person channeling the Force was as much a part of the puzzle as the Force itself, a critical lens that directed and focused its flow.

The Sith caught up to him in a T-junction hallway as Aidan was catching his breath. The floor was damp, and a cable hung from the ceiling near the door the Sith had been led into.

"Do not flee. This is inevitable."

Aidan knew it was anything but. Reaching out, Aidan pulled at the cable, causing it to jam into the Sith's back and send high voltage through him to the grounded deckplates, causing a large enough opening for Aidan to whirl around with his own saber and catch the Sith in the mask. He'd intended to end it there, but his own blade was deflected enough that it cut deeply into the mask and a bit of the Sith's face, revealing much of what was behind the mask and leaving a nasty wound. What was revealed caused Aidan to rapidly backpedal, the Sith's face comprised of withered white skin, thinning black hair, and corrupted yellow eyes. The Sith finally managed to free themselves, catching a moment of respite on one knee before removing the rest of the mask, more a hindrance than a help at this point. 

As he looked up, it was like looking in a mirror. This was no Sith, Aidan was fighting himself. Sith-Aidan cocked an all too familiar grin as he choked out a taunt, the words raspy and strained as they were no longer assisted by the vocalizer in the mask.

"I...told you. Inevitable."

 

Now it was Aidan's turn to surge forward, filled with emotion and disbelief. This was an impossibility, and yet it was happening. He had struggled with the dark side in the past, but was he really destined for this? Anger welled up inside him, and through it his strikes rained down on the Sith-Aidan who now defended himself on the retreat, not managing to find an opening to push back the assault against Aidan. Anger at the future, at the Force, at fate. This was cruelty shoved before him, ugliness and viciousness, and he hated it. 

Sith-Aidan managed to find a single hole in Aidan's defense, but Aidan simply used the opportunity to have the strike cut his staff saber neatly in the middle, leaving him with one working hilt but an easy opening to cut through his opponent's right wrist, from which he used the Force to rip the remaining red lightsaber blade from and draw it to his own hand as he dropped the other dead hilt. This wasn't a fight on equal footing anymore, Aidan was focused, precise, and filled with the Force's strength. Red and silver spun in a storm that Sith-Aidan could not possibly hope to weather.

 

In a similar move, Aidan caught Sith-Aidan's blade by feigning a block with his silver saber but deactivating the blade, causing his opponent to swing through into his trap. With a quick maneuver, the other arm was severed, and Aidan now held both red blades as Sith-Aidan fell to his knees. Crossing beams of red energy met the space just before Sith-Aidan's throat, and the fight was over. But instead of shock, instead of fear or frustrated rage, Sith-Aidan still wore a half-cocked smile. One strained word escaped his lips as ochre stained eyes taunted Aidan to get it over with.

"Inevitable."

And Aidan almost did, had he not caught his reflection on a nearby panel behind the kneeling Sith. His own face now matched his doppelganger's, and he realized he was the one with the red lightsabers, the tortured kyber crystals within screaming in the Force like beacons of pain.

This was not the answer.

This ran contrary to everything he'd ever been taught, be it from Kirlocca, Sandy, or even Kyrie. He was raised by the Jedi, he knew their principles, he had been indoctrinated into the Imperial Knights in the holy order of Exorcists. He had fallen down the path of darkness before, and here he was doing it again. There was only one way to break this cycle, the endless chain that tied him to his own darkness, and it lied in the purging fires of exorcism. He knew what he needed to do, but he wasn't sure if he had the strength. Aidan deactivated the red sabers, throwing them to his sides as he called for his still working hilt, reigniting its silver blade. 

"What...are you..."

Sith-Aidan called out in confusion, Aidan's own former emotions echoing through the voice that was his but also wasn't. The saber he held in his hand represented everything he idealized, everything he strove for, but he'd never come to terms with the fact that by definition it was meant to be double-edged. A lightsaber blade had an omnidirectional cutting surface, but the metaphor meant that what could harm one's enemies could just as easily harm oneself. Exorcists were forged in the righteous fires of the light side, but fire burned. Aidan had felt Kyrie's fire, but had never fully come into his own with it. This was the moment that would be tested: it was now all or nothing. He was either ready, or he would die.

"NO!-"

 

The Sith tried to lunge forward, to stop him, but it was too late. Aidan reversed the hilt, driving his own silver blade deep into his own chest, and immediately he felt immense pain rip through his entire body. The Sith, the ship, his surroundings, everything seemed to shift as if collapsing, but it wasn't something Aidan really noticed over the painful torrent of the Force tearing through him, cleansing him and burning away his lingering darkness. By the light's fire he was burned, by the light's fire he was pure. This was the only way. It took every ounce of strength and mental fortitude to stop it from killing him, but eventually the blaze subsided.

Aidan's eyes slowly opened as he gave a bit of a cough, feeling like he'd just had the worst hangover in the galaxy. He was back in the room with the youngling, on the ship, though this time he felt Sandy and another a short distance away, struggling. Kel was there too, but... Aidan tried to stand, but he was still incredibly weak from his ordeal. Weakly he reached out, trying to touch Sandy's mind. He could offer her no aid but peace of mind, but a small gift sometimes blossomed into something greater than the sum of its parts.

The Force was their ally, but none could know its will. Only time would tell if their group would leave this ship alive, or if it would become their tomb.

[Aidan Darkfire]

Aidan had just managed to rise to his feet as he felt the rushing wind of the depressurization. In the distance he heard bulkheads beginning to seal off, but the damage to the ship was extensive and it was already on low reserves...they would need to move quickly.

 

The Force came to him one last time to open the door to the room he'd been trapped in, and though it drained him dry, it felt like this time it answered his call much easier. The Force was with him, always and forever. Stumbling through the hallways, he made his way back to where the group had landed with Kel's R5 unit in tow, calling out to Sandy, yelling above the rushing winds of the escaping atmosphere.

"Aggressive negotiations much?"

But now wasn't the time for joking, they needed to get out of there.

"Where's Kel?"

Edited May 6, 2020 by Aidan Darkfire

[Aidan Darkfire]

Aidan might have sat in the seat, but it was Kel's R5 astromech next to him that was doing most of the work. As soon as the route was calculated, Aidan activated the engines of the autopilot, carrying them away from the Vigilance. The massive craft already had a lilt towards the nearest black hole, indicating its orbital positional stabilizers had finally given out over the strain of the fight.

 

"At least the Sith don't have it. I can't imagine what they could have done with the secrets it kept."

 

He half muttered to himself, sitting near Sandy. The mission was technically a failure, but they'd survived. And right then, that was all Aidan cared about. 

[Aidan Darkfire]

"No...you go ahead. I could use a bit."

Aidan wasn't exactly piloting the ship, but he certainly was monitoring the R5's piloting, which given the circumstances wasn't bad. Twice he needed to override the astromech, having sensed something the droid couldn't possibly calculate for, but these were small adjustments, perfections on an already smooth course.

Aidan himself was very much worse for wear. He wasn't torn up or bruised like Sandy, but he still felt like he'd been run over with a steamroller. His entire body ached, he was lethargic and just drained, and he wasn't incredibly happy about losing the Vigilance, though that wouldn't matter much until they were back standing in front of the Queen to give their report. Still, he was proud of himself, all that he'd managed to accomplish. He wasn't necessarily following in the footsteps of his father, rather he forged his own path through the stars. And that was something for him to be satisfied about for the time being.

Eventually, they hit the far side of the gravity wells, and stars turned to starlines as they made the jump to hyperspace. Aidan's eyes closed. He needed a long nap.