It was a nightmare. I knew it was, but that didn’t stop me from feeling afraid. It didn’t stop the scream that bubbled up in my throat, the urge to run, to flee, to cry out for help. Something chased me. Something that made me feel like prey. Invisible strings tightened around my throat, like fingers. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak.
The lightsaber was in my hand, but it was broken. It couldn’t protect me.
It couldn’t protect anyone.
A terrible, searing pain sliced through my chest. I glanced down. A red beam speared through me, burning a hole through my heart—
“You are nothing,”said a vicious voice beside my ear.
I woke up with a gasp.
My room—it was my room. Alone. I clawed away my covers to sit up, pressing a small soft pillow to my belly.My heart rushed in my ears, loud and frantic, a scream still lodged in my throat. My chest burned from the pain, even though it wasn’t real.
It wasn’t real.
I had to keep reminding myself of it.
I smoothed down my wild curly hair and took a few deep breaths. It wasn’t real.
You’re safe, I told myself.
On the bedside was a datatape reader open to an older serial chapter ofUnder the Tan-Tan Sun. Reading the earlier installments usually calmed me down, but I guessed the scene I had left off on made my dreams weird. The assassin had snuck into the Queen’s bedchambers, blade at the ready. That was all my nightmare was—my overactive imagination. But the voice in my dream—
You are nothing, he had said.
It didn’t sound like anyone I knew.
But now I was, tragically, too awake to go back to sleep, so I tossed the covers off, pulled on a comfy thick robe, and slipped out into the chilly corridor. The ship hummed gently in hyperspace. There was a certain chill when we were traveling, the kind that ate right down to my bones. I shivered, wrapping the robe tighter around me.
I wondered what it would be like waking up somewhere warm for once.
I didn’t know.
Telly was snoring in her room, so Dad must’ve been at the helm. He’d started to take the late shift more often. He was getting older, so he usually took nights when less risk was involved. It was a pretty easy path from Alderaan to Naboo in the Mid Rim.
I didn’t really talk to my dad all that much about my nightmares anymore, but this one clung to my bones, making me feel a little too off-kilter, like a planet knocked off its axis. I needed to talk to someone, and aside from the droids—who were probably recharging—Dad was the only one awake.
“Fine,” I murmured to myself, and made my way to the turbolift.
I heard a cacophony of snores as I passed the crew members’ doors. The running lights on the floor were dimmed in the night, so I trailed my hand along the bulkhead in the darkness, even though I knew the ship by heart.
It was soothing, the rough metal sliding beneath my fingertips.
There were few things Dad loved more than this ship, and the things he loved he held on to so tightly, he refused to let go. I sometimes wondered if he loved me more than he feared losing me.
Maybe that was what love was.
Lost in thought, I made my way to the bridge and wasabout to press the switch to open the door when I heard voices on the other side. Dad and someone else. At first, I thought it might be Val, but when they spoke again I recognized the other voice immediately—
Maz Kanata.
“All I’m saying is that it’s a bit too neat, and you are no fool,” Maz said.
“Don’t say that,” Dad replied with a groan. “I’d like to think the galaxy might work in my favor this time.”
“The galaxy rarely works like that, friend.”
“Then I guess I really am an old fool, eh?”
