The salt mire takes the body.
Norra falls to the ground, crying, and Temmin holds her for a time as his aunts stand by. When all the others have gone, he helps her stand. They spend a few days with the aunts, and then it’s time to go home.
—
Thanks to a friend who is now apparently a high-ranking adviser to the chancellor of the New Republic, Jas Emari not only gets Dengar, Embo, and Jeeta full pardons, she actually manages to get them some money from the New Republic. Not as much as she promised, no. But it’s enough to stop them from killing her—and enough to convince them to remain formed up as a new crew. Dengar seems particularly pleased by this turn of events. “Times, they are a-changing, my little gompers. We’re gonna need to watch each other’s backs, eh?”
Even still, she takes some time on Chandrila to herself. She tells her new crew she’ll track them down when the time is right.
For now, she says, she has to find somebody else.
The story made its way to her that Jom Barell went to Jakku to save her. Laughable, really, because what? He’s going to save her? Oh, so she can’t take care of herself? Jas feels she’s proven very well that she has, and so her plan is to go to his apartment, look him dead in the eye (the one eye, since the other is gone), give him a stern lecture on her ability to save herself thank-you-very-much, and then kiss him until he can’t breathe. But when she gets there, he’s not at home.
Someone else is there. A woman. A commando, by the uniform. Jas feels embarrassed, and she stammers an apology—
The woman just says she’s here to collect Jom’s things.
“Why? Where’s he gone?”
“Gone to where we all go,” the woman says. Jas still doesn’t understand, so the woman spells it out plainly: “He died on Jakku.”
It takes too long for Jas to understand. Even when it hits her, it still doesn’t hit her. The woman says there’s a video from the U-wing—and she asks if Jas wants to see it. She doesn’t, but she says yes anyway, so she watches it. It’s short and choppy—standard for a combat-cam. The ship drops into atmosphere and the SpecForce commandos are hanging near the exit, ready to jump out and join the war even before the damn thing has a chance to land. Jas sees Jom there, and he leans in toward the cam and gives it a wink and a hard nod. “New Republic, ahuga—”
And the rest of the commandos, men and women, echo that word:
“AHUGA!”
Some battle cry Jas doesn’t understand.
Jom smirks one last time—
From outside the door, from the surface of Jakku, Jas sees the glint of something. A missile, maybe. Concussive, probably.
None of the others see it. None except Jom. He bellows, “Incoming!”
And then he does the unthinkable. Jom puts his foot down on the lip of the open door, leaping right past the beam cannon placement and out into open air. He stays aloft, pulsing his jetpack—two hard burns of blue energy out the back—and he heads right toward the missile.
The U-wing pivots to port side, lifting up and away from the incoming projectile. As it moves, Jom disappears out of frame—and Jas feels her innards tightening as she inwardly screams that she wants the camera to shift back down again, down, down, so she can see him one last time.
Everything goes white and pixilated.
“I…I don’t understand,” Jas says when the vid is over. “He should’ve mounted that cannon—”
“Would’ve taken a few seconds to spin up—by then, too late.”
“He didn’t need to do that.”
“He did. And he saved us.”
That’s all Dayson needs to say.
Jas thanks the woman and leaves. It takes days for her to process it. Days of walking around like she’s in someone else’s body, days until the truth of the thing hits her with the impact of a wall falling upon her: He came to save me, and he died in service to that. He followed his heart, and it got him killed. And then she’s left to wonder: Would she make the same choice? Does she have a larger purpose, a greater debt, and is she willing to pay it? Maybe she’s the one without a star.
She spends the next week in bed, staring at the ceiling.
—