Chapter Sixteen The Nightmare
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Nightmare
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 of Under 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 was about 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?”
Maz paused for a long moment. “Yes, but only because you hope. I admire that very much. I wish more people found power in that. We could use you, you know. There aren’t many of us old rebels left.”
Dad laughed, but it sounded tired. “I’m done with wars, Maz.”
She hummed. “You live long enough, and you’ll realize that history is simply an echo of itself, and most of us don’t listen.”
Her soft footsteps came toward the door.
Crap. I reeled back. I didn’t want to get caught snooping—again.
First Val, and now this? I would have made a bad spy.
I dove into the utility closet just as the door to the bridge opened, and Maz shuffled out, her hands behind her back in that patient way of hers.
I watched through the slats in the door vent as she told Dad good night and shot a pointed look at the utility door.
Yeah, she definitely knew I was here.
That was embarrassing.
Maz left, and I counted to ten before I eased out of the closet. By then, Dad had returned to the bridge, and Maz was long gone.
What was that about? Was Maz here to recruit my dad for something? That didn’t bode well at all. I couldn’t think of many things she might be coming to old rebels asking for, and the few I could think of were not good. The Civil War had been over for almost thirty years. We were at peace.
Weren’t we?
I knocked on the doorframe before I let myself onto the bridge.
Dad was at the helm, sitting back with one foot propped on his other leg, eating overripe obessa seeds that popped between his teeth like little jelly-filled fruits. The star fields passed outside the flight deck windows in a swirling tunnel of blue light.
He gave a start. “Daughter! What brings you here so late?”
I shuffled over to sit in the copilot’s chair and brought my knees to my chest, setting my chin on them. The chairs were soft and well-worn. “I had a nightmare.”
“I’m sorry, love.” He patted the top of my head like he used to when I was little. “What was it this time? Ewoks chasing you?”
“If only,” I muttered, and then lied: “I don’t remember.”
“You haven’t had bad nightmares in a while, not since…
” Your mom died. The words hung in the air, even though he couldn’t bring himself to say them.
He never could. It was like a part of our lives he just…
refused to acknowledge, this gaping hole in our hearts he pretended wasn’t even there.
Instead, he diverted to, “Anything I can do?”
Tell me what Maz Kanata wanted, I thought, but he didn’t know I had been eavesdropping. “Nah, I don’t think so.” I lifted my gaze to the star-streaked viewport. “So how has the night been so far? Uneventful?”
“Eh, mostly.” He twisted back and forth in his chair, tugging on his beard. “I can’t believe he’s home. It feels like a dream.”
One that was too good to be true. “Yeah…it was really unexpected.”
“But it’s nice to have the family back together, isn’t it? Especially for your birthday tour.”
I reached over and grabbed a handful of obessa seeds. “Yeah,” I repeated, a little quieter, and ate a few. The stars passed the viewport in long twisting blue ribbons. “What if I want to leave, too?”
Dad paled. “Why would you want to do that?”
I shrugged. “To see what’s out there, I guess.”
“There’s nothin’ out there that you can’t find here,” he replied, and his tone was adamant.
“Yeah, but I don’t know that. Or what if you’re wrong?”
He was shaking his head. “We’re not having this discussion tonight, love.”
“But, Dad—”
“What would you want out there, anyway?” he asked.
“I don’t know! That’s the thing. I don’t know what I’d want because I don’t know what’s out there.”
“Isn’t this good, though? Don’t you like this?” he asked, motioning to the ship. “Us here in the Starfarer? Kotti and Daaric and Maeve and Telly—aren’t we enough?”
I felt a lump in my throat. It was hard to swallow. “Of course you are, Dad! It’s not that. Just—just forget about it. I’m sorry.” I pulled my knees up to my chest again and wrapped my arms around them. “The nightmare’s just got me shaken up, is all,” I lied.
He seemed to believe me, at least. He patted my head again and sat back in his chair. I curled my fingers into fists. Val was wrong about me. I tried to talk to Dad about leaving, about going on my own adventure, but it never got any further than this, because wasn’t Dad right, in the end?
If I was happy here, then what was the point of dreaming of the stars?
We were quiet for a long moment, listening to the quiet rhythm of the ship, but then he stifled a yawn and rubbed his eyes.
I waved my hand at him. “Go to bed. I’ve got this.”
“Nah. I’m fine. You know me. I can run on strong caf and a dream.” Even as he said it, he yawned again.
“Go. You look like you might fall over at any second, and think of the scandal that would be.”
“I’m fine,” he groused. “I don’t need—”
Louder, I said, “ ‘Famed Rebel Pilot Falls Asleep Piloting His Own Tour.’ ”
“I don’t think I’m famed….”
“No, but if you fall asleep on your own tour and cause a crash, you’ll be famous, and not in a way either of us want.
C’mon, I’ll be fine up here alone. I’ve flown this ship a hundred times, and I’ve been on this route a thousand.
It’s routine at this point. And besides, I don’t think I can fall back asleep, anyway.
” The nightmare was too fresh in my head, and the lightsaber in my underwear drawer made me nervous even though it was broken.
This whole tour did. The lightsaber, the First Order, Val’s reappearance, Sian, Maz…
I didn’t believe in coincidences, but I didn’t see the connections, either.
He jostled the seeds in his hand, muttering quietly to himself.
“Dad. It’s dangerous otherwise. That’s what you told me, right? A pilot’s no good to anyone without proper sleep, food, and company.”
Finally, he gave a deep sigh, then pushed himself up to his feet. “Fine. Just remember that the navicomputer’s fussy sometimes, and the vids on the crew’s deck have been cutting in and out. I’ll have to get Entoo on that.”
I tried not to wince, because I had a feeling that was Entoo doing the cutting…. “Noted,” I said. “Now go.”
He scrubbed the top of my head like he had when I was little. “Since when did you grow up, love?”
A long time ago, but you never noticed until now. I returned his smile. “Sweet dreams, old man.”
He laughed. Even that sounded tired. I didn’t remember him looking so…
run-down. Was the white streak in his beard wider?
Since when did his gaze look so sunken? I had thought the crow’s-feet by his eyes were just laughter lines, but they stuck around long after he stopped smiling.
“If you need me, I’ll be down in a sec, you understand? ”
“Aye, Captain.” I saluted.
He kissed my forehead with a soft “Love you to the ends of the galaxy.”
“Love you all the way back,” I replied, and he left the bridge.
The ship sank into quiet, and I was alone at the helm.
Just the hum of the engine, the whir of space outside the viewport, and the endless expanse of sky twisting by in a kaleidoscope of ephemeral blue.
I settled into the captain’s chair and looked out at the streaks of stars.
I tried to concentrate, to find a path—any path—but all I could see were broken roads and dead ends.
I couldn’t find Naboo. Heck, I couldn’t find anywhere.
Failure made my chest tight.
I blinked and slouched down in my chair. I remembered bits and pieces of Mom’s lessons. She’d taught Val a lot more than she ever did me, and I tried not to feel too bitter about him leaving before he ever taught me anything useful.
“You have to feel it here,” Mom had said once, tapping her sternum, “right in the middle. It’s a tug. A call, your grandmother always said. You have to want where you’re going so badly you can’t see anything else.”
Maybe that was the problem. I’d never wanted anything that badly before.
Or maybe, because I never used the gift, it had disappeared.
It was a sobering thought.
Unchosen again, like I was to the lightsaber in my underwear drawer.