The farmhouse on Dubrava was quaint, if one were to be charitable. Starlin fought the mud sucking at his boots all the way up to the rickety front door, where he was greeted by a gatekeeper droid. Its single eye thrust out at him, nearly hitting him in the nose before retracting back into the wall as quickly as it had appeared.
“No soliciting!” a woman’s shrill voice exclaimed from somewhere inside the dwelling.
“I’m not selling anything,” Starlin replied. “I’m here on behalf of… of Miri Nimdok.”
There was a long pause before the door opened. A tall, thin, pale older woman with shaggy black hair greeted him. He was immediately struck by her slanting eyebrows and pointed ears. Definitely Nagai. “Miri’s dead,” she said, more puzzled than irritated. “What do you want?”
“Hello, ma’am,” he said, bowing his head respectfully. “My name is Starlin Rand. I’m a Jedi Knight. I need to speak to Miri’s daughters. I was told they were with their great aunt. Would that be you?”
“That’s me.” The woman gestured to herself. “Nimue Nimdok.” While Starlin fought the urge to laugh at the name, her expression grew grave. “You can speak to Lara. Can’t say the same for Kyla. That girl ran off two days ago.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“She told Lara she was going to get revenge on whoever killed their mother.”
Starlin’s blood ran cold. Nimue threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “The police said she took a shuttle offworld, headed to Coruscant. They’ll be waiting to catch her when she arrives and send her right back here—but I wouldn’t put much faith in them. She’s a smart girl, maybe even smart enough not to get caught.”
Not to mention the upcoming Sith invasion! Starlin pushed down his growing anxiety. “May I speak to Lara?” he asked.
Nimue let him in, chattering all the while. Apparently verbosity ran in the family. Turning the corner into the kitchen, Starlin saw Lara sitting at the table. She was a slender girl of about thirteen, wearing a dark blue homespun dress. Her hair was extravagantly long, flowing loose down her back like clear brown water. When he entered the room, she looked up at him with dark, inscrutable eyes. She was a perfect combination of her parents’ best features, he thought.
“This man’s a Jedi,” Nimue introduced him. “He wants to talk to you.”
Starlin hesitated. Lara waited for him to speak, but he suddenly wasn’t sure what to say, how to explain the sequence of events that had brought him here or why he had come to take her and her missing sister away. What if she didn’t want to leave? He hadn’t even considered that. In his mind the Nimdok girls were still toddlers—that was how he remembered them. That was the last time he’d seen them.
Nimue started bustling with pots and pans, muttering to herself. Lara’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. Not for the first time, Starlin wished he had some of the professor’s wisdom and easy manner with kids.
“Hi,” he said at last. “I’m Starlin. I knew your parents and your grandfather. And you, when you were little.”
“Okay,” Lara mumbled, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “Kyla’s not here.”
“I know.” With a sober nod, Starlin decided to bite the bullet. “Now that your mother’s passed, I’m supposed to train you and your sister as Jedi,” he explained. Her brow wrinkled in confusion at the supposed to part of what he’d said, so he continued on reluctantly, “Your grandfather’s ghost appeared to me in a dream. That’s a thing that happens to Jedi sometimes. He’s the one who told me to come here and get the two of you.”
He heard Nimue’s bark of laughter from somewhere behind him. “Some Jedi stopped by a few years back to administer tests. They decided they didn’t want the girls then. But then you have a dream about Errik, and suddenly none of the testing matters?”
“A midi-chlorian count and a call from the Force are two different things,” Starlin replied, surprising himself with how quick he was to respond. “I’m doing what their grandfather asked of me.”
“What about what their mother would’ve wanted?” Nimue asked. “She gave them to me. She wanted them kept safe, away from all your star wars.”
Miri’s ghost had not made an appearance in his dreams. He wasn’t sure if that meant she approved of her father’s orders, or something was preventing her from communicating with him from the Netherworld. Starlin chewed his lip, then glanced back at Lara. “What do you want to do, sweetheart?”
Lara’s reply was so soft he had to strain his antenna-palps to hear her. “I want to be with Kyla.”
“Then we’ve got to find her before she gets hurt.” Leave the revenge to me.
Back aboard the Bright Knight, now headed full speed for Coruscant, Starlin went to the music room. It was supposed to be a cargo space, but years ago he had it outfitted for the band to practice and record in. A band which was now mostly deceased.
He planned to play his guitar, hoping the music would soothe him. But as he flicked on the lights, he found himself drawn to the vault. Inside were dozens of recording sessions, carefully preserved under controlled temperatures. He sifted through them, traveling back in time a few years to a tape labeled Firefist - Miri. He inserted it into the player.
The recording was raw and unproduced. He recognized Kyell’s playing—he’d know that guitar anywhere. Maybe this session was older than he thought. That was Starlin on the drums, with a synthesizer pre-programmed…
The speakers were suddenly possessed by the voice of the dead. Miri had a lovely voice, a rich alto. He used to ask her why she didn’t quit killing people and become a singer instead.
“Firefist’s a big wide open galaxy…”
Those lyrics she was singing—he remembered writing them. She contributed a few lines, some of the best in the song. She would’ve had a co-writing credit. Why the feth did he cut it from the album? Sure, it didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the tracks on Heart of Electrum, but it wasn’t totally out of step.
He could release it as a single, a tribute to Miri and Kyell. Dedicate it to their kids and give them all the proceeds. The money could pay for college. He’d save it up for them, their futures secured. After all, soon he’d have to think about these things.
A presence lingered nearby. Starlin opened his eyes and looked toward the door just in time to see a flash of dark hair. Lara, listening in. Did she know what her mother sounded like singing?
He stopped the tape, unable to bear it anymore.
