By the time Lux finally flopped down at his desk and called up the backups of his favorite datapad, nearly a week had passed since his return to Kyzeron, and over two since Lady Noronessa had offered him that tip about Dakharen's loyalties – plus its associated price tag. Between his stint at the villa and the latest trip to Alderaan, he'd simply had too many contacts chafing at his delay passing along information he'd promised them to spend his free time on other things.

Well, except Alynna. Alynna didn't count, because life without her in it had quickly become an impossibility. She was threaded into his every waking moment, whether that was with a fleeting kiss or a wordless touch or a debate about some obscure bit of legislation. Even when he was off running errands for his father or sitting through lessons in etiquette and trade, the sweet, lazy nights he'd spent curled up beside her on the couch followed him like spare shadows.

He was sorely tempted to go to her now and ask that they reschedule combat training for tomorrow; he was dead tired, and he never fell asleep faster than when she had her arms around him. Lux sighed, shaking his head at himself. Alynna had stressed over and over again how important it was to stay in shape to maintain what she taught him, and they hadn't sparred since leaving the villa. If he took more hits than he landed, well, that was just fine. So long as he got the exercise in, it would be worth it.

Lux straightened in his seat at the computer terminal and scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to forget his exhaustion. Sometimes late-night screen time made him jumpy instead of getting him even more tired than he already was. He could only hope the first would happen now, and not the second.

At a glance, the list of automated backups that winked to life on the small screen set into his desk appeared untampered with – though Lux would admit he'd never had a particular need to review them. He tapped a button to activate the holoproj and flicked the display up into the air, expanding it with one hand to read it better. He wasn't entirely sure what he was expecting to find.

Each backup was labeled with the date it had taken place. The numbers were in perfect order, each entry neatly a week apart from its predecessor and successor – everything as it should be. Perhaps Lady Noronessa had been lying to him, and would only come forward with some additional piece of information she'd neglected to mention at the gala if he stooped to question her about it. In a word, politics.

"Or perhaps I'm not looking closely enough," he murmured, shaking himself back to alertness.

On a hunch, he programmed the terminal to reorder the list by date instead of by name – even if, for all rights and purposes, the two were the same thing. His brows shot up when the entry from five weeks before suddenly jumped up a space. Closer inspection revealed that particular backup had been performed manually a full week and a half after its label suggested.

The automatic backup that should've taken place that week was gone, wiped from the system. A system that's protected by three separate passcodes, Lux thought darkly. Only one of which Dakharen is supposed to know.

So, that was it. There was no denying it. Lux had been betrayed, his privacy invaded and terminal compromised. If Alynna had spoken truly about overhearing Dakharen taking his father's orders, it was clear who was at the heart of all this.

Rage bubbled up in Lux's chest and set to simmering there. With difficulty, he toned it down before it could boil high enough to consume him, and tried to look at all this logically.

Lady Noronessa had told Lux his father was in her family's pocket because he owed them for what they'd done to keep him in power. That implied he was mixed up in something nefarious, but was his father a willing or unwilling participant in the Taevarions' schemes? Something in Lux still balked at the idea, eager to explain his father's actions away as a response to a blackmail situation, but frankly, Lux had no way to be sure.

Shutting his eyes, he traveled back in his mind to that initial dispute between Etrik Bonaga and Lady Arahlee Taevarion, Noronessa's mother, two months before. Etrik Bonaga's wild ravings of surprise inspections and theft in his mines had only been proven once Lux discovered the stationary from his father's office authorizing Taevarion involvement was fake. Lady Arahlee had warned Lux – threatened him, more like – that her family was owed a favorable ruling by his family.

Then, only a week later, Lux's father had informed him Etrik's grievances had been dealt with. The next time Lux had seen the man, Etrik had seemed cowed, as if Lux's continued involvement in his matters were a complication instead of a chance for a resolution – even after Lux had seen firsthand in the Izadash mine that Etrik's manifests were different than the Taevarion reports.

But an important question Lux hadn't thought to ask himself at the time still remained. Where were all those raw materials and equipment going? If Noronessa's family wasn't responsible, and an unknown third party had already smuggled the missing inventory out of Etrik's mines and warehouses by the time they arrived, who was sending the Taevarions the falsified authorization to get involved?

Pain pulsed at the back of Lux's eye sockets, heralding a pending headache. He had a good memory, but he could barely wrap his head around all this – and then there was the mysterious Project Archetype thing Lady Noronessa had told him to look into. He needed to have documents in front of him, dots he could connect.

Lux sighed and rubbed his temples. "If only I still had the information from Noronessa's datapad, maybe I could get somewhere instead of walking in circles..."

He squeezed his eyes shut then opened them. He was wasting time. Alynna was in the sitting room converting the space into a makeshift dojo, a task she'd offered to shoulder alone while he got some work done, but she'd be along to fetch him soon. She didn't want her skill as a fighter becoming public information, and Lux wasn't sure what kind of listening devices were monitoring the training arena a few floors down, so, much as they'd done at the villa, they were making do with what they had. He might as well go help her get the room in readiness now. The sooner he did, the sooner training would be over, and he could go to sleep.

Lux closed the display showing his datapad's backups and reached over to power down the holographic display completely. His gaze skated absently over his home screen to the icon in the bottom right corner, a direct link to the HoloNet database he used for his dealings with his fellow slicers. Memory struck him like a thunderclap, and his hand froze two inches away from the power button.

He did still have the information he'd stolen from Noronessa. It had been sitting in his HoloNet account all along.

"I'm a fool," Lux whispered. "A gods-blessed fool."

Frantically he tapped the icon and entered his passcodes and filled in the answers to his many security questions. He'd been so busy in the last few weeks he'd forgotten he'd programmed all his datapads to make a secondary backup to the database each time they backed up to his computer terminal. His paranoia over losing files to the updates he'd been making to the terminal's security measures was serving him now – and doing it better than he would've thought possible.

It was a wonder Lux hadn't thought of it before, but it made a funny kind of sense. In delegating the task of installing and monitoring the updates to Alynna, he'd effectively wiped it from his cognitive forefront. She'd told him the day before the gala that the work was finished, but he hadn't had the presence of mind to go back and delete the extra backups from his online database.

Lux scrolled through his files until he came to the right folder, hunched so close to the hologram it strained his eyes a little. Grinning like an idiot, he opened it. Sure enough, there it was: every single piece of information he'd snapped up that day at the mine, whole and untampered with. And it was all thanks to Alynna...

Alynna.

Adrenaline was still working its way through his system, making connections between things he'd previously considered unrelated. Lux smirked wickedly. If there was some way to pull this same trick with his father's datapads, somehow program them to back up to a second location while they were in the process of saving their contents to a first, he could give himself complete access to legitimate copies of the documents that kept Alynna in chains.

Copies he could then fill out, declaring for all legal authorities to read that he considered her alleged sentence for encroaching on Onderonian soil fulfilled. After that, it was only a matter of getting the documents notarized and settling the payment. Then, she would be free.

Free.

Lux laughed breathlessly as he got to work. He hadn't allowed himself to consider it more than fleetingly before this moment, too afraid it wouldn't work, but all the doors were opening for him now. He could get this done in less than a week, and then she'd be free of his father's grasp, free to leave Onderon... free to love him, if she chose to. (Gods, he hoped she would, even with the mysterious obligations she'd alluded to during the midsummer gala.)

And neither Zakhan Noreino nor the office of the Lord Imperator, as powerful as both had become, could do anything about it. The authority of a named Heir-Designate was slight, but no amount of legal technicalities could circumvent Lux's decision to free Alynna once he'd done it.

Even better, if Lux sent Alynna away before his father could, Zakhan would lose the bargaining chip that kept Lux locked into finding a spouse before the end of the year. Whether Lux would win the war for control of his own destiny was still undecided, but his victory in this particular fight would be total. And if it ensured Alynna's unconditional safety, that was all that really mattered.

Ahsoka sighed in relief when, at last, the heavy shelving unit laden with art objects and flimsiplast books thudded into place flush with the wall – and without sending any of its more fragile contents tumbling to the floor. She slouched down into a sitting position, cradled between the unit's sturdy wooden side and the wall, and wished not for the first time that she could use the Force for this.

Not that the Force was meant to be used for tasks as mundane as rearranging the furniture, even if it was very heavy furniture. In the end, it was her own fault for meeting Lux's tired resolve to push through the last of his work for the night before coming to join her with pride. She was too committed to her own self-reliance to ask him to skip it and help her, and her aching muscles wouldn't thank her for it.

Her transmitter buzzed against her leg. "Well, I guess it's good timing after all that he's not here just yet," she said to herself, and pulled the device out of a discrete pocket in her loose-fitting indigo slacks.

The days since Lux's return to Onderon had passed in luxuriant slowness, the two of them slipping into a routine that combined the blissful feeling of warmth and security from the villa with the productive atmosphere of Kyzeron. Ahsoka hadn't kept track of how much time had passed, but the call was a good indication the week Rex would be away on his mission was up. He'd promised to get in touch the second he was able, after all.

She opened the link without checking the caller ID, pausing only the moment it took to make sure the volume was set too low for Lux to hear Rex speaking. "This is Fulcrum," she murmured. "What's my–"

"Fulcrum, this is Origin."

Ahsoka's brows shot up. That was unexpected. "Origin. Um... hi. Wait, isn't it the middle of the night on Alderaan right now?"

"It is, but this couldn't wait." Senator Organa cleared his throat. "Rather, I felt that it shouldn't wait."

"What's going on?" she asked, feeling her muscles snap to battle readiness even as a jumble of unease and worry spun in the pit of her stomach.

"It's... well, I suppose Crowned Helm technically had millions of next of kin he could've put in his emergency forms, but you were the only one listed. Vod'alor, it says next to your name. Sister-leader."

Ahsoka clapped a hand over her mouth. "What happened?" she demanded through her fingers. The tangle in her stomach had turned to stone heavy enough to drag her down, but she forced herself to sit straight instead. "Is he hurt? How bad is it? He wouldn't tell me anything about the mission he was going off on, and–"

"This isn't the first time I've had to inform someone of a loved one's passing, and I know it won't be the last, before this is all over." Senator Organa breathed a heavy sigh, and Ahsoka felt bile rise in her throat. "I'm sorry, Ahsoka. He's gone. I'm still trying to make sense of the reports, but from what I understand his entire convoy was wiped out by some kind of Elite storm trooper pilot."

Ahsoka squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her palm tighter over her mouth. This wasn't possible. This was just a horrible dream, a realistic scenario her trauma-addled brain had conceived to torture her further. She'd scarcely gotten back into contact with Rex a month ago; surely there had to be some mistake–

She slumped down onto her side and curled around herself, sides shaking in silent sobs. This wasn't real, this wasn't real...

"Fulcrum? Fulcrum, do you read me?" the Senator asked gently.

With the last scrap of lucidity left to her, Ahsoka managed to croak out an affirmative. Senator Organa let out a knowing hum, then fell silent, holding her in the moment with his quiet presence on the other end of the link.

"There is nothing I can say that will make the loss you're suffering bearable," he began at length, "but I had the rare pleasure of glimpsing who he was as a person. He died bravely, Ahsoka. This is cold comfort, and I know that, but death does not come for men such as him in the small, insignificant moments."

"Shouldn't've come for him 't all," Ahsoka warbled. "He went through Order 66, 'n he came back to me. I came back to him." She sucked in a shaky breath. It fell out again as a wet, rattling sob before she could really process it. "He should've lived to fifty. With a clone's short lifespan, it was owed to him."

"He should have, you're right. So should everyone who fell during the Clone War, and everyone we've lost since. But the next best thing is to die fighting for what you believe in," Senator Organa said slowly. "Hang onto that. In such times as these, we have to hang onto that, Ahsoka, or we are nothing."

Ahsoka couldn't take it anymore. She ended the comm and kicked the transmitter under the shelving unit, pulling her limbs into an even tighter ball. Within seconds the arm under her face was tacky and hot with tears.

This was all her fault. The Clone Wars were two long, bitter years in the past, and the fraught months on the run that had followed had changed many things, but Ahsoka was still Rex's Jedi – his commander, his sole superior in Anakin's absence. Sister-leader, Rex had named her. And subordinates relied on their leaders to protect them with good decisions and smart tactics.

She'd made neither in staying here – or in going after Anakin and leaving Rex behind in the first place. She'd been sentimental, and foolish, and she'd thought she could do more good on Onderon by herself, finding Anakin and rallying the locals to her cause, than she could with a whole team back in the Rebellion.

Stars, she'd failed him. She'd failed them both.

Dimly, Ahsoka was aware of the door into Lux's office sliding open. "I'm sorry I let it get so late, I was caught up in– Alynna!"

Fear bled into the space around her until the Force was sickeningly saturated with it; grief had blasted her connection wide open, and it all came washing in as an overwhelming cacophony of visions and feelings. There, in the middle of it all, like an island in a stormy sea, was a quiet singing: soft, serene, familiar–

There was a blind scrabble, and then Ahsoka was being drawn up into a pair of arms she knew well. The singing faded, leaving her bleakly empty of everything but pain, and she couldn't summon the willpower to do more than bat weakly at Lux's knee as he tilted her face up to his with one hand.

"Alynna? Alynna, talk to me," he asked urgently, his face a tear-blurred swirl of soft pinks and greens and deep rich brown. Ahsoka blinked a few times, but she couldn't keep the tears away long enough to see him clearly. "What's wrong? Are you hurt? Come on, Alynna–"

"I lost him... Rex, I lost him..."

"Rex? Who's Rex?"

She shouldn't have said his name aloud. She should've given him an alias, a cover story like she'd given Anakin and Master Kenobi. But her diaphragm had stopped trying to lurch up into her throat, and now that she could speak clearly, she couldn't seem to stop.

"A comrade. A brother-in-arms. Someone I– I could trust, and who trusted me. But I wasn't there to protect him," she whispered. "If only I'd gone back like I was supposed to, when they asked me to, I would've been there to protect him..."

"What?" Lux stroked his free hand over her face, brushing the tears away with a careful thumb. "Alynna, you're not making any sense."

"He's gone, and it's my fault."

"Alynna, please–"

As gentle as his grip on her was, suddenly his arms felt like a prison instead of much-needed comfort. She didn't deserve this now, and she might not deserve it ever. She'd lost her two best friends within months of each other because she couldn't karking get involved, and she didn't have the strength now to watch the shame and disgust flower on Lux's face when she told him how she would always fail the people who trusted her.

Ahsoka wriggled free and staggered to her feet, wiping her face messily on her sleeve. "I– I need some air," she choked out.

She'd run from the room and out into the hallway before Lux could call after her, faster and faster until her legs burned and her breath was hoarse. She didn't stop, not even when the people she snaked around called obscenities or warmer inquiries about her wellbeing. She couldn't, or the question hounding her steps would latch on and she'd never be free of it again.

First Padmé, then Cody and Obi-Wan, then Anakin, then Barriss, now Rex. She was already hurting so badly. How long would it be before she lost everything?

Just when Ahsoka thinks she'd found a sort of equilibrium and begun the healing process, the universe throws another obstacle in her path. Deprived of the last old friend she had left who truly knew her as she was, will she grow closer with Lux, or push him away? Much still remains that Ahsoka hasn't told Lux about herself, and she's far from alone in keeping secrets. Will the two find themselves enemies drawing the Separatist-Republic lines afresh in the sand? Or will rebellion unite them? Only time will tell...

HI HELLO FINE FRIENDS I AM PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT I AM ALIVE

*spots readers coming with pitchforks over the cliffhanger I left on and scrambles away*

Explanation time: much as expected, my new program kicked my butt. Taking a gap year from school did a number on my reflexes and study habits, and while I love the material, a lot of it is so new that for the longest time I didn't have any creative energy to spare. (With the exception of what it took to think over a radical new sequel trilogy rewrite concept with Ahsoka, Leia, Rey, and Poe as the main protagonists, which has a few chapters written, and I'm hoping to publish over the winter holidays.)

Then I got out of midterms, and I wrote three SOTE chapters in two days. Today I blitzed twenty chapters' worth of content in the plot summary, effectively outlining everything until the end of the book, and I realized, okay, it's time. Worst comes to worst, I have enough chapters written to get me through to the Christmas holidays.

Still sorry I left on a sad chapter and come back to a sad chapter, but hey, some things we can't help. We're deep in angst country, now, but everything Ahsoka is feeling about what happened to Rex and everything Lux is uncovering is vitally important for the next book. To those who are still sobbing over the battle around the Death Star and don't know me as well as the old guard, I'll say this much: in my books, rarely is everything as it seems with apparent character deaths.

And if I broke from that pattern just this once, well, the next few chapters will more than make up for it. They're WILD.

I'll be back with more content before the end of the month!