The darkness lasted for what seemed like seconds—not long enough—before Jaina felt the pain roll through her body as she slowly woke. There were voices, quiet and curious, but she couldn’t tell how many there were. On Endor, she thought she had died along with her team. To her dismay, it seemed they—whoever they were—decided to keep her alive.

“Is she awake?” Jaina heard a man’s voice say. She debated whether she should fake unconsciousness or not.

“Not sure,” another answered. “She should wake any second.”

“Send him in, then,” the first man’s voice spoke. Another minute passed and then she heard hustled footsteps followed by slow, controlled steps clinking against metal. Jaina reached out with the Force to sense her surroundings. She felt two presences—human, according to their thought processes—and only two. Jaina could handle two, depending on her physical condition and surrounding. At the moment, she didn’t know the status of either.

“She should wake any moment, Admiral,” the first man’s voice said.

“She is already awake,” a new voice, darkly musical and soft, said. “And she can hear me. Can’t you?”

Jaina assumed that last phrase was directed at her. No sense in keeping up the pretense, she decided, and slowly opened her eyes.

Pain shot through every nerve in her body just from the simple movement of her eyelids. Her vision blurred as her eyes watered in pain, her face tingling as she attempted to regard her surroundings. She was inside a small, metal cell. It was clean as far as she could tell, and she happened to be laying on her back on a cold, hard cot. She risked turning her head towards her visitors and winced as pain rippled through her neck. But the effort was enough to see who was standing in the cell’s entrance. Two men stood to the side, human just as she had predicted, and in silver military uniforms. But there was a third person she didn’t sense through the Force. He stood in the center of the entrance, tall and muscular, shockingly handsome with ivory skin, silver hair chopped short, and a glistening white smile.

The smile sent shivers down Jaina’s spine.

“Hello,” he said with that silky, mesmerizing voice. He cocked his head to the side, starring at Jaina with an animalistic curiosity.

She opened her mouth to respond out of habit, but nothing came out and she quickly shut her mouth.

“Her vocal cords may be temporarily paralyzed due to the paralysis,” the man with gray-white hair, to the left of the handsome man, said.

“I can fix that,” the handsome man said, cocking his head again.

Jaina’s heart quickened, fearing what he meant by that. She did indeed feel like she couldn’t move her body, and it frightened her more that the man moving towards her was completely invisible to the Force. It was like watching something unreal and ghostlike stalk her down and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The handsome man sat down on the cot beside her and gently lifted her to a sitting position, his cold hands gripping her bare arms. As he helped her up, Jaina realized her pilot uniform had been replaced by a thin white sheet which barely covered her body. Normally this wouldn’t bother her, but the close proximity mixed with the invisibility of the handsome man put her on edge.

The man reached out with his right hand and placed it on her neck. He gently began to massage right underneath her chin and Jaina felt warmth spreading into her throat. She watched his eyes. They sparkled strangely and his eyes were the darkest blue she’d ever seen. And then she noticed something in his left eye. There was a black spot to the side of the iris—deep black and diamond-shaped. It reminded her of something, but her head hurt too much to concentrate.

He massaged her neck for about a minute before releasing her, smiling again.

“What is your name?” he asked, his eyes penetrating and hypnotizing.

Jaina debated answering, but couldn’t think of a reason why she shouldn’t.

“Jaina Solo,” she answered, her voice crackling. She coughed to clear it.

“My name is Maurel,” he replied, his breath cold against her skin. Jaina noticed the man with the gray hair frowning in disapproval, or confusion, she couldn’t quite tell. Her connection with the Force felt numb and distant for some reason. “You are a JedI, I assume?”

Jaina frowned realizing she was under interrogation and it was already a bad idea that she gave out her name. She made an effort to keep her mouth shut, but found it hard not to answer the questions.

“You’ve been given a mental-calming serum. You’ll be more corporative this way, but don’t fight it. You’ll overload your brain and die if you do,” Maurel said. “At least, that’s what happened to the last girl we interrogated. What was her name?” He turned to the gray-haired man behind him.

“Macy,” the older man answered.

“Yes,” Maurel breathed. “She was the President’s personal aide. She died a painful death. She rejected the serum and her brain, in simpler terms, exploded. I’ve never met a JedI before, so I would like to keep you alive for a while longer. So, please, cooperate.”

Jaina’s vision blurred as Maurel spoke, her head feeling heavy. She would have fallen over if it weren’t for Maurel holding her up with his hands.

“Of course we already know you are a JedI,” Maurel continued. “We’re studying your lightsaber. It has some fascinating qualities. I’m surprised you JedI use—crystals, is it—as the power source. An interesting choice, I will admit, but a smart one. If only the crystals you used were of a better, stronger material. I experimented with the crystal you had inside your lightsaber. It overloaded and shattered.

“Interesting actually. It symbolizes you, or your galaxy’s species. So frail…” Maurel brushed a cool, white finger along Jaina’s jaw. Her eyes rolled back, the room spinning around her sickeningly. She squeezed her eyes as she tried to regain control.

“You sure risk a lot—” she gulped as she forced herself to speak, “telling me all this.”

“Not really,” he smiled again. “You won’t remember this conversation.” His finger continued to stroke her cheek, then suddenly snatched her chin in a tight grasp, forcing her to look directly at him. “What were you doing in this system?”

Jaina bit her lip, fighting against the urge to answer. Her mind seemed to be rebelling against her. So she breathed deeply, as deeply as she could handle since her lungs were tight, and tried to concentrate on the little connection she had with the Force. Surprisingly, it gave her some strength and resistance to the serum she was under.

“No matter,” Maurel silky voice caressed her skin. “I already know you are the President’s daughter. Of course you would be sent here to investigate one of your military bases. And seeing as this is one of your furthest outposts, it is only logical to assume that someone alerted you to the base’s destruction. Someone who escaped…”

Jaina immediately thought of Lilliya. She pictured her silver hair cascading down in ringlets, her long muscular form, her drawn face and sad expression…

Maurel’s grip on Jaina’s chin tightened as he leaned closer. “I need you to help me,” he murmured darkly, his tone suddenly turning ominous. “I am looking for someone. A girl. She escaped to Coruscant and I know that she had met with your President. Which means that you know of her existence.”

Jaina shook her head, not in response to Maurel, but in an attempt to shake off the drugging serum.

“She would have white skin,” Maurel continued, “and gold hair by day, silver hair by night. She would be very unique compared to the rest of you. And beautiful, very beautiful. I need to know her name. I need to know where she is.”

Jaina knew exactly who he was referring to, but refused to tell, fighting against the serum. “I don’t know—” Jaina whispered, and the mere lie sent excruciating pain to her head and behind her eyes. It really did feel like her head would explode. So she quickly reverted back to meditating on the Force in order to help her clear the pain.

It sounded as though Maurel growled, but she couldn’t be sure. She was barely keeping conscious as it was.

“Maybe this will spur your memory,” Maurel muttered, pulling out a necklace from the folds of his chrome-colored tunic. From the end of the necklace hung a familiar crystal charm. It glittered in the dim light, refracting little rainbows on Maurel’s pale skin. “If she were smart, she would be wearing one of these at all times. And I guarantee she is very smart.”

Jaina glanced at the charm, then back up into Maurel’s smoldering eyes. The diamond scar seemed to grow blacker, if that was even possible.

And then something struck her. Maurel’s diamond scar and crystal necklace were exactly the same as Lilliya’s diamond scar and crystal necklace! Somewhere within the foggy dimness of her mind, Jaina made a revelation. She just couldn’t pinpoint it in her current mindset.

Suddenly, Maurel grabbed Jaina’s head, placing both hands on either side, and squeezed. Jaina gasped, the pressure of his hands sending shock waves of pain into her head.

“This is going to hurt more than the serum,” Maurel growled. “But you leave me no choice. You will tell me where she is. You will tell me her name.”

Maurel’s eyes, smoldering sapphire, bored into hers, lighting on fire. Then, before she could blink away, something powerful slammed into her head, her brain feeling as though it were being torn open to expose her every memory, thought, dream…the pain so unbearable a scream ripped through her throat, echoing off the chamber walls and down the corridors.

And somewhere amidst all the agonized screaming, a name was whispered.

“Lilliya…”

Maurel smiled.