Grand Admiral Thrawn stood in his star destroyer's hanger. With his hands behind his back and red eyes unmoving, the Chiss was at the forefront of his storm trooper fleets. They were organised into perfect rows and there wasn't a smudge or stain on their white armour plates. Their blasters were held with one hand on the barrel, and the other clutching the handle. Under the leadership of the Empire's warlord, Thrawn's troops was one of the best in the galaxy and were responsible for battles that they almost never lost.
Darth Vader's ship entered the star destroyer's hanger and lowered with its wings retracting to its top panel. Admiral Thrawn watched as the ship's belly dispatched a landing ramp before the sound of its engines ceased. The caped Sith exited its hull and thudded down the ramp with his shoulders squared and his steps heavy.
'Lord Vader, it is the ultimate honour to have you onboard,' Admiral Thrawn greeted and bowed his head in respect. The masked man stopped in front of the blue-skinned Chiss and glanced at the soldiers that stood at attention.
'Thrawn. I have been informed of your successes,' Vader stated, his voice through the vent on his mask sending chills down storm troopers' spines. 'Your troops are impressive.'
'Thank you, my Lord.'
Admiral Thrawn and Darth Vader turned to walk along the rigid storm trooper troops. The Chiss kept his gloved hands clasped together at the small of his back, and Vader's enclosed fists barely swung with his steps. The Sith's arrival was much anticipated, and Thrawn's destroyer's position in the core was coincidental yet convenient for Darth Vader's personal mission.
'We were informed of the starfighter that your men were tracking from the Hoth system,' Admiral Thrawn said as the two walked through the hanger. 'We have picked up the tracker and have located the ship to be on Coruscant.'
'Good. Have you dispatched a squadron to its location?'
'Not yet, my Lord. I was waiting for your word.'
Coruscant. What could Sol want that was on Coruscant? Vader was under the impression that she was attempting to evade him and the Empire, so why would she venture so close to its capital? The Emperor himself was located on Coruscant, but Vader kept his mission of following Sol to himself. But if Sol coincidentally fell into the Emperor's lap, then the Sith Lord wouldn't object to Sol's capture at Darth Vader's hand.
Nevertheless, Vader wondered what would bring Sol back to the core of the galaxy after years of hiding. But she was away from the Resistance, and unlike last time, he would be ready to face her.
He wasn't going to crumble in front of her again. He was going to show that he wasn't the Skywalker she knew, and that he was more powerful that she would have ever imagined. After all, it had been his original goal to become so unbelievably powerful that nothing would be able to take Sol away from him; not even death's grip.
'Send a squadron to the ship's location,' Darth Vader stopped his and Thrawn's walk and turned to face the blue Chiss. 'Once I am aware of the conditions, I will then decide whether I shall descend to the planet myself.'
'Very good, sir. This must be a high-profile fugitive of the Empire to demand your personal action. Should I warn the squadron of a potential struggle?'
'We are dealing with Jedi, Grand Admiral. I suggest the upmost caution, but under no circumstances are your troops to harm this Jedi.'
Admiral Thrawn's eyebrows rose at Vader's orders. At the sight of a Jedi, it was a directive for storm troopers to shoot-to-kill. They were a disease and the Emperor wanted a galaxy where the Jedi were an extinct race. The few that lingered were to be hunted and killed on sight. To hear from Darth Vader himself that the Jedi they were tracking was not to be harmed was strange and a one-time condition.
'Understood, my Lord. The Jedi will not be harmed.'
---
Sol was greeted with a hallway. Once she slipped through the metal door that remained ajar, she took cautious steps towards the end of the unlit walls. The blade of her lightsaber would act as an efficient torch, but Sol was wary of revealing her weapon so easily on Coruscant's lower levels. Jedi were outlawed and if she were to continue to walk the streets unseen, Sol would have to let her poncho hide the silver cannister attached to her utility belt.
She had no choice but to walk through the dark towards the faint light at the end of the hallway. It appeared to be a doorway that emitted lights of red and warm yellow. Nothing in the Force alerted Sol of a signature that was of any danger, but her own nerves and unease made it so that Sol wasn't quick to rush towards the light. The darkness was unsettling, but at least Sol felt like she could remain in it and not be in any danger. But someone had been watching her in the alleyway, and it was in the place that Sol had once called her home. Whoever resided in the red and yellow light at the end of the hallway could be of some help towards Sol's greater goal.
A beaded curtain hung in front of her. Her gloved hand reached out to part the strands and a jingle sounded from the collisions of beads. Sol let her shoulder slip through, and she surveyed the singular, cramped room.
It was small with no windows to allow for the limited amount of natural light the lower levels received from above. The red and yellow lighting came from some lava lamps that sat in a cluster in the corner. Incents of lavender and musk wafted and added to the stuffy air that was near suffocating. Round tables were covered in corked bottles and small wooden chests. Symbols were carved into the tops of pots and candles burned with wax dripping onto tabletops. From the beaded curtains to the exotic rugs covering the metal-paneled floors, Sol felt as if she had just walked into a fortune-teller's hut.
'You have grown into a beautiful woman, my dear.'
Sol was made aware of the figure in the corner. Behind a table filled with gemstones in piles and what appeared to be a paper match-up dial, was a species of orange skin and small eyes. Its eye sockets were large compared to the eyes in their centre, and beads hung around its wrinkled neck. No hair grew from its skin, and after years in the shade of the city's high buildings, a sheer and dehydrated layer coated the species' appearance. With three fingers on each hand, the humanoid stared at Sol in the doorway with a close-lipped smile on its face.
'Just as the ghost said you would, you have returned after all these years,' the croaky voice came again.
'You know me?'
'I have known you for a while. I watched you from when you were as young as you could possibly remember.'
After the jingle of the bead curtain ceased, Sol stopped in front of the table that separated her and the small humanoid. Her brow sat over her eyes in confusion and bewilderment. While the orange-skinned species peered up at her through puffy eyelids, Sol searched her brain for any remembrance of this person who claimed to know her.
'Your eyes were different then. But I suppose I haven't seen you since the Jedi took you-'
'You said about a ghost. Are you talking about Satele? Satele Shan?'
'Indeed,' it lowered its head with its voice smooth in its reply. 'She came to me to tell me that you were coming. She tells me your destiny is approaching.'
Sol lowered herself onto a stool in front of the table. Her eyes never left the species before her and her yearn to ask a thousand questions was building in her throat. This was the only person that Sol had met that knew of her before she joined the Jedi Order. Not only that, but this person seemed to somehow be in contact with Satele. If Sol didn't know any better and hadn't grown up in the ways of the Jedi, she wouldn't have assumed that the Force had guided Sol back to Coruscant.
Her sudden desire to find how she came to be an orphan on the lower levels was partially brought on by Revan's return, but also by the need to leave the Resistance to their own devices. She couldn't go back to Tatooine with Luke and Leia still in hiding, and Sol had nowhere else to go but back to the planet she knew. But now that Sol looked at the orange species that had somehow spoken to Satele's Force ghost, she thought that there had to have been other aspects at play. And what else could shape events and the future to fulfil the greater destiny? The Force had to be shaping Sol's environments and happenings to lead her to important places and meet important people, and Satele was working to ensure that Sol was meeting the requirements for her destiny.
'Are you attuned to the ways of the Force? Is that how Satele came to you?' Sol decided to ask.
'I am no Jedi, but I know what runs through every living thing in the galaxy.'
Sol took the response as an affirmative to her question. Force sensitivity was a rarity, and this species was unknown to Sol. But that was irrelevant, as there was a purpose for her return to the low levels of Coruscant's city.
'Do you know how I ended up here?' Sol asked slowly. 'Do you know who left me in that alleyway?'
'I do, and the ghost instructed me to show you.'
---
A man in lower class robes walked through the streets of stalls. In his arms, in a bundle of blankets, was a small child. He continuously looked over his shoulder for any followers that slinked through the crowds, but he had been able to evade them for now.
With dark hair and purple eyes, Jace Shan tried to rid his mind of what he had returned home to. The bullet hole in the glass of their living room window and the blood that splattered their walls were evidence of the crime scene. And for the sake of their child, Jace had to gather up the little girl that was asleep in the next room and rush out the door before he could properly grieve the death of his wife.
He didn't have the time to waste, but her glazed eyes and the pooling blood underneath his wife's head wouldn't leave Jace's thoughts anytime soon. She didn't deserve to die, but the bounty hunter that Jace had noticed was on their tail was ruthless and morally absent. His wife was a means to emotionally hinder him, and if his daughter was discovered, then she would be the next victim.
Jace turned down an alleyway in-between a spice stall and a gambling house. A nook sat to his right that shielded its corner from the street, and Jace was beginning to sense the incoming danger that knew what he looked like. The bounty hunter was nearing, and Jace had to separate himself from his daughter if he wanted the lead to end with him.
In a crouch, Jace placed the child down on the cold floor. The shade of the surrounding buildings made the alleyway and nook chilled, but the blankets around Jace's daughter would suffice for the time being. Coruscant's winters never reached unbearable temperatures, so the elements weren't too much of a worry for Jace. But to leave his own flesh and blood alone after the murder of her mother, was enough shame to permanently destroy him.
'You'll be alright, Sol,' Jace mumbled. His daughter stirred in her sleep, but when he placed his hand on the soft, brown hair of her mother's, Jace knew that Sol would never know who abandoned her.
Jace used the Force to search Sol's memories of all involvement of her parents. All the times they spent together were found and wiped, and even Sol's family name that went back to the generations of Jedi was lost. Sol would not know where she came from, and if she was sensitive to the Force as her father was, then she would have to discover her abilities on her own.
'No child should have to live on these streets.'
Jace turned from his daughter and saw a door sat afar on the alley's brick wall. Short in figure, a person stood watching the man prepare to abandon his child. Jace was ashamed and wanted to defend himself, but he was running out of time. The Force signature that was heading his way was growing in ferocity, and Sol's memories were wiped. It was time for him to go, but the appearance of the orange species had given him an idea.
'Will you watch over her? Just until she's old enough?' he pleaded as he stood to his full height. His purple eyes quivered with unshed tears and his failure to protect his family hung over him like a bad stench. Jace's heart ached at leaving his only daughter in the dingy alleys of the city's lower levels, but the bounty on his head was unshakeable.
The species said nothing. Jace looked to the street behind him and swallowed painfully. He stepped out of the alleyway and didn't look back into the nook where Sol slept. The Force flared with the bounty hunter's presence and Jace headed into the crowd, his intentions to draw his killer towards him and not his daughter.
The orange humanoid eyed the sleeping girl in the nook and heard screams from nearby streets. Crowds gasped and blasterfire was silenced as the bounty was fulfilled. The door closed with a soft thud, and Sol began her own journey towards her personal destiny.
---
The green and grey starfighter was being analysed by a squadron of storm troopers. The tracker was pulled from underneath its left wing and slipped into a pouch on the sergeant's belt. The starfighter would be impounded and taken back to Grand Admiral Thrawn's star destroyer. It could be used to infiltrate the rebellion's records and work towards eliminating the threat altogether. But the task at hand was finding the ship's pilot that was said to be of high importance.
'I-I don't know where she went!' the Duro child cried. A blaster was held to his forehead and its wide red eyes were filled with fear at being interrogated by Imperial storm troopers. When he accepted the credits from the woman, the child never thought that soldiers of the Empire would turn up looking for her.
'What did she look like?' the squad leader demanded.
'U-Ugh, she had brown hair, and was humanoid, a-and wore a poncho-'
'The eyes, boy, what eyes did she have?!'
'E-Eyes? I don't know! They were just... human brown eyes!'
The squad leader looked at his sergeant. They were specifically told the features of the Jedi by Darth Vader, and they thought they would be looking for a pair of bright, purple eyes. It would have made the search easier, but it seemed that the Jedi was aware of her bounty. But regardless of the complexity of their search, they had her ship, and if she was thinking of departing the planet, then she would be returning soon.
'Admiral?' the squad leader spoke into the commlink installed in his arm plate. 'We've found the Jedi's ship on one of the lower levels. We will wait for her to return.'
'Lord Vader has informed the Emperor of the Jedi's location on the planet and wishes for her to be brought to him first. He will then bring the Jedi back to the destroyer. Be careful, PY-852, this Jedi is dangerous but also precious to Lord Vader and the Emperor. Stun guns and other weapons of the same nature are the only means of capture to be used.'
'Understood, sir. Over and out.'
---
Sol walked back through the streets with her steps slow and her mind absent. She left the small room of incense and dimmed lighting in a state of disbelief and slight satisfaction.
After the unknown species showed her the scenes of Jace Shan and her own abandonment on the streets she now walked, Sol got up from the stool with wide eyes and a hanging jaw. The person, who she personally called 'the teller', said,
'This is what the ghost told me to show you. I only ensured that you were sustained until your abilities began to show. Then, you could begin to live on your own. I could not and will not interfere with your growth or destiny any more than this. What I have shown you, should help you in your journey.'
Sol found that what the teller had shown her was helpful. When Anakin was brought to the Jedi Order when he was a child, Master Qui-Gon Jinn claimed that he was born from the midi-chlorians of the Force. He was made from the sheer power that gave Jedi their above-average instincts and abilities. Without a father, Anakin was placed upon his mother in the form of a miracle. Before Sol was found, Anakin was believed to be the Chosen One, as it seemed that the Force willed his existence by its own hand.
But then Sol was brought to the Order. Master Yoda sensed her white Force signature and was faced with another child that could be the Chosen One. She had no parents to confirm her origin and no one knew if she too was born from the powers of the Force. But her signature and presence was so pure and light that it baffled the Jedi Council. How could she not be the Chosen One? She was powerful, but then again, not as powerful as Anakin Skywalker.
For years, the Order speculated between the two younglings that became Jedi Knights. They sensed a darkness in Anakin despite his abilities, and feared what would happen if they entrusted the destiny of bringing balance to the Force upon him. But now, Sol knew one thing that if the Jedi Council had found out in their existence, they may have had their answer.
Sol was not a Force child. She had the purple eyes of her father. The Force did not place Sol inside her mother. She was directly related to her father, Jace Shan, who was the descendant of the great Satele Shan. The way Sol looked at it, if she was not a Force child like Anakin was, then she was not the Chosen One.
Before Sol could ponder on what this now meant, she was alerted to an ache in the Force. Her lensed eyes rose from the street she mindlessly walked, and she realised that she had made it back to where she had parked her starfighter. People still walked and loitered around stalls, but they were steering clear of the space where she had left the Duro child on guard duty of her transport.
Storm troopers surrounded her ship and the Duro child was nowhere to be found. Sol stood frozen in her place and people walked around her with glares at her thoughtless halt in the crowd. She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts about what she had learnt about herself, that Sol hadn't spotted the cluster of white armour that waited for her return. And unluckily for her, Sol had paused in the view of the squadron, and her rigid figure stood out among the moving crowds of the street.