Barrel of a Gun

[Adia Issoris]

"Yes, your sister, who took after your grandfather." She shook her head. Miranda had ambition and a thirst for power as wide as her beauty. Rule by fear indeed.

"You probably have questions you want to ask." Adia smiled a little.

[Lianna Mal Pannis]

"I ..." Lianna did but her questions could have waited, yet the woman's smile encouraged her to finally speak up. "Yes, I do."

Her face turned pensive, wondering where to begin. Instead of dwelling on it for too long, Lianna just let the words flow off her tongue, "I presume you mean Miranda?"

The woman nodded that she was correct, "I know nothing of her or this family you speak of. I was brought to my Master, still an infant. He raised me."

[Adia Issoris]

"Your twin Miranda is like her grandfather, the late Grand Moff Tarkin. She's sharp, focused, and willing to climb over her opposition or crush them if need be. I don't think she's as loyal to the concept of Empire as he was. Your Father was Captain on the Executor, a rising star in the Imperial Navy of his own credit. Your Mother was a good Navy wife. I knew your Father better than your mother, who I only met twice." Adia shrugged.

"Your mother Lise always seemed sad. Andron was one of the most competent officers in the fleet, and was looking at his own commision in a year."

[Lianna Mal Pannis]

"Tarkin?" Her face went deathly pale. "The one who destroyed Alderaan?"

No. She couldn't be part of such a cruel lineage as that. Lianna had inklings that her family was Imperial by the way Drin talked about how she came into his care, but at no time did she it ever cross her mind that her origins were that deeply rooted within the Empire.

She dropped her hand. Stunned into silence. The woman was speaking the truth. Why did her family give her away? Did they not love her? No. It was mentioned that her mother was sad. Probably because of loosing Lianna. Would she have been a burden? No again. Her father was powerful and wealthy. That shouldn't have mattered.

The truth was blatant as the lightsaber lying out in plain sight. If Lianna were Force Sensitive, Miranda would be as well. Having the two of them together would have caused the Emperor's wrath and brought Grand Moff Tarkin shame. One of them had to go.

"So they chose me..." Lianna's cool exterior was breaking. She never really thought about who her real family was and when she questioned Drin, he always steered her away from the troubling subject. In her heart, she didn't think the Trianii Jedi knew the truth but knew that path would only cause grief.

He was right. Lianna felt her lips beginning to tremble. She brought two fingers to press against her forehead, trying to calm herself and steady her mind.

[Adia Issoris]

"Would Miranda be you and you be Miranda?" Adia stood and shrugged. She crossed her arms and looked at the night sky through. The temperature had started to drop in earnest. She hadn't noticed the cold last night because she had been moving. Her breath was coming out in faint puffs.

"You were twins." Jedi twins, when they did happen, were unusually potent. Adia winced at that thought, gunning down the pair of young Arkanian Jedi.

[Lianna Mal Pannis]

"We are twins." Lianna corrected. "Dwelling on what if's are moot."

Calm had returned to her voice. She just needed a moment to stop her head from spinning with the truth of her past.

The woman had stood up and the young Jedi noticed her wisps of breath.

The woman. The Hunter.

"I do not know your name," she stated and began to collect twigs and dry leaves to build a fire.

[Adia Issoris]

"Adia Issoris, Hand of... former Hand of the Emperor." She said while she found a large downed branch. It looked too heavy for someone twice her size, but Adia hefted onto her shoulder it with a grunt.

"You know what's funny? I wasn't even supposed to be able to have children. Just like you're not supposed to be a Jedi."

[Lianna Mal Pannis]

Now things fell into place and made sense to Lianna. This was no mere Hunter that came after her; Adia was trained to be a Hand. She didn't think that she caused enough of a stir to warrant such actions, but the Force worked always with a purpose. Adia had information vital to Lianna's understanding, and Adia needed Lianna to open her eyes.

Just as the Force found a way to do the impossible.

"That's not true. Things happen because they are meant to be. Science cannot calculate all possibilities, no matter how some claim, and the Force chose my sister and I." Lianna knelt down and broke the branch that Adia offered with little effort. "Thank you."

With a few slow breaths and quick turning of a sturdy branch in her hand, the fire started. The warmth was welcomed.

Lianna brought her tattered cloak around her body tighter and sat in a comfortable cross-legged position on the ground. "It comes down to what we do with the knowledge we possess."

Her eyes narrowed while she frowned, "That is where I'm at an impasse."

[Adia Issoris]

Adia shrugged.

“We both are now.” She said with a somewhat uncertain look. She had a lot to think about. In less than a day, her entire view of the universe had been turned upside-down and spun. It would take time to sort what was true, what was false and what was in the shades of grey.

The pair sat in silence and watched the fire intently for a time, as if it held the secrets of the future. Adia fell asleep first, drifting off with her head resting against her hand.

Adia woke first, too. She seldom needed more than four hours of sleep, and this night had been no different. She woke up underneath the moon and the stars, while Lianna still slept. She had things she wanted to do now, and many more to think about. Adia looked over at Lianna, who slept close to the small fire. She looked at peace, but concerned. Adia was on her feet, making sure she had all of her things in order, like her microfilter, extra blaster packs, contact stunner, blaster.

The handle was familiar and comforted her. She felt her fingers play across the safety and flicked it off. She noticed how smooth and easy it operated, and, now that she removed it from the holster, how sturdy and balanced it was.

Kill her! Aida froze. She had a perfect picture of Lianna’s temple through the sights. She took a deep breath and put the safety back on before holstering the weapon. She silently walked to the brush where the other blaster was and returned it to the hip holster.

Without a word, Adia started back to her speeder.

[Lianna Mal Pannis]

A brief flash of danger had caused Lianna to stir mentally, but she made no attempt to move. It was Adia and the Jedi knew that the former Hand of the Emperor would do nothing to hurt her.

Once the faint movement of bush went silent, Lianna opened her eyes and moved to her feet. Her eyes looked away from the direction Adia had went, narrowing her focus into the darkened woods that were barely illuminated by moon and starlight.

A moment's later, the lightsaber that Adia had discarded flew into her hand and Lianna went off quickly after her. The older woman wasn't too far ahead and it was easy for the Jedi to catch up.

"Adia?" She called out when the silhouetted figure took a more solid shape and continued to close the distance. Lianna could tell that Adia was not too happy that she had followed her, hoping to have left her quietly enough to escape without notice.

Lianna extended the hilt of the lightsaber for Adia to take, "You had forgotten this."

She was ignorant of how Adia had acquired the weapon, thinking that her own hands constructed it. Trained as a warrior to survive, Lianna still had an innocence about her to think better of people.

[Adia Issoris]

Adia looked down at the saber sadly. After all, it wasn’t hers, really. She looked up at Lianna and tried to smile.

“Thank you.” She said softly, and took back the saber. Adia looked at it for a moment. Perhaps I should carry it as a reminder, she thought, and clipped it back into the jacket. She glanced up at Lianna and tried to smile, but only looked a little worried. Goodbyes were something she had very little practice with. Most of the time she parted with a blaster bolt instead of a word, or was told to leave.

“I’m going to try and put some things in order and make it harder for you to be found. Goodbye.”

[Lianna Mal Pannis]

"Goodbye?" Lianna shook her head, "No. I want to go with you."

During the night, she thought about the pros and cons of staying with Adia. On one hand, she had given the Jedi a gift. The knowledge of her family. She was no longer an orphaned child. The truth was painful and Lianna felt that in order to accept that pain, she needed to confront her still living relatives, Miranda and Lise. But then on the other hand, that meant going to the Core Worlds, which meant that sooner or later, the existence of the lost Tarkin twin would become public knowledge. It was an inevitable fact that one day Lianna's presence would become known. Drin had to have foreseen this. The only true problem was that she was a Jedi. That had dire consequences then what her true name was.

"I also want to help you find your son." Her offer was genuine. Lianna waited twenty years to find out where she came from. Another several months were trivial by comparison.

[Adia Issoris]

“Go with me?” Adia looked a Lianna. She worked alone, or with tried and true military/intelligence personnel. Her training screamed liability when she looked at the young Jedi. She didn’t know any of the standard ops hand signals, nor procedures that Adia could write a manual on if asked. And yet she had survived so far. Yes, largely by keeping away from the core worlds and out of sight, but there was some sense behind the naivety. Adia could clean up behind them and teach her.

“I don’t know where to start looking for my son.” Adia shrugged it off. There wasn’t too much she could do about it.

“But I can help you see your mother.”

[Lianna Mal Pannis]

"It will come to you eventually, Adia." She smiled confidently, "And I'll be there to do whatever I can to repay you for helping me."

She was going to see her mother. Her real mother. When her Master left, the Mal Pannis' took her in as their foster child. The name held no meaning for her except to blend into Imperial Society that required a surname.

There were so many questions to ask Lise. They seemed never ending and they were distracting. She sensed that their distraction would cause further problems the closer they got the Core worlds.

But that's why Adia was here. To guide her.

"What must I do?" She asked quizzically. Blending into a world rich with technology and beings was foreign to the Jedi. A touch of fear crept into her heart just from the thought.