Fear No Darkness by Independence1776

Chapter 1

I20, Darkness Darkness, separation

The instant everyone heard the front gate shut behind Darth Vader, Mother said, “We need to leave.”

Maglor remained in the shadows of the corridor leading from the front hall, though he saw three of his brothers staring down from the balcony, shifting their feet. Amrod and Amras were still behind him. Celegorm moved from the sitting room to lean against its door post to the entry hall, directly opposite Maglor.

Father laughed, gentler than he had laughed in Vader’s face when Vader had invited him to work for the Emperor. “We are safe here. Vader wants me for my mind; he wouldn’t dare to kill me.”

Mother slammed her hand down on the wooden table, the sudden crack making Maglor flinch. “The only reason we weren’t killed in the Purge is that the Jedi never listed us as part of their Order, no matter that you and I and all of our sons spent half a dozen or more years each in the Temple as young adults.”

“They considered us to be a splinter group like the Corellian--”

“The Corellian Jedi are dead, just like the rest of the Order. We would not still be alive if we were on the Temple’s roster as Jedi. We were and remain an ‘alternate Force tradition.’” She shivered. “Do you truly believe that a Dark Lord of the Sith will take as answer you laughing at his offer? He came here in his shuttle. Where is his Star Destroyer? Where are the support ships for his flagship? They are coming, Fëanáro, mark my words.”

“Should I have said yes to a Sith?”

“Never. To have any of the Force artifacts you make, the Silmarils included, end up in his hands is unthinkable. But politeness goes far, Fëanáro. It may have given us a few more hours. Unless you have plans to escape you did not inform me of, he will take you with him. You will not have a second chance to refuse.”

“Hours?” Maedhros said from the balcony.

Mother glanced around at her family. “The Imperial fleet is undoubtedly on its way here. I am leaving. Too many will die trying to fight them off and we cannot afford to be caught. Your father is correct: he is safe. The rest of us are not.”

“We have to stand against the Sith,” Celegorm said, absently reaching down to rest a hand on Huan’s head when the dog nudged him. “We are Jedi, whether the Order thought of us as such or not. I will stay here with Father.”

Mother met each of her sons’ eyes and Maglor looked away rather than openly confirm his plans to her. Arda was his home; he could not flee to uncertain safety rather than defend it.

She sighed. “I will take what I can with me. You have twenty minutes to change your minds.”

After embracing everyone in turn and exchanging a last, passionate kiss with Father, Mother walked out the front door twenty minutes later, the go-bag she’d packed after Palpatine declared himself the Emperor and the Jedi traitors-- the go-bag everyone had packed-- over her shoulder, her rarely worn lightsaber hanging from her belt. Through a window, Maglor watched her go down the street until she reached the corner and entered the speeder cab she’d hailed to take her to Tirion’s tiny airport to catch a short-range flight to Alqualondë's spaceport.

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Maglor ran a hand over the freshly painted hull of his cargo ship. He’d bought it shortly after enrolling in the three-month program to become a cargo pilot. Some of his fellow trainees thought he was nuts for buying a ship before he earned the license to fly it, but he knew what he wanted and the used shipyard with the merchant he trusted had exactly the model he desired.

It was a lesser-known maker, not Corellian-- which was a downside for many-- but Maglor preferred the smoother lines. Those three months had also allowed him to do a partial refurbishment of the living area, as well as a new exterior paint job. The hull was now white, with a line of stylized flames running from nose to stern. Each flame was the color of one his family’s lightsabers, a private memorial to a family he was-- according to the ID he traveled under-- not even legally related to. Not that it mattered anyway; even the Empire thought the House of Fëanor was eliminated.

He shook his head to clear the memory of how he’d escaped out of his head and looked at the Shistavanen shipyard owner. “You and your people have done a remarkable job. Thank you.”

“It’s a great ship, your Calanár. Just be careful, that right engine will need to be replaced within a couple of years.”

Maglor shrugged. Two years was two years. The engine was sound for now. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

She tapped her claws on her thighs. “Nah, she’s ready to be hopped over to the spaceport. I wish you luck, Malda. I tossed a bottle of wine into the refrigeration unit for you.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

She smiled, her fangs showing. “You spent a lot of money here. Least I could do.”

Maglor grinned. “I’ll bring the Calanár back if I need repairs.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Now get out of here.”

Maglor laughed and headed up the ramp to the cargo hold. The Shistavanen woman walked a safe distance away as Maglor hit the button to close the ramp. He looked around the bare cargo hold, climbed the ladder to the walkway/balcony overlooking the hold, and into the living space. He ignored the cabin and lounge areas to enter the cockpit. Two chairs-- he could easily fly this ship alone, but a copilot was possible if he changed his mind-- stood in front of the console. He waved at the shipyard master and turned on the engines.

Once he received clearance from Spaceport Control, he took the minute hop to an open port at the spaceport and set the Calanár down. It handled beautifully in atmosphere and he couldn’t wait for a longer run in space-- longer than the test drive had been. That had been a few orbits and a hyperspace hop to the edge of the system and back. A proper cargo run would be the perfect thing to break in the ship with. But to do that, he needed a cargo.

Maglor shut off the ship and left the same way he entered. It wasn’t worth paying the extra fee for a staircase just so he could use the airlock in the lounge area. Not that it was much of a lounge: it held a table large enough for six, a full-size galley so he wouldn’t have to eat easy-to-prepare ship food all the time, and a flatscreen to display the collection of two-dimensional landscape photographs he’d found so he wouldn’t have to stare at bare walls all the time.

Once the ramp locked behind him, Maglor hopped on the spaceport runner shuttle to get to the administrative district that held the freelance collective he’d registered with. It operated solely in the Mid Rim: close enough to the Outer Rim it could still be risky but well within Imperial space. The latter was a downside for him, but as long as he avoided attracting attention-- and he should; he’d signed up with a well-known collective-- he’d be safe. There was no sign anywhere that he was a Jedi; his false ID had existed five decades before the Empire rose, as a way to conduct an undercover investigation for Grandfather Finwë. It was one of the reasons he was able to hide so well: apart from being in actual fact false, it was a legitimate ID with the records to prove it.

Maglor signed in at one of the office’s computer terminals and switched his availability from “Pending” to “Available.” Now all he had to do was scroll the job boards or wait for someone to contact him. Two hours later, he had a job to deliver cargo to Bothawui with pickup in the morning, so with nothing better to do, he returned to the boarding house he’d used as his permanent address the entire time he’d been with the starliner company. The old Human woman running the place greeted him enthusiastically. “I made your favorites for supper. Your last meal here, isn’t it?”

Maglor bent and kissed her on the cheek. He would miss her. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Yes, I should have,” she said, one hand on her hip. “You’ve lived here for three years and now you’re off on your own. It’s a good thing I know you know how to cook, else I would have been forced to give you cooking lessons so you don’t subsist on those rations like half the spacers I know.”

Maglor laughed. “I need to pack. But I should have known you were right about my having a job.”

The Force hadn’t told him anything one way or the other. But the landlady knew the planet and especially this city far better than he did.

He escaped up the stairs to his room on the third floor. It overlooked the back garden and, in the distance, the mountains to the north. It was small-- as befitted someone who would only spend four nights there out of every twenty-- but the mattress was comfortable; there was an overstuffed chair to lounge in; and a wardrobe large enough to hold all of his clothes. He did have to share the refresher unit with the other five people who shared this floor, but they all had varying schedules that rarely conflicted.

It didn’t take long for him to pack: one large suitcase and a smaller bag that he could carry over his shoulder. He rubbed the leather straps and sighed. They’d all packed go-bags after Order 66; his bloodstained bag had been deliberately left in the Sea near the Havens for the stormtroopers to find. They’d bought it; he’d seen the announcement of his death not a day later in the HoloNet News, alongside the reports praising Darth Vader and the 501st for freeing the Arda system from the grip of chaos and rebellion and bringing it fully into the Galactic Empire.

He shoved the sudden fury and grief into the Force and went downstairs to eat.