Chapter 1 - Impossibly Possible

“ASH? ASH!!” Xiang was screaming in her ears and holding her by the shoulders. “Ash, what’s going on?” Then she could tell that it hit him too. A look of realization fell upon his face and he started to shake his head.
Ash just realized that what he was doing and came back to reality. But this was reality. Her sister was dead. She had felt it.
“Echo…” Ash started to say, but couldn’t finish her sentence. She started to choke on her own tears. “Echo is…is…”
It seemed like she was incapable of saying the word.
“Ash, look at me,” Xiang said, pulling her face around to look at him. “There is no way that Echo is…”
“SHE”S DEAD!!” Ash yelled. “I felt it!! She’s gone!!”
The tears were pouring down her face and know even Xiang was starting to get teary. He had been trying to hold it in. Ash could sense that he didn’t really believe it either.
“You don’t know for sure,” he said.
“I’m her sister!! I can’t feel her! What do you think happened? There was intense pain and then it all abruptly stopped! I know you felt it too!”
“Maybe she was just knocked out,” Xiang said, trying to make an excuse.
“No. I’ve never felt this before. Echo’s gone. You know better than to think that. We both felt it,” Ash said.
This can’t be happening…there’s no way. How is this even possible? Echo couldn’t have died. But I felt it…I can’t feel her. The pain and the misery…she’s dead. I wasn’t fast enough. I’m responsible…
Ash stood up and yelled as loud as she could. It was an unorthodox method, but it was the only way she could let her feelings out. She clenched her hands over and over, hoping to feel something from her sister…anything.
Nothing.
“This can’t be happening!!” Ash yelled. She was so angry she took her first and punched it through the wall of the ship. She gasped as it went through.
“Looks like you don’t know your own strength,” Xiang said, trying to get her to laugh, but it didn’t help when he wasn’t even smiling either.
“Don’t push it,” Ash said sternly back. She easily drew her hand back out of the ships wall. Unfortunately, it was all bloody. The wires she had punched through went through her skin. Xiang stood up next to her and grabbed her gently by the shoulders. Surprisingly she didn’t feel a thing.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go get that cleaned up.”
Ash let him lead her into the ships Med Bay where Echo had stocked up on almost anything you would need in case of an emergency.
Echo.
No, I can’t keep thinking about her…but how could I stop? That would tear me up more inside. My sister just died and I don’t care? NO!! But I hate thinking about her being…dead.
HOW IN BLAZES IS THIS HAPPENING???!!!
“Calm down Ash,” Xiang said. “Remember, I’m quite good at sensing thoughts, and right now you’re giving me a headache. I know how you’re feeling; trust me I know how I’m feeling. Never in a million lifetimes would I want Echo to be…out of my life,” he said getting teary eyed. “…but she’s gone, and if we don’t focus than Kiro might be gone too.”
Ash stopped in her tracts and looked at him. What he said had come from his heart. She could tell by the look in his eyes that it had really hit him as hard as it had hit her. He was just better at controlling his emotions. He knew Echo was gone, but like a good Jedi, he wasn’t letting his emotions take over.
“Your right,” she said. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly. He did the same.
“It’ll be alright Ash,” he said. “Just clear your mind…relax. You know as well as me that Echo used that trick before. She could’ve used it again.”
“You don’t understand. That time she had forced herself to do that. This time…someone forced her.”
“If there was any possible way that Echo survived…you know she would find it,” Xiang said. “Now come on. Sit up on the medical table so I can wrap your hand up.”
Ash jumped up on the table and raised her hand up. Xiang gently took it and took out the wires that got stuck in her hand. She didn’t feel any pain. Her mind was in a totally different place right now. She felt like a part of her that had always been there had just disappeared into thin air. She didn’t like it at all. This could very well be the most loneliest day of her life.
Xiang slowly wrapped her hand up, applying bacta salve when needed.
“There…all done. Now why don’t you come up to the cockpit with me? We’re almost to Oblis.”
“No…no thanks,” she said. “I think I just need a few minutes alone.”
Xiang nodded and headed out to the cockpit. He was being the grown-up in the situation. Ash was left alone again. Without her sister there seemed to be a huge empty pit forming in her stomach where her sister should have been.
She unclipped her lightsabers off her belt and hovered them in from of her, using the Force to switch them on. The bright purple, almost pink blades hovered in front of her eyes making the room seeming to glow purple. Looking into her blades always seemed to give her peace for some reason, and there was something about the purple that made her even more relaxed. But no matter how hard she tried she could not get the thought of Echo lying on the ground somewhere…dead…out of her head. It stuck in her mind like a gungan likes to hang around people. They never leave and they never stop annoying you.
She couldn’t get off the subject, no matter how hard she tried not too. She tried to tell herself that she had to keep a clear mind so she could at least have a chance of saving Kiro. She could still tell he was alive. Their bond wasn’t as strong, but she would have felt it if he died.
But no matter what u-turns she took she always came back to her sister.. Now she knew why the council warns them not to form attachments. There was no way Ash would be able to act wisely right now. She was relying on her emotions…which was not good.
She wanted to pull her hair out. She wished she had never gotten into this fight with her sister, and then she would have at least been able to tell her that she cared about her before she had left on her mission, and she would have never left Kiro.
Now she could very well loose 2 of the most important people in her life.
Suddenly, the ship rocked and Ash heard laser cannons firing.
“ASH!! I need you up here!!” Xiang yelled.
Ash grabbed the lightsabers out of the air, turned them off, clipped them to her belt, and ran to the cockpit. Xiang was working the controls like crazy. In the viewport Ash laser blast coming from the surface off the planet in front of them.
Oblis.
Someone didn’t want them here. But Ash didn’t care. They were landing on this planet, and making an entrance like a self-obsessed bloated Hutt.
“Ash, I need you on the laser cannons! NOW!! I need you to take out whatever is firing at us if you want us to land in 1 piece!”
“I’m on it!” Ash said and ran to the laser cannons. She jumped into the seat and put the headset on.
“Ash online,” she said, hoping Xiang would hear her. “Firing up cannons and blasting things to pieces!”
“Don’t get all technical on me! Just fire!” Xiang yelled back.
Ash took the controls and opened herself up to the Force, letting it guide her hands. She rarely glanced at the targeting system.
Her hands danced wildly across the board, firing lasers faster than she ever had before. There were multiple targets firing at her and one by one the burst into flames on the planets surface. They were finally starting to enter the planets atmosphere. They went through the dense layer of fog and clouds and when they exited it, lasers came pouring at them, too many for Xiang to dodge and too many for Ash to fire back at. The ship was hit and they were going down.

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