Sacrifice

Oh, give me strength, she's rambling again. "Who did?"

"Leia Solo. She took our lekku, and so we can't communicate fully with others. She caused the destruction of our nest, too. And she took what attracted others to us, our beauty." Alema had been thinking, then: she'd chewed over Lumiya's challenge and worked out what really drove her. "We're lonely, and we can never touch the world properly again."

Lumiya had been trained never to drop her guard, and pity wasn't something she was accustomed to feeling. She didn't quite feel pity for Alema, but she did get a sudden and painful glimpse of her loss, and it must have been a particularly agonizing one for a Twi'lek; without both lekku intact, she would have difficulty communicating with others of her kind, feeling pleasure—even loving someone. The head-tails were part of her nervous system. And how much more in need of intimacy was she now, after becoming part of a close-knit Killik nest?

Alema did have her reasons for wanting retribution, then. Lumiya was careful not to let that brief flood of pity start her thinking about what normality she, too, had lost.

"I'm sorry," Lumiya said, and meant it. "Now use that to remain focused, and to bide your time."

Alema looked at the courier shuttle and seemed to be somewhere else entirely. Then she gazed down at the deck of the hangar and began swaying a little as if listening to music. She raised one arm—the other hung limp, paralyzed by Luke Skywalker's lightsaber—and seemed to be going through the motions of a dance, turning slowly and with difficulty on her crippled foot.

For a moment Lumiya thought it was one of her affectations. Then she realized that it was quite genuine: Alema was remembering her past, and what she could no longer do.

"We were a dancer," she said wistfully, but she was talking to herself. "We