Dorn: A Star Wars Story

27. Godfather

One of the perks of our little fleet of Special Forces vessels was that Sevens, Thesh, and I were given total authority to go wherever and whenever it was necessary. Jumping straight to Yavin  while Venn's people recovered was easy enough.

"Swing all of our destroyers around to the far side of the planet!" I managed to get on the command deck of the Apalis and saw Thesh pacing back and forth as his crew began maneuvering the great grey beast of a destroyer around the planet so that if Venn did somehow figure out where we were, we'd hoepfully have the element of surprise. 

"Status?" I strode up beside him, still clad in my armor and helmet, and I caught a few members of his bridge crew pause and look up at me as I did.

"Shields took a few hits, but you and the rest of Maelstrom kept them off of us for the most part," Thesh sighed and stopped pacing as he turned to me, cybernetics blinking as the pieces likely reacted to his adrenaline. He paused and frowned at me, "What's wrong? You're fidgeting." He gestured to my flexing, jittery hands before I reached out and seized him by the arm, dragging him off the bridge and into one of the small meeting rooms nearby.

I yanked my helmet off and slammed it down onto the table, my eyes meeting his.

"By the stars, Dorn. You look like you've seen a ghost..." Thesh reached out and placed a firm hand on my shoulder.

"Apalis," I leaned forward on the table. I could feel my hands shaking as I tried to steady myself. I dropped my voice, "Apalis is Shenna, Thesh."

I looked back at Thesh, who was now staring at me like I had grown a nerf out of my head. "I..." He stammered for a moment before I could see him seemingly close off part of his brain, "No. No, that has to be a mistake."

"I saw her, Thesh," I stood up with a shake of my head. "It's her. I know it's her. I kriffing raised her."

Thesh stepped back from me looking lost. His eyes were wide and I saw him shaking his head as he began to look around the room. I could practically see the gears in his head turning as he seemed to try and grasp the fact that one of the people out there that he was having to fight was his daughter. After a moment, I saw his cybernetic hand clench as he slammed it onto the table with an anguished shout that reeked of frustration. I couldn't blame him. That was about how I was feeling, too. "That karking-! He knows who she is!" He spun to me, face the picture of incandescent rage. "He knows!"

What better way to make an enemy lose their will to fight than to send their own children against them. Venn may not have realized that I was there, but I knew for a fact that he knew about Thesh.

"Dorn," Thesh's body began to relax, but I could still feel the tension there, "I won't fight my own daughter. I can't." He shook his head as he lowered hismelf into one of the chairs, his hand going to the dent in the metal of the table made by his cybernetic fist. "I have two people left in this whole world, and she is one of them."

"I know," I sat down beside him in another of the chairs. "No one can know about her for now. For her own safety as well as yours."

"Fair enough... I can only imagine the leverage people would think that has over me..." Thesh paused and gave a rueful chuckle, "What do I mean think? It has leverage over me."

"Do you think she knows? About you?"

"Doubtful. Venn is probably keeping that part close to his chest."

"Sounds about right." We both leaned back in our chairs and just sat there in silence for such a long time that I was convinced that neither of us were ever going to say another word about it at all. Shenna was my little sun. She was almost as much my daughter as she was Thesh's, and the fact that I had seen her in an X-Wing...