A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
Pushed back to their territories in the UNKNOWN REGIONS, the FIRST ORDER makes plans to strike again, launching propaganda campaigns on many of their host planets to bolster support. After visiting TERRAHI, a rainforest planet under KING SAORONYU's rule, GENERAL HUX returns with dire news: the King has fallen deathly ill.
His three daughters remain in hiding and, without a direct heir, the late king's nephew is poised to take the crown with promises to push the First Order off their planet.
"Dead?" The Supreme Leader looked annoyed. General Hux maintained eye contact.
"I'm afraid so, Supreme Leader," he replied. "The investigation team and the Aristophani police report are in agreement; Princess Alomina was murdered. We suspect Santall's supporters."
"And the others?"
"The youngest is still in Coruscant. She appears to have joined the rebellion. We have withdrawn the majority of our spies and placed them on a sweep to find the King's oldest daughter, but it's been three days and we have had no results. We need to try interrogating Saoronyu again."
"Have Alomina's body cremated. Perhaps the King will see reason once his dead daughter is in front of him," Snoke closed one his hands into a fist. "And no sign of the oldest," It wasn't a question, but a statement, a resigned clarification.
"Unfortunately, yes. We found something at the crime scene that is beneficial, though,"The Sith Lord regarded him with a pointed expression, which Hux took as a signal to continue. "The princess's body wasn't the only one," He activated a holographic image of the crime scene, where a young girl in her early twenties and man who was almost a decade older than her lay together. His hand held hers. "She had a protector. It seems Tempu sent his daughters into hiding with members of his secret guard."
"Wise," The being on the throne murmured thoughtfully. He was bigger than General Hux, comparable to a frail grizzly bear. Hux knew better than to be fooled by his appearance though. "But irking."
"It narrows our search range down to a demographic, at least, Supreme Leader," General Hux persuaded. "I already have a division of search parties looking for an older man travelling with a woman of her exact description. We should have no problem finding them under these pretenses."
"Don't underestimate the intelligence of those men, General," Snoke leaned forward, the light casting ominous shadows on his face. The height of the throne forced Hux to look up. He exhaled slowly. "They are trained to protect at any cost. The dead princess and her guard can attest to that," the towering figure readjusted his stance until it was more relaxed. "That being said," he continued, changing his tone to speculative. "They are dead. Meaning, they are starting to become vulnerable," he took a long breath. "How long until Kylo Ren can return to duty?"
"Yesterday the medics said three days. Today it is a week."
Snoke closed his eyes. "Fine," he whispered finally. "Find me an heir."
"At once, Supreme Leader." General Hux bowed and left the room. As he did, his fear wore off, the fear grounded in dogmatic respect, the kind that was demanded in the face of such omniscient power. He started toward the medical ward. It was here that the ship took its most horrific victims, the kind that demanded the First Order's most skilled surgeons and equipment. Missing limbs, facial reconstruction, organ transplants, it was all done here on the Finalizer.
'As well as keeping a Sith Lord in his sickbed long enough for stitches to serve their purpose.'
The scar on Kylo Ren's face was healing in an ugly sort of way, pink, angry, and deep in his cheek. His side had a habit of splitting open and bleeding everywhere, ruining sheets and pissing off doctor and patient alike. Each time Kylo tore the stitches by moving around, the longer they made him stay. Today they tried stapling it closed in an effort to combat the apprentice's rowdiness.
It was in his ruined, bloody bed, on the end of a row, next to a Stormtrooper recovering from paralysis, that Hux found his companion, thoroughly annoyed and now communication with the medical staff through glares. He was meditating, sitting cross-legged on the bed, and wore a white cotton shirt over his bandaged abdomen and matching pants, something that was rather jarring for a man who wore black religiously.
"The Supreme Leader asked about you today," Hux said as he approached. "He seemed rather discontent about your additional time. This case apparently needs your keen eye," Kylo opened his eyes and glowered, then tilted his head back to he looked at the ceiling. A medical protocol droid's head dangled from the broken light above him. Hux appraised it and gave an exasperated sigh. "I must say, I'm starting to agree. All you seem to do on this ship is break everything."
"I won't apologize," he retorted, still looking up at the detached head.
"I didn't say I wanted an apology," a nurse suddenly whisked past him with a cup of water and a triad of pills. She presented the pills to Kylo, who dry swallowed them without complaint. At a loss, she left the water cup on his bedside table and moved on. "What I do want is for you to stop wasting everyone's time. There are good soldiers who need that bed you're in."
Kylo Ren suddenly turned indignant and scowled at Hux. "Did you just come here to chastise me or is there something else?"
'Prick.' Hux thought.
"Santall murdered Saoronyu's middle daughter," he said through his teeth. The Sith Lord looked away, pondering for a moment.
"And the Supreme Leader wants me to find the other two,"
"One," Hux corrected. "The youngest has sworn fealty to the Rebel cause. She traded her titles for an X-Wing."
"And you haven't found the oldest one and need my help," Kylo made sure to look arrogant, strictly for the purpose of harassing the general.
"Not me," He looked resentful, sounded appalled that Kylo would even consider the possibility. "The Supreme Leader. Now get well soon, and I say that with the utmost sincerity. We have a war to win, in case you'd forgotten, and this princess is our key to doing it. Without her, we lose half the Unknown Regions. Santall's very existence jeopardizes our entire cause and you, Kylo Ren, are doing yourself no favors by sulking in the sick bay and ruining this ship's assets."
"Do you really think I want to be here right now?"
"If you don't, you have an odd way of showing it. With how often you disrupt the healing procedure, some might question whether you want to return to the field at all. I may be at liberty to report a case of stalled recovery."
"You can persuade me without issuing threats, General." Kylo replied, narrowing his eyes.
General Hux leaned forward, his expression venomous. "Stop tearing your stitching," he hissed, then turned to walk away. A timid lieutenant was waiting in his path and retreated a few paces to avoid getting knocked over.
"Something's happened, General Hux, sir," he saluted as he spoke.
"Something good I hope."
"I'm sorry sir," he swallowed and shifted his weight from one foot to another. "It's King Saoronyu's youngest, Princess Peme."
"Has she been killed?"
"No sir," the young officer cleared his throat "She's gone."
Savita woke up on her own and immediately felt odd, because she never did that. She looked down at the foot of her bed to where her guard had his bed, but it was empty, the sheets unkempt.
"West," She whispered, and slipped off the edge of the bed, crept to the doorway. No one in the common area. The window was wide open. Savita started to feel panic rise in her chest. "West?" She raise her voice to a normal tone and ran, stuck her head out, and looked over the side. No bodies on the street. She moved back inside, willing herself to stay calm. She checked his side of the closet, a minuscule section to hold a few changes of clothes and his knives, his poisons and antidotes. His shoes.
His shoes were still here. She backed away, turned, and lifted his pillow, where he kept a short, thick blade for emergencies. Gone. He'd taken his knife, but not his shoes.
'Something's happened,' she realized and darted to her closet, stepped into a pair of pants and shoes. As she was tugging them on, a hand hooked around her mouth and dragged her onto her back. She gasped. Alarms blared in her head.
She thrashed, clawed at the hand, and screamed despite her attacker's attempts to muffle her. He had his hand over her nose too. His other arm wrapped around her chest so she couldn't use her arms. Furiously, she kicked at the floor to alert the tenants downstairs, then remembered they went out early during the week for work. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. The man stood up when he realized what she was doing, suffocating her in in midair.
Black spots began to flicker like an old movie in her eyes.
'Concentrate,' she suddenly thought, and began to kick slower and slower. She closed her eyes and gradually went limp. The man dropped her on the floor.
"That's the most pathetic delineated unconsciousness I've ever seen." The man told her. She rolled over.
"West?"
"You just died, you realize that? You're dead. You've been assassinated."
"It's you," she sat up, out of breath.
"I try something new just once and suddenly everything you know flies out the window?"
"There was no one in here, you left your shoes," her eyes flicked down to his feet, which were, in fact, bare. "Your knife was gone."
"All things that would have happened if I had been drugged and taken, myself," Westerly, ex-captain of King Saoronyu's secret guard, took his knife out of his pocket and tossed it at her feet. She wordlessly picked up.
"How did you get in here?" West looked annoyed, his silvering eyebrows hunching over his eyes.
"You didn't close the window," He told her, yanking his gloves off. They glistened slightly on the palms with Savita's spit.
"I looked over the edge."
"You didn't look up."
"You-" she paused, thought for a moment. "You hung off of someone's window and followed me back inside to scare me?"
"To test you. You failed," He tossed his gloves in the closet, then moved to his bed and began to make it.
"You staged an assassination attempt."
"About time you started to use your head."
"Hey," she stood up and threw Westerly's knife so the hilt hit him in the ribs. "What's with your mood?" He leaned down and picked up the knife, closing the blade.
"I got a message last night from our informant. Alomina and Jhan are dead."
Savita blinked and dropped her arms. "Oh," she said.
"They didn't know much, but did know it was deliberate. The First Order ran and investigation on it last week. They think it was Santall's supporters."
"Has he denied it?"
"Savita, these aren't public accusations," he closed the closet doors. The princess remembered her boots and took them off, leaving them in the corner. "The best thing we can do is act like nothing's wrong. Keep to our activities."
"The King doesn't want us back?"
"If he did, he would have told the informant." She considered this, then nodded. "Don't act hurt."
"I'm not," But she said it too fast, to defensively. Westerly opened the curtains in the room. The clouds outside pressed in on the city and promised rain, typical for an Autumn in this region of Reddiqa. Savita considered them with a sudden pensiveness that West ignored until halfway through breakfast.
"Rumor has it the princess will return by the week's end," The king's inability to wire money to his heir undetected had forced both royalty and guard into employment. Their jobs as arms keepers was a seasonal position, but it paid handsomely and kept them well under the radar. Savita also knew the ins and outs of every weapon and piece of armor in the Terrahitian system, something West felt came in handy. Savita preferred her off season job. Fall through half of winter she and Westerly maintained the thousands of swords and axes, spears, shields, nets, and knives that poured in with their handlers, the rest of the year, West tended the coliseum's tavern and Savita helped keep the rooms for the trainees. Most of her money came from the various games the gladiators-to-be brought in. It was here she swapped stories and learned the easiest way to stitch a wound, how to pick a lock and cheat at cards. Where Westerly's honor code or lack of personal knowledge barred him from teaching the princess something, the roughnecks from all across her part of the galaxy were more than happy to take over. Escaping handcuffs? Marinius Velociphae knew a way out of almost any type. Pickpocketing the street traffic? Wyrmund of Raffin personally took her out and showed her how. And Amiicus Augustus, Princess Vindetta of Reddiqa's favored fighter, could tell her every constellation in the night sky. It was the perfect cover. More importantly, it kept them both happy.
And so it had been for the past four years.
The princess of Reddiqa had a pension for Fighting . Never inflicting it of course, but watching, and her return to the capital always brought thousands of gladiators into the coliseums, and twice as many exotic carnivores for added spice. Already the advertising banners had gone up. Seasoned fighters who had patronage from wealthy sponsors could be seen on the posters, posing with their weapons or locked in combat with looks of intense concentration on their faces. The rooms were starting to fill, and Savita was pushed out of the linen closets and dropped into a heap of blunts and blades. "Savita?" West reached forward and nudged her forehead with a knuckle. "You okay?"
"Of course," She blinked. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"I'm telling you, don't take it personally okay? Your father knows what he's doing."
"No, I know," She leaned back and considered her fork. "I just thought under these circumstances he might call us back."
"It's what the First Order would expect," The guard tried.
"But he's sick."
"He will send for you, Savita," Westerly nudged her plate toward her. "Eat so we can go. Work starts in a hour."
Savita obeyed. After, they dressed and made their way downstairs to the pits, where the beginnings of outright discord was dawning. Below the Floor, the gamekeepers had opened up the docking gates and were inspecting a plethora of dangerous beasts, all teeth or claws or brute strength. A few gladiators had snuck in to catch a peek at what they might combat, all clustered by the staff exit in case the head gamekeeper, Skrall, got cranky and threw them out. The girl was quick to recognize a familiar face.
"Mari!" She shouted, and the native turned at the sound of her name.
"Greetings, girl," Marinius's grin was sly and catlike, like all the native Reddiqans, and wiry, all angles and sharp edges. Her eyes were a molten gold that glimmered in the dark hangar, her skin a deep indigo and her teeth sharpened to points. Her hair was shaved close to her head, but suggested hints of magenta. Her voice was a vivacious whisper, misleading and enticing at the same time. She dangled a pair of heavy shackles out for the heir. "First Order standard grade," the gladiator purred. "You can have them if you can get out of them," and Savita held her wrists out eagerly.
"What were you doing with the First Order?" Westerly asked as she closed the cuffs on the princess.
"They wanted to know where I got this," she replied and drew a slim dagger off her hip. She angled it in the sunshine so it cast light into shadows, and tiny refractors near the hilt threw it in the shape of the Rebel insignia. "Pulled it off a body I found near the North Pole. Some covert operation the Alliance recently abandoned.
"That's dangerous," He said, glancing down at Savita. She was examining her gift.
"They thought I was an escort for one of Saoronyu's brats," she continued, sheathing the blade. "Apparently his littlest has gone missing from behind enemy lines."
"How'd you get out?"
"Some kind friends here in the ring vouched for me," the fighter wiped her hands, like she was cleaning herself of the affair. "Anyway, they seemed pretty hot about tracking the other two down since what happened on Aristophane."
"What happened on Aristophane?" Westerly played dumb and Savita glanced up with feigned interest.
"It's all over the news," Marinius tilted her head to the side. "I guess you haven't been outside the coliseum in a few days. Princess Alomina was killed five days ago."
"Murdered?" He clarified.
"You got it."
"Do they know why?"
"Everyone's got a different story. It's no secret the First Order thinks her cousin did it, but some are saying the Order killed her and framed him to sway public opinion on Terrahi back in their favor. The people are starting to divide. A riot is practically imminent."
Just then, an audible click distracted the gladiator as one of Savita's handcuffs opened, swinging free from the other wrist. Westerly was relieved, inwardly. She looked triumphant, a hairpin clenched in her teeth.
"Well done," Marinius grinned, pleased. "But come find me when you can do it in seven seconds with your hands."
"Alright, we've got work to do," West put a hand on Savita's shoulder. "We'll see you in the practice ring."
"Thank you for the handcuffs," Savita held her wrist up. "Of course, Savi. And West?" The old guard raised an eyebrow. "Check this in for me," she flicked the stolen dagger at him.
He caught it deftly by the handle and nodded. They pushed through the staff door and followed the earthy halls until they widened out into the practice hall, a wide room with crash mats and practice dummies. Along the wall adjacent to the door, the arms room had a line of gladiators in armor and carrying weapons.
"Start stripping down," West called as he entered, cutting in front of the first fighter in line. "You'll need to check all armor and weaponry you plan to use in the coliseum. Sneaking anything in will result in disqualification and possible jail time, so please bring anything, no matter how insignificant you think, in to be passed by myself and my comrade."
"So stoic," Savita teased as he held the door to the arms room open for her. Westerly responded by dropping Marinius's dagger into her hands.
"Check that in," he shut the door, snapped the light on, and pushed the metal covering on the room's window up. The line of fighters was in a chaotic jumble, undoing armor obediently. Some of the crowd had dispersed to fetch something they'd forgotten. Savita slipped under the curtain to the vaults and logged the dagger in Marinius's, lingering slightly to admire her other fine blades. Then she closed it, locked up, and went out to help West at the window, filling new vaults and existing ones, writing the names carefully into the database and placing each axe and spear in its rightful place. The armor they only noted in the personal files. Armor didn't bludgeon or decapitate people.
They finished by the middle of the afternoon and watched trainees duel on the Floor while they ate lunch, coaching and cheering from the stands as they hit each other with dull-edged swords. West let Savita take a turn out with Marinius and Wyrmund, who was a grizzled man and thick like a bull. He charged like one with a shield and an axe at the ready, but was also quite skilled with a bow. Finally, Westerly climbed into the ring and tossed his ward a spear.
It was smooth in her palms, the spearhead dull and the point rounded for minimal skin breakage. Savita had no doubt though, that in the right hands the spear could still kill someone. She took up her stance immediately, spinning it once over the back of her hand to show off.
"Take him down, Savi!" Wyrmund roared from the stands and she grinned as she kept eye contact with Westerly. She had yet to succeed in winning against her mentor. But she remembered what she'd been taught. She kept her center, angled the spear, and advanced, establishing contact with the other spear's shaft as West rushed to meet her. A satisfying crack echoed in the practice ring and made the pole shiver in her hands.
The duel was in motion. Westerly sped up his hits and Savita matched him with practiced ease, blocking and dealing with masterful accuracy. She swiped and missed as West knocked her pole up, and Savita redirected the momentum and hit his staff dead center. She slid it sideways as her strength immediately wavered to run over his hand but she missed as he moved it, flexing the other arm to maintain the position but changing so his hand came back down around the spear shaft as her pole skimmed by. Already the heir was moving on and dropped to her knees to swipe at his legs. He stepped smartly over it and came down with his foot on the pole. She dropped it immediately and lunged up under his spear for his neck, clasping his right shoulder and scrabbling messily over it. He caught her by the ankle and threw her to the ground.
Savita rolled on impact, dug her foot into the dusty ground, and pinballed past West, veering under his spear and picking her own out of the dirt. The ambience of the crowd next to them was white noise. She struck again, pressing hard on her opposition.
"Trying to make up for this morning?" West said under his breath. Savita reach out and kicked him in the calf to break his stance, but it wasn't hard enough. He chuckled a little and forced her back a few steps. She grit her teeth, blocked another hit from him and landed a few of her own, and finally hit his body with the spear. It made an audible smacking sound and he grunted in discomfort. Savita had planned out what would happen next. She would give, he would step forward to retaliate, and she would duck and catch him under the ribs with her spearhead.
So she stepped back. He advanced. She moved to meet him, slipped swiftly under his arm...and over the din and cheers, someone's voice was breathy in her ear.
"Savita," it hissed softly, but there was no one by her. The sound distracted her, jerked her away from the ring. She looked around, lowering her spear. Nothing. It sounded for a moment, like everything she heard came from underwater, muffled and indecipherable. And then Westerly's pole connected with her jaw, knocking her off her feet. Her hearing returned to crystal clarity. Immediately the pain circulated around her face, sharp and so prominent that she could smell it.
Coppery blood pricked her tastebuds and she rolled onto her stomach, pushed herself onto her knees and put a hand to her mouth, felt around with her tongue. She spat out a bloody tooth in her hand, then looked up at Westerly and the crowd, who were impossibly silent. She held up the tooth and grinned. Above it all was the man, holding the sword and a duffel bag. He was staring. Wyrmund let out a loud guffaw and hopped over the wall, jogged and knelt by the heir.
"Let's see, then," He prompted. She hooked a finger around her bottom lip and showed him the bloody gap where her right canine had been. He smiled impishly and pulled his own lip down to show two silver incisors. "Titanium, Savi. We'll get you one, too, soon as that gum heals!" Then he slapped her on the shoulder.
She looked down at her tooth. Westerly, Mari, and the other gladiators crowded around her. Her guard apologized for accidentally hitting her, checked the welt on her chin, inspected her gums. He looked the tooth over.
"You've got fragments still stuck in your gums," He sounded disappointed. "You'll need surgery."
Which was bad. Westerly made it a point to avoid hospitals or professional practices at any cost, so much so that Savita had cut herself on glass when she was twelve and the old guard had given her a shot of whiskey rag to bite and did the stitching himself.
"Don't tell anyone you drank that," he had said to the empty shot glass when he was done. It wouldn't be the only time she'd ever use medieval painkillers for injuries.
But Savita had lived her life without ever seeing the inside of a hospital. Her vaccinations had been stolen from various clinics, much to Westerly's chagrin, and Savita's poor eyesight was irremediable without a doctor. He taught her to work around it. Any time Savita came down with an illness, she suffered through it with West at her side and vice versa. Upon joining the Coliseum's staff, they were permitted to see the set of physicians, emergency techs, and surgeons. Dental was different situation.
"Everyone gets a few teeth knocked out in this profession, West," Marinius picked the canine off his palm. "We have an on-call oral surgeon that'll take out the roots and give her a new tooth. Titanium. I'll let the coliseum director know," Westerly only nodded, solemn and pensive. Savita glanced back up at the stands, still a bit shellshocked, but gave up on trying to solve it and stuck the tip of her tongue into the uncomfortable space between her incisor and her molar.
"Here, Savi," Wyrmund pressed some gauze into her hand. Someone had grabbed the first aid kit and it was in the big man's lap, open and mussed as he and West began to dig through it. "Stick that on your gums," Savita crammed it into her mouth, pushing it gently into the canine's place. West dabbed the blood off her face and hand, then helped her to her feet and led her out of the ring.
"Why'd you turn?" He asked her quietly. Savita pretended to readjust the gauze in her mouth.
"I lost focus, I guess," she finally said.
"All right."
"I'm sorry," Savita continued. "I don't know why I did that. It didn't hurt that much if it makes you feel better."
"It's okay to make a mistake now," The old guard replied. "As long as it's not later on, when you have to take care of yourself," They sat back in the stands and watched Amiicus warm up with Wyrmund, a clash of outright force that was a wonder to behold. Savita leaned her head against West's shoulder as she watched, smiling as the cheers and the clash of the blades, the yells of the fighting men blended together.
As the fight ended, Mari sat down next to Savita. "The director saw what happened, Savi, he'll let you get what you need done," then she paused and looked at West. "But you aren't gonna like the payment method."
Westerly's expression hardened. "Go on," he said.
"He wants Savi in the ring next week as a rookie."
Savita looked from Marinius to West, but his jaw was clenched and he looked away. She frowned and pulled her lip in to chew it.
Further up in the stands, a duffel bag by his feet and a greatsword the size of his lightsaber wrapped carefully in a bundle of cloth, Kylo Ren looked down at the trio below and pushed his eyebrows hard over his eyes. He closed them and reached for his side, then moved his hand way, reminding himself not to touch his healing wound, to not pull the stitching. But he need the pain, the extra bondage,to keep him in the dark because he finally understood why this was the final part of his training.
Because when he reached inside her mind to see if her memories matched who he was looking for-and they did- he saw himself in the memories. Because in the deep recesses of his mind, where he buried the things he didn't want to remember, the things he didn't want to ponder, he found her face in his own. And when he had whispered her name, an accident he was presently cursing himself for, the subconscious part of her mind whispered back.
'I know you,' It said to him. 'And you've changed.'