Disclaimer: I don't own anything although I wish I did.
The names and some of the situations are the same as my other SW story but I decided to follow a different trail of thought.
This takes place after the Young Jedi Knights series although I can't guarantee that I'll get everything right that happened in them. The first few chapters are set during or right before the series but will eventually skip some time. Should I screw up, please tell me, I don't have a beta and the few people that I know who I could ask haven't read any of the books. This is most assuredly AU for Episode III since it hasn't come out yet, that and I'm sure that III will have massive Jedi death.
Chapter 1: Things that go boom!
She knew that she should have just left when she had the chance but then, no one had ever given her much credit for intelligence other than Mace-and of course her mother and Old Ben, the only father that she had ever known. But Ben was long dead and her dear mother as good as, still encased in carbonite as a last ditch attempt to halt the spread of poison. Eighteen years had passed, the sisters born barely and hour before their mother's imprisonment had nearly completed their training to become full Jedi.
Tirne wove carefully in and out of the range of the security cameras concealed within the jumble of wires and conduit running overhead. Around one corner, down a level, into the ventilation. Several more mindless turns and a jump to the ground. The blond grimaced, crawling through ventilation shafts were bad enough for short people and she sure as hell didn't get her height from her mother. Granted, she wasn't too overly tall for a woman but next to Angel...
The familiar whirring of machinery interrupted her musings, causing her to frown. What had brought her here? What did the Force find so imperative that she do?
Giant egg like pods lined the room, status lights blinking. Cloning chambers? Here? She rocked back in alarm.
They aren't what you seek, something in her mind told her. Leave them.
But they're wrong.
Leave them. You are not to interfere, not yet. There is something else for you to do. The feeling pulled her farther on, to a door tucked behind a pair of cloning chambers. She found a small corridor with far too closely spaced doors on the other side. Two thirds of the way down she sensed a lifeform that seemed strangely familiar even though she could not place it. Placing her hand on the lock pad she reached out with a tiny tendril of the Force. The lock was a simple one, merely meant to keep something confined that the captor felt was incapable of escaping on its own and was secure enough in the belief that no one would seek to release the captive. With just a small nudge the door slid open.
What appeared to be a human male of maybe forty-some standard years lay curled up silently on the floor of the starkly empty cell. The man's hair was a dark gold that nearly matched her own save for a few strands of white at the temples.
The Force is strong with this one yet the Sith lord does not deem it necessary to house him in a more secure location. That's strange. She frowned for the second time in as many minutes. The man wasn't quite emaciated, but there wasn't any excess flesh on his body at all which in and of itself was strange, but coupled with his lack of even a lean athlete or Jedi's musculature... He had to be a clone, it was hard to build up muscles if you're growing in a nutrient solution that only provides minimal nourishment such as would be given to an adult clone kept in stasis until the appropriate age was reached.
"Who were you?" she whispered inaudibly with another frown. "I feel as if I should know you but I don't, I've never even seen you before." Unless...but no, it is impossible-or is it? He's got to be at least a couple inches taller than I am, we have the same hair, and he has the potential to be a great Jedi. What I wouldn't give to see what his midichlorian count is. Could he be my real father? Mother never got the chance to tell me who he was...
There was no malice coming from the man, in fact it seemed as if his mind was locked tightly away. That would explain way the Sith did not see him as a threat. She grabbed his arm and levered him off the floor, thankful for her height. With his arm over her neck and hers around his waist she dragged him down the hall and into the cloning room, using the Force to keep her burden from becoming too unwieldy.
Things were going well, almost too well as she made her way to the base's hanger. No one had taken note of them which wasn't too incredibly odd, the base was horridly understaffed and tended to be rather quiet at night when the power grid no longer had any input from the solar array, but the security was far, far too lax for a Sith stronghold. Unless the Sith in question was an idiot. Which he wasn't-although Tirne didn't have high hopes for his current apprentice.
"Going somewhere my dear?" a low voice chuckled from a pile of crates. "I see you found my experiment. Pity it failed. He would have made an excellent servant. He held such promise."
"Why Michael, I didn't know you swung that way," Tirne drawled with false bravado, reaching out with the Force to activate the automatic system startup on board the Nightrunner. "But seriously, I must be leaving. Tootles!"
An invisible hand clenched her throat, stopping her in her tracks. "You can't seriously be considering leaving me?"
"Actually I am," she managed to somehow get out.
The Sith smiled contentedly, his arms casually crossed over his black robes. "And how precisely do you expect to leave? You have no lightsaber and I seriously doubt that you would be willing to leave that mindless husk behind. You're such a Jedi, you can't stop trying to help something that is beyond hope. Not that I can see what interest you would have in an empty husk."
Empty? Mindless? But the mind is there, it's just deeply hidden. Can't he see that?
"You aren't leaving here," the Sith continued menacingly.
Tirne just sighed and made as if to deposit her burden carefully on the ground, using the movement to hide her other hand as it dipped into a pocket and pulled out a small, round metallic object. The Sith lord lazily worked his way towards her, knowing that she had nowhere to run.
"Why don't you just give up?" he chuckled at her forlorn expression. "You will find that I can be a most forgiving master if I so will."
"I have one word for you Michael, catch!" and with that she lobbed the sphere directly at him, turning to run rapidly the last few meters to her ship, the large unconscious man still half slung across her shoulders.
Hitting the ramp controls as she sped towards the cockpit, she telekinetically punched the takeoff switch. There wasn't enough time to get buckled in so she snagged the cargo netting, wrapping it tightly around their bodies as the blast from the thermal detonator clipped the ship.
Tirne let out a breath that she hadn't been aware that she had been holding as the ship stabilized its flight. Damn, that's going to hurt. Why can't these things ever be easy?
The man that she was now on top of stirred and she quickly scrambled off, undoing the webbing that had kept them both from getting concussions or worse. She checked the man for injuries and didn't find anything beyond a few deep bruises, which was rather fortunate since she had little skill in healing others. Turning her probes to herself she winced, a couple of cracked ribs. At least a few hours of meditation should take care of them.
Looking for further injury she rocked back in shock. It can't be possible, it just can't! "Sithspawn!" she swore, then nearly laughed hysterically at the sheer irony of her hastily chosen words. At least Michael was dead, she had felt his death as well as many others in the explosion. The deaths were nothing like what she and the rest of the Order had felt when Alderaan was wiped from existence, but it still hurt knowing that she was the one who had caused their deaths.
"What? Where-" the man asked groggily, eyes opened but not yet focused.
The Jedi knelt beside him. "It's okay, you're safe now," she murmured soothingly, petting his head like her mother had whenever Tirne had woken from a nightmare or a particularly disturbing vision. "My name's Tirne, you're on my ship."
"The Sith?" he croaked.
"Dead, or at least the master is. I'm not so sure about his apprentice though, I wouldn't be surprised if he had survived. Idiot's luck I guess."
The man scrunched his eyebrows together in a groggy mix of confusion and apprehension.
"Don't worry, he can't even find his rear end with both hands and a navicomputer. As for his skills at fighting, I don't think I've ever seen anyone that incredibly inept even with the third form. Get some rest, your body is weak and needs to regain its strength."
He struggled against her hands that prevented him from rising. "Tell me, how long has it been since Palpatine's death?"
Tirne cringed inwardly. If this man was her father...but her father was dead and no clone would have real memories, only what knowledge they were taught after their 'birth'. By rights he should not even be able to speak any language much less flawless Basic. "Rest, then I'll tell you what I can."
Please review, it will remind me to actually update my stories for once. And yes, I do have more written.