An unnamed Jedi's final thoughts and memories. I made it up as I went along, haha. A short Order 66 vignette, and my first attempt at angst. One-shot. Andreanna + chocolate cake at 1AM = stuff like this... Reviews or other constrictive critisism by way of PM are very welcome, and much appreciated. =)
Thoughts are italicized and put into quotation marks, memories are italicized but do not have quotations, and present-time actions are left in the regular font.
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, blah blah blah, all that jazz...
"How did this happen..."
Heavy boots retreated down the wooden pier, their owners leaving him for dead. The dark planks beneath his beaten and bloodied body bore scorch marks and lightsaber slashes, evidence of a battle.
"Did she escape this madness? Force, I hope so..."
The Jedi laid on his back, staring up at the midnight sky high above, his grey eyes unfocused. Forcing himself to turn his head, he looked to his right, and was met with the sight of a young woman's unmoving body, face turned away from his and hidden by a curtain of dirty, matted red hair. Small tendrils of faint grey smoke rose from her schorched torso. His stomach twisted and he remembered.
"No...she didn't..."
The memories of his friend and fellow knight's harrowing death sprang, unbidden, to his mind.
"We never saw it coming..."
Her cries echoed through his thoughts, tearing at his heart. In his mind's eye, he saw her fighting for her life, emerald green blade whirling in endless circles around her, batting away the blue blaster bolts. White-armored soldiers closed in around her, and tears streamed down her face.
"Soldiers I've known for years...Tal...Renyan...Ne'tra...soldiers I trusted....turning on me...turning on us..."
She called out to him, screamed his name, her voice bordering on hysterical. Fear radiated from her in panicked waves, crashing against his consciousness, and his heart felt as though it would break. He had to get to her, had to save her...without her, life wasn't worth living. She was his heart and soul. If she died, they would too, leaving him an empty shell of the man he once was.
"We were so close...the war was almost over..."
In her momentary distraction, a blot flew past her defenses and hit her at the base of her spine. Her brown eyes widened in shock as she crumpled without a sound. Her lightsaber fell from her hand and hit the wooden pier beside her, then automatically deactivated. Blaster fire poured into her exhausted body as the clones fired relentlessly upon the female Jedi. With an agonized cry, he intensified his assault and fought his way toward her, mindless rage and loss fueling his attack as he cut down everyone and everything in his path, blue blade slicing through the clones' white plastoid armor as easily as a sheet of flimsi.
"I don't understand it..."
The bodies of dead clone troopers littered the ground around him, the smell of scorched flesh and burned plastoid thick in the night air. He fell to his knees and cradled her in his arms, trembling uncontrollably as he whispered her name over and over again, begging her to open her eyes, to talk to him, even though he knew it was hopeless. It was over. She wasn't coming back. His best friend, his lover, gone forever.
"I suppose now I never will..."
A tangled lock of hair fell across her face, the dark red curl a stark contrast to her cold, pale skin, somehow spared the fiery blue bolts from the clone's rifles. Tenderly, he tucked the curl behind her ear and touched his forehead to hers, his shoulders shaking. Cupping the side of her face in one hand, he kissed her cheek gently, again and again, tears streaming down his face as he murmured to her how much he loved her.
"Stang...why does it have to end this way?"
Footsteps thudded down the pier as another wave of troopers came to the aid of their brothers. He gently laid her body on the wooden deck and stood, igniting his lightsaber and ignoring the physical and emotional pains that wracked his body. The clones opened fire, and he was quickly overwhelmed and fell, body afire with blaster burns. He laid there without a sound as he felt his life slipping away. A clone turned him over onto his back with an armored foot. Seemingly satisfied, they turned to leave...
"Why?"
The Jedi rolled onto his right side, every fiber in his body screaming in agony and threatening to send him crashing into unconsciousness as he pulled himself across the pier toward a motionless body clad in burned and battered brown and maroon robes.
"Why?"
Reaching her small form, he took her cold hand in his and closed his eyes, whispering a final goodbye as he exhaled for the last time.
"Why..."
Eh, rather mediocre and not my best work, not by a long shot. (Probably because I brainstormed the idea and wrote it in its entirety in the space of a half an hour at 1:30AM...darn insomnia. :P) One of these days I may edit this and expand upon it, but for now...agh, I really need some sleep... *snores*