Star Wars: Close Call
By Rachel E Hayler
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
In my dreams, I don't need to keep running. In my dreams, I don't need to stay hidden. In my dreams, I'm safe; and everything went right.
The clones never betrayed us. They realised what Palpatine was doing to them and they rebelled, instead aiding us in our eradication of the Sith. Skywalker wasn't an utter idiot and he too knew that he was just becoming Palpatine's pathetic puppet. The Jedi Council believed that he was bonking Amidala - peace to her soul, but it was so obvious - and instead of banishing him to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, they helped him out. They accepted it.
But most importantly, he was there to help remove Palpatine from power. He told the Council that the Chancellor was a Sith, and they accepted his offer of assistance when they decided to act. The entire Council went; Yoda, Kenobi, Windu, everyone, not just the small group of four that were sent after him in reality. We never underestimated him. We stormed the Senate. We surrounded him. We attacked. We killed him. No prisoners, no injuries caused to any allies. It may not have been the orthodox Jedi way of doing things, but it worked in a way that quickly allowed a respectable leader - maybe Senator Bail Organa of my home world of Alderaan or even Amidala - to take control of the Republic and make it a democracy once again.
But dreams are just that - dreams.
Rolling over onto my back, I looked blankly up at the ornate ceiling glittering dully in the darkness of my bedroom. There was no way that I was going to get to the sleep tonight. With an exhausted grunt, I pushed myself up into a sitting position and kicked off my blankets. It was fairly warm this time of year on Naboo, so I'd just gone to bed in a simple nightgown. But now it felt like the temperature had plummeted by twenty degrees. I shivered slightly and buried my feet back under the blankets in order to return with some of the warmth to my body. What was even weirder, however, was the fact that I could feel a comfortingly hot breeze gently brushing against my cheek. The room wasn't cold, it was just me.
Maybe I'd picked up something from the medcentre I'd been working at? I hoped not, because I didn't want my three year old son to get sick.
That thought bought an ironic flurry of memories to my mind. Six years ago, I had been Jedi Padawan Lena Arano: a young, naïve though slightly headstrong disciple of the Jedi Order. I had barely tasted combat, and I supposed I'd never expected to have to face it. After all, the galaxy had been at peace since I had been born. But then the Clone Wars had begun, and that opinion had been changed for good. Instead of lessons in Jedi Healing and Biology - two areas I favoured - I was learning how to conduct battles from the bridge of a capital ship. Me - barely fifteen years old - in charge of legions of soldiers? That image had scared the life out of me, but somehow I'd managed to cope. I'd even had a touch of reality of normality. I'd found companionship with an Alpha-ARC Trooper and a Jedi a little bit younger than me.
The ARC - Thrix - had been my first true love. We spent two action filled years together, but they were abruptly cut short by the war. I was still bitter and scarred from that day even now. He hadn't been just my boyfriend; he had really been the friend in the word. He was my best friend, and I missed him terribly. He'd always been there to protect me, kept me from harm, but now I was all alone and more scared in my life than I ever had been.
The Jedi - Lao - had come along at the end of the war, literally the day before. He was also the father of my son. However, he too was dead. I refused to think about that. His older sister had been my master, but even she was gone. Not gone gone, just living with her Jedi-Corellian husband, Kai Darklighter, on his homeworld. I hadn't heard from them in over two years, so I presumed that they had really settled down for a comfortable life together.
So who was I now? I was a single mother named Madalina Jiqua who had been abandoned to look after her young son. She had been dreadfully bitter about it at first, but she had finally accepted responsibility and was taking things in her stride. She had managed to find herself a job in a local med-centre, so that she could rent an apartment in the centre of Theed, Naboo's capital city.
Physically, I had changed a lot too. As a Jedi, I had had very long, very blonde hair. I had loved it at the time, but now I could see how impractical it had been. My son had inherited pitch black hair from his father, so I had dyed my hair so that it that it matched with his. It was also considerably shorter. At one time it had nearly touched my waist, but now it bounced in tight, curly ringlets just above my shoulders. A dramatic change to be certain, but I much preferred it to my old look.
Something clambered up onto the end of my bed and I suddenly became aware of having my eyes closed. I opened them quickly and smiled when I saw my son crawling across the bed towards me. "Dral? What are you -?"
"Shhh!" Dralshy'a Arano Kendari hissed at me as he sat down in front of me. "Shhh, mummy! Or the bad mens will hear us!"
"The bad men?" I asked him, my voice barely a whisper. I hadn't sensed anything. "Where, Dral? Where are they?"
He pointed upwards, to the left and the front door of our apartment, and then out of the window. "There, there and there. They come to get us, Mummy! They feel like you!"
They felt like me? I desperately wanted to tell him to stop speaking nonsense, to go back to his room and get some sleep before nursery school tomorrow morning. But I knew he was right. He had that look on his face again, that expression of infinite wisdom that no one his age should wear. His father had had the same look, being all too aware of everything that was wrong with the galaxy and how it would all end when time ran out.
My three year old son knew that people wanted us dead, not quite so much as...
"Dral, go and get dressed and get your most important things together," I told him urgently. He just sat there, looking at me, so I added a little more of a commanding tone to my voice, "Now, Dralshy'a."
"We'll be ok, Mummy," Dral replied calmly as he patted me on the knee and then slid off of the end of my bed on his stomach, and then disappeared into the gloom.
My infant child was calmer than me? Oh the irony.
I scrambled out of bed and hurried over to my closet. I threw the doors open and grabbed a back-pack from the bottom of it, and then stuffed a few items of clothes into it. At the same time, I managed to change into a pale yellow jumpsuit and then clumsily tucked the trouser legs into a pair of ebony boots. A little more searching retrieved my utility belt that hadn't seen the light of day since I had come to Naboo two years ago.
I beat the dust from of it and smiled fondly asI saw the two metallic cylinders dangling down from it. My precious lightsabers had been in hiding for far too long, they needed to have some usage. I quickly slipped and fastened it around my waist, removing the 'sabres and putting them in my bag. Unfortunately, I needed to slip out of the building quietly, so they would have to see action at a later date. Jedi had been killed on Naboo before, and I didn't plan on being recognised and becoming part of that statistic. I hurried around the room collecting credits and other documentation, but suddenly I was stopped.
Puff! Puff!
I knew that sound, I could have recognised it from anywhere in the galaxy. Those were shots from a verpine shatter gun, a deadly projectile weapon that Mandalorians favoured in combat. They were big guns, and they were lethally accurate. Panicking to the utmost supreme, I sprinted from my room and across the spacious living room to my son's bedroom.
I skidded to a halt in the doorway and saw two men with neat blast holes in their chests, slumped against the back wall. My son was crouched down next to a very large shatter gun and was probing it with a single finger.
"Wh...?" I uttered, stunned speechless by seeing the sight before me.
"It bounced," Dralshy'a muttered sheepishly as he turned around and looked at me. "They shouldn't be bounced."
"Where did you get that from?" I asked him, finally in control of my voice. How my child had learned let alone fired a weapon of that size was a mystery to me.
"Daddy," he said simply as he trotted over to me and raised his arms in a gesture of wanting to be carried. "I ready, Mummy."
I didn't have time to quiz him over that, unfortunately. I just scooped him up into my arms and ventured back into the living room. It was still deathly silent, and I didn't dare to flick on any of the lights to lessen the gloom.
"Where did you say those men were, Dralshy'a?" I asked him. I wasn't testing him; I just couldn't sense any of the enemies that were making themselves known. The ones in Dral's bedroom had looked like regular mercenaries, and the fact that I couldn't feel them in the Force more than concerned me. Perhaps they were being masked or something?
"Up, right and outside." Dral pointed again. "What we doin', Mummy?"
"Saying hi to downstairs," I replied as I reached out with the Force and used it to pluck one of my lightsabers from my bag. It floated past my shoulder to hover in front of me, and with another flicker of the Force, I turned on the main light in the room, wincing as I anticipated an ambush.
Nothing came, but I could feel Dral's awareness lurking on presences that were huddling around the front door. I had to make it seem as if I wasn't aware of their presence. I used another Force grip to get open a cupboard in the preparation station, then turned a tap and started water running into the sink. Hopefully that would be enough to cover up the sound of my lightsaber igniting. The scarlet blade winked into existence, and with a little Force encouragement I managed to turn the lightsaber upside down, so the blade was facing the tiled floor. Another little tap plunged it into the ground and started to move it into a circle. After a few moments of cutting, the stone yielded and I barely grabbed it with the Force before it collapsed loudly into the apartment below.
I didn't hesitate. I shut off the blade and carefully placed the stone lump onto the sofa of the living room, then dropped through the hole I'd made and landed in a crouch.
I found myself facing the startled expressions of my neighbours; their holovision set flickering softly and providing the only illumination in the room. I gave them a polite nod and greeted them, "Joelyn, Paphridus, good evening."
They didn't reply, and I didn't wait around for an attempt. I walked quickly towards the front door of their flat.
"Teach me that, Mummy!" Dral whispered excitedly as I made a hand gesture and the doors before us parted as I stepped out into the corridor.
"Maybe one day, my son. Maybe one day." I surveyed the brightly lit hallway, noting that it was clear, then turned right and sprinted towards the turbo-lift at its end.
We were three levels above the ground, but we were trapped between the people above and the people who were outside. They were not going to fall for my "getting a drink of water in the middle of the night trick" much longer. Therefore, that didn't leave us with many options. I couldn't keep cutting through the floors, it took too long to complete and I don't think my neighbours were going to appreciate any more damage done to their intricate abodes. And using the lift at the end of this corridor would probably lead us right into the men that were outside. That meant I could either head up or try to avoid the men outside my apartment...or out the back...
I had a sudden brain wave and reached out with the Force again, withdrawing a metallic cylinder from my rucksack. It then dropped neatly into my palm as I barely skidded to a halt in front of the turbo-lift doors.
"Are there any men outside in the garden, Dral?" I asked my son as I started to arm the detonator. True to most places on Naboo, the apartment complex had the most beautiful and well kept garden in the galaxy.
My son looked at the detonator in fascination for a moment and then I sensed him reaching out with the Force. I had taught him the most rudimentary Force techniques, such as presence detection and how to meditate. But as he stretched out with the Force to sense the presences that were supposed to be outside, I became aware of a dark smog parting before my eyes around him, encouraging him to use his anger at the situation and fear for my safety to locate the men with greater ease. I gasped and flashed the brightest aura of light side energy that I could muster into Dral's mind, banishing the smoke from surrounding him.
I could feel a pang of surprise from Dralshy'a, but also one from a third party. I knew who the extra presence was even before it snuck away into the depths of the Force and my senses became dull again. It seemed like my mind skills weren't as practiced as I had hoped they were. But at least I now knew who we were dealing with. It was my brother, my twin brother to be exact. He had fallen to the dark side after we had...accidentally abandoned him after events that I didn't like admitting to. Ever since then, he had found it necessary to mess around with the lives of my friend and family, without any apparent motive. So now he was here, but why was he trying to capture or kill us?
Well, like I was going to let that happen.
"Dral, try not to use the Force for a while, ok?" I couldn't be worrying too much about my son right now. I had to concentrate on getting us out of this mess. I shook my head, composing myself before thumbing the "calling" button for the turbo-lift. I darted to the right, pressing myself up against the wall in case any men were inside of it. As the doors parted, I could hear nervous breathing as the men inside decided on who was the bravest of them to go into the seemingly empty corridor. Of course, it wasn't empty, and I didn't give them the chance to exit. I used the Force to toss the armed detonator inside the 'lift, then with a bit more exertion I managed to send the lift hurtling back down towards the ground floor. A moment later I started to venture back down the corridor again.
"What does that do?" Dralshy'a asked, eyes glued to the turbo-lift doors. He wasn't referring to the fact that I had probably just squashed the men inside, but the detonator that I had tossed inside of it. Yes, he was a lot like his father.
"It's not a bomb as such," I replied cautiously as I headed towards another doorway. I didn't want my son to know what that det really did. Some things were best left until he was older. Plus, it wasn't a very Jedi-like thing to have done. "It...Uhh...makes a bit of a bang, and then produces a lot of smoke. After that, lots of metal spiders pop out and bite the attackers, making them all itchy."
"Wow..." Dral whispered in awe, straining against my shoulder as he seemed to buy the lie.
In truth it was a gadget that Thrix - the ARC Trooper - had created while he was bored one evening. It did exactly what I had explained to Dral, except they were small enough to be able to burrow into a person's skin. They were programmed to detect a heartbeat within a living being and target it...and then shut it down. It may have sounded humane, but it wasn't. I had seen those detonators used before, and the looks on people's faces as it happened showed that it hurt: a lot.
I neared the door that I had selected earlier and was going to boot it open, but a shout stopped me before I had the chance to do so:
"Miss Jiqua! What is the meaning of this?"
I turned around and saw the Administrator of my apartment block marching down the corridor with four burly looking men who were dressed in cobalt blue and maroon dress uniforms. Worst of all, they were armed. The Administrator himself - a middle aged man named Turk Gishu - was dressed in a flowing, pale green over-cloak that trailed along the floor behind him. Naboo had the weirdest and most uncomfortable fashion sense that I'd ever come across. He came to a stop before me, guards flanking him, and left a couple of metres gap between us.
I pushed an annoyed expression onto my face and looked the man straight in the eye. I didn't want him to know that his guards unnerved me. I knew that I could take them, but with my infant son in my arms, I didn't want to take the risk in attacking them. So it wasn't hard to let my irritation seep out of me. I'd always been told that I'd had a bit of a temper. "Administrator, you're holding me up. I've just been attacked and I need to get my son out of here."
"Attacked?" Gishu's expressions ranged from startled to confused in a few seconds. Finally, it rested on an accusing stare. The guards tensed. "Why would anyone want to attack you? Who are you?"
I rolled my eyes. This was getting ridiculous. "Haven't you guessed already, di'kut? I've been cutting holes in your floors with a shiney stick!"
Even though the man did not speak Mando'a, I could tell that he got the gist of the insult. He didn't react to it, and I hadn't been expecting him to. He was more caught up with my little revelation. "You...you're a Jedi?"
This was wasting time. "Yes, yes I was. Jedi Padawan Lena Arano. Now, if you don't mind, I need to get moving."
"B...but you must stay!" Gishu cried in elation. "You can help us! I'm -"
"I know who you are, Administrator." I raised a hand to cut him off. Everyone in the building knew that he was the leader of a rebel group who opposed the Empire's recent occupation of Naboo. They'd even killed the Queen just to keep the locals quiet. "And I wish I could help you, but I can't. I'm a 21 year old, single mum with a three year old son. I've got no one to help me, so I've got to keep running.
I could sense that Dral wanted to protest, but he kept quiet.
The Administrator raised his hands in a calming gesture, but his gaze bore right into my soul. He was desperate. "Please, Jedi Arano, I'm begging you. Help us to get our world back! You're a Jedi; it's your duty to help us!"
I smiled sadly and shook my head. "But I'm not a Jedi any more."
"Mummy!" Dral hissed, interrupting any further arguments by Gishu. He pointed towards the turbo-lift that I had crushed earlier. Oh kriff...how had they managed to get back up here? "Bad mens are coming!"
I looked over my shoulder and stretched out with the Force. There were indeed men climbing up the turbo-lift shaft, about seven of them in total, radiating aggression and determination after some of their friends had been squashed. Blast!
Gishu followed my gaze and then made a hand gesture to the armed men. They fanned out across the corridor in covering fire positions, blasters trained on the doors of the 'lift. He withdrew a com-link from within his cloak and then produced a flat, square object that looked like a data-card.
He handed the latter object to Dral, but addressed me when he spoke, "I'll have cover waiting for you on the top floor. Use this pass key to get access to my private shuttle up there. Now go."
"Thank you, Administrator Gishu." I inclined my head to him as Dral just impolitely stared. "I will return one day, I promise."
"You won't need to, Jedi Arano." Gishu patted me on the arm and smiled rather strangely at my son. He then started to head further down the corridor. "You have already given me hope that this situation will end well."
I kicked open the wooden door with one last look over my shoulder at him, then stepped inside the apartment and wedged the door shut with a nearby chair. No one was home in this one. I walked across a room that was laid out very similarly to the one that had been in my home and set Dral down on a couch, glad to be relieved of his weight for a few moments. I withdrew my lightsaber and ignited it. The fire that I could hear outside the room would distract anyone from the sound of my magenta blade igniting. I hopped up onto a coffee table at the room's centre and then started to cut a hole in the ceiling. I could sense that Dral was watching me, but his mind was distant.
"That man felt weird," Dralshy'a declared suddenly. He'd had a habit of doing that recently, sharing his thoughts with everyone. I prayed that he would be more of an open book than his father.
"What do you mean, Dral?" I asked him conversationally as I neared to completing my circle.
"Nasty."
There was nothing clearer in this galaxy than a child's perception of the way things were around them. Hence the reason why his thought caught me up short. Nasty? I hadn't sensed any maliciousness from Gishu. But then again, my senses hadn't been tip-top today. Perhaps my brother was directing his dark smog act more onto me now. That bothered me, but at least his attention was now away from my son. Kriff, this was getting weirder and weirder with each passing moment.
I felt the floor give way and caught the circle piece before it could smack me on the head. I barely suppressed a yawn. Dragging that 'lift down had taken away most of my Force reserves. I was seriously running low on the amount of tricks I could keep performing. I beckoned Dral over to me and he clambered up onto the table. I scooped him up into my arms.
He snuggled his head in against my neck and whispered something into my ear, "Peoples. Four."
The fact that he whispered it to me told me that the people he was sensing weren't about to offer me a hand out of the hole and escort me to this ship. Wayii! How the blazes had they discovered where I was this time?
"Alright..." I whispered back, more in confirmation for myself than to him. Eventually, I had yet another Force-exerting brain wave. "Hold on tight, Dral."
His grasp around my neck increased as I fell into the Force, concentrating on coiling it around me and the disc of loose floor above us. I closed my eyes and started to spin the disc, getting it to move faster and faster until it met its equilibrium. I then pushed it up and out of the gap that it was blocking, sending it whirling around the room in giant, curving paths. I could hear shouts of surprise and then smacks as it thudded into the men Dralshy'a had pointed out. However, I also heard it hit a fifth target with a metallic thwack that I swore sounded too familiar for my liking. Once I was satisfied that the room was clear, I lowered the disc to the ground and sprang up through the hole to the floor above.
I looked around seeing four bodies unconscious or otherwise sprawled out around my feet, all dressed in the cobalt blue and maroon uniforms of Gishu's guards. What the kriff? Dralshy'a wriggled against my shoulder and I put him down on the floor. I watched him as he trotted across the darkened room to a man who was struggling to get up.
"Dral!" I screamed, igniting my lightsaber in panic as I sprinted after him.
I caught up to him and took my blade in a two-handed grip and - without thinking - sent it thundering down towards the man. I expected to see a head rolling across the floor, but my lightsaber just bounced off of something. I looked down and noticed a scorch mark on the gauntlet of this man's armour where my blade had made contact, but it hadn't even left an indent. I took a step back, breathing hard as I noticed the helmet on the man's head. It had a T-shaped visor that was midnight black and outlined in shades of grey and brilliant blue. There was no mistaking it; it was a Mandalorian buy'ce - a helmet. I only knew two people who had worn Mandalorian armour, but both of them were dead!
"Shab, Len'ika!" The man raised his hands and popped the seal on his helmet as I allowed him to stand up fully. I found myself to be looking into the dark depths of a pair of eyes that I hadn't seen in so long. "Udessii...alright? I don't want to hurt you."
"Th...Thrix?" I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't hesitate and just threw my arms around his neck in a tight hug.
He embraced me back equally enthusiastically in that way that always made me feel safe. After what felt like hours he stepped back and released me, and I swear I could see tears turning his eyes glossy in the faint light from the large window behind us. I felt his joy at being able to see my after so long, and also his fear about the current situation. I became aware of everything in that instant: the enemies advancing, the enemies waiting out the front. My brother was fuming and cursing that I had broken past his shroud and could "see" again.
So it had been a Force illusion. There were so many questions that I wanted to ask the ARC Trooper, but they just came out as an ineloquent, "How?"
Alpha ARC-Trooper Sergeant 036 gave me a half smile and a reply that only left me with more questions than answers, "I always told you that I would watch over you, Len'ika."
I felt the tears start to well up in my own eyes and hugged him again. My best friend was alive, and right before me! But then a thought occurred to me and I stepped back, letting go of him. I found that he and Dralshy'a were having a staring contest. My son waddled over to me and hugged my leg in a very obvious gesture of possessiveness. It was hardly surprising that he'd done that, considering he didn't know Thrix at all. I forced myself to smile and knelt down, picking up Dral and then rising again so that I could introduce them properly.
"Dralshy'a Arano...Kendari..." I hesitated at the last part of his name. "Meet your uncle, Thrix -"
"Thrix Skirata," the ARC cut me off and extended a heavily gauntleted hand towards Dral. "Su'cuy, Ad'ika."
My son frowned at his hand and continued to cling to me in a "back-off" sort of manner, but the use of the Mando'a in the greeting seemed to soothe his nerves. He reached out and patted the ARC's palm twice. "Su'cuy, Mr."
Thrix retracted his hand and stepped further away from us, looking around the room. Well, at least we knew where we stood now. When we'd been together, we'd never discussed what would happen if anything happened to either one of us, and then returned. It wasn't a common occurrence for most couples, even if one of them was a Jedi and the other was a clone trooper who always seemed to survive. I'd done what anyone would have done and moved on. But, I had moved on to someone that he had considered to be his brother. I couldn't imagine how much that must have hurt, but his feelings in the Force pretty much explained that he felt betrayed.
"Your Administrator isn't who you think he is, Len'ika." He was back in business mode again. He did it when the world became too close and too emotional for him. "Well, he is a rebel leader of an organisation against the Empire, but he cares nothing for your welfare. They discovered his organisation a while ago and shut it down. They threatened to kill him, but he begged for their forgiveness and gave them a little gem that they couldn't resist. He knew that there was a Jedi on the planet." He paused until I nodded to show that I was following him. "The Empire have been tracking you ever since. They just haven't been able to get to you because I've been keeping them off of your tail. But anyway, he sold you out to them after he found out who you really were, and they've been planning this little attack ever since."
"Told you so," Dral muttered, glaring towards the hole where Gishu had left us. "Nasty mans."
I sighed. Perfect. I had once fought against Vader on Alderaan when I had been two months pregnant with Dral and had barely escaped with my life intact. I guess I had always known that Palpatine's puppet would not have given up on trying to find me so easily. "Did you know that my brother is the one calling the shots here?"
Thrix nodded. "And he knows I'm here too. He's not very happy that I've been leading him astray for all this time."
I hadn't been thinking straight for this entire evening. I was tired, hungry and generally feeling low. I wasn't in the frame of mind to come up with an escape plan. "Do you have a ship we can use?"
Thrix's face lit up with a bright smirk that caused me to grin back at him. "Parked at the back of the gardens. Which reminds me..." His smile seemed to grow even more. "...I've got to introduce you to someone when we get there."
That was certainly, enigmatic. I smiled softly and left him where he was as I headed over to the large window and peered out of it. The garden below appeared to be silent, but it was a very big, very green, very open space that we had to try and cross. If we were sprung from aerial attacks then we were done for. I looked back over my shoulder at him and gave him a scheming glance, "How fast do you think you could drop four floors, and then run about a klick?"
"Quicker than the Delta boys could boast," Thrix replied with an equally devious look. "How about you?"
"Remember, I'm a Jedi," I chided back to him. This was just like the old times, when we'd been a team. "So probably quicker than you."
"True..." He was still giving me a crafty, playful look that was challenging in the most subtle of ways. "But you've got an Ad'ika in your arms, and you're suffering from a lack of sleep."
"Ah...you've got me." I handed Dral over to him and motioned for them to stand well back. "Don't face this window until I yell "go"."
"Mummy?" Dral asked, for once his voice sounding a little fearful.
"Don't worry, Ad'ika." I could hear Thrix soothing him as he walked away into the doorway of another room. "She's just going to melt the window for us."
I smiled and closed my eyes once again, focusing all my concentration on the large panel of glass before me. I'd developed more biological tricks over my time as a Jedi, and one of those was the manipulation of molecules. If you could get glass hot enough, it would bend and melt into any shape that you wanted it to be. All that you needed to do was apply a little friction to the molecules within it and it would become viscous. I grabbed at as many of the molecules as I could and started to get them to shake, collide with the one next to them and get more rapid and hot until they could start to move more freely. The window started to go floppy before me, so I started to bring the molecules back in together in a brand new shape, a giant ball of glass.
When I had gotten the ball into an appropriate shape, I moved it back into the room and set it down on the floor. I opened my eyes and doubled over, placing my hands on my knees as I fought for breath. The physical exertion in that trick had been the biggest so far, and had completely winded me. Thrix didn't wait for a hand gesture or to be told to go. He sprinted forwards, still clutching Dral, towards the now gaping hole in the back wall of the room and just leapt out of it. He started on a freefall towards the ground, but I could sense that he was controlling the descent via sporadic bursts from his jetpack.
Now it was my turn. I forced myself to breathe more regularly for a heartbeat, and then I too bolted towards the window. I felt the ground leave me and I was suddenly falling, instinctively calling upon the Force to catch all of the energy built up from the fall as I landed in a crouch. It still sent a shattering quake through my body that caused me to curse in pain. I was going to need some serious R&R and Bacta when we reached Thrix's ship.
I felt a hand brush past my shoulder and then take a firm grip of my arm as I was pulled upright. I turned and found that Thrix had put his helmet back on again. "Alright, Len'ika?"
I nodded and took out my lightsaber hilt. Now here was the tricky part, crossing the open space unharmed. "You first, I'll cover you."
Thrix nodded and then took off at a full sprint across the lawn. I stretched out with the Force, watching over every inch of the garden as he went, but I couldn't sense anything. I heard a faint rustling sound about a minute later as he took shelter in the hedges that bordered the entire garden. I could sense that he had put Dral down and was training a Verpine shatter gun around the garden, providing me with some covering fire. Great, I was all set.
I broke into a run, dashing across the garden. Everything was still deathly silent, until I heard a very familiar snap hiss.
I threw myself to the ground as a sapphire blade past over-head and then shot back over me again like a boomerang. I rolled to the right as my senses kicked in and the blade stabbed into the sodden grass where my head had once been, then lunged out with a two footed kick that impacted with my attacker's stomach. The attacker staggered back and rolled to my feet, igniting my blade as I went.
I found myself facing my brother. Brilliant, just brilliant!
He feigned an attack to my shoulder and instead thudded the pummel of his lightsaber hilt under my chin, causing me to fall back a step. He pressed home with his advantage and slashed at me in random patterns of four strikes, three strikes, and five strikes at a time that I was barely able to work a defense against. He'd been in training, but he hadn't changed his good old Djem So fighting style that he'd used ever since we were little.
I batted one attack aside and used the momentum to propel myself at him with a shoulder tackle that sent us both sprawling to the ground, wrestling for grip over the one lightsaber that remained between us. Mine had bounced off into the undergrowth somewhere, out of reach. I managed to take a hold of the hilt as he did, pushing up against it as he rolled me over so that he was the one who could push the shimmering blade down into my chest. The muscles in my arms screamed with effort as I gritted my teeth and fought against his strength with as much Force energy as I could muster, but he too was doing the same. The sapphire laser was getting closer and closer to my face the more that he pushed. He was just too strong!
And then he howled with pain and let go, bounding off of me.
I saw Thrix out of the corner of my eye down on one knee, training his shatter gun onto my brother and was pelting him with fire. Blaster fire seemed to erupt from every angle of the garden, red bolts, blue bolts, green bolts. Phixx started to block any fire that was aimed at him as I remained lying flat on the floor, breathing hard and unable to concentrate on the danger around me. There was a sudden blue flash and I watched in a mixture of horror and glee as my brother went flying back across the garden to smack heavily into some of his own men that were trying to attack us.
What the blazes had done that?
I felt someone grab my hand and yank my up onto my feet, but when I looked around I couldn't see anyone except one of my neighbours - Paphridus to be exact - about five feet away and shooting back against my brother's men. It seemed that the whole apartment block had decided to lend me a hand. I wanted to thank him, but someone else gripped my arm and dragged me away from the fire fight. I barely managed to recall my lightsaber to me as I stumbled after Thrix, and then had to wade my way through a hedge to place where his ship was waiting.
"Did you see him?" Dral exclaimed as he ran up to me, blaster in hand that he was waving excitedly.
"Wh...who...?" I asked him between breaths as I limped towards the ship, Thrix aiding me as much as he could.
"Daddy!" my son replied indignantly, a silly smile spread across his face.
My mind drifted back to the battle, but I didn't remember anything. I'd been working on adrenaline the whole way through! But then I remembered Paphridus. He had a beard and dark coloured hair, just like Lao did I supposed.
"That...was just a man with a beard, Dral," I answered him hurriedly as I urged him to get on board the ship as the boarding ramp lowered of it's own accord.
"NO! Not him!" Dral did as I asked, but waited for me at the top of the ramp to stubbornly prove his point. "The blue man!"
My mind couldn't compute what he had been saying. We'd had one too many close calls today, so maybe he was just getting events missed up, or seeing things that hadn't been there. I just nodded dismissively, which seemed to satisfy Dral as he ran up the corridor after Thrix, presumably heading towards the cock-pit. After a moment of gathering myself together, I followed them.
Thrix was in the cock-pit and was firing up the ship's engines as a small, Zabrak boy no older than six tried to help out as best as he could. I didn't register his presence too strongly as I found a chair and collapsed down into it, weary and in need of sleep.
I heard faint noises as the ship took off and streaked for open space, but my eyes drifted shut and the world grew dark around me. We were with friends now, safe from whatever could come and get us, so I allowed myself to drop off into a deep sleep.
But hours later, a thought would awaken me that would chill me to the very core of my being. My brother was too good to have just lost us. He'd let us go. Would he come back again?
If he did, I'd make sure it was a close call for him, not me.