You only have one shot, one good chance at glory. That's what they used to tell her.
The girl held a blaster rifle to the floor as she stood battered and bloody in one of the many halls of the Jedi temple. She was eleven years old, her neck uncovered, begging for a trooper's fist to come around it. The girl's name was Arika, and the blood was not her own.
The last ten minutes were a blur. The lasers had planted themselves in the ribs and eye sockets of all her enemies, killing them in cold blood, but she did not know that.
There was another thing she did not know.
She did not know she was going to die. She stood surrounded, outnumbered by men in masks, and she thought only: Wow, I'm a great shot. She would have been terrified if she had known.
Arika glanced at her lightsaber, hanging from the belt of one of the troopers chasing her.
She could remember how happy she was when she had been given the parts to create a lightsaber. Her, the rebellious youngling, had been granted the most beautiful weapon in the galaxy. She was a Jedi. There had been meaning to the title.
Now, mere minutes from her death, she wondered about the meaning. If she died, she wanted to be remembered as Arika, not just a Jedi. She wondered if the troopers who were about to shoot her dead had ever once realised that she was more than a Jedi. Was it a Jedi they were shooting, or Arika herself? What did they want with her anyway?
"We don't have to harm you, Jedi!" one of the many faceless men shouted.
That was probably the closest thing to an answer that she'd get.
She felt very weak and very tired. Arika knew that she had to die now, and that made her suddenly a little sad. The sadness was not for the shortness of her life, nor her impending death itself. No. The sadness came from the realisation that she'd never see the aftermath of this whole ordeal.
"You have ten seconds to drop your weapons!" another faceless man cried out.
Arika stood tall. She wouldn't drop that rifle for the world.
"Ten!"
The child readied her blaster, one bullet left, one shot, one chance.
"Nine!"
Peering through the scope, her hands delicately moved toward the trigger.
"Eight!"
One shot, one chance.
"Seven!"
Arika smiled. "Bang," she whispered. And she let out her final breath.
Hours later...
"Report. Is she dead?" The trooper commander demanded.
"Yes sir. At your orders, sir." A soldier replied.
"How many casualties do we have?"
"Fifty, sir. Fifteen by that girl alone."
"What? How?"
"She shot one of the lights near a wooden wall. Started a fire, sir. It appeared that it was her final bullet."
The commander nodded slowly. "One shot, one chance."
Author's Note:
Hey guys. It's been a long two years since my last entry, hasn't it? Anyway, I hope you liked this story. Please don't forget to review, and I will see you guys next time. :)