A Helping Hand of Lightning
CHAPTER 1: Escape from the Fortress
Cal and Cere took a breath as Trilla, the Second Sister, kneeled in defeat. But their moment of victory was gone as soon as it arrived when a seeping cold filled their senses. The heavy rasp of mechanical breathing and a pair of heavy metal boots filled the silence. The klaxon alarm had long since faded into the background of their perception.
The monster fell gracefully from the level above, smoke and power radiating from the creature in the mask as it stood just over two meters, casting a shadow that eclipsed the three terrified force users. Cal was looking to Cere for a cue, but it was Trilla's eyes blown wide in terror that gave the most context in the situation.
In a horrible mechanic baritone, it addressed Trilla, "You have failed me, Inquisitor." And with those words, tears formed in Trilla's eyes as she searched out her former rival's. Cere and Cal stood motionless; fear had paralyzed them from saving Trilla.
"Avenge us!" Trilla begged as terror forced tears out of her eyes.
Vader ignited his blade above her head. Cere reacted instinctively, yanking her hand backwards, Force-Pulling Trilla away from her executioner. But not quite quickly enough. ]
The elongated crimson lightsaber claimed Trilla's legs before she cleared his range. Trilla's scream sank into Cere and Cal's bodies like a cold snap. The now disgraced inquisitor crashed to the floor at Cere's feet, where she curled into herself and cried. Her severed legs rolled towards her with an almost mocking wobble as their momentum from Cere's Force-Pull bled away.
"Noble attempt, but ultimately futile," Vader proclaimed as he took a step forward, casually crushing one of Trilla's legs like a wet twig beneath his durasteel boots. He didn't need to say anything further, point made.
Cal tried very hard not to puke from a combination of fear and unmitigated disgust. A quick glance to his side confirmed his dark-sider mentor was in a similar predicament. Though he could also feel the rage radiating off of Cere at the plight of her former apprentice. Trilla's pained cries were the only sound other than the background sirens and magma sputtering beneath the platform they were standing on.
Suddenly, Vader turned to raise his lightsaber to parry the barrage of indigo lightning intent on rendering him to ash. There at the now open hallway door stood a slight woman clad in prisoner's garb with the Imperial emblem emblazoned across her chest. Her black hair fell disheveled past her shoulders. Eyes that were fixed on Vader glowed amber as even more hatred spilled from her outstretched hands in the form of the deadliest lightning Cal or Cere had ever seen.
Cal stood still for a moment observing the miracle of this dark armored monster being driven back by a fourth party before jumping into action, gathering the crippled Trilla into his arms. Cere threw Trilla's Inquisitor lightsaber ahead of them, cutting through the hapless stormtroopers that attempted to block their path.
"You think you can save them from me, Traitor? Even if you manage to leave this facility, you'll never escape the Dark Side," Vader growled. The two figures behind the Mantis crew were locked in combat, lightning to lightsaber. Cal quickly looked down to notice his lightsaber was indeed missing from his belt and in fact now in the Woman's hands as she deftly turned aside Vader's killing blows.
The Woman who might have just saved them replied in an Coruscanti accent identical to Trilla's. "At least I won't debase myself at the Emperor's feet anymore, Slave."
Cal could feel Darth Vader's pulse of rage in the Force from where they were almost twenty meters away at this point. The durasteel plated floor at his feet began to warp in response to his unrestrained emotions.
Perhaps the Woman recognized she had pushed the Sith masked monster a bit too far, the Woman throwing the Sith lightning reached skyward with her unoccupied arm and yanked downward, causing a grating metallic screech far above their heads. Cal felt a swooping dread as even Vader peered up for a half-second as if dumfounded.
It cost him; the woman flicked her wrist, summoning the red lightsaber right out of the metal monstrosity's hand. She began sprinting towards their group but was immediately lifted off her feet in Vader's choking force grasp. But the Woman didn't seem scared, she seemed smug. She pointed upwards with the stolen crimson lightsaber and Vader realised his true priority was survival. He banished the woman into a wall and raised both hands above his head as a deluge of water dropped into the atrium from the breach that the mystery woman made during the duel.
The Woman rose to her feet after shaking her head and resumed her sprint toward them. Cal was momentarily confused before Cere grabbed him, shoving him ahead of her shouting, "Run!"
Cal spared a single look back and saw the ocean rearing to meet them. That crazy lady opened up the fortress, and now we're all gonna drown! They made it to the opposite side of the atrium, and Cere closed the door behind them, which immediately began to leak from the titanic pressure of the sea bearing down on it.
"Run faster Jedi," the woman hissed as she advanced in front of him. They followed her until they reached a hangar where the remaining stormtroopers were running around in a panic. Cal's heart dropped as he spotted a pair of Purge Troopers with electrohammer and electrobatons respectively. Cere cursed in a language Cal didn't understand, or want to, when the Purge Troopers both looked up to see their quarry running right towards them.
As the Purge Troopers ignited their weapons, the dark sider woman leading their escape thrust her hand out and viciously twisted her wrist. The sound of the Purge Troopers' necks snapping was something Cal could have lived without, but at least their path to a matte black Zeta-Class shuttle.
The Woman retrieved the fallen trooper's electrobatons and electrohammer respectively before they all boarded the ship. Cere was at the controls and suddenly they were free. The water parted around them and soon enough, they were rising into the atmosphere. Cere didn't waste any time contacting the Mantis and giving them coordinates for a rendezvous via her personal comm unit.
The mysterious Woman sat down in one of the passenger seats before casually handing Cal his lightsaber back. He took it with a nod of thanks before carrying Trilla to the incredibly convenient bacta tank onboard. Once that was done, Cere was standing next to Cal as they saw the amber light dim and fade to a sapphire colour. But the green-skinned woman didn't keep her eyes open for long as she slumped over into unconsciousness.
LINE BREAK
"So, you have questions I assume," the Woman said as she looked back at the company gathered around the surprisingly spacious luxury dining table aboard the shuttle.
"What's your name?" Cal asked bluntly, but not unkindly.
"Wait, you don't know her name?" Merrin asked with a confounded glance between the green-skinned woman and her new friends.
"Like the Second Sister, I've been indisposed, though I only required a gluttonous amount of sleep. She'll be doing sessions in that tank for a few days yet, I think," she said as she glanced at Trilla, who was sitting not two meters away with a scowl. A blanket had been laid over her thighs, hiding the stumps. "There were not many words exchanged between us I'm afraid."
"Are you stalling, Sith?" Cere asked pointedly.
"Sith? Not according to Vader or Lord Sidious. I'm an advanced Dark Side adept. A fallen Jedi. There are only two 'proper' Sith at any given time." Cere and Cal seemed likely to draw their blades at the admission, but she seemed completely calm in their agitated presence.
She continued, "I wasn't trying to veil my identity. I just assumed you'd have already recognized me, Jedi Master Junda. My tattoos are unchanged from the Clone Wars after all," the green-skinned woman said as she traced the diamonds of black splashed methodically from cheek to cheek over her nose like freckles.
She looked upon the former Jedi Master. "My name is Barriss Offee, former Jedi Knight."
There was silence for a moment before Cal ventured, "Former?"
"I was cast from the order after they had already done the same to an innocent padawan they assumed was guilty of my crimes against both the Order and the Republic," Barriss said quietly. "I was slated for execution before the Empire's rise. The Emperor believed I'd be more useful to him alive. I was brought to him by the Coruscant Guard not too long after the Purge."
"Why would I recognize you?" Cere asked. She looked upon the green-skinned girl with black diamond tattoos on her face and felt some semblance of familiarity, but just couldn't place the face with the name.
Barriss looked upon the former jedi with genuine surprise. "I orchestrated the bombing of the Jedi Temple's hangar bay towards the end of the war." Barriss chuckled darkly, it was an ugly sound.
Trilla frowned, "I remember the Temple bombing."
"Yes," Cere continued, "But I thought the bomber was Togruta? At least that's who was put on trial for it. Skywalker's apprentice, right? The public ate it up; it was a massive blow to moral."
Barriss' face flickered through a few heated emotions before replying, "I suppose Master Yoda never cleared Ahsoka's name within the order. Better for internal optics that the rebellious girl go down instead of the model padawan. I that little green troll is rotting away somewhere in shame. Just when I thought the Council could disappoint me no further. Apparently I still have much to learn." Her eyes flickered amber again; something none of the other force-adepts missed.
"What? You think Master Yoda might be alive?" Cal asked.
Barriss rolled her eyes, "There are exactly two Jedi that the Emperor knows survived the initial Purge, and that was Obi-Wan Kenobi and Grandmaster Yoda. Whether they're still alive is certainly possible, but there hasn't been any official sighting of either one of them. I wouldn't put it past either of them to have committed suicide, as such was the magnitude of their respective personal failures," Barriss added with a callous shrug.
"Why are you so bitter towards the Jedi?" Merrin asked with a raised eyebrow.
"They raised me to heal and save lives, only to turn around and use me to slaughter people and conquer planets. I was by no means alone in that, but I suppose I'm just one of the ones who broke under the strain of trying to become a perfect serene little automaton; unquestioning of my superiors, and unfeeling to the planet-wide horrors I was made a party to, the friends I lost along the way," Barriss said slowly. As if she had spent a lot of time thinking about it, but nobody to talk to.
Barriss drew herself up before saying, "The Jedi Way isn't for soldiers. And that's what the Jedi Council made ever one of us, every child in our halls who could pick up a lightsaber: soldiers."
"That's not true," Cere said firmly. Trilla flinched.
"Oh?" Barriss turned her uncomfortably wide eyes to the elder former-Jedi. "I must've been hallucinating the children that had lightsabers attached to their belts being referred to as 'Commander' by the men under their command. You two were a couple of them, right? Neither of you couldn't have been much older than ten when the war started. What kind of responsible adult puts the children under their care into situations like that?" Barriss asked.
Merrin looked like she may have begun to regret asking Barriss a question at all judging from the looks on both Trilla and Cals' faces. Cere looked pissed.
"Let's put this one's feelings about the Jedi to rest for the moment. We need to find a way to evade the Empire going forward," Greez said in a surprising show of diplomacy.
"Blaming the Jedi for what you've become is dishonest," Cere said stubbornly. Cal, Merrin, and Trilla looked at her wondering how she could say something so provocative to this powerful woman.
But their worry was for naught as Barriss shrugged. "I am responsible for my own actions. I am a monster. I'm also a Dark Side user. I had years to reflect on it while the Emperor tortured me. But at the same time, I'm not blind to how the Jedi conditioned me since before I could talk into believing a narrow-minded creed that paved the path and paid the tolls on road to my fall. Your failure to acknowledge the creed's role in your own fall is surprisingly biased of you."
"We are going in circles," Merrin said flatly before Cere could retort again. "I'll take this one to get changed while you two deal with Second Sister."
"I have a contact that might know where we can find some help," Barriss said as Merrin shepherded her off the liberated Imperial shuttle and onto Greez's yacht. "We'll contact him tomorrow if that's alright."
Cere nodded at that idea, ideological debate mercifully over for now. "Alright. We also need to find somebody who can build Trilla new legs"
Cal spoke up, "We might not need to. If we can buy a couple legs, I'd probably be able to fix them up to the standard and size they'd need to be. I was always good at mechanics, and I got a lot of practice in the shipyards of Bracca at fixing mechanic limbs of all kinds," he said with a slight blush as all the eyes in the room zoomed in on him.
"We should look to have them made first; then if that fails we'll see how skilled you are," Trilla said. "As long as it doesn't bring the Empire's gaze down on us. Vader will have the known suppliers of such services on the lookout for me."
"You really think he survived that? The whole complex was coming down on top of him," Cal pointed out hopefully.
"He lives. The Empire adopted a policy of presuming all Jedi were alive until the body was produced in the aftermath of the Purge," Trilla spoke up. "And Vader is stronger than any Jedi."
"He's got to have limits though, right?" Cal said as he turned to Cere, who shrugged.
"He had a reputation for being nigh unkillable during the Clone Wars," Barriss said softly as she stopped at the exit to the shuttle with Merrin. "He's only gotten stronger in his connection to the Dark Side since then. We will not be so fortunate if we fight him again; he'll be ready for us. My contact might know someone who can build Trilla new legs, so if you'll have me, I'd like to travel with you at least as long as that situation remains a priority."
"You risked your life to save us and escape the Empire. That grants you a certain level of trust, don't squander it," Cere said definitively.
"Thank you, Master Jedi," Barriss said with a small smirk before Merrin led her off the shuttle to the Mantis. "I'm keeping the shuttle though!" she popped back in to say and was gone again before the others could reply.
Greez laughed and said, "Why are all you Force-users out of your damn minds?"