Reach, But Not Quite Hold

"I'm telling ya, kid. It's a trap."

Cal paces up and down the cockpit. From her usual spot on the bench beside the holotable, Anna watches a crease form in his brow at the captain's words. The electric tunnel of hyperspace swirls outside the window, casting the edges of his face in a shifting contrast of light and shadow.

"Cere intercepted the message from an encrypted channel," he says, shaking his head stiffly. "That doesn't sound like a trap to me."

"Or maybe the person setting the trap is more clever than you think," Cere retorts calmly. She holds up her hands before Cal can launch a rebuttal. "Look, I'm with you here. If there's any chance Merrin is still alive, we owe it to her to get her out of there. But we have to be careful about this. We're no good to her if we end up captured ourselves. Or dead."

"It's too bad the witch is the one who needs rescuing," Greez laughs humorlessly. "This whole thing would be a lot easier if we had her invisibility powers. The Mantis runs quiet, but all it takes is for someone on that transport to look out the window and we're toast."

"We'll be fine if we stick to the plan," Cal states firmly. "Cere, bring up the ship layout."

Cere sighs and turns back to the console. The unwieldy shape of a fat, rectangular vessel appears on the comm terminal, its shapes vaguely familiar to Anna's eyes. Goosebumps run down her arms. She heard rumours back in the Outer Rim about people being taken away by those things—people who were never heard from again.

"It's a Lictor-class dungeon ship, practically a flying antique," Cal continues. "It's no warship. Plenty of blind spots in the defensive turrets." The turrets highlight themselves on the wire-frame model, along with shaded projections of their firing angles. "If we stay thirty degrees behind the command deck, we should be well out of reach."

"I don't know if you've noticed, Cal, but the Mantis ain't exactly a warship either," Greez scoffs.

"In case of a fighter escort, we'll need to take out the TIE's first," Cal pushes on. "Then, we blast through into the loading bay with proximity mines." A square plate in the middle of the ship blinks red as he points to it. "Once inside, BD-1 and I will search for Merrin, while the rest of you cover the ship. With any luck, she'll be down in the holding cells. It shouldn't take long to find her."

"What about me?" Anna ventures. "I can help."

Cal immediately shakes his head.

"It's too dangerous. If they capture you, they gain another Force-sensitive to turn into an Inquisitor, and this whole mission would have been for nothing."

"Hey, I've held my own before, and now I have this!" Anna waves the Inquisitor saber in the air. "Come on, we could search twice as fast with the both of us."

Cal grimaces.

"You know I'm right," Anna pushes.

"Fine," Cal exhales. "But if you see Purge Troopers, you run, got it? Those guys have been training for years to kill Jedi. You've been training less than a month."

Anna nods quickly.

"What kind of resistance are we expecting, anyway?" She squints at the ship schematics, tracing the hallways from the loading bay area.

"Guard droids, most likely," Cere answers. "Lictors are specifically made to transport Force-sensitives. Using humans risks the guards getting mind-tricked."

"More droids. Fantastic," Greez deadpans.

"Better droids than an Inquisitor," Cere says in a low voice. "We have to be ready for anything." She turns to lock eyes with Cal. "That includes the possibility that Merrin's already been brainwashed, do you understand?"

Cal grits his teeth audibly. "We owe it to her to try."

There's a tense pause.

"Hey, is the Mantis even going to fit through there?" Greez scratches a sideburn, tilting his head at the schematic.

"It'll be a tight fit, but we'll make it," Cal answers tersely.

"We'd better not lose the fin, or there'll be hell to pay, kid," Greez mutters with a shake of his head.

"That depends on your flying, captain," Cal deadpans.

"You kiss your mama with that mouth?" A warning light blinks on the dashboard and Greez turns back to grab the flight column. "Alright, grab some seat and strap in, folks. Let's hope that estimated route wasn't too far off the money."

The hull rumbles as hyperspace splits apart in front of them to reveal a sea of blinding plasma.

"Watch out!" Anna shouts.

"Relax, would ya?" Greez chuckles, pulling back on the throttle and bringing the ship to a slow drift. "We're at a safe distance."

The windows dim gradually until the star in front of them mellows to a dull reddish-brown. Solar flares erupt from the roiling surface, spewing arcs of molten plasma far into the void above.

"Where are we?" Anna asks, blinking to clear the spots from her vision from the searing light.

"Corsin. Red giant," Cere explains. "If the manifest is correct, it's one of the nodes on the prison ship's jump path to the Mustafar system."

"Why Mustafar?" Anna frowns. "Isn't that like, a mining planet?"

"The Fortress Inquisitorius is in that system," Cal growls. "They must want to turn Merrin into an Inquisitor." He rotates his seat to face the comms station, his expression tight. "Cere, anything on the sensors?"

"Nothing yet. Patience, Cal. We might be here a while. That's if the ship even shows up."

"It'll show up," Cal turns back and gazes out the window. "It has to." The words are barely above a whisper.

The cockpit lapses into heavy silence. Anna keeps her eyes on Cal, watching the muscles of his jaw work under the skin. This whole situation is clearly getting to him more than he wants to admit. Half of her wants to take his hand, tell him that they'll find Merrin, that everything will be alright. The other, selfish half wants to convince him to let the Nightsister go for good.

She lowers her gaze back to her lap, feeling a flush creep up her cheeks. She can't be thinking like that.

Absently, she turns the lightsaber over in her hand, sweeping her gaze over the guard. The places where the blades come out at the ends—emitters, Cal calls them—are now covered by protruding pieces of metal and glass welded over top, joined at the middle of the handle by a simple system of hinged rods connected to a sliding switch. Cal's handiwork. She plays with the switch, watching the lenses rotate in and out of position.

Practice. Lethal. Practice. Lethal.

Cal isn't the only one with a stake in this mission. This is Anna's first mission as a Jedi Padawan. Today makes it all real.

Practice. Lethal. Practice. Lethal.

Today might be the day she makes her first kill with this lightsaber.

Memories come trickling back to her: the stormtroopers she shot on Sakiya, the Purge Trooper she shot on the space station. She winces. Is this what she is now? A killer? A murderer? Taking a deep breath, she places the lightsaber down on the bench beside her. The weight of the blaster hanging across her chest is suddenly suffocating.

It wasn't long ago that she thought the Jedi were a bunch of terrorists. It wasn't long ago that she thought she was just a random orphan girl. A part of her still holds onto the stubborn hope that one day, she'll wake up and the world will go back to normal, back to when things still made sense. But things will never be normal. Things were never normal to begin with.

The Empire is the enemy. That's the only normal she needs. She screws her eyes shut, her fingers closing around the smooth hilt of the lightsaber.

"Picking up Imperial comms chatter," Cere announces.

"What are they saying?" Cal demands. "Is it the transport?"

Anna's eyes snap back open. She returns the lightsaber back to her belt.

"Can't get much more than static. They must be using a scrambler. Streaming the coordinates to you, captain."

"Aye aye."

Greez pushes the throttle up a notch and the whine of the engine turbines starts up again. There's a faint sense of falling as the Mantis picks up speed.

"We're in luck, seems the signal is coming from this side of the star," the captain announces. "Would take hours to swing around to this big boy."

The star's blazing horizon drops away as the ship pitches upward.

"Switching to low power," Greez announces, flicking two switches on the dashboard. Immediately, the pitch of the engines deepens to an almost-inaudible hum.

"Hold course, the signal's getting stronger," Cere reports with a hand to her headset.

"I think I see it!" Cal exclaims.

Anna leans forward, peering out the front window. At first, it seems like just another stain on the glass, but soon it's obvious it's something outside, moving, shifting, growing. A bulky silhouette resolves in front of them, its sharp, industrial edges gleaming white and red with Corsin's reflected light.

"That's our target," Cere nods. "No fighter escort. This is our chance."

"So much for laying low," Greez says with a sigh. He eases up on the throttle. "Cal, get on the mines."

"On it."

"Wait, this ship has a mine layer?" Anna asks in disbelief.

Cal shoots her a lopsided smile on his way out of the cockpit. "You're looking at him."

Before she has a chance to ask what the heck that's supposed to mean, he disappears into the back of the ship.

A bolt of laser fire whizzes past the window, bathing the cockpit in a flash of red.

"I think someone looked out a window!" Greez shouts.

Anna's stomach lurches as the captain twists the flight sticks, plunging the Mantis into a tight roll. The engines stutter for an instant before they scream back to full power.

"Get above them! Most of the turrets are in the belly!" Cere shouts.

"Easier said than done when we're below them!" Greez yells back.

The form of the dungeon ship spins wildly outside the window as the Mantis pulls a corkscrew turn, narrowly dodging another volley of cannon fire. Ann's stomach does a little somersault of nausea. She really needs to talk to Greez about installing another\ chair in the cockpit so she can stop tossing around on this glorified sofa when he pulls these fancy moves.

"They're spooling the engines up for a jump!" Cere jabs her finger at the readings on the comm station terminal. "We're going to lose them!"

"Not on my watch," Greez says through gritted teeth, leaning over and pushing the throttle to the limit. "Cal, how are those mines looking?"

"Ready when you are," Cal's voice answers through the dashboard speaker.

The ridged belly of the dungeon ship fills the cockpit as lasers continue to fly past them by terrifyingly narrow margins. Anna is plastered into her seat as Greez starts a sharp upward bank. The flank of the ship zooms along beside them, huge and way too close for comfort. The gaping barrels of a quad-turbolaser array stare straight at her through the cockpit glass.

"Look out!" Anna shouts.

Before the words have fully left her mouth, the hull jolts as bolts of blue plasma streak out from beneath the Mantis, striking the base of the turret and igniting it in a blaze of fire and melted shrapnel. Flecks of debris rattle off the window as the ship pierces through the cloud of smoke without slowing.

"This is it, Cal! Those mines better be ready!" Greez yells. "The rest of you, hold onto something."

He punches a button on the dash and Anna's eyes widen. That's the button to open the doors.

"What are you-"

The rest of her sentence is stolen from her lungs by a sudden blast of gale-force wind as alarms blare across the lounge. Hair flying wildly around her face, she twists her head in time to see a thin force-field flash across the now-open doorway, sealing off the exit from the vacuum beyond.

Cal stands by the doorway, propping up two metallic cylinders in front of him, each half his height and probably twice his weight. Orange lights flash up and down the devices in rippling patterns.

"Approaching the target in three… two…" Greez announces steadily.

Cal closes his eyes, taking a single breath. He takes his hands off the mines, but they don't fall; instead, they rise gently off the floor to float in the air in front of him.

"One," he finishes in unison with the captain.

The air shimmers in front of Cal's open hands. The mines catapult out of the doorway in a blur. He lunges forward, punching the button on the doorframe and sealing the doors with a crash of steel. The alarms stop. For an instant, everything is quiet.

The ship is knocked sideways by a vast force, throwing Anna roughly to the floor. Yellow fire and blue plasma flash outside the lounge windows, casting their light in streaks over the durasteel walls. The hull shudders and groans around her in protest as the alarms start again with greater urgency.

"That's the ticket!" Greez cackles. "Direct hit!"

The Mantis's nose whips around to face the side of the dungeon ship. Twisted sheet metal bulges inward around the jagged edge of a massive hole torn into its lower hull, spewing sparks and debris into the void. As Anna watches, segmented emergency seals begin rushing in to fill the gap from the right edge of the breach.

"Turn around, we can't make that!" Cere exclaims.

"We'll make it!" Cal shouts over her.

"Cal, you're going to get us killed!" Cere yells.

"Too late now," Greez states through gritted teeth. "This'll be ugly!"

He reaches over his head and yanks down on a small lever. The yacht's fin rotates into landing position with a heavy whirring sound. Anna scrambles back onto the seat, pressing herself to the wall for dear life. Her heart thunders as the gaping maw in the dungeon ship's flank grows through the cockpit.

One-third of the way across the breach, the emergency seals grind to a halt with a shower of sparks. The remaining hole is way too small for the Mantis. Even Anna can see that.

At the last second, Greez throws the ship horizontal with the hull breach, nearly launching Anna right back out of her seat. The edges of the rupture rush over the window, swallowing the Mantis whole with the deafening tear of steel. The turbines scream as they reverse direction. Everything shakes as the bottom of the ship meets the floor of the loading bay, throwing the world beyond the cockpit into a shrieking blur of sparks and confusion.

The ship grinds to a stop, leaving metallic creaks and heavy breathing as the only sounds left in the cockpit.

"Is everyone okay?" Cal asks cautiously.

"Alive," Anna gasps.

"Oh, this is bad, this is very bad." Greez's hands fly over the dashboard as he frantically checks the displays." We lost half the fin. Two of the gear legs are snapped. This thing only has three gear legs!"

"Can she still fly?" Cal urges.

"You better hope she can still fucking fly, kid, or we're already dead!"

"Every moment we spend here is costly," Cere cuts in firmly. "Cal, Anna, focus on finding Merrin. Greez and I will make sure we have a way out."

Anna nods and rises to her feet, shaking herself as she skirts around the holotable toward the exit. The doors slide open before she reaches the panel. Cal made it to the button before her. They lock eyes for a moment, breathing heavily.

"Here, you'll need this." Cal fishes something small and silver out of a pocket in his vest and hands it to her. "Keep in contact. BD can track this radio, so we'll give you directions."

Then they're stepping down the ramp, her boots meeting the debris-strewn floor of the loading bay. A large chunk of dark steel juts from where it's impaled into the opposite wall, leaking some type of coolant in a steady drip onto the floor. Sparks spurt feebly from the flickering lights along the edges of the cavernous room as a strong wind sucks Anna's ponytail out to the side. The emergency panels are still stuck attempting to seal the hole in the wall from Cal's mines, but a shimmering barrier has glossed over the rest of the breach—though it's apparently not quite enough to fully seal the room from the vacuum outside.

She's so busy staring out toward Corsin that she almost trips over the body of a black security droid sprawled in front of her. Her hand flies instinctively to her blaster.

"Looks like your explosion took out the welcoming party," she says out the corner of her mouth, poking at a lifeless arm with the toe of her boot. Glancing around, she finds three more droids in varying degrees of destruction lying around the ship.

"Let's not push our luck." Cal points to a door set into the far wall beneath the embedded shard of metal. "You take that corridor. It should lead straight to the lower cell blocks at the front of the ship. I'll sweep the upper level." He takes her gently by the arm, a hint of uncertainty in his gaze. "May the Force be with you."

With that, Cal takes a running start at the wall, continuing his run vertically for two gravity-defying strides before leaping up and hoisting himself onto a ledge. In an instant, he's gone, swallowed by the shadows of an upper-level doorway.

Fingers resting over the handle of her blaster, Anna makes for the door Cal pointed to. It's locked—no surprise there—but the old tactic of three shots to the control panel has the desired effect.

The corridor behind the door is lit by strips of emergency lighting, pulsing in time with a blaring alarm. She strains her ears as she ventures forward, but aside from the soft scuff of her own boots and the incessant screech of the alarm tone, there doesn't seem to be any movement ahead. The lights and alarms remind her of the other Imperial corridor she's snuck down in recent history, and her fingers instinctively tighten their grip on her pistol.

Down a small set of stairs, the corridor widens into a long room with a low, grated ceiling, empty except for a simple grey console near the center. The alarms are quieter here. Large hexagonal doors line the walls, four in total, with a fifth facing her from the opposite end of the corridor. All of them are closed.

She approaches the console and taps on the holoscreen. It takes a few seconds for the display to light up.

Insert code cylinder to authenticate.

She groans.

"Cal, I'm in a room with five doors, but they're all closed," she whispers into the radio's tiny receiver. "The console is asking for a 'code cylinder'?" She starts making air quotes before realizing Cal can't see her hands.

"I'm seeing a similar setup over here. BD's gonna try to lend you a hand."

The message on the screen begins to flash and distort. An error symbol replaces the text, but the door remains firmly shut.

"No luck on the doors, Anna, they're on isolated control circuits. BD managed to pull some data on the prisoners, though." A short pause. "Hmm, that's strange. Looks like only the cell at the very end is currently occupied on your level."

The console goes dark. Something whirs to life under the floor.

"How am I supposed to get through the door?"

"You have a lightsaber, Padawan. Use it."

Right.

The sound of sliding metal rings out as two circular openings appear in the floor behind the console. She's not liking this.

"Cal?" she hisses nervously. "Cal, are you doing this?"

Dark, humanoid figures with lamplike eyes and spindly limbs rise from the holes, fixing their expressionless gazes on her in unison. Security droids.

"Security breach detected," intones the first.

"Initiating subdue-by-force protocols," announces the second.

"Anna, what's going on down there?" Cal's voice drifts up from the receiver.

"Call you back in a sec," Anna squeaks, quickly pocketing the radio before loosing off two shots at the first droid. The blaster bolts strike it squarely in the chest, leaving only faint scores on the matte black metal. The droid glances down at the burn marks, then back up at her. She gulps.

"Sorry, itchy finger."

Then she's tucking into a roll as the droid charges her, its arms outstretched with murderous intent. Leaping back to her feet, she stuffs her pistol back in its holster with gritted teeth—it's clearly not going to help her against these things. The second droid towers in her vision, mechanical fists swinging down like sledgehammers, striking the ground centimeters from her feet and making divots in the metal floor as she dives out of the way.

"Target is dodging," the first droid states matter-of-factly, rotating its torso to face Anna.

Her hand moves to grasp the lightsaber at her hip. There's a sharp whine as the droid winds back for a bone-shattering punch. She closes her eyes as she unclips the hilt from her belt.

Time to try out her new tricks.

Waiting in the darkness behind her eyelids, she lets go of her senses. The saber seems to warm in her hand. The premonition answers.

"Bashing."

The wind from the droid's blow tickles her nose as she twists backward at the last moment. Her eyes open as she ignites the lightsaber, swinging upward before it has a chance to pull back. An arm clatters to the floor with the screech of plasma rending metal.

The second droid charges at her, but it's as if it's moving in slow motion. She ducks deftly under its grabbing hands, aiming a swing at its legs. Searing light cleaves through dense metal like a knife through butter, severing one leg at the thigh. She jumps back from the droid's flailing arms as it crashes to the floor, clawing at her on its way down.

Too late, she realizes the first droid is still very much operational.

"Unproductive, human," a mechanical voice intones.

Fingers like vices grab her by the throat, hoisting her effortlessly off her feet. She claws at the droid's hand, but it's about as effective as trying to pry open a hydraulic press. She can't breathe. She flails in panic as spots swim in her vision.

There's a sharp tearing sound and a shower of sparks. Her back meets the ground, knocking the trapped air from her lungs. The hand is gone from her throat. Gasping for breath, she pushes herself off the floor to find the droid staring at the glowing stump left of its remaining arm with a quizzical tilt of its round head.

"Logging maintenance request."

"Wish I could do that," Anna chokes, tightening her grip on the lightsaber.

The second droid lifts itself from the floor behind her, clawing its way toward her like a parapelegic spider. Anna backs up until both droids are in front of her and raises her blade with a sigh.

"You just don't know when to quit, do you?"

Two swings later, the headless bodies of both security droids collapse limply at her feet.

"Anna? Anna, come in!"

"I'm here," she gasps into the comm. "Had a bit of a disagreement with some security droids."

"Damn it! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Rubbing her bruised throat, she glances down at the still-sparking remains of the droids. "The lightsaber helped."

There's a long pause with sounds of distant crashing and BD-1 chirping.

"What was that?"

"We ran into some droids up here, too. We're starting on the cell blocks now."

"I'm on my way to the door."

"Stay on guard, Anna." A long pause. "I sense something."

Lowering the receiver, Anna walks to the door at the end of the room and puts a hand to the cold durasteel. It feels as sturdy as solid stone. Igniting the lightsaber with a sigh, she grasps it with both hands and sinks the blade up to the hilt. The wall hisses and groans as it parts begrudgingly under the beam of plasma. The going is slow. A deep sense of unease grows with each passing moment.

If only the Force were a bit more specific with what exactly she needs to be scared of.

By the time she manages to carve an outline large enough for her to fit through, she's sweating from standing so close to the red-hot metal. Two kicks later, the carved piece of door falls inward with a heavy thud. She extinguishes the lightsaber and ducks into the hole. The room beyond is small, barely the size of the Mantis's lounge. Clinical white light casts everything into sharp relief. Tangles of tubes and wires hang from the ceiling like robotic snakes, converging to a single contraption at the center of the chamber.

It takes her a moment to realize the contraption contains a person.

The room is a holding cell, the most elaborate holding cell she's ever seen. The prisoner's limbs are forced spread-eagle within thick shackles, each attached to a separate cluster of cables. The torso area is completely concealed underneath bands of interlocking clamps glowing with some kind of electrical energy. A mask attached to another set of tubes is strapped over the prisoner's nose and mouth. The rest of the prisoner's face is visible, her tattooed skin peeking out beneath loose locks of grey-white hair.

The prisoner's eyes open, striking maroon irises locking straight with Anna's. For a few breaths, they stare at each other, motionless.

"Are you Nightsister Merrin?" Anna asks cautiously.

The woman's eyes widen slightly, her eyes sweeping over Anna's clothing before fixing on the lightsaber still clutched in her hand.

"Who… are you?" Her breathing is slow and laboured through the mask.

"I'm here to help," Anna answers carefully. "I'm with Cal Kestis."

"Cal is here?"

The woman suddenly bucks against her restraints, causing the contraption to sway and creak. Anna takes a step back, thumb hovering warily over the lightsaber switch. She jerks the receiver up to her mouth.

"Cal, I think I found her!"

"What? Are you sure?"

"Greyish hair, red eyes, tattoos all over her face?"

"Stay there, we're coming."

Anna turns back to Merrin. "We're here to rescue you," she announces.

"This is what she wanted," the woman hisses. "You shouldn't be here, it's a trap!"

"Do you know how to open those restraints?" Taking another glance around the room, Anna finds nothing that looks like a control panel of any sort.

"The restraints can only be unlocked… from the bridge," Merrin gasps, her body sagging back down with exertion. "Please, you're not… listening. There's an Inquisitor here."

Static pops from the comm.

"... Cal, where are you? We need support at the-"

Cere's words are drowned out by blaster fire.

"Cere?" The only answer is more static. "Cal, what's going on?"

More silence except for a distant buzzing noise. Electrostaffs? Her pulse quickens.

"Cal? Cere? Anybody?"

Static. Cold fingers wrap around Anna's heart.

There's a low shriek of metal on metal as the damaged door slides open behind her. She freezes at the sound.

"Well, this is unexpected."

Shit. It's that voice.

She whirls, igniting the lightsaber and holding it in front of her. There, in the center of the now-open doorway, stands the Inquisitor. The glare from the blade gleams off the edges of the woman's mask as she steps closer, seemingly unfazed.

"I was hoping Cal Kestis would be the first to find the prisoner," she intones. "Then again, he's probably otherwise occupied at the moment."

The Inquisitor continues her advance, her boots striking the floor in a slow, methodical rhythm. The hilt of her lightsaber glimmers from her belt. For the first time, Anna notices more lightsabers lining the side of the Inquisitor's uniform. That can't mean anything good.

"Stay back!" she warns.

The Inquisitor stops just short of the tip of Anna's blade. She backs up instinctively, trying to force down the fear rising in her chest. Focus. She can do this. Clenching her jaw, she plants her feet wide.

"I will give you one chance." The Inquisitor's tone is pleasant, almost cordial. "Surrender now, or die."

As an answer, Anna lunges forward, stabbing toward the Inquisitor's chest. The lightsaber meets nothing but air as her opponent feints to the side with shocking speed.

"You disappoint me," the Inquisitor states, igniting her own blade with a sweep of her arm.

The woman is upon her like a whirlwind. Immediately, Anna knows she's in way over her head. Cal was clearly holding back in his practice duels with her, looking to perfect her technique rather than break through her defenses. The Inquisitor holds nothing back.

It seems like Anna doesn't even have the time to block one blow before the next comes screaming at her in a blur of searing scarlet. She's forced back by the flurry of attacks, trying desperately to move out of range, but the Inquisitor presses forward relentlessly. Her back meets the wall. She raises her saber with a defiant cry as the Inquisitor's blade comes arcing down. Red grinds on red with a furious plasma crackle.

"That weapon doesn't belong to you," the Inquisitor says, low and deadly. She presses harder and twists.

Suddenly, the lightsaber is flying out of Anna's hands. It clatters to the floor near the doorway, far out of reach.

"You chose the wrong side, girl."

The Inquisitor raises her arm for the final blow, and Anna's panic finally boils over.

A blinding pain pierces her temples. Time stops. Her vision disappears, replaced with images flashing through her mind. A blizzard. Mattias's smile. An obsidian pedestal. Four glowing symbols. A diamond within a diamond within a diamond within a…

White-hot energy surges through her body, too much for her to contain. She screams, thrusting her palms forward. Twin gouts of fire pour forth, engulfing the Inquisitor and sending her flying backward to land in a burning heap at the far end of the room.

Anna stares down at her hands, blinking in shock. What the…

The temperature in the room abruptly drops twenty degrees. The Inquisitor rises slowly, the flames licking at her body doused by a blast of frigid wind. Frost spreads outward across the floor from her feet.

Anna doesn't need to see behind that opaque mask to know this woman is pissed. Dashing for the door, she scoops up her lightsaber and runs for her life.

"Cal, Cere, please someone!" she pants, sprinting up the stairs as fast as her legs will allow. "It's a trap. The Inquisitor is here!"

Bursting through the final doorway and into the loading bay, she finds a scene of chaos. Cal stands at the foot of the Mantis's entrance, twin blades blurring as he fends off two Purge Troopers beating down at him with crackling electrostaffs. Blaster bolts strike the yacht's hull behind him, alternating with bursts of fire from the entrance ramp as Cere and Greez trade shots with another pair of Purge Troopers.

Anna flinches as a shot whizzes overhead.

"Someone get that girl!" one of the troopers shouts.

There's movement on an upper balcony. Anna watches in horror as two stormtroopers wheel up a turbolaser cannon twice their size and begin assembling it with the muzzle pointed squarely down toward the ship.

She raises her lightsaber just in time to deflect another bolt. She starts to run again, fixing her eyes squarely on the troopers surrounding Cal and clenching her fist. It's her turn to do the rescuing.

The floor shakes with heavy footsteps. A hulking, armoured figure steps into her path, forcing her to skid to a halt. Baring her teeth, she swings at him with the lightsaber—only to be met with the shaft of a long, bulky weapon, half hammer, half glaive. The Purge Trooper pushes back with enough force to stagger her, whirling the hammer over his head as it buzzes with electricity.

"Goodnight, traitor."

She moves to block the trooper's swing, but the hammer strikes the ground instead. Her moment of confusion is shattered by a wave of pain that knocks her to the floor. She tries to get up, to move, but her muscles are seized and spasming. Through the smoke rising off her tunic, she sees the blurry silhouette of the Inquisitor striding toward her from the hallway to the cell blocks.

Then the hammer trooper flies over her head, smashing into the wall with a loud crunch.

"Greez, start the ship." Cere's voice is much closer than it should be.

"Cere, no!" That's Cal.

"Cal, get her to the ship. I'll hold them off."

Another distorted cry. The crash of armour plates on durasteel flooring.

She's dimly aware of someone picking her up and hoisting her limp form over their shoulders. More blaster bolts fly around them, but none meet their mark. The surface of a familiar-looking ramp replaces the floor as the walls of the Mantis lounge surrounds her. Her back meets soft couch cushions.

The hull rumbles beneath her as the engines begin to spool. She rolls onto the floor with a groan, propping herself up on trembling arms. Blaster fire and screams continue from the open doorway. She drags herself toward the exit, but stops dead at the sight awaiting her outside the door.

Cere stands over the motionless body of a Purge Trooper, feinting and pivoting as she fires her blaster with deadly accuracy. Her other hand is outstretched, projecting a wall of shimmering light between her and the troopers firing down on her from the balcony. Cal sprints toward her, his saber a wheel of molten green as he deflects blaster fire from every direction. Cere turns back, her face twisted in a grimace of effort.

"Cal, there's no time! Go!"

A blaster bolt sneaks past the barrier and strikes Cere on the shoulder, drawing out a bellow of pain, but she holds fast. Cal falters.

"I won't leave you!"

"I'm not giving you a choice."

There's a low blast and a gust of wind that throws Cal off his feet, sending him flying back toward the Mantis. Cere turns back toward the Purge Troopers advancing on her. Casting her blaster aside, she raises both hands, her fingers curling into claws. The troopers around her go stiff, their hands scrabbling helplessly at their necks as they're lifted into the air.

"This is for Trilla, you sons of bitches."

Cere throws her arms downward, and the troopers crumple to the ground, their limbs contorted at unnatural angles. For a moment, everything is still.

Then a blade of red plasma emerges from Cere's back.

The woman falls to her knees, revealing the Inquisitor standing behind her. Half the Inquisitor's uniform is in tatters, strips of pale skin showing through the tears in the burnt fabric. She extends her arm and the lightsaber returns to her hand.

"No!" Cal screams raggedly, leaping to his feet and reigniting his blade.

"Cal," Cere chokes. "Don't waste this chance."

The Inquisitor tosses the former Jedi aside with a wave of her hand and advances on the Mantis. For an instant, Anna thinks Cal is going to face the Inquisitor head-on, but another volley of blaster fire rains down from the balcony, forcing him back. With an agonized cry, he throws himself onto the ramp. Anna grabs him by the hand and pulls him into the ship.

"Time to go!" she shouts toward the cockpit.

The engines roar as the floor of the loading bay drops away. The doors slide shut. Cal's hand is squeezing hers so hard it hurts.

A shudder runs down the length of the ship. The whine of the engines rises to a screaming pitch. She runs into the cockpit, where Greez is fighting the control column with his whole body.

"What's going on?"

"Look!" Greez yells.

Following Greez's finger, Anna's heart sinks. The Mantis is halfway back into space, but they've stopped moving. The Inquisitor stands below them at the edge of the rupture, her gloved hands raised toward the ship, fingers splayed. Holding them in place. On the balcony, the turbolaser cannon pivots in their direction.

"Fire, fire the cannons!" Cal yells.

Greez squeezes the trigger, but nothing happens. Frost begins to creep across the glass. The turbolaser fires once, rocking the ship as the deflector shields pulse under the impact.

"Shields at thirty percent," Greez says through his teeth. "We can't take another hit from that thing!"

A streak of lightning strikes the Inquisitor from behind, staggering her. The Mantis slips a bit further out into space.

"Holy hell," Greez breathes.

Further into the loading bay, Cere Junda rises on unsteady legs, bent double over the hole in her abdomen. Lurching toward the Inquisitor, her mouth opens in a terrible scream, her face a mask of unbridled rage. Bolts of jagged lightning fly in a torrent toward the Inquisitor, bringing the woman to her knees.

The force holding the Mantis in place finally relinquishes its hold. Anna presses herself to the wall as the ship rockets backward. In the few short seconds the loading bay remains in view, she sees the Inquisitor whirl on Cere. She sees a single crystal spear shoot from the floor, impaling the former Jedi through the neck with a burst of red.

Then Greez yanks on the stick, and all she can see is the red giant star far, far below them.

Updates may be more sporadic from here on out. I'm back to being a full-time student, and vector calculus is hard.