Chapter 4

"Even if we got the escape pods up and running, there aren't enough working ones that we could get to. Only half the surviving crew would get off the ship."

Admiral Mo'Ari let out a deep sigh upon hearing this report. Lieutenant Nobrian had gathered various reports together to assess the state of the Reliant. Unfortunately, the news he delivered was not what anyone had been hoping for. Mo'Ari did not like the idea of leaving half his crew to die. He was especially opposed to having to choose who would be a part of that half. To that end, he decided to hold off on ordering anyone to abandon ship. "How long can we survive until a rescue ship arrives?"

Nobrian shook his head. "Not long. We're caught in Coruscant's gravity. We're already moving toward the planet. In less than an hour, we're going to start falling too fast for any rescue ship to dock with us."

Mo'Ari looked out the forward viewport at the wreckage surrounding the Reliant. While there were ships navigating the debris field and docking with some of the damaged ships, they appeared to only be evacuating civilian ships. He did not disagree with that tactic – civilians should always come before the military, in his opinion – but that meant the rescue ships would not get to the Reliant in time to save its crew.

"That's not the only problem," piped up Ensign Valizia. She spoke tentatively, as though uncertain if she should be interrupting the conversation. "If this ship falls to the surface, it'll cause a lot of damage. Maybe… maybe we should try to save the ship itself."

The Admiral nodded to her with a small smile of appreciation. "Yes, we should try to stop this ship from crashing. Do we have thrusters?"

"We do," answered Nobrian, "but we don't have enough power to fire them long enough to move us a safe distance from the planet. The main reactor has been shut down, and we can't sustain thrusters on emergency power."

"What about the auxiliary generators?"

Nobrian considered this. "They could give us enough power, but we'd have to bring them online and reroute power to the thrusters. However, we're still locked out of the computer systems, so we can't do that."

"Could we do it manually?" asked Valizia.

"We could." Nobrian brought up a holomap of the Reliant, color-coded to show which parts of the ship still had atmosphere. He pointed to a certain room and explained, "We'd have to send a team to work on the generators here," he moved his finger to indicate another room, "and someone else would have to rearrange the power lines in this relay room… which is in this section that's been vented into space." His voice slowed and fell in pitch as he realized that his plan would not work.

But Mo'Ari was unperturbed. "That doesn't matter," he said. "Whoever goes to the relay room will just have to go on a spacewalk." He pointed to a spot on the map. "We can use this corridor as an airlock. From there, they could climb up to the relay room."

The lieutenant studied the map carefully. "That's a dangerous climb. If they lose their grip, they could float out into space. And once we enter the atmosphere, gravity will start to kick in, which will make the climb even harder."

"And the thrusters will need more power to keep the ship in orbit," added Valizia. "So they'd have to hurry."

"I know how to reroute the power," said Nobrian. "I'll go."

"No," Mo'Ari responded. "I need you here in case there are any more problems. We'll send someone else, and you can talk them through it."

"Who?"

Mo'Ari thought about it briefly. He did not want to risk any more of his crew on such a dangerous climb. They were all too valuable to lose. However, there was one person on the ship who was not part of the crew, who would go to extraordinary lengths to survive, and who would not be missed if he met a tragic fate. He turned around to glare at Commander Mek Dain, who was still being restrained by the security officers. The traitorous Gran had clearly been eavesdropping on the conversation, for he blanched upon meeting Mo'Ari's gaze. He knew exactly what was coming next.

"See, this is exactly why they shouldn't have made me leave my blaster at the front desk," Han Solo said as he stepped off the turbolift.

"Really?" Leia Organa-Solo asked incredulously. "You think it's a good idea to bring a blaster into a hospital?"

"Hey, you get to bring your lightsaber!" Han protested.

"That's because I'm a Jedi."

"And I'm a hero of the Rebellion! Doesn't that get me special privileges?"

"Not like getting to carry a blaster everywhere you…" Leia trailed off as they entered the hospital lobby and beheld the sight before them.

There were bodies everywhere. The bodies of hospital staff, patients, and visitors were strewn throughout the room. Most had scorched holes in various parts of their bodies, indicating that they had been shot with blasters. A few had cauterized stumps where limbs should have been.

"Blasters and lightsabers," Leia noted. "That means there are at least two Sith in the building, including a knight."

"Or no knights," Han pointed out. "A regular soldier could have made the same wounds with one of those ax-rifles. Who knows? Maybe there's only one Sith in the building."

Leia smiled, appreciative of her husband's optimism. "Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it." She went behind the main desk and found the intercom button. When she pressed it, her voice echoed throughout the building. "This is Jedi Master Leia Organa-Solo. Sith have entered the hospital. Repeat, Sith have entered the hospital. Get to the nearest room, barricade the doors, and find a place to hide."

After she had finished her announcement, she moved to stand in the center of the lobby and looked around. There were three hallways leading off from the room – three directions the Sith could have gone in. I hope they didn't decide to split up, she thought. While the hospital employed security guards to deal with violent patients and thieves trying to score drugs, they were no match for the battle-hardened Sith. It was up to her and Han to stop them.

"Ah, that's better."

In response to Han's voice, Leia turned to face him. He was standing behind the security desk, holding his trusty DL-44 blaster with a cocky smile on his face. She rolled her eyes at him and asked, "Do you see any controls to lock down the building?"

Han looked down and studied the buttons and displays on the desk. "Yeah," he answered. He worked several buttons and switches, explaining as he went. "This should call the police, as if they'll be any help. And this—" he paused as a blue wall of energy appeared in front of the main entrance, "—should keep anyone from getting in or out until they arrive. It also looks like I can block off certain hallways and disable turbolifts. If I knew where the Sith were, I could cut them off, make them easier pickings for us."

Leia closed her eyes and extended her awareness through the Force, hoping to sense them. She nearly staggered under the weight of the fear and pain she felt from the civilians. There was also darkness in their midst, coupled with bloodlust and savage glee, emanating from four individuals. Leia homed in on their source and divined the location of the Sith – or rather, locations, plural. "They've split up," she told Han. "They're already in the stairwells."

When Allana Solo heard her grandmother's announcement, she could not stop the wave of fear that washed over her. She had assumed that they were going to leave the hospital to fight the Sith. Except now the Sith were already inside. How far have they gotten? she wondered. How close are they? Are they going to come here? The prospect of having to fight a Sith by herself terrified her. While she had been in fights before, they had only ever been with other children. How could she be expected to fight a Sith?

"Calm down." Allana was so lost in her thoughts that she jumped upon hearing Jaina Solo's voice behind her. She turned around to see that her aunt had fixed her with a disarming glare that was serious, but not stern. "I know you're scared," she continued, "but everything will be okay. Grandma and Grandpa will make sure the Sith don't find us. But you need to do what they say. Lock the door and move things in front of it so that no one can get in."

Allana nodded, feeling somewhat less fearful knowing Jaina was with her. She went over to the controls next to the door and did what Leia had ordered. Then, she looked around the room to see what she could use to form a barricade. To her disappointment, most of the furniture was too lightweight to be effective. The only thing that she believed would work was the dresser, except it appeared too heavy for her to move by herself.

She decided to try, anyway. Grabbing the two corners nearest to the door, she pulled with all her might, but to no avail. She then moved to the opposite site and tried to push the dresser, but it would not budge. What am I going to do? The Sith will get through that door easily, and I won't be able to stop them!

"Use the Force," advised Jaina.

Allana had not even thought of that, but for good reason. "I've never tried moving anything that big before," she protested. "I don't know if I can do it."

"I know you can. You just have to believe it. Remember, size matters not," Jaina added, repeating a quote Luke Skywalker had appropriated from Master Yoda.

Despite her misgivings, Allana did what Jaina suggested. She closed her eyes and reached out with the Force. Soon, she could feel the dresser – its material, its texture, its shape, its size, its weight. She began to manipulate the Force surrounding the piece of furniture and willed it to move. When nothing happened, she kept trying, drawing on every technique she and her fellow Jedi Initiates had learned. But, as the seconds ticked by with no change in the dresser's location, she started to grow increasingly fearful that she would fail, and that she and Jaina would die as a result.

Fear is the path to the dark side, she reminded herself, echoing another of Uncle Luke's sayings. Her fear was holding her back, preventing her from achieving the necessary focus. So she tried to push that fear to the side by thinking about other things. Her mind accessed memories of spending time with her family and friends, memories of visiting new worlds and meeting new people, memories of experiences both exciting and harrowing. While the memories succeeded in distracting her from her fear, she still could not get the dresser to move.

"Don't think too hard about it," said Jaina. "Try to empty your mind and focus on the Force itself. Focus on the way it moves around the dresser."

Allana took the advice, purging the memories from her mind. Her fear was still present, but she forced herself not to dwell on it. Instead, she focused her attention on the dresser and the current of Force energy surrounding it. No, not just surrounding it – penetrating it, binding it together. The Force was everywhere, moving like mist in a soft breeze. As she thought about that comparison, she was able to see it without actually seeing it. It was more than just visualization; it was more like feeling it and translating those feelings into sight. She imagined blowing into the breeze, disrupting the flowing mist and sending eddies through the air. Then, she imagined blowing at the mist surrounding the dresser.

It moved – just a little bit, but enough to boost Allana's confidence. She blew and blew and blew, pushing the dresser with each breath as though it were weightless. It glided slowly across the floor until it came to a stop against an invisible barrier that disrupted the airflow. She could feel the barrier, as well. From its size and shape, she knew that it was the door leading to the hallway outside the hospital room. Satisfied that her work was done, she opened her eyes and looked upon the dresser blocking the door.

Triumph and pride surged within her. She had never connected to the Force in such a strong manner before. Turning to look at Jaina, a smile broke out across her face.

Jaina mirrored her smile and said, "Well done."

The moment was interrupted by the sound of distant screaming and blasterfire. Allana realized that the Sith were on that very floor, breaking into people's rooms and killing them. While the dresser would slow them down, it would not prevent the Sith from eventually breaking into Jaina's room. Allana tried to keep her fear in check as she mentally prepared herself for a possible confrontation. She could only hope that Han and Leia would intercept the Sith before they arrived.

Han and Leia had agreed that it would have been a bad idea to split up and each attempt to take on two Sith alone. Their best chance of success was to stay together. That, of course, raised the issue of how to stop both pairs of Sith roaming the hospital. They briefly considered locking every door in the building, but they quickly realized that that would also impede their own progress. They settled on locking all of the doors in the stairwells except for the ones they would need to go through to get to the Sith. Then they set out to deal with the nearest Sith first.

They had ascended the stairwell until they came to a door that had been forced open. There was a scorched gash at the edge of the door where the locking mechanism had been cut through. Believing that the Sith were on that floor, they stepped through the doorway and made their way quickly but stealthily down the hall. Leia took the lead, unlit lightsaber in hand, while Han followed closely behind, scanning their surroundings with his blaster raised. There was no one in sight, no sign of movement, and everything was disconcertingly quiet. Hopefully, that meant everyone had followed Leia's instructions and were hiding from the Sith. The alternative was too morbid to think about.

Thunk!

The sudden noise caused them both to jump. Thunk! It was coming from further down the hall. Han and Leia broke into a run as one sound after another echoed toward them. Then there was the sound of crashing, followed by a scream, a blaster shot, and then silence. They shuffled to a stop, stunned by the dawning realization of what they had just heard.

And then their eyes were drawn to the room next to them. The door had been cut and forced open, just like the one in the stairwell. Inside, three people lay dead – a male patient in a hospital bed, a female Iktochi nurse, and a female visitor. All of them had the same blaster wounds as the bodies Han and Leia had found in the lobby.

The couple exchanged pained looks and wordlessly agreed to move on. As they continued to run down the hallway, they passed more rooms that had been forced open, each with more bodies inside. They forced themselves not to think about them and focus on the task at hand. The Sith had to be stopped before they hurt anyone else.

Han and Leia rounded a corner and froze when they saw two black-clad figures – one armored and helmeted, one robed and hooded – about a dozen meters in front of them. Hearing their footsteps, the figures turned around to reveal their faces to the newcomers. The armored Sith snarled and raised his blaster rifle. Reacting quickly, Han fired a volley of shots from his own blaster and Leia ignited her lightsaber, positioning the blue blade to deflect the oncoming blasterfire back at the Sith. His companion ignited a lightsaber of her own, its red blade complementing the face of its wielder, and followed suit

Han and Leia were somewhat familiar with the Sith's characteristic rifles from previous encounters with them. Two flat, transparent, red energy blades extended from either side of each rifle's barrel, giving it the appearance of a double-bladed ax. This was accomplished by an energy field being generated between two emitter rods that were positioned at an angle to the barrel. The blades doubled as both cutting implements and personal shields, being able to block lightsaber strikes and dissipate blasterfire. However, because of the horizontal position of the blades, the Sith had to raise their rifles in order to use them as shields, which prevented them from being able to fire at enemies at the same time.

That had changed, evidently. The blades on the rifle of this Sith unexpectedly reoriented themselves to become vertical and slid forward to the tip of the barrel. The emitter rods were straight instead of angled, so the blades each had a full semicircular shape, which increased their surface area. They also appeared to be slightly larger in radius than before. With the blades in their new position, the Sith could continue to fire at Han and Leia while simultaneously protecting himself from oncoming blasterfire.

"Well, that's new," Han growled. "Why did they have to upgrade?" He continued to fire unrelentingly at the Sith while Leia protected him from enemy fire. With everyone able to effectively defend themselves, it appeared as though they had reached a stalemate.

Then Han had an idea. He crouched down and began firing at the Sith's legs. The shots were easily blocked by the knight's lightsaber, but were beyond the reach of the warrior's shield. Despite the smaller target area, some of Han's shots hit their mark. And although the Sith's armor protected him, the impacts still hurt enough to cause him to stumble. He lost his balance and fell to his knees, unintentionally lowering his rifle in the process. Han took advantage of this and fired shot after shot at the Sith's head. The first several shots either missed or impacted the his armored helmet, but eventually one of them hit him between the eyes. He pitched forward and lay facedown on the floor.

The remaining Sith yelled with rage lashed out with the Force, throwing both Han and Leia back several meters. As they scrambled to their feet, she charged forward, lightsaber poised to strike. When she was close enough, she swung at Leia, who parried the blow with her own lightsaber. But the ferocity of the attack caused her blade to bounce back, leaving her vulnerable to the Sith's next swing. She managed to bring her saber back up just in time to block that blow, as well.

Han stepped away from the fight and aimed his blaster at the Sith. However, he could not get a clear shot without risking hitting his wife. So Leia continued to fight alone. While she lacked the Sith's brute strength, she made up for it with her speed, reacting quickly to every swing. She managed to get in a few good swings of her own, but the Sith was able to block them all. Then she feinted, pulling back just when it looked like she was about to swing again. The Sith moved to block the attack and was caught off-guard when Leia instead thrust her lightsaber through her gut. She fell to the floor and Leia brought her saber down into the Sith's heart for good measure.

With both Sith dead, Han and Leia breathed a sigh of relief and allowed themselves a moment to relax. Leia looked at her husband and said, "Thanks for the help."

Han put on an affronted expression. "Hey, you had him. Besides, I took out the first one."

She rolled her eyes. "You know, I love you."

He responded with a lopsided smirk. "Don't even have to say it, sweetheart."

They leaned forward and shared a brief kiss before Leia pulled back and said, "Come on, there's still two more of them."

The noises were getting louder by the minute. Allana heard a series of soft banging sounds followed by screaming, blasterfire, and then silence. A moment later, she heard louder banging, louder screams, louder blasterfire, and then silence. The Sith were going room to room, killing anyone they found.

Allana could not stand it. She desperately wished she could stop the Sith and save all the innocent people. In any other circumstance, she probably would have done that, disregarding her grandparents' orders and running into danger. But these were Sith, and she was just a Jedi Initiate. What could she do against them?

She had to do something, at any rate. Soon, the Sith would arrive at Jaina's room and kill both her and Allana. The young girl stood facing the door, her mind racing to come up with a plan for dealing with them. But with the noises getting steadily louder, she found it difficult to think about anything but her impending doom.

"Allana," Jaina said gently, "don't be afraid. We're going to use the Force to hold the door closed. If they can't get in, they might decide to move on. At the very least, it will buy us some time for Grandma and Grandpa to come back. Okay?"

Allana nodded her head to confirm her understanding. She desperately hoped it would work; otherwise, she did not know what she would do. She reached out with the Force the same way she had when she moved the dresser in front of the door. This time, however, she focused on the door itself and gripped it tight, willing it to remain shut. A moment later, she felt Jaina's added influence on the door, except it was tenuous, at best. Apparently, her connection to the Force had been weakened by her time in a coma.

Two life forms approached the door. Allana could sense the dark side radiating off of them like heat from an airspeeder engine on a desert planet. She felt her heart pound as the Sith stopped in front of the door. Suddenly, a flat blade of red energy pierced the door, cutting through the locking mechanism. Allana suppressed a reflexive scream and focused on redoubling her control over the door. One of the Sith continued chopping with his ax-rifle until he had cut a handhold with which he could pry the door open.

Allana could sense the door begin to budge as the Sith pulled on it, but she was able to maintain her connection with the Force and pull the door in the opposite direction. She instinctively moved to one side of the door, as though pulling it directly toward her would be more effective. With Jaina's added strength, however meager, she prevented the door from opening.

"What are you waiting for?" asked a voice from the other side of the door. "Open it!"

"I'm trying!" another voice responded. "It's jammed! I can't get it open!"

"Step aside."

In response to his comrade's instruction, the second Sith let go of the door. For a fleeting moment, Allana wondered if Jaina's plan was working, and that the Sith were going to leave them alone. But then, she heard a new noise – a faint beeping sound that grew steadily louder very quickly. Before she could identify the source of the sound, the door exploded. Allana's feet left the ground for two seconds as she was thrown to the side of the room.

She landed on her back, her ears ringing and her vision blurry. When she looked up, a dark haze obscured the front of the room. And then it began to… snow? Little white flakes fell from the ceiling and some of them landed on Allana. They did not feel like snowflakes; they were too big and foamy. A second later, the dark haze began to dissipate, and a black figure entered the room.

Although she could still hear a high-pitched, constant tone, Allana's vision came back into focus, giving her a clearer view of the figure. It was clad in black armor and a black helmet, and it wielded a blaster rifle with red ax blades protruding from it. It was a Sith warrior, and they were pointing their ax-rifle at Jaina!

With a sudden boost of courage, Allana sprang up, drew her lightsaber from her belt, and charged at the intruder. The Sith turned to look at her, and an expression of confusion crossed his red-skinned face, as though he could not comprehend that a young girl with a lightsaber was bearing down on him. That moment of confusion gave Allana the time she needed to close the gap between them and thrust her golden blade into his heart.

The Sith groaned softly as he let out a breath, dropped his rifle, and then went limp. Allana realized too late that he was falling on top of her, and she quickly found herself pinned to the floor by a heavy body. She tried to push him off of her, but the weight of his armored body made him too heavy for her to move. Still, she continued to try.

But then she saw something that scared her; a second Sith had entered the room and was looking right at her. Her breathing quickened as she frantically attempted to dislodge herself, but to no avail. The Sith raised his rifle and Allana found herself staring right down its barrel. While other people might have frozen in her position, she kept trying to push up on the first Sith's body and wriggle her way out from under him. She could only hope that the Sith had terrible aim or a glacial reaction time.

Suddenly, another ax-rifle, with its energy blades activated, flew at the Sith and lodged itself into his flesh, right where his neck and shoulder intersected. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped, and then he pitched backward and fell to the floor. Allana did not stop to question what had just occurred; instead, she finished extricating herself from beneath the body of the first Sith. Once she was free, she stood up and looked around, piecing events together based on her observations.

The door was gone. A jagged, gaping hole had replaced it and the dresser lay in pieces at the far end of the room. The Sith must have planted a thermal detonator on the door to blow it open. The blast had triggered the room's fire suppression system, causing fire retardant foam to rain down and the ventilation exhaust system to ramp into high gear, drawing the smoke out of the room and expelling it outside. And Jaina's right arm was raised in the direction of the spot where the second Sith had been. She had used the Force to lift the first Sith's rifle and hurl it at the assailant threatening her niece.

Breathing heavily, Jaina slowly lowered her arm and nodded at Allana in acknowledgement. "You did good," she said.

Allana, still shaken from the ordeal, nodded in response. She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. A moment later, she heard the sound of running footsteps and feared that more Sith were on their way to finish what their colleagues could not. She reactivated her lightsaber and held it aloft, waiting to strike. The footsteps grew louder, as did her heartbeat. Then, two figures entered the room.

But they were not Sith; they were her grandparents. Seeing Allana with her lightsaber raised, Han held up his hands in a placating gesture and said, "Woah, calm down, honey. It's just us."

After a second's hesitation, Allana lowered her saber and deactivated it. Still breathing heavily, she opened her mouth to ask a question, but, again, no words came out.

Leia must have divined what her question would be, however, for she answered, "It's okay; that was the last of them. It's over."

Vestara Khai was torn. She knew that, in a matter of moments, Ship would tell her to escape from her cell so he could take her back to the Sith. Except she was not sure if she wanted to go back. After what Ben Skywalker had told her about Dromund Kaas, she questioned if she could continue to serve an order that condoned such unnecessary cruelty. Aside from that, she feared the kind of reception she would receive, given her recent string of failures. Darth Hatus apparently had plans to use her in some fashion, and she did not think she wanted to find out what they were.

She considered refusing to go with Ship and staying in her cell. Surely, whatever punishment the Jedi had in store for her would not be as severe as whatever the Sith had planned. Then again, she might be locked in a high security prison for the rest of her life. She might even be sentenced to death. Neither of those options appealed to her. But maybe she would face the same fate if she returned to the Sith. Vestara did not know what to do.

Then it occurred to her: I'm afraid. I'm letting fear of punishment influence my decisions. Despite her recent misgivings about the Sith, she still held some of their principles near to her heart. One of them was fearlessness. If I let myself remain a prisoner of the Jedi, people would remember me as a coward. It's bad enough that I let myself get captured in the first place. Staying here would make me look even worse.

With that in mind, her choice was clear. I have to go back. I have to face Lord Hatus and the other Sith. I don't have to take whatever punishment they give me; I'll fight to defend myself. I'll fight to the death, if I have to. I would rather that be my legacy than being a coward.

Mere seconds afterward, she heard Ship's voice in her head. Now, Vestara.

That was her cue to escape. But, as she looked at the blue energy field in the cell doorway and the Force-dampening binders on her wrists, she wondered how she would do that. She thought back to what Ship had told her before. If you are as strong with the dark side as I believe, they will not be able to stop you. It seemed to imply that she could use the Force to break her bonds.

Vestara held out her hands and looked down at the cuffs. They were designed to prevent her from using the Force, but perhaps she could overpower them if she tried hard enough. She focused on them and reached out with the Force, causing them to vibrate. Instantly, an electric shock coursed through her, breaking her concentration and causing her to cry out in pain. The shock subsided, as did the pain, and she was left panting.

But she was no stranger to pain. It was part of the grueling training regimen she had experienced growing up on Kesh. The Sith believed that pain made one stronger. That was how Vestara knew that she could withstand the pain of the binders. She made another attempt to break them and, once again, electricity coursed through her body. Although she was in agony, she did not let it break her concentration. She fought through the pain, making the binders vibrate faster and faster.

She drew on her emotions to fuel her power. She thought about Ben, about how she loved him and hated him at the same time, about how he had shattered her worldview and caused her to doubt everything she had known. She thought about how kind he had been to her, how attractive and brave and foolish he was, and how wonderful their moment of bliss had been. She thought about her upbringing on Kesh, about her gentle mother and stern father, about the friends and enemies she had made during her training, about the peace and solitude the Lost Tribe had enjoyed until Ship came along. She thought about Darth Hatus and his New Sith, how they had taken over the Lost Tribe and drawn them into their war, how they had lied about their brutal methods of enslavement and torture, how Darth Volatis had tricked Vestara into coming to Coruscant to assassinate Ben. And she thought about her weakness and failures, how she had not completed her mission when she had had the chance, how she had not been able to prevent herself from being captured, how she had fallen in love with a Jedi, and how she had been prepared to betray the Sith.

Tears streamed from Vestara's eyes, and she screamed in anguish as she poured all of her pain, sadness, and hatred into the binders – including the pain of the electrocution she was currently subjecting herself to. A single Jedi appeared outside her cell, drawn by her cries to see what was happening, but she ignored him.

Finally, the cuffs vibrated at their resonance frequency and shattered. Even as the electrocution stopped, Vestara continued to pour her dark emotions into the Force. Without the binders to dampen her power, the Force exploded out of her, blowing the cell apart and sending her jailer flying. She then collapsed to her knees and sobbed. Slowly, the pain died down, her frantic breathing calmed, and the tears stopped flowing.

She opened her eyes and saw that the walls of her cell had been blown outward, freeing her from her prison. Even parts of the ceiling had collapsed around her. The body of the Jedi warden lay motionless beneath a pile of rubble – not dead, but merely unconscious. Vestara considered finishing him off before she left. The death of a Jedi would be good for her reputation.

Oddly enough, she found that she did not want to kill him. Perhaps the revelations of the past few days had changed her perspective of the Jedi and the act of killing itself. Or perhaps he reminded her of Ben, and how she could not bear to hurt him any more than she already had. Either way, she decided that she would not kill anyone during her escape… unless she had no other option.

Thank you for reading this chapter! If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in your reviews or private messages.