Summary: Brianna needs to get out of Anchorhead, as does Erebus. Vale has a plan, though she knows not where it leads. She'll have to trust in the Force, whatever that means anymore...
3951 BBY Anchorhead, Tatooine
"That was the last I saw of her, Mistress," Brianna uttered breathlessly over the comm tucked into her sleeve, hoping desperately that Atris could not hear the smile that spread over her face as adrenaline continued to course through her. "I can have a detailed report to you by-"
"No," Atris responded, her voice brash and even, "I need you to tell me everything. Now."
"But, Mistress, I-"
Brianna hid in an alley on the fringes of Anchorhead, the tumult still roiling in the city beyond as she strained to hear her Mistress' voice. It was only a matter of time before she was found. The market center was a right mess, crowded with local law enforcement (or what passed for it, anyway), Czerka officers, mercenaries, and bounty hunters opening fire on one another from the moment the horde got too heated.
"I need to know," Atris pressed.
Brianna ducked on instinct as another round of shots tore through the air, kicking up sand. The firefight was getting closer, and the longer it took for anyone to round up the rabble, the more likely they were to seek refuge in an alley just like this one - if not exactly this one. She winced, eyes flashing before looking at her comm with a knotted brow.
"I-"
She sighed, swallowing whatever argument threatened to escape her throat. Brianna inhaled deeply and started from the beginning.
Brianna had spoken to Atris upon first landing on Tatooine, but had not checked in with her since. None of what she relayed seemed nearly as important as it was for her vacate the premises and leave Anchorhead behind, if they'd even allow her to leave the docking bay. Now was her chance to take advantage of any remnant mayhem to make it off-planet before anyone knew otherwise, especially since there was one person who might want to come after her.
She paused after every sentence, speaking evenly despite her instinct still urging her to flee. Atris remained silent until Brianna mentioned the Force user that confronted General Valen.
"Did they notice you?" was Atris' only question, still oddly unconcerned.
"To be frank, Mistress, I think the only thing he noticed was my boot coming down on his head," Brianna answered, smug but serious, careful not to mention the finer details of the fight lest Atris disapprove.
Atris said nothing.
Brianna had only stayed back long enough to make sure that the man was down before pursuing the General and her cohorts again… but the confrontation hadn't stopped there. Either Atris did not sense the information Brianna withheld or found it unworthy of note.
"Good girl," she said, though Brianna could not tell whether she meant it sincerely. "Continue."
"General Valen-"
"Exile, Exile. Please call her the Exile." Atris hissed almost immediately. Whatever usual calm Atris harbored dissolved. Brianna balked, speechless, while Atris gathered herself and responded after a few moments, now forcefully composed, "You shall refer to her as the Exile, from now on and in any reports you deliver. Are we clear?"
Brianna nodded, taking a moment to realize that she needed to verbalize her understanding as well.
"Yes- yes, Mistress, of course. I apologize, I-"
Atris cut her off again.
"For subjectivity's sake," her Mistress explained further, her voice now strained even beyond the natural static of the comm link. "Now, girl, what of the Exile?"
Amidst the nearing chaos inching closer to her temporary sanctuary, Brianna recounted the chase through the market and the explosion at the docking bay. The Exile fled with two others, a Twi'lek and a Wookiee, though Atris never asked Brianna to elaborate on who they were or where they had come from. Brianna had followed them despite the frenzy at the docks once the third explosion went off. There was talk of terrorists and some kind of murder plot, but in the chaos Brianna managed to follow the Exile and the others to a strange looking vessel, placing a tracking device on the ascending loading ramp as it prepared for take-off. She would have made her escape then and there, but Atris demanded answers, and the undulating crowd had carried her out of the docking bay and back into the city as she struggled to get a signal.
Atris, again, said nothing.
"Mistress?" Brianna asked after a while, a cloud of sand erupting nearby. She was already inching towards a fork in the alleyway, a hopeful escape, as she strained to hear Atris' response.
Another beat of silence. Another round of gunfire.
"That is… satisfactory," Atris finally said. "Continue to the rendezvous point."
"But Mistress, I've already-"
The signal cut out.
Brianna glared at the device as if it might spare her more information, or at least some sort of excuse, but the thing only transmitted static before she felt the heat of laserfire uncomfortably close to her skin.
Nearly singed, Brianna ducked before a shot could do her in. Squinting further down the alley was a mushroom cloud of sand and a mess of motion she figured she didn't have time to make sense of.
She shut the commlink off as she broke into a run, several figures lunging into the alley, blasterfire not far behind. Reaching the fork, Brianna sprinted left and kept running. Her hood flew back behind her, flapping against the nape of her neck as she ran. The heat from the suns above was harsh, but almost welcome, and the acid now pumping in her muscles as she raced at full tilt felt sweet despite the pain. The smile returned to her face as she made her way back to the docks, breathless, unbidden in spite of herself.
Brianna was no longer alone, but it did not seem to matter. Figures ran passed her, unbothered by her presence other than the fact that she stood in their way. Without having to think, Brianna kept close to the walls as she hurried along, keeping herself as scarce as she could. No one looked back with a second glance.
The closer she got to the market square, the more she could gather about the current state of the city. Whatever passed for law enforcement around here was now roaming around every corner, sending anyone with a mark on their record back into the alleys and backstreets of the city like scrambling vermin, seeking cover or passage out to the desert. Brianna slowed and raised her hood once more, her breath still heavy, blending into the crowd once she reached the entrance to the docks again.
The Anchorhead dockyard was bombarded with people from every walk of life, each of them yelling, demanding answers. Several personnel tried to calm the masses but to no avail. Brianna had no time for this, she needed to leave.
She spun around, facing the haphazard square, still aflurry with fistfights and gunfire.
Is all of the Outer Rim like this?
Brianna had traveled a good deal for someone so secluded, but even still, most of the places she journeyed to were remote and relatively lifeless. Most artifacts tended to dwell among the forgotten, and as a result, even when she left Telos she only ever saw her sisters and Atris, save for a few natives local to whatever long-lost site they were sent to scavenge. They would occasionally visit more cosmopolitan areas, but they had not done so in quite some time. In fact, it was only a few years ago that Atris began sending Brianna and her sisters off on their own while she remained at the Academy. This was Brianna's only foray into the universe alone. And she was already screwing it up.
Again, Brianna was pushed back from the crowd, almost as far from her ship as before. I have to leave, she thought as desperation took hold of her. Brianna looked at her wrist, her chrono-watch displaying the time. It wouldn't be long before General Valen's ship docked where it was meant to, and who knows how much time she'd have to catch up with them and make absolutely sure that the Exile made her way to Telos. Those were Atris' orders, even if the woman had stalled the success of her own surveillance by demanding she report to her before hightailing it off this rock.
Her breathing quickened, a panic rising in her chest as she looked around frantically, searching for a way in.
Elbows knocked, blasters and shock staffs filling the empty spaces between people, threatening to be used. Brianna's pale blue eyes scanned the crowd again, her heart hastening. She was beginning to feel sick.
Her stomach lurched, the panic taking over. Without thinking she closed her eyes and counted backwards from five. Her breath slowed, counting each second as it passed. And then… she opened her eyes.
Everything was quiet. The world stilled. The heat ceased yet it permeated everything around her. An unseen energy pulsed before her in its stead, like a thrumming heartbeat heavy against a ribcage, and then… it was all over. It was if Brianna had blinked without actually closing her eyes, a moment in time skipping by mistake, an errant glitch in the system.
Suddenly, she felt weightless, almost invisible. She secured her hood and walked onward, as if nothing could stop her this time. No one turned to look, no one tried to stop her. She was like water trickling through the crags in a cave, slithering amid the stones as she became the very space between them.
The heat of Anchorhead emanated around her, resuming in full, but Brianna's skin grew cold. This was familiar, but how? Her mind raced, tugging at wisps of memory that faded before she could grab hold. An entirely different sort of panic welled within her, though she maintained her outer calm, closing in on the docks and what looked like a back way in where no one was stopping her and no one seemed to care.
There would be time to think later, to wonder. Or she could simply forget, she could let Atris' secret academy swallow her suspicions until they vanished, like the half-dreams and near-memories her mind hungered for now. She'd decide later.
Brianna closed the remaining distance with hurried steps, ducking on the other side of a dilapidated wall before anyone spotted her, as if it was only a matter of time until someone did.
Her throat was as dry as the sand beneath her boots, and suddenly the crowd beyond the wall at her back swelled as if roused. Roused? Or noticed again? Unpaused, wakened from a momentary slumber.
Brianna had read stories of what adrenaline could do to a person, the abilities they were imbued with for brief periods of time, almost as if…
Almost as if they could use the Force.
She smiled, wistful, but she bit her cheek before it could consume her. This is silly, she told herself, you're so stupid.
But despite the voices urging her onward in her head (undoubtedly taking the tone of Orenna, the oldest and the sister least likely to ever like her let alone love her), a twinge of hope remained. Some memory of her mother, whoever she was, whoever she had been. Maybe she had inherited her mother's gift, perhaps it was something left behind that she could claim. Other than her father's shame, of course…
Brianna's hands reached up, assuring her hood remained in place, and stood. Looking forward, she breathed deeply and exhaled with newfound purpose. As much as she wanted to ponder whether this was some sign of Force sensitivity or just the effects of the heat mixed with her own naivety, her ship was nearby and she needed to reach it before she was found, before she could be forced back to wait with the rest of Anchorhead and the mess that threatened to consume it before nightfall.
Part of her didn't mind the thought of being left behind. No – staying behind. She had a choice, didn't she?
Brianna proved she could hold her own today, even if her sisters were not there to witness. Atris knew, even if she didn't have the whole story. For now, knowing was enough. It would have to be. It was all she had.
What felt very much like battery acid pumped through Erebus' veins even as he paused to catch his breath.
He was safe for now, but for how long, he was not sure. There wasn't much time.
Darth Nihilus would surely send an envoy after him and his ship – only problem was, Erebus was nowhere near his ship. He could let his ship be found without him inside for his master to find. Here, he could dissolve into the sands of Tatooine, never to be heard from again. But Nihilus hungered, he would find him eventually. Erebus may have been one to lie to himself if only the better to sleep at night, but he was not one to run.
Yet here he was, shipless and sisterless, and with nothing to show for his losses.
The docking bay succumbed to pandemonium around him. Erebus' ship had been nearby, and he wondered if it was a coincidence that it was his ship that was now missing. But there was no such thing as coincidences, there was only the will of the Force.
He looked up at the Tatooine sky, cloudless and blue, as if to spy his sister staring down at him with a look that screamed I told you so.
She would, he thought, despite how much he abhorred the fact that he still thought of her fondly.
You're lucky you still live, he might have spat back at her.
Erebus stood still, his hood drawn as he took refuge in the half-crumbled doorway of what might have been the deck officers' quarters, the smell of singed datapads and other equipment ripe in the dry air. The dock's personnel scrambled about, asking anyone who would listen to calm down and gather near the entrance so they could take inventory. This was his chance. Cloaking himself in more than just fabric, Erebus called upon the Force to distort his image, to avert eyes from his figure as if he were nothing more than smoke and translucent waves of heat emanating from the rubble that surrounded what remained the docking bay. As the maddening crowd drew back, Erebus walked on, unnoticed.
In a few moments, he was alone with the ruins and the ships that remained. He could take his pick.
The cacophony of the chaos melted as he walked on, surveying his options – and there she was.
"You again."
She had come from above, toppling him to the ground like it was nothing, and perhaps it was. Too caught up in his sister and not in tune with his surroundings, Erebus fell without a fight. Before he knew it, Eden was gone again.
The girl put up a decent fight, too, and not just for an untrained Force sensitive, or so he suspected she was. Without exerting herself, the girl kept Erebus down and away from his saber as Eden and the motley company she kept – a Twi'lek and a Wookiee – escaped.
Not that Erebus still had any idea what he might have done with Eden, or to her, but there was no room for speculation now.
The girl had her hood drawn as well, and the Force swelled around her dissolving. She had cloaked herself, too, but her eyes betrayed her, darting around uncertain. Either she was the paranoid sort, or-
She doesn't even know.
Erebus suspected it earlier, though he chalked it up to a lack of willing (and living) Jedi, but not a lack of awareness, a lack of knowing what she was capable of.
Back at the Czerka station, Erebus had reached for his saber, but the hilt remained half-buried in the sand, his mind a blank slate for the briefest of moments as if his inner command came to a screeching halt before an invisible wall. The girl's eyes had widened, though it took less than a moment for her to regain her composure and rightly roundhouse kick him square in the face before running off herself. His jaw still smarted from the swing, but he had to admit it was impressive.
The girl was good, but he doubted she knew of her more innate capabilities.
A thought blossomed, a brief consideration ensnaring him before he dismissed it completely. I could teach her. But the answer that followed was a resounding and definitive no. He shouldn't, he couldn't, nor could he imagine that she'd ever agree. Whatever her motive for being here was, it was in direct conflict with him (and anyone else for that matter), and she seemed determined to keep whatever promise she kept. Even now, she glanced over her shoulder with every tentative step, oblivious to Erebus' presence.
She drew a small datapad from her cloak, keying in a code. A faint smile spirited over her face as she watched the screen. Whatever it was, she had been successful in doing it. The girl bit her lip and looked around, as if embarrassed that anyone might see. Her porcelain skin blushed a deep, fleshy pink.
Erebus froze, his stomach flipping in on itself as he stood stock still. Her pale eyes passed over him without recognition, and he let out a breath of relief. She shook her head. Pocketing her datapad again, she looked around the dilapidated hangar she stood in, a doorway blocking the ship stationed on the other side. She heaved herself over a low wall of debris, wresting her boots in the crags of the crumbling barrier. Before reaching the top, she looked back – and straight at Erebus.
He did not move - had not moved - since the girl began to watch her back. Her eyes fixed in his direction, seeing nothing, though they narrowed as if unsure. Her face betrayed an unease that told him, she knows. But what she saw, or what she thought she saw, he did not know. He could have sworn she nodded, but perhaps she was just shaking her head, telling herself that it was nothing but a trick of the light. Eden could always tell when he hid, back when they were children chasing each other in the tall grasses of Dantooine. She'd tell him that the ruse was a good one, but if she looked hard enough, she could tell something wasn't right, that the molecules he cloaked himself with betraying him, completely giving him away. His command of them was not absolute.
He'd improved since then. A lot had changed, but him most of all...Or perhaps not as much as he liked to imagine. He sighed.
Now, the girl paused as she swung one leg over the wall, looking back in Erebus' direction again. He saw it, then, a small vessel, not unlike his but not nearly as ancient. It must be hers. With a final glance back, she swung her second leg over the broken wall and disappeared on the other side. Once she was gone, Erebus found himself hunched at the base of the wall, right where she had climbed over it. He watched on as she checked the ship for tracking devices, a pale hand running along the smooth surface of the craft as she walked its perimeter. She keyed into a panel on the ship's side, a door hissing open as she completed the cipher. The girl slipped inside and was gone, the door hissing shut behind her just as it had opened.
Erebus did not move until the exhaust from her ship threatened to dislodge his hood. The Force still cloaked him, but in his reverie, he would not be surprised if he had slipped completely from cover.
He considered tracking her, despite her efforts to remove any such devices a moment earlier, but found himself too entranced, too curious.
What manner of sensitive was this? Not trained in the Force but well-versed in ways to block it? She had evaded his several attempts to invade her mind but had successfully stopped him from calling upon the Force himself, if only for an instant. The only other person Erebus had known to do that was the man who turned him. Curiouser and curiouser.
As her ship faded into the distance and the crowd beyond softened to a dull (but still incensed) thrum, Erebus drew his own personal datapad from his cloak, sighing as he keyed the command to his own ship's tracking device. A series of numbers appeared on screen. Whoever piloted the ship now was in hyperspace, but he had the coordinates to their destination. He could catch up with them if he was quick enough.
The ruins of the southern docking square were soon crawling with urchins in search of a payday, small, grubby hands eager for a find to sell for scraps and bits of food. Erebus scoffed, and turned on his heel. He had a ship to steal, and people to forget about. For now.
3951 BBY Nespis VIII Spaceport
Vale remained on the ship alone as the others waited outside, already discussing what was to happen next. She needed a moment to herself, with her brother, almost.
She had no idea how long this thing had even belonged to Aiden, but it was his. It smelled like him, it felt like him, it reminded her of home: humid nights spent kicking one another in the dense jungle heat of the bed they shared on Serroco; the month-long journey they spent almost entirely alone en route to their first Jedi Academy, teasing and chasing one another throughout the passenger transport at the despair of the Jedi Masters that had found them and promised them a better, more meaningful life; the warm sunlight that filtered into the dormitory the twins inhabited in their early years on Dantooine, creeping into their private moments every morning and every evening… it was all so long ago, and the idea of home felt just as far away.
She was at home with Aiden, but since their falling out Vale had only ever experienced it in fleeting moments: in Kavar's training room, camping out on the front lines with Revan and Malak, seeing her mother again in the heat of battle, and again on Anchorhead with Asra, even if they were only friends for a short while.
It wasn't as if she'd sought out a new home to replace the one she lost, but she was only now realizing she hadn't quite felt herself since then, not since her brother began to pull away from her.
It was the jealousy, Master Sunrider told her once - He wishes he could be as independent as you, not realizing that you still love him and are part of him all the same. Aiden was jealous he had to share his sister with anyone else and his heart ached at the idea that she could form bonds with anyone other than him. They were twins after all, didn't that count for something? It did, she'd tell him, but it was never enough. That seemed to be a running theme.
Despite what happened back at Anchorhead, she had a feeling. Vale carefully removed an artifact from the munitions pack, placing a palm-sized pyramid gently on her brother's desk as if it were a paperweight to anchor his old-school drawings and diagrams. But it was more than that. It was a gift, yes, but also an invitation.
Aiden had a memory unlike anyone Vale had ever met, and that memory served him still. His notes were evident of that. If anyone would know about this thing, it would be him, whether the Jedi came through or not.
Vale had more than a feeling, she knew it to be true.
Asra's voice called out to her, already a spectre as if from a distant memory, beckoning their eventual departure from the boarding ramp. Vale afforded herself one last glance around, taking all of it in, all of Aiden in.
"A Star Forge vessel, huh?" she asked, talking to the ship as if it could answer on her brother's behalf.
All roads really do lead to Revan, she thought, the idea bitter in the back of her mind.
It had been a bit of a joke in the Outer Rim, and to Vale even more so, but now it weighed heavy like an omen. Maybe Vale had been collecting more omens than she realized. Bad feelings and artifacts, forever-haunted by Revan's persistent ghost all the while.
She placed a gentle kiss into the crook of her palm and lazed her hand across the wall of Aiden's ship as she descended the loading ramp. This was not the end, no. She could feel it. The Force did not speak for her any longer, but maybe she didn't always need it to. Vale would see her brother again. She would see Asra and Orex again, too. Darek and the others as well. This was by no means an ending, but the beginning of something unlike Vale had ever felt before.
