Into the fire

Don't own, blah blah blah.

Enjoy!

Of Waking and Seeing

It was a little after midnight when Jade Shale woke up and realised that someone was trying to kill her.

Though she was only seven, she didn't move, panic, or even show she had woken. Seven years of Jedi training had ingrained an unnatural calm into her persona. It had also taught her, in ways sometimes subtle, sometimes glaringly harsh, that if there was one thing in the galaxy you shouldn't trust, it was dreams.

And although the fractured images of her nightmare where terrifying in there own right, she was alone. Maybe what she had glimpsed through the shrouds of sleep was the future? That impossible facade of ever changing possibilities. The future is always in motion. So despite the screaming of her feelings to run, hide, escape, she stilled herself and listened.

At first there was only the gentle hum of the temple systems, singing hypnotically into her darkened room. Then, for a second, the garish clash of a lightsaber.

No one should be using weaponry out of the sparing arenas, and they where far below the tower where the apprentices slept. Weaponry shouldn't be here. And yet here it was, completely expected by the one person to briefly foresee the catastrophic holocaust ahead.

For years now, Jade mused through a haze of rising terror, the Jedi had gone to the war. It seamed that the two positions had now bean reversed.

The war had come to the Jedi.

She moved swiftly, jumping all of a sudden from fearful stillness into a whirlwind of action. Opening the chest at the foot of her bed, she dressed hurriedly; not into the clothes of an apprentice, but a set of more casual clothes, baggy black cargo pants, and a loose red shirt, for she was quickly making plans, deducing as much information as she could from the little raw data she had, and for her to survive, she would need to avoid looking like a Jedi. The apprentice hesitated as she looked to the practise lightsabre resting on her bedside table. It was tempting, but…

If someone was attacking the Jedi temple, clearly they would be a well armed, experienced troop of fighters. Or possibly insane. But she could hear the fighting from her room, so they were clearly not mad, or if they where then they where dangerously mad. She was only seven, and a training lightsabre would not protect her from trained solders. Her survival counted on getting out of the temple unseen, and then across the city unnoticed. The lightsabre would be a hindrance, nothing more. Pulling on boots, she left quickly.

In the corridor, she glanced quickly both ways, before running to the door opposite to her own, seeking out her close riend Miaka. She didn't bother to knock, only pushed into the room and pulled back the bed sheets roughly, shaking the little tweleck girl. Her friend awoke with a start and an explanation, cuing her to press her hand against Miaka's small mouth.

"Quiet a moment and listen to me. I can hear the sound of lightsabres, that means someone's fighting away from the sparing arias, and that means that someone is trying to attack the Jedi temple." She drew her hand away, assured she now had the full attention of the girl.

"Attacking? But who-"

"I don't know. No doubt something to do with the war. But if they have any sense they'll have cut our communication before they came, so probably no one knows. I'm going to go down the tower if I can and try to get help from the security station on Queens Boulevard. Now no one's come to get us so I need you to wake all the apprentices and get them up the tower as high as you can. Don't go down: there's too many to hide. O.K?" All she received was a silent nod. "Get dressed. Go quickly, go quietly."

Miaka jumped up quickly, then hesitated, and pulled Jade into a tight hug.

"Be safe, friend."

And then Jade was out of the door, running to her destiny.