Obroa-skai
No sooner had Adrielle Lunan begun opening her eyes, than she shut them as tight as she could to stop even the smallest amount of light to pierce through to her brain.
This is getting to be a really bad trend, she thought as she brought her forearm up to her head to shield her eyes further.
"Hey you, you're finally awake," a familiar voice said: Nurse Veena.
"Wha…" Adrielle took a breath, collecting her thoughts in the process. "What happened? How did I…"
"You have two very concerned, if not slightly smitten, young Nautolans to thank for your rescue," the nurse explained. "They alerted the park security that you'd vanished. Said you were helping them out, getting their ball back for them, but that they'd waited for almost an hour for you to resurface, and you never did." She picked up a datapad from the stand next to Adrielle's bed. "Found you knocked out. No injuries that I could observe. BP normal, pulse normal… brain activity was pretty erratic though. Must've had some crazy dreams."
"I wish I could remember."
"But besides that, nothing. I'd theorize that you'd suffered a stroke of some kind, but your speech seems fine, and neural activity is functioning regularly." She glanced over the datapad at her patient. "I guess the only course of action left is quite simply… how are you feeling, Miss Lunan?"
Removing her hand from her face and alternating between closing and opening each eye to acclimate herself, Adrielle slowly sat up. She widened her eyes and looked around: no disorientation, no urge to throw up her guts.
"I think I'm… fine?"
"Hm." The nurse switched off the datapad and stepped aside, giving Adrielle a clear path to the door. "Then I guess officially, you're free to go. Just a couple things for you to sign with my receptionist, but that's about it. I can't detain you since you empirically have nothing wrong with you, and by your own admission you seem to be fully recovered."
"Thanks." Adrielle swung her lower body to the side of the bed, sitting at the side momentarily before standing. She hadn't realized she was still wearing the same outfit. "Hey how long's it been?"
"Oh, just about a day and a half," the nurse answered. Adrielle groaned.
"Great, more makeup work I'll have to worry about." She got to her feet and made her way out.
. . .
In hindsight, Adrielle thought, perhaps she shouldn't have been so hasty to discharge herself.
As soon as she sat herself down in the lecture hall, it took all she had to stop herself from putting her head down and squeezing it between her elbows. She settled with resting her chin on her forearms, staring intently ahead hoping that that would block out the tidal wave.
Feelings. So many feelings. Clashing feelings, excessive feelings. Excitement and dread at the same time, deep sadness and near giddy happiness, apathy, boredom, anger. Why was she feeling all of this? She hadn't done or said anything since walking in, nor had anyone else approached her to warrant such emotions.
"ELLE! By the stars!" Adrielle involuntarily shut her eyes in response to a particularly sharp surge in her head, as she felt her pulse quicken with excitement over… what?
She turned to see Nari take the seat next to her.
"You're okay!" Nari exclaimed in relief. "I visited you while you were still knocked out, I didn't even see you when you came back to the dorm and—" A look of confusion crossed her face. "Elle, you okay? What's wrong?"
"Huh?" Adrielle blinked in her own confusion before realizing. She wiped away her tears with her jacket sleeve. "What in the…" She didn't know what look she was giving her friend but she figured it must not have been a very reassuring one based on the uncertainty and worry on Nari's own face.
"All right, let's begin!" their professor called out as he entered the room. Almost instantaneously, the chaos in Adrielle's mind subsided, though she could still feel it, almost like a soup simmering in low heat: not as frantic, but still undeniably present.
"So, if you'll recall that question I'd asked you all at the end of our last meeting…"
Adrielle's attention began wandering. She hadn't realized until her eyes casually swept over her chrono: over half the class time was done, but she hadn't even filled up half of the blank document page on her notepad. Usually she'd be two pages in by the halfway point. Apparently that "simmer" in her mind wasn't as benign as she'd wishfully thought it was. She made a mental note to herself to check herself back in to the infirmary just to be sa—
"AAGH!" Just like that the simmer returned to a full force boil, more severe than ever. Before she was even aware of it, she'd ended up curled up under the table, whimpering, her chair overturned. She was blind and deaf to the world around her, her eyes shut with her screaming the only sound in her ears. And the fear—no… terror. She'd never felt so helpless, so frightened. As she continued screaming, she could hear her voice multiplying until it was as though a whole army of screams was permeating the lecture hall.
A rumbling sound and a violent tremor was shock enough to shake her back to her senses. Her scream diminished into gasps. But yet she could still hear the army of screams in her ears. Opening her eyes, she realized that the "army" had been everyone else in the room, crouched under their tables, their terror a reflection of her own.
Another rumble and tremor.
"THIS WAY!" the professor yelled, pointing at the open door. "WE NEED TO GET TO OPEN AREA IN CASE THIS WHOLE PLACE COMES DOWN!"
Ignoring their instructor, the students all stampeded out the room and into the halls, where all their other classmates were doing likewise. Still recovering from the sensory overload she'd suffered, Adrielle tried to keep up, but her attention was distracted as she glanced out the window and let out a gasp.
A destroyer. A Sith Empire destroyer. She'd seen them on news holos and in picture form on textbooks, but never in person. And truth be told, she'd rather hoped that that would remain the case her whole life.
The Sith star destroyer Devourer
Darth Judecca looked down on the scene below her as the ship's turbolasers let out several warning shots. Not quite meant to do damage or to destroy; merely to enforce the point that a new order had come to Obroa-skai, to discourage any resistance or reprisal.
"I think they've had enough," Judecca said. "Begin deployment."
. . .
The entirety of the Obroa-skai College campus was in pandemonium. Students and administrators alike scrambled to find safely, none of them noticing the box-shaped shuttles descending from the destroyer above.
For each shuttle that made landfall, a squad of ten troopers led by a single Sith Lord came marching out. Soon, the Empire's ground forces would be in complete control of the surface.
The last shuttles made their landing, as they poured out their squads. Upon the final shuttle opening, the Sith Lord in charge scanned the scene before him before he, along with his fellow Sith across the city, received a comm from Judecca.
"Remember, you're searching for a very particular presence, probably unlike anything you'll have ever sensed before. It won't feel the same as a normal Force-sensitive person. Keep your senses sharp, and kill any who get in your way. We have a headstart on the Republic, do not squander it."
"As you say." The Sith Lord turned to his squad. "Move out!"
. . .
"Elle!"
Adrielle heard Nari first before she spied her waving her arms trying to get her attention. Wading her way through the sea of bodies, Adrielle kept her gaze on her friend, both to keep track of her as well as to have something—anything—to distract her from the cacophony that was threatening to split her skull clean open.
She was only about fifteen people away from her when suddenly the window shattered as crimson bolts punctured the crowd. Nari was one of the first to fall.
"NO!" Adrielle cried. She turned to her right to see ten dark grey armored soldiers firing into the crowd, led by a lone masked individual wielding what could only be a lightsaber, remembering the stories she'd both read and watched on the holonet.
The crowd began going in wildly different directions; some turning back the direction they came, some rushing forward, still others running outside in the direction of the soldiers, maybe hoping that their attention would be too focused on the ones still in the hallway to aim at them (it wasn't).
Adrielle moved to her left, pressing as close to the wall as possible and putting as many people between her and the advancing army, and continued forward, ignoring the orders of the masked swordswoman to get on their knees with hands behind their head and her declaration that Obroa-skai was now the domain of the Sith Empire.
Finally Adrielle spied a left turn up ahead. Fortunately most of the others didn't dare take a turn that might lead them further back indoors, so as she turned, she found her traversal much easier as she was able to actually break into a run. But where would she go? She asked herself that repeatedly as she ran through the turns in the hallway. She had no direction, no destination. Hell, hadn't that been part of the whole point for her leaving her family and homeworld to take schooling here? To discover what she wanted to do with her life? Now she found herself questioning if she'd even have much life left after today.
That question seemed to answer itself more than clearly, as Adrielle ran headfirst into another group of soldiers.
"Hostile!" one of them called.
"Idiot," spat the red-skinned being leading the group, "It's just a civilian. Dispose of her so we can continue our sweep!"
"Yes, lord!" All ten raised their rifles. Adrielle's eyes widened as she felt a terror like she'd not felt to that point; the terror of one about to die but completely unready to do so, a terror which dwarfed even the feeling that had crippled her back in the classroom.
"NO! LEAVE ME ALONE!" Adrielle screamed as she shut her eyes and stretched out her arms instinctively.
Once more she heard a union of screams. But interestingly, all those voices were distinctively not hers.
"Wait a minute…" she heard a voice say. Adrielle opened her eyes, and gasped.
In front of her, the soldiers were sprawled all throughout the hallway before her, while the red-skinned man in the cloak was on one knee, his arms crossed in front of him protectively, but Adrielle could see his face behind them, appraising her with a curiosity that made her quite uncomfortable.
The red-skin stood up. "That power. That presence… But it's supposed to be an artifact." He unclipped his lightsaber from his belt and ignited it, its crimson blade permeating the corridor with an eerie glow. "You're coming with me. I'll soon get to the bottom of this." He took a few steps forward as Adrielle took steps back to maintain distance, until she was back against a wall. With no other option, she sank down, sitting with her back to the wall.
"Fine. An autopsy it is, then." The red-skin raised his lightsaber and brought it down upon the girl…
Only to be stopped by a second blade, this time of blue light.
"For love of the Force, at least take her to dinner before going for the big thrust," the newcomer quipped. Adrielle glanced up and to her right.
Holding the blue saber was a clean-shaven man with long black hair, wearing white robes underneath a black cloak.
"Impossible!" the red-skin barked as he backed away. "You shouldn't be here!"
"And your mother should've swallowed, so I guess we're both disappointments, aren't we?"
With a roar, the red-skin launched himself at the human, who deftly blocked each strike, until he found his opening and ended the fight with a quick and efficient riposte. The red-skin fell to the floor, his lightsaber deactivating and rolling away from his body until the human stopped it with his booted foot, then destroyed it with a quick strike from his blue saber.
The newcomer turned to Adrielle. "Just you?" he said.
Adrielle nodded. The newcomer sighed.
"Fine, just shut up and stay close to me and I'll get you out."
"But there's—"
"Did you not just hear the first part of that sentence?" the newcomer said as he broke into a light jog, forcing Adrielle to keep up. "I'll lead you outside, then you get to safety."
The two of them continued down the path, either dodging further encounters, or the man able to dispatch them with relative ease, until he ran into the worst possible thing: a whole squad, still led by its Sith master, and still united.
"Jedi!" the squad leader exclaimed as he ignited his lightsaber and rushed the man, his identity now (kind of) revealed.
The Jedi fought impressively, but the fight was proving to be difficult, what with having to parry both an enemy saber and enemy rifles. Still, that didn't stop him from deflecting some of the soldiers' bolts back at them—and possibly even the Sith, though he was more than ready for that with his own deflections—as he continued the duel. By the time the Jedi had the fight won, he'd impressively managed to whittle the soldiers down to only two. But he was too focused on the Sith at that particular moment that he finally failed to check the soldiers.
They took their aim.
"No! Look out!" Adrielle called out as she pointed at the two soldiers. Suddenly they seemingly jumped backwards into the wall, dropping their blasters and slumping down to the floor.
The Jedi took advantage of the Sith's shock to end the duel decisively. He took a couple moments to catch his breath before turning to Adrielle.
"That was you, right?"
Adrielle nodded.
"Huh. Didn't know we had any of our own stationed here. Who's your master?"
"I…"
"Oh damn, unless you're the master, in which case my apologies, it's just you look kind of you—"
"I'm not a master!" Adrielle snapped; the Jedi just looked at her in surprise. "I'm not…" She sighed. "I'm not anything. I don't even know how I did that!"
The Jedi lowered his lightsaber and extinguished it. "Wait, you mean you've lived all this time and no one from the Order ever found or sensed you? I'd think at least one of us would've come by here at some point in the last eighteen, nineteen years or so."
"No, I'm not what you think I am!" Adrielle said firmly. "I don't know how I did that, or even if I did that! I-I didn't have any of this until just a couple days ago—" She stopped suddenly, as her eyes seemed to focus on something beyond the time and place she was at. How did she not put two and two together?
"That damn thing…"
The Jedi furrowed his brow. "Sorry, you lost me, the damn what now?"
"This, this… thing that I found a couple days ago. I touched it, it turned to dust and knocked me out. Ever since then I've been having these really bad headaches… I just feel all these wild emotions and feelings, and I couldn't explain it!"
At this the Jedi skipped a breath and intensified his gaze on her. "This… thing… Star-shaped? Black stone? Colored tips?"
Adrielle looked at the Jedi incredulously. "…Yeah. How did you—"
The Jedi was on her in an instant. Standing right in her face, he planted a hand on her head and closed his eyes. Adrielle was too shocked to even think to do something. Seconds later, the Jedi's eyes snapped open and he looked at Adrielle with seemingly new eyes.
"The relic…" he muttered. "Impossible. And you said the thing is gone?"
"Disintegrated," Adrielle confirmed. "Again… why?"
Instead of answering, the Jedi reached for his comlink. "Reena, I… you'll never believe it, but… I… think I just completed the mission." A moment, followed by a female voice:
"Wait what? You found it already?"
"Yeah, I found…" The Jedi stopped, realizing the ill-fitting pronoun. "Just get the ship ready. We're on our way back."
"Copy that." A beat. Then, "Wait, what do you mean w—"
He switched off the comlink and put it back in his robes and looked at Adrielle. "You're probably really, really, really confused, and that's fine. But all you have to know is that you need to come with me, and that we can help you make sense of what's happened."
"What has happened?!" Adrielle asked frantically. "I don't know anything about any of this! I don't even know who the hell you are!"
The Jedi sighed and extended his hand. "Uriel. Jedi, and right now, your only hope for getting out of here alive."
Adrielle looked down at the Jedi's—Uriel's—hand, still not at all sure what to make of any of it.
Just then, somewhere distant, she heard several explosions that sounded like they came from the sky. She ran past Uriel, down the hall to the emergency exit, and looked up to see a new ship looming overhead.
"The Republic," Uriel said, catching up to her. "We alerted them to the threat of a possible Imperial attack on this world, but the Order also sent me ahead to give us a headstart." He moved in front of Adrielle to make sure she was looking at him. "They'll drive the Empire back out of this planet and they won't stop until there isn't a single Sith left standing here," he promised. "That's their duty, their purpose. You…" He extended his hand once more. "Your purpose is elsewhere."
Adrielle took one more look at the Republic cruiser, then back down at Uriel's gloved hand. At this point, what other option did she have?
"Fine," she said, taking his hand.
