Wow this chapter was...long and complicated. I'm sorry that this took sooooooo long but I wanted this chapter to be perfect.
I do not apologize for the cliffie though ahaha
I love your reviews, and I beg you to review this chapter as it is one of the ones I've been itching to write, mwahahahahahaha
Good Luck lol
Enjoy!
Luke stared intensely at the flat metal sheet that made up the four slim walls that separated him, Jeza, and Kuroth from the beings that they could hear walking around even now. Their footsteps and voices echoed not only below them, but in the vent that the three were lying in as still as statues. At least, Luke was as still as a statue. Kuroth kept moving his head around and was visibly sweating, and Jeza's back was flush against Luke's front, with his arms wrapped over her chest to hold her in place and a hand over her mouth to muffle the occasional whimper that slipped out of her. She trembled against him, but Luke couldn't do much to comfort her other than gently rub her arm as he didn't want to risk getting heard while they were so vulnerable despite being so well hid. Of course, the situation would have been much better if he could have located secret compartments, launched at least one escape pod before they'd been pulled into the cruiser, or hadn't been caught in the tractor beam to begin with, but he was making do with what he could get until he could get them off of this ship.
Taking a deep breath, Luke closed his eyes and stretched out with the Force to see if there was anyone still on the freighter. There was just one, and Luke waited until the straggler's presence disappeared from the freighter before he released Jeza and reached back behind his head for the grate they had all climbed through to get in the vent. Jeza got the hint and shifted off of Luke, allowing him to scoot forward and drop out of the vent and land in a crouch in the freighter's hall just by the ramp, his cloak billowing around him just slightly before it settled back into immobility. He looked around, tense and alert for a few moments, before he cast his gaze back up into the vent.
"Come on down, I'll catch you," he hissed softly, arms wide and waiting. The next moment the gray and black blur that was Jeza dropped from the vent and into his arms, and Luke gently sat her down on the metal floor. "Are you okay?" he asked her softly.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine," she insisted, and he turned his attention back up to the vent.
"Kuroth; get down here."
He could have sworn he heard an indignant huff, but he didn't get to reply as the next moment he had to catch the older man before he could crash to the floor and get them all caught. "Steady," Luke warned the man before he shuffled over to the doorway that led out of the ship. Jeza stayed right behind him, with Kuroth staying behind her. He held up a hand, signaling for the both of them to stay put and wait. He could sense someone coming, and they would only have so much of a window of opportunity to slip off of the freighter and onto the cruiser...
Footsteps clanked loudly against the ramp and a lengthy brown haired man appeared at the entrance. Before the man could possibly get a chance to spot them, Luke grabbed him, yanked him out of sight of the landing ramp, and with a swift blow to the back of the head via his lightsaber knocked the man unconscious. He pilfered the blaster from the man's belt and quickly dragged him back into the engine room, hiding him behind a stack of crates before he returned to his two companions with haste and pressed the extra blaster into Jeza's hands.
"Make each shot count," he warned her. "When we run into anyone here they will be shooting to kill, not to harm or even stun."
She nodded mutely to show she understood, and Luke stood at the edge of the ramp, pushing himself deep into the Force to know what he needed to do the moment he needed to do it. He reached back and grasped Jeza's hand tightly in his own, evening his breathing before he received a definite nudge from the Force telling him to move now.
He broke into a dead sprint without so much as a warning, Jeza barely managing to keep up with him and Kuroth lagging behind as the trio sprinted across the hangar bay the moment no one was looking and blended into the background, crouching low behind a stack of crates to catch their breath. Luke didn't need to catch his breath like the other two did, so he took the time to scan the hangar bay to see what kind of forces they were up against.
The first thing he noted was that they would be able to blend in easily as it appeared there was no set uniform with this particular ship. The second thing he noticed, to his immense surprise, was the fact it was not only living beings that occupied the ship and made up this side's army, but droids as well. Like, Clone Wars-era droids, perhaps a few newer models as well.
Luke didn't let himself dwell on the strange situation that they were in; it had been over five years since he'd been in touch with the Galaxy, and he was absolutely sure that he had missed a lot by now. With a sigh, Luke turned back to his two charges. "I need to find a way to tamper with the tractor beam so we can get out of here. It would be easier if I knew the ship's layout, but it's going to take some wandering around to find the tractor beam controls; something that's better done alone," he finished pointedly. Jeza seemed to have a mini-heart attack at the thought of being separated from Luke and immediately voiced her opposition.
"No! I want to come with you!" she protested.
Luke suddenly felt like he had a mouth full of sand as he was reminded painfully of his own conversation with Ben before he'd gone to shut down one of the tractor beam power terminals. It had been the last conversation he'd had with the man while he was living.
This is a different situation entirely, he assured himself before he placed a hand on Jeza's shoulder. "It will be easier for me to get around undetected if I go alone, and someone needs to keep an eye on Kuroth. You're always telling me that you can handle yourself; well, right now I need you to do that for me. I'll be back as soon as I can, I promise, but until then I need you to hold your own with Kuroth."
"What if we get found out?" Jeza asked with traces of fear lacing her voice. Kuroth nodded in agreement.
"If I'm seen they'll recognize me in a heartbeat," Kuroth added.
"Then take to the vents again. I'm sure they'll raise the alarm, and I'll know to get back to you as soon as I can," Luke assured them.
"How will you know where we are?" Kuroth asked skeptically. Jeza, however, was holding Luke's gaze.
"He has his ways," she said quietly before she sighed in defeat. "Please don't be too long," Jeza plead with him, grasping his arm tightly. Luke gave her a small, somewhat sad smile.
"I won't, I promise," he muttered, pulling her close into a tight hug and kissing the top of her head. He pulled away, pulling the hood up over his face. "Just stay here and you should be fine. If something does happen, shoot fast, shoot first, and get to the vents."
Kuroth nodded. "Got it."
Luke cast his gaze towards Jeza one last time. "I'll be back," he promised her before he turned away from them and easily blended into the shadows of the hangar bay. Luke made sure to walk with a purpose as he had when he'd been under Sidious' control; a purpose that exuded power and stated that he belonged there and not to question him. On the inside, of course, he feared that he would be caught before he even made it past the first few chambers of the cruiser.
Thankfully, it seemed the Force was on his side. He did receive a few sideways glances, but the moment that they felt like he'd caught them staring they turned their heads and hurried away.
He was starting to think he wasn't the only hooded figure on this ship. At least that made it easier to blend in. If there were other cloaked beings roaming the ship—which there probably was considering the dark side energies that pulsed through the ship all around him—then no one would think twice about Luke so long as he kept vigilant with his charade.
Luke had to suppress a shiver the deeper into the cruiser he plunged. The dark side was everywhere and strengthening the further into the ship he delved, and the heady pull that it had on him was starting to make him feel a little ill. He still could not detect just who or what was exuding such strength in the dark side, and he had to check to make sure that he was still firmly shielded so that he could be assured that his own light side presence would not give him away.
A nudge from the Force told Luke to turn right and he did so without question. Considering he had no idea on how the layout of this ship was like and didn't have R2 to tell him where to go, he had to rely heavily on the Force.
A pang shot through his heart at the thought of R2, but he pushed it aside. He had to focus right now, he couldn't afford to get distracted.
In there, the Force seemed to whisper to him, leading him into the engine room, of course. Luke briefly cast his thoughts back to Jeza, hoping that she was still all right before he started to search through the many gears, engines, and control panels for the tractor beam controls. The grease-monkey in him was making it very difficult to focus on the task at hand with so many different new ship parts around him, but he managed to stay on track, trusting the Force to lead him to where he needed to be.
Luke drew deeper into the shadows and out of sight as two engineers walked by, oblivious to the black cloaked figures watching them from the shadows as they passed by, talking in hushed voices about a problem with the hyperdrive that needed to be fixed before Judro noticed there was something wrong.
Judro.
There's that name again.
Luke filed the importance of the name away for later, slipping easily down the small aisle he was in and coming to an abrupt halt as he finally found the tractor beam controls he'd been looking for in the first place. There wasn't a main reactor to mess with here, but he could still do enough damage to disable the tractor beam. With a grin that could be considered borderline wicked, Luke got to work rearranging wires, switching out chips, and removing anything that looked like it might possibly be important. Just to be safe, he also repeated this process for all four tractor beams.
He figured that would help more people than just his little party.
Luke had just replaced the cover to the controls when the alarms suddenly blared to life. Immediately he went rigid, and his instincts went right to protective father mode. If the alarms were going, that meant that they had found Jeza and Kuroth.
He tossed the random nuts, bolts, and other important pieces out behind him, letting them scatter all over the floor, under different machinery and, in the case of one piece he knew was detrimental to the tractor beam, through the hole in the grate floor and down into the lower levels of the engine room. He didn't stay long to know where they all scattered though, because the next moment he was flying out into the hall with his senses stretched out in search of Jeza's familiar Force Signature. He prayed fervently to the Force that she was all right as he rushed blindly through the halls and searched for her frantically through the Force.
When he located her through the Force, he noticed that she was radiating fear, and that there were several other presences following her. Obviously, they had yet to get into the vents, and that worried Luke greatly. Hopefully he could get to them before they got hurt, as it seemed he was already on a crash course for the pair. Her presence was growing steadily closer, and now that he had honed in on her it was so much easier for him to get to her.
Luke rounded the corner, knowing that Jeza and Kuroth were about to appear from the other side before he even stepped into the hall. Sure enough, the girl skidded around the corner, running at full speed with Kuroth locked in her grasp as she dragged him along behind her. The next moment found several men rounding the corner just behind them, showing that Jeza and Kuroth had not had the time to get into the vents as their pursuers were hot on their heels. Luke pulled his hood off and reached for his lightsaber to assist them, but what happened next shattered any conscious train of thought he might have still had.
One of the men fired and their shot hit home, causing Jeza to fall down instantly with a cry of pain. Before the men could converge on their fallen prey, Luke called the blaster out of the man's hand and into his own deceivingly steady hand. Before any of them could realize what was happening Luke had already shot down half of them, and by the time they did realize what was happening Luke was already finishing them off mercilessly. It was all instinctual, and he did it without a thought. All he knew was that they had shot Jeza, and he wasn't going to let them live long enough to hurt her again. More tried to round the corner, but he easily shot them down as well, his hand steady and every shot true.
Once the onslaught halted for a moment, Luke came out of his trance, holstering the blaster and rushing to Jeza's side. "Jeza! Jeza, are you all right?" he asked in a rush, his voice thick with worry.
"I'm…I think I'll be fine," she said shakily, clutching her arm and trying to hide the wound.
"Let me see…" Luke insisted, gently peeling her hand away from the wound. It looked bad, but it wasn't anything serious. A flesh wound at the least. It would probably scar though, and Luke gained a bitter taste in his mouth at the thought. "You'll be all right; it's probably going to scar, but you should be fine."
Jeza nodded, letting him help her to her feet. She clutched at his arm to steady herself, gazing up and searching his eyes suspiciously for a moment. The action made him feel uncomfortable, and he shifted slightly. "What?" he asked, feeling extremely self-conscious at the moment.
"Are you…all right? Cause I thought I saw…gold, for a moment," she said pointedly and quietly, looking Luke right in the eyes.
Luke sucked in a sharp breath, breaking eye contact almost immediately and scrambling to regain control of himself and find his center again. He'd lost control, even if it had been for just a moment. He had to be careful, he had to watch himself; the last thing he wanted was to slip back into that black abyss after so much time improving.
"Yes I'm fine…I'll be fine," he said haltingly, turning back to meet her gaze once more.
"Where to now? There's bound to be more coming," said Kuroth from right beside Luke, giving Luke a mini heart attack. He'd completely forgotten that the old man was there. Voices and footsteps could be heard down the hall as reinforcements started to arrive, and Luke pulled the two back down the hall in the direction he had just come down.
"We'll have to find another way to the hangar," Luke said simply
"Did you disable the tractor beam?" Kuroth asked.
"Of course," Luke scoffed. "They won't be able to get them working for a couple hours at the very least."
"Good, that gives us a chance to get off this nightmare," Kuroth mumbled. "Hopefully they don't flee and jump to hyperspace anytime soon."
"They won't," Luke assured him. "I overheard some of the engineers talking about an issue with the hyperdrive. We've got time to get off the cruiser, we just can't waste that said time."
"Got it," Kuroth mumbled. The group turned a corner, almost barreling into a small group of the soldiers mulling around in the ship. Luke reacted instantly, taking a few of them out with his bare hands before he had to result to using the blaster to shoot down some of the soldiers that were farther away. More could be heard up ahead, and he grabbed Jeza's wrist to pull her off into a room on the right. Kuroth was right behind them, and the three backed quickly into the spacious room after the door slid shut behind them.
"Now what?" Jeza asked, her voice sounding desperate as it echoed around the room. "We've trapped!"
"Not necessarily, no," Luke murmured, his eyes scanning the room. He zeroed in on a ventilation grate on the ceiling. "There we go; that's our way out."
Kuroth cursed. "It's too high up."
"Not for someone with the Force," Luke responded easily, coming to stand right underneath it with Jeza. He stretched out a hand, and the grate ripped free while he easily tossed it into the wall beside him. "Come here Jeza, I'll toss you up."
"Got it," Jeza said, already situating her foot into his hands as he crouched down to give her a lift. Kuroth was standing by the large viewport that took up one entire wall in the room. Luke couldn't help but wonder why this room was here in the first place; it didn't seem to have any real function.
"I think the Republic's starting to gain some ground, though that's a given; I can see that more of the Jedi are out there now than when I got captured," Kuroth mumbled to himself.
Momentarily distracted, Luke couldn't help but wonder if maybe his father was out there in the firefight. That momentary distraction almost cost him and Jeza dearly. Right before he tossed her up, he felt a warning flash through the Force, and stopped himself from tossing her up into the vent at the last moment, instead tackling her to the floor away from the vent. He covered her entirely for a moment before he rolled onto his back, activating his lightsaber and instinctively deflecting the blaster bolt that was flying towards them courtesy of the assassin droid that had just dropped out of the vent.
Luke jumped to his feet, standing protectively over Jeza as he deflected the droid's relentless assault on the two of them, waiting for the perfect opportunity to disable the droid before it could get in a lucky shot. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Kuroth scurry over to stand behind the two of them, and he heard him pull Jeza to her feet behind Luke as well. Once she'd recovered from the initial shock, Jeza opened fire from behind Luke with one of the blasters he'd pilfered for her, and not a moment too soon. To Luke's dismay, the one assassin droid wasn't the only one that was using the vents as their way into the room and more were already crawling out of the vent. Off to the side, Luke saw the door to the room slide open, ushering in more soldiers. He kicked himself mentally for not sealing the door somehow with his lightsaber. He could have at least destroyed the control panel to slow them down had he been thinking, which apparently he hadn't.
Luke immersed himself deeper and deeper into the Force, his lightsaber a blur as he stood his ground, deflecting blaster bolts most of the time with some serious utilization of Soresu and Shii-cho with occasional offense in Djem So when an enemy got close enough. Jeza continued to fire desperately behind him, and he noticed that she was making a considerable dent in the forces that were swarming them. Still, Luke was their main line of defense and if he faltered, then they were all doomed.
Eventually, Luke found himself so steeped into the Force that all his brain registered of his movements was flashes of red, a blur of green, flashes of metal, and glimpses of skin as droids and human opponents blended together. The one thought that kept going through his head was how they never seemed to end.
Suddenly, the whispers from the Force that told him where the attacks were coming ceased, as did the flashes of red. Luke froze in his lightsaber movements, and Jeza stopped firing while Luke slowly came back to 'reality,' so to speak, and noticed that the soldiers had stopped firing and backed up. However, they all kept their weapons trained on the three, and even then the majority of them kept their weapons trained on Luke, understandably. All around in front of him was a mass of machine and bodies that was compiled of the ones he'd taken down in his Force-induced trance.
"Well I must admit; you don't disappoint," came a slightly muffled male voice with a thick Coruscanti accent. "It seems over five years in exile has done you well, despite popular belief. You've proved half the skeptics wrong simply by living this long. I'll admit; I was pleasantly surprised to find out that you were still alive myself."
Luke's narrowed eyes skimmed the gaggle of soldiers fearlessly despite the fact almost every blaster was aimed at him. His skin was crawling with premonition, and the Force was whispering constantly that things were about to get much, much worse. Through the Force, he made sure that Jeza and Kuroth were still both firmly behind him before he raised his lightsaber a little higher.
"Show yourself," he called out firmly, still trying to pick out the speaker. There was a shift in the crowd and slowly they started to part as a single hooded figure slunk forward. Of course, the first thing Luke noticed was the fact that twin lightsabers were clipped on either side of the man's hips. A dual blade wielder; fun. The next thing he noticed was that the man wore a black face mask wrapped tightly around his mouth and nose that, coupled with how low he kept his hood, concealed everything but his eyes. That was the last thing he noticed, and the detail that caused him to stiffen noticeably and made the most impact on him; the eyes. He had seen those eyes before; they were the burning golden eyes that had held him fixated and helpless in his nightmares on multiple occasions.
"Tell me Luke," the man said, sounding utterly disinterested. "How are you handling the shame? Are you still having nightmares?"
Luke's grip tightened on his lightsaber as he coiled himself up, ready to spring into action. "Who are you?" he hissed, ignoring the questions and the panic that momentarily grew in his chest before he squished the feeling to the back of his mind.
"Judro," he said simply with a dismissive wave of his hand. "The title depends on who's addressing me: Sire, Excellency, Lord...Darth," Judro said, his eyes glinting maliciously. Luke was sure that if he could see the rest of the man's face, Judro would be smirking.
"Sith," Luke growled, shifting his stance just slightly in preparation for a lightsaber fight.
"Now, I don't think you have any room to be using that tone with me, Eius; or did you lose your memory while you were in exile too?" Judro sneered, and Luke took a step back like he had been struck.
"How—" he started to say, but Judro was quick to cut him off, surprisingly in answer to Luke's question.
"Perhaps thinking back to the planet Vulpter and three Jedi—two Padawans and a Knight—will jog your memory," Judro hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously. Luke went completely still at his words. Oh yes, it did jog his memory; so well in fact that Luke wished he didn't remember.
He remembered killing the Knight first, because the young man had obviously been the larger threat and in charge of the two Padawans; he'd gutted the young man right in front of the two as well. And the female Padawan...well, he'd noticed the strong attraction the male Padawan had for her, so he'd killed her slowly in front of the male. The male Padawan, however, he'd left alive but severely injured, simply because Luke had relished his agony too much to put an end to it.
Judro seemed to notice the shift in Luke's eyes, taking it as confirmation that Luke, in fact, remembered. "There...I knew that would help you remember," Judro said in an oily voice that was heavy with mock concern. "For a moment you had me worried that you truly didn't remember me."
"I'm not that person anymore; that wasn't me—" Luke stated seriously, resisting the urge to grit his teeth. Yet again, Judro cut Luke off, his tone turning sharp.
"Oh but it was! Perhaps you went by a different name but it was you, don't try to play games with me. You might be able to lie to yourself but you cannot hide the truth from me..." Judro's tone changed again, shifting to a false, sickly sweet tone that reminded Luke disturbingly of the Emperor. "I can see it all, right there, in your eyes...including that small part of you that still revels in the life you claim to have left behind. Don't try to deny it, because I can see it; it's there. Tell me Luke; has it really been over five years since you've tasted the dark side? Or have you allowed yourself a little taste here...a little there..."
"Shut up," Luke snarled. "I've had enough of this!"
Luke jumped when a hesitant hand touched his arm from behind, and he had to force himself not to react whenever his brain finally registered that it was Jeza who had touched him, her eyes filled with fearful concern.
"Fa—" she started, but Luke hastily cut her off with a sharp raise of his hand out of fear that Judro would realize the value Jeza had as leverage against him. It seemed, however, that Judro had already caught onto the scent.
"And who is this lovely creature?" Judro purred, stepping closer. He halted, however, when he found Luke's lightsaber angled towards his throat.
"You'd be wise to step away," Luke said quietly, the threat clear in his voice as he gently pushed Jeza back to safety behind him.
Judro raised an eyebrow, appearing unfazed on the outside. "You're hardly in a position to make threats," he pointed out smoothly.
"You underestimate me," Luke replied evenly, holding the man's golden eyes. Judro snorted.
"No, I'm perfectly aware of your capabilities from experience, as well as your little demonstration," he said, gesturing towards the machinery and the bodies around them. His gaze slid from Luke momentarily to settle on Kuroth, and a sinister look appeared in his eyes. "However, I will admit your actions were...predictable."
"What are you talking about?" Luke asked, his tone hard. He was getting tired of all these mind games.
"Kuroth was never my real target; a nice little side accomplishment perhaps, but not the true prize by a long shot. No, my real target was you, Eius. I just needed to lure you out of your prison of a planet and right into my grasp. It was the how and when that took so long. You're a very difficult man to locate, I will give you that. Once I knew where, it was just a matter of putting all the right pieces in place."
"All of that—Kuroth's kidnapping, the bounty hunters on Xenon—it was all a set-up to get me back into the Galaxy," Luke stated out loud even though he was mostly speaking to himself as realization came over him. He'd known something was up; he just hadn't considered the possibility that it was him being lured into a trap. He should have, no matter how unlikely it had been.
"Right you are; you're compassion was legendary before, well..." Judro said, giving Luke a pointed look that caused Luke to stiffen slightly before he continued. "It was obvious that if you were faced with someone who needed your help, you just wouldn't be able to say no. Now, just as I planned, here you are."
"Well you've got me," Luke said flatly. "Now what do you want with me?"
Judro laughed cruelly, and Luke's expression darkened noticeably. "Oh, that all depends on you! On one hand, you can die," Judro said in a matter-of-fact tone, most likely smirking under his face mask. "On the other hand, you could accept my proposal and join me in bringing down the Republic."
Luke snorted softly. "No."
Judro shook his head. "Why not? Why would you stand on the side of the Republic after everything that they've done to you, after everything that they've taken from you?"
"Despite popular belief, I'm still loyal to the Republic to the point I will gladly give my life to preserve it," Luke said coolly. "Also, I deserved the punishment I was dealt; I probably deserved more, but that was what the Jedi Order decided to do, and I accepted my sentence without complaint."
Judro's eyes bore into Luke's, but Luke did not back down. He stood tall and defiant, showing that he would not cave. "You're making a mistake," Judro warned, his voice low and menacing.
"I've already made the mistake of a lifetime; I'm not about to do it again," Luke responded icily.
Judro watched him for a moment longer before he suddenly growled and lightning sparked to life on the man's fingertips. The electric tendrils darted through the air towards Luke, but the next moment Luke's green blade was between him and the blue dark side energy, the lightsaber absorbing the lightning easily. Judro cut off the assault, glaring at Luke while Luke simply smiled in an irritating fashion back at the man.
"If you knew half the things I've been through, you'd know that it's going to take a lot more than that to affect me," Luke said smoothly. Judro growled at him before he unhooked his lightsabers, activating both red blades with an audible snap-hiss sound. Judro's men and machines stepped back, and Luke stepped forward so that he wouldn't be so close to Jeza and Kuroth and risk injuring one of them by accident. Still, he made a mental note to himself not to be lured too far from the girl as he didn't put it past Judro to hurt her to hurt Luke. In fact, he was already expecting it.
For a few split seconds, there was silence, and the two simply stood, lightsabers humming, while they stared each other down. Then, suddenly, Judro lunged forward, both blade's a blur of red as they came flying towards Luke. Luke stayed calm, his mind as serene as it was going to get right now as he calmly deflected Judro's first attack and knocked the red blades aside. Any onlooker that wasn't trained in lightsaber combat wouldn't see the infinitesimal second it took Judro to redirect himself for the next attack, but would only see that Judro continued his attack without a pause. Luke continued to stay on the offensive as Judro rained blow after blow upon him, getting a feel for Judro's style while Luke stayed on a Soresu defensive. Judro's style was mostly Djem So, predictably, but the rest of it didn't belong to any of the seven styles Luke knew. After several minutes of just pure defensive, Luke interrupted the pattern and started going on the offensive. His first swing towards Judro was unexpected, but the man was undeterred and adapted to Luke's sudden switch easily. Luke leaned away from one of Judro's blades while he deflected the other, stepping closer to try and land a blow on Judro's side. He was successful to a degree, burning the man up the side with his lightsaber before he retreated back to a safe distance to lock blades with him once again. Judro scored a cut on Luke's bicep in the next few moments, but Luke ignored the injury and pushed on.
The blades of red and green flashed back and forth for several minutes with no sign of relenting from either side. Luke begrudgingly admitted to himself that Judro was a formidable lightsaber duelist—Luke wasn't about to use his exile as an excuse for any area he had lacking as he'd been practicing and improving the entire time—and that he was going to be hard pressed to defeat him.
Luke spun out of the way of a jab at his left, coming around to clash blades with Judro once again in a frenzy of red and green. Sparks flew as their blades dragged across the floor or occasionally grazed one of the battle droids that surrounded them. Luke noticed with great unease that they were all still aiming at him, something that wouldn't have bothered him if he hadn't been locked in a lightsaber fight.
Luke had to pull his mind from the distracting thoughts when Judro gave out a loud yell, coming down on Luke with both blades. Luke brought his green blade up, effectively locking blades with Judro, who pushed down hard to make Luke cave. They pushed back and forth for a moment, caught in a deadlock that took up all of Luke's attention.
Judro's gaze flicked away from Luke, and he nodded with the most imperceptible of head motions, but Luke still caught the motion. However, it soon became apparent that catching the motion would not be enough.
There were several loud bangs, and Luke's right shoulder, right hip, and left leg exploded in fiery agony.
"Father!" Jeza screamed behind him.
With a strangled cry of surprise and pain, Luke went down, his lightsaber deactivating and rolling across the floor as Luke managed to catch himself on his hands and knees with a slight gasp. Several vehement curses ran through his mind, all aimed entirely at Judro, the Sith that was gleefully standing over Luke with one of his red blades held a mere millimeter from Luke's throat. Luke glared up at him rather hatefully as Judro spoke.
"I'm going to give you one last chance to join me Eius. If not, then I'm going to start taking things from you. I will destroy you, and I will take every last thing you hold dear away from you…" Judro's gaze wandered to Jeza, who stood in front of Kuroth with her blaster raised and ready to fire at anyone who moved towards her. Her eyes, however, were trained solely on Luke's kneeling form. "Starting with her. It's your choice."
Luke bowed his head low, breathing heavily as an old rage started to rise to the surface. He gnashed his teeth together, glaring at the floor before he turned around to meet Jeza's eyes. His expression morphed into a sorrow-filled gaze that silently begged her forgiveness before he turned his eyes back on Judro. His gaze hardened once more, and his hands clenched into fists.
"Never," he spat, and then unleashed a dangerous torrent of Sith Lightning upon the unsuspecting man.
Shouts of alarm suddenly rang through the room as Judro went flying through the air back towards the viewport, but Luke didn't pay them any heed. Instead, he pulled his hands in, focusing all his energy and his entire being in one single action he prayed to the Force he could pull off. Shoving his hands out, electricity suddenly spanned the width of the room in front of him, creating a deadly blue wall of sorts between Judro's forces and Luke's small party. Several men and machines were unfortunate enough to be caught in the wall, and their screams of pain echoed around the room.
"I can't hold this forever…" Luke grunted in a loud voice to Jeza and Kuroth. "Get out of here! Get back to the freighter, get him to Coruscant; I'll hold them back."
"Father, no! I won't leave you!" Jeza cried.
Luke sucked in a sharp breath at her words and almost lost control of the Sith Lightning. Why was it she had to remind Luke of himself at a time like this? "Jeza, take him; I have to hold them off if you're going to get out of here. You promised me you'd do exactly what I say, and now I'm begging you, go now!"
"But what about you—" she protested desperately.
"Go!" Luke said sharply, cutting her off. He couldn't hold this lightning wall much longer. "I'll find a way."
"Father!" Jeza tried again.
"Kuroth, take her, go," Luke commanded, his gaze trained solely on Judro as the Sith rose from the floor on the other side of Luke's wall. Kuroth didn't argue, taking a hold of Jeza's wrist and pulling her out of the room with surprising strength. Luke squeezed his eyes shut when the two exited the door, ignoring the pain in his heart.
"I'm sorry Jeza…" he whispered. He'd never wanted her to see this side of him ever again, and yet…
Luke forced himself to focus once more on the present, and he dropped the wall of Sith Lightning, calling his lightsaber to his hand. He was trembling from the effort the lighting wall had taken as he activated the lightsaber and then threw it like a spear into the control panel, effectively locking them all in and buying Jeza and Kuroth more time. Simultaneously he pulled out the blaster from earlier and started firing relentlessly into Judro's advancing men, summoning his lightsaber back to him once the control panel was destroyed.
"You wanted me…" Luke muttered, "well, you got me."