A/N: We all know I'm a sucker for an AU where the good guys lose, right? Right.

Crossposting this from other platforms. At present it's just this piece but I do have ideas for future developments. Let me know if you're keen to see some of those...

They weren't going to escape this. Cal looked around desperately, an idea forming quickly. With a hand outstretched, he used the Force to push one of the windows violently, shattering it. Water flooded into the hallway, and Cal took the opportunity to grab Cere and hurl both of them through the broken window. He could see Vader struggling to hold back the rush of water, and the broken window was quickly covered over by a sheet of durasteel, stopping the flooding.

He was kicking, dragging Cere with him, and shoved the rebreather into her mouth as he looked up. The surface wasn't too far, light still filtering down to them, but he could already feel his muscles aching, and the wound in his side made it all the harder to keep moving. As he glanced back down at the fortress, now a murky shadow in the water, he sensed rather than saw—

Water swirling around legs, alarms sounding, a gloved hand reaching out as the two figures faded into the water, hand outstretched as if to grasp—

Cal felt a pressure at his throat suddenly, slight but growing quickly. His lungs were burning as he kicked for the surface, but his legs weren't moving as powerfully now, and Cere felt like a weight that was pulling him down. The pressure around his throat tightened, and he gasped, feeling water rush into his mouth, down his constricted throat, and now there was a weight in his lungs as he struggled against that pressure, struggling to breathe despite the water filling his chest. Cere slipped from his grasp as his hands went for his throat, which was now so tight he couldn't breathe. He struggled, kicking feebly, choking and drowning all in one as darkness swelled up from below to claim him...

Greez didn't like it one bit, the way this witch was messing with things. He was anxious, waiting to see any signs of life on the scanners as he hovered above the water. Cere… Cere was gone. Cal had said so, so it must be true. He had to get Cal, though. That was the most important thing right now. Get Cal, and then get out of there.

Merrin shifted suddenly, rising from her seat and moving quickly towards the ramp. Greez looked around as she did.

"Hey, wait—"

She didn't say a word as she charged out of the ship, diving off the ramp and into the water. Even as she did, he saw movement on the scanner – tech signatures, crafts moving through the water below. Greez felt his heart stuttering as he began to flip switches, preparing for a fight as he lowered the ship as close to the water as he dared. The cams on the ramp showed as the water lapped at the bottom of the ramp, but there was no other movement, and every passing second felt like a century as Greez watched the cams, watched the scanners, waited for the inevitable blast that would probably sink him from the sky, and he realised he was holding his breath only when his lungs began to ache for air, but Merrin was still gone—

Two figures broke the surface, and Greez exclaimed a wordless cry of relief as he saw Merrin draw the unconscious figure up with her. But something was wrong – he had expected to see Cal's shock of red hair, but instead he was seeing Cere's dark locks. Cere was alive? His relief flared again as he realised Cere wasn't moving. Merrin dragged her back up the ramp, scrambling gracelessly, breathlessly, leaving Cere on the floor just inside the doorway while she hurried back to the front.

"We must leave," she told Greez, "There were patrols sweeping the water. I will perform the ritual again, to give us cover."

"But Cal—"

Greez saw the look she gave him, and his heart sank. No. No, kid, no.

He sighed heavily, letting his grief flood him for a moment, before he returned to the present. They might have lost Cal, but they could at least escape with their lives.

"Alright, let's get out of here."

The steady, rhythmic hum of machinery was the first thing that returned to his attention. The second was the sensation of wide bands of pressure on his arms, chest, and legs. The monotone voice of a medical droid was audible nearby, explaining a diagnosis to someone else, but the sound seemed warped, twisted and distant, muffled at first as his senses started to return to life.

His fractured mind tried to piece things back together. Bogano, Dathomir, temples and tombs, an AT-AT, younglings... Something about younglings...

A mechanical breathing sound, slow and rhythmic, drawing closer, each step like a weight on his chest as he was surrounded by liquid, throat closing, lungs filling with water, darkness reaching out in the form of a gloved hand...

Cal was wrenched back to reality with a soft cry, a gasp of breath, and brilliant light painfully flooded his vision. He could feel the tightness of the bands, could feel them holding him upright on a slab of metal. As his sight recovered from the sudden explosion of light, he felt fear rising within him, building into a wall of terror that threatened to drown him. Sharp, straight lines came into his vision, machinery making itself out against the white walls of the space.

It took him a few minutes to realise he was in a medical room. A window opposite his position gave him a view of a horribly familiar-looking corridor beyond, Mechanical sounds, muted and low, came from somewhere to his right, and even as he strained to see the source the droid came into view.

"Greetings," the smooth, androgynous voice came from a fixed orator, two small lights illuminating briefly as indicators that it was speaking. "I am KJ-46, medical service and assistant droid. Your symptoms indicate you were recently subjected to a severe inhalation of high-viscosity fluid which resulted in a loss of consciousness. You are being treated for these symptoms, and will experience muscular weakness and fatigue for some time as a result."

It sure was informative. Cal closed his eyes, trying to clear his head.

"You have also sustained physical injury from a plasma weapon, which has punctured your left ribcage and left the bone structure damaged."

That explained the pain in his ribs, then. Cal opened his eyes, looking at the medical droid as it scanned portions of his body, the axial beam of light emitting from the photoreceptor sliding over his limbs, chest, face...

"Where am I?" He asked, surprised at how faint his voice sounded even to himself. He regretted asking almost immediately, though, because there was another voice, another person who answered, and the answer was so spine-chilling, Cal wished he were dead.

"You are in the Fortress Inquisitorius."