Padawan Neria Halai – Coruscant

Neria had known—as anyone with half a mind should have—that fighting a Jedi Master would be no small feat. Even near-death, Master Shaak-Ti would've been a formidable opponent for anyone. After all, most any master had been through situations that would've required entire platoons to settle.

The padawan had the distinct impression that she was being humored, but then, she'd also come into the test under extenuating circumstances. She'd already been through battle, and she was at least holding her own against the Jedi Master.

For her part, Shaak-Ti had shown little inclination to let up, and it was only when she finally knocked Neria's saber away that she stopped.

"Very good," she said, her light voice somehow immediately soothing. "Very good, indeed."

"But I lost, Master."

"You weren't expected to win, you were expected to hold, which you did for quite some time."

"Oh. I see."

"Don't sound so disappointed." The Togrutan Jedi Master smiled wide. "I have decades of experiences in combat. I would've found it strange had you managed to win."

"So what happens now?" Neria asked.

In answer, Master Shaak-Ti strode forward and palmed the 'braid' of beads that had been threaded between Neria's lekku. The Jedi Master considered them for a moment, then plucked them from her head.

Neria felt somehow lighter, a quiet cry of achievement resounding through her very soul. She couldn't keep the smile from her face, the elation overtaking her. Mast Shaak-Ti didn't try to correct Neria on her emotions, simply allowing the moment to come.

"Thank you, Master," Neria said. "I'd hoped for the whole council, but this is just as well."

"Yes, well, Master Yoda was very insistent that you be sent through immediately. Still, it's immaterial. You are now a Jedi Knight, Neria Halai, and you will..."

Master Shaak-Ti trailed off, a deep frown coming to her face. Neria was momentarily confused by her sudden change of expression.

Then she felt it, too.

The Force had always been a living, breathing entity within her, sometimes joining in her elation or delivering passing moments of sorrow at the death of a peer. Yet now, it was twisting, writhing, screaming in agony. She felt so many distant echos suddenly cut off, so many voices brutally silenced.

They were dying. The Jedi were dying.

"What's happening?" she asked. "Master, what's happening?"

But Shaak-Ti had no answer. How could she?

The sound of blaster fire was suddenly at the gates, muted by distance. Master Shaak-Ti closed her eyes, grimaced, then looked back up at Neria.

"The clones," she said. "They're attacking."

"What should we do?"

"I'll get the younglings, the students," Master Shaak-Ti said. "You round up our prisoners, and I'll head for the exit beneath the temple."

"And where should I go?"

"There are still some transports on the landing pad. Go!"

Neria asked no more questions, dashing from the chamber and into the reception area beyond. The trial had long been her goal, a moment of triumph that she would relish for all her years, but instead it had become the greatest horror she'd ever been subjected to.

Her lungs already desperately searched for oxygen, her shoulders ached, and sweat already gathered from her fight with the Jedi Master, but Neria willed herself forward regardless.

Neria met her first clones a few corridors down. She didn't want to believe that they truly were turned. One of them was wearing a blue shoulder pad. Rickets, she'd known him for two full years as he'd guarded the temple.

But his weapon came up regardless, as did his comrade's.

There was no joy as the newly-anointed Jedi Knight brought her saber around and deflected the bolts right back at their owners. She felt no familiar thrill of battle, no adrenaline that would normally power her movements. All that came to her was woe, a sluggish and insidious feeling that threatened to topple her much like the pair of clone troopers that crashed to the ground with holes in their chests.

Neria bit back the sorrow she was feeling, but it was amplified by another presence. It was dark, enraged, sorrowful, and strangely familiar. Someone far more powerful than she—than even the Togrutan master she'd departed from—was in the temple, and they weren't a servant of the light.

The Twi'lek Jedi Knight picked up her pace, finding the prison cells a few hallways down and past two more clones.

The two Togrutan were inside, visibly worried by the commotion all around them. Neria forgot that for as much as they put on a brave face, neither were even to the level of a padawan yet. They were still young enough to be impressionable, which was Neria's point of attack.

"We need to leave," Neria told the two as they approached the thin orange layer of energy that kept them confined to their cells. "There's a Sith coming, and clones are roaming the halls to kill everything."

"And why should we go with you?" The girl's green eyes flashed, her orange skin flush with anger. "If a Sith truly is in these halls, then we should submit ourselves as apprentices."

"Do you truly think yourselves so important that you will not be cut down with the rest of us? There can only be two, and both are already on the march. If you go to our invader, you will lie dead with the rest of us."

Her brave face fell, as Neria had assumed it would. Her younger brother seemed equally disturbed by the very real possibility that they would be killed not by Neria or a Jedi, but by one of their own.

"And you won't hurt us?"

"What's your name?"

A moment of hesitation, then, "Esha Oken."

"And your brother?"

"Ina," he replied, glancing up at his sister.

"I'm Pad...Jedi Knight Halai. Just promoted today. I know the two of you are scared. You don't know what to do, what's going to happen to you. If you follow me, I can get us to the shuttles outside and out of here."

"I...alright, but I'm in charge."

"No, you're not, and this isn't—"

A pair of clones charged in, but Neria had sensed them moments before in all the chaos. She caught their rounds on both of her sabers and sent them back. The first clone took the hit in the helmet, crumpling immediately, but the second was only winged in the shoulder. He charged forward in an attempt to grapple with her, but she simply speared him through the chest with both weapons, dropping him to the floor.

"Alright," Esha said. "Okay, you're in charge."

Neria released the two, and with no small amount of trepidation, handed them back their lightsabers. They palmed their weapons, and thankfully, they didn't try to turn on Neria. Instead they held them in hand and waited for her to give an order.

"Follow me, and do everything I tell you."

Neria was very quiet as she led the pair through to one of the smaller libraries. The rooms were still blissfully clear, the clones and their leader not quite up that far. Just as she was near to the exit, she was joined again by someone other than the clones.

The door opened at the other end, and a half-dozen younglings came through. Human, Rodian, Tiw'lek, Mirilan, and even a Wookie was in the back.

They must've been a new class, half of them barely up to Neria's waist and none of them with lightsabers. Their faces were covered with soot, and the Wookie was clutching at a wound in his shoulder. The poor trainees seemed terrified, but their eyes fixed on Neria.

"A Knight!" one of them yelled. "Knight! Knight!"

"Keep it down, all of you," Neria hissed, silencing the apprentices. "Come over here, what happened to you?"

"The clones," the Rodian said. "I don't understand, why were they—"

"Don't worry about them," Neria told them. "I'll take care of them and get you to safety. Master Shaak-Ti was supposed to be rounding the students up, where is she?"

"She...She..." The young learner couldn't continue on, sobbing in pain and sorrow.

"I understand," Neria said, her blood going cold. If Shaak-Ti was dead, that left nobody to protect the students. Already, she could feel them fading, sometimes even in groups. "Come on, follow me, I'm going to get you out of here."

They fell in behind her, even as she felt a guilty squirming in her stomach that she couldn't go back. Thankfully, the former dark apprentices didn't make things more difficult, keeping to either of Neria's sides. She reached out quietly to discern their intentions, finding only fear and determination.

They just wanted to get out of there, like her.

What they found on the landing pad, however, stole her breath from her.

There had been transports, that much was clear. The ruined and smoking scrap that lay on the landing pads, however, was far from being able to propel them out of the system.

"Now what do we do?"

"We try for another exit, com—"

Neria felt them before she saw them, the clones failing to sneak up on her as they charged through the open door. Three were in front, and Neria fell back with the children behind her as they opened fire, forcing her across the narrow part of the ramp.

And just when their luck was already atrocious, the roar of engines alerted them to an incoming gunship who'd likely noticed the commotion. They were in luck when the bays didn't open to reveal more troopers, but the pilot still brought the gunship to the side so the skeleton crew could fire the turret from the side.

"You two, deflect that fire!" Neria commanded the two prisoners.

She was trusting that the siblings, though weak, were not so maladroit as to be incapable of warding away enemy fire.

Her tenuous faith was rewarded when they took up a position at the edge. The sister reached out and with her own feeble skills managed to occasionally force away the turret that fired upon them. The brother took up the task of outright deflection, and between the two, they bought some time.

Yet it was all that any of them could do. Even as Neria yanked a clone trooper off the edge of the platform and deflected another bolt away, she knew that as soon as that powerful presence reached her, it would be over.

It tore at her more than anything Neria had ever done. She was a guardian by training, a defender, and she wanted nothing more than to race back into the temple and save every life she could. It was supposed to be her responsibility.

Yet she felt the presence there, approaching through the halls. It was a maelstrom of drak and light, an oppressive presence that drove her back even as he seemed to be some distance away. Worse, she felt no life behind it, no light that had survived its wrath.

Everyone was dead. The children, the instructors, even Masters, and soon even them.

The sudden explosion behind Neria startled her, the Jedi Knight whipping around to see what had disturbed the slow death she was soon to be treated to.

The Jack of Trades appeared in the cloud of smoke and fire it had reduced the hovering gunship to. Its engines were loud, and it was coming in fast. Neria's heart soared to see the ship, and as it neared, she could see a familiar blind pilot behind the glass.

"Siblings, get up here with me!" Neria shouted. "Children, get ready to get on that ship! We need to hurry!"

Neria felt that presence coming, and if it got to them, there would be nothing she could do. It would drive her to her knees with its sheer power.

Luckily, Kurik swept in close and didn't even bother trying to land. The hatch opened up back, and the children rushed to get on. The siblings were next, helping Neria to deflect the fire from the troopers. Already the littered the entrance, six dead and two somewhere far below them in a puddle on the ground.

Then she was on, and she was shouting to the front.

The hatch started to close, and once she'd backed fully into the next room and the bay was sealed shut from the clones, she dashed to the front.

Kurik looked tired, his hands were shaking, and most distressingly, Master Durel's saber rested on his hip. Yet the young man still seemed focused, his lips drawn tightly in concentration.

"Master Durel?"

"No, Pada...Knight Halai."

"Figured as much." Try as she did, she couldn't hide the pain it caused, the blow to a countenance that had already soured immeasurably at the massacre behind them. "Thank you for saving us."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Just that they're all dead. Everyone in there, so many across the galaxy, and almost us. Would've been us if you hadn't shown up."

"Don't thank me just yet," he told her. "You've ever tried to escape Coruscant before?"

"No."

"Well neither have I, but the clones will have my ship tagged soon. Let's hope we can find some way out of here before the entire fleet blockades our way."