Private A New Echo

[Tes'Reya Hedroke]

The rainforest canopy of Loronar stirred as dawn crept in. A ghostly mist clung to the treetops, curling around the moss-covered limbs like sleepy spirits reluctant to leave the dreamworld. Tes stood barefoot on the edge of her wooden balcony, overlooking the jungle below. Her cloak, patched and weathered from travel, hung over one shoulder. The scars on her skin were healed but not forgotten. The ones inside… not so much.

She raised a steaming cup of brewed leaf extract to her lips, bitter and earthy. Her eyes, amber/red-flecked and always calculating, swept the trees like a hawk. Every morning, she looked for signs—tracks, scents, energy shifts. Living on Loronar had taught her that serenity was a trap. It lured the careless to their deaths.​

 

[Tes'Reya Hedroke]

Behind her, inside the hut she'd carved into a fortress with her own hands, CeeTee stirred. The massive Banshee bird let out a low, guttural sound and ruffled his dark plumage, his talons digging into the perch she'd reinforced with salvaged alloy beams.

He sensed it before she did.

Crackle. Hiss.

Then the radio sputtered to life.

"—Refuge to all who have wandered... fallen... or seek rebirth..."

Tes's spine straightened. Her cup trembled in her hand. She turned slowly, her boots now thudding softly on the wood as she moved toward the corner of the hut where her old Republic-issue comms panel sat — modified beyond recognition, held together with scrap and determination.

"...Coordinates to follow. Let the fire guide you. Let the past be ash."

The signal cut.

Silence. CeeTee let out a sharp screech, hopping closer, cocking his feathered head as if to say, What was that?

Tes knelt beside the panel, eyes narrowed. She played the message again. Then again. She'd heard plenty of propaganda over the years—Jedi recruitment holos, underworld scams, mercenary alerts—but this... this felt different. Like the voice wasn't speaking to anyone else but her.

Let the past be ash.

Her fingers hovered over her datapad as she copied the embedded coordinates. She traced them on a star chart. Deep Outer Rim. Unmarked system. Uninhabited according to Republic records, but the signal was too clean to be old.

A trap? Maybe.

But something stirred inside her—just beneath the skin. That strange tremble in the Force she'd always followed. A whisper not from the galaxy… but from herself.

She stood, breath shallow, thoughts racing. CeeTee stared at her with unblinking orange eyes, waiting for her to move.

"Pack light," she whispered to him. "We leave by sundown."

 

[Tes'Reya Hedroke]

She spent the day preparing.

Blasters checked. Saber recharged. The cockpit of her starfighter was cluttered but functional. The sleeping berth was just big enough for her and CeeTee, who preferred to sleep perched above the nav console anyway. The old Corellian vessel had been rebuilt from scrap, but it moved through hyperspace like a dream.

Still, as she loaded rations into the compartments and calibrated the hyperdrive, memories returned uninvited.

The Jedi Academy. The rooftop garden where she first kissed Arcubis. The silence when he left her behind.

Master Vitorbreeze's disappointed gaze.

The ache of betrayal.

The rage that followed.

She clenched her jaw and slammed the hatch shut. The past was heavy. But if the message was right...

Let the past be ash.

By nightfall, the forest air was thick with fog. Creatures below howled, hissed, and shrieked. The ship's engines warmed like the breath of a dragon. As she ascended into the star-littered sky, Tes felt the first flutter of something she hadn't allowed herself to feel in years.

Hope?
No. Not quite.

Purpose.

 

[Tes'Reya Hedroke]

Tes slept with her hand resting on the hilt of her saber.

The ship had entered hyperspace hours ago, stars now streaking beyond the viewport like blue fireflies in a tunnel of dreams. CeeTee slumbered overhead, his wings twitching now and then in response to unseen instincts.

But Tes wasn't dreaming.

She was falling.

No sound. No wind. No sky. Just infinite black. Her limbs floated uselessly, her lungs screamed for air that wasn't there.

Then—

A whisper, not in her ear, but in her blood.

"You were never meant to be theirs."

Suddenly, she wasn't falling anymore.

She stood at the edge of a cliff on Corellia, but the sky was wrong—too red, like it was bleeding. Lightning cracked sideways across the clouds, striking temples that didn't exist in real life. All around her were shadows—dozens of them, cloaked in tattered Jedi robes, faces blank and eyeless.

And in the center… Arcubis.

He turned to face her.

But something was wrong.

His face was hollowed out, eyes sunken and dead, like he'd been drained. His skin cracked like old stone, and from his mouth came no words—only a metallic screaming that echoed like a dying machine.

She reached for him— "Arcubis!"

But his body collapsed into ash, swirling around her feet, mixing with thousands of others until the entire cliff became a graveyard of Jedi robes and bones.

She stumbled backward and was suddenly inside the Academy's meditation hall. She was thirteen again, dressed in her Padawan robes, looking down at her own hands—bloody, shaking.

Master Vitorbreeze stood across from her, arms folded.

But his voice didn't match his mouth.

"You were always meant to fall. I just tried to delay it."

She tried to run at him, to scream that it wasn't true—but her feet were stuck in mud. No—flesh. Rotting hands reached up from the floor and held her in place, dragging her down. The bones of the past, of herself, of the life she wanted.

Suddenly, the room split open.

A blinding red light erupted from the ground and a figure emerged from it—armored in obsidian, faceless, massive. Its saber ignited with a slow, mechanical growl.

A double-bladed crimson weapon, glowing like a sun inside a storm.

"Come home, daughter of ruin," it whispered.

"You were never theirs to save."

"You are ours to awaken."

---

Tes screamed as she jolted awake, heart pounding, drenched in sweat. The cockpit lights flickered for a moment—just a flicker—and CeeTee dropped from his perch with a screech of concern.

She looked around.

Nothing had changed.

The nav-computer beeped quietly. Hyperspace was stable. The air was breathable. The engines were fine.

But she didn't feel fine.

The scar on her collarbone—inflicted years ago in a sparring session—burned as if freshly struck. She touched it and trembled.

Was it just a nightmare?

Or was it the Force… showing her something real?

And that voice. That armored figure...

She didn't recognize it.
But something inside her did.

And it terrified her.

 

[Tes'Reya Hedroke]

Tes sat upright in the pilot's seat, still shaking. The walls of the cockpit felt narrower than before, like the shadows had thickened. Her breath came in shallow, ragged bursts. Sweat cooled rapidly against her skin. She reached over and silenced the nav-computer's gentle alert.


Reversion from hyperspace in 20 seconds.


CeeTee cawed quietly and leaned forward, his talons scraping the floor. His head twitched as if listening to a frequency only he could hear. Tes didn't speak, but her hand moved instinctively to the lightsaber resting in the holster beside her thigh.


She touched the hilt. Cool metal. Grounding. Real.


Her fingers tightened.

"Come home, daughter of ruin..."

The words from the nightmare returned like a toxin in her bloodstream. The image of the armored figure. The red light. The whisper.


Was it just a dream? Or a warning?


Outside the viewport, the blue tunnel of hyperspace fractured and peeled away.


Snap—


Starlines bent, shrank, and the ship dropped into realspace.


They emerged above a lonely volcanic moon—scarred with rivers of lava and plumes of ash. The planet it orbited, a massive red gas giant, loomed like a baleful eye in the sky, casting crimson light over everything.


Her heart sank.


There was no beacon. No ships. No sign of civilization.


Yet, as they drifted into the atmosphere, her instruments began to glitch—just slightly. Minor power fluctuations. Internal sensors confused. As if the Force itself disrupted the ship's electrical harmony.


And then, nestled within a canyon veiled by smoke and sulfur…


A structure.


Massive. Angular. Built into the rock itself. As if the mountain had grown around it, rather than the other way around. Dark towers rose like spears through the mist. Obsidian walls, veined with red light pulsing from within.


There were no landing lights. No communication channel. No welcome.


But Tes didn't need one.


Something inside her pulled—like a tether buried in her gut.


She guided the starfighter to a ledge just outside the temple grounds, setting the ship down with practiced precision. CeeTee squawked, flapping once before perching on her shoulder.


She grabbed her cloak, clipped her saber to her belt, and stood at the ramp.


The wind outside howled with dry heat and sulfur. It bit at her eyes, stung her throat. But it felt…


Familiar.


The moment her boots touched the volcanic rock, a wave of vertigo hit her.


Visions. Quick flashes.
A hooded figure standing at the temple gates.
The sound of a baby crying.
A saber igniting underwater.
A starship exploding in slow motion.
A woman's voice whispering— "You are a fracture in the Force, not a servant to it."


Tes staggered forward and fell to one knee.


CeeTee screeched and fluttered down beside her, protective, circling.


She steadied herself with a breath. Forced the tremble out of her legs.


Whatever this place was—whoever sent that transmission—it hadn't lied. This was no Jedi temple. Not Sith, either.


It was something older.

 

[Tes'Reya Hedroke]

The Red Sky Temple

​

The wind scraped like sandpaper against her skin.

Cloaked in soot and twilight, Tes stepped forward across the ledge, her boots crunching volcanic glass. The entrance to the temple stood like a gaping maw—black stone, unnaturally smooth, veins of red crystal pulsing like arteries. The closer she came, the quieter the wind became.

As if the entire world was holding its breath.

CeeTee remained on the ridge, feathers bristling, head tilting in confusion. The beast screeched once—a low, uncertain warning—and did not follow.

Tes glanced back once.

"Stay. Just… stay," she murmured.

Then she stepped inside.