Private A Time to Hunt

[Adelle Bastiel]

Denon Spaceport



Adelle could not ignore the headline.

Another Abduction! 8 Children Kidnapped in 3 Days!

She was supposed to be looking for bounties. Fuel, power cells, food--for her and Phantom, everything required credits. It was one of the things she missed about being with the Order: she didn't have to worry about a creds balance. But an alert on her datapad went off. One of the keywords she had set a program to flag on holonet articles came up positive. And the headline settled in the pit of her stomach like a lead weight.

It had been a long time since she'd confronted Krayt on Coruscant and an even longer time since she'd been abducted by him, used as a human experiment. And when he had purged his fortress, all she had left was the little she managed to scrawl on a piece of flimsiplast: account numbers, too few to be of any use in hunting down shady dealings. But it confirmed that Krayt was not working alone. There were others out there that knew about his project. Something to do with Force Users, based on what he had taunted her with.

And all eight children were Force Sensitive.

It could be coincidental. Abductions were plentiful on ecumenopolises like Denon. People went missing all the time on the lower levels and never got the attention of the holonet. But if it wasn't happenstance... She couldn't let it happen again. Especially not to a kid.

Adelle tossed the datapad onto the inert flight controls, pulled up a bottle of tihaar and flicked the cap off, taking a generous swig of the burning liquor. Well, looks like her day had been planned for her. She grabbed her buy'ce and climbed down from the cockpit, gathering her weapons from the armory. The ramp slowly lowered and she finally left the confines of the Tome'tayl'kandyc, joining the throng of people moving through the spaceport. The smell of street food, oil, and people wafted into her helmet, the press of bodies on wide walkways brushing against her durasteel beskar'gam. The Holonet article had mentioned the area these kidnappings happened wasn't too far from the spaceport and a few levels down. Adelle strode through the crowd with purpose, weaving through people and past vendors with a dangerous presence about her.

This ended today.



Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Adelle Bastiel
​

The hum of the city pressed in from all sides as Denon's endless pulse of light and motion, too bright above, too dark below. Aiden had felt that rhythm a thousand times before, but tonight it carried an undertone. A dissonance. Something wrong.

He stood near the lip of a mezzanine overlooking the lower traffic lanes, cloak drawn close against the gust of speeder backwash. From here he could see the lines of the crowd shifting organic tides of motion that always betrayed more than words ever did. Fear had a pattern. So did desperation.

When the Holonet headline came through, it had already reached his outer channels: Eight children missing. All confirmed Force-sensitive. Even before he finished reading, he'd felt the echo—faint, buried beneath kilometers of durasteel and neon haze, but real. Tiny sparks of light suddenly cut off, snuffed out by something cold.

He took a slow breath and reached through the noise. The Force here was choked, distorted by metal and machinery, but it still moved. Like whispers through circuitry, it carried impressions panic, grief, the faint residue of purpose. Someone was hunting these children deliberately. That much he was sure of.

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

She felt it as the closer she got, a snarl in the Force, something dark and twisted. A general sense of paranoia lingered in the air like a haze. It would be worse lower down, on the levels the kidnappings had happened on. Adelle quickened her pace, crossing over a mezzanine that gave quite the view. The people nearby started moving out of her way, pace and impassive T-visor a warning. At any other time, she might have stopped to look at the vista next to her. But the turbolifts at the other end held her attention.

So much that she almost missed it.

The presence of Light.

Adelle stopped abruptly then looked over her shoulder, back the way she came, scanning the crowd. There, a man holding his cloak against the wind near the edge, gaze not out over the speeder traffic but down, towards the lower levels. There was a recognizable wisdom in his eyes; the training of a Jedi. Adelle nearly started towards him before realizing he wouldn't know her from a bounty hunter with how muted she kept her own presence. Slowly she released her hold, letting her own Light bleed into the Force. It was just good manners to not surprise someone you were about to ask help from. Adelle approached him then, her gait measured and not quite as quick but still purposeful.

He was taller than he first seemed, her head only coming up to his shoulder. She made no pretense of being there for any other reason than to speak with him. Time was ticking.

"You've felt it, I take it," she said, the vocoder of her helm roughing up her voice. "I'm heading down to check it out. I wouldn't mind an extra set of eyes."



Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Adelle Bastiel
​

Aiden's gaze lifted before she even spoke. The Force had carried the whisper of her approach muted, careful, deliberate, like the controlled exhale before a duel. And then, just as quickly, the quiet edge of her presence had unfurled, light threading through the tension that gripped this place.

He turned as she came closer, the last wash of speeder exhaust flickering over beskar plates and the faint gleam of the visor reflecting the skyline's chaos. For a heartbeat, the city noise dulled. The presence before him was unmistakable. Not just a warrior. Not just someone attuned. Someone who'd been through it someone the darkness had tried to break and failed.

"I felt it." Aiden said simply. His tone carried no surprise, only recognition. The wind tugged at his cloak, the fabric shifting around his boots as he regarded her. "It's stronger below. A pattern of fear… deliberate. Whoever's behind this knows what they're doing."

He studied the spaceport below them the way light bled into shadow, how movement thinned the deeper one looked. Then his eyes returned to her visor, searching for the shape of her intent. "If they're taking Force-sensitives, they're not just traffickers." he said quietly. "There's purpose in it."

A small nod. "You're not wrong to move fast. But we'll need to move smart. Lead the way. I'll follow your route until we find the source."

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Adelle inclined her head as soon as he finished, acknowledging what he said, and turned around, the motion blending into the same pace she had set before. He'd confirmed her initial thoughts--someone competent was deliberately taking specific children for some unknown purpose. It made her brain itch and touched chords of memory that had long sat silent. Adelle reined in her presence again, on the off chance this was the work of a Force-user.

Thankfully, an open turbolift waited as if for them as they approached. Adelle held it open for the Jedi and hit the controls to take them down.

"I've seen something similar, once," she said, pulling out her datapad to download publicly accessible maps of this area of Denon. "But it was seven years ago and on Coruscant. The man responsible had others helping him but he purged his entire stronghold, all his data and anything that might've been a lead."

Fire. Blood. Wires. She could taste copper on her tongue. "I don't like this kind of coincidence."

The turbolift opened up to a level much further down from the mezzanine. The twist in the Force was stronger here but it did not originate here. Further down. Adelle ground her teeth and set her datapad to sync the maps with her HUD. Lifts and stairwells for public use weren't terribly far but a maintenance ladder was closer and ended fairly close to another public stairwell.

"Two more levels until the last known location of the most recent kidnapping," she said, more to herself than to the Jedi with her. "But it feels stronger lower than that. Can you get a better read on it?"

She headed to the ladder, a measured pace this time but still deliberate. Last time she'd gone investigating something like this, it hadn't ended well.



Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Adelle Bastiel
​

Aiden stepped into the turbolift beside her, the hum of its descent reverberating through the metal beneath their boots. His reflection flickered faintly in her visor but his attention remained elsewhere below, through the durasteel veins of the city, where something malignant pulsed like a hidden infection.

"I can feel it." he said after a pause, his tone quiet but weighted. "It's not just darkness it's organized. Contained. Someone's using it." He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing as he reached through the tangled skein of sensation. "Whatever they've built down there, it isn't chaos. It's structured. Intentional."

The turbolift shuddered to a stop, and the doors hissed open to a corridor washed in the jaundiced glow of half-flickering lights. The air carried the scent of ozone and rust, the kind that clung to the forgotten places of Denon. Aiden followed Adelle out, letting his senses stretch further as she synced her datapad. Her mention of Coruscant lingered in his mind like an echo, a grim thread tying this moment to something older.

"Coruscant…" he murmured. "I remember hearing about a purge like that—records sealed, details omitted. Too neat to be random."

He crouched near the grated floor as they approached the maintenance ladder, pressing a hand lightly against the metal. The Force trembled through it, faint but unmistakable a vibration that carried both fear and endurance. "There's movement three, maybe four levels down." he said quietly. "Children. Alive. But they're being kept in containment probably stasis or sedation. And something else… a focal point." He straightened, jaw tightening. "Someone's anchoring the darkness there."

Aiden's hand hovered briefly near the hilt of his saber, though he didn't draw it yet. "We'll go quietly." he said, his tone even, professional but beneath it lay something colder. "And if this is connected to your Coruscant man, then whoever's down there is about to regret thinking history could repeat itself."

He met her visor briefly, a flicker of understanding passing through the Force shared purpose, steady resolve. "After you."

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

His words echoed along familiar lines as Adelle climbed down the maintenance ladder. Not just Darkness, it's organized. Structured. Intentional. Krayt had made things seem like chaos from inside his web but there had always been purpose and a plan. History could repeat itself. The idea made her blood run cold. Adelle kept her head on a swivel, even as she moved to the stairwell that led down to the next level. The crowds had thinned out a bit but there were still a lot of people. Any one of them could be part of the kidnappings.

"Alive is good," she said. She really didn't want to deal with--or think about, really, the alternative. "A focal point, less so."

Adelle paused at the bottom of the steps, taking a moment to scan their surroundings. The light seemed dimmer here, the shadows deeper. A thousand smells filled the air: the press of people in small spaces, stagnant water, rusting metal, garbage kicked aside into corners. Unpleasant but she preferred to leave her helmet's filter on the lowest setting unless it was dangerous. She pushed a button on her vambrace, using her HUD to highlight devices carrying an electrical current. So far, nothing. No hidden cameras, no hidden comms. A soft sigh of relief escaped her before she steeled herself. They still had another level or two to go before they came to the origin point. And the lower down they went, the worse it felt in the Force.

"They don't have surveillance on this level. At least in this area," she said. "But they might closer to their operation. We may need some distance if we want an element of surprise. Mandalorians are quite noticeable. I can run distraction if need be."

She switched the HUD back to its default state, and looked at the highlighted access points on the displayed map. Getting lower wouldn't be much of a problem. Once they were there though...

"We'll need to find where they're holed away first." Adelle flicked through the public maps she had on her datapad. "Lots of areas though. Warehouses, hangars, bars. Everything so clustered together it'd be easy to have a false wall somewhere. Wanna hazard a guess?"

She offered the datapad to the Jedi.



Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Adelle Bastiel ​

Aiden took the datapad from Adelle with the practiced ease of someone who had read more battleplans than holonet headlines. He let the little map bloom across his vision, fingers ghosting over the routes she’d highlighted. The Force braided through the schematic as naturally as it braided through the city along public corridors. They would have to potentially slice into and access security camera feeds to find an access point. There was a wave of dark energy that was clouding his view as they got closer.

He traced a line with a thumb. Warehouses and hangars were obvious places to hide a chamber; the clustered service access nearby made it easy to run unnoticed. What worried him more was the pattern of power nodes. “The dark side is ever present here, not coincidence.”

He slid the datapad back to her. “We can access the camera feeds and find a location that will point in the right direction. Once we have that location, we can power everything down and one of us can provide a distraction.” he said in a low voice. “Make it loud, obvious, pull guards, watchers, anyone with sight."

One last look along the stairwell’s dim edge, a breath taken to steady the Force around him, and Aiden moved. He let the dark swirl below pull his senses deeper and kept his presence small, like a shadow slipping through gutters of light. The city sang its indifferent song around them; he listened for the lattice’s single, steady note and followed it toward where the children waited.

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

"Distractions and cams will be the easy part," she said, following as the Jedi began to move lower down, his own presence dimming until she couldn't notice. Leigh had developed some useful tools that Adelle still made use of and a Mandalorian or a Jedi were both usually attention-grabbing. Finding a hole to slip into unnoticed would be the trick.

The Force was frosty with the Dark Side, even just one level lower, an oil-slick that tainted everything it touched. Adelle suppressed a shudder and decided she was going to find someplace to bathe before she left Denon. Another quick scan revealed nothing in the immediate area, but a few surveillance cams seemingly attached to shops pinged on her HUD a block down in each direction. Nothing telling, but they could use it to broaden their search radius. Adelle pulled out her datapad again and entered in a command, running a program she once asked Leigh to create for her.

"Accessing cams," she told the Jedi quietly. "Fifteen seconds."

Adelle cracked the knuckles of her free hand using her thumb to press down on her fingers, shaking it loose. Leigh could've done it faster herself. Finally, the program finished and camera feeds from this level appeared on her datapad. She tilted it towards the Jedi so he could see as they cycled through. She had to make sure they got this right. Never again.

One of the feeds caught her attention. She pulled it up to full-view: a warehouse on top of some kind of speeder hangar, a mechanical shop on one side and a bar on the other. Power nodes sat at each of the corners, in sharp contrast to the regular intervals they'd seen previously. Adelle tilted her helmet to the Jedi.

"That's an awful lot of power for a block. Even with the hangar," she said.



Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Adelle Bastiel
​

Aiden leaned in just enough to see the display over her gauntlet, the faint blue light from the datapad washing across his features. His eyes narrowed as he studied the layout. Four nodes, perfectly spaced, their signatures clean and stable too clean. Denon's lower levels were chaos incarnate when it came to infrastructure. Power fluctuated by the minute, and maintenance was done in patchwork if it was done at all.

The Force around the area shimmered with wrongness an undercurrent of hunger twisting beneath the hum of energy. He let his focus slip beyond the datapad, tracing the sensation along unseen lines until it pulled taut, leading straight to that cluster of structures. The warehouse glowed faintly in his perception, not with light but with pressure, as though the darkness inside it were straining against the seams.

"They're channeling power into the center." Aiden said, pointing toward the map's intersection point. "That's where the focal node is. The hangar and the bar are cover the real work's in the warehouse."

He stepped back from the display, drawing in a breath that misted faintly in the chill air of the lower level. The Force vibrated through him like tension in a blade. "There's a containment field around it," he added, voice low. "Whatever they're doing in there, it's designed to keep anyone out. That's where they have to be."

He glanced toward Adelle, reading the line of her stance through the armor. "We'll need to hit it from two points. If you can breach their external systems, draw power from those corner nodes, I can unravel the Force weave while the current drops. If we time it right, the field collapses before they know we're here."

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Aiden Porte
​

The Jedi surveyed the map with analytical focus and Adelle felt glad she'd made the decision to grab backup. If this was like Coruscant, if this was anyone connected with Krayt, she was not only a known quantity but an asset to be recovered. The Jedi--she'd really have to get his name, find some way to repay him--was anything but. He pointed out the same thing she'd noticed about the power nodes and added that the warehouse was their target, confirming what she'd guessed. Then he mentioned the containment field. That, she hadn't caught.

"No one in," she muttered. "And no one out."

Rational thought said that was the smart thing to do: lock down operations to a singular, hidden point with an equally secret escape route as fallback. Missions with CorSec had shown this pattern time and again: terrorist cells, fugitives, crime rings, they all followed a similar pattern. It was just a matter of scale.

Her paranoia said this was a trap.

Coruscant had followed the routine pattern. Until it hadn't.

How many more people had worked with Krayt? How many people worked like Krayt?

Adelle breathed out slowly, shoving the rising noise of anxiety deep down. She could deal with that after they found those kids. She tilted her helm towards the Jedi as he set out the beginnings of a plan.

"We'll need to split up," she said. "Once that field's down, they'll know someone's found them. They may try to bolt or bunker down. I've got an arsenal that can make a lot of noise so I'll provide distraction, try to draw as many of them out as I can."

She magnified the schematics of the block, the trio of hangar, warehouse, and bar sitting center. "There should be maintenance hatches to service the air systems for at least the warehouse and bar in the level above. Barring that, the hangar will have to have some kind of exhaust port to expel the fumes from fuel and engines."

A strike like this would require coordination and precise timing. But whoever this was hadn't stayed hidden away by being stupid though. Comms channels would probably be monitored or jammed near the buildings.

"We won't be able to use comlinks," she said. "At least, I don't feel comfortable using a comlink. I haven't encrypted my personal frequency yet. So."

She released her focus on hiding her presence, allowing the Jedi to easily find her through the Force. Of course, any other Force-sensitive or user would also be able to find her. But that was a risk she'd have to take. Besides, what was the use of being a distraction if she didn't draw most of the attention away from the Jedi?

"I'll wait for your signal," Adelle said. "May the Force be with you."

 

[Aiden Porte]

Adelle Bastiel
​

Aiden nodded once, the motion small but absolute. He folded the plan into the quiet of his mind and let the Force carry the rest the only channel they trusted here. Words and coms were luxuries the enemy could intercept; silence and intent were tools the Jedi used differently.

He moved first, slipping into the service ladder while Adelle stayed above to become the story that would draw eyes. The maintenance shafts smelled of oil and old heat; the light was thin and worked like gauze over his skin. He kept his gait slow, the way one walks through a temple at night, attentive to the smallest tremor in the air. Down here the city's hum became a low chorus under the Force's fabric, and threaded through it was the lattice's single, steady note an insistence he could follow if he let the current lead.

The corridor opened into a narrow service hall that ran beneath the block. Aiden pressed a palm to the nearest panel and listened with more than ears. The weave he felt was tight and clever, electronics braided with sigils of intent, the kind of work that married science to belief. He could tease at the edge of it, feel where the intent clung to the tech, but he could not yet unmake it without risking the lives it held.

He probed gently, a careful test with the Force, looking for seams where the weave was weakest. Small things answered first: a slight lag in a power node's cycle, a micro-flutter where shielding met the lattice. Those were the places to pry. He closed his eyes for a breath and mapped the pattern three nodes feeding a central spine in a loop. Disrupt two of the corners and the spine would starve long enough for him to open the weave without the field collapsing.

A thought reached out then not words, more like a bell struck soft across the distance. He threaded it with intention and sent a single, quiet signal down to Adelle. Now. It was a touch of feeling she would understand if she was ready. If she was not, he would have to make noise of his own.

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Aiden Porte​

The Jedi nodded and moved. Adelle waited a heartbeat before moving away from his chosen access point, squaring her shoulders and walking with the almost-swagger the beskar'gam demanded of its bearer. Most people moved aside for a Mandalorian that looked like they were on a hunt. She kept her head on a swivel, HUD highlighting cams, comms, and the power nodes that were her target. Adelle keyed in a command on her left vambrace, her datapad lighting up. Leigh had once given her a basic infiltration and slicing suite, questions kept unasked behind her domed helmet. It had been a rare occasion that Adelle had even needed to use it. A progress bar appeared at the top of her HUD as the datapad began to run the program.

Adelle quickly made her way along the more visible paths to the hangar and bar. She said she would make the distraction so she was going to make it spectacular. The program would make short work of the nodes, sending more power than they could handle into their systems and overloading them. A shower of sparks was always eye-catching. As far as breaching the front entrance went, a couple of explosives went a long way.

She passed by the front window and door to the bar, only mildly busy in the late afternoon. A chime sounded in her helmet as the progress bar filled up and blinked a few times before disappearing. Her datapad was now connected to the local grid. Step one complete. As she walked by the hangars large blast door, closed with a dirty sign written in Aurebesh attached to it, she pulled two grav charges from her belt and tossed one on either side of the hangar, never slowing her stride. The Jedi had to be close to making his move and she needed to be ready.

A second chime sounded but this one wasn't audible, not in the traditional sense. There was the barest hint of a pause to her walk but it was quickly dispelled. The Jedi's signal. Adelle raised her left vambrace again and keyed in another command as she quickly walked away from the hangar door. Electricity surged to two of the power nodes, setting off sparking explosions. She stopped a few meters away from the hangar door and timed it so innocents wouldn't get caught in the blast.

The next command opened the hangar door with a bang. Adelle called her lightsaber to her hand and ignited it, walking through the smoke and dust the explosions kicked up. Time to kick the Bacian blood hornets' nest.

 

[Aiden Porte]

Adelle Bastiel​

The explosions hit like punctuation. Aiden felt them before he heard them, a sharp yank in the Force as attention snapped toward the hangar block. He tightened his grip on the ladder rung and moved, each inch down the maintenance shaft drawing him closer to the lattice he'd been following.

By the time smoke and light bled into the service corridor, the field's hum had thinned. Adelle's overload had bled power from two corner nodes; the weave that had braced the containment was fraying at the edges. He let his awareness slip into the lattice, fingers of the Force probing for the anchoring intent, careful not to yank too hard, too much force could collapse whatever held the children's fragile life signatures.

There was tech and there was ritual. He separated them the way a surgeon separates bone from tendon: gentle, precise, a touch here to short a relay, a keening coaxed through the Force to unbind whatever had been braided into the circuitry. For a breath it resisted, cold and sharp, but then the hum stuttered, fractured, and fell.

Childish cries came like small, cautious lights. Aiden moved through the crawlspace into the warehouse seam and found a ring of containment nodes, fainted bodies in cradles. He eased the last filament of the weave away and the sedation broke like fog. A thin, relieved sob curled through the air. The gates were open and they were no free. His force presence reaching out to comfort those that were in pain. He gave them a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, we are here to help."

Alarms began to choke the warehouse, metallic, angry. "Go." He drew his saber in a steady motion, not for slaughter but for cover, and made for the nearest service lift where Adelle could meet him and they could move fast, children between them.

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Tags: Aiden Porte ​

Blue and red light strobed as Adelle swung her lightsaber in controlled arcs and spins, its hum barely audible under the staccato of blaster fire. She opened herself up to the Force fully, moving with the currents. The brown- and grey-skinned thugs moved between cover and she managed to catch a couple with returned bolts. Adelle kept her breathing controlled, even as tension bled from her.

This had nothing to do with Krayt.

It had nothing to do with her.

The other prominent feature of the enemies she faced was their hair that varied in shades from black to white. A few had called upon a goddess: Vahl. And a religious fervor burned within their Dark presences. Adelle smiled grimly beneath the helmet. She could handle a cult.

Deeper within the cult’s complex, Adelle felt tiny lights flare slowly to life. Eight of them. Good. The Jedi had found them.

Apparently, the cultists felt it too. As a small group laid down more covering fire, putting her back on the defensive, one ran into a small room in the back. A moment later, red warning lights flashed as klaxons blared, echoing throughout the facility. Right, time to make herself more of a problem.

Adelle slipped her left hand to her belt and grabbed her third and final grav charge. She flung it at the group that had laid the covering fire, aiding her throw with the Force. The explosion rocked the building. Adelle put out her hand, throwing up a Barrier as debris zipped past. In the momentary silence that followed, one of the cultists felt brave enough to address her.

Well, brave enough behind cover.

“You will not stop us, hunter,” he said. “We will summon forth our goddess on this world! All will bow before the might of Vahl.”

Adelle paused, cobalt blade held in a neutral guard before her, voice never leaving the confines of her helmet. “Yeah, no.”

Her left hand reached for her belt, calling a thermal det to her palm. Lightsaber blade moved as the blaster fire returned. She lobbed the det towards where she heard the speaker take cover. Hopefully that would draw out whatever cultists remained inside to the hangar and clear the path for the Jedi. There were bound to be a few after him and the kids, attempting to reclaim their hostages for whatever ritual they were doing. She could feel his Light moving, herding the children away from their prison. Adelle risked a glance at the map of the block on her HUD. Based off of the general area she could feel the Jedi in, it seemed like he was heading for a service turbolift. She could work with that.

But first she needed to deal with the threats in the hangar.

Her HUD pinged six cultists still moving, still breathing. These had to just be the muscle: if they were something more, they were being stupid by not using the Force. Which meant she needed to move fast. The ones that could use the Force were likely trying to find the Jedi and the children right now.

Adelle grabbed one of the blasters in the Force and aimed it at a different cultist as its shooter fired, then used it to bludgeon the shooter into unconsciousness. She whipped it at another Vahla that thought to take advantage and popped out of cover. He ducked, the blaster narrowly missing, but that gave her time to use the Force to speed her movement and close the distance. Her blue blade blocked three more bolts before slicing through the crate the cultist took shelter behind and the cultist.

Three left. Adelle turned, twirling her blade to deflect the bolts shot her way. She gestured with her left hand and sent a barrel flying into the head of one of the remaining Vahla. Two. They were backing up towards a door, either looking to make an escape or grab more cover. Adelle put out her hand, absorbing the plasma energy and channeling it into the hilt of her lightsaber. She flung the hilt at them, a spinning disc of blue that neatly cut down the last two shooters.

Adelle called the hilt back to her hand and kept it ready, heading to where the service lift would exit on this level.

She reached through the Force and found the Jedi’s light then sent a whisper of a message, more an impression than words. <<Hangar clear. Cult, Ember of Vahl. En route.>>

 

[Aiden Porte]

Adelle Bastiel​

Aiden guided the frightened children through the shadowed maintenance hall, his voice low and steady, more rhythm than speech. "Stay close. Hold hands. Breathe." The words anchored them, but it was the calm he wove through the Force that steadied their steps. The air smelled of ozone and ash, but the oppressive dark that had once clung to this place was thinning, disrupted by fire, light, and Adelle's unmistakable defiance.

He felt her message the instant it brushed against him, that flicker of intent and strength. 'Hangar clear. Cult, Ember of Vahl. En route' He exhaled through his nose, quiet relief tempered by the reminder of who they faced.

A distant explosion rattled dust from the overhead pipes. Aiden looked back at the children, gauging their limits. The eldest, a boy, maybe ten, met his eyes and nodded. Brave little soul. "Almost there," Aiden said softly, then reached out through the Force to the turbolift ahead. With a flick of his wrist, its controls sparked to life. "Hold on to me."

He stepped into the lift first, placing himself between the children and the open corridor as the doors hissed shut. Just before they sealed, the sound of boots echoed down the hall, too heavy for workers, too measured for panicked cultists. Reinforcements.

The lift lurched upward. Aiden's hand hovered over his lightsaber, thumb brushing the emitter but not igniting it. No fear, no anger, only focus. The darkness above the hangar trembled with motion. He could feel Adelle's light cutting through it, alive, fierce, unflinching.

"Stay behind cover when the doors open," he told the children. "No matter what happens, don't run until I tell you."

The lift slowed, vibrations deepening as it reached the hangar level. The Force surged through him, smoke, heat, the residual pulse of her power. Aiden's lightsaber snapped to life in a burst of green as the doors parted. He could see Adelle as they approached

Aiden gave a short nod, stepping aside so the children could move behind her. "They're safe," he replied, eyes sweeping the room. "But we're not done. The leader's still here."

Even as he said it, the shadows at the far end of the hangar coalesced, whispers of flame swirling around a tall figure whose eyes burned with the crimson glow of fanatic faith. The air tightened, the scent of burning metal rising.

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Tags: Aiden Porte ​

Adelle turned to face the approaching Vahla before her HUD sounded a proximity alert as the children filed out of the lift and huddled behind them. She could feel the fire at the dark sider's fingertips, just waiting to be called and streamed forth. That had been the way she came. That had been her original route for getting them out.

"Right, it's never that easy," she murmured to herself. She glanced at the map in the top right corner of her HUD but a flicker of warning drew her attention back to the leader.

A stream of fire came roiling down the hallway, the air shimmering with its heat. Adelle braced and held up a hand, putting a barrier between the fire and them. Behind her, she heard the turbolift doors close and motors whirr with action. That . . . could not be good. Adelle felt multiple lifeforms below, flaring with hunters' intent.

The stream of fire was slowly eating away at her barrier. Adelle poured more of her focus into the shield then turned her attention to the map on her HUD. They had to find a way out before they were sandwiched between the cult leader and reinforcements. A route lit green, short but it wasn't meant to lead them out yet. Just to buy them time.

"Corridor to my left," Adelle called to the Jedi, nodding in its direction. "Third right. Service ladder going up. The hatch at the top will give us a minute. I'll take the rear, hold 'em off as long as I can."

She hoped the Jedi would hurry and the children would be manageable. The entrance to the corridor was a chokepoint and holding it was doable but the dark siders would be problematic if they used more than fire.

 

[Aiden Porte]

Adelle Bastiel​

Aiden felt her before he saw her, an edged steadiness in the Force, bright under strain, like a shield held too long.

The hatch above the service ladder banged open and the children spilled out first, stumbling into a dim maintenance passage. Aiden caught them with a gentle pull, hands to shoulders, a breath of calm pressed into panicked lungs, guiding them down the narrow run without slowing their momentum.

"Keep moving," he said, voice low but absolute.

He set himself at the hatch as the last child cleared, blue blade igniting with a snap-hiss that painted the metal in cold light. Heat surged up the shaft a heartbeat later. Fire licked the opening, testing the gap.

"Let's go!" Aiden voiced to Adelle so she could hurry up the hatch.

Aiden crouched to the children's level. "We're moving along this catwalk to the next junction. No talking. If you feel scared, that's fine, hold onto that feeling and keep walking anyway. I'll be right here."

It wouldn't be too long now. Aiden pushed forward, primary goal was to get these kids out of here. Everything seemed to go smoothly, that's when vigilance was needed. Anytime things were going smoothly, something could always go sideways.