hesitation is defeat
The automation of the Silik’s fleet meant all the updates: Atmospheric pressure, seismic readings, time to landing zone, clear radar, was uniform, precise, and, most importantly, accurate.
Ishida’s thumb tapped against the base of her hilt, matching the rhythmic ticking of the countdown that scrolled on the screen. The drum of anticipation. Metres traded for feet, and all the while, the Knight kept her eyes forward on the shape of the target as it became larger and larger and she no longer needed to rely on it being a little green outline on the dashboard.
An Imperial prison.
Ishida’d been agitated after Exegol. While other Jedi were eager to rest on their laurels, or work on peaceful operations, or just linger and celebrate, she was not so easily content. There was still darkness out there, threats which The Council may not have yet understood. Threats that needed to be stamped out before they could gain enough traction to rise again.
The last recognized Emperor of the Great Empire, the truest danger, had been Rurik Fel on the Iron Throne. His regime had inspired a cult around his Imperial Knights. With him gone, the urgency and fevered zealotry sought desperately, intensely, to reinstill that same power. And it could only be achieved through Force Users. Dangerous persons used many different methods to indoctrinate force-sensitive candidates to serve loyally.
That green outline, now a shadow she could see with her own eyes, was one such rogue Knight cells that had allegedly used the discord of the Empire’s situation, and the distraction of Exegol, to capture and practise their barbaric conversion techniques on Force Users to build them into something that would be worthy of heralding back the days of Emperor Fel.
At one hundred feet, Ishida silently rose from her seat and crossed to join the others ready to deploy. Eyes lifted to meet hers, and she nodded at each. The gesture was reciprocated. Faces that she’d come to know after Tython. Faces that had regarded her with an air of suspicion and disdain at first, and regarded her with less harshness now. She no longer had to fight the feeling not to wither beneath their stares.
It was well-apparent after Empress Teta, when she’d still been awkwardly stepping into her role alongside them, that Knight Ashina meant to fulfil her duty as Sardun’s Sword of Light. That proof point, and her slow-coming comfort with the ring, their network, helped assuage the concerns that might have existed at one time.
On the mark they agreed, they touched down and poured out. Still, somehow, undetected.
The Empire really was falling apart.
The formation of companions that swarmed one side of the prison was mirrored by a complementary swarm of equal measure. They all waited, patiently, for two things.
One, for Ishida to find the Shatterpoint of the garrison’s outer wall.
Two, the earthquake they were expecting.
When the tremour rolled beneath their feet, loud and dangerous, rattling their bones and shaking their equilibrium, Ishida’s centre of gravity was low. On her knees, hands against the walls, and exploiting the foundation the prison had been built atop. The impact of Eol Sha’s natural quakes, coupled with the precision of The Force in the Knight’s hands, split apart an opening wide enough for the first group to pour through.
Even the thick, intentional, and near-perfected foundation for a world so used to unrest was charmed by Ishida’s will. The fissure that stretched to the crest of the wall did not stop. One weakness spread through the perturbed fracture to crumble other areas around the wall. Eventually, the second group would have an easier way in as well.
“One chance.” Ishida murmured, rose to stand, and clapped the dust from her hands. There was an impassiveness to her eyes, despite merciful instruction. “And if they take it, they come with us.”
Articulating what happened if they did not was superfluous with this group.
