Private Radiant Reflection

[Calyx Sundrift]

S C A R L E T -W A S T E L A N D S
K L A T O O I N E

Dust swirled up behind the approaching swoopbikes, rising in great plumes that trailed across the Klatooinian wasteland. The riders made no effort to conceal themselves. No attempt to mask their approach. For stealth was not part of the plan. The hunt had reached its final stage. Their quarry was meant to know they were coming.

< She's here. The tracking fob confirms it. > A gruff voice crackled through the comm channel.

A second voice answered almost immediately. < Fan out. Surround the wreck. She doesn't leave this place alive. >

The order split the formation. Twelve swoopbikes divided in four pairs like practiced, arcing outward across the desert in widening circles. Engines roared against the wind as they spread around the crash site, each pair approaching from another cardinal direction.

At the center of it all lay the wreckage. A shattered cruiser half-buried beneath shifting dunes. It stretched across the wasteland for hundreds of meters, corroded hull plates jutting from the sand to provide reprieve from the harsh sunlight. Over the years it had been many things. A refuge for smugglers and the like. A base of operations for aspiring crime lords. And now, the shelter of a fugitive. A lone Jedi.

The Covenant had caught on to her scent two days prior, and pursued relentlessly ever since. To the overseers, this Jedi represented the perfect opportunity. Eight acolytes had been selected from the Academy on Thrantin and brought across the stars to Klatooine. Hand-picked by the three overseers directing the hunt. The objective of their trial was simple. Find the Jedi, kill them, and claim their lightsaber as your own. Those who distinguished themselves would earn recognition. Perhaps even consideration for apprenticeship. It was a fast track to power. Toward becoming Sith, as all acolytes were supposed to desire.

Calyx, however, did not.

Still, commands were commands. Disobedience remained a luxury reserved for the powerful. And so Calyx found himself participating in a hunt he neither desired nor believed in.

His swoopbike drifted to a halt east of the wreckage. Before him loomed one of the cruiser's colossal corroded thrusters. Another bike slowed beside him. Its rider swung off the saddle first.

“Think they're in there?” Calyx called out.

“Can't you sense them?”

Calyx turned his head slowly toward the masked acolyte. The expressionless faceplate offered nothing in return. “No.” He paused. “Can you?”

For a moment, silence stretched between them.

“C'mon.” The response was more like a growl, and avoided the answer. “We've got a Jedi to kill.”

The two figures began crossing the final dunes toward the wreckage as the sun sagged toward the horizon, stretching their shadwos impossibly long across the sands.

Lumiya Dara

 

[Lumiya Dara]

Lumiya had never liked the feeling of being hunted. It wasn’t fear in the dramatic sense. Not panic. Not helplessness. Just a deep, persistent wrongness sitting beneath her ribs ever since she realized the people following her were not going to lose interest. Most of her life had been spent passing unnoticed through the galaxy. Easy to overlook. Easy to dismiss. She had preferred it that way. Now someone wanted her dead badly enough to send others across worlds to accomplish it.

The wrecked cruiser groaned softly around her as desert wind moved through fractured corridors and hollowed bulkheads. Hidden deep within the ship’s buried interior, Lumiya sat very still beside the dim glow of a portable lantern, listening. Engines. Distant at first. Then closer.

Her fingers tightened faintly around the fabric pooled near her knees before slowly releasing again. They found her. The realization settled with strange clarity rather than shock. Somewhere above the layered durasteel and dunes, swoopbikes were carving circles around the wreckage like carrion birds preparing to descend. Lumiya closed her eyes briefly. The Force around the wasteland felt unsettled tonight. Too many unfamiliar presences moving with shared intent. Sharp edges. Aggression. Hunger mixed with uncertainty. Young, she realized after a moment. Or at least not fully formed in what they were trying so desperately to become. That frightened her more than certainty would have.

Carefully, she reached beside her and lifted the lightsaber resting near the lantern. The metal hilt looked unfamiliar in her hands despite how long she had carried it. She turned it once between her fingers, thoughtful, almost reluctant. “I really hope that I don’t need you,” she murmured quietly to it. And she meant it. Lumiya was not a warrior. Not truly. She knew enough to survive if forced into it, but survival and violence were not the same thing. Most of her training had centered around healing, guidance, mediation. Putting broken things back together. Not cutting people apart.

Outside, faint echoes carried through the wreckage; shifting sand, distant voices, boots against old metal. Closer now.

Her breath slowed deliberately. Running further into the cruiser would only trap her deeper if they cornered the exits. Staying still risked discovery. Fighting, on the other hand... Her gaze lowered briefly to the saber in her hand. No. Not unless there was no other choice.

Slowly, Lumiya extinguished the lantern, allowing darkness to swallow the small compartment entirely. Only thin lines of dying sunlight filtered through cracks in the ancient hull now, painting fractured stripes across the floor. Silent once more, she rose carefully to her feet.

The wreck became something different in darkness. Not shelter. Not refuge. A maze of shadows and narrow passages half-consumed by sand and time. Somewhere above her, metal creaked again beneath approaching footsteps.

Lumiya moved deeper into the corridor system with quiet precision, one hand brushing lightly along the wall to guide herself through the dark. Every instinct urged caution rather than confrontation. Avoid. Evade. Survive. But beneath all of it lingered one terrifying truth she could no longer ignore: If they found her, she might actually have to use the blade at her side.

Tag: Calyx Sundrift

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T H E - W R E C K A G E

Each steady footfall over the rusty gratings echoed through the thruster shaft. The last rays of light played with their shadows, shaping movement where there was none.

They continued onward without a word spoken. Occassionally one of them stopped to look down a corridor. Thrusting the Force to pick up what the lenses of their masks couldn't.

< Calyx. Ran. Status report. >

Ran stopped beside him at the shaft's intersection, hand hovering toward his mask to activate the comm. < Negative so far. No traces. >

Calyx knelt down, beside a broken crate, his dark cloak smudging with gray dust as he swiped his arm over it. The thick layer of dust and sand parted, revealing the rusty brand plate. "Czerka. From 850." He glanced over his shoulder to Ran. "Stuff's five decades old. If they had rations, they're long spoiled."

Ran stopped beside him. "Means whatever they're living on, she brought here."

"Or took from a smuggler's cache." Calyx added thoughtfully. "Look for anything newer than this." He gestured to the crate as he rose.

The two Sith-aspirants moved on with purposeful gait, stopping twice more beside equipment caches. One of them far more recent, judging by the state of it.

Scouring the corridors revealed more. Scrape marks of where reinfoced doors had been opened. Electricity panels of floodlights, now broken.

They both felt it. They were getting closer.

The wreckage grew darker here. Seemingly intent to reveal nothing more than the next corner in this maze of corridors. They'd slowed their pace now. Each step done cautiously as not to make a sound.

Then they heard it. A soft rustling up ahead. There was something there.

Ran and he exchanged a look. Both pulled their vibroknives - jagged things crafted specifically to withstand a lightsaber.

They listened for the sound once more. Confirming that there was indeed somebody out there.

It came.

The Sith broke into a run. Daggers at the ready, hungry for violence. The Jedi would hear them coming. See the glowing red lenses in their masks.

But it would be too late.

They'd closed their trap.

And their ferocity would more than make up for the advantage they'd given away.

Lumiya Dara

 

[Lumiya Dara]

The moment the running started, Lumiya knew hiding was over. The sound tore through the wreckage all at once; boots hammering against old metal somewhere behind her, fast and committed now instead of cautious. No more searching. They had found something.

Her breath caught sharply as she moved deeper into the cruiser’s fractured interior, cloak twisting softly behind her. Sand shifted beneath her boots while the corridor narrowed ahead into a collapsed maintenance passage littered with exposed wiring and fallen support beams. The darkness here felt heavier somehow; thick with old dust and trapped heat. Behind her, the pounding footsteps grew louder.

The Force pressed uneasily at the edge of her awareness now. Sharp. Aggressive. Uncertain in ways that almost frightened her more than certainty would have. Young minds wrapped tightly around violence like armor they had not fully grown into yet.

Another turn. Then she stopped abruptly. A sealed bulkhead blocked the corridor ahead, reinforced and partially warped from age. The control panel beside it hung dead and corroded beneath layers of dust, its casing cracked open from years of neglect. No way through. The sounds behind her closed rapidly now.

Lumiya turned back toward the corridor she had come from, chest rising unevenly as dim movement flickered somewhere within the dark. She could not properly see them yet, only the suggestion of approaching figures between fractured beams and hanging cables. For one suspended moment, she simply stood there. Then instinct finally overtook hesitation. Her lightsaber ignited with a sharp snap-hiss, the pale ice-blue blade flooding the corridor in cold light. The glow illuminated the wreckage around her in fractured stripes; rusted walls, drifting dust, exposed conduits. It illuminated her too; a lone Jedi backed against a dead bulkhead with trembling hands wrapped around a weapon she clearly did not want to use. The blade hummed softly in the darkness.

Lumiya swallowed hard, forcing herself to steady her breathing as she angled the saber defensively across her body rather than offensively forward. Her pulse hammered painfully beneath her ribs now. She could hear them getting closer. “I don’t want to fight you,” she called out, her voice quieter than she intended but still carrying through the corridor.

The bulkhead controls sparked faintly beside her shoulder. Her eyes flicked toward them immediately. It was a possibility. Dangerous. Unstable. But possible.

The footsteps surged nearer. Lumiya shifted sideways toward the damaged panel without lowering her blade, every nerve in her body drawn tight as wire now. The Force trembled uneasily around her; warning, urging, preparing. Then, gathering herself in one sharp breath, she drove the ice-blue blade directly into the exposed control panel. Sparks exploded outward in a violent shower of light. The ancient bulkhead groaned loudly behind her as dead systems suddenly lurched back to life. Metal screamed against metal. Sand spilled from the ceiling overhead while warning lights flickered weakly along the corridor for the first time in decades. Then slowly - painfully slowly - the sealed door behind her began to part. Lumiya pulled the saber free immediately and stepped backward toward the widening gap, heart pounding hard enough she could barely hear anything else over it now.

Tag: Calyx Sundrift

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T H E - W R E C K A G E

They closed in quickly, the thrill of the Dark Side urging them forward. To wound, maim, and kill. To revel in violence.

Their advance slowed only when an ice-blue blade ignited, bathing the corridor in cold, steady light. It invited caution, but also revealed far more than the darkness ever had.

A girl.

Insecure. And hesitating too.

Calyx brandished his vibroknife, forcing himself toward calm amidst the storm of molten fury that was the Dark Side. The effort slowed his pace enough for Ran to surge ahead and claim the space between them. The broad Twi'lek possessed caution nor restraint. And, Calyx was beginning to suspect, very little instinct for survival.

Ran lunged for the Jedi girl.

She was faster. Not graceful, at least not to Calyx's trained eye, but fast enough. Her blade struck a nearby control panel. Dormant systems flickered awake, and the bulkhead behind her groaned open, revealing the escape route she'd been desperately searching for.

"That chit's running!" Ran's roar echoed through the corridor.

The Dark Side swelled around him as he tore a rusted length of pipe free with the Force and hurled it after her.

Calyx's mind raced. Moments ago, he had nearly dismissed her. Two decades among the Jedi had taught him how to gauge another's training at a glance. She was a Padawan at best. And a Padawan was someone he knew how to beat.

Ran was the real problem. If the Twi'lek gutted the girl, the fight for her lightsaber would begin immediately. Calyx had no doubt Ran would turn on him the moment he saw an opening.

No.

The girl needed to survive. At least until Calyx was in the best position to make his move.

Standing behind Ran, he made a subtle sweeping gesture. The Dark Side answered. Invisible fingers reached for the girl's legs, seeking to drag her off balance and topple her if her concentration faltered. Conveniently pulling her clear of the pipe's path.

Lumiya Dara

 

[Lumiya Dara]

The pipe came fast enough that Lumiya barely registered it before instinct moved her. The Force yanked violently at her legs in the same instant. And her balance vanished. Lumiya hit the grated floor hard, pain jolting sharply through her knees and palms as the world lurched sideways beneath her. The rusted pipe screamed through the space where her torso had been a heartbeat earlier before crashing violently into the half-open bulkhead behind her. Sparks burst outward. Metal shrieked.

For one stunned second she simply stared upward, breath punched from her lungs. Then survival took over again. The dark pull against her legs released just enough for her to wrench herself free, scrambling backward through the widening bulkhead opening as another shower of sparks rained from the damaged frame overhead. Her lightsaber remained clutched tightly in one trembling hand, the pale blade flashing erratically across fractured walls as she forced herself upright again. Not trapped. Don’t get trapped. The thought cut through the panic with sudden clarity.

The passage beyond the bulkhead angled sharply upward through the wreck’s interior structure; an old maintenance spine partially exposed to the outer hull. Wind whistled faintly somewhere above through torn plating and fractured seams. Higher ground.

Lumiya seized on it immediately. She turned and ran. The corridor pitched unevenly beneath her boots as she climbed through the carcass of the ancient cruiser, one hand catching rusted supports to steady herself while the other kept the ice-blue blade close to her side. Behind her, echoes of pursuit exploded back into motion; boots hammering metal, angry voices swallowed by the groaning wreck. Fear clawed hard at her chest now. Not the abstract fear of being hunted anymore. Immediate. Physical. She could hear how close they were.

Another blast of wind struck her as she rounded a collapsed section of corridor and saw fading sunset spilling through a jagged rupture ahead. The outer hull. Relief surged too early. Her foot caught against twisted debris hidden beneath drifting sand. Lumiya stumbled hard, shoulder slamming painfully into the angled wall as the saber flew dangerously close to her own arm before she managed to catch herself. A sharp gasp escaped her lips. The impact rattled through already frayed nerves, but she forced herself back upright almost immediately, breath uneven. Keep moving.

The breach loomed only meters ahead now; a torn opening leading out onto the cruiser’s slanted upper hull where dying sunlight painted the desert in deep crimson and gold. Wind roared louder there, carrying sand across exposed metal plating. Higher ground meant visibility. Space to move. Fewer corners to die in. But it also meant nowhere left to hide.

Lumiya reached the opening and hesitated only for the briefest instant before climbing out onto the outer hull, boots scraping against corroded plating as the vast wasteland opened around her beneath the darkening sky. The wreck stretched endlessly below in fractured dunes of metal and sand. The ice-blue blade hummed unsteadily in her grasp as she turned toward the opening behind her, breathing hard now, wind pulling strands of hair loose around her face. She looked very small standing there against the dying light. And for the first time since the hunt began, there was nowhere left to retreat to.

Tag: Calyx Sundrift

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T H E - W R E C K A G E

He released a breath he hadn't known he was holding when the pipe sailed past her. Ran's low growl became a roar as he leapt forward. But the girl was already on her feet.

"What're you standing around for?!" Ran snapped at Calyx, who only then decided to jog over.

"I thought you had her," Calyx replied evenly.

Ran half-turned, fury flashing at the jab. "You-" He glanced back. The girl's footsteps were already fading. He levelled a finger at Calyx. "This isn't over."

Then he went after her.

Their comms crackled as they rounded a collapsed corridor. < What's your status? Do you have her? >

Calyx scanned ahead and caught the barest wisp of her cloak against the dying light. < She's on the roof. >

< Then we have her. > A third voice cut in, the man's voice clipped and efficient. Calyx recognised it immediately. Pergrin. One of his own acolyte cohort from Pelagon.

Calyx cursed under his breath.

< Understood. We'll hold at the lower level. > It was better to drop the chase here. Pergrin would see right through him.

"Like hell we will," Ran murmured beside him. "C'mon."

Calyx looked at him. "I meant it." He nodded toward the debris the girl had scaled. "It's treacherous up there, and she's slippery. Stay below if you actually want to catch her."

Ran spat and started climbing.

Suit yourself.

Calyx turned and headed for the next crossing instead. He didn't want to watch what happened when the girl found Pergrin's duo waiting and Ran closing in from behind.

Lumiya Dara

 

[Lumiya Dara]

The wind nearly stole her footing. Lumiya emerged onto the outer hull just as the dying sun dipped lower across the wasteland, painting the wreckage in deep bands of crimson and gold. The exposed plating groaned beneath her boots while sand hissed across the corroded metal in restless sheets.

For one brief moment she thought the height might buy her space. Then movement caught her eye. Two figures. Not behind her. But ahead of her. Dark silhouettes appeared further along the slanted hull, emerging between broken sensor arrays and collapsed plating. Even at this distance, she could feel them through the Force; sharp, predatory presences waiting where escape should have been. Her stomach dropped. They're herding me.

Behind her came the unmistakable scrape of metal. Someone climbing. Fast. Lumiya turned instinctively toward the sound. The opening she had just emerged from was no longer safety. It was a funnel. A trap closing from both directions. Her pulse hammered. For a heartbeat, she considered standing her ground. The ice-blue blade hummed softly in her hand. Then common sense returned. "Nope." The word escaped under her breath before she was already moving.

She ran. Not toward the Sith ahead, but along the sloping hull between them; boots slipping on loose sand as she searched desperately for anything that wasn't a dead end. Wind tore at her cloak. Metal groaned beneath every step. There. A jagged rupture yawned several meters ahead; little more than a collapsed maintenance opening where the hull had folded inward decades ago. The gap looked barely large enough for her shoulders. Perfect. Lumiya angled toward it without slowing.

Behind her, the sounds of pursuit grew louder. She reached the opening, dropped to one knee, extinguished her lightsaber, and threw herself through. The jagged edges scraped painfully against her shoulder and hip as gravity seized her immediately. Darkness swallowed her whole. For one terrifying second there was nothing but falling. Then she crashed onto a steep interior deck and slid downward through dust and loose sand, metal screaming beneath her boots as she fought for control. The impact rattled every bone in her body. But she was alive. And, more importantly, no longer standing exactly where the Sith expected her to be.

Tag: Calyx Sundrift

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T H E - W R E C K A G E

The relief lasted only seconds. A hand caught a fistful of her hair, yanking her back without hesitation. A vibroknife hummed just beneath her chin.

The voice came from behind. "I knew you'd come down here."

He'd had to lean hard on the dark side to keep pace with her. Burned more of it than he'd wanted to admit, even to himself. But it had paid off. He had her now, and at least three of his competitors had already lost her trail somewhere above. For the moment, this was his alone.

There was a half-second there. Enought time to weigh options, like every one of them was trained to make. Calyx tightened his grip before she could do anything foolish.

"You're going to do as I say. If I catch you doing anything else, I'll kill you. I don't want to hear anything but yes. Understood?" Calyx hissed.

"I'm going to let go now. Draw your lightsaber and you die. I've watched how you hold it. I know which cadences you favour, and where you'll falter." His tone left no room for doubt. "Run, and I'll make sure you don't get far."

He released her hair, pulled back the blade, and stepped clear of her saber's reach in the same motion, putting distance between them with the ease of someone who'd done this before. Someone who knew exactly how far was far enough.

Then he studied her in silence for a moment, his face hidden behind the mask. Something about her gave him pause.

"Why is a blasted Padawan learner out here on her own?" He didn't wait for an answer. Whatever she said now would undoubtedly be a lie, and he had no patience for it.

Calyx pressed the comlink on his mask. "Negative down here. She's somewhere in the middle levels. Anyone have eyes on her?"

Lumiya Dara

 

[Lumiya Dara]

The sudden pain at her scalp stole a sharp breath from her lungs. Lumiya froze immediately. The vibration of the knife beneath her chin was impossible to ignore. Every instinct screamed at her to move, to pull away, to do something. Instead she forced herself still. "Yes," she answered quietly. The word felt small in the darkness.

When he released her and stepped back, she resisted the urge to touch the spot where her hair still stung from the pull. Her lightsaber remained clipped at her side, unignited. The ice-blue blade never appeared. Because he was right. She wouldn't get far. The realization settled heavily in her chest as she slowly turned to face him. Dust clung to her robes. A fresh scrape marked one side of her face from the fall through the hull. She looked far less like a warrior than the quarry he had expected to find.

His question lingered between them. Why is a blasted Padawan learner out here on her own? The commlink crackled. Negative down here. She's somewhere in the middle levels. Anyone have eyes on her?

Lumiya blinked. Then, despite everything, a faint look of confusion crossed her features. "Middle levels?" she repeated quietly. Her gaze drifted briefly toward the ceiling overhead. Then back to him. "Oh....Thank you." The sincerity of it sounded completely misplaced.

Only after several seconds did she seem to realize how strange that response probably was. "You didn't tell them where I was." The observation escaped before she could stop it. Silence followed. Then, softer, she finally answered the question he had asked. "I'm alone because I chose to be." Her hands remained visible at her sides. Calm. Non-threatening. "I never applied for the Trials." The admission came easily enough. There was no shame attached to it. "Most people assume that's because I couldn't pass them." A faint breath escaped her. "They're usually surprised when I tell them I never wanted to."

Her gaze dropped briefly toward the lightsaber hanging at her belt. "I was happy being a Padawan." The words sounded almost absurd spoken aloud in front of someone who had crossed the galaxy to hunt Jedi. "I heal people." She shrugged lightly. "That's always seemed more important than titles."

Only then did she fall quiet again. The wreck creaked around them. Wind moaned somewhere through distant fractures in the hull. And standing before the masked acolyte, hunted across a desert by aspiring Sith, Lumiya somehow managed to look less like a dangerous Jedi and more like someone who had accidentally wandered into the wrong story.

Tag: Calyx Sundrift

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T H E - W R E C K A G E

Calyx blinked twice.

Did she just... thank him? Right after a death threat?

For a moment, he regretted his decision. If the girl forgave this easily, he doubted his plans stood much of a chance.

"I'd gain nothing by telling them where you are." Calyx began. "The minute I drop you," he gestured at her with his vibroblade, "they'll try to wrestle your saber from my hands." He wasn't sure she understood how things worked here. Whether she knew the Acolytes weren't truly working together at all. "The way I see it, as long as you're alive, I'm no target."

The girl regarded him with that same soft expression. She even shared her motivations, as if he were some docile bantha. Not her executioner.

Calyx sighed. "Why tell me this? You're just confirming every suspicion I had." He sheathed his vibroblade. "You would've been better off lying. Telling me you'd already passed the trials. Maybe I'd have second-guessed myself, and you'd have gotten a chance to run."

He seemed to be searching for an exit.

"But now? Now I know you're an exile. And a healer. That's two more reasons for me to believe you're no threat." He started toward what looked like a tear in the durasteel.

"Knowing that, here's how it's gonna go." He stopped beside it, gesturing to the crack. "We're heading back to my swoop. Maybe - just maybe, if you're nice - I'll take your saber and shoo you off." Perhaps it was a sign of weakness. But he took no joy in unnecessary killing. "But one wrong move, and you won't see daylight again. Now- go in. I want you ahead of me at all times."

Lumiya Dara

 

[Lumiya Dara]

Lumiya hesitated before moving toward the tear in the durasteel. Not because she intended to disobey, but because his plan genuinely seemed flawed. "If you take my lightsaber..." she began quietly, then glanced toward the darkness beyond the corridor where the others were still searching. "...how exactly does that help me?" Her voice carried no challenge in it's tone. Only that of honest confusion. "You said yourself that they're competing with each other." Her brow furrowed slightly. "If they find me afterward, they'll still know I'm a Jedi."

Slowly, she looked down at the hilt hanging at her belt. "I don't use it very often," she admitted. "Honestly, most of the time I forget it's there." Which was probably not something a hunted Jedi was supposed to say. "But if someone else comes after me...." Her fingers brushed the metal hilt briefly. "I'd rather have it than not."

Lumiya finally started toward the opening he'd indicated, moving carefully through the damaged corridor. After several steps she added, almost as an afterthought, "And for what it's worth, I wasn't going to lie before." A small shrug followed. "Only because....I'm just not very good at it."

Tag: Calyx Sundrift

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T H E - W R E C K A G E

"How exactly does that-" He cocked his head, lowering his vibroknife. "You'd be alive for a couple more days, that's what. Or do you mean to suggest that I should just kill you now, right here?"

There was challenge in his tone, but no steel behind it. In truth, he had no desire to kill the Jedi girl. He'd killed before, of course. Acolytes. Oligarchs, people on his list - but a truly well-meaning, good person? That was a line he found hard to cross.

He urged her forward toward the opening. She kept on talking as they moved.

"You better pick that up quickly then." Calyx retorted. "The galaxy is built on lies. That's why there's sixteen of us and only one of you." He'd bloated the number of hunters.

The opening grew wider, leading them into a tight maintenance corridor where dusty cables hung from the ceiling. Calyx checked them once, ensuring that there was no charge left on them. Then steered them right, along the path he believed led outside the quickest.

"There!" Two silhouettes moved up ahead. Another, larger lumbering body came down from the shafts up ahead. It was Ran. That made the other two Pergrin and Doel.

"Calyx has her!" The three bolted in their direction.

Chit.

"Bring down the ceiling, if you can!" He hissed, and threw his own strength in the Force behind hers.

Lumiya Dara

 

[Lumiya Dara]

Lumiya had barely enough time to see the three figures before Calyx's urgent whisper reached her. "Bring down the ceiling." She stared at him. "...What?"

The figures were already running. There was no time to argue. Lumiya turned instinctively toward the fractured maintenance tunnel overhead. It had already survived decades of decay, then the crash, then their chase through it. Hanging conduits sagged between bent support beams. Plates had separated from one another by several centimeters, held together more by habit than structure.

She reached out through the Force. Nothing happened. Not enough. The metal groaned faintly, but held. Her heart sank. Then another presence met hers. It was not gentle. Nor was it warm. The Force surged abruptly as Calyx threw his own strength behind hers. The sudden weight of it almost staggered her. It felt nothing like the way Jedi worked together. It was sharper. More forceful. Like someone placing both hands behind her shoulders and shoving.

The weakened supports screamed. First one beam tore free. Then another before the ceiling collapsed with a deafening roar. Durasteel, cables and centuries-old debris crashed into the corridor between them and the pursuing Sith. Dust exploded outward, swallowing the passage in choking grey clouds as warning lights burst in showers of sparks.

The last thing that Lumiya heard before the collapse drowned everything else was an angry shout from somewhere beyond the falling wreckage. She stood frozen for only the briefest heartbeat, staring at the wall of twisted metal that now sealed the passage. "....I didn't think that would actually work." The words escaped before she realized she had spoken them.

Then instinct returned. She ran. Not blindly, but in the direction that Calyx had already been leading her. Boots struck rapidly against the aging deck while warning klaxons flickered weakly through clouds of drifting dust. Every few steps she glanced over one shoulder, half-expecting the collapsed corridor to burst apart behind her. It didn't. At least not yet.

As she ran, her thoughts refused to settle. He wants my lightsaber. The others want my lightsaber. If she surrendered it, nothing actually changed. Calyx might let her walk away. But the others wouldn't. They would still hunt her. Only now she'd be defenseless against them!

Her fingers instinctively brushed the familiar hilt at her side. No... That wasn't an option. Then another thought quietly surfaced. The swoops! She had seen where the hunters had left them outside the wreck. Sixteen Sith could not chase her on one swoop if there was only one left capable of flying. The idea wasn't fully formed yet, only a fragile possibility carried alongside every pounding heartbeat. But it was the first plan she'd had that didn't involve fighting anyone. And for Lumiya that was enough.

Tag: Calyx Sundrift

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T H E - W R E C K A G E

The Jedi was slow to respond. "You heard me!" He threw out a hand, fingers clawing as the dark side churned. She moved then, and he felt her reach for the Force. As his mind brushed against it, warmth washed over him like sunlight. He yearned for it, just a moment, before it curdled into an uncomfortable sunburn.

Then, with a rumble, the ceiling came down.

Calyx didn't bother checking whether Ran, Pergrin, and Doel had withstood it. He bolted through the corridor, relieved to see her do the same. "Have more confidence," Calyx said. "You'll never make it out alive with that attitude." If she doubted herself this much, he dreaded what would come later. Because if they caught her, they'd learn he'd helped her escape.

The corridors wound through the wreckage like a maze full of dead ends. Sometimes their path was blocked by crates, other times by holes or collapsed durasteel. Calyx didn't stop running until he was certain Pergrin and the others wouldn't catch up to them so easily.

When they finally halted, he raised a finger first, signaling silence. No footsteps echoed after them. Only then did he speak again. "I think we're safe for the moment." Sweat-soaked, he pulled off his mask and swept his blond hair out of his face. Adjusting his eyepatch, he went on. "There's two overseers outside. Both carry lightsabers, and both will kill you on sight." He sniffed. "As it happens, I don't have anything worthwhile on them. If you want to make it out, you're going to have to fight your way past them. Or..." He studied her, his blue eye calculating.

"We trick them."

Lumiya Dara

 

[Lumiya Dara]

Lumiya remained quiet while she caught her breath, one hand braced against the warped bulkhead. The silence of the corridor felt almost unnatural after the thunder of the collapse.

Only when Calyx spoke again did she look up. "We trick them."

She blinked. "...Oh." Her re response was less alarm than it was uncertainty. Her brow furrowed as she tried to picture what exactly he had meant. "I should probably tell you..." she admitted after a hesitant pause, "...that I'm not especially convincing. I've just never been very good at lying." She shifted her weight uneasily, with her admission sounding almost apologetic. "I usually end up telling people exactly what I'm thinking. That tends to save time." Despite everything surrounding them, there was something almost absurdly earnest about the confession.

Her hand rested lightly against the lightsaber still hanging at her belt, reassured that it remained there. "I also may have made a rather optimistic assumption." Her eyes lowered briefly. "I had thought that your swoops would be unattended. In hindsight though, that was probably wishful thinking."

She looked back at him, meeting his gaze with quiet honesty. "I don't want to fight anyone if I can help it." Her voice remained calm as she spoke. "Not you. And not them." Lumiya glanced toward the winding corridor ahead, imagining the overseers waiting somewhere beyond the wreck. "If there's another way..." Her attention then returned to Calyx. "...I'd like to hear it." There was complete sincerity in her expression. She wasn't agreeing to deceive anyone just yet. But she was willing to listen.

Tag: Calyx Sundrift

 

[Calyx Sundrift]

T H E - W R E C K A G E

"You're going to have to lie if you don't want to fight anyone," Calyx retorted. "So," he jabbed a finger at her, "you'd better be convincing."

He let out a long sigh. The swoops. Unattended. He would've liked that too. It would've been the easiest way to escape the Academy. But the Overseers knew not everyone among them was there of their own volition.

"Here's what we do." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You play dead. I carry you out there, and when the Overseers are close enough, we overpower the closest one. You make a break for the swoops while I deal with the other. Afterward, I blame it all on you. My hide's saved, and you'll be long gone by the time we can resume the chase."

He couldn't think of a way that didn't end in a fight. Even if they managed to distract one Overseer and knock out the other, there'd be questions later he wouldn't be able to dodge. And there was always the chance more Acolytes showed up if they waited too long.

He threw up his hands. "Yes, they'll die. But it's the best I got."

Lumiya Dara

 

[Lumiya Dara]

Lumiya listened all the way to the end before speaking. "They don't have to die." Her words were quiet, almost apologetic; as though she disliked contradicting him.

She looked down at the small medical satchel still hanging at her hip. It had survived far more than she ever would have expected. Her fingers rested lightly against the worn leather flap as a thought slowly took shape. "...I still have my medical supplies." Looking back up, she met his gaze. "There are sedatives inside." A faint crease formed between her brows as she considered the idea more carefully. "They're meant for patients who are frightened or in too much pain to remain still during treatment." She offered a small, uncertain smile. "Not usually angry Sith."

She opened the satchel just enough to check its contents, quietly relieved to find several injectors still intact. "If we can get close enough..." she said thoughtfully, "...then they should work." She hesitated. "I could probably guide the needles with the Force once they're thrown." Her admission sounded almost surprised, as though she were only just realizing the possibility herself. "Not very far," she added quickly. "Only enough to correct their path." Her expression grew thoughtful once more. "They'd simply fall unconscious." Her eyes lifted to Calyx. "They wake up later." She gave a tiny shrug. "They'd probably be very annoyed." For the briefest moment, the corner of her mouth twitched upward. "But....alive."

The smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. "I know that it isn't as certain as killing them. And I know it could still go wrong. But if we're trying to give both of us a chance to leave here..." Lumiya looked back at him with that same unwavering sincerity. "...I'd like to do it without taking anyone else's chance away."

She closed the satchel again and adjusted the strap across her shoulder. "If your plan still requires me to pretend to be unconscious..." she admitted with the faintest hint of self-conscious humor, "...I can probably manage that part."

Tag: Calyx Sundrift