The light bleeder

[April Lotuka]

Coruscant never slept. It flickered.

From the upper balconies of the mid-level districts, the planet-city looked like a circuit board stretched to the horizon, towers pulsing in orderly rhythms of wealth and power. But Aurelia Veyr stood three thousand meters below that elegance, where the light stuttered and the air tasted metallic, and felt the city watching her back.

They were close.

Not because she saw them. Not yet. But because the Force pressed differently tonight. Thin. Searching. Like fingers combing through fabric.

Mercenaries.

Three confirmed signatures earlier near the transit rails. One with cybernetic dampeners. One Force-blind but methodical. One she could not read at all.

That was the one that bothered her.

Aurelia kept her hood low as she stepped through the drizzle of condensation falling from overhead traffic lanes. Her long red hair was braided tight against her spine, no loose strands to identify her. Her green eyes scanned reflections instead of faces. Reflections told the truth. Faces lied.

A flicker in the transparisteel of a vendor stall.

There.

The same broad silhouette from two districts back.

She didn't run.

Running spiked her pulse. Spiking her pulse invited the Force to surge. Surges drew attention. Attention caused bleeding.

Instead, she adjusted course naturally, turning into a narrow stairwell that spiraled downward into the undercity lodging quarter.

Her comm vibrated once in her sleeve.

A text-only ping.

Room secured. Payment doubled. No refunds.

Of course it was doubled.

Her contact, Virek Tal, dealt in disappearances. He charged according to desperation. Tonight, she must have felt very expensive.

She slipped inside the lodge without looking back.
​

---

The building called itself The Luminous Rest. It was neither luminous nor restful.

Dim amber wall strips fought against mildew stains and decades of unreported violence. The air smelled like recycled breath and old coolant. But it had something far more valuable than comfort.

Privacy.

The door sealed behind her with a mechanical hiss. No biometric scans. No ID logs tied to the Temple network. Just a manual bolt and an outdated security grid she could scramble herself.

She exhaled.

Too deeply.

Pain lanced behind her ribs.

The Force had been riding her nerves for hours, restless, curious. Being hunted did that. Fear around her sharpened everything. It wanted release. It always wanted release.

Aurelia leaned her forehead against the cool metal wall and counted backward from fifty.

Forty-nine.

Forty-eight.

Her veins flickered faint gold beneath her skin, visible for only a second before she forced the current down. The Veyr Conduit rested at her hip, humming softly. Regulating. Bleeding excess into harmless dispersion.

She did not touch it.

Not yet.​

 

[April Lotuka]

She crossed the room and activated the privacy shroud on the single window. The city vanished into opaque gray.

Think.

Why were they hunting her?

Not random bounty hunters. Too coordinated. Too precise.

This was sanctioned.

Someone had pulled her sealed records.

The Healing Hall incident.

Relis IV.

Or worse.

The Red Quiet.

Her hand drifted unconsciously toward the hidden compartment sewn into the lining of her travel cloak. The unregistered saber felt warm, even dormant, as if it sensed the tension in her bloodstream.

She swallowed.

If the Council discovered she had built it, she would be stripped of rank at best.

If someone else discovered it first, she would be labeled something far more permanent.
​

---

A sharp pulse hit her senses.

Not outside.

Below.

Two floors down.

Aurelia closed her eyes and reached carefully, cautiously. Not drawing. Not absorbing. Just listening.

Bootsteps.

Disciplined.

A faint mechanical whir.

And underneath that, the emotional static of hired intent. Detached. Paid. Efficient.

They were sweeping the building.

Her heart kicked.

The Force answered instantly, flooding her nerves as exposed wiring dropped in water. Gold light traced beneath her skin before she could stop it. Her breath hitched painfully.

Not here. Not inside.

If she were discharged in this building, half the structure would shear sideways.

She forced the surge down again, teeth clenched, palms trembling.

Fight or leave.

Coruscant was the heart of the Republic. The Temple was here. The Council. Safety.

But also surveillance.

If she fled the planet, she would become exactly what rumor already hinted she was. Unstable. Rogue. Dangerous.

If she stayed and fought…

The image rose unbidden in her mind.

Fire hanging midair. Blood glowing. Walls bowing inward.

She could survive them.

The question was whether the district would.​

 

[T'zarna Khab]

Location: Coruscant, Middle Levels
Objective: Information Retrieval
Tags: April Lotuka

There was a sudden darkness creeping through the building, one that blinded not the eyes, but only a particular sense. It was like a shade in the very essence of The Force. This creeping darkness was the signature of a much different agent, one of The Final Dawn's Imperial Hands. They were a clandestine order sent on missions directly from the head of the organization. She was less a member of The Final Dawn, and more so a weapon.

Today her mission was espionage, meaning simply there were limits to how much damage she could cause. There was an eerie quiet at the moment she entered the 9th floor. She was aware to some degree of the mercenaries and their hunt, it was what drew her to this dingy place.

Even as the scent of mildew and stale sweat filled her nose, she pressed on with an unflinching visage. Every step made that darkness move just a bit closer to the hiding Jedi.

By now most of the civilians in the building were in their rooms or cleared out. It wasn't clear yet if the mercenaries were cleaning house, or something less extreme. For now, T'zarna would continue shadowing them. Only when it behooved her to make her presence known to the trio of hunters.

Whatever it was they were hunting, it was valuable enough to risk a major incident on one of the most secure planets in the galaxy. Maybe they had plans to extract someone from the hotel? It mattered very little, there was work to be done, a target to be found. A force sensitive target at that!

Soon though, this hotel would be the site of quite the battle, a clash of powerful forces. T'zarna's insectoid hear now beat quickly thrummed with excitement and anticipation!

 

[April Lotuka]

The mercenaries would not knock.

Her comm blinked again.

Tal: You have five minutes. Then I never saw you.

Past catching up.

She felt it now. Not through the hallway. Through memory.

Master Vos' voice.

She's a fault line.

Aurelia straightened slowly, eyes opening.

Green, threaded faintly with gold.

Her breathing steadied.

Five minutes.

She moved to the small table and began laying out her options with mechanical clarity. Credits remaining. Transport routes. Smuggler corridors leading toward the Outer Rim. Worlds where the Jedi presence was thin.

Ilum was impossible.

Naboo too visible.

Nar Shaddaa… chaotic enough to hide in.

Or she could go somewhere colder.

Somewhere quiet.

Somewhere the Force did not echo so loudly.

Her hand hovered between the Veyr Conduit at her hip and the hidden weight of The Red Quiet.

If she ignited green, she would hold the line.

If she ignited red, she would end it.

Another pulse from below.

They were closer.

Aurelia lifted her gaze toward the sealed door.

For a moment, the city itself seemed to lean inward.

Her veins began to glow again.

And this time, she did not immediately force the light down.

 

[Aurelia Veyr]

The knock came again.


Not louder.
Not impatient.


Certain.


Aurelia Veyr stood in the center of the room, still as a held breath, the glow beneath her skin rising and fading in quiet pulses. The building groaned softly around her, ancient durasteel settling into its own exhaustion. Somewhere below, boots moved with purpose.


Five minutes had already become three.


She did not move toward the door.


Instead, she turned away from it.


That was the decision.


Not made with ceremony. Not with resolve. Just a quiet, surgical severing.


Coruscant had too many eyes. Too many memories. Too much of her left behind in corridors that still whispered her name like a diagnosis.


If she stayed, she would fight.


If she fought, she would break.


And if she broke here…


The thought didn't finish itself.


Her hand slid beneath the inner seam of her cloak, retrieving The Red Quiet. The hilt's matte surface drank in the dim light, almost invisible in her grasp. Warm. Familiar. Dangerous in the way relief often is.


For a moment, she simply held it.


Not ignited.


Just present.


Her pulse steadied almost immediately. The pressure in her skull eased. The Force, that relentless tide clawing at her nerves, softened into something… manageable.


She hated how quickly it worked.


Aurelia closed her eyes.


"This is not who you are," she whispered to herself.


The saber did not argue.


It didn't need to.

---

The knock stopped.


Silence replaced it.


Worse.


Because silence meant adjustment. Recalculation. Hunters adapting.


They knew she was inside.


Aurelia exhaled slowly and moved.


No wasted motion now.


She swept the room clean in seconds. No traceable items. No datapads. No identifiers. Credits secured. Hood drawn. Hair tucked tighter.


Her primary saber, the Veyr Conduit, clipped into place at her hip with quiet familiarity. A lifeline.


The Red Quiet vanished back into concealment.


A secret.


A sin.


A necessity.

She didn't leave through the door.

The window hissed open under her override, revealing a narrow maintenance ledge slick with condensation and lit by the fractured glow of passing traffic far above. Wind howled upward through the endless vertical canyon of the city.

Coruscant breathed like a beast.

Aurelia stepped out into it.

The moment her boots hit the ledge, she felt them again.

Closer now.

Three signatures below.

One moving to the rear of the building.

And the fourth—

Still wrong.

Still unreadable.

That one was waiting.

---

She leapt.

Not down.

Across.

The Force caught her midair, not as a tool, but as a storm barely agreeing to her request. Her landing cracked the edge of the opposite platform, boots skidding before she stabilized.

Pain flared along her spine.

Too much.

Too fast.

Gold flickered beneath her skin again.

She swallowed it down.

Keep moving.

 

[T'zarna Khab]

Location: Coruscant, Middle Levels
Objective: Information Retrieval
Tags: Aurelia Veyr

Quiet was dangerous in a place as populated as Coruscant, it meant there was something about to happen. It was a spring being pulled back, full of potential energy. An energy that would be released as an explosion of violence in mere seconds.

Soon, the mercenaries turned to see T'zarna, a strange insectoid-human hybrid like none they'd ever seen. Her hands reached up to her hood, flipping it back to reveal the unblinking golden compound eyes. At first there was an element of revulsion to the meeting, the soldiers of fortune not knowing what to make of T'zarna. Their initial thoughts were that it was an unlucky time for some random bug to be walking the halls.

One merc went for his gun, then T'zarna began to speak.

"Your worthless lives are nothing to me, if you end your chase now, you will be spared."

There was a few moments before one of the trio laughed, pointing a blaster pistol from his holster.

"You're either stupid or crazy lady, I don't think you know who you're dealing with!"

It was annoying how they believed themselves the hunters. Soon enough there would be no question who the true predator was. Then, their futile attempt to cling to life would be over, and T'zarna could continue her chase.

Even from the other building, Aurelia could hear the sounds of blasters firing in a tight space. A sudden snap-hiss, then whirring of a blade. It was the unique sounds of a battle happening. Though, it was right now just flashes of a light in the curtain-clad windows. Whatever was going on, the mercenaries wouldn't be following for long...


It could have been fate, or just an incredibly fortuitous set of coincidences. Whatever the case, it was something Aurelia could exploit, should she wish to...

 

[Aurelia Veyr]

The first burst of blaster fire cracked through the air from the neighboring building, sharp and ugly enough to make the hairs along her neck stand on end. She had only been moving forward a moment before, keeping to the shadows, but now she slowed, her steps almost silent against the Coruscant steel beneath her boots. Another sound followed. A harsh metallic screech. Then the unmistakable snap-hiss of a blade igniting and carving through the air.

Her brows drew together beneath the faint sheen of streetlight spill.

So they were already being hunted.

That changed everything.

Aurelia turned her head slightly, listening, letting the noise bloom through the walls and narrow corridor of the city around her. The mercenaries were no longer in control. Whoever was inside that building, whoever had drawn steel and fire against them, was far more dangerous than a frightened target running for her life. And that meant something beautiful and rare had just happened.

An opening.

She could flee now, slip into the current of Coruscant's endless motion and vanish before the storm had a chance to notice her.

Instead, Aurelia stopped.

Her shoulders settled. Her breath slowed. She drew one step back into the edge of a recessed archway and let the shadows fold around her like a cloak. Curiosity, that treacherous little spark, tugged at her better judgment. Who would hunt hunters in a place like this? What kind of predator moved so boldly through the city that it could turn mercenaries into startled prey in less than a heartbeat?

She angled herself toward the source of the noise and waited.

Not for rescue.

Not exactly.

For arrival.

Her eyes tracked the curtained windows of the next building, watching for any flicker, any silhouette, any sign that the figure within was about to emerge into the open. The air itself seemed to tighten, charged with the expectation of impact. Somewhere inside, someone was tearing through hired killers with frightening efficiency, and Aurelia found herself standing very still, half-hidden and fully alert, as if the darkness had decided to pause with her.

If the pursuer came through that doorway, she would see them first.

And Aurelia was prepared to decide, in a single breath, whether this stranger was salvation, threat, or something far more interesting.

T'zarna Khab