Private The Phantom Battlefield

[Saki]

A faint hum, the ghosts of a thousand starship engines, echoed in Saki's ears. It was a sound that had been a constant companion since the fall of Coruscant, a reminder of the galaxy's fractured state. People were running from the core worlds. The air, thick with the scent of ozone and singed metal, carried the phantom smells of a distant battlefield, a scent she had come to associate with home and safety. The core worlds were a mess but the worlds on the border of the core and rim worlds were worse still, a power vacuum ripe for exploitation. With the Jedi scattered and on the defensive, it felt like a familiar and dangerous dance was beginning anew. The Empire or the Sith, it didn't matter which. They were two sides of the same coin, and their rise always meant chaos and suffering for everyone caught in the middle.

The Jedi master had spent most of her life training, her fists her primary weapons, a stark contrast to the elegant lightsabers favored by many of her peers. Her body was a finely tuned instrument, each muscle a testament to years of dedication and discipline. Her mind, however, was in a constant state of turmoil, sifting through the galactic turmoil like a seasoned strategist. She had seen the signs, the subtle shifts in people attitudes, the whispers of getting away and people booking the starports spreading like a plague. The question wasn't if a riot would erupt, but when. And how many would have to die before it was over?

She moved with an effortless grace through the bustling streets of the small, nondescript city she had come to. The reports had been vague about what, a supposed "insurgency of beasts" causing trouble for the local populace but then the news of the battle came.... and as she walked, Saki couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. The reports were exaggerated, a thin veil over a more sinister truth. The locals seemed more wary of her than any beasts or criminals or even imperials, their eyes darting away as she passed. It was a familiar pattern, one she had seen repeated on countless other worlds. The fear of the Jedi, of what some had done and how it would take many more to restore a small amount of the trust that was lost.

Her instincts, honed by years of practice, screamed that she was being followed. This wasn't a mission to save a village from wild animals; it was a test, a trap, or a distraction from something far more important. She felt the energies pulsing around her, not with the chaotic energy of a rampaging beast, but with the cold, calculated intent of a predator. As she rounded a corner, she felt the unmistakable shift in the air, the subtle tightening of a snare. The quiet streets, once filled with the mundane sounds of daily life, had fallen silent. The hunt had begun, and Saki knew with a grim certainty that she was the prey. She didn't fear it. Her fists clenched at her sides, a silent promise to the shadows that were beginning to gather. Let them come. She was ready.

The sound of approaching footsteps and the clatter of cheap weaponry confirmed her suspicions. The attackers were disorganized, their movements clumsy and uncoordinated. They were a motley crew, likely drawn by the whisper of a bounty or the belief that a lone Jedi was an easy target in the wake of Coruscant's attack and fall. The Jedi Order's perceived weakness had made them all vulnerable, and Saki knew she had to make a statement. She wouldn't kill them; that wasn't the Jedi way. But she would make sure they understood the foolishness of their aggression.

As the first attacker charged, his stun baton crackling with energy, Saki didn't flinch. He expected her to deflect his attack with a force push or a burst of telekinetic energy. Instead, she focused her will inward, a subtle but powerful application of the force. As the baton struck her stomach, her skin hardened, becoming as unyielding as a diamond. Her own matukai training and focus allowing her to go from soft to solid in her own body. The blow landed with a dull thud, and the man's triumphant grin faltered.

Saki's eyes met his, a flicker of cold intensity in their depths. She tilted her head slightly, a silent challenge, before her hand shot out. Her grip on the baton was firm, and with a swift tug, she pulled it from his grasp. With her other hand, she delivered a sharp push to his chest, sending him stumbling back into his comrades. They fell like dominoes, a tangled heap of limbs and cheap armor. The message was clear: she was not a target to be trifled with. Saki's fight had just begun, and she was determined to end it with nothing more than a few bruises.

Connel Vanagor

 

[Connel Vanagor]

BORDERWORLDS
LOCATION
REDACTED

Michael, Gabriel, Azrael, Sariel, Raphael, Jeremiel, Connel, Raguel
[Any text in brackets signifies comm-link usage and not face to face conversation]

He had come for a relic.
That was it. A half-buried Jedi focusing crystal, old as the Hyperspace Wars, buried in the underbelly of a collapsing monastery. Efret Farr had given him the coordinates months ago—back when Farr still believed in rebuilding archives. Back before the fire and the screaming.
But as Connel stood on the edge of a small, fractured city—just another name wiped clean by war and rebranded by scavengers—he felt it before he saw it.
The air. The air moaned.
He couldn’t put it any better than that. A thin, high-frequency resonance that was just under hearing, like ghost engines flying in formation through the marrow of your bones. Not real. But not imagined either. He knew that sound. It was the noise of empty escape pods drifting in low orbit, of refugee caravans parked on tarmac long enough for moss to grow on their hulls. It was the sound the galaxy made when it stopped pretending things were fine.
The fall of Coruscant had infected everything.
These places on the edge of the Core and the Rim… they were like infected tissue. Still alive, but dying. Pulsing with heat and pressure. Ripe for something to explode. Or take root. Or both.
Connel pulled his mask back into place, not out of necessity—but out of habit. The Shadow gear sealed against the smell. But the memory still lingered. Burnt circuitry. Ozone. Blood turned into rust flakes.
He had been walking parallel to another signature for nearly an hour. Not in the Force—too cloaked, too subtle—but in behavior. Movement. Flow. Someone who didn’t panic when the air turned cold. Someone who knew when to stay in shadow and when to step into light.
She moved like a soldier.
Then he saw her.
He didn’t say anything. Just leaned one shoulder into the broken duracrete of a ruined awning and watched from the second story as she dismantled half a street gang with nothing but her hands.
No saber. No drawn-out speech. Just control. Brutal, clinical control.
Matukai.


It made sense now. The way she walked like a fighter and a monk both. Like Caltin once did before he grew into a mountain.
Connel said nothing. He didn’t interfere. She didn’t need him.
But Force help him, he wanted to.
Not because she was in danger—she was fine. More than fine. But because every kick, every parry, every clenched fist she used felt like a scream in a language he understood too well. She wasn’t just fighting them.
She was fighting the weight of what people saw when they looked at a Jedi now.
Connel exhaled slowly. Eyes tracked the motion, cataloged it. None of the gang members would die. She wasn’t punishing them—just educating them. Teaching them with bruises what the galaxy used to know:
You don’t hunt Jedi. You don’t poke the wound that still bleeds.
He almost left.
Almost.
But then one of them rose behind her—a straggler, still clutching a modified scattergun.
And Connel moved like a whisper.
No sabers. No dramatic entrance.
One boot on the stair rail. A step into open air. Drop.
His cloak fluttered once. His impact was silent. The gun was gone before the attacker realized he’d lost it. Connel’s voice was barely above a breath.
You weren’t part of this fight.
The thug flinched.
Connel’s head tilted just slightly, mask unreadable. So I suggest you leave. Before she notices you tried to be.
The man ran. That left Connel and her—two ghosts in a city that never wanted to be remembered. He gave a slow nod of greeting. Didn’t offer his name. Didn’t need to.
The Matukai woman—Saki, he recalled, from distant reports and training logs—watched him with wary eyes, but not fearful ones. That was something rare now. A Jedi who didn’t look at Connel’s armor and mask like it meant war.
He finally spoke again. Quiet. Almost gentle.
You did good work. They’ll remember it.


He paused. Glanced toward the rooftops. They’ll remember you.
And before she could reply, he moved. Gone down the alley with a sweep of his coat and a faint shimmer of shadowlight. He hadn’t come to be seen. He didn’t need to be known… but sometimes... it helped to be understood.

Saki • TAGS​

 

[Saki]

Connel Vanagor

She had sensed both of them a split second before... enough to dodge but she was keeping her eyes forward. The boy... ironic for her to say that but he was the son she knew. The mask got less fear and more a raised eyebrow before he was leaving down an alley way... it was actually quite nice. No speeches, no bravado,... it was well much better as she turned to look at the people as they were trying to get up and she kept walking. her attention on them before she was walking past. The people who were watching at first and turned away moving quickly now. The ships that were waiting to be able to leave, to be able to get what fuel there was to try and escape... she could see them and was moving. Saki attention went towards the buildings themselves while she moved. Stepping at the edge of the city to look out but her senses knew Connel would likely be observing... even if he wasn't here to help she didn't worry about that. Her senses reached outwards towards the areas outside of the city and she started to jog out there... letting her senses push outwards to breathe in and out with the force so her body was ready for another attack but also the potential of something lurking in the shadows.

 

[Connel Vanagor]

BORDERWORLDS
LOCATION
REDACTED

Michael, Gabriel, Azrael, Sariel, Raphael, Jeremiel, Connel, Raguel
[Any text in brackets signifies comm-link usage and not face to face conversation]

She sensed him… at least it looked that way.

He knew that much before his boots even hit the duracrete. No surprise, no panic. Just the tiniest adjustment in posture—like she’d caught a shift in the breeze and made room for it without needing to stop walking.

It was a small thing. Most would miss it.

But Connel didn’t miss much anymore.

Saki had always moved like water. Not the crashing kind—no, that was the mistake most made when sizing her up. She was the kind that cut through stone by persistence. Her style wasn’t elegant like a Makashi duelist or blinding like an Ataru leap. It was… grounded. Honest. The sort of movement you only learn by living in a body that’s taken too many hits to count and still gets back up because it has to.

Connel remained behind. Above. Parallel. He wasn’t stalking her—he wasn’t even cloaked. He just didn’t need to be seen unless she wanted him to be. That was the understanding now, wasn’t it?

Let her lead.

He tracked her movement across the city, skipping across rooftops, stepping down walls in controlled falls. The people parted before her, then turned away. Not from the fear of what she might do—but the reflection of what she reminded them of.

The Jedi weren’t legends anymore.
They were headlines. Warnings.
Scapegoats.

She saw it. Felt it. She didn’t recoil from it.

She absorbed it.

That told him more than words ever could.

Connel adjusted his route, following her out past the edge of the crumbling city. She didn’t stop. Just kept moving like the street fight had barely scratched her focus. That too… made sense.

A Jedi like her wasn’t fueled by conflict. She endured it. The fight was never the point.

He slowed his pace once she crossed into the outskirts, standing still at the rusted frame of an old streetlamp. A half-wrecked comm station nearby still hummed static—no one had bothered to shut it down. Too much energy, not enough hope.

Connel’s thoughts turned inward, momentarily.

Saki.

She was older than him. Not in years—but in scars carried openly. She hadn’t buried her past beneath armor and silence the way he had. She wore it. Her fists, her frame, her movements—each a journal entry written in bruises and quiet defiance.

And yet, she wasn’t brittle.

She wasn’t a statue of what used to be.

She was still shaping herself.

He envied that. Just a little.

Connel inhaled once through the filter of his mask, letting the sensors track any errant heat signatures. One flared—small, distant. Four legs. A predator, maybe, but too far to be immediate. She would sense it too, if not already.

But he stayed still.

This wasn’t his mission.

He’d retrieved the artifact earlier than expected. The temple had been a hollowed-out husk, picked clean by looters who didn’t know what to look for. What they left behind, he claimed without a sound. Farr would be pleased.

But this?

This wasn’t a side quest. This was something else.

Call it instinct. Call it curiosity. Call it a Jedi knowing when another needed space—but not solitude.

He reached out—not into the Force, not yet—but into himself, into the part that recognized shared silence as a form of communication.

He would stay near. Not to intervene. Not to protect. But to witness.

Because Saki wasn’t just surviving this broken galaxy.

She was still fighting to live in it.

And maybe that was the kind of Jedi they’d all need to be.

Soon.

Saki • TAGS​

 

[Saki]

Connel Vanagor

The moment came as she jogged... her senses alerting her as she moved and turned the jog into a dash. Her foot slamming into the ground as the boot dug into the soil and she kicked off her eyes focused and the force energies building in her body. The force was enhancing her body... her muscles, her body... pouring into each cells and pore in a moment. She inhaled for a moment as the energies built up and dispersed throughout her body. Her muscles bulked, not huge... she wasn't looking like a hulk but the mass of the muscles could be seen increased... the veins like steel cables under the taut flesh.

She was moving forward and the force radiated off of her... the power of the force guiding her forward more like a rail gun when she impacted the thing charging at her and they barreled into a tree. The sounds of wood and bone splintering. She stood there over the creature as more were coming at first and then they stopped. The energies of the force coiled around her body... making the rest of her look like she could snap at any moment but she had control... looking at them in the eyes as she didn't blink or move. The one predator roaring and trying to scare her by charging and then backing away.

Saki didn't give chase but she heard voices in the distance... a tree being smashed did make noise and the beasts would as well. The sounds of someone or several someones coming was there as she didn't move... her attention on the direction of them. If they were hostile she would deal with it... if they were not and just trying to get away she would make sure they got to the port... the ultimate goaal to try and make it so those who wanted to could leave... which meant she might have to fight more of those gangs.