Private Through Ash and Smoke

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily had told herself once, when she’d clawed her way out of the undercity and stowed away on a transport ship, that she would never return to Coruscant, that she would never set foot on a planet that had been nothing but unkind to her. But she was here. She was here because she let her feet carry her, she let the force lead her.

She stared up at a sky filled with ash and smoke, the dark clouds of the force storm that had ripped across its surface still lingering, something heavy on her chest. Lily had been trying to help, overwhelmed by the noise, her defences torn open by the same device that she’d seen on Echnos when the Alliance had attacked. Bile rose, burning on its way up and she heaved the piece of rubble from her chest, rolling to her hand and knees and vomiting.

She pushed herself upright, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and looked around. The building that she’d grown up around was gone, split by a lighting strike and torn asunder by the cyclones. Sound returned slowly slowly to her, soft cries and shouts of pain. People were moving among the wreckage, injured limping their way to safety, others scrambling to move rubble and help.

The noise was still there, loud in her mind, a thousand voices overlapping, making it impossible to find her own thoughts.

Is it over?

Help

Where’s my sister?
​

Please help me.​

I can’t feel my legs.​

I'm going to die.

Please let it be over. ​

I can't breathe.​

I need to help these people.

There's so much blood.​

Everything hurts.​

Somebody help me.​

The orphanage is gone.​

How could they.

I don’t want to die.​

Lily groaned, fingers sliding through silver hair layered with dust and blood, digging her fingers into her scalp and trying to close them out, despair rising in her chest when all they did was get louder. She was an exposed nerve.

Pushing herself to her feet, she began to walk. No direction in mind, just away, away from the death and the fear and the crying of souls she couldn’t save. She should have stayed away. Why couldn’t she stay away? She focused, one foot in front of the other, her hand caught a wall, or what was left of one, using it as guidance to keep her steady. Something soft shifted under her boot and her stomach twisted. She didn't look down, too afraid of what she might see. She lifted her foot, taking a longer stride and began picking her way out of the rubble.


Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Hours. That was all it had been since Coruscant had fallen. Again. Since the Empire had finally lost its grip on the planet it had bled dry for months. Victory, apparently, came with a mop and a body count.

Ace moved through the wreckage. The fighting was done. Now it was clean-up... stragglers, holdouts, orders that hadn't filtered down fast enough or had filtered down wrong. Stormtroopers who didn't know when to stop.

He'd already done what he'd come for. The ISB had folded like wet paper. Files ripped free. Names, locations, contingency plans, everything Arris had wanted, hand-delivered and bloodless.

After that, there'd been nowhere to put him. So here he was. Prowling the bones of the capital, boots crunching glass and duracrete, senses stretched thin across a city still screaming in the Force.

Ace slowed and tilted his head back. The sky was still wrong. Ash and smoke churned beneath the remnants of the Force storm, lightning crawling through the clouds with no sign of it breaking. A wound refusing to close.

What a mess.

The sensation hit him a second later. Movement. Intent. The cold, ugly shape of violence lining itself up with bureaucratic precision. Ace turned, eyes narrowing. A small platoon of stormtroopers emerged from between the wrecked buildings, armor scorched, movements tight and purposeful. Their rifles were raised. On a single figure picking her way through the rubble. Silver hair, dulled with dust and ash, catching the sick light as she moved.

That fucking purge order. Ace moved and blasters were wrenched off line with violent precision, muzzles dragged aside an instant before they could discharge. One trooper dropped with a sharp, bone-deep crack as Ace passed him, another slammed backward into duracrete hard enough that he didn't slide down - he just stayed there.

The Force pressed where he told it to press, tightened where he needed it to tighten. Armor dented. Breath left lungs and didn't come back. Bodies hit the ground in a sequence too fast to be followed, too deliberate to be chaotic. By the time the echo of the first disrupted shot finished ringing through the street, it was already over.

Ace straightened, exhaled once, and turned toward the woman - already preparing to leave. Another threat neutralized. Another wrong corrected just enough to keep the city from tearing itself apart a little more.

Then the Force snagged. A Thread, it was raw, frayed, and screaming under the surface without meaning to. Ace stopped. Slowly, he turned back, his dark gaze settling on her again. His expression shifted, calculation giving way to something tighter, more serious. She was Force-sensitive.

He took a step closer, just enough to be heard over the distant noise of collapse and cries.

"You can't be here."

Lily Rhodes ​

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Bootsteps coupled with the rattle of armour made her blink. Stormtroopers moving through the rubble, blasters lifted in unison towards her, the moment passed in a slow breath as her hand moved to her waist seeking a lightsaber that wasn't there as fear coiled in her chest. Something else moved, colliding with the platoon with a ferocity and speed she'd couldn't fathom. A single shot rang out, cracking harmlessly into ruins and it was over, her rescuer already moving on...until he didn't.

Until dark eyes locked with hers and he stepped towards her. One whispered thought echoing from him, splitting through the noise of the rest.

Force Sensitive.

"No." She recoiled, stepping back rubble shifting under her feet. Wide eyes scanning a landscape that was suddenly alien to her, seeking escape routes she'd plotted on her way in and finding none of them. Her hand still rested at her belt, still seeking that which wasn't there. Malum's lightsaber was gone, lost in the rubble. She turned to look over her shoulder scanning the wreckage, her stomach twisting again. Back wasn't an option. It was gone, just like he was.

Lily looked back at him, mind trying to work around the noise, to thread thought and logic between the fear riddled thoughts that weren't her own. He'd attacked the stormtroopers, her gaze flicked once to the wreckage of them, armour crumpled like paper, bodies flung like the were nothing. Then landed back on him, drawn conclusions etched on her face and anger twisted with fear.

"You're one of them."

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace didn't react right away. He just watched her. Dark eyes stayed on her face, unreadable, expression locked into something neutral enough to pass for calm.
One of them. She'd said.

For a brief, private moment, the thought echoed. He'd heard worse. From enemies. From allies. From people who'd watched him move and decided the answer for themselves. He wasn't Covenant. He'd never been. He was inside their walls, wearing their shape, speaking their language because it got him closer, closer to rot, closer to truth, closer to where real damage could be done. That was the line he'd drawn for himself.

And if someone on the outside looked at him and saw Covenant? Then the cover was working. That was the point. Still… the question lingered, he fought with them, killed for them, tore cities open in their name, even if the reasons were his own. Separation was a comfortable fiction when you were standing far enough back from the blood. But was he really any different at this point?

Ace buried the thought. There was no time to indulge it. His attention settled fully back on her. He didn't confirm nor deny her statement.

Instead, he said quietly "They're going to find you. They're going to take you and force you to be one of them too."

His gaze drifted, just briefly, to the ruined street around them: crumpled armor, scorched duracrete, the aftermath of violence still hanging in the air. Faces flashed through his mind, Force-sensitives dragged here against their will. Jedi broken down into tools. People who'd never chosen this life, pressed into service because someone stronger decided they had to.

Even his own story, his cover, rested on that truth.

He looked back at her. Maybe this was all he was good for. Destruction. Violence. Making things end. But ultimately, he was here to weaken and kill the Covenant. Helping this woman? Preventing them from claiming another? It was something.

"You need to get off-world." He said, voice firm now, leaving no room for debate. "Let's go."

Lily Rhodes​