soft epilogue
…… OPERATION SCREAMING VENGEANCE [CEASEFIRE ON YINCHORR] CONTINUUM
Instead of striking out, the Knight opted for a more Force-forward approach. Mostly creating protective bubbles that extended outward and contained those that sought to fire or attack against The Wolf Pack. With flexes and tightening of her hands, this overarching translucent dome became more and more concave to constrict the Imperial troopers.
Her intentions were to slow and dissuade, hoping against all hopes that this could still be called off. Her gut was still knotted in protest to striking against those they’d marched with through the Braxant Run Campaign.
Maynard was right, at their level they were closer to friends than foe.
The growing gossamer shield was effective for a time, though it put her further away from the assault Maynard was leading against Major General Voi’Kryt. Known, but not a gal pal by any definition. Too far to stop her from intercepting a shot not yet taken. But she could see it. Why could she see it? That precognitive vision was the first foray into the overload of confusion.
Any of those Force bubbles she’d been influencing dissipated, releasing the soldiers of the 307th. Her eyes rolled back and her muscles gave way to gravity, and consciousness was eclipsed into something far more ethereal.
And in a final gasp and yawlp: “Wha –– No! No, nonono! No, please no!”
Protests were in vain, and any barking of regret was swallowed by a power beyond what the clone could control. This time, DNA triumphed over sheer will. To everyone fighting around the city walls, it appeared the Jedi Knight dropped and was consumed in an otherworldly luminescence right as the fatal shot was fired that would cease the Imperial-led attack.
Her vision went black. Her stomach revolted.
When she could see again, she was in an astral environment. It looked familiar, like the rolling dunes of Kiffu, and unfamiliar at the same time –– like a crystal cave that was translucent and undulating. It was infinite and finite, welcoming her to go everywhere and nowhere all at once. All around was blackness and light, fading in and out of one another until no space existed without the balanced dynamic.
Loske’s first inclination was to panic. She wanted to. It felt like the only natural emotional response because she didn’t know where she was, and she hadn’t been able to intervene and protect Maynard in time. But instead, she felt only calm.
In front of her, a woman manifested slowly. She glowed with a soft, cold, blue light. Her expression was as listless as it was sad, and she reached out for Loske. As her fingers stretched toward the would-be Kiffar, the materialization of
Kiskla Grayson-Matteo
became apparent. To evade the touch to her forehead, Loske jerked back. In response, the glowing woman’s expression went from listless to something that looked hurt.
“No, –– Where am I, I have to go back.” She had to keep her promise. The last thing she’d seen in the present and near-future was Maynard hurt. Despite the forced emotionless state of the space, her fear burgeoned. The loss of trust, the accumulation of more disappointment. Loske’s spectral self choked.
Every time she promised together it..never worked. And in her protest, the blonde became increasingly more furious. All her demands to return would be in vain, they were requests her maternal-donor would never understand.
Dispassionate to the internal qualm of the Jedi Knight, Kiskla interjected with a surprisingly pleading tone: “This is bigger than your debate on Yinchorr. That will end soon enough.”
There was no solace in the words her supposed-mother figure offered, and Loske continued to recoil. But there was nowhere for her to back away to. The closeness was as irrefutable as it was inexplicable.
The reaction prompted Kiskla to reflect on the words that had prompted her to reach out to the estranged girl.
And she was delighted to see how wrong the Varanin had been. Loske was nothing like her, and at every juncture, her supposed-daughter made choices that defined juxtaposition to Kiskla’s own. The ghost stepped forward, despite her would-be daughter’s obvious discomfort. “I understand now where you’ve been wanting.
I haven’t been giving to you for the entirety of your existence. Everything you have, you’ve gathered for yourself. For all you are, and are not, you’re surprisingly more human than I am. I didn’t realize how isolated I’d been until I..saw your life. You don’t have that loneliness anymore, you deny it for yourself as much as you refuse to let it affect those you care about.” A stretching wan smile was offered. When she’d taken Spencer’s hand, the Republic relic was invited to transcend space of time. She needn’t revisit her own history, but instead followed Spencer’s final maternal advice.
“I’ve seen it, now. Transcending between your history and mine, your future and my....” words somehow escaped her, and the illusion forced a shrug.
“You have love, friendships and in those...you have purpose.” An indiscernible emotion flickered across the silhouette’s visage, and she looked to lock eyes with the metaphysical replica of the Jedi Knight.
“I––” she started, but was cut off. The purpose of this conversation was lost on her, and all she wanted to was get back to Yinchorr to help.
Without announcement, the former Grandmaster took another foreboding inch toward Loske’s frozen body. But there wasn’t fear there anymore –– and Loske started to understand the calming notion she felt suffusing throughout her was based on acceptance and realization. Kiskla Grayson was dead. She’d died and she’d chosen to reach out to her estranged-cloneproject-turned-child.
“You’re not going to make it back in time.” Kiskla admitted. “The events that are happening right now, around you are for a purpose. You’ll see this when you all refocus on smiting the darkness. But for now, trust that resolution will come about.”
Even in this intangible metaverse, Loske’s heart thundered against her breastbone. “I can’t, I can’t trust that? How do I know? It feels so futile, everything we promise. Me being there, the war being over, and all of this being for nothing until ––” she wanted to snivel, she felt like she was snivelling but the illusionary expanse would not allow it. "He always protects me, and every time I ––” She was stopped when Kiskla’s ethereal form closed whatever distance existed between them, and wrapped her up in an unnatural embrace. The spectral version of Loske could only gurgle in response, awkwardly held by the woman that was supposed to be her mother. That woman who had rejected her existence up to this moment. The woman who’d attacked her the first time they’d met. This had never been anything she could have expected.
There was no denying it felt nice. And peaceful. And she was alright with the realization that she had no power here. Loske couldn’t do anything but release her projected tensions and open herself up to what Kiskla wanted.
“I’m sorry,” Kiskla admitted and held Loske for a few moments in silence. In the background, she was dragging Loske through a timeless world. It showed conflict seen and unseen, arguments not yet had, peace long accepted. Kaleidoscopic scenarios assaulted the Jedi Knight, but she was placid to their influence.
When Kiskla finally spoke again, the spectral plane neutralized. “I’m proud of you.” She should have stopped there. Loske would have been elated if her mother-figure stopped there, but she continued. “For realizing and respecting the difference between following the path of duty and the path of the heart. There are sacrifices in each. I never could have made the choices you’ve had to make.” She couldn’t and wouldn’t have. Kiskla had used her power to help Jedi, the greater good, a prospect founded in a vision. Loske’s focus was on people.
Burying herself against the woman’s clutch, Loske squeezed her eyes shut. It was obvious now she couldn’t get back to the battle on Yinchorr –– but this was nice. Wherever she was. This was necessary. She wanted to whisper something back, but she could only dwell silently in the feeling of calmness growing into something mutual. An acceptance of the way things were and are. And in that strain of shared appreciation, Kiskla acted and stretched a hand up to touch against Loske’s forehead.
“But you’re weak and fragmented. You’ve only taken the surface of what I was willing to offer with your original conception. You’ve done well with it, but you can do much more.
Everything that I have left within me goes to you. I used it to lead and inspire. Now it’s to you to be creative, beyond only the utility I knew.
All the greatness, all the guidance, all the stories. All the power. The Jedi are going to need it. Your friends are going to need it. And when you have a family, they’re going to need it.”
A glimmer of hope teased her when her mother mentioned a family as if that conjecture could pull her from residual guilt or frustration she’d felt after her confrontation with Maynard on Bastion. In her death, she was a voyeur of timelines both known and unseen. Loske pulled back to look at her, just as Kiskla chose to react and make the transfer. Once again, those glowing fingertips reached to press against the Jedi’s forehead and the opaque background was revived with flashes of jungle, desert, and wilderness.
“For what’s to come, you’re going to need it.”
On Yinchorr, Loske’s dull glow swelled into something more brilliant and explosive. Like an energy surge radiating outward from her core and blossoming into an uncontrollable permeation that affected The Wolfpack and Red Rider alike. All the while remaining unconsciously limp.
The first thing Loske was aware of was her forehead. It felt cold, the touch of the fingertips still on her skin. She moved to grip the ground uselessly, revealing the next thing she felt: pain –– pain in her entire arm when it moved. For the time being, she decided to keep it still.
Smells began to fill her nostrils next: acrid, smokey, and metallic like dirt. Taste came with smell –– the taste of blood on her tongue. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, to localize where the blood was coming from; but she couldn’t. Instead, the attempt only brought recognition of new pains -– in her head, in her neck, and down her back. As if part of her body was on fire, the cells themselves heating and exploding in concert with each movement she tried.
Then came sight. Everything around her was grey, smoke-bound and the soldiers collapsed were silhouettes. All the panic she’d meant to feel earlier flooded and overwhelmed the Jedi to move, ignoring the pain as she stumbled up.
Realization dawned on her after a few seconds to horrified searching. This was after-the-fact. Whatever had happened, she missed it. Maynard was gone. The Wolfpack was…she couldn’t feel them. All the life, their impact within The Force that was usually nothing but white noise...she couldn’t feel. Alarmed, she quickly dropped to two-finger pulse check. He was alive. They were all alive. The final attack must have been non-fatal, somehow. She moved to touch the soldier’s breastplate.
Fractals of memories took over, borrowing from the vantage point of the inanimate armour piece. It was enough to give enough sensations and fill in the blanks. Maynard had been taken, and the Wolf pack had been...stunned. Spared.
Too emotional to try and sort through what that could possibly mean, she staggered backward.
Hearing finally joined her re-emerging senses as commands through her commlink. Stand down. The Imperials were taking the city, there’d been retreats. Some ships were departing.
Thunder clapped behind her breastbone and she looked down at herself, realizing for the first time she hadn’t stopped shaking since she’d regained consciousness. Her mind was spinning with everything she’d seen -–– had it been real? Where had she just been? Kiskla was dead? Maynard was gone? Which ships? The Major General’s? How could she find this out?
If a ceasefire had been called, The Wolfpack would be fine getting off-planet safely. Maybe they could help her but her sense of reason was entirely lost in irrationality. Too focused on getting answers to the latter part of her concerns while saving the curiosity for the otherworldly experience for another time. First, she had to make good on her promise. Protect, find him and get him back.
Despite her eyeballs feeling like sandpaper, her vision was rapidly improving. Enough to see the obscure outlines of a known uniform. Quickly, she shoved herself against a wall and out of sight from
Djorn Bline
's Ghost Viper company. Gesturing discreetly, her suit responded by flickering into translucent stealth mode.
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