Surviving Order 66

[CosmixExponent]

Chapter 1

"Master"
"Yes, my padawan?"
"Master, I know the Jedi code tells us not to give in to fear, but I'm afraid, we served with these clones, why are they attacking us?"
"I do not know yet, what I do know is that we have to go into hiding for now"
Jedi master Fallah Eldrel looked at her padawan and saw the fear in his eyes. The clones of the 27th legion were her dear friends, but now, they have put her life and the life of her padawan Aelom in danger.

"Aelom"
"Yes, master?"
"Ready your lightsaber, they are no longer our friends, do not hesitate, and remember, let the force guide you"

The blast doors of the command deck were being spliced, at any second the clones would be through the door, but master Eldrel was ready, Aelom on the other hand was sweating bullets, he was afraid, he much preferred to avoid this battle with the clones if he could.
The doors slammed open, a second barely passed and the blaster bolts started flying at them, master Eldrel deflected the bolts, even sending some of them back at the clones.
A few clones went down, but they seemed to be never-ending, Aelom tried using the force to push the clones back but nothing happened, fear had clouded his mind, rendering him almost useless.

Wave after wave, the clones kept coming, the onslaught felt as if it had been going on for hours, whilst in reality only a few minutes have past, Master Eldrel's arms were burning, a single yet laughable though popped in to her mind, "Lightsabers weigh almost nothing, yet my blade feels like it is made out of solid lead."
More clones swarmed the command deck and Aelom was looking worse for wear, he hated this, hated the fact that they had served with these clones during the war, hated the fact that so many innocent lives were taken in the name of The Republic.
The anger was building up, he could feel it slowly creeping in his mind, for all the training he had done with master Eldrel, there was no time to be calm and think about what to do next. The rage was about to boil over, master Eldrel could feel a shift in the force and as she looked over to Aelom, he shot forward, using the force to enhance his speed. He cut through the remaining clones on the command deck as if they were mere children playing soldier, his eyes, she saw those eyes once before, they were not the normal pale green they always were, they were red with a yellow lining, Aelom had given in to his anger and fear.
"Aelom stop! this is not the Jedi way" Eldrel shouted, but her word fell on deaf ears, Aelom was fighting like a madman, deprived of all grace and elegance that was required to wield a Jedi weapon.

The halls leading to the hangar was littered with the bodies of slayed clones, the screams of clones dying down the further down the halls Eldrel walked, all the while keeping her lightsaber armed and ready, The last yell of a dying clone sent shivers down her spine, "That wasn't a quick death" she thought to herself. Before stepping out of the corner she deactivated her saber and raised her arms, Aelom hadn't noticed her, but what she saw was horrifying.
Clones were killed in brutal and barbaric ways, some impaled on rods, others were crushed with the force, some lay dead, clutching at their innards, he meant to make them suffer.

Aelom sat perched with his back against the door of the hangar bay, exhausted, labored breathing, and crying, he looked up at his master, and whimpered "I'm sorry." Eldrel approached him with caution, she had seen what the dark side of The Force could do, this was only the tip of the gigantic iceberg that they were warned about in their teachings.

Eldrel tried to pick up Aelom, but he was heavier than usual, he barely had any strength left in him to walk. After a few moments of struggle she got him to his feet only to see that he had blaster wounds on his right arm and back, he wasn't going to live for much longer, unless they escape. Their best bet was going to be to take the medical ship and jump to the outer rim.

They would have to move fast, there were more clones on the way, and by now they would have sent out a distress signal to any nearby Cruisers. Eldrel helped Aelom to the medical ship, the onboard medical droid took Aelom to be placed in the bacta tank to heal, while Eldrel set the coordinates to the outer rim.

************

Being escorted to the medical bay of the ship by the medical droid, Aelom played out the happenings of these past few moments over and over again in his head, as if to find some way of justifying his actions to himself. He acted out of anger and fear, it had been building up ever since the first clone turned his blaster on the Jedi. "I tried my best to stay calm and remember my training" he thought to himself and then everything went black.

Aelom dashed forward into the corridor with his lightsaber at the ready, blocking and deflecting blaster bolts, ducking under a punch from a clone, with a quick push he sent the clone flying back using the force, before the clone could react the young padawan had plunged his saber through his torso, a dozen more clones came rushing at him but they too fell to his saber, one clone tried taking a step back to line up a shot, this only made Aelom's blade miss his mark and instead of a swift kill the clone was disemboweled, dying a slow and painful death. This was not the only clone to suffer such a death, many more were slaughtered as he made his way to the hangar bay, his only thought "KILL THEM ALL"
By the time master Eldrel had found Aelom, the bodies leading to him must have made her stomach turn. He could barely stand and yet she was there to help him up, he truly thought the world of his Master, yet all he could say is "I'm sorry"

A blast made the ship jump and knock him out of the memory, the medical droid dropped him and as Aelom struggled to get to his feet, he looked back and saw Master Eldrel was struggling to pilot the ship, a small pool of blood had formed next to her, she was wounded, and wouldn't be able to pilot and shoot down these clones. Aelom made his way to the gunner seat, the medical droid tried to stop him "Sir, i must insist that you come with me to the bacta tank for medical treatment" Ignoring the droid Aelom sat down in the chair next to Eldrel. She started to protest. "Aelom go with the droid"
"No master, I won't"
"I wasn't asking you!"
"I don't care! We either die here together or you die from blood loss, I don't see us getting out of here without a fight! So I am going to fight, if you have a problem with that Master, take it up with the Jedi council" Eldrel sat in silence, then a smile broke across her face, her padawan had come a long way from when she had first met him, he was still the scared unsure child he has always been, but now, now he has a reason to push that aside. "Fine Aelom, you shoot, i fly, but trust me my young padawan, you will be scolded for speaking to me in such a manner."
"Let's see if we survive this first."

Aelom manned the guns, and started blasting away at the clones that were swarming the ship, the hangar was full of smoke, ships exploding, flaming fuel tanks rolling everywhere. This was going to be a lot more difficult than both of them thought.

Eldrel did her best to pilot the ship and make the jump to hyperspace, but the clones would not let them go so easily, Aelom tried shooting down as many fighter ships as he could, they needed an opening to make the jump, but dammit these clones were persistent, they served with them for a majority of the clone wars, but this was ridiculous, they knew all their strategies and maneuvers, getting out of this was looking more like a suicide mission than an escape. The medical droid was getting bounced around the ship like a ragdoll and Aelom could see that Master Eldrel was reacting slower than usual, she must have been more injured than he thought.
a blast from one of the opposing ships knocked her out of her seat, she laid on the floor struggling to get back up, Aelom decided that he had to do something and fast, he switched over to the Pilot seat, diverting all power to the forward shields, if he was going to do this, he only had one chance, he piloted the ship back to the Cruiser, drawing in all their pursuers, "Closer" the fighters were coming straight at him, "Closer" they were within firing range. "NOW!" Aelom nose dived, causing 3 ships to collide, he flipped a few switches, diverting all power to the thrusters, and blasted away from the clones or so he thought, just as he engaged the hyper driver, a missile shot out the right engine, they managed the jump but they were off course. Aelom helped his master up and took her to the medical bay, the droid looked over to Aelom "Sir I suggest that you also get into a bacta tank, your wounds are in need of medical attention"
"Not now, I need to figure out where we are dropping out and land this ship"
Aelom walked up to the tank his master was floating in, her wounds were severe, but the droid would be able to heal her.
His wounds would have to wait, first he needed to figure out where they were headed.

A few hours later, the ship dropped out of hyperspace, Aelom looked at the navi computer. "Huh, the Lasan system, we could land on Lasan, the Lasat's will surely give us a place to hide from the Republic"
He turned to go tell master Eldrel where they were, he walked up to the medical bay and opened the door, Eldrel was out of the bacta tank and the medical droid had managed to mend Eldrel's wounds quite well. "Aelom, when are you going to rest, if you keep pushing yourself like this.." Aelom cut her off. "Master I slept while we were in hyperspace, I'm fine, I promise, besides we dropped out of hyperspace in the Lasan System, we could head for the planet Lasan, even if just to chart a new ship somewhere else."
"We don't have the luxury of being picky, take us down to Lasan"
Aelom shook his head in agreement, He went back to the cockpit and began to pilot the ship down to Lasan, "I guess I can count one positive thing from all this, few Zabraks have been to Lasan, I just hope we can find someone to help us" Master Eldrel soon joined him in the cockpit.
She too as Aelom was hoping that they would find the help they seek, and that other Jedi like them have found refuge from whatever was happening.

 

[Liquid Night]

This going to be exploring more of the Legends side of things?
I'm not terribly familiar with the extended Star Wars universe and Disney did a good job of killing my enthusiasm for their timeline, so I hope there'll be some world building worked in for those of us not familiar.

Or is it going to follow or parallel the movies more?

 

[CosmixExponent]

I'm thinking of exploring legends a bit more, This is my first FanFic that I am writing so if you have any feedback, i would welcome it.
Fuck the movies, those last 3 were horrible

 

[Hadrian810]

It's a good start.

 

[CosmixExponent]

Chapter 2

The ship trembled as it breached the upper atmosphere of Lasan, its battered hull groaning with each shudder of turbulence. Smoke curled from the scorched right engine, a constant reminder of how close they'd come to dying in the void. Aelom gripped the controls tighter than necessary, his jaw clenched, eyes flickering across flickering readouts and sputtering monitors. The clouds outside the viewport rolled like a grey sea beneath them, flashes of violet lightning dancing between their folds, illuminating the broken wings of their once-proud vessel. Behind him, the hum of the ship's systems had shifted into a low, erratic whine — the kind of sound a starship made when it was holding itself together out of sheer spite. Master Eldrel stood silently beside him, bracing herself against the co-pilot's seat, saying nothing. There was nothing left to say — both of them knew this landing would be rough, and that survival was a matter of inches and instinct now. Below, Lasan revealed itself: craggy mountain ridges, wide amber plains veined with winding rivers, and stone structures that looked ancient even from this height. "Looks like we're not dead yet," Aelom muttered under his breath, his voice a quiet rasp. His fingers danced across the nav controls, rerouting minimal power to the maneuvering thrusters. "But if I misjudge this entry by half a degree, we might still make the day's casualty report." Eldrel didn't respond. She simply placed a hand on his shoulder. A gesture of trust. Of faith. He swallowed hard, staring forward.


Altitude warnings screamed across the console as the ship dipped lower. Wind slammed against the hull in furious bursts. Below them now was a narrow valley framed by rocky cliffs, with only a sparse scattering of trees and dry grass swaying under the pressure of their descent. No cities. No landing platforms. Just dirt and dust and rock. "Brace," Aelom said through gritted teeth, one hand instinctively reaching for the stabilizer lever as the ship jolted again. The landing gear was fried, the inertial dampeners overloaded. They'd hit hard. The medical droid squawked somewhere behind them, warning of organ failure probabilities — as if that helped. Aelom ignored it. At the last second, he pulled the ship's nose up, skimming the edge of the ridge before slamming down into the valley floor. The ship skipped once, metal screaming against rock, then skidded hard before collapsing in a heap against the base of a stone outcrop. Sparks flew. Panels burst open. A silence followed — too thick, too sudden. Then came the ticking — the metallic echo of heat bleeding out of the engines.


Aelom coughed, his head spinning. Dust filled the cockpit, stinging his eyes. "We're alive," he rasped, surprised. Eldrel stirred beside him, gripping his arm as she stood. "For now," she replied softly. Outside the viewport, Lasan waited — alien, ancient, indifferent. Their war was over, but something else had just begun.

The ramp of the ship hissed open with a reluctant groan, grinding against the dirt as it lowered onto the cracked surface of the valley floor. The smell of scorched metal and coolant gave way to the dry, mineral scent of Lasan's wilderness — a bitter wind carrying dust and unfamiliar pollen across the broken hull. Aelom stepped out first, boots crunching into the coarse earth, hand resting instinctively on the hilt of his lightsaber. His body still ached from the crash and his wounds were far from healed, but the adrenaline masked most of it. He squinted into the afternoon sun, casting long shadows against the canyon walls. Everything was still. No birds, no beasts, just the sound of wind scraping rock. It made his skin crawl. "If this is where we die, at least the view's decent," he muttered.


Master Eldrel followed behind him slowly, her robe tattered at the hem and stained with dried blood. Her movements were more cautious than his — deliberate, watchful. "Don't speak of death just yet," she said quietly, scanning the horizon. "We've cheated it once already. I'd prefer to not test our luck again so soon."


Together they moved along the side of the ship, checking the damage. It wasn't good. The starboard engine was totaled — torn open like a wound. One of the rear stabilizers was crumpled, and the outer hull bore deep scorches from blaster fire and atmospheric re-entry. The medical droid was miraculously still functioning, hobbling down the ramp with a bag of salvaged supplies in its grip. "I have recovered what medical resources remain, sirs," it beeped. "Minimal bacta, moderate stim stock, one full medpac. Hull integrity compromised. Ship will not achieve orbit."


Aelom sighed, dragging a crate from the wreckage and flipping it open. Inside were ration packs, a few thermal blankets, and an old flare launcher. "We're grounded," he said flatly. "If the clones track us here, we won't be able to run again."


"We won't," Eldrel agreed. "But if we're careful, we may not have to."


As they gathered what they could carry, a sound broke the stillness — a faint crunch of rock underfoot, deliberate, slow. Both Jedi froze. Aelom's hand went to his saber. Eldrel turned toward the source, eyes narrowed. From behind a cluster of jagged stone formations, a figure emerged. Tall. Muscular. Purple-grey fur rippling in the wind. A Lasat. He wore rough leathers and a long cloak fashioned from hide, and in one hand he carried a long staff capped with carved bone. His golden eyes locked onto them, unreadable.


"Your kind brings only war," the Lasat growled in accented Basic. "Republic fire burned our skies once. If you've come to finish what they started…" He pointed the staff toward them, "Then turn back, or be buried where you stand."


Aelom stepped forward slightly, raising both hands in peace. "We're not your enemy," he said carefully.


The Lasat's gaze flicked to Eldrel. "We'll see."

 

[CosmixExponent]

This going to be exploring more of the Legends side of things?
I'm not terribly familiar with the extended Star Wars universe and Disney did a good job of killing my enthusiasm for their timeline, so I hope there'll be some world building worked in for those of us not familiar.

Or is it going to follow or parallel the movies more?

Click to shrink...

Hey bud.

It's been 4 years and I finally had the balls to write chapter 2

Its been posted - but i am going to draw from lefends and some of the Disney stuff - well the stuff from Disney that isn't shit

 

[Liquid Night]

Fair enough.
Better late than never, as Shrek likes to say.

I don't think I've ever published anything I've written as it stands, so props to you.

 

[CosmixExponent]

Fair enough.
Better late than never, as Shrek likes to say.

I don't think I've ever published anything I've written as it stands, so props to you.

Click to shrink...

looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the story as i post more

 

[CosmixExponent]

Chapter 3

The Lasat didn't lower his staff. Dust swirled lazily between them as the canyon wind blew past, quiet but biting. Aelom stood firm, arms open in peace, though his jaw was set.

"We're not here to start a fight," he said. "Our ship was hit. We crashed. We just need help — shelter, or maybe directions to someone who can."

Master Eldrel stepped forward, carefully. "We have no quarrel with you or your people. We're Jedi."

The Lasat's eyes narrowed. His voice was low. "You shouldn't say that out loud."

Aelom blinked. "What?"

The Lasat's gaze swept the cliffs around them before he stepped closer, still keeping his weapon at the ready. "You're fugitives. Don't you know that?"

Eldrel's breath caught. "Fugitives?"

The Lasat gave a single, humorless laugh. "The whole Outer Rim's buzzing. Broadcasts on every frequency — Jedi tried to assassinate the Chancellor. The clones turned on you. You didn't hear?"

"We were in hyperspace," Eldrel murmured, more to herself than him. Her eyes darkened. "When we escaped the cruiser, we thought it was a betrayal. A single command gone wrong. But this…"

She looked at Aelom. Her voice was colder now, detached. "This was the plan all along."

Aelom turned toward her. "Master—"

"Think, Aelom." Her voice hardened. "The Clone Wars. A thousand systems at war. Jedi spread thin across every front. Trusted generals in every sector. And when the time was right… an order."

She looked back at the Lasat, a weight falling across her shoulders. "They used us. Every battle, every negotiation. It was all preparation — not to bring peace, but to scatter us, isolate us. And then… wipe us out."

The Lasat didn't speak. He didn't have to.

Aelom's fists clenched. "That can't be. We fought for the Republic—"

"The Republic's gone," the Lasat said. "Replaced by an Empire before your ship even hit my sky."

Eldrel turned, face drawn with disbelief — and something darker beneath it. "They played us. From the first day."

The Lasat lowered his staff slightly but did not step closer. "You're lucky I'm the one who found you. Most wouldn't ask questions. They'd report your position and move on. Jedi mean trouble now — bring Imperials with them."

"We didn't ask for this," Aelom said, his voice sharp.

"No one does," the Lasat replied. "But here we are."

There was a long silence.

Finally, the Lasat gestured back toward the trail that led deeper into the rocks. "You have one night. Use it well. Leave Lasan by morning. If you're still here... others will come."

Then he turned and walked away.

Aelom watched him disappear into the canyon, his heart pounding. He looked to Eldrel. "So it's true?"

Her eyes were distant. "Yes."

"So what do we do now?"

Eldrel didn't answer immediately. She stared toward the clouds on the horizon, the wind tugging at the torn edges of her cloak.

"…Now," she said softly, "we survive."

The fire burned low, but neither of them moved to feed it. Sleep didn't come — not for Eldrel, not for Aelom. The sky above Lasan stretched wide and cold, blanketed in stars that neither of them could bear to look at for long. Too many dead shone in that sky now.

Aelom sat hunched forward, elbows on knees, head bowed. His lightsaber sat beside him in the dirt, its polished casing dulled by dust. He hadn't touched it since earlier — since he'd nearly drawn it on a man who wasn't an enemy. Not really. Just afraid. Just like them.

"I keep thinking about Master Vayra," he muttered, voice hoarse. "She was teaching three younglings last time I saw her. Laughing. They were so small."

Eldrel didn't answer. Her eyes were closed, but she wasn't meditating. Just listening. Breathing. Trying to hold the center of a world that had split apart.

"What if they were still in the Temple?" he asked. "When it happened?"

Eldrel opened her eyes slowly. "Then we honor them by surviving."

Aelom laughed, bitter and hollow. "You think that's enough?"

"It has to be."

They sat in silence again, broken only by the wind and the soft, rhythmic creak of the ship's ruined hull shifting with the night air. Somewhere far off in the canyons, a creature howled — long and low, like mourning.

By the time the first light crept over the ridge, both Jedi were already moving. Wordless. Robes wrapped tight against the cold. They scavenged what little they could — ration packs, one half-functioning commlink, a strip of wiring that might be bartered or traded. The medical droid, too damaged to walk, was left behind, power core already flickering its last. It didn't protest.

Aelom stood near the ramp, surveying the wreck one last time. "Feels wrong leaving it. Like we're leaving a grave."

Eldrel placed a hand on his shoulder. "It is a grave. But we're not the ones staying in it."

They turned toward the treeline — the dense, twisting forest that blanketed the horizon. Whatever lay beyond it was unknown. But so was everything now.

A rustle of stone behind them made Aelom turn.

The Lasat stood on a ridge above, half-silhouetted in the dawn light, staff planted at his side like a marker. He said nothing. Just watched. His eyes were softer now. Not forgiving — not yet — but curious. As if part of him had expected them to run, to lash out, to fall apart.

Instead, he saw two figures burdened but unbroken, disappearing into the trees.

Aelom met his gaze for a moment longer, then turned away.

They stepped into the forest. The light behind them grew stronger. And the shadows ahead stretched long.


The forest wrapped around them like a living wall.

Lasan's wildlands were dense but dry, the air warm beneath the canopy of tall, narrow trees. Sunlight filtered through layers of golden leaves, casting shifting shadows across the forest floor. Thorny brush slowed their progress, but Aelom welcomed the quiet resistance — it kept his mind occupied.

Neither he nor Eldrel spoke much. There was too much sitting in their chests. Every snapped twig or distant animal cry reminded them they were fugitives now, though no one had said it aloud since the Lasat had.

As they climbed a narrow slope, the trees began to thin. Roots jutted from the soil like skeletal fingers, and above them, the sky opened wide. Aelom reached the ridge first, and the moment his eyes hit the horizon, he froze.

"Master," he called, softly.

Eldrel joined him at the crest, her breath catching as she followed his gaze.

Across the sky, crawling slow and silent like a predator, a Venator-class cruiser drifted just above the cloud line. Its red markings caught the morning sun, a harsh contrast against its war-worn hull. The once-familiar symbol of the Galactic Republic was still visible — proud, righteous, clean.

But now, it felt hollow.

"They're here," Aelom murmured.

Eldrel's eyes narrowed. "They never left."

Smaller LAAT gunships buzzed beneath the cruiser's belly like flies circling a corpse, scouting the land below. There were no lights, no alarms — just that eerie, methodical movement. A patrol. A claim. A warning.

"It's still Republic," Aelom said, almost to convince himself.

"No," Eldrel replied quietly. "Not anymore. Look."

He followed her gesture. Near the tail fin, where there should have been a unit number, was a new mark — black, angular, unfamiliar.

"The crest is changing," she said. "Even if the ships haven't."

Aelom clenched his fists. "It's only been days."

"That's all it takes."

They stood there for a long moment, staring up at the sky like it had betrayed them.

"I used to feel safe when I saw those cruisers," Aelom said. "Like we weren't alone out there."

Eldrel didn't look away. "Now they're just hammers. Waiting for a nail."

He turned his eyes back to the treeline behind them. "Think they're looking for us?"

"They don't need to be," she replied. "Eventually, they'll look for everyone."

He said nothing. The idea that the very machines they had once fought alongside were now hunting them — it made his skin crawl. The difference between order and oppression was suddenly as thin as breath.

"I hate this," he whispered.

"So do I," she said. "But hating it doesn't make it stop."

They didn't linger. As the cruiser crawled out of view behind a bank of clouds, the Jedi turned and descended the ridge. The forest closed around them again, shadows trailing long in the golden light.

The Republic was dead. But its bones still patrolled the sky.


The interior of the Venator-class cruiser was dim, sterile — its halls no longer humming with the steady rhythm of Republic command. Since the transmission of Order 66, everything aboard had changed, even if the colors and corridors remained the same. The war banners were gone. The laughter, too.

CT-9423 — callsign "Strake" — stood at attention on the forward observation deck, helmet tucked beneath one arm, the other clenched behind his back. Below the viewport, Lasan's rugged landscape stretched endlessly into haze and canyon. On the raised platform above, Admiral Harven Drel observed in silence, flanked by two clone officers.

The Admiral was not like the generals they once followed. He wore the new grey Imperial officer's uniform — crisp, minimal, bone-colored trim — and his expression carried the weight of someone born to give orders, not earn them. He hadn't fought in the Clone Wars. But now, he commanded its veterans.

"We've confirmed the trajectory of the Jedi vessel," Strake reported, voice steady. "They jumped from a compromised medical frigate and crash-landed in sector J-43. Wreckage still hot."

"Any local interference?" Drel asked, hands clasped neatly behind him.

Strake hesitated. "Scattered settlements. Indigenous, loosely organized. The Lasat have no military infrastructure."

"Then proceed." The Admiral's tone was flat. "Find the Jedi. Eliminate them."

Strake nodded. "Yes, sir."

He turned and walked off the deck, boots striking cleanly against the metal floor. The order didn't surprise him. What did surprise him — still — was how easily they all followed it. None of them questioned the purge. Not even the ones who'd once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Jedi generals.

Maybe that was the chip. Maybe it was something else.

---

The hangar roared to life as LAAT gunships prepped for launch. Clone troopers moved with practiced speed, armor worn from battles on Ryloth, Umbara, Geonosis. Veterans, every last one of them — forged in the fire of the Republic's greatest war. Now repurposed.

Strake walked between them in silence. No one joked. No one laughed. The camaraderie that once warmed the barracks had cooled to precision. Duty. Purpose.

And something beneath that — something unspoken.

The Jedi had turned traitor. That's what the briefing said. That's what they were told.

But part of Strake remembered.

He remembered Master Urla shielding his squad from an ambush on Kintan. He remembered her dying in the snow with his name on her lips.

He pushed the memory aside.

---

Hours later, the gunships glided low over Lasan's treetops, their shadows long in the fading light. Two squads were deployed on foot near the wreckage, white armor ghosting through the underbrush, scanning with silent efficiency.

Strake knelt near the torn hull of the downed shuttle, fingers brushing ash and soil. Heat trace was fresh. Two humanoids, headed northeast. The terrain would slow them — but not forever.

Behind him, CT-8805 approached, rifle at his side. "Same type of shuttle we used during Felucia evac. Still can't believe they got out."

"They always get out," Strake muttered.

"Feels wrong, hunting them like this."

Strake rose slowly. "They made their choice."

"Did they?" 8805 asked. "Or did someone make it for them?"

Strake didn't answer.

---

Back on the ridge, Admiral Drel watched the movement from a hovering command platform, expression unmoving. Below, the clone troopers fanned out in disciplined waves — trackers, spotters, sharpshooters.

"They won't get far," he said quietly.

One of the bridge officers looked up. "And if the locals shelter them?"

The Admiral clasped his hands again.

"Then we burn the forest."

 

[CosmixExponent]

Chapter 4

The forest deepened, and the light thinned.

They moved without speaking, feet muffled by the thick mat of dried needles and curling leaves that coated the forest floor. The golden hues of early morning dimmed beneath the rising trees, where knotted branches wove into a jagged canopy that filtered sunlight into thin, broken shafts. Aelom's cloak snagged on a bramble, but he didn't stop. He just pulled forward, letting the thorn tear the fabric as he pushed deeper into Lasan's wilderness.

Every part of him ached. His thighs burned from the climb. His shoulders throbbed beneath the weight of his pack. A shallow cut just below his ribs throbbed in rhythm with his breath — not fatal, but enough to remind him with every movement that he wasn't at full strength. Still, he didn't complain. Neither of them did. Pain had become the rhythm of their days now. Grief the melody.

They were too exposed by the crash site, and they both knew it. Staying there meant being pinned. Sheltering meant being found. And fighting — here, with no high ground, no cover, and no backup — would be suicide. They had no allies on Lasan. No guarantees. Only a planet full of strangers and an Empire that was no longer interested in justice.

Fallah walked ahead, her movements slower than before but deliberate. Her cloak was torn, her right arm still bandaged beneath the fabric, though she hadn't mentioned it since the escape. Her saber swung loosely at her belt — not a threat, just a weight. Like memory.

Aelom watched her footing and matched it, forcing his breathing into silence. He was younger, stronger — but even he could feel the toll. The crash, the hike, the fear. It carved lines into your body, left your nerves frayed. But what truly unsettled him wasn't the pain. It was the silence. The galaxy had changed, and now it was quiet — in the wrong ways. No Temple guidance. No transmissions from other Jedi outposts. No war councils or field briefings. Only static, and the haunting sense that the stars above them now belonged to someone else.

Aelom's hand brushed the hilt of his saber once, reflexively. He didn't draw it. He hadn't since the canyon.

They passed through a narrow defile in the rock, where gnarled roots split stone and soil alike, like claws trying to grip something long buried. Every few steps, Fallah paused — listening, watching — before moving on. She didn't need to say it aloud. They were being hunted. And the longer they remained close to the wreckage, the sooner that hunt would end.

Somewhere behind them, among the upper winds above the treetops, the Venator was still drifting. Silent. Watching. Waiting.

So they went on, deeper and deeper, into the forest that seemed to close behind them like a gate.







The trees gave way to stone.

After nearly an hour of slow, punishing travel, the forest thinned into a rocky highland — jagged ridges and sun-split outcrops where moss clung in stubborn veins and the air grew dry and sharp. Fallah slowed as they reached the edge of an overlook, one gloved hand rising to signal a halt. Aelom came up beside her, sweat streaking his temple, cloak clinging damply to his back.

Before them, the land dropped away.

A vast canyon split the forest like a scar — steep-walled and deep, its base lost to mist. The opposite side was no more than thirty meters away, maybe less, but the wind that howled between the cliffs made the gap feel infinite.

Aelom stared, chest rising and falling. "We can't go around?"

Fallah's eyes were still scanning the cliff line. "Too exposed. Too long. The longer we stay near open air, the more likely they'll spot us."

"You want to jump it?"

She didn't answer. She just backed up a few paces, calculating, then nodded once. "We won't get a better chance."

He swallowed, throat dry. They'd done worse in training. But not like this. Not with bruised ribs, no rest, and the cold press of death hunting them from above.

Fallah stepped forward again, tested her footing, then closed her eyes. Her breath slowed.

Then she ran.

Aelom's breath caught as her boots thudded against the stone, each step more urgent than the last. She pushed off just before the edge, cloak whipping around her as she arced across the void. For a second, she hung in the air — and then landed hard on the far side, stumbling to a knee, sliding a few feet before catching herself.

She rose slowly, turned, and waved.

Aelom backed up, heart hammering. His legs felt like they were made of molten metal. He hadn't rested. He hadn't even eaten. And now, his master was on the other side of a death chasm, waiting for him to jump a distance even healthy Jedi would hesitate to try.

He ran.

His muscles screamed with each stride, boots slapping too loud, breath tearing ragged in his throat. He reached the edge and pushed off — but too late. Too slow. The arc was wrong. He felt it before he even reached the midpoint.

"Master—!"

Gravity took him.

He hit the cliff wall below the edge hard — pain exploded across his left side. He tumbled, twisting midair, trying to focus through the panic. He reached for the Force, flung it downward like a crashing wave.

His fall slowed — not stopped, but dulled enough to spare his life. He slammed into a ledge a dozen meters down and rolled, crying out as something gave way in his leg with a sickening pop.

Silence.

The canyon swallowed the sound. He lay still, blinking up at the sunlight above. His lightsaber was a few meters away, sparking faintly, its hilt cracked and half-buried in dust. His leg burned, wrong beneath him. Aelom groaned and pulled himself upright on his elbows, biting back another shout.

He looked up.

Far above, the ledge he'd missed was just out of reach. Fallah wasn't there.

"Master?" he called, voice hoarse. "Master!"

No answer.

He was alone.


The wreckage still smoked.

Blackened metal jutted from the ground like ribs, warped by heat and impact. CT-9423 — Strake — stepped through the remains with quiet precision, his boots crunching over scorched debris and fractured plating. The Jedi vessel had broken apart across a shallow ridge, its nose half-buried in earth, its engines gutted by fire. But Strake saw no corpses. No bodies fused to the flight chairs. No armor fragments. No signs of a kill.

"Cockpit's empty," CT-3057 reported from the forward section. "No casualties. No blood."

Strake gave a brief nod. He moved along the ruined hull, scanning. Something in the pattern of the debris caught his eye — fragments too clean, too recent. Someone had scavenged. Quickly. A medical pack was missing. Tool compartments opened and stripped. He knelt by the ramp, fingers brushing a line of impressions in the dirt.

"Two sets of prints," he said flatly. "Boots. Standard Jedi pattern. Departed on foot."

CT-9824 joined him. "Heading northwest, looks like. Up into the forest."

Strake rose, scanning the tree line. The Lasan wildlands loomed just beyond the clearing — dense, high-canopy terrain with uneven elevation. Good for cover. Good for fleeing. But not good enough.

He activated his comm. "Unit Delta, this is 9423. Confirmed contact. Two fugitives. Abandoned transport at coordinates marked. Proceeding on foot. Begin tracking sweep."

A burst of static, then a crisp voice replied. "Copy. Delta moving to intercept."

The other troopers fanned out around the crash site, collecting readings and confirming the trail. Burned ferns where a repulsorlift pack had ignited. A cracked power cell left behind in haste. A faint signature on the ground — a short-range commlink still transmitting periodic pulses. No message. Just an echo. A mistake.

"They were in a hurry," CT-8805 said.

Strake said nothing. His eyes followed the direction of the tracks until the trees swallowed them. Judging by the pace and spread, one of the fugitives was injured — slower gait, heavier on the left side. The prints deviated occasionally, staggered, before rejoining. He'd seen it before. Wounded Jedi still trying to move like ghosts.

It wouldn't save them.

He keyed another command into his HUD, syncing local topography and orbital reconnaissance feeds. The canyon range ahead offered limited exits — a natural choke point. If they reached it, they'd have fewer routes left to run.

"Push forward," he ordered. "Staggered V. Sensor sweeps every ten minutes. If you see anything — movement, heat, reflection — mark it and call it in."

The troopers moved without question. No hesitation. No chatter. They weren't brothers anymore — just weapons shaped by war, and sharpened now by command.

Strake paused at the edge of the wreckage, looking once more at the fading footprints vanishing into the brush.

They weren't far.
And they were only getting slower.



He gave the signal, and the hunt began.

The trail led them to an opening in the canopy — a brief clearing where the wind spoke louder than the birds. CT-9423, Strake, emerged from the trees in silence, the rest of his squad fanning out behind him in textbook formation. Before them, the overlook stretched out over a steep valley, the same ridgeline the fugitives had reached hours earlier.

The air was still charged here — disturbed, somehow. The faint scent of ozone clung to the soil. Trampled underbrush marked where two figures had stood, one pacing tightly in a circle, the other still. Strake knelt and ran his gloved hand over the prints.

"They stopped here," he said. "Watched the sky."

CT-3057 followed his gaze toward the distant clouds. "The cruiser passed over this line at 0700. You think they saw it?"

"They saw it," Strake said coldly. "And they kept running."

He rose and turned toward the westward incline where the trees grew thin. The soil there was disturbed — more chaotic. Rushed movement. He followed the trail a few steps and crouched again near a rock where something dark fluttered low in the brush.

"Visual on trace," CT-9824 called, moving up beside him. "Piece of fabric. Torn."

Strake reached out and plucked the scrap free. It was rough, brown, worn — a shred of cloak, likely caught on a branch or jagged stone. He turned it over once in his hand, confirming the texture.

"Jedi."

CT-8805 scanned the immediate area. "One of them might've fallen. There's a shift in the tracks. The smaller prints are gone."

Strake moved toward the edge of the ridge, looking down into the canyon below. It wasn't a straight fall, but it was close. Jagged ledges and root-wrapped outcroppings descended into mist. It would take a skilled soldier — or a Jedi — to survive a fall like that.

"They jumped again," Strake said. "Or tried."

He tapped a command into his gauntlet. A small recon drone detached from his belt and zipped into the canyon, descending in a steady spiral.

"If they're down there," Strake muttered, "they're slowed."

CT-3057 stepped beside him. "Should we deploy climbing gear? Sweep the lower basin?"

Strake shook his head. "No need. If one of them's down, they'll bleed time. We keep to the trail. Stay above. They'll be forced to rejoin eventually."

He dropped the fabric on the stone and turned away.

"Command wants results. We give them bodies."

The squad moved on, slipping back into the forest like ghosts. Behind them, the clearing fell still again, save for the wind twisting through the trees — and the scrap of cloak left fluttering on the rocks like a forgotten flag.


She saw him fall.

It happened in an instant, and in that instant, everything inside her cracked. One moment Aelom was midair, pushing off the ledge just as she had — too late, too slow — and the next, he was plunging. His arc dipped too early. His form twisted. His hands reached. Her voice caught in her throat as the boy — no, the young man she had trained, protected, loved in her own distant, Jedi way — dropped from her sight, swallowed by the canyon's depth.

"NO—" It wasn't a scream, not quite. More like a breath sharpened into a blade.

She staggered to the edge, pulse thundering in her ears, the Force surging to her fingertips before collapsing. Her legs buckled under her, her already-wounded arm gave way as she reached toward the ledge, and pain flooded her senses. She couldn't even steady her breath, let alone catch him. He was gone — somewhere below, in mist and shadow. There was no sound. No sign.

"Aelom…"

Fallah knelt at the ledge, fingers gripping stone hard enough to tear the skin beneath her gloves. She reached out — through the Force — blindly, desperately. Her mind touched the air, the rock, the thrum of wind — but not him. Not yet. Either he was too far... or worse.

She tried again. Closed her eyes. Reached deeper.

There.

Faint. Flickering. Pain. But alive.

Relief struck her like a spear to the chest, stealing her breath. But it didn't last. The distance was too great. The terrain impassable. Her own body screamed at her with every movement — her ribs bruised, her arm strained to the edge of breaking, and her strength — the core of it, that inner stillness the Jedi taught — was slipping. Her mind clouded faster now. Guilt was a shadow dragging behind her, no longer whispering but shouting.

She pressed her palm to the cold stone, fingers trembling.

He's alive.

He's hurt.

And I can't get to him.

The thought was louder than her heartbeat. Louder than the wind.

Fallah rose slowly, her body stiff, mechanical. She looked once more over the ledge, then turned. Not because she wanted to. Not because it felt right. But because staying would do nothing. She could die trying to reach him, and that would help no one. If there was even a chance she could regroup, circle back, find another path down the ravine… she had to take it.

That was what the Code would say. Detach. Endure. Survive.

But the Code didn't feel like enough anymore.

She walked. One step, then another. Her legs moved, but her mind dragged behind, tethered to that broken cliff edge where her padawan had vanished. Every branch that cracked beneath her boots felt like a sin. Every rustle in the brush sounded like betrayal.

She was leaving him.

And the worst part — the thing she could not say aloud — was that part of her didn't believe she would see him again. Not because he would die. But because she might. Or he might. Or they would both become ghosts of a war that never gave them a chance.

Doubt crept in like smoke under a door. What if she had waited one more minute? What if she'd taught him better balance? What if she had carried more medkits, or stronger rope, or jumped second? What if—

She stopped. Breathed. Tried to center.

But there was no center. Not anymore. Only the trail ahead, and the weight of everything behind her.

Master Fallah Eldrel walked on, deeper into the forest, and the forest did not care. The trees did not care. The war did not care.

And for the first time in a long time, she wasn't sure she did either.








The wind cut sharper at the canyon's edge.

CT-9423 — Strake — came to a halt just before the drop, his visor sweeping across the torn earth where moss and soil had been freshly disturbed. Around him, the rest of the squad fanned out in silence. CT-3057 crouched near the ledge, fingers brushing a dark smear across the stone.

"Blood trace," he reported. "Still warm."

"Two sets of prints end here," said CT-8805 from farther up the ridge. "One continues west. The other… doesn't."

Strake stepped closer. The edge was jagged, scraped raw by boot tread. He followed the signs: a skid, a break, a faint impression lower on the opposite cliffside. A fall — survived, barely. Below, mist coiled between rocky outcroppings, and somewhere in that fog lay one of their targets.

"Coordinates locked," he said, marking the ledge on his HUD. "Prepare descent protocols. Recon drone, drop zone five meters east."

CT-9824 pulled the tethered microdrone from his belt and released it with a hiss. The machine dipped and spiraled downward, lights blinking as it vanished into the haze.

"No body," 3057 muttered. "But someone fell hard. Had to be the smaller one — lighter stride, more erratic pacing. Likely the padawan."

"Survivable?" another clone asked.

"For a Jedi?" Strake answered. "Yes. But not for long."

He turned away from the edge and nodded toward the trail leading westward — broken brush, smeared footprints, fragments of fabric snagged in the thorns. This path was sharper, more determined. Someone hadn't stopped. Someone had made the choice to keep going.

The other one.

"CT-3057, 8805 — descend into the canyon. Scan for a heat trail. If the padawan's alive, you'll find him."

"Yes, sir."

Strake adjusted his rifle grip and started toward the path. "The rest of you with me. We keep to the upper ridge. This one is still mobile."

CT-9824 paused before following. "Priority?"

Strake didn't break stride. "Whichever dies first."

The squad moved quickly. No debate. No sentiment. Just motion — practiced, synchronized, lethal. White armor slipped between the trees with uncanny silence, and within seconds the overlook was abandoned, save for the canyon wind and the soft whine of the descending drone.

Down below, shadows shifted as the canyon swallowed the drone's lights.

Up above, boots crushed twigs in the same brush Fallah had passed through minutes earlier.

They were close now.

And closing.
Pain had become a rhythm.

Every movement sent a fresh bolt of fire up his leg, sharp and nauseating, but he kept crawling. One arm forward, then the other. Drag. Breathe. Repeat. His broken leg trailed uselessly behind him, wrapped in a makeshift splint fashioned from a snapped branch and part of his belt. It wasn't good — it was barely functional — but it kept the limb stable enough that he could move. Barely.

His breath came in short, wet gasps. Sweat clung to him like a second skin, mixing with blood and dust as he pulled himself across the uneven rock shelf. The canyon air was dry and thin, but down here the mist clung low, making every breath feel heavy, thick, like drowning on land.

He stopped beside a half-buried root jutting from the wall and slumped against it, forehead pressed to the bark. He could feel the tremor in his arms. His muscles had long since passed exhaustion and moved into something else — a kind of numb, shaking persistence. The Force, weak as it was in him now, flickered just beneath the surface. Not enough to heal. Not enough to call for help.

He reached to his belt and pulled free his lightsaber.

It was cracked along the emitter shroud. Scored. Part of the power casing had warped from the fall, and when he thumbed the activation plate, the blade sparked — a flicker of green light that hissed and guttered into smoke.

He stared at it, jaw clenched.

His saber had always been a comfort — more than a tool, more than a weapon. It was a piece of who he was. The hours he spent building it. The meaning behind the color. The lessons that led him to it. Now it was as broken as his leg. As everything.

He slammed it once against the rock beside him. Not hard enough to shatter it. Just enough to let the rage bleed out.

"Aelom to Master Eldrel," he whispered, reaching inward.

He stretched out with his mind. Pushed gently at first. Then harder. The canyon swallowed his reach like water soaking into stone. There was no answer. No presence. No anchor.

"Master…" he whispered again, but this time the word was less hope and more accusation.

Still nothing.

The fear in his chest curdled into something hotter. Not rage, not yet — but a spark. He wasn't used to being alone. The Temple had always been there. His Master had always been there. Now he was injured, half-lost in a dead canyon on an alien world, and there was no one. No guidance. No warmth in the Force.

He shoved the lightsaber back into his belt and forced himself forward.

Aelom didn't know how far he'd gone before he heard it — a faint click of stone disturbed behind him. Then another. The sound of boots. Controlled, methodical, precise. A pattern. Military.

His stomach twisted.

He froze, listening. No voices. No orders. Just silence.

Then a soft mechanical whine — distant, hovering. A drone. Search pattern.

They'd found him.

Aelom dragged himself under the lip of a rock outcrop and pressed himself flat to the ground, chest heaving. His fingers hovered near the saber at his belt, but he didn't draw it. Not yet. Not like this.

He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, trying once more to reach for Fallah. For anything. But the Force remained dim and distant, like a voice he couldn't quite remember.

He was alone.

And they were coming.

The footsteps were closer now.

Aelom didn't move. He barely breathed. He could hear them just beyond the veil of brush — slow, deliberate, precise. Clones. Two, maybe three. Their boots made almost no sound on the rock, but the way they moved was unmistakable. Military rhythm. Not searching — sweeping.

Aelom's fingers hovered near his saber hilt. It still hung at his belt, damaged and dormant. His broken leg pulsed with every heartbeat, a throbbing reminder that he wasn't ready for this. He couldn't run. Couldn't climb. Couldn't even stand.

A shadow passed overhead. Then another. They were here.

He didn't have time to crawl further. He barely had time to turn before a boot kicked through the brush and slammed into his ribs.

Aelom cried out, instinctively curling to protect his side as the second clone stepped forward, rifle raised. The first one — CT-3057, his armor scratched and scuffed from years of war — pressed a foot into Aelom's back and shoved him fully into the dirt.

"Target acquired," 3057 said into his comm. "Padawan confirmed. Alive."

"Copy," a voice crackled back. "Secure and interrogate. If he resists, end it."

The second clone, CT-8805, stepped closer and kicked Aelom's lightsaber away. It skittered across the stone, sparking faintly. Then he knelt, grabbed Aelom by the collar, and yanked him upright.

Aelom hissed as pain surged through his leg. He tried to stand, but collapsed onto his knees.

"That's better," 8805 said, voice hollow through the helmet. "Jedi should kneel more often."

3057 circled around, rifle lowered but ready. "You're lucky, kid. Orders said termination. But we're giving you a choice."

Aelom looked up, sweat dripping from his brow. His lip was split. His breathing shallow.

"You tell us where your Master went," 3057 continued. "Name, direction, destination. Anything. You help us bring her in, and maybe you walk away."

Aelom's jaw clenched.

"You've got five seconds," 8805 added. "And then we stop asking."

He tapped the side of his rifle.

Aelom didn't speak.

3057 crouched down in front of him. "Come on. You're young. You're injured. She left you. You think she's coming back for you?" He leaned closer. "She's running. That's what they do. They cut their losses."

Aelom stared at the ground. His hands trembled.

"She left you to die," 3057 said, voice soft like poison. "But you don't have to. Give us the Jedi, and you live."

8805 stepped behind him, raising his rifle. The barrel settled just behind Aelom's head — execution style.

"You're not worth the bolt," he muttered.

The silence between them stretched. The wind picked up. Somewhere above, the canyon moaned.

And something inside Aelom cracked.

Not loud. Not violent. Just… a shift.

Like breath drawn too deep. Like a weight shifting from fear to fury.

He closed his eyes.

He felt the pain. The fear. The shame. He let it in.

And then he rose.

The rage came fast — not like a fire, but like a scream held in too long.

Aelom's body surged upward, driven by something deeper than instinct. He twisted hard, seizing the rifle barrel behind him, and shoved it wide. The clone's shot fired high, scorching the air with a sharp hiss.

Then Aelom reached out.

The lightsaber — kicked aside minutes earlier — trembled in the dirt a few meters away. For a split-second, nothing. Then it snapped into motion, ripping free from the dust and sailing through the canyon air.

It hit his palm just as he turned.

The saber ignited.

A flare of green light burst to life, unstable and stuttering like a dying breath. The blade trembled in his grip, but Aelom didn't care. His heart pounded in his ears. His broken leg screamed with each movement, but pain only sharpened his focus.

CT-8805 backed up, rifle raised.

Aelom moved.

He didn't leap. He lunged. A broken, raw charge — one foot dragging, the other pushing him forward like a hammerblow. He deflected the first bolt just in time. The second clipped his shoulder. He grunted, spun, and brought the saber down in a diagonal slash.

The clone barely dodged, armor scraping as he tumbled backward.

CT-3057 was already firing.

Aelom deflected one, two, three shots — each harder than the last. The green blade flickered again, and this time orange bled through the core, faint and flickering.

He could feel it — the change. Not in the saber. In himself.

There was no calm. No center. Only heat.

Pain.

Fear.

Anger.

The blade hissed louder.

Another bolt screamed toward his head. Aelom turned it aside and rushed 3057, swinging low. The clone caught the blow on his forearm plate, stumbled back — but Aelom pressed forward, slamming his shoulder into him and knocking him into the cliff wall.

Then he drove the saber through his chest.

3057 spasmed once, then crumpled, smoke hissing from his armor.

Aelom wheeled around. 8805 had drawn his sidearm, already aiming.

Aelom didn't wait.

He hurled himself forward, deflecting a bolt wide — then another — then closed the distance with a scream. His blade carved downward, catching the clone's blaster hand. 8805 howled, stumbled — but Aelom was already in motion, twisting, swinging, landing a final, brutal strike across his torso.

The clone dropped.

Silence.

Only the sound of Aelom's breathing remained — jagged, wet, broken.

He stood over the two bodies, saber trembling in his grip. The blade flickered violently now — sputtering between green and molten orange.

Then the hilt cracked.

A surge of heat burned his palm. Aelom cried out and dropped the saber as it exploded in a burst of sparks, the casing splitting apart in the dirt at his feet.

From the wreckage, something rolled loose — glowing faintly in the gloom.

His kyber crystal.

No longer green.

Not red.

Just orange — cloudy and unstable, like it hadn't made up its mind.

Aelom stared at it, breathing hard. His arms were shaking. His leg throbbed, useless beneath him. Blood stained his tunic. The two clones lay motionless.

And all he could hear was the echo of his own scream, still ringing in his skull.

He looked at his hands — still curled into fists.

And he didn't recognize them.


Master Eldrel stopped walking.

The Force rippled — not soft, not distant. Violent. Like a scream she couldn't hear with her ears, but felt in her bones.

Then came the heat.

Anger. Fury. Pain.

Not hers.

Aelom's.

Her breath caught. The ground tilted beneath her feet. She gripped a tree trunk to steady herself, but the bark felt slick under her hand. Her knees nearly gave.

"No…" she whispered. "No, not again."

It was happening — again. The same flare she'd felt on the cruiser during their escape, when the clones had turned, when he had lashed out with raw power and no control. Back then, she'd told herself it was adrenaline. Instinct. Desperation.

But this…

This was rage.

She closed her eyes, trying to push it back — to push him back. But the Force wouldn't let her. His presence was tangled in it now, like blood in water. He was alive.

But changed.

Fallah leaned her head against the tree, pressing her forehead into the rough bark. Her breath came shallow. The ache in her ribs flared again, but it was nothing compared to what twisted inside her chest.

She had failed him.

Another fracture, clean and deep.

One more piece breaking away.

She forced herself upright, teeth gritted, blinking hard against the burning in her eyes.

She turned toward the canyon.

She didn't know if she was going to find him—

—or bury him.

 

[CosmixExponent]

Chapter 5

She shouldn't have turned around.

Fallah knew it even as her boots hit the loose soil again, sliding over stone and fallen leaves. She'd felt the change in Aelom like a dagger in the Force — sharp, ugly, seething. The kind of flare she'd trained him never to give in to. But when it hit her, when that wave of rage lanced across her mind, she hadn't hesitated.

She turned.

And in that single heartbeat of fear and guilt, she forgot everything else — the clone patrols, the terrain, her wounds. She just moved. Fast, reckless, too loud. Her mind screamed calculations — distances, ridgelines, maybe a ravine to slide into — but her heart beat one word on repeat: Aelom.

She didn't know if he was alive. She didn't know if he'd fallen — really fallen — or if what she felt was just survival bleeding into instinct. But she knew that if she didn't try, if she didn't reach him…

She'd never forgive herself.

The path curved tightly through the trees. Lasan's forest had grown steeper, the ground shifting to shale and root. She slipped once, caught herself on a branch, and hissed through her teeth as her ribs flared with pain. She hadn't fully recovered from the crash. Her side still burned. Her arm was tight from the bandage. Her robes clung to her like wet cloth.

She was breaking.

Not all at once — but in cracks. And Aelom's scream in the Force had driven another one clean through her spine.

The Jedi Code echoed in her mind, faint and useless.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

She almost laughed.

The only thing she felt now was the certainty that she was too late.

She dropped into a narrow ravine, sliding down on her side through the dust. She hit bottom hard, stumbled, and pushed off again. Somewhere ahead, the canyon curved back toward the base of the cliffs where Aelom had fallen. If she could find a slope or a split in the stone, maybe—

A branch snapped behind her.

She froze.

Not the wind. Not an animal.

Too clean. Too precise.

Fallah dropped to one knee, her hand brushing the ground. She reached outward with the Force — not far, just enough to listen.

Three signatures. Maybe four. Heavy. Synchronized.

Clones

They'd caught up.

She stood slowly, muscles coiled, heart pounding in her throat.

I shouldn't have turned back.

The thought came again — but it didn't matter anymore. The trap was already closing.

The forest pressed in around her like a closing fist.

********************************************************

Every step forward came harder now — not because of distance, but because the air itself seemed heavier. The trees were too tall. The light too thin. The canopy had darkened into a cage of pale bark and whispering branches, and the wind had gone silent, as if the planet itself was holding its breath.

Fallah moved fast but low, her fingers brushing trunks and moss as she passed. Her cloak snagged on a thorn branch — she tore it free without stopping. Her breath came shallow through clenched teeth, and every few paces she winced, favoring her wounded side. She didn't bother hiding it anymore. Speed was her only ally now.

She was getting closer.

She could feel Aelom again — faint, distant, but alive. His presence pulsed through the Force like a fading heartbeat. But it was twisted now, too raw. The calm she once knew in him had frayed. Where there had been potential, now there was pressure. Heat. It was like sensing a storm brewing in someone's soul.

But there was no time to dwell. She had made her choice. She had turned back. And now the consequences were catching up.

Fallah pressed herself behind a cluster of dark-stemmed trees, forcing herself to pause. She closed her eyes, pulled the Force close — let it ripple out around her in a controlled, shallow wave. She wasn't looking for Aelom this time.

She was listening for ghosts.

And there they were.

Three signatures. Moving in a wide arc behind her. Spreading. Pacing. No words. No thoughts. Just the cold discipline of soldiers bred for pursuit.

The clones had found her trail.

She gritted her teeth and opened her eyes. Sweat ran down her brow, stinging her eyes. Her pulse beat against the inside of her skull like a war drum.

This wasn't a battlefield. It was a hunt.

And she was the quarry.

Her saber was still at her side — but she didn't reach for it. Not yet. A fight now, in this terrain, with her ribs already damaged and her limbs stiff? It would be short. Loud. Deadly.

She needed an exit.

Her eyes scanned the brush. The slope ahead bent downward — possibly toward one of the canyon's feeder gullies. If she could reach it, slide partway down, and vanish into the fog… maybe she could lose them. Maybe.

Another branch snapped — closer this time.

Fallah backed away, careful not to rustle the leaves behind her. She moved to the edge of the slope and crouched low.

She could hear them now — the faint static of helmet comms, the occasional brush of plastoid against foliage. Cold. Methodical.

They weren't running.

They didn't need to.

Because she was already cornered.

**********************************************

The first blaster bolt came from her left — sharp, blinding.

Fallah spun, saber igniting in a single motion. Green light flared in the gloom, catching the bolt midair and sending it shrieking into a nearby tree trunk, which burst into flame.

Then the air erupted with fire.

Three more bolts followed — one high, one low, one aimed directly at her chest. She moved by instinct, feet slipping in loose soil, blade slashing through each attack with practiced form. Her ribs screamed. She grit her teeth and kept moving.

They were close. Much closer than she'd realized.

No commands. No shouts. Just movement — precise and deadly. Shapes in the trees, armor glinting, rifles steady.

She dipped into the Force — not for calm, but clarity. A flicker of presence to her right — moving fast.

She turned toward it, stretched out her hand, and pulled.

The clone nearest her was yanked off his feet, armor clattering as he flew forward — directly into her reach. In the same motion, she spun behind him and shoved his body in front of her, just as another wave of fire erupted from the trees.

The clone took the bolts square in the chest.

He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Fallah let him fall and moved.

The second was closing fast — aggressive, direct, shoulder lowered to slam into her. She stepped back once, hesitated — tricked him — then slashed upward in a fast, brutal arc as he lunged.

Her saber struck beneath the helmet line, slicing through plastoid and bone.

Two down.

The third was waiting.

He stood across the clearing now, armor dirtied and blaster steady — CT-9423.

Strake.

He didn't fire. Not immediately.

Fallah held her blade low, breathing hard. Blood dripped from her forearm where a bolt had grazed her earlier. Her shoulder burned. Her ribs were useless.

Strake didn't speak. His visor gave nothing away. He just stared — calculating. She felt his intent through the Force, but it was clouded. Not indecision. Not fear.

Control.

Why isn't he firing?

Fallah shifted her stance. "You waiting for permission?" she hissed.

He didn't answer.

Then, without warning, he lifted his blaster and began to circle — slow and deliberate. He wasn't shooting to kill. Not yet. He was testing her. Pushing her. Every step was a provocation. Every movement an insult.

She stepped forward.

He stepped back.

Then he fired — but not at her head. Not at her heart.

She blocked the bolt, closed the distance, swung.

He parried with the stock of his rifle, spun, struck her side with the butt — pain shot through her ribcage like lightning. She gasped, dropped low, slashed his thigh. The blade glanced off armor. He grunted, stepped back again.

She chased him, driven by instinct now. Rage flickered in her chest.

He's playing with me.

And that was when it hit her.

Not the realization.

The shot.

A sharp, snapping crack from the trees — different angle. Different weapon.

She didn't even see it — only felt it.

The bolt slammed into her shoulder. Her body twisted from the impact, the saber flying from her grip as she fell sideways into the dirt. The pain was instant — white, hot, blinding.

She hit the ground hard, rolling onto her back, gasping.

Strake stepped forward, rifle raised again.

From the treeline, a fourth clone emerged — the marksman. His armor was sleeker, lighter. Modified for speed. Fallah could barely make out his silhouette through the haze of pain.

Her arm wouldn't move.

Her saber was meters away, blinking weakly in the dust.

She looked up at Strake.

He stood over her now, blaster aimed at her chest. He didn't fire. He just… watched.

Like he was waiting.

Fallah's vision blurred. Her ears rang.

Somewhere far away, she thought she felt Aelom again.

Anger. Pain.

Her own chest ached.

She tried to move. Failed.

Strake's voice came through the helmet — low, even.

"We have her."

Then blackness swallowed everything.

******************************************************

The silence felt heavier than the fight.

Aelom knelt in the dirt, chest heaving, blood running warm down his thigh and shoulder. The saber was gone — shattered — pieces still smoldering where he'd dropped them. The kyber crystal sat in the center of it all, pulsing faintly with a light that wasn't green anymore. Not even close.

It glowed a molten orange. Like fire trapped in glass.

His hand trembled as he reached for it. The crystal was warm to the touch — not hot, but alive, almost like it could feel him. He didn't want to pick it up. But he couldn't leave it behind.

Fingers closed around it.

His knuckles were cut and bloodied. His nails were chipped. He didn't remember half the fight, only the end. The blur of motion. The weight of the blade in his hand. The scream inside him that hadn't come from his mouth.

He looked at his hands again, turning them over slowly.

He didn't recognize them.

The crystal pulsed once. He closed his fist around it and turned away from the bodies.

Then he heard it.

Up above — distant blaster fire.

Sharp. Repetitive. Short bursts.

His heart lurched.

Fallah.

He tried to reach out with the Force — tried to feel for her — but it was like pushing through wet stone. There was something… a shadow, a shiver. Then it was gone.

"Master…" he whispered, but no one answered.

The hill was too steep. His leg wouldn't take it. Even if it did, he couldn't fight again. Not like this. Not after that.

So instead, he crawled to the nearest clone.

The man's armor was scorched and split down the chest. Aelom turned his head away as he searched the belt pouches — medpac, stim, field dressing. The clone's hand twitched once in death reflex, and Aelom flinched hard before cursing under his breath and ripping a plastoid plate from the fallen man's shin guard.

It wasn't Jedi-like.

He didn't care.

The silence felt heavier than the fight.

Aelom knelt in the dirt, chest heaving, blood running warm down his thigh and shoulder. The saber was gone — shattered — pieces still smoldering where he'd dropped them. The kyber crystal sat in the center of it all, pulsing faintly with a light that wasn't green anymore. Not even close.

It glowed a molten orange. Like fire trapped in glass.

His hand trembled as he reached for it. The crystal was warm to the touch — not hot, but alive, almost like it could feel him. He didn't want to pick it up. But he couldn't leave it behind.

Fingers closed around it.

His knuckles were cut and bloodied. His nails were chipped. He didn't remember half the fight, only the end. The blur of motion. The weight of the blade in his hand. The scream inside him that hadn't come from his mouth.

He looked at his hands again, turning them over slowly.

He didn't recognize them.

The crystal pulsed once. He closed his fist around it and turned away from the bodies.

Then he heard it.

Up above — distant blaster fire.

Sharp. Repetitive. Short bursts.

His heart lurched.

Fallah.

He tried to reach out with the Force — tried to feel for her — but it was like pushing through wet stone. There was something… a shadow, a shiver. Then it was gone.

"Master…" he whispered, but no one answered.

The hill was too steep. His leg wouldn't take it. Even if it did, he couldn't fight again. Not like this. Not after that.

So instead, he crawled to the nearest clone.

The man's armor was scorched and split down the chest. Aelom turned his head away as he searched the belt pouches — medpac, stim, field dressing. The clone's hand twitched once in death reflex, and Aelom flinched hard before cursing under his breath and ripping a plastoid plate from the fallen man's shin guard.

It wasn't Jedi-like.

He didn't care.

*********************************************************

He wasn't sure how long he slept.

The blackness was warm at first. Quiet. It wrapped around him like a blanket pulled too tight — thick and still and safe in a way that only numbness could be. The canyon, the clones, the crystal — they all slipped away. He didn't dream. He didn't think. He just floated.

Then came the voice.

Low. Raspy. Alien.

He didn't understand the words, but the tone was careful — curious, not cruel.

Aelom's eyes cracked open for a second. Blurred shapes hovered in the haze above him. Tall. Broad-shouldered. One knelt beside him. Blue skin. Sloped muzzle. Familiar.

The Lasat.

His mouth moved. He tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

He slipped under again.

The second time he woke, there was fire behind his eyes.

Someone gripped his leg — firmly, but not unkindly. Another set of hands pinned his shoulders. His back arched, mouth opening in a silent scream just before—

POP.

The pain was incandescent. His vision went white. A voice barked something sharp and clipped, and then something shifted — not just in his leg, but in his chest.

He blacked out again before the scream finished leaving his throat.

The third time, the world returned in pieces.

He was lying on a padded surface — not stone. Something woven. His cloak had been removed. A thick salve clung to his ribs. His leg was wrapped tight in bark and cord, immobilized but aligned. A crude splint, yes — but a proper one. The throbbing was distant now, dulled by something humming faintly under his skin.

There was a low murmur of voices nearby — two, maybe three. He couldn't understand them. The consonants were sharp, the cadence tribal, but something in the tone felt deliberate. Measured. Like they were debating.

About him.

Aelom turned his head slowly. A shape moved in the dark — tall, robed, backlit by a soft orange glow.

The same Lasat from the canyon ridge.

He stood just outside the small shelter, speaking in low tones to someone unseen. One hand rested lightly on a long wooden staff, the other gestured as he spoke — not with anger, but with a quiet urgency.

Another voice replied. Feminine, older, harder. Still unseen.

Aelom's heart pounded. His fingers found the edge of the bedding beneath him and curled tight.

Was he captured?

Was this kindness… or something else?

His mind tried to reach the Force — just to feel it, to reach Fallah again — but the moment he did, pain bloomed behind his eyes and his strength vanished like breath in frost.

Still broken.

Still too far.

He clenched his jaw.

The Lasat turned toward him, just slightly. As if he felt the shift in Aelom's breath. Their eyes met — yellow and green, tired and blazing.

There was no malice in the gaze.

But there was expectation.

Aelom tried to sit up. Failed.

The Lasat stepped forward, silent.

Then darkness took him again.

He didn't know how many times he came back after that.

Once, he tasted water on his lips. Another time, someone dabbed his forehead with a cool cloth. Once, he awoke long enough to hear a different voice — younger, curious, speaking in Basic with a thick Lasat accent.

"He doesn't look like a warrior."

Then sleep again.

Then pain again.

Then silence.

In one waking moment, he caught the edge of his own reflection again — this time in a polished metal plate propped against a nearby wall. His face was gaunt, blood dried at his temple, and his eyes…

His eyes burned.

Molten orange flickered just beneath the green, barely visible — but real.

The crystal was still with him. Wrapped in cloth. Tucked beneath the binding on his arm.

He hadn't lost it.

He wasn't sure if that comforted or terrified him.

The last flicker of waking came with motion.

He was being lifted. Carried.

He could feel the sway of limbs beneath him, the rhythmic bounce of cautious steps on uneven ground. The sound of the canyon faded — replaced by something else.

A tunnel? A cave? The air grew cooler. The scent of smoke and herbs hung faint in the air.

He opened his eyes — just a crack.

Above him, the stars.

Blurred. Distant.

He blinked.

A silhouette moved above him — the same Lasat figure, cradling him over one shoulder like a wounded brother.

Aelom tried to speak. His throat made a sound like dry leaves.

The Lasat looked down at him. Just once.

Aelom thought he saw something there.

Recognition.

Then, the canyon vanished.

*******************************************************************

Aelom awoke to silence, broken only by the steady drip of water.

His body didn't feel like his own — stiff, leaden, wrapped in layers of cloth and pain. The scent of smoke and herbs clung to the air, thick enough to choke on. Light filtered through slatted wooden walls, casting angled stripes across the rough-hewn floor. Morning, maybe. Or something like it.

He shifted, groaning. Every muscle ached. His leg throbbed like a drumbeat out of time.

And yet... he was still alive.

The last thing he remembered was being carried — the slow rhythm of someone else's stride, a cool breeze across his face, the stars.

Now, he was in a hut. Simple. Round. No doors, just a thick hide pulled across the entrance. A clay bowl of water sat beside him, half-filled. A bundle of herbs hung from a rafter, swaying gently in the draft. His cloak lay folded at the foot of the bedding mat, his boots beside it.

His lightsaber — or what remained of it — rested on a flat stone shelf nearby. The hilt was cracked open, scorched down the middle, the emitter blackened and split. Inside, nestled in a dented casing, the kyber crystal pulsed softly beneath a cloth shroud.

Aelom turned his face away from it.

He didn't want to look.

Didn't want to feel it.

A few minutes later, the hide lifted and a figure stepped inside — young, tall, clearly Lasat. The boy couldn't have been older than Aelom by much. Pale lavender fur, yellow eyes, a loosely wrapped cloth vest. He carried a small basket and a wary expression.

When he saw Aelom awake, he paused, then knelt slowly and set the basket down. Inside: dried strips of something like meat, two hard rolls, and a pouch of what smelled like tea.

"You eat?" the Lasat asked in halting Basic. His voice was deep but uncertain.

Aelom nodded once, throat dry.

The boy left the food and backed out without another word.

Silence again.

Aelom reached for the water bowl with a trembling hand and splashed a little across his face. The cold made him flinch.

He looked down at his reflection — saw nothing but blurred color.

Still, he pulled the bowl away quickly.

He didn't want to risk it.

Didn't want to see if the orange was still there.

Even though he knew — somehow — it wasn't.

His eyes had returned to green. He could feel the change. The fury had gone, for now. The fire banked low.

But the memory lingered.

The screams.

The saber humming like a storm.

The crystal cracking under the weight of his will.

Aelom closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall.

He was alive. But something inside him wasn't.

The food was bland. Tough, too — dense strips of dried meat that tasted like dust and wood smoke, chased by hard bread that scraped his throat going down. But it was warm. Real. Sustaining.

Aelom ate slowly, forcing his body to remember how. Every bite sat like stone in his stomach, but he welcomed the ache. It meant he still had something left to feel.

Once the bowl was clean, he pulled the blanket aside and looked down at himself. His robes had been replaced with a simple tunic and loose cloth trousers, both stitched from heavy, homespun fabric. His ribs were bandaged tight beneath it. His leg — splinted and braced from hip to ankle — was swaddled in layers of padded bark and cloth.

It looked primitive.

But it worked.

He reached for his cloak, folded beside the bedding mat, and tugged it into his lap with one arm. It took effort to pull it on. His limbs moved like they belonged to someone else — stiff and slow, every motion pulling at pain.

Then, with a grunt, he tried to stand.

His good leg found the ground. The other shifted, and the second he bore weight—

A sharp cry broke from his throat. He pitched forward.

Strong arms caught him before he hit the ground.

The young Lasat had returned — silent as a shadow. He steadied Aelom with surprising strength, brow furrowing as he eased him back down.

"You're not healed yet," the Lasat said, voice low. "Rest for now."

Aelom clenched his jaw but gave a short nod. No thanks. No more words.

The Lasat lingered only a second longer before retreating again.

********************************************************************

Time passed — hard to measure, but Aelom felt it in his body.

Days, maybe a week.

He was permitted small freedoms: limping laps around the hut, supervised visits to the fire circle in the courtyard. Always the same Lasat by his side — the youth with careful hands and fewer words. Aelom never caught his name.

Each day, a little farther. A little stronger.

But never alone.

When he strained too far, the pain punished him. He'd collapse by the stream or slump beside a carved post, breath shaking, arms trembling. The Lasat would always appear within moments, watching, waiting — never scolding, just present.

The others… kept their distance.

He saw them in glimpses — tall, furred figures with solemn faces, watching from doorways or rooftops. Their homes were carved into the canyon walls, connected by wooden bridges and rope ladders, smoke curling from stone chimneys. Children stared at him with wide golden eyes. Elders nodded without warmth. He heard singing once — low and harmonic, like a prayer passed mouth to mouth.

But no one spoke to him.

Not truly.

He wasn't one of them.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

Night fell like a shutter drawn over the world.

The firelight from the village cast a low orange glow against the slats of Aelom's hut. Wind whispered beyond the walls, stirring dry leaves and distant chimes. Inside, the silence pressed down — heavy, intimate, suffocating. He sat hunched in his corner, arms wrapped loosely around his stomach, leg splinted and propped, breath slow and uneven.

His saber — or what remained of it — lay on the floor beside him, wrapped in coarse cloth, the fractured hilt concealed. But the thing it held… that he could still feel.

The kyber crystal.

Not shattered, no — still whole. But changed.

He hadn't bled it — not intentionally. That took focus. Purpose. Rage channeled into will.

And yet… it had started. Somehow, the crystal felt different now. Warmer. Heavier. Like a coal smoldering in the dark, waiting for a gust of wind to turn it white-hot.

Aelom turned his face away, but it didn't help. The heat sat in his chest like a buried sun.

He reached out and unwrapped the saber, hands shaking slightly. The hilt, warped and scorched, split along its core. The emitter was beyond repair — maybe salvageable for parts, but the weapon it had once been was gone.

His fingers brushed the crystal inside. It pulsed softly. Not red — not yet — but the green was tainted, the hue clouded with flickers of molten orange.

Just like his eyes had been.

His jaw clenched.

And with that came the memories.

The cruiser.

The alarms.

Veteran clones — men he'd bled beside, trained beside, trusted — turning without hesitation. No hesitation in their eyes. No questions. Just orders. Fire. Fire. Fire.

He remembered the heat in his limbs as he fought them.

The way his blade found gaps in armor without thought.

The way he didn't hesitate either.

And then the canyon — two more clones. Trained killers, disciplined. One laughed before he pulled the trigger. Another called him "traitor." They kicked him, pinned him down.

Demanded he betray Fallah.

And he had answered with fury. Not calm. Not balance. Not peace.

Fury.

He had let the Force rip into him like a storm, drawn the saber with a shout and turned it loose. He had watched them die — one bisected, one crumpled with his throat cut by heat.

And he felt good doing it.

Aelom's hands trembled.

His chest felt tight.

He dropped the hilt and turned away, fingers clawing through his hair, digging into his scalp.

"I didn't…" he whispered. "I didn't want to…"

But the truth was there. He had wanted to. In that moment, nothing had ever felt more natural.

And it broke him.

The sob caught in his throat before he could stop it. Sharp, sudden. His eyes burned.

Tears followed — hot and angry and full of shame.

He curled forward, clutching his sides, the breath knocked out of him in waves. His shoulders shook. His body wracked with a grief too big to name.

He didn't know if he was crying for Fallah… for the Jedi… for the clones… or just for himself.

He had survived everything.

But for what?

To be alone? Broken? Watching himself become something he didn't recognize?

The Force had always been a constant — quiet, distant, but there. Now it was like standing at the edge of a void. No warmth. No balance. Just the echo of what he used to be.

His tears stained the mat beneath him.

He didn't hear the hide lift. Didn't notice the Lasat youth standing just outside the threshold. The boy stayed silent, watching — not intruding, not moving.

And then, just as quietly, he left.

*********************************************************************

Time passed.

The sobs slowed. His body emptied itself of grief the only way it could — through exhaustion.

Aelom lay back, barely breathing, sweat clinging to his brow.

The saber remained where he'd dropped it. The crystal still pulsed.

Not red. Not yet.

But closer.

He stared at the ceiling of the hut. Watched the candle's shadow flicker and fold. And somewhere deep inside, he promised himself:

No more.

No more steps toward that edge.

No more slipping.

But even as the thought formed, doubt trailed behind it like smoke.

Eventually, sleep came. It didn't comfort him.

But it claimed him all the same.

The morning light filtered through the narrow cracks in the hut wall, thin and gold like it was afraid to touch him.

Aelom blinked slowly.

His face felt tight, his eyes sore. The blanket was half-pushed off his chest, his splinted leg stiff and throbbing. He didn't remember falling asleep. He barely remembered stopping the tears.

But something in him had cracked last night — and through that crack, clarity was starting to leak.

He sat up slowly, breath catching as the pain in his side reminded him how broken he still was.

There was no food yet. No sound of footsteps. Just silence.

Until there wasn't.

The hide at the doorway rustled.

Aelom looked up.

It wasn't the young Lasat this time.

The silhouette that stepped in was broader, taller — and familiar.

It was him.

The Lasat hunter from the canyon. The one who had given them a night. The one who had told them to leave.

Now he stood in the doorway, staff slung across his back, arms folded.

His expression hadn't changed since that first meeting — wary, unreadable, stern. But his eyes lingered longer now, and not with suspicion. With expectation.

"You're awake," the hunter said.

Aelom gave a small nod. "Barely."

"Good. Then hear this."

The Lasat stepped forward, each footstep deliberate, weighty. He stopped a few paces away and crouched low, resting one arm on a bent knee.

"You don't belong here," he said plainly. "Once you can walk, you leave."

Aelom met his gaze. "I'm not healed yet."

"You will be."

"And when I'm gone?"

"That's not my problem."

Aelom stared at the floor for a moment. Then raised his eyes again, slow and searching.

"Is the cruiser still here?" he asked.

The hunter's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"The one in the sky. The Venator. It was here when we fell. Is it still around?"

There was a pause — a breath too long.

Then: "Yes. Still patrolling the southern ranges. Dropships come and go. They haven't left orbit."

Aelom's jaw tightened.

He didn't look away.

"I want to steal a ship from it."

The hunter blinked. Slowly. "You want to what?"

"I need off this world. I can't keep hiding. Not here. Not in these mountains. If the Empire is hunting Jedi, they won't stop. I'll bring danger with me wherever I go — even if I don't want to. But if I can reach another planet—"

"—you'll bring it there instead," the Lasat interrupted. "You don't even know where to go."

Aelom didn't flinch. "No. But staying isn't safer."

The hunter stood again, folding his arms.

"You're not ready. You're still limping like an old man. You fall over putting on your boots."

"Then I'll train."

"You'll die."

"Then I'll die trying."

There was silence again. Not heavy. Not hostile. Just... still.

Finally, the Lasat gave a grunt. "Foolish."

But he didn't say no.

He turned for the door. Paused.

"You have maybe a few weeks before they sweep this range again. If you want to do something that reckless, you better stop crying and start climbing."

And then he left.

The hide dropped shut behind him.

Aelom stared at it, breath shallow, heart pounding — not from fear, but from something else.

Resolve.

It was foolish. Reckless. Maybe impossible.

But it was a goal. A reason to stand. A direction for his fury, his guilt, his grief.

He looked down at the broken saber on the mat.

Then, slowly, reached for the splint on his leg.

It was time to start again.

*******************************************************

The wind tugged softly at the edge of Aelom's tattered cloak as he stood on a ridge just beyond the village, overlooking the dense forest below. His leg, once swollen and useless, now held steady beneath him — still stiff, still aching, but solid enough to carry weight and intent. His breath came slow, measured. Focused.

Strapped to his back was a scavenged clone trooper chestplate, mismatched and scorched. The helmet hung from his hip, dented and faded but still serviceable. Bits of armor — forearm plates, a shin guard, a blackened utility belt — completed the patchwork disguise. The rest of the armor had been too damaged, or too bloodstained, to wear.

What he couldn't take from the dead, he shaped himself. Painted over insignias. Filed down sharp edges. Anything that might help him blend in — just long enough to slip through the wolf's den without being eaten alive.

His saber, still broken, lay in its pouch beside the remains of the kyber crystal — now clouded, faintly glowing with that strange molten orange hue. He'd tried more than once to fix the hilt, piecing it together with parts from clone tech and village scrap. But he didn't have the right tools. Or the right knowledge. Or maybe… maybe the crystal no longer wanted to be wielded.

So he made a choice.

At his side, tucked into a sling, rested a DC-17 blaster pistol — stripped from one of the clones he'd killed weeks ago. It felt wrong in his hand. Cold. Efficient. But he'd forced himself to train with it. Slow at first, then faster. Not for vengeance. Not for cruelty. But for survival.

He was done waiting to feel whole again.

Behind him, the hunter approached, silent as ever. He stopped a few paces away, observing Aelom like one might a strange animal that had wandered into the village and refused to die.

"You're leaving soon," the hunter said, not a question.

Aelom nodded.

"You'll be alone."

"I've been alone since the crash."

The hunter didn't challenge that. Just tilted his head. "You've grown stronger."

"Stronger doesn't mean better," Aelom replied.

A long silence followed. The wind shifted.

Finally, the hunter said, "The cruiser still lingers. Patrols rotate every three days. One of their landing parties is based in a ravine near the canyon. If you're going to make a move, that's where you start."

Aelom's grip tightened on the sling at his side.

"I only need one chance."

The Lasat stepped closer, his voice quieter now. "And if they see through it?"

Aelom's gaze drifted to the forest, where mist curled like breath between the trees.

"Then I stop running."

*****************************************************

The trek to the ravine began at first light.

Aelom moved with careful rhythm — cloak drawn tight, blaster secured beneath it, helmet hidden in his sling until it was needed. Each step through Lasan's wild terrain was purposeful but cautious. The forest here was different than the slopes near the village. Denser. Noisy in some places, deathly quiet in others. As if even the trees were listening.

The weight of the clone armor pieces slowed him, the uneven plating not meant for his frame. But he wore them anyway. Not for protection — for camouflage. And for the first time in weeks, he didn't feel broken when he walked. He felt... unfinished. Still healing. But healing forward.

He didn't speak. Didn't reach for the Force. Not here.

The closer he drew to Imperial presence, the more he instinctively hardened. Not emotionally — tactically. Breath under control. Footsteps measured. Eyes scanning every angle. The habits of a Jedi on a warfront returned like muscle memory, even if his weapon was wrong and his stance just slightly off without a saber at his belt.

Hours passed. The sun crept higher, then dipped again toward afternoon.

By the time he reached the final ridge overlooking the ravine, his thighs burned and his leg throbbed under the strain. He ignored it.

Aelom dropped low, crawling the last few meters on his belly through the underbrush until the cliff's edge opened up before him — and the ravine came into view.

His breath hitched.

A steel-gray LAAT gunship squatted on the flat canyon floor like a predatory insect, flanked by temporary supply crates, comm towers, and a mobile uplink unit still unfolding its satellite dish into the wind. Troopers moved in pairs and clusters below — no more than a dozen in sight, all in Phase II armor marked with red unit insignias and pauldron ranks.

A command tent had been pitched between two slabs of stone near the base of the cliff. Aelom saw another squad prepping for patrol — helmets off, laughing. He watched their movements closely. Studied the cadence. Noted which way they looked first when stepping outside the tent. Noted how long it took for one of them to light a ration heater and how fast the uplink operator reacted to the beeping alert from his console.

There was no security fence. No mines. This wasn't a battlefront — it was a staging area.

But still. This was a nest of wolves.

Aelom lowered his head just below the brush and exhaled, slow and quiet.

He'd expected more. But that didn't make it easier. If anything, the casual nature of the clones below unsettled him more than a fortified bunker might have. These weren't soldiers on high alert. They were men doing a job — efficiently, confidently, without fear. Because no one feared Jedi anymore. Not now.

He pulled the stolen helmet from his pack and rested it on the ground beside him.

This wasn't suicide.

It was a start.

*************************************************************

The forest moved in rhythm with the wind, tall golden leaves whispering overhead as Aelom waited in the undergrowth. Hours had passed. His body was still, but every muscle was taut beneath the mismatched armor he wore. The blaster rested at his side. Powered. Silent. Alien in his hands.

He hadn't moved in nearly a full cycle of patrol rotations. But he'd learned the timing now. Clones in this sector followed routine. Predictable. And one in particular — a perimeter scout with blue stripes across his chestplate — always wandered a little farther than the rest.

And there he was.

Boots crunching dry leaves. DC-15S rifle loosely slung. The clone's visor swept the brush with casual discipline, but no urgency. Another day, another empty perimeter check.

Aelom watched him pass. Counted ten steps. Then twenty. Waited.

He struck from the blind side — low and fast.

The clone had no time to scream. Aelom's arm clamped across his neck from behind, the blaster muzzle jammed under his ribs, trigger depressed once. A hiss of energy. A burst of heat.

The body went limp.

Aelom held him a moment longer, breathing hard through his nose, then lowered the trooper slowly into the brush. No sound. No alarm. No one saw.

He stared at the body for a long second.

Then went to work.

The armor was too clean. He dirtied it with ash and mud. The scout's rank insignia was scratched off with the corner of a knife. He took the comm puck, the coded ident-tag chip, and what little rations he could carry. The clone's voice wouldn't help him — but the body language, the way he'd moved — that could.

He practiced for an hour. Rifle slung just-so. Chin tucked. No eye contact. Keep moving.

By nightfall, Aelom had the armor on. The scout's helmet clicked into place, sealing him in.

He wasn't a Jedi anymore.

He was a shadow walking in the skin of the enemy.

*************************************************************

The blaster rifle was heavier than Aelom remembered.

It pulled awkwardly against the strap on his shoulder as he moved toward the ravine, each footstep placed with purpose. The clone armor chafed under his tunic, unfamiliar against his skin. His breaths came steady through the helmet's filtered intake, the heads-up display flickering in the lower corner with comm static he didn't dare activate.

He descended the canyon trail just as the next dusk patrol rotated out. Four troopers passed him on the path, their body language relaxed. One gave a casual nod. Aelom mirrored it and kept walking, silent, his hands steady despite the pounding in his chest.

No one stopped him.

Not yet.

The landing zone opened around the next bend — lights mounted to jagged stone, crates stacked high in makeshift supply rows, clone officers barking orders near a portable command post. The LAAT gunship still rested in the clearing's center, its engines ticking as they cooled from a recent run. Another squad prepped for a return flight near the forward gear rack, checking weapons, adjusting pauldrons.

Aelom moved along the far wall, hugging the shadow of a stacked comms array. He kept his head low, pace measured — not fast enough to look nervous, not slow enough to draw attention.

Every clone here walked with confidence. The kind born from routine, not pride. And Aelom had lived long enough among them to know that pretending to belong mattered more than a code cylinder or chain of command.

He spotted the access ramp leading up to a perimeter tower, where two pilots stood chatting beneath a flickering holo-map. Beyond them, a narrow ridge extended to a landing pad — a small platform where a transport shuttle sat idling. Not a warship. Just a personnel hauler. But it would get him off the ground.

One step at a time.

He walked past the pilots without turning his head. Just another trooper doing his rounds. The comms in his helmet chirped once — static chatter between two squads coordinating a recon sweep. He didn't touch the earpiece. Didn't engage. The moment he spoke, it would all fall apart.

Two officers moved from the command tent as he passed it — one of them turning slightly toward him.

Aelom dipped his chin, offering a sharp, wordless nod as he'd seen others do.

The officer didn't reply. He barely noticed.

Good.

Aelom made it to the edge of the landing pad and stopped, pretending to adjust his rifle sling as he scanned the shuttle. Two clones stood guard at the base of the ramp. Not casual. Alert.

He couldn't bluff past both.

He'd need a moment — just one — where one of them stepped away.

Then he could vanish into the cargo bay.

He exhaled through his nose, low and slow, watching the patrol shifts in motion.

And waited for his chance.


Aelom moved when the timing seemed perfect.

One of the clones at the shuttle ramp was called away by a comms ping, turning and striding off toward the perimeter array. The remaining guard stayed posted, rifle slung low, visor pointed down the canyon path. Aelom didn't hesitate. He angled his stolen helmet lower, kept his posture stiff, and walked directly toward the shuttle as if he belonged.

Three paces from the ramp, the guard turned his head.

"Hold up."

Aelom froze.

The clone took a step forward. "I don't recognize you. This isn't your patrol zone. Let me see your ident-tag."

Aelom kept his hands visible, slowly lifting them, palms out. "Command sent me. System check—"

The clone's tone sharpened. "That wasn't an order. Tag. Now."

Aelom's mind raced. He couldn't overpower him. Not in this armor. Not injured.

So he reached for the Force.

His voice lowered, calm and deliberate, laced with the training passed down from Master Eldrel. "You don't need to see my tag. I'm cleared to board."

For a breath, the clone's posture slackened. His grip on the rifle loosened slightly. Aelom could feel the sway starting to take hold.

Then—resistance. Like pushing through thick oil.

The clone's voice shifted. "Wait—what the hell did you just do?"

The spell cracked.

Aelom barely got his hands up before the rifle butt slammed into his chestplate, sending him staggering backward. The clone shouted — "INTRUDER!" — and lunged again. Aelom ducked, elbowed him in the side, drew the blaster from his belt.

Too slow.

The clone tackled him into the side of the ramp, driving the wind from his lungs. The helmet display cracked on impact. Alarms across the landing zone began wailing as red floodlights bathed the canyon floor in siren light.

They were on him.

The clone grabbed for his weapon again — Aelom drew his stolen blaster and fired point-blank. The shot took the clone in the neck joint, burning through the under-armor weave. He collapsed without a sound.

Aelom didn't wait. He sprinted — limping from the impact — up the shuttle ramp as another pair of clones shouted from across the clearing.

"Hey—HEY!"

Blaster bolts flew. One grazed his shoulder pauldron, spinning him into the shuttle wall. He slapped the door control, and the ramp hissed upward just as a second shot pinged off the metal behind him.

He stumbled into the pilot seat, throwing the corpse of a slumped officer to the floor. The controls flickered.

Systems online.

He didn't ask permission. His hands moved automatically — throttle open, fuel cells charged, lift engaged.

The engines screamed.

Outside, a clone pounded on the hull before the ship lurched upward, scattering crates with the force of its exhaust. Blaster fire chased him into the sky — but the ship held.

Altitude climbed.

Aelom gritted his teeth, scanning the radar. The cruiser loomed above — its vast underbelly shadowed by nightfall. Red lights pulsed along the hangar's docking rails. He banked hard, teeth rattling in his jaw as he rode the arc of his climb like a blade rising through water.

Comms chirped. A voice crackled through the shuttle: "This is Hangar Command — unrecognized shuttle, respond and identify."

He ignored it. Not enough time to mimic a response.

The hangar doors ahead began to close.

He slammed the throttle forward.

The shuttle screamed through the narrowing gap, scraping sparks from its hull as it cleared the lip of the bay and crashed hard into the hangar deck, skidding sideways. Sparks and smoke filled the air.

Alarms flared.

Aelom coughed as he kicked the hatch open and staggered out, blaster drawn. Clones in the hangar turned toward the noise — some shouting, some reaching for weapons — but he dove behind a crate stack before they could fire.

Now he was inside.

Trapped, but inside.

He yanked off the ruined helmet, sucking air, heart pounding like a war drum. His body screamed from impact — old wounds flaring, new ones forming — but he was alive.

And aboard the very machine that hunted him.

Smoke choked the air.

Aelom coughed hard as he staggered into cover behind a crate near the edge of the hangar deck. Sparks showered from the shuttle's impact trail. The ship had skidded hard across the durasteel floor, gouging lines into the plating, crates overturned in its wake. Sirens wailed. Lights blared.

His hands trembled, blood still thundering in his ears.

Then he saw them—two flags on the far wall, high above the blast doors.

One was faded, but proud: the crest of the Galactic Republic, its clean lines and silver filigree framed in honor.

Beneath it, hanging newer but colder, was the mark of the Empire—black, angular, sharp like a wound carved into steel.

Aelom stared.

His breath caught in his throat.

This is what we fought for? This is what they replaced it with?

He shook his head violently and forced himself to focus.

Clones were shouting. A squad had formed up, rifles sweeping the perimeter, boots thudding in tight rhythm. They moved with brutal coordination — no hesitation, no chatter. This wasn't a search.

It was an execution squad.

Aelom slid lower behind the crate stack, mind racing. He had seconds — maybe less.

One wrong move and he was ash.

He scanned the crate beside him. Markings: "MED SUPP — C-479." He pried it open and found a broken stim pack, a roll of sealant, and—he grabbed it—a fragment of torn armor with a rank tag still attached.

Footsteps neared.

"—came from the shuttle!" one clone barked. "He's not a pilot. He's an imposter."

Aelom clenched his jaw.

No more hiding.

He surged out from cover and fired.

The first bolt struck a clone in the knee — down. The second missed, but the third hit a control panel on the wall, flooding the deck with hydraulic steam and throwing off their line of sight.

He ran.

Shots followed, burning hot past his head.

Aelom ducked under a service gantry and shoulder-rolled behind a support pillar. He fired blind to keep heads down, then bolted again. He saw a stack of fuel canisters and dove toward them—

Too late.

Something slammed into his ribs.

He hit the floor hard.

A boot crunched down on his forearm, pinning him. Aelom cried out, trying to twist free, but two more clones closed in fast. One struck him in the temple with a stun baton. His world spun.

Another jabbed a rifle barrel into his back.

"Don't move!"

Aelom's head lolled sideways. His vision blurred.

Then—impact. His side flared with pain as another kick landed. They grabbed him, rough hands yanking the blaster away, pulling his helmet off.

"Got him!"

"Commander, we have the intruder."

Fallah, Aelom thought, even through the haze. I'm sorry.

Then blackness took him.

***********************************
The dream was fire.

Aelom stood in the ruins of the cruiser — bodies of clones scattered in the corridor. His lightsaber burned molten orange. Fallah was ahead of him, screaming his name — but she faded like mist the closer he came.

He looked down.

His hands were stained red.


He woke with a gasp.

His mouth was dry, his limbs stiff and heavy. The cell around him was silent — durasteel walls and a low energy field at the door. There was no window, no vent, no light but a blue bar over the entrance.

He was alone.

His wrists were raw from binders. His ribs throbbed — bruised, but not broken.

He leaned forward and let his forehead rest against the wall.

For a long time, there was only silence.

And then—

It stirred.

Not a sound.

Not a voice.

A feeling.

Warm. Distant. Familiar.

His eyes opened slowly.

It wasn't memory. It wasn't trauma.

It was her.

Fallah.

Somewhere aboard this ship, in all this steel and fire and blood — she was alive.

He couldn't hear her voice. Couldn't reach her clearly. But her presence rippled like soft waves under ice — restrained, flickering, faint… but real.

Aelom closed his eyes and breathed.

After everything — the betrayal, the canyon, the screams, the fire — something in him held firm. Not peace. Not clarity.

But hope.

And maybe that was enough.

*********************************************************************

The silence in the cell had grown thick — like gravity itself was pressing against the walls. Aelom sat still on the bench, ankles shackled to the floor, his head bowed slightly but his eyes sharp. He could still feel her… faint, distant… but real.

That flicker of Fallah's presence was the only thing keeping him anchored.

The lock hissed.

Aelom looked up, spine straightening instinctively.

Bootsteps. Not the mechanical weight of clones, but sharper, deliberate.

The Admiral stepped into view.

She was tall, dressed in a high-collared Imperial officer's uniform of charcoal and bone-white trim, her hands clasped behind her back with clinical elegance. Her dark hair was pulled tight, her expression unreadable — but her eyes gleamed with interest, not cruelty. Not yet.

Two clone troopers flanked her, their visors fixed on Aelom. Neither spoke.

The Admiral regarded him for a long moment.

"A child," she said at last, tone smooth as glass. "And here I was expecting something more... formidable."

Aelom said nothing.

She took a single step forward, clasping her hands loosely in front of her. "You're quiet. Good. Listening is valuable. Far too many Jedi spent their final moments talking."

Still, he didn't respond. His fists clenched at his sides.

The Admiral tilted her head, eyes narrowing.

"I wonder…" she said. "Was it pride or desperation that sent you crawling into my hangar bay like a rat?"

Aelom's gaze flicked up. "You're not the one I'm afraid of."

Her lips curved — not into a smile, but something close. "Of course you're not. You're Jedi. You fear nothing. Feel nothing."

She let that hang in the air a moment before reaching for her belt.

"Or so you tell yourselves."

From beneath her long coat, she unclipped a lightsaber hilt — worn, but familiar.

Aelom's heart froze.

Fallah's saber.

The curved grip, the emerald-inlaid accents, the way the power switch was slightly misaligned from a long-ago battlefield repair.

It was hers.

He stood up without meaning to, straining against his ankle restraints. The chains rattled, metal grinding against metal.

The Admiral ignited it.

The green blade snapped to life with a mechanical hiss, casting shifting shadows across the cell. It buzzed with restrained fury — a guardian's weapon in a predator's hands.

"She screamed your name, you know," the Admiral said, voice low. "When we found her."

Aelom's throat tightened.

"Of course, she tried to fight. Quite well, too. But she bled like anyone else. The only difference was how long it took."

She stepped closer. The blade hovered inches from Aelom's chest.

"I wonder if she bled for you."

Aelom glared into her eyes, but he didn't move.

"Do it," he said.

The Admiral's brow lifted.

"Do it," he repeated, louder. "You don't want information. You're not here to interrogate me. You came here to gloat. So go ahead. Kill me."

She didn't.

The green blade remained steady, humming low — a traitor's lullaby.

Then she stepped back and deactivated it. The cell went dark again.

"I've found," she said, returning the hilt to her belt, "that death is not the worst thing a Jedi can experience."

Aelom stayed standing.

"You're going to learn," she said as she turned to leave, "what it means to be forgotten. Not martyred. Not remembered. Just… discarded."

She paused at the door and glanced back over her shoulder.

"Tell me — when you saw her last… did she even try to come back for you?"

The door hissed shut behind her.

And Aelom finally sat, breathing hard — every part of him shaking, not with fear…

But fury.

And guilt.

And something far more dangerous.

***************************************************

The cold hum of the Venator's detention wing echoed through the Admiral's boots as she strode toward the command post. A faint crimson hue from the overhead lights reflected off the durasteel walls — a subtle signal that the status of the Jedi prisoners had been elevated to "high threat."

Her officers stiffened as she entered. One stepped forward with a datapad.

"Transmission received, ma'am," he said. "Inquisitor-designate has entered the system. ETA: three hours."

The Admiral didn't take the datapad. She already knew the details. Her expression tightened.

"So the jackals circle."

The officer hesitated. "Orders, ma'am?"

She turned slowly, her eyes narrowing with resolve. "I don't intend to hand over two Jedi on their knees. Especially not after the stunt that whelp pulled in my hangar."

She thought of the young Zabrak — ragged, wounded, but far from broken. He had somehow breached their perimeter and nearly escaped with a clone's blaster in hand. That kind of defiance, if properly weaponized, could be cracked into loyalty. Or shattered for demonstration.

"Bring the female up from her cell," the Admiral said, voice even. "Isolate the main observation room and purge the databanks after. No surveillance. I want this off record."

The officer looked uneasy. "Protocol mandates the Inquisitor—"

"I said purge it." Her voice was razor sharp. "Do you believe the Inquisitor will reward us for simply keeping the Jedi in chains? No. He'll take the glory. The credit. And he'll leave us behind like every other corpse of the Republic."

She stepped forward, lowering her voice to a dangerous calm.

"I want them broken before he arrives."

The officer nodded stiffly. "Yes, Admiral."

She turned away, the edge of her coat slicing the air behind her.

************************************************************************
Down in the holding cells, Fallah Eldrel stirred against her restraints.

She hadn't spoken since capture. She'd refused to respond to clone interrogators, medical officers, or even the Admiral herself. Her silence wasn't defiance — it was preservation. Every word spent was a piece of strength lost.

But today, something shifted.

She could feel it — a tremor through the Force, distant but nearing. A shadow moving toward her. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

Then the cell door hissed open, and the lights grew brighter.

Two shock troopers entered.

Her body tensed, pain radiating from the deep wound in her shoulder — the mark of a sniper's bolt weeks prior. She didn't flinch. Pain was a teacher.

The clones didn't speak. They just unlocked the restraints from the wall, keeping her wrists and ankles bound. A black hood was pulled over her head, sealing her in total darkness.

And yet… beneath the synthetic fabric, she breathed deeply. Not because she was calm.

But because the storm was coming.

***************************************************************

Fallah was hauled forward into the heart of the ship — not to the brig, not to an interrogation cell, but to a chamber she hadn't yet seen. Her boots dragged along smooth deck plating before the hood was yanked from her head, flooding her vision with stark white light.

The room was circular, sterile, and brightly lit — walls padded to absorb Force impact, ceiling reinforced, and guard placements tucked into shadows behind observation slits. A containment room. One built specifically for Jedi.

The restraints around her ankles clicked free. Her knees buckled slightly, but she straightened before either clone had the chance to catch her. The only sound was her breathing and the quiet hum of the systems around her.

And then she saw her.

Admiral Harven Drel stood alone on the far side of the chamber. No guards at her side. No weapon in hand. But her presence filled the room like a vice — composed, poised, and watching Fallah as though examining a broken instrument.

Fallah held her gaze without a word.

Drel took two calm steps forward. "Still silent, Master Eldrel. Even now."

Fallah said nothing.

"You Jedi were always so good at cloaking yourselves in stoicism," the Admiral continued. "Detachment. Discipline. But I wonder how long that mask holds when everything underneath is crumbling."

Still nothing.

Drel circled slowly, her boots tapping softly on the reinforced floor. She came to a stop only a few feet from Fallah — just out of reach. Her eyes narrowed as she reached to her belt and unlatched something.

Fallah's breath hitched for the first time.

From the Admiral's gloved hand, a lightsaber hilt emerged — elegant, dented from battle, and unmistakably familiar. It was her lightsaber.

Drel ignited it.

The brilliant green blade sprang to life with a sharp snap-hiss, casting its glow across both their faces.

"Recovered from the canyon," the Admiral said, turning the hilt slightly in her hand, admiring it. "You lost a great deal of blood there, didn't you? The clones said you moved like a ghost… until the sniper hit you."

Fallah's jaw clenched.

Drel took a step closer — the blade still humming, its tip angled low but forward. "He's still alive, you know. Your apprentice. Aelom."

Fallah's nostrils flared.

"I've seen him up close," Drel whispered. "He's not a Jedi anymore. Not really. You should've seen the way he killed my troopers in that canyon. Ferocity… anger… desperation. It was beautiful."

She brought the saber up, the emerald blade now held between them.

"I wonder," she mused aloud, "how much of you he remembers when he closes his eyes. Or does he only see red now?"

Fallah's voice was quiet, trembling with control. "You don't understand him."

"No," Drel said, smiling. "But I will."

She raised the saber high — and for a split second, Fallah thought this was the end.

But it wasn't. The Admiral paused, staring into her eyes… then deactivated the blade.

She clipped it back onto her belt and turned away.

"We'll see how silent you remain when I bring him in here. Let's see what your mask looks like then."

She gestured to the clones. "Put her back. But keep her awake."

Fallah didn't resist as the hood returned — but her hands, still bound, curled into fists behind her back.

Because in that moment… her silence wasn't about preservation anymore.

It was about patience.

*****************************************************************

Back in the dim silence of his cell, Aelom stirred. The cold of the floor pressed into his skin, the stink of recycled air and durasteel thick in his lungs. Pain ebbed through him like a tide, but it wasn't what woke him. It was her. A whisper through the Force — faint, but unmistakable. A flicker of warmth buried beneath exhaustion and dread. Fallah. She was close. Alive. And afraid. His fists clenched slowly, the bruises still raw. They hadn't broken him yet. But something told him… they were going to try.