Chapter Twenty-four

Despite the small war intermittently going off in the distance, large portions of the city were relatively untouched, people still going on with their lives. That made it child’s play for Anaïs, along with Crix Vondarr, to find a small, out of the way café, in which to grab a late lunch and plan.

They only had four hours until Crix’s grandmother, Melea Vondarr, was to be executed, nearly an hour already spent making their way across the city towards the military complex where she was kept, the center of the Baron’s power, with the planet’s capitol building only a few streets away. While it might have originally been nearby as a way to remind the president that he was not a dictator, a way to remove him or her if need be, now it was the opposite, a protective force nearby to defend his regime.

But they were now in a café, with some of the local food that Crix had suggested, a kind of noodle soup with crunchy spiced somethings floating on top. “What are we gonna do?” the boy whined loudly, not for the first time, while Anaïs quickly ate, not knowing if they’d be compromised and have to leave quickly. “You wouldn’t say anything all the way here-”

“Because I was thinking,” she cut him off between bites. “Now be quiet, we don’t want to attract attention.” The farther they’d gotten away from that trapped street, the smoother their trip had been, areas where the Force subtly warned danger becoming less and less frequent, however, casting her attention towards their destination, the small uneasiness once again sprang up. Not as obvious, but still a feeling that she needed to be careful.

However, despite the time she’d had to plan, she still had nothing. “I need to sneak in, get her, and get her out. But I don’t know the layout of the place. I don’t know how many people there are. I don’t know anything.”

“You mean we need to sneak in, right?” Crix asked, and she shot him a look. “I can help!”

Knowing this was going to happen, and half the reason she hadn’t said anything until now, Anaïs sighed. “How fast can you run? How high can you jump? If things go bad, we’re going to need to leave in a hurry. I can carry your grandmother, I can’t carry both of you.”

“But, can’t you just do what you did before, and let us in?” he asked, clueless. “Just ‘I’m going to let you in!’” he said in a horrible approximation of her voice. “And then they’d go ‘I’m going to let you in’ and then we’re in?” he finished, trying, and failing, to sound like the guard she’d killed, no, the guard she’d murdered, she thought with a wince.

Glancing around without moving her head to show she was checking, no one was listening, so she felt safe asking, “What do you know about Jedi?”

“I know a lot!” Crix protested, quieting down as she subtly waved her hand. An older man, reading his datapad, glanced over at the two, read her annoyed expression, and smiled to himself, shaking his head as he went back to reading. “I know you’re magic, and help people, and have laserswords,” her tag-along pronounced.

She waited, but that was it. “Okay. That’s. . . practically nothing. We’re not ‘magic’, we use the Force, an energy that runs through all living things-”

“Sounds like magic,” the boy huffed, and Anaïs considered Mind-Tricking him into just staying here for the next few hours, so she could pick him up on her way out. A strong mind could break free of a Mind-Trick in an hour or two, but she had a feeling he’d stay in one for days.

“And using the Force takes energy,” she tried to continue.

Crix nodded. “Like Magic.”

Magic doesn’t exist, she wanted to say, but they only had so much time, and she only had so much patience. “And with training a Jedi can do more, with less energy, but there’s still a limit. I’m a Padawan, an apprentice Jedi, and while I’m better than most Padawans, I’m still limited,” she admitted freely. It wasn’t arrogance, she knew she was better than most, the only ones more skilled were Padawans who’d been with their Masters for years, visiting the Temple for one reason or another. Jorel was almost as good as she was, and the other Padawans, who hadn’t yet had masters, hadn’t been able to hold a candle to her.

“But you were awesome, with the boom, and pshhhh, and the ‘you’ll tell me what I want to know’!” he argued, and it took her a moment to realize the first two were him making sound effects for the attack on the apartment. “Are you telling me that real Jedi are better?”

“I am a ‘real Jedi’,” she disagreed, annoyed. “But, yes, Master Lucian is much better than I am.”

Crix frowned, “Then why can’t he help?”

She motioned towards the sounds of distant explosions. “Because he’s busy.”

“Wait, those aren’t fireworks?” the boy asked, and Anaïs just stared at him. “Oh. Ohhh. But, um,” he paused, glancing about, looking incredibly suspicious as he did so, “why aren’t people freaking out?”

She shrugged. “Because they’re used to it? Because they’re hoping if they don’t react, the government won’t think they’re involved? It doesn’t matter, what matters is it’s just us, and I don’t even know the layout of the place I’m supposed to sneak into. I don’t need it, but it’d help. My point is that, every time I use the Force to capture someone in a Mind Trick, it’s like you’ve. . .” she paused trying to scale the example to the boy’s fitness. “Ran down half a street. One, fine. Two, okay. Thirty at once? And it’s more tiring the harder it is to believe.”

The boy across from her frowned, before reaching into his pockets, taking out what looked like several small datapads, fitting them together, individual screens lighting up. “I, um, go ahead and eat. It’s not as good cold. I guess I should too. Just. . . gimme a minute.”

With nothing else to do, she turned her attention back to her food. Reaching outward with the Force, there was a low level of danger, but that was true across this entire city, only having been in it so long she’d started to notice. It was like being outside on a day that was only somewhat warm. At first, you might not realize it was, but after a few hours, when you started to sweat and tire, you realized it was actually a little bit hot.

Focusing on the bits of shadowy Presence that enfolded hers like a cloak, she followed the connection back to her Master. He seemed. . . amused? Amused, and slightly annoyed, though she could almost feel him as he felt her feeling him, the energy of him shifting to something that would be hard to put into words, but held a general sense of. . . concern.

I’m fine, she tried to push to him, unable to convey it effectively, doing the exact opposite of her training to resist the Dark Side, pushing a bit of herself out from behind her defenses, and sending to Master Lucian. I’m trying.

Anaïs wasn’t sure if he understood what she meant, but a sense of confidence/caution/worry came back to her, and she supposed that was all she was going to get, and tried to take comfort in it.

“Got it!” Crix crowed, breaking her from her thoughts, and she realized she’d finished eating. The boy removed part of his rig, flipped it over, and pushed it to her. The small screen flickered, showing a wireframe map that spun, showing first the outside of the complex, then started to zoom in on individual sections. “Okay, prison, prison. Probably here?” he questioned, the screen moving to one of the larger side buildings, showing hallways twisting back and forth.

“How did you get this?” the padawan asked. She tried to settle her mental image of the idiot she’d been dragging along with her, attracting attention and stumbling into ambushes left and right, with someone who had the capability to pull this information out of seemingly nowhere.

The boy looked up, slurping his noodles, which, oddly, helped. “Building plans,” he answered, mouth still somewhat full, as if that explained anything. Swallowing, he continued, “Government keeps records of everything. Grabbed a pic of the place, searched, there it was. Looks like there’s a secure elevator though. It’ll need a code.”

Anaïs frowned. Her master could somehow use the Force itself to just put in the numbers needed, but she had no idea how he did so. Maybe she could try and find a guard, drag him to the side, and Mind-Trick him into giving it to her. But could she leave him alone, or would she have to kill him too. She’d seen what they’d done, they deserved it, but she still didn’t want to-

“Four-Seven-Three-Six-one,” Crix said, breaking her from her thoughts.

“Uh, what?” she asked, her training letting her remember the numbers, but she had no idea what they meant. Unless. . .

“The elevator code,” the apparent slicer informed her, confirming her thoughts.

She had to stare at him. “How? How did you find that?”

Shrugging, the boy replied, “Found the login on the local holonet for the military’s interior portal to their programs. Most have a default login for admin privileges, and a lot more people than you think never change it. Got in, looked up the scheduling compiler they used to manage their duty roster, found who was on ‘prisoner duty’, found their login, logged in, sent a message to his boss ‘double checking’ the code, and got the real one. Also, got him punished with extra duty next week, but, we’ll be gone before that’s an issue.”

“I. . . only understood about half that,” Anaïs admitted. “But. . . okay.”

“So I can come with you?” Crix pressed.

The Jedi shook her head. “What, no!”

“But I got you what you needed!” he whined.

She sighed. “And thank you, but that doesn’t let you move like I need to. If you can somehow watch and help from a couple streets over, sure, but not with me.” She paused, thinking, Actually. . . “New plan. We’re gonna buy two comm-pieces, and get a speeder. When I get your grandmother, we’re going to need a fast way out, and if you’re waiting that’ll make things much easier.”

Crix nodded, “Oh. . . okay. But, how are we going to buy a speeder that fast?”

Anaïs smiled at her helper, and couldn’t help but channel her teacher. “Who said anything about buying one?”

SWPP>

Anaïs waited on the rooftop overlooking the military complex. Three streets away, Crix sat in the closed-top speeder, watching the area through the interior cameras. He could help, but while the Baron’s forces hadn’t closed up the loopholes in their network to let information slip out, they had made it so the boy couldn’t remotely overload systems.

She had two hours before execution, so she had time as she crouched, watching the area she was about to try to sneak in to. The entire complex was surrounded by a perimeter fence, fifteen feet high and topped with razor sharp wire, with thirty foot tall watchtowers overlooking the interior courtyard, but their attention was focused outwards currently, to the streets surrounding the military base.

Inside was an impressive display of force, with over a dozen hovertanks prepared and ready to be deployed, soldiers moving back and forth, military speeders arriving and leaving. Anaïs had been daunted by the task ahead of her, but her Master, and the Force, thought she could, so she obviously had the capability to do so.

She just didn’t know how.

Meditating, almost reflexively, she centered herself in the Force, ready for a suggestion on what to do. The Force was silent, as if this was a test, or maybe it was because she already know she needed to do. Focusing, the area in front of was alight with danger, so thick it might’ve been a wall that extended a hundred feet tall.

Then the wall rippled.

Frowning, she started to focus more. Not harder, as trying harder would just disrupt her focus, counter-intuitively, but stilling herself even further. Blocking out other distractions, she focused on the danger ahead of her, more than just as feeling, but trying to see it.

It took several minutes, but she did.

The obstacle course. she realized. It’s just like the obstacle course! Specifically, the drones, seeing where they’d fire a moment before they did so. This was more diffuse, not a firming path of definite probability but a sweeping mist of possibility. The more she concentrated, the firmer it became, until she saw not a morass of danger, but the same sweeping sense of warning she’d gotten from the Sniper, only from a hundred different sources.

Each soldier’s attention shifted, changed, sometimes in wide-sweeping arcs, sometimes in minute adjustments. The shifting, interlocking, dancing patterns played out in front of her eyes, some vaguer, where a moment of slow movement wouldn’t be noticed, some more defined, where to be caught inside would lead to injury, if not death.

It was beautiful.

“Ana? Ana, are you there?” Crix’s voice crackled over her earpiece, a cheap thing with only a couple of miles of range, but enough for their purposes.

“What is it?” she snapped, her focus wavering for a moment, at first struggling to keep it, destabilizing it further, before calming herself, allowing it to reassert itself.

“Oh, um, are we going to start?” he asked, unsure.

Anaïs sighed. “Yes, I’m looking for an opening.”

“Oh. Okay. We’ve only got two hours,” he reminded her, and she promptly ignored him.

Letting out a long, slow breath, she let herself fall into the Force, watching the patterns of danger, looking for a corridor she could pass through. A couple were incomplete, but. . . there.

Taking off at a run, Force singing through her body, Anaïs reached the edge of the rooftop, shoving herself with a Push that blasted the roof behind her clear of debris. Surging forward, she flew in a flat arc, crossing the seventy feet to the edge of the complex, clearing the fence and dropping in a roll into the courtyard. Ignoring Crix’s voice in her ear, she silently followed the shifting, unfolding path in front of her, a bubble of safety as dozens upon dozens of soldiers went about their duties.

Not quite at a run, Anaïs passed between tanks, around patrols, ducking and sliding behind a speeder for a moment as the bubble of safety suddenly shrank, the driver glancing her way as she wasn’t quite quiet enough, her own actions shifting the fabric of what would be that she was trying to ride.

The patterns shifted, but a new way opened, and she took it, moving further around, but still with a way to her target building. More soldiers, moving around, allowed her to dash around their vision lines, getting closer and closer, before she hit an area of unsurety that she couldn’t avoid, slowing to a calm, relaxed walk, even as internally she was chanting please don’t notice, please don’t notice, but the field of danger never tightened, and she was once again able to dash forward, the muscles in her legs straining just a little.

She was at the last part, which would require her to scale a watchtower, and leap from that into an open window, but she wasn’t moving fast enough, the back of the bubble of safety nipping at her heels. Instead of climbing it, Anaïs launched herself upwards in a Force Jump, getting ready to hit the side of the tower, the guard looking the other way.

But she pushed too hard.

Instead of softly landing on the watchtower’s metal wall, hand lightly grasping as feet gently pressed down to let her jump again, she hit the side with a loud, ringing thunk, the metal deforming slightly under her enhanced physique, her palm slamming into the top of the waist-high wall, the bones in her hand aching as they grounded her momentum.

The waves of danger suddenly shifted, a dozen different people turning to look at the sudden sound. With no way out, she jumped higher, flipping herself on top of the watchtower’s roof, going prone as she tried to be still, and make no sounds. Jorel had a technique that would let him divert attention, even if someone looked directly at him, but she’d never learned it, never getting the hang of it, and hating herself for not working harder at it now.

“What was that?” the guard asked, turning and walking over to where she’d hit. “The hell? What dented it?”

“Hey!” someone else called, one of the soldiers on the ground. “What was that? A bird?”

The man below her gave a carrying, disbelieving snort. “Kriffing big bird if it was. You see anything?”

As she laid there, the danger started to firm around her, more and more, descending down on her like a crushing stone trap like the stories of old. From her position, all it’d take is for the guard on the next tower over to look her way, and, as the guard held a yelled conversation with the soldiers below, he was going to. “Help!” she hissed. If she got spotted, she might be able to get to Melea, but if they locked down the elevator, she was kriffed.

“Got it!” Crix replied, followed by the sound of furious typing. She could see the guard that would spot her glance her way, look away, stop, and start to turn.

From the other side of the complex, an alarm started to sound, and the patterns of possibility shifted, everyone’s attention forcefully diverted. After only a moment’s hesitation, to make sure, she rolled to her feet, took two loud, booming steps, and leapt once more, arrowing in for the empty window.

This time, she made it.

The guard of the watchtower was looking up in confusion, not at her, and, letting out a deep breath, she looked around the empty room, and the door which felt safe, taking it down into a hallway. Knowing where she needed to go, it was easy enough to go down the right hallways, only once having a sense of danger, with a safe doorway that let her duck inside until a man, striding with purpose, passed her by.

Soon enough, she was at the elevator, which itself wasn’t guarded. The fact that it looked like a normal wall might’ve been part of it, but with the blueprints, as well as the Force guiding her, she was able to flip open the hidden number pad in seconds.

Putting in the code, 4-7-3-6-1, she held her breath, not getting a sense of danger, but that didn’t mean it would work, only that it wouldn’t lead to her being at risk of injury.

It didn’t work.

“The code’s wrong!” she hissed, panicking a little, not sure what to do next.

Crix’s reply of, “No it isn’t!” was just oh so helpful.

Feeling the vague sense of danger start again, someone coming, Anaïs told him, “I put in the code. Nothing happened.”

“Did you put it in ri-” he started to ask.

“Yes I put it in right!” she snapped in a whisper, looking over the numberpad, seeing a pair of red and green buttons labelled ‘Clear’ and ‘Enter’. Taking a risk, she hit the green ‘Enter’ button, only for the wall to smoothly open, revealing an elevator.

Without a word, she slipped in, and hit the down button.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Crix said, worried.

“. . . I figured it out,” she admitted.

“Ah. Didn’t put in right the first time, did you, Ana?” the boy asked, far more smug than he had any right to be.

Anaïs sighed. “Do you know what cell she’s in?” she questioned trying to change the topic.

“No, but it’s pro-shhhhh” the boy’s voice faded off in a hiss of static.

“Okay, just me, then. I can do this,” she told herself, pulling her saber. Centering in the Force, she felt the danger settle around her, but lightly, telling her she’d have a moment to act. Prepared, the doors opened, and three soldiers, one with a blaster at rest, two more behind a desk, all looked at her.

“Freeze,” she commanded, darting forward, activating her lightsaber. All three did, and she could feel the effort it took pull at her waning reserves of strength, but her training allowed her to move without stumbling, cutting down one of the desk-guards, and then the armed soldier. The third, seeing his oncoming death, yanked free of her control, hand starting to come down on a large red button.

“No!” Anaïs yelled, and Pushed, throwing him backwards away from the controls. The guard hit the back wall with a thud, but landed, lunging for the button once more. She darted forward as well, saber leading, and caught his arm, cutting right through it, body-checking him as he dropped, screaming, holding what remained of his mutilated limb.

With another flick of her saber, she ended his suffering, the Dark once more flowing up and around her, but compared to her murder, it was practically nothing.

Looking at the console, there was a list of prisoners, which was useful, showing Ms. Vondarr was in cell 16. Moving down to it, she slid open the thin metal viewport, revealing a sad old woman, sitting on a cot, gazing back at her.

The door had a heavy lock, and none of the guards had worn anything that’d looked like it could open it, but Anaïs had a master key.

“Stand back,” she warned, and flicked her saber back on, melting through the metal, letting her easily swing the door open. “Melea Vondarr?” the padawan asked.

“Yes, Jedi?” the woman asked in turn.

Smiling, glad she’d finally found her target, Anaïs stored her saber. “I’m afraid your execution will have to be cancelled. I’m here to get you out of here.”

Mrs. Vondarr stood a little stiffly, and smiled back. “Well, let’s get going then.” Following Anaïs out, she commented, “Hmm, you look a little young to be a Knight. I didn’t know that Master Daljend had taken a Padawan.”

“Who?” the padawan asked, not recognizing the name.

Melea paused, seeing the dead bodies of the soldiers. “Oh, I suppose you’re not. Knight Rhos, then?” Anaïs shook her head, having at least heard of the Bith Jedi. “Master Eddels?” Another head shake. “You are a Jedi, correct?” the old woman asked, moving to the controls.

“Yes?” Anaïs replied, waving to her saber. “Master Lucian sent me to get you to safety.”

“Master. . . oh. I suppose it’s too late to return to my cell,” Mrs. Vondarr sighed, and the padawan hoped she was joking. “Explains the corpses, at least.”

Blinking, affronted, Anaïs, objected, “What was I supposed to do?”

“That mind control you Jedi are so fond of,” the geriatric shrugged. “Though I suppose, with your master, even after years of training you’d not choose that option.”

Taking a moment to center herself, thinking why did I save her again? Right, Master Lucian asked me to, Anaïs stated, “I’ve been an apprentice for months. I’m sorry I didn’t save you the way you wanted. Now, let’s go. Your grandkid’s got a speeder waiting for us.”

“Oh?” the old woman perked up. “Grafan’s here?” Anaïs shook her head. “Daro?” Another head shake. “Rieva?” another. “Who?”

“Crix,” the Jedi told her, and was only somewhat mollified by the look of dawning horror on the older woman’s face.

“I’m. . . I’m so sorry my dear. He’s my grandchild but, well, he’s not exactly competent,” the information broker stated, and, while generally true, Anaïs felt the need to defend the boy.

A few hours ago, she’d agree freely, but Jedi needed to be fair. “He found the blueprints for this place, and the code for the door,” she offered, nodding at the look of disbelief on the other woman’s face. “Now, what are you doing, because we need to leave.”

“Setting the other doors here to open in half an hour,” the information broker informed her. “And, while you’re here, there’s somewhere I need to visit.”

Anaïs felt worry at that, but she had no idea if that was her own trepidation or a distant warning in the Force. Immediate problems, she could differentiate, but this? “Did you not hear me? We need to go,” she emphasized.

“Young lady,” Mrs. Vondarr stated in a chiding tone which reminded Anaïs far too much of the Temple Masters. “The Baron’s records are in this very building. If I can access them, my people can show the Republic what’s really going on here. Getting that data is more important than my life.”

Master Lucian’s words, about what her priorities needed to be, echoed in the padawan’s mind. How, if it came to her life, or Mrs. Vondarr’s, or even using the Dark Side to save Mrs. Vondarr, the padawan was to let her die. That was the only reason she nodded, hesitantly. If this woman thought this was worth her life, it very well might be, and, just as she would for the Temple Elders, Anaïs would take her at her word.

“Fine,” she sighed, moving to the closed elevator and putting in the code, remembering to hit the enter button, the door sliding open. “I’ll hold you to that.”

The other woman joined her, and they waited, awkwardly, as it rose, the sense of danger sharply rising. Preparing her saber, she saw the path of the bolts before the door opened, pushing Vondarr to the side, her own saber flashing out, intercepting the fire of the three guards waiting for them, sending their bolts back at them.

Two dropped, one dead and one injured, and the third flinched, which gave her enough time to dart forward and kill him with a single stroke, blade dipping down to terminate the guard that hadn’t died to his own attack, struggling to raise his weapon to shoot her. “Alright, now where?” the Jedi demanded.

“Ana!” Crix’s voice came over the comms. “I thought something happened to you! Did you get Grandma?”

“I did,” Anaïs replied, just wanting today to be over. “But can you tell us how to get to. . .” she trailed off.

“I already know where it is,” the older woman told her, stooping down to grab a blaster rifle from one of the dead guards without seeming bothered in the slightest, and bustled down the hallway.

Taking off after her, the boy asked, “How to get out? Weren’t you going to leave from the roof?”

“No, your grandmother has decided we’re not leaving yet,” Anaïs sighed, tensing as she started to feel someone coming, only for the older woman to turn around the corner and, without breaking stride, fired her weapon, the faintest sense of violent death showing she’d hit her target.

Thankfully, with whatever else was happening, there were very few people around. They’re more concerned with what my Master is doing, she realized, the infiltration she’d tried likely being impossible if the military’s attention wasn’t focused elsewhere.

“Yeah, she does that,” Crix sighed, and the Padawan wondered how she was going to pull this off. The two of them found themselves in a small room, a large terminal at one end, what looked like a bastardized ship’s computer set up as a processor.

“What is this?” Anaïs asked, closing the door behind them, thankful of the lack of any sign they’d come here particularly to lead soldier to them.

Melea Vondarr ignored her, striding up to the terminal, leaning over to start typing, data-feeds scrolling past faster than the Jedi could follow. Nothing happened for a long moment, before Anaïs heard the pounding of feet down the hallway, knowing an enemy was coming.

Centering herself, she waited, but they stopped on the other side of the doorway, and did nothing else. “What are you doing?” the Jedi asked again, with a bit more force.

“This holds the interior records for the Baron, at least some of them,” Mrs. Vondarr finally responded. “They aren’t connected to the outside, so they can’t be sliced. I’m connecting it, and telling a few of my friends the door’s open. You just do your Jedi thing, and stop the boys outside, will you?” the older woman asked, and Anaïs frowned, having the distinct feeling that she was being talked down to. The woman’s presence in the Force, faint as it was, was not a clean one, though she still better than most of those outside.

Speaking of those outside, the locked door was slammed open, the man who did so jumping out of the way, as two more tossed grenades inside the room. Tried to, before a pair of Force Barriers sprung up, bouncing the explosives back into the hallway. Another Barrier covered the door, as the soldiers tried to run, but the twin spheres erupted into fire, the flames splashing harmlessly against the construct even as the effort of keeping it up made the Padawan take deep, gasping breaths. Instead of into the room, the blast was funneled down the hallways, eliciting pained screams.

Anaïs winced, their continued agony not as sharply Dark as deaths, but spreading outwards like an oil-slick, staining the Force around them as she let the barrier drop the scent of roasting meat and burned hair billowing into the room. It took an effort to let both pass by her, but she did so, asking, “And how long is this going to take?”

Mrs. Vondarr tsk’d, “Children. So impatient.”

Resisting the urge to use the Force to get some answers the Jedi demanded. “How. Many. Minutes?”

“Just three more,” the information broker sniffed, as if even answering the question was something she shouldn’t have to do, and, once again, Anaïs found herself preferring Crix, something she hadn’t expected she’d ever do.

Moving to the doorway, she looked outside, a vague sense of danger telling her she could, ducking back in as blaster-bolts fired down towards her.

They have us surrounded, she realized, trying to think about where they were. “Crix, are we close to any exterior walls?” Anaïs asked, though she had a feeling she knew the answer.

“No. Ana, you need to go now,” the boy replied, sounding panicked.

Nodding, she turned back to the broker. “We need to go,” she insisted, only for the old woman to wave her away, not even looking in her direction.

And with that, Anaïs had a choice.

As a Jedi, she could outfight a dozen opponents, but she was only a Padawan. The fact that she’d gotten this far was amazing, and she knew that without her Master’s training, she never would’ve been able to. However, she was already tired, though she was still able to go for one last burst.

It was time to leave, but she’d be leaving the woman to die.

Concentrating, she reached out to the whisps of shadowy Presence that was her connection to Master Lucian. Need help, she sent, trying to convey her frustration, her position, her everything. If he told her to go, she would, but she didn’t trust her own judgement here. The sense of danger was slowly increasing, but not sharply, and she could cut her way through the floor to get out if she needed to.

Wait. Coming.

It came, strongly, tinged with shadows, but not the Dark, and clear as if he’d been right next to her.

Relieved, she nodded, opening her eyes as she waited. Looking at the wide-open doorway, she took her time reforming the Barrier across it, the gold-tinted rectangle much easier to put up and maintain when she wasn’t reacting in near panic.

In the distance, her Master’s Presence, less hidden than it normally was, started to quickly approach. Very quickly approach. “Ana, there’s something in the sky,” Crix said, voice shaking, though he was trying to hide it.

“Just wait for us, we’ll be there in a few,” she smiled, not even bothering to get annoyed at her shortened name. Just glad this was almost over.

She expected Master Lucian to tear through the defenses in between them, and help the pair of them get out. Or maybe draw attention away from them, letting them escape. What she didn’t expect was the ground to shake so hard she almost fell, Mrs. Vondarr holding onto the console for dear life as the ground seemed to buck, and for her Master’s Presence in the Force to explode outwards in an all encompassing maelstrom that howled around her, swirling peacefully tight against her skin, but tearing into everything else.

Turning, she saw Melea had frozen at her console, eyes wide in terror, and, following her instincts, Anaïs extended her own Presence in the Force to encompass the other woman’s. The pressure on Mrs. Vondarr seemed to ease, the information broker shaking her head and getting back to work, though her fingers shook.

The sound of weapons fire came through the walls, but explosions and impacts followed immediately, and Anaïs kept herself centered, her Barrier up, and waited. The ground shook a few more times, though never as much as the first, the weapons-fire starting to trail off, and she could see the soldiers that’d taken up positions at the hall run past, weapons abandoned, fleeing as fast as they could.

The fighting slowly faded, and Master Lucian’s Presence pulled back, the city-destroying tempest banked to a mere raging thunderstorm, and he left, heading in the direction of the Governor’s palace, thankfully in the opposite direction of Crix.

“I. . . I’m done,” Melea Vondarr announced, no trace of the smug superiority that’d been underlying her every statement. “My memory of that. . . man seems to have been kinder than it should have. I did not remember. . .” The woman, looking her years, glanced towards Anaïs. “Thank you, young Jedi, for. . . whatever you did. I think. I think it’s time we leave.”

Too happy to do so to remark that she’d wanted to do that very thing minutes ago, the padawan merely nodded, leading the woman up the deserted halls, the men immediately outside of their room having died while her Master attacked, and to the roof.

“How-” Mrs. Vondarr started to ask, giving out a yelp of surprise as Anaïs, infusing the Force into aching muscles, picked up the broker and ran for the edge, leaping, clearing the wall and getting to safety.

The streets were similarly deserted, not a soul in sight, though, thankfully, Crix was still in the driver’s seat of the enclosed landspeeder they’d ‘procured’. Putting the other woman down, the Jedi knocked lightly on the window, as the boy was staring straight forward, seemingly in a trance. His cry of shock and surprise was muted, thankfully, and as he looked fearfully up, it took him a moment to realize who she was.

“Ana!” he nearly yelled, still muted, before he realized what she needed and unlocked the doors.

She opened his, and told him, “I’m driving,” as the older woman moved to take the passenger seat. After a moment of hesitation, he got up, moving to the back, as she slipped inside, starting the engine, and pulled it out of its space, With the streets empty, it was easy to begin down the path they’d charted to avoid most of the checkpoints.

Explosions could be heard in the distance, causing the young man behind her to flinch, but Anaïs just focused on the last part of their plan, getting out. Falling into a near-trance, her companions blessedly silent, she was able to change their route on the fly, avoiding a few dangerous streets, coming across one that should’ve been blocked by a checkpoint, but instead the road was full of destroyed fortifications, wrecked speeders, and corpses.

Soon enough, though, they started to reach the outskirts, for once without issue, and she pressed on, ignoring Crix’s “Um, where are we going?” as she took the landspeeder into the tall grass, picking up speed as she cast her attention forwards. The sea of yellow parted inches in front of their vehicle, and fell back behind them just as quickly. “Ana?” he squeaked.

“Shush, boy. It’s a Jedi talent,” Mrs. Vondarr chided, once more falling silent.

Soon enough, she neared the hidden ship, the Force signature of her Master lingering on the vehicle he spent most of his time on a beacon to her, until she slowed, emerging from the grass. Letting out a low sigh, she brought the landspeeder to a stop, getting out and stretching limbs that had started to stiffen, as she’d pushed herself as hard as she had on the worst days of her training, but that same training is what’d told her that she could push herself this hard.

And, in the distance, but leaving the city, she could feel Master Lucian.

She’d done it.

“Um, did someone steal your ship?” Crix asked, looking around nervously, starting to walk around before bouncing off thin air with an “Ow!” falling backwards onto the grass. “It’s. . . invisible?”

“You could say that,” Anaïs grinned, using the Force to open the ramp, watching in amusement at the dumbstruck look on both her companions’ faces. “Come in, let’s get ready to go.”

They followed her aboard, looking around, and she led them to the bridge, taking her secondary seat and starting to spin up the engines. With how. . . loud they’d been, Master Lucian would probably want to leave as soon as possible.

The other two took seats, both looking at their screens, the old woman muttering to herself, “So that’s how he did it.”

The padawan, seeing that the boarding ramp was closing, nodded to herself, completing the pre-flight checks, since they had time, and her Master had made clear how, while you could trust in the Force if you were in a hurry, running checks stopped minor problems before they became big enough for the Force to warn you about in the first place.

She could feel Master Lucian’s Presence, once more hidden away as it normally was, enter the bridge, even though she couldn’t see anything. Putting her hands on the controls, she felt a sense of affirmation/amusement/approval from the man, so started to lift the ship up, charting a course to leave, navigating the orbitals in a way unique to piloting an unseen ship.

“Are we leaving your Master behind, Padawan?” the information broker asked, confused, but also seemingly relieved. A feeling that quickly reversed itself.

“No,” Master Lucian intoned, seeming to appear in his chair as if from thin air, “she is not. Now, Melea Vondarr, I believe we need to have a chat.”