23

happy thanksgiving! 🦃

enjoy the early chapter 💫

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gone.

The word echoed in Saedii's ears like a canon shot. Too loud. Flooding through her mind on a loop.

Gone.

"She's not here?" Kalth demanded, enraged.

"No," the Kaminoan said slowly.

One of Saedii's hands reached for her chest, where her heart was trying to fight its way through her ribcage. "Is she..."

She couldn't be dead. Not after everything that Saedii had done to keep her alive.

Maker, don't let her be dead.

"I am unsure," Nala Se said. "She escaped Wayland some time ago."

As quickly as the panic had crept up, relief and pride crashed in its place. Of course Omega had escaped. Hemlock wouldn't have been able to keep her for long.

"How long ago?" Saedii demanded. Her voice was less than a whisper.

Nala Se turned towards her. "Seven months ago."

Time slowed as that sunk in. As Saedii counted back seven months in her head, tracking every time that Krell had hurt her. Every time that he'd taunted her that Omega was getting the same.

Lies.

Omega had been safe all this time.

A horrible sinking feeling filled her gut. All the people she'd killed – Amp and Zatt and Cid. Lives that she'd offered up in Omega's place. All for nothing.

"Seven..." Saedii nearly fell to her knees.

Kalth grabbed her tightly by the arm, giving her a harsh shake. "Saedii, we need to go. This was a trap. Krell set all of this up."

But Saedii's mind was in turmoil. Every second, every moment – all of it had been for nothing. Krell had tangled her up in strings and played her like a puppet, strung up with lies and her own desperate desire to keep Omega safe. She'd let him manipulate her into killing. Into serving the Empire.

All for nothing.

"Saedii!" Kalth roared in her ear. "Krell is coming! We need to go now!"

"All those months on Nur, I thought she was here," Saedii murmured.

In the hall, an alarm suddenly sounded – piercing and sharp. White and blue lights flashed in the room, dancing along the edges of the broken computer screen. Catching the jagged edges, which sparkled like teeth.

"Your friend is right. You must go," Nala Se said.

"Omega," Saedii began, not sure what she was asking.

Nala Se stood, turning an unfathomable look on the two of them. "Hemlock and the Grand Inquisitor have been planning this for some time. They knew you would come looking for Omega. Your route back to your ship will be blocked.

Kalth cursed explosively. Desperation was bleeding out into the Force, nipping at Saedii's senses like frosty fingers.

"We're trapped," he snarled.

At the sound of his tortured voice, Saedii looked up. The sight of Kalth hands cawing desperately at his helmet reminded her of the danger. The silent bubble that had ensconced her in the wake of Omega's fate popped and the dangers stalked back in, baring their teeth.

There wasn't time for this. Not yet.

Now, they needed to find a new escape plan.

"There are other hangars," Saedii said, quelling her panic. Thinking back to the maps she'd poured over for the past few weeks. "Four of them. Which one is closest?"

Nala Se grabbed a holopad from a nearby cart, pulling up the base schematics. "The south hangar, but I cannot guarantee they will have the ships you require to get off world. It has not been used in some time."

"It's better than waiting here for Krell."

Bang!

Something heavy collided with the door, shaking it in its frame. Raised voices on the other side shouted for a droid to open the damn door!

"Tell me there's another way out of here," Kalth seethed.

Slowly, Nala Se shook her head.

He cursed again.

"We'll fight our way out then." Saedii's voice was grimly determined. Her gaze drifted over the holopad and she paused, thinking. "Nala Se, is that wired into the main system?"

"Yes."

"Can I see it for a moment?"

Kalth turned sharply towards her. "We don't have time for this."

"This won't take long."

A plan was forming in her mind – a terrible, half-assed plan that was more likely to get them killed. But she was no stranger to half-baked plans.

Nala Se handed it to her. Saedii's finger flew over the screen as she followed the path that she'd seen Tech use once before – pulling through the main system and slipping into the security patch. It was always easier to hack a system from the inside, Tech had told her.

With only a few taps, Saedii had access to the entire security system. Something warm flooded her chest as she glanced over the controls for the external and internal defenses. All idle but waiting.

Two quick taps and she engaged them all.

The piercing alarms increased in volume. Somewhere far away, ground-shaking booms began to echo as the long range canons flared to life, and from the hallway, the troopers shouted as the lights all extinguished, replaced with red emergency light. Doors slammed shut in successive order like marching feet.

That red glow reflected off Kalth's helmet as he looked down at her. "Good thinking."

"I learned from the best," Saedii remarked as she handed the holopad back to Nala Se. Then, more calm than she'd been walking in here, Saedii grabbed her lightsaber.

Her blood sung with violent promise. Body tensing. There was a hard fight waiting for them on the other side of these doors. A fight that could very well be their last if they weren't careful. If she had any hope of escaping and reuniting with Omega and the Batch, then she'd need to battle her way through whatever was waiting for her on the other side.

Kalth sensed her determination and engaged his own lightsaber. "Ready?"

"Yes." She hadn't felt so prepared in over a year. Ready to face whatever the Force had laid out for her.

One way or another, this was going to end.

"May the Force be with you," Nala Se murmured as she drifted towards the door, hand raising to the control. Her silvery eyes were cool with concern, but to her credit, she didn't voice any objections. It wouldn't have stopped Saedii anyway.

Tensing, lightsabers before them, Saedi and Kalth both nodded.

The door opened.

White light burst in the darkened hall, lighting up the doorway. Saedii became a whirl of movement as she blocked the shots that came for her chest, for her face. Heat sizzled against her cheeks as the blaster rounds died against her blade.

Three troopers slumped immediately, each with smoldering holes in their breastplates. Saedii leapt over them, engaging both blades in their deadly spin cycle as she fought off the new barrage waiting for them in the hall.

The dim red lights were dark, but after a year of darkness, Saedii's eyes were well-accustomed. She lunged for the white ghostly figures, slashing through armor and bone alike. Screams echoed in the narrow hall, grating against the deafening blaster fire that roared in her ears.

Close at her back, Kalth dispatched the troopers that tried to take her unawares. His blade flared brighter than the lights ahead, flashing forward with deadly accuracy.

Saedii flipped head over heels, dancing out of the way of the troopers that lunged for her. With deadly grace, she spun, taking them out at the knees. Blood washed along the floor, slick against the thick black soles of her boots.

She bolted up, impaling a trooper that tried to gun her down. Hot blood splashed her face, painting along her cheeks as she spun and took down the two troopers nearest to him. Their helmets bounced off their empty shoulders, rolling onto the dark floor a moment before their bodies followed.

Shivers raced along every muscle as she hacked and swung, moving on instinct. In her mind, flashes of fights following close behind Plo reminded her that she'd done this before – dozens of times. Except then, it had been droids that she'd cut through, not living breathing creatures.

The Force erupted from her raised hand, crashing down the hall and taking down the next contingent of troopers that tried to storm their way. As they struggled towards their feet, Saedii leapt up, landing in their midst.

In three quick flashes, they were all dead.

Blood sucked at her boots, sticky and thick against the floor.The bitter sharp scent of copper filled her nose, mixing with the smoldering remains of wires that hung from gaping holes in the walls – marks of the desperate shots troopers had tried to fell her with. Shots that had all missed.

Once the last body had fallen, Saedii turned, finding Kalth alone in the hall. The dead decorated the floor at his feet.

They both ran, following the path that Nala Se had set for them. As they did, the sirens continued to scream overhead, blinking in time to the red lights that flashed along the halls ahead of them.

At an intersection up ahead, the faint outline of a gatekeeper droid caught Saedii's attention.

It gave a panicked beep when it spotted them and shoved its scomp into the wall. Above it, the faint figure of a door edged out of its hiding place.

In a single deft move, Saedii launched her lightsaber down the hall. It spun in a vicious cycle – red and black, over and over in a single blur as it shot forward.

Sparks danced and there was a sharp scream as her blade decapitated the droid, burrowing blade-first into the wall at its back. The door halted its progress.

Kalth and Saedii ducked beneath it. Saedii's hand shot up and her lightsaber rocketed into her palm, still glowing. The droid's body sparked and smoked feebly at their feet and with a single beep, its lights went dark.

"Wait." Saedii knelt down, using her blade to carefully slice the scomp off high along the joint. She tucked it into her belt.

"That won't help." Kalth's voice was bitter.

Purposefully, Saedii shoved the scomp back into the outlet. Then, reaching out with tendrils of the Force, she spun the joint until there was a faint click and the door dropped behind them, sealing the hall.

"You were saying?"

He said nothing to that, though a brief flare of amusement lit through the Force.

They ran forward, following the slanting hall all the way down to the next junction. Here, the base felt less trafficked than what they'd left behind. More quiet.

There was a faint chill in the air. A hushed sort of silence that felt perverse, somehow. Saedii's head was on a swivel as they made their way into a darkened corridor without emergency lights – nothing more than a pitch-black yawning in the dark mountainside. Here, even the screaming sirens didn't seem to reach.

"Is this the only way?" Saedii asked reluctantly. Even with her sharp Daethii eyes, it was still hard to see.

"It's the fastest way." Lightsaber out before him, Kalth led the way.

Strange smells filled the air – putrid and decaying, like mold left unchecked. Or like dead bodies left out to the cold, damp mountain air. It choked down Saedii's nose, burning her throat.

Lining each side of the hall, thin planes of glass reflected back like chips of obsidian. Black and empty. A heaviness lingered in the Force around them – faint echoes of suffering. Of unimaginable pain.

Something moved behind one of the glasses.

Saedii spun, pointing her lightsaber towards the glass. Then sucked in a sharp breath.

A horribly disfifgured face stared back at her. Dark eyes wild and unfocused, the wide yawning mouth opened wide, revealing rows and rows of crooked teeth as it let out a keening wail. Long finger nails had grown out of crooked fingers, hooking into sharp claws nearly black with grime. Festering wounds along its sides wept green liquid that smelled putrid.

"What the hell is that?" Kalth demanded. His lightsaber was pointing towards it, too. In case it posed a threat.

The hands reached up towards the glass, nails skating down and filling the air with a grating sound. As it moved, Saedii caught a glimpse of tanned skin stretched taunt over the bones, leathery and gaunt.

"Karabast," she cursed. "I think it's a Clone."

Horror flooded through her as more pale, grotesque faces filled the glass doors lining the hall. Each one was more horrible than the last – faces missing eyes, bodies stretched too far, arms and legs decapitated and replaced with limbs from other species.

She remembered suddenly what Hemlock had said only a short while ago.

I have many test subjects here.

It was inhumane what he'd done to them. It violated every law of nature. Evil and cruel and immoral.

Had he done something like this to Omega? Maker, what if he'd hurt her? Experimented on her like he had to these Clones? What if she was one of the faces staring out, unrecognizable and broken?

"Calm down," Kalth snapped at her, breaking her out of her own worst fears. "We're not far from the hangar. We're almost to safety."

Right. She needed to be in control. Couldn't let her fear take over. Nala Se had said Omega escaped. Saedii had to believe her, for her own sake.

The faces peering out from the glass watched them as they ran the length of the corridor. The weight of their stares was as powerful as gravity, yanking at her chest. A part of her wanted to stay to help them, even as she knew there was nothing she could do.

When they came out into the next hall, the lights and alarms were a welcome sight. Anything was better than staring into the faces of people she couldn't help. Of Clones who'd been tortured far beyond anything in Saedii's wildest dreams.

Kalth stopped so suddenly that Saedii bumped into him.

"What are you –" Saedii started but broke off as the door behind them slammed shut. The sharp click of the lock sliding into place froze her blood.

Saedii noticed two things simultaneously.

The first was that Kalth's lightsaber was suddenly held protectively before him. That he'd angled himself to stand in front of Saedii. And the second was that the Force had grown icy cold and writhed with shadows.

"Hello Brother. Sister," a deep booming voice called.

No.

Standing halfway between Kalth and the hangar doors were three black clad figures. The Second Sister. The Ninth Brother.

And in front, holding his two double lightsabers, was Krell.

Krell's mismatched eyes glittered with furious delight. "We've been waiting for you."