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“Leave them out of this, it’s me you want!”
“Adora, no—“
“It’s okay, Bow. Get back to Glimmer. Get these people to safety.”
Adora smiles, as best she can, as she watches the features on her friend’s face fall as what she’s asking him to do settles in. There’s a kind of finality to what she’s saying, to what she’s asking him to do. She knows he can feel it. If Bow leaves her here, facing down a squad of stormtroopers with more on the way…
It could be the last they see of each other.
But that’s just how this life is.
Adora looks across the crowd gathered behind Bow. There’s all kinds of peoples here, but they all have one thing in common; they’re scared. They want to get out of here with their families, or just to be able to see those they care about again. They all have to get away, and Bow can help them get there. Safely. Glimmer’s waiting with Darla at the ready, if they could just get out of range of the Empire’s jamming signal, they can get on the comms to let her know where they are.
The transport is damaged, riddled with scorch marks and pouring with smoke. They’re going to need more time. Bow nods to Adora before turning and running through the crowd to work on getting the transport moving again. .
One of the troopers steps forward, almost nervous, rifle raised. They’re wearing a red pauldron over one shoulder, and Adora knows enough to be able to note this as a mark of rank over the other three.
“Drop your weapon! Surrender yourselves!” They shout.
Adora does not drop her weapon.
Instead, she too steps forward, smiling a little as the trooper steps back to their original position. Behind her, the sound of many pairs of shoes scuffling on the desert’s arid, dead ground, disturbing the sand and kicking rocks across the makeshift road, fills her senses for a moment. But that moment doesn’t last. A loud, booming thrum fills the air, a heavy vibration rattles the stones at her feet, and a shadow looms overhead as a dark shape makes itself known from the abyss of the Crimson Waste’s bleeding sky.
The ship is large, sleek, black. Its wingspan easily dwarfs the scene unfolding beneath it.
Adora braces against the sand that’s kicked up into the air by the ship’s propulsion defying the planet’s gravity, keeping it from slamming into the ground. She watches, barely able to keep her eyes open, as it slowly manoeuvres round to face her and the people behind her.
That transport could end this, all of it, right now.
All it has to do is open fire.
But it doesn’t. Instead, a door opens under its bow, and a ramp extends. Adora thinks she sees a person through the whirlwind of sand and debris that the ship’s kicking up as it descends, but she has to close her eyes before she can confirm it. The closer the ship gets to the ground, the more sand it swirls into the air. The stormtroopers stand, impassive, their helmets protecting them against the onslaught.
Eventually, it stops. Adora looks up as she hears the clunk of landing gear and the quiet whine of engines powering down. Her vision adjusts in time to see the dark figure descend the ramp, walk a short distance across the planet’s dusty rock, and stop in front of the four stormtroopers that stopped the refugee’s transport in the first place.
Adora knew they’d called for backup, but she doesn’t think even they expected an inquisitor to show up.
Recognition flashes from the back of Adora’s mind as she rubs the sand from her eyes. This inquisitor is the one from Plumeria. The one who burnt down an entire sector of Plumar just to weed her out because of what she is. Anger flashes through Adora as she remembers. Remembers her failure to save everyone that night, how this inquisitor had ruined so many lives, tore people from their loved ones, just to find a single Jedi.
Adora feels her anger, lets it wash over her, and then, after taking a deep breath, she dispels it. Rooting her feet to the ground, Adora readies Mara’s lightsaber, and waits.
Nothing happens for a moment.
The jedi faces down the inquisitor and four hapless troopers, and nothing happens.
Until…
An engine sputtering to life, a shout of celebration that’s quickly silenced, and the refugee transport behind Adora starts to move away.
The inquisitor’s attention is drawn to it, just for a second. She steps forwards, as if to pursue, and Adora knows she can’t let her get to them. She can only imagine the horrors the Empire would inflict on a transport full of people who are violently opposed to the occupation of their planet.
So Adora stands her ground.
Blue light pours from the hilt in her hand. A gentle hum compared to that of the engine struggling behind her, slowly getting quieter as it leaves her behind.
The inquisitor turns back to Adora, attention focused on her ignited lightsaber. Adora expects her to reach behind her for her own lightsaber, the circular one fixed to her back, but she doesn’t.
Instead, the inquisitor reaches up to her helmet, waits as it disengages from around her neck, and lifts it away, dropping it to the floor as if it were some inconsequential thing.
Adora watches, wide eyed, as large, soft ears spring out from beneath it, as wild hair erupts from behind it, as two-toned unforgettable eyes burn through her from inside it.
Adora watches, as the girl she thought she’d lost, the girl she’s loved for as long as she can remember, stands where her enemy stands. Tears spring to the corners of her eyes and it stings, but she can’t do this. She can’t fight her. It isn’t right. It’s… it must be a trick of some kind. Some inquisitor trick to get her to lower her guard so they can kill her easier. The alternative is… Adora really hopes the alternative isn’t true, because if it is, she doesn’t know if she can do this.
And then…
“Hey, Adora.”
… It all comes crashing down.
