Sub-level Junction Chamber, Nar Shaddaa | 19 BBY
The Inquisitor's blade came at me in a spinning arc that defied conventional dueling logic.
Not Form II's elegant thrusts or Form V's powerful overhead strikes. This was something else entirely, a rotating death wheel that turned defense into a continuous attack. I'd never seen the style before but my body responded anyway, muscle memory from three years under Cin Drallig guiding my blade into the intercept.
The impact sent shockwaves up my arm. Crimson and blue plasma shrieked against each other, throwing sparks that died before hitting the wet floor. I disengaged and flowed left, using Ataru's mobility to create distance.
The Inquisitor followed without breaking stride. His blades never stopped moving, creating a barrier of light that turned every approach into a calculated risk. "Not bad," he said conversationally, as if we were sparring in the Temple rather than trying to kill each other in a flooded sub-level. "Form IV. Drallig's student, perhaps?"
The mention of my Master's name hit harder than any physical blow. I didn't answer, just launched into a Hawk-bat Swoop that carried me above his guard. My blade came down in a vertical slash that would have split him shoulder to hip.
He spun beneath the strike and his weapons came up in a scissors motion aimed at my exposed torso. I twisted mid-air, barely avoided being bisected, and landed wrong. My boots skidded on the slick floor and I went down on one knee.
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COMBAT ANALYSIS
Health: 1,043/1,200
Stamina: 78%
Enemy Adaptation Rate: HIGH
Warning: Prolonged engagement not recommended
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The Inquisitor's blade came down, and I rolled, felt the heat of it pass centimeters from my spine. Came up in a crouch and thrust forward, forcing him back three steps. My shoulder screamed where the old wound pulled against partially healed tissue.
"Drallig is dead, you know." The Inquisitor said it casually, like commenting on the weather. "Fell to Lord Vader during the Temple assault. Put up quite a fight from what I heard. Killed several clone troopers before the end."
I'd known Master Drallig was gone, had felt his absence in the Force like a missing tooth you couldn't stop probing. But hearing it confirmed, hearing the details, turned abstract grief into something sharp enough to cut.
The Inquisitor saw the reaction and smiled. "The dark side offers clarity, young one. The Jedi filled your head with lies about peace and serenity, but you felt it during Order 66, didn't you? The rage. The desire to make them pay."
He was trying to bait me. Get me angry enough to make mistakes. Standard psychological warfare that I would have recognized immediately if grief wasn't clouding my judgment.
I centered myself the way Master Drallig had taught me. Acknowledged the anger without feeding it. Let it exist without letting it control my actions. The Force responded, flowing through me with renewed clarity.
My next attack came faster. A combination Master Drallig had drilled into me until it became reflex: high feint, low slash, spinning strike to create separation. The Inquisitor blocked the first two but the third caught him across his vambrace, scoring the armor.
His expression shifted. Not pain but reassessment. He'd underestimated me.
"Interesting," he said.
The spinning blades accelerated. He came at me like a storm given form, his attacks flowing one into another without pause. I met him in the space between strikes, my blade tracing defensive patterns that bought centimeters of survival. Soresu would have been better for this but Soresu required patience and perfect positioning. Ataru was what I knew, what my muscles understood, so Ataru was what I used.
We fought through the junction chamber in a dance that would have been beautiful if it wasn't trying to kill me. Water droplets from overhead pipes caught the light of our blades and turned to steam. The sound of plasma on plasma echoed off stone until it felt like the whole sub-level was screaming.
I caught a glimpse of the ladder behind the Inquisitor. Venn should be long gone by now, hopefully far enough away that she wouldn't get caught in whatever happened next. The mission was to extract her, not fight Inquisitors. Every second I spent here was a second wasted.
But breaking contact required an opening that didn't exist. The Inquisitor's spinning guard never dropped, never gave me space to disengage. Master Drallig's voice echoed in my memory: When you can't find an opening, create one.
I reached into the Force and found one of the overhead pipes. Felt the water flowing through it, the pressure building where condensation had frozen the flow. I pulled at the weakest point and the pipe ruptured.
Scalding water exploded into the chamber.
The Inquisitor threw up a Force barrier on instinct, but I was already moving, using the distraction to vault past him toward the ladder. My boots found the rungs and I climbed faster than technique, pure desperation driving me upward through darkness.
Below, the Inquisitor roared something that might have been words or might have been pure rage. I felt him gathering the Force, preparing something devastating. My hand found the hatch at the ladder's top and I slammed it open, pulled myself through, and rolled into the alley beyond.
Street level. Finally. The neon glow of Nar Shaddaa's perpetual twilight had never looked so welcoming.
I ran.
Not the measured tactical retreat Master Drallig would have approved of. Just pure flight, burning through reserves I didn't know I still had. The Force screamed warnings about pursuit but I didn't look back. Looking back meant slowing down and slowing down meant dying.
The spaceport rose ahead, a massive structure that pierced the vertical city's lower levels like a steel tumor. Bay 47 was in the civilian section, far enough from military oversight that smugglers and legitimate merchants existed in uncomfortable proximity.
My commlink chirped. Venn's voice came through, breathless and terrified. "Bay 47. Where are you?"
"Two minutes out," I gasped. "Is the contact there?"
"Yes. A Duros with a ship called Lucky Break. He says we need to leave now."
"Tell him to warm up the engines."
I pushed harder, my lungs burning with the effort. Behind me, the dark presence in the Force was receding. Either the Inquisitor had lost my trail or decided I wasn't worth the continued pursuit. Neither option provided much comfort.
Bay 47's entrance loomed ahead. I slowed to a walk, tried to make myself look like just another traveler rather than someone fleeing for his life. The security droids at the checkpoint scanned my forged credentials with mechanical disinterest and waved me through.
The bay itself was controlled chaos. Ships of varying sizes occupied landing pads while crews loaded cargo and argued about schedules. I spotted Venn standing beside a battered YT-1300 freighter, talking urgently with a Duros who kept checking his chronometer.
I jogged over and the Duros fixed me with his large eyes. "You're the package?"
"I'm the escort. She's the package."
"Doesn't matter. Imperial patrol just changed routes. We have maybe five minutes before they swing past this bay." He gestured to the boarding ramp. "Get on or stay here. I'm leaving either way."
Venn was already moving. I followed her up the ramp and into the ship's interior. The Duros hit a control and the ramp began cycling closed. Through the narrowing gap, I caught sight of the bay entrance.
Three stormtroopers had appeared, scanning the crowd with professional efficiency.
The ramp sealed. The Duros, whose name I still didn't know, sprinted for the cockpit. "Strap in. This is going to be rough."
I barely had time to find a crash seat before the engines roared to life. The ship lifted with the kind of acceleration that suggested the pilot was more concerned with speed than passenger comfort. Through a viewport, I watched the bay fall away beneath us.
The stormtroopers were running toward where we'd been parked. Too late by seconds.
The Lucky Break punched through Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere with enough force to rattle my teeth. I felt the moment we hit vacuum, the subtle shift in pressure and sound that marked transition from planetary space to the void beyond. The pilot was saying something over the intercom but blood was pounding in my ears too loud to make out words.
Venn sat across from me, her pack clutched to her chest, tears streaming down her face. Relief or terror or some combination of both. She'd survived. Against impossible odds and Imperial hunters and an Inquisitor who'd nearly caught us, she'd survived.
The system flickered to life.
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QUEST COMPLETE: Underworld Work - Extraction
+2,000 credits
+1 LUK
+100 XP
+Reputation: Sabetha Drel (Trusted)
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LEVEL UP!
Level 13 → 14
+3 Attribute Points available for allocation
+1 Perk Point available
New abilities unlocked - view skill tree for details
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The text should have felt like victory. Mission accomplished, payment secured, level gained. But all I could think about was the Inquisitor's words echoing in the flooded chamber.
Drallig is dead. Fell to Lord Vader during the Temple assault.
Lord Vader. Not a name I recognized. But the title was Sith, unmistakable in its construction. The Empire had a Sith Lord, and that Sith Lord had killed my Master.
I closed my eyes and let the ship carry me away from Nar Shaddaa, away from the Inquisitor, away from another close call that had nearly ended in death. The Force moved around me in currents I was only beginning to understand.
The galaxy had changed. The rules I'd been trained to follow no longer applied. And somewhere in that realization, in the space between what I'd been and what I was becoming, I felt something shift.
Not toward darkness. Not quite. But away from the certainty of light.
Master Drallig had taught me that a Jedi's strength came from conviction, from knowing absolutely what was right and acting without hesitation. But conviction required a framework that made sense, and mine had burned with the Temple.
What did it mean to be a Jedi when the Order was gone? When survival required working with criminals and fighting Inquisitors and doing whatever it took to see another sunrise?
The questions didn't have answers. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But I was alive to ask them, and that had to count for something.
The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom. "Hyperspace in thirty seconds. Hold on."
The stars elongated into lines and the Lucky Break jumped to lightspeed, leaving Nar Shaddaa and its dangers behind. I sat in the quiet hum of hyperspace and thought about Master Drallig. About everything he'd taught me. About the man called Vader who'd killed him.
Revenge wasn't the Jedi way. Anger led to the dark side. Peace was the foundation of all we did.
But the Jedi way had gotten the Order killed.
Maybe it was time to find a different way.