Mining Tunnels Beneath the Hidden Jedi Temple, Lothal6 BBY (Three Days After the Labor Camp Extraction)
The scar tugged when Ezra smiled. A muscle responded, his lips curved, and at the same instant the scar yanked the movement out of existence. That meant he had stopped smiling.
Three days underground granted him long stretches of dark solitude to trace that line with his fingers. Where the blade had cut from hairline, downward through the brow, across the cheek. The tissue was knitting cleanly, no infection despite everything. But the mark would remain. Permanent. The kind of sign that made others glance twice. Wonder what exactly a thirteen-year-old had done to carve such a signature into his face.
Earlier a reflection caught him. In a polished panel of temple wall he glimpsed a stranger staring back. Not Solomon any longer. Not wholly Ezra. Someone else. Someone both lives had been shaping without either knowing how. The thought should have unsettled him. It did not.
The temple reached farther than he first charted. Corridors winding through living rock until he found raw caverns that predated settlement by geological eons. Down here, far beneath Lothal's surface, the Force sang a different tune. Not the muted hum he recognized. Something immediate. Vast. Like standing inside an instrument whose strings were being pulled by hands too large to grasp.
He retreated underground after the extraction, after Draxen's reaction flooded the northern districts with patrols and checkpoints, surface movement made suicidal. Better to vanish into places the Empire did not know, continue training while their gaze fixed elsewhere. Wait. Let the pressure shift before he exposed himself.
So he meditated in chambers infused with accumulated Force presence. Rooms where his skin rasped with awareness. He practiced the techniques that Avar Kriss had burned into his consciousness. They were no longer drills. They were part of his wiring.
The Force Resonance ceased being a tool. It became how he perceived reality. The musical layer superseded sight. He felt the temple's presence as a sustained chord. Ancient purpose vibrating through stone. He sensed the loth-wolves above, in the wastelands, their howls wild and untamed. Tied to something primal, beyond conscious thought. He even felt his network members scattered across Lothal. Their voices distinct within a larger composition of resistance built on shared odds.
Yet beneath every perception thread ran corruption. The Empire advancing. Consolidating. Preparing for something his heightened awareness could not name but knew existential. The sensation resembled dissonance swelling inside a symphony. He knew the resolution would bring collapse, yet awareness alone offered no prevention.
He descended deeper. In shrinking tunnels where he crawled. Through fractured stone that shifted with his passage. The cavern he reached justified the effort. Stalactites met stalagmites. Formations forming shapes that created resonance. The space itself seemed crafted by chance to amplify sound. To make consciousness tremble.
He sat cross-legged on rock worn smooth by water long stopped. Closed his eyes. Slowed his breath until the boundary between his body and the space around him became negotiable instead of firm. Meditation at this depth was not practice. It was immersion into awareness too large for one mind to contain. His perception spiralled outward in ever-widening rings. First the temple, then the wasteland, then Capital City sprawling on plains like a contagion.
The city's symphony resolved into familiar voices. Jari coordinating safe-house rotations with leadership she developed unknowingly. Tem and Kol weaving brotherhood, recovering, resilient. Ria in the western districts, jazz-inflected, independent, outside his direct net yet connected by shared purpose and respect.
And beneath it all the discord. Imperial presence static and intrusive. Disrupting natural harmonies. Draxen's investigation shone as a particularly sharp note in that discord. Methodical, relentless, inching into places Ezra could not allow him.
But new elements stirred. The ISB presence surged beyond investigation. Beyond simple crackdown. They prepared operational escalation that exceeded targeted arrests. The factory complex dominated his perception. Layers of discord signalled ramped production. Increased personnel. A facility pushed past normal capacity. The TIE Defender programme. His sabotage delayed but did not halt it. Someone important had taken personal interest in correcting that failure. Probably Pryce.
Which meant pressure would intensify until either his network shattered or the Empire's attention diverted. Neither outcome acceptable. He needed options that did not yet exist.
His meditation deepened. Individual perceptions blurred into a gestalt understanding. The Force showed him patterns that linked present to future. Not futures fully formed but branches of probability sprouting from current decisions. He saw Draxen's investigation nearing closure. Saw network cells fragmenting under sustained pressure. Saw the moment when everything collapsed into arrests and executions.
But he also saw alternatives. Paths that demanded risk. Paths requiring him to become even more dangerous than he already allowed himself. The Force offered no verdict. It simply showed what was. Let him choose on clarity rather than ignorance.
When he emerged from meditation his body protested hours of stillness. Yet his mind carried earned clarity. He held understanding of operations that would disrupt Draxen while striking at the Empire's expanded presence. Dangerous operations. The kind that would define him as a legitimate threat instead of an opportunist. The kind that would buy his network enough time for the Ghost crew's arrival.
The choice was clear. Risk now or certain destruction later.
He retraced through the temple's passages, his Force Resonance guiding him through darkness that would have swallowed any ordinary vision.
His tower rose through industrial haze, rust-orange gleaming in early light. Home. Or close enough. Not comfortable. Not safe. But his in ways that mattered.
Inside the improvements of months' income were evident. Actual bedding. Storage that sealed. Equipment that functioned instead of barely operated. Spartan still but luxury compared to his beginning.
His comm unit held routine updates. The network stood functional despite pressure. Then a message from Yahenna: "Need to talk. Your convenience. My location. Bring your paranoia."
The phrasing suggested urgency without panic. That meant it was time to tend to something he had neglected during his temple retreat.
First food. Protein bars sufficed. Then equipment check. Blasters charged. Knife clean. Supplies functional. The routine became meditative. Physical actions letting his mind wander while unconscious processes settled the chaos.
Time to find Yahenna.
The walk took him through sectors where the Gray Syndicate influence ruled stability through implied threat.
"Solomon." Yahenna greeted him with genuine warmth despite the transactional nature of their contact. "Heard you had interesting days. Labor camp extraction. Imperial manhunt. Must've been … something."
"One word for it." Ezra settled beside him, accepting the drink. Non-alcoholic. He noted Yahenna's care, no substances for someone too young to handle them. A small gesture, but it mattered.
"Word is Draxen's made you priority target. That's problematic for both of us."
"How problematic?"
"ISB investigations expand. They begin with one target and end up sweeping entire networks. Your operations intersect mine enough that his focus on you means potential focus on me." Serious concern masked in neutrality. "Need to know if you are planning something or if I should assume you'll be arrested within the month."
Fair question.
"Planning multiple somethings," Ezra replied. "Operations disrupting Draxen while addressing larger Imperial pressure on all of us."
"Care to elaborate?"
"Better if I do not. Besides, plausible deniability serves us best."
He met Yahenna's gaze. Through his Force Resonance he felt the older man's melody. Pragmatism. Caution. Respect for capability.
"But the next few weeks will be loud. Anyone tied to me should expect increased scrutiny."
Yahenna held a quiet moment. Then nodded. "Okay. I trust you've got this. But understand this... if it goes sideways and they trace connections back to mine, our partnership ends. No hesitation. No second chances. Business."
"Understood."
"Good. Now opportunity. The crackdown disrupted normal smuggling routes. Demand for alternative logistics spiked. Your tunnel networks provide reliability these conditions demand."
They spent an hour mapping operational details, tactical partnerships. Yahenna with access to suppliers and clients Ezra could not reach. Ezra with infrastructure that bypassed Imperial oversight. Symbiosis.
When the meeting ended the sun hovered near zenith. Ezra headed back toward his tower. Mind already shifting toward committed operations. Plans determining whether his network survived or collapsed.
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AN: Check out my other Star Wars Novel, [Star Wars: Boundless Fate]