Purge (Star Wars)

Diverging Paths

Cere steps up to the holomap and navigates to the city. The city is built at the base of a massive mountain range that covers half of the continent. About half of it extends up the mountain in a series of irregular terraces. The base is surrounded by a crescent shaped wall that connects with the mountains at either end.

"While the Empire tries to break through the wall," Cere explains, "they're also bringing troops in by air and dropping them in any one of five large plazas. So far, the people have been able to keep down the number of troopers dropped in, but they are starting to get overwhelmed."

"So you need to be in two places at once," Ilyana observes.

"Yeah," says Cal.

Ilyana considers the situation. It's bad no matter how she looks at it but she knows Cal won't be able to forgive himself if he loses another kid. She takes a deep breath and puts her hands on her hips.

"I'll go to Abednedo," she says resolutely, "You and your team need to get that girl safe."

"Alone?" Cal asks her.

"Cal, that girl needs a Jedi to find her. Not an Inquisitor, not a Purge Trooper; a Jedi."

"I thought you said you couldn't trust yourself."

"I thought you said I'd have to learn how."

Cal doesn't like the idea of her going alone but she's right, at some point she will have to trust herself to make the right decision without the rest of them present.

"Fair enough," he admits but shakes his head, "Are you sure about this?"

"No," she admits, "but I know I can bring down havoc onto some stormtroopers and that might be enough to buy them the time they need."

"Just be careful," he says.

"You should be careful," she insists and grabs the fallen Jedi's lightsaber off the table nearby. "You're more likely to run into an Inquisitor than I am. I've already lost two Jedi on my watch, I don't want to lose a third," she continues, holding the broken lightsaber up in front of him.

"Two Jedi?" asks Cere.

"Don't worry," Merrin chimes in before anyone can answer Cere, "We'll make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble."

(Edit?) The Mantis drops out of hyperspace a safe distance from Abednedo to avoid being picked up by any Imperial ships. Merrin had begun using her Nightsister power to cloak the ship before they arrived and it was worth it. A variety of Imperial warships were in orbit, supporting the operations on the ground, any one of which could have registered them on their scanners at this distance had they not been careful. It is vital that they make it to the surface undetected if they are to deliver Ilyana and leave again without getting caught up in the battle.

Greez and Merrin successfully bring the Mantis into the atmosphere without raising any Imperial alarms but their confidence is short-lived as they break through the cloud cover and the first signs of the battle are laid out before them. The image they had seen on the holomap did little to convey just how breathtaking the city is; or at least it would have been had so much of it not been on fire. At least a dozen terraces wound up the mountainside and each one covered with a visual cacophony of brightly colored towers and spires, flags dancing from every one of them. At the base of the mountain, the city fanned out for miles. The winding and intertwining roads that spread out through the city as if the many meandering paths of a wide river delta twisting through extravagant architecture. Finally, the city came to an abrupt end when the massive crescent wall encircled it and seemed to grow out of the mountainside itself. On a map it seemed a simple design, but in person the wall was a massive bulwark towering over the Imperial AT-ATs gathered around the base on the great open grassy plain beyond.