Arrows POV
Mustafar was trying very hard to kill me.
Again.
I yanked my boot free from a crack in the volcanic rock before lava splashed up through it with a violent hiss.
"Fantastic," I muttered, glaring at the planet like it personally offended me. "Love this place."
Hot smoke rolled across the cliffs in thick waves while volcanoes spit ash into the blood-red sky. Everything smelled like burning metal and death.
Which, to be fair, was apparently normal for Mustafar.
I adjusted the satchel hanging across my shoulder and crouched beside a cluster of blackened stone where thin crimson herbs grew from the cracks.
Finally.
Three days traveling through the Outer Rim for one stupid plant.
If these herbs weren't worth enough credits to buy a decent ship engine, I would've left this nightmare planet hours ago.
The ground suddenly shook beneath me.
Not a normal tremor.
A violent one.
I grabbed the rock beside me as another explosion thundered somewhere in the distance.
Then came screaming.
I froze.
Blaster fire echoed through the cliffs.
Ships roared overhead.
"What did you idiots do now..."
I stood slowly, scanning the volcanic ridges around me.
Something was very wrong.
Even for Mustafar.
Smoke curled through the mountains while flashes of blue light flickered far off in the distance.
Not blasters.
Something brighter.
Then I heard tiny footsteps slamming against stone.
A little boy came sprinting around the cliffside so fast he nearly crashed directly into me.
He couldn't have been older than seven. Burn marks covered the sleeves of his robes, ash streaked across his face, and tears mixed with sweat down his cheeks.
He looked up at me with pure panic.
And behind him—
White-armored troopers climbed over the ridge with blasters raised.
"There!" one shouted.
The boy stumbled backward.
"Please help me!"
I immediately took one respectful step away from the situation.
No.
Absolutely not.
Children were problems.Jedi children?Probably worse.
The troopers aimed their rifles.
The kid's lip trembled.
"Please—"
Something ugly twisted in my chest.
I hated that feeling.
For one quick second, I saw myself years ago — standing in the hallway of my father's ship while innocent people begged him not to open the airlock.
He did anyway.
YOU ARE READING
Operation 025
FanfictionShe survived Mustafar. He didn't. In the final hours of the Republic, a young traveler saves a terrified Jedi child while the galaxy burns around them. But hidden among the lava and ash, she witnesses the birth of something far worse than war. Darth...
