❝𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒅𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒚𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒆𝒔.❞
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Uncertainty and conflict whirled inside Astrid at these uncomfortable realizations, and she rose unsteadily from the table. Astrid felt as if her whole world-- her whole life-- had been shaken, which it quite literally had.
The ideals she had been expounded upon her entire life were not correct. Although the Jedi Order had good intentions when making their Order's key ideals, their ideals were flawed and incomplete.
Astrid realized she'd been standing there in silence, and she looked at Sariah as she said hurriedly, "Thank you for your time, Sariah."
Sariah smiled lightly and replied as she rose to her feet, "This may be an isolated planet, but that doesn't mean we-- the Grey Jedi-- haven't heard news about the war. I am hopeful you may bring change to your Jedi Order. That is why I invited you here."
Astrid dipped her head, readily accepting the burden Sariah and the rest of the Grey Jedi-- the rest of the galaxy-- was placing on Astrid to fix the Jedi Order and the Republic. "I will try," Astrid told her solemnly.
Astrid feared if the Jedi Order didn't change soon, they would lose this war.
Sariah quirked a smile and replied, "If you ever decide you want nothing of the Jedi Order, you should consider joining us here."
Astrid doubted she would ever leave the Order, and doubted even more that she would ever want to visit this planet ever again. But, she smiled gratefully and inclined her head in silent acknowledgment of her offer.
Astrid made towards the door, but upon remembering her plan to get some help from the Grey Jedi, she turned around and asked, "Do you suppose there's any way you could help my friends and me get off of this planet?"
Sariah only grinned. "We have plenty of ships. How else would we have gotten to this planet?"
Sariah walked past Astrid to the front door, and when she opened it, the bright light from outside almost seemed to blind Astrid.
"Follow me," Sariah told her as Astrid's eyes fought to adjust to the new lighting. "I'll show you our ships."
Astrid followed Sariah out into the camp, and once again she found herself fixated on the Jedi families. She watched the groups of Jedi and playing children as she passed through the camp, smiling wistfully at their ability to openly display such affection to each other.
Sariah led her in the opposite direction of the house Astrid had crashed into earlier, and soon enough they were nearing the rock slope leading up to the very edge of the mountain top. Sariah stopped before the upward slope and pressed a hand against the rock.
A moment later, a part of the rock slide to the side to reveal an open doorway. Beyond the doorway were descending stone stairs that vanished into the inky darkness below. Sariah ignited her white lightsaber before she began walking down the steps.
The white glow of Sariah's lightsaber provided them light as they descended into the dark, and Astrid ignited her own blue lightsaber to add to her light. Eventually, they reached the bottom of the stairs, and overhead lights flickered on, revealing a cavernous room full of docked starships.
Astrid's mouth dropped open at the sheer amount of ships housed within the mountain.
Sariah laughed at her expression and said, "Pick the starship you need. They are all available for you to use."
Astrid walked forward into the room, and chose a medium sized starship in the close left corner of the room. "This ship should work," Astrid told Sariah, walking up to it and running a hand along its metal flank.
Sariah nodded and said, "Then she is yours. Do you need anything else?"
Astrid shook her head and turned back to the Grey Jedi. "No, that's all." She paused before asking, "What were you doing last night when I ran into you?"
Sariah smiled slightly as she replied, "I was on scouting duty. I wasn't sure if you were Jedi, Sith, or neither, and I wanted to know if you were a threat to my community. I attacked to see which one you were."
"And you saw I was a Jedi and presumed good intentions?"
Sariah laughed before nodding begrudgingly. "I took a chance. We don't ever see Jedi from the Jedi Order here. I thought I might use the opportunity to try and sway you to our beliefs. After all, if you want your Jedi Order to survive the change coming to the galaxy, the Order needs to reform."
Her words sounded ominous to Astrid, and she suppressed a shiver as icy fingers of dread tickled down her spine.
Astrid tried to sound light hearted as she inquired, "You don't suppose you know what exactly this change to the galaxy entails?"
Sariah chuckled with amusement as she shook her head. "Unfortunately, I do not, but I can sense the Dark Side is growing stronger. My entire camp can sense it. Maybe the Jedi Order will be able to keep the Sith in check if they reform."
Astrid couldn't help but recall her and Anakin's encounter with Darth Maul. If what Anakin said was true and Darth Maul was only the Sith apprentice, then the Sith Master was still out there, waiting, calculating, growing in strength as the two Sith plotted together.
This time Astrid couldn't resist her shiver.
"Well, thank you, Sariah," Astrid told the Grey Jedi with sincere gratitude. "I hope we meet again."
Sariah dipped her head and replied, "May the Force be with you."
"May the Force be with you, too."
Astrid began to walk up the starship's ramp leading up to the open bay doors as Sariah moved towards the wall. A moment later, a portion of the left wall slide open as bright light spilled into the room.
As Astrid reached the bay door, she suddenly remembered something, and she whirled back around and called out, "Sariah!"
"Yes?" Sariah replied as she took a few steps closer to her starship from where she'd been waiting by the wall.
"Where do you get your white lightsabers?"
A faint smile appeared on Sariah's face as she replied, "We purify the kyber crystal in a Sith's lightsaber, turning the lightsaber from red to white. We heal it."
Astrid's eyes widened as she regarded the Grey Jedi in a new light. Sariah had confronted a Sith and beaten them. She'd survived. And she'd stolen their lightsaber? Astrid was impressed.
Sariah jerked her head towards Astrid and said, "Perhaps you'll make your own one day. Now, hurry up and get out of here. You're needed elsewhere."
Astrid gave her new friend a smile of goodbye before she bounded up the rest of the ramp and threw herself into the pilot's seat in the cockpit. She closed the bay doors before revving the engines.
Astrid made sure Sariah was safely by the wall before she pulled back the ship's toggle. Her starship lifted gently into the air, and Astrid guided it towards the opening in the wall that was just wide enough for her starship.
Astrid pressed down on the thrusters, and she shot out of the mountain with surprising speed. Astrid let out a small shout of surprise and eased slightly off on the thrusters. From this high up, Astrid could see the large expanse of rolling prairie below.
The grass swayed with the wind, moving like the waves in an ocean. Astrid kept her gaze trained on the ground as she flew northwest, searching for movement in the grass beyond the grass, itself.
Soon enough the grey mountain behind her vanished entirely.
Astrid knew she'd found her friends when she spotted six Separatist tanks plowing through a burned portion of the grass plains towards a purple colored shield deflector surrounding what looked to be a village of some sort.
Astrid sighed.
It didn't seem to matter where she went; the Separatist always seemed to be around, scattered around the galaxy like pestering ants.
Astrid steered her starship clear of the Separatist tanks' firing range. As she began to descend to the grassy ground, Astrid noticed roughly three hundred battle droids marching towards the village, blaster guns raised as they fired at the defector shield.
It was no use, of course, since their blaster fire merely bounced off the deflector shield. Soon enough, Astrid cleared past the battle droids and guided her starship through the deflector shield surrounding the village.
As she touched down on the ground, she spotted her friends-- Anakin, Ahsoka, Rex, and Master Secura-- in a group near the shield, talking with two Lurmen.
Lurmen are a short, brown and greyed furred, pacifist species with yellow eyes and a tail.
The two Lurmen in front of her friends were only one meter tall, and they wore clothes over their fur. They appeared to be talking intently to the Jedi, but the whole group turned towards Astrid's ship as it landed on the soft dirt.
She quickly pressed the control buttons to open the bay door and lower the ramp before she hastened out of her seat. When she emerged from the starship, she found herself flying into Anakin, who had scrambled up the ramp to greet her.
Astrid laughed as she collided headfirst into him, relief coursing through her at the healthy tan colored tinge to his skin and the strength in his arms as he crushed her into a hug.
His breath fanned her ear as he whispered, "If nobody was watching, I would kiss you."
Astrid's breath hitched at his words before she forced herself to withdraw. "You look way better!" she commented as she studied him from head to toe. "How?"
"The Lurmens healed me somehow. Honestly, it was a blur, so I can't remember much," Anakin told her with a grin. "And even better, we've got Separatist to deal with." He beckoned towards the approaching tanks and battle droids with a languid hand.
"But hey," he added with a gleeful smile, "there looks to be only three hundred battle droids. I like those odds."
Astrid couldn't help her laugh, and her cheeks ached from smiling so broadly. She was just so happy Anakin was okay. "Well," she remarked as she patted the side of the ship. "To make your day even better, I managed to score us a starship from the Grey Jedi."
Anakin's eyes moved behind her to examine the starship, and his grin broadened. "I see," he replied. His gaze returned to Astrid as he asked, "How did your visit go? Did you learn anything useful--"
"Hey!" Ahsoka shouted from behind Anakin where she stood with the rest of the group. "Get over here you two! Enough chatter!"
Astrid rolled her eyes playfully and said to Anakin as she brushed past him down the ramp, "I'll tell you later after we've dealt with the Separatist."
She heard Anakin laugh, and then he was beside her in an instant, matching her pace as they headed towards their group of three and the two Lurmen. The younger Lurmen regarded Astrid curiously, while the older Lurmen looked mildly affronted at her presence.
The younger of the two asked eagerly, "Who is this?"
Ahsoka waved a hand towards Astrid as she replied, "Wag Too, this is Astrid, another Jedi friend of ours."
The young Lurmen named Wag Too smiled eagerly at Astrid with bright eyes, while the elder simply continued to study at Astrid with a wary look. The elder had tuffs of white fur along his jawline that resembled a beard.
Wag Too noticed the elder's look and commented, "Tee Watt Kaa, we need the Jedi's help. We can't just allow the Separatist to raze our village to the ground. They just tried to wipe us all out with their new weapon! If it hadn't been for the Jedi, we would've died!"
Ah, so that must be why the grass surrounding the village was all burnt.
"But what was the cost?" Tee Watt Kaa replied sharply. "We are no longer neutral in this war. Who knows how the Separatist will punish us?"
Astrid sensed this wasn't the first time the two Lurmen had fought about this, judging by Anakin and Ahsoka's exasperated looks. Master Secura only watched quietly with a thoughtful expression.
Meanwhile, Rex intervened between the two Lurmen and said, "What's done is done. The only thing you can do now is defend yourselves because the Separatist aren't going to stop attacking until you're all dead."
Tee Watt Kaa narrowed his eyes at Rex and snapped, "Well, we'll have no part in it. We would rather die than kill others."
Beside the elder Lurmen, Wag Too began shaking this head, and he said determinedly, "No, father. I will not stand by, and neither will my friends. You may hide away in your hut, but I will fight."
Tee Watt Kaa gave his son a look of disapproval before tutting, "Fine, but don't think I didn't tell you so." The elder Lurmen turned and huffed away, disappearing into his hut a minute later.
Astrid gave Anakin a bemused look.
Master Secura cleared her throat and said, "Well, those battle droids are moving closer, so we better prepare ourselves." She looked to Anakin as she asked, "Are you well enough to fight, Skywalker?"
Anakin nodded, and Master Secura replied shortly, "Good." She turned towards Wag Too and asked, "How many of your friends are willing to fight?"
"Twenty," Wag Too answered with a proud lift of his chin.
Master Secura nodded before saying, "You and your friends will wait behind the shield deflector while the five of us--" She indicated to their group "--will attack the droids and hopefully get to their tanks and destroy them."
"But we want to fight," Wag Too protested.
"And you will," Master Secura told him firmly. "But only when the shield deflector goes down, and it will go down eventually. It'll only stand a few more hits from those tanks."
Wag Too nodded ruefully and said, "Okay. I'll go gather my friends," before turning and scampering off to find them.
Astrid took a breath as she looked towards the battle droids quickly approaching. Even though Astrid had realized while she was at the Grey Jedi camp that the Separatist might not be so bad after all, she did know that their droids were bad.
They had no mind of their own, instead blindly following orders. True, the clone troopers weren't much different, but Astrid viewed the clones as individual people, and at least the clones had creativity and were able to come up with complex strategies and ideas of their own.
The Separatist droids were just mindless pieces of metal with no conscience.
From down on the ground, the horde of approaching droids looked innumerable compared to how they'd looked from high up in the air. Astrid took a breath to calm her nerves. She always felt a mixture of adrenaline and nerves before a battle.
Astrid could die at any time. She could die fifteen minutes from now and not know it. That was why she was nervous.
"Alright," she said, beginning to bounce on the balls of her feet. "Let's get this show on the road so we can get off of this planet."
The four of them nodded in agreement, and Rex hefted his blaster up as the three other Jedi ignited their lightsabers, Astrid following suit.
They stepped towards the edge of the deflector shield, staying just inside it, and Astrid watched as the purple translucent shield in front of her absorbed the droid's red blaster fire. She took a breath.
Master Secura began counting them off, and when she shouted zero, Astrid rushed forward, a sucking sensation from the shield sliding over her before she emerged in front of it, completely exposed to enemy fire. Astrid automatically brought her lightsaber up in front of her to block the oncoming blaster fire.
She was aware of Master Secura and Rex splitting off to the right, while Anakin and Ahsoka stuck beside Astrid as the three of them sprinted forward towards the onslaught of droids.
At least these droids were those skinny battle droids and not the droideka or MagnaGuards.
The three of them reached the battle droids within seconds, and Astrid sliced through two of them like they were soft sticks of butter. She whirled around in time to block two blaster fire with her lightsaber, and the blaster fire ricocheted and hit the two droids who'd fired them.
Astrid pushed forward, slicing and cutting in a blue blur of plasmic energy. Ahsoka got a little separated from Astrid, but Anakin stayed by Astrid's side, the two of them working in perfect tandem.
One of them would stab a droid, while the other would covered for them by blocking stray blaster fire, or by cutting down a droid about to fire at them.
A missile whizzed over their heads, and Astrid risked a glance backwards to see it hit the deflector shield, the entire shield wavering slightly underneath the missile's impact. Astrid caught Anakin's gaze, and understanding flowed between them.
They needed to get to those tanks immediately.
Suddenly, there was a blast from up ahead, and Astrid saw over the droids' head that someone had blown up one of the tanks.
Astrid ducked to the side as blaster fire zoomed right past her ear. That was a little too close for comfort. She resumed fighting, gaining feet by the second on the droids. There was another blast up ahead, signaling someone had managed to bomb another tank.
Farther and farther, Astrid and Anakin pushed forward, and Astrid spotted Ahsoka up ahead, nearing one of the tanks. "I'm going to run up ahead to the tanks!" Astrid shouted to Anakin over the boom of another missile against the shield deflector.
Anakin nodded, and Astrid began to cut a quick path through the droids. She didn't slice down all of the droids she passed because her mission was to get to the tanks, but Astrid trusted Anakin would cut down the stranglers left behind by her.
Astrid finally reached the nearest tank, and she leapt up on top of it, using the Force as a booster, and she sliced the droid manning the gun on top of the tank in half with her lightsaber. Without wasting an instant, she forced open the metal hatch door of the tank with the Force, and quickly leapt inside, making quick haste of cutting down the droid controlling the tank's movement.
With the tank in her own control, Astrid turned it around so the gun was aimed at one of the other tanks, and she shot it down in a fiery blast. She turned to the next tank and shot that one down as well.
By that point the other tank had caught on to the fact that her tank had been taken over, and it aimed its gun at her. Astrid leapt out of the tank and landed on the ground in a roll just as her tank blew up into smithereens.
Astrid shield her face with her arms as metal shrapnel flew everywhere, some of the shrapnel slicing small cuts along her arms, and a few managed to even scratch her cheek. She looked up in time to watch as the one remaining tank fired at the shield deflector. The shield deflector flickered at the impact of the missile before it gave out entirely.
Astrid watched in horror as the battle droids they hadn't managed to cut down in time flooded into the village. From where she lay crouched on the ground, she could see Lurmen fleeing away from the battle droids.
But then she noticed a few of the Lurmen began to attack the droids. Some of them leapt onto the droid's backs and ripping their metal heads off, wires sparking in protest, while others dripped the droids with taunt rope. Those must be Wag Too's friends.
Astrid rose to her feet and made to head towards the last remaining tank, but the tank was seized with electricity as Ahsoka rolled a electro-proton bomb underneath it, deactivating the tank, itself, and the droids inside and on top of the tank.
Astrid turned towards the village and realized that Rex and Master Secura were already sprinting towards the village and the fighting Lurmen. Astrid allowed herself to relax as the very last of the battle droids were cut down.
The battle was won.
Astrid took a step forward, and her foot crunched on the charred grass. She looked down at the blackened ground, wondering what exactly the Separatist's weapon had been. Had they just been trying to burn the village down? Was that their grand weapon?
Anakin appeared beside her, and as if guessing her thoughts, he explained, "The Separatist had a weapon called the defoliator that destroys organic life but leaves non-organics unharmed." He indicated to the charred plant life as he said, "As you can see it worked. Thankfully, we got the shield deflector up before it could reach the village."
"And what happened to the weapon?" Astrid asked, looking up from the grass to look at Anakin.
"It's destroyed," he told her, eyes turned towards the village.
"Good."
Anakin grasped her hand, and Astrid turned towards him. She scanned his face for any signs of injury from the battle, and Astrid felt relieved when she found nothing amiss. He reached up with his free hand and brushed a lock of her hair back, his fingers gently tracing across her right temple.
"You have a scratch here," Anakin murmured.
"Probably from the flying shrapnel," Astrid replied quietly as she subconsciously leaned towards him. "It's nothing major."
Anakin smiled slightly, and he leaned his head forward till their foreheads were touching. Astrid closed her eyes, her body relaxing against him as the adrenaline left her body in his soothing presence and honeyed scent.
And then he was kissing her, give her the most gentlest of kisses, and Astrid slid a hand behind his neck as she kissed him back.
Little did they know that just twenty yards away, Ahsoka stood witness to their treachery.
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Haha sorry this quote for this chapter isn't an actual Star Wars quote! It's getting harder to find good ones that are related to the chapter! Hope you're having a nice day!
--Paradise_Palms