POWER STRUGGLE: JEDI: FALLEN ORDER

PROLOGUE

"CAREFUL WITH THIS ONE, SHE'S A SCRAPPER." The stormtrooper chuckled, patting his friend on the shoulder as he went to leave the room.

"Wait–hold on, what do you mean?" The other stormtrooper, visibly frightened, asked. The stormtrooper stopped in the doorway.

"Last guy who tried to take off her helmet ended up with a broken nose and a concussion."

"But she's tied up!"

"Exactly."

The door slid shut with a hissing noise and it was just the woman and the new, unfortunate stormtrooper doomed to stand guard over her.

There was an uncomfortable silence and the stormtrooper realized that the woman was watching him very intently, almost nonchalantly, despite the fact that he couldn't see her face.

"You're the tough kind, are you?" The stormtrooper cleared his throat and put on a tough act. He was suddenly very grateful that she couldn't see his face behind the helmet.

"Lord Vader gave us very special instructions on what to do with people like you. But you already know that, don't you?"

The woman didn't answer, simply continuing to watch him through her helmet. It made the stormtrooper shudder, it felt as though somehow she was seeing everything, all his secrets and everything about him; and she was judging him.

"If you keep that up I'll have no choice but to do as I'm told."

She didn't stop staring.

"Stop it!"

Still staring.

The stormtrooper let out an irritated huff as he approached her, reaching over to grab the needles and stick them back into her arms, his armour plates clanking against each other.

"Don't say I didn't give you a chanc–"

The stormtrooper stilled as a searing heat tore through his abdomen, and as he looked down he realized that a blaster shot had hit him square in the chest. Looking back up, he realized that the woman was holding his blaster. Terror washed through him as his body began to go numb.

"Thanks for the blaster," she said smugly, and he could hear the smirk in her voice. "You've been very helpful."

The stormtrooper stumbled back, clutching his chest and gasping for air. It didn't take long for him to keel over, dropping to his knees and then to his side, arms falling limply and his head hitting the floor with an audible thud.

The woman sighed, letting her head fall back for a moment as she relaxed her body. She had been sitting completely still for days. But she couldn't linger, someone would come check in eventually.

She angled the blaster towards one of her wrist bindings and pulled the trigger, breaking the binding and the bolt grazing her wrist. She undid the other binding with her free hand before getting to work on her legs.

The woman stood, groaning in relief as she stretched. That chair was unbelievably uncomfortable, and she had been sitting in it for far longer than she would've liked.

The woman grabbed her weapons off the table in the corner of the room, left there to taunt her. Her staff, her own blaster which was much less clunky and much more accurate than any stormtroopers blaster, and her comm link.

She attached the comm link to her helmet and tuned it to the best of her abilities, unable to block out empire interference.

"Cere? Greez? Do you read me?"

"JJ? Where are you?!" Cere's relieved yet frantic voice all but shouted on the other end.

"Imperial starship headed towards Bracca, I'll send you the coordinates. Get your asses over here and get me off this thing, will you?"

JJ continued down the long, winding halls of the base, looking for the exit; relying on her sedation-addled memories of being dragged through the base to guide her.

She came upon a long, sprawling corridor that felt different from the others, a darkness plaguing it, one so intense and jarring it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention.

She wasn't alone.

~*~

JJ stumbled onto the Mantis, the adrenaline wearing off as soon as she was out of danger. Pain pulsed through her body, the consequence of the torture she had been through.

Cere rushed over, taking her into her arms in a gentle but warm hug. She had been gone for days with no trace of where she had last been, and Cere was worried sick the whole time.

"Good to see you too," JJ smiled, bringing an arm up to return the hug before pulling away and stumbling over to the galactic map.

"You need to rest," Cere tried to get her to sit down with soft hand on her shoulder.

"I'll rest later, this is more urgent." JJ brushed her off, putting in the coordinates to Bracca. "Overheard a transmission, I know why they were heading to Bracca."

Cere watched patiently, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, brow wrinkled in concern. Cere had become something of a mother to JJ, the first in a very long time.

"There's a Jedi on Bracca, he did something that got their attention." JJ turned to see that Cere's eyes had widened almost dramatically, standing up straight.

"You know what they'll do if they catch him, so we have to get there first."

"The empire's tracking down a Jedi?" Greez piped up from the pilot's chair. "You know what kinda manpower they'll be sending? Maybe it's best we, you know, stay out of this one–"

"We're going to Bracca," Cere cut him off sharply. "We need a Jedi and now we've found one. We won't let the Empire get him."

Greez let out a long, exasperated sigh. "Fine. We'll go to Bracca. But if my ship gets scratched up you're paying for the repairs."

"Deal," JJ chuckled, taking a seat in the cockpit. "Now get us to Bracca, captain."