Star Wars: Soldiers of the War Eternal

Aestra

This would be a fucking stupid way to die.

Aestra steadied herself against the frame of the decrepit elevator as it shuddered and jolted before continuing to grind its slow descent into the planet. This rust bucket was in an even worse condition than the one that took them from the main colony to the surface. She surveyed the pitted metal of the cage and considered whether the state of the cable holding it up was any better. If the cable broke, how far would she fall? Nobody seemed to know how far into the world the Facility went. She imagined falling all the way into the planet's core, being cooked alive long before she hit the molten rock at the bottom, dying in flames.

Death in itself was fine. Death by malfunctioning rust box would be a waste. If she had to die so young and so fucking hot it had better be a glorious death, a lightsaber in her hand, a sneer on her lips, surrounded by a shit ton of cowardly Jedi, their usual smug, righteous smiles slapped off their faces by the sight of a pile of dead asshole comrades lying at the feet of Aestra, Jedi Slayer extraordinaire. "If we all attack at once, we can take her," their leader, probably some conventionally handsome human born into a life of privilege, would say, but his fluttering lightsaber blade would betray a trembling hand. "Maybe, maybe not, but you'll certainly die first," she'd smirk, watching the sweat bead on his smooth brow.

Going out like that - like a true Sith - would be A-Ok. Just peach-.

A sudden lurch shook Aestra out of pleasant fantasy as the elevator passed by a long-abandoned level, glimpsed in shadows. Worn out and centuries old like everything else in this dark (mostly), cold (always), bottomless (as far as she knew) shit hole. Maybe the engineers and sci-guys should spend more time on making sure the Facility was maintained well enough to not kill them, instead of their ridiculous Force enhancer and cloning experiments. Fat chance. The remnants of the Sith Eternal, the entire creepy lot of them, were borderline insane, so twisted by their desire for revenge and traumatized by the events of Exegol that they rarely left the lower levels to visit the colony, only venturing from their labs when they needed to experiment or test a new device on some unfortunate acolyte.

The elevator slowed its descent-slash-controlled fall and Aestra glanced at the time and cursed. Why was she here? It was a terrible idea. If she was late for saber class, Xate would inflict some painful, humiliating punishment that would put her further behind Tor.

And Darth Inferna would only accept one. It had to be her.

But she'd been woken by a pull at her heart that felt familiar, a disquieting whisper carried on the winds of the Force. It wanted to hear her, so she had to do this properly, at the holiest place she had access to in lieu of the Sith Temple. The Temple's sprawling underground labyrinth was accessible only from a couple of places in the lower levels, and those were sealed off, the Eternal and Council keeping its secrets all to themselves. Still, sometimes, lying awake in the dark of another frigid night, she could sense it below her, feel its brooding power like a stain on the Force.

The deceleration continued, and the metal cage screeched, squealed and shuddered to a slightly lopsided but unexpectedly smooth stop. Final destination? Or had it simply given up? Peering through the rusted mesh doors into shadows, Aestra could make out the walls of a corridor heading off into the darkness. She was here.

She cranked open the doors and stepped up onto a tiled floor. Her presence detected, most of the ceiling lights sputtered into life, throwing uneven pools of light onto a long, straight stretch of cracked flooring and paint-peeling walls that lead to a nondescript double door, and somewhere beyond that, the shrine.

Aestra's boot heels clicked out a severe, staccato rhythm that echoed around the corridor as she strode towards her goal, cape flowing in shimmering black waves behind her. Bit of a retro, Vader-esque touch that might not be the latest thing in Darksider fashions, but Lady Arriet - "The Jedi Whisperer" - looked super cool in one in that holo series they'd watched surreptitiously last year, so fuck it. Everyone loved Lady Arriet; the biggest bitch in the Corporate Regions, which was saying something.

Sweat prickled her skin unexpectedly. The skintight black nano-cling that wrapped her from neck to foot was adjusted for the colony's usual permachill, but this far below the surface the atmosphere had changed to a stuffy warmth.

She must be hundreds of meters below the habitat levels now. After eight years in the colony, this was only the second time she'd visited. Why keep their holiest artifacts so far away? It wasn't as if there weren't enough free spaces to use higher up in the vast and virtually empty Facility. Perhaps to keep them near the Temple, in case they were required for a ceremony; there had been a handful of those in each of the eight years since the colony was established, providing a welcome break from the grind of training, supply runs and the business of hiding/surviving in an inhospitable rock on the edge of the Wild Regions.

Aestra arrived at the door, took out a key and unlocked it, the mechanism thankfully not rusted tight.

It would only take a minute to get this done. Then back up to classes, elevator willing.