He stepped down from the shuttle, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun. Yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.
She kept him still and held his beating heart with one gaze, feeding off of him. She was a succubus, beauti...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Shudders rumbled through the earth. Like sporadic earthquakes, the air trembled with the ferocity of cannon fire, a staccato of booms reverberating through the walls of the metal carcass. Each blast sent tremors racing through the dark cabin, the walls groaning in protest as the stale air hung thick with the acrid scent of burnt rock and scorched metal.
The metal grating beneath their boots quaked with each blast, and the sound of rocks crashing onto the carrier above rumbled through the armored walls like a death knell. The hull rattled, the red-lit space shuddering under the relentless barrage. The durasteel cabin groaned, a guttural sound of strain as it rocked from the force of another blast.
Loud booms followed, echoing the wrath of the enemy cannons as the armored vehicle groaned and bucked under the assault.
Then, with a violent lurch, the hexapod's frame teetered and finally succumbed, crashing forward into the rocky terrain. The sudden halt threw the dark cabin into a jarring silence, interrupted only by the groaning of stressed metal and the hissing of hydraulic systems gone awry.
Sunlight slashed through the darkness as the dorsal hatch flew open, blazing with the intensity and wrath of the planet's only sun.
A figure emerged from the hatch—tall, strong, with dark skin gleaming in the light. His shaved head caught the sun, and his penetrating eyes, sharp and unyielding, took in the chaos with an easy calm. Despite the lines of experience etched into his face, it remained smooth, betraying nothing of the years behind him.
This was a Jedi.
"Take cover," Mace Windu ordered, his voice a deep, commanding rumble that barely rose above the relentless booms of the turrets.
A girl and two clone troopers followed in quick succession, vaulting out of the open hatch. The squadron was high up, navigating a precarious cliffside path with jagged rocks jutting out dangerously, far down to the depths of a seemingly bottomless canyon beneath them.
The girl, her skin kissed by the sun, hopped up lightly beside the clones. Her tangle of hair whipped about her face and shoulders, and her eyes, blue and bright with determination, flickered with a momentary glimmer of excitement despite the chaos that had found them. The thrill of the fight called to her as a grin threatened to split her composed complexion of youth.
At just nineteen, Talia Shan had already risen to become one of the most famous Jedi of their age...
Her boots kicked up dust as she landed on the winding path beside the walker. She fell into step behind the clones, trailing closely to the shelter of the downed AT-TE like a comet chasing its tail.
The rocky cliffside path to the capital city of Lessu was narrow and treacherous, the steep drop below a reminder of the precarious, back-against-the-wall, no-win situation the planet and people of Ryloth had found themselves subjugated to.
