Shadow of the Saber

Part 2: The Deep Dune Sea

The stun cuffs clicked open. Mara let them fall, rubbing her wrists as she took in her surroundings. No guards. No surveillance. Just the empty containment cell, its null-field generators mysteriously offline. They're playing with me.

Through the viewport, Tatooine's twin suns had shifted position. Two hours lost to unconsciousness. The sandbarge's course correction was more obvious now—they were headed straight for the Deep Dune Sea. Where ships went to disappear forever.

A scream echoed through the ventilation system. Then another. The sound of running feet in the corridor outside. So that's their game. They were herding the passengers, using fear to draw her out. Amateur move. Except...

The screams weren't stopping.

Mara triggered the cell's release mechanism, half-expecting resistance. The door slid open smoothly. Too smoothly. In the corridor, emergency lights pulsed an angry red. The air felt wrong—thin, bitter with the taste of electrical fire.

"Environmental controls are failing in sections five through eight," a calm voice announced over the ship's comm. "Please proceed to designated safety areas." A pause. "This is not a drill."

Of course it isn't. She moved quickly through the corridors, following the sound of panicked voices. The lower deck access hatch was sealed—not by her earlier lockdown, but by newer codes. Through its small window, she saw faces pressed against other hatches. Dozens of them. Trapped.

"Quite a problem, isn't it?" The voice came from behind her, modulated through cybernetics but somehow still carrying amusement. "Save them and expose yourself, or maintain your cover and let them suffer. He taught you to make such choices, didn't he?"

Mara turned. The woman stood at the corridor's end, lightwhip uncoiled and humming with lethal energy. Her armor gleamed with the same red as the emergency lights, making her seem like she'd been birthed from the ship's own warnings.

"Who are you?" Mara kept her voice steady, buying time as she assessed options.

"I'm disappointed." The woman took a step forward. The lightwhip's energy filaments left scorchmarks on the deck. "Didn't my father ever mention me? No, I suppose he wouldn't have. Vader was never one for family reunions."

She struck without warning. The lightwhip cracked through the air where Mara's head had been a heartbeat before. Fast. Too fast for normal reflexes. But Mara couldn't use the Force openly, not yet. Not until she understood the game.

"The passengers," Mara said, ducking another strike. "Let them out."

"Why? Because they're innocent?" The woman—Lumiya, that was her name, pulled from old Imperial records—laughed. "No one's innocent. They're all part of the corrupt system that replaced my father's Empire. That replaced our Empire."

The next strike caught Mara's shoulder, searing through fabric to skin. She rolled with it, using the pain to focus. "You're insane."

"I'm a realist." Lumiya advanced, her cybernetic limbs whirring. "And I'm about to be very busy. You see, I've planted charges throughout this ship. When they detonate, the hull will breach. Out here, in the Deep Dune Sea, that's rather inconvenient."

As if on cue, the first explosion rocked the ship. Somewhere below, metal screamed. Warning klaxons joined the chorus of human voices.

Mara ran. Not toward safety—there was no safety here—but toward the cargo hold. If there were charges, there would be a detonator. If there was a detonator, there would be a control center. Basic Imperial tactics. Some things never changed.