STAR WARS: Gray Jedi

Prologue

PLANET NAG UBDUR. THE CAPITAL CITY BINJAI-TIN.

"Run!" 

Destin held on tightly to sister's hand as she pulled him forward through the terrorized crowd now rushing the streets of Binjai-Tin.  Smoke filled his lungs and soot covered his skin as the buildings all around him burned of hot fire and stone. Red streaks of blaster fire tore through the sky as local militia fired their blasters, fighting to repel their Stormtooper invaders. Destin had never felt so much fear nor seen such fear in the faces of his neighbors. They pushed him and his sister left and right, desperate to escape the death that the First Order had brought upon their planet. 

"This way!" Solara shouted as she pulled him away from the mob. 

Solara pulled Destin down a nearby alleyway made between the local cantina and scrap shop. 

"It's here!" she cried, as she slid onto her knees beside a pothole entrance burrowed within the dirt. 

Destin watched as his sister grabbed the edges of the pothole seal, lifting the cap as hard as she could. 

"Help me!" she cried out to him.

Without thinking, Destin did as he was told and knelt beside his sister, grabbing the edges of the pothole cap with his fingers.  Binjai-Tin was a city with a well known underground waterway system. They had used them constantly to traverse the city quickly and outmaneuver the latest vendor they stole old ship parts from in the local market. (Something their mother had always had a talking with them about). But now, these waterways had become even more  indispensable to their survival. 

It took a moment, but they were finally able to lift the seal and drop it to their side, but just as Destin caught his breath, a huge blast tore through the back wall of the nearby cantina, it's shockwave sending him and Solara soaring through the air, landing a good couple feet away from where they knelt. Destin coughed, his ears ringing from the explosion, his sister's voice muffled to his hearing as she asked, "Are you okay?"  

"Yeah. I think so," Destin replied, the wind taken from him. 

Solara raised him to his feet. Together they turned, finding the pothole entrance they just opened shut with debris, blocking their escape into the underground.

"Frag," Solara cursed. "Well, there goes that plan."

Then, a voice cried out at the other end of the alley. "You two! Halt!" 

The two siblings turned, spotting two First Order Stormtroopers running towards them, blasters raised.

Solara wasted no time. She grabbed Destin's hand and pulled him towards the tree line that laid at the opposite end of the alley that led to woodlands. 

"Run!" Solara cried. 

Solara never looked back. Destin, however, couldn't fight the temptation to look over his shoulder and spot the white armored soldiers rushing towards them. They were terrifying, their helmets inanimate skulls come to bring nothing but death and destruction. One of the Troopers  raised his blaster and fired, sending a hot red plasma round searing through the air. It whisked right past Destin's ear, striking the trunk of a tree just ahead, bursting into yellow flares on its impact. 

"Stop!" one of them shouted. 

"Keep moving!" Solara cried.

Destin barely kept up with his sister's pace, his ten-year old lungs gasping for air.  They knew this forest well. They had spent many hours playing rebel commando in it with one another, but today this place, their cherished playground, had become a battleground instead. They dodged the woodland branches dangling in the air and hopped over fallen tree trunks fallen to the ground. Destin looked up as he heard the terrible shrieks of tie-fighters zooming through the sky above them as they tangled in dog-fights with the militia-deployed X-Wings. Solara finally stopped and pulled him down to the ground, hiding themselves behind a thick bush just large enough to conceal their presence. Destin panted heavily, his chest taking in as much air as they could allow.