Survivor: A Star Wars Story

Chapter XXIII

REINA TAUTASKI

The elevator doors sealed smoothly behind her, Reina's breath catching in her chest and the aftershock of sprinting reverberating through her shins.  Thudding against the wall, the clothes on her back clung to her skin as the bass of the hydraulic cables hummed lowly in pitch above her.  She rose through the levels of Separatist command, still reeling from the intoxicating fury that had smothered the city.  The flaming jaws of war had savaged without discrimination, ugly rubble scars blotting the once clear definitions between the rich-poor divide.  The girl's nose scrunched as an acidic whiff of smoke burned her sinuses, clinging to the weaves of fabrics now muddied and shredded.  Thumbing yet another fraying strand of tan material, she listened to the echoed thunder of explosions from not so far away, an unnecessary reminder of the raving conflict outside the tower.  Her fingers clutched tighter to the icy hilt of her lightsaber that was made cold from the night air.  She was slightly thankful for the ease of approach to the command tower; the way had been cleared prematurely in a trail of demolition and sharp marksmanship, unmistakable as that of clones'.

But only slightly.

Pulling a deep breath into her lungs, she envisioned an imaginary spot in front of her, drawing her focus together.  Already, she could feel the pulsations of the Force like a blackhole threatening to consume her.  It was only within the strain that she realised how much more attuned to the Force she had become since training with Kenoni.  Carefully, she reached out into the Force, the pressure of thousands of emotions exploding and churning in a thundering cosmogyral.  The Force was racked with a cacophony of sensations of fury, wrath and distress mounting upon itself in great swells before they would collapse upon their own weight, crashing and dispersing again in an overwhelming cataclysm.   Terror, anger and confusion worked in a haywire fashion, enveloping each presence like ink blots bleeding through an ancient text and reforming it to its own designs.

A grimace etched itself across her face.  Latching onto a memory of dusk's light filtering into the meditation rooms, Kenobi's words pierced the veil of anger in the Force saying, "There will be times that you'll be surrounded with suffering and strife.  As Jedi, we must understand this but cannot become it." 

The girl narrowed down her senses and shaving off each piece of useless information until she eventually found herself a manageable range that quivered tensely under her hold.  To say she could see the group wasn't quite accurate - it was closer to looking for a faraway planet tucked amongst the stars night sky, almost indistinguishable unless you knew it was there, lost in the symphony of the universe.  But it called to Reina, a small ball of tenseness and anxiety trying not to be noticed and conversely making itself more noticeable.

She opened her eyes again, feeling the tie remain as she pinpointed the group.  Their worries bled from their presence like oil sat on water, a constant tug pulling at her mind's eye towards them.  The hum of the cables outside the box deepened; the falling sensation of a stopping elevator settling in her gut before the doors slid open without warning.  Her lips pressed together in a wary line at the automatic stop but she disembarked anyway, the presence of the target group looming right over her head.  They were very close... she could sense it.

~

The circuit panel in the wall sparked angrily in protest, the shock triggering a low cuss in frustration from Trapper.

"Hurry up.  We're on the clock." the leader of the group, Warrack, pressed - he, alike the rest of the rebels, was not either the most friendly nor the most inconspicuous person.  With his squished features set in a permanently hostile expression, ornamented by nose that looked like it had been broken at least three times and shoulders wide enough to compete with a Besalisk, his general ugliness put most gundarks to shame.  Trapper would have found that thought funny if, like a gundark, he wasn't also willing to cave the clone's head in if given the slightest reason to warrant it.