Chapter Text
Find her find her find her— his mantra shattered beneath a typhoon of sharp, screeching blasterfire. Again again again. Swarming pattering footsteps rattled the flaming spaceship's halls. It could only be so huge, it could only be so huge, only so many places she could hide— Cyrus' eyes absorbed each scene like a camera. Each cabin was pillaged, the medbay raided, remaining doors jammed. Find her.
Silver clad Sith bled through the mighty smoking veins of the Endar Spire, Cyrus unmistakable from the rest. Alarms shook his loose armor as they marched in hasty militaristic unison. Find her— Each blare rattled his bones. Sith were not subtle intruders. Aboard this vessel lay the key. Find her, or Lord Malak will raise all of Hell. He raised his rifle amongst the armed march, locking eyes with a swarm of orange clad Republic men rushing from neighboring halls, breaching ever closer to his squadron. Leave no survivors.
It rained, the air was split in two— four— a thousand times over. Armor and cloth sizzled and smoked with each shot. Heavy bodies thumped to the floor, adding to the screaming din of battle. Cyrus darted behind upturned metal flooring, peeking over the edge with the barrel of his general-issue rifle. His squadron scattered, firing their own hidden weapons to clear the path beneath shaking and sputtering emergency lights.
An explosion echoed like the toll of a church bell, clogging the narrow hallway with pluming black smoke. The blaring alarm froze in reverence as the Endar Spire's groaning walls collapsed onto an unlucky silver recruit. Ash speckled the living Sith like snow, their coughing and screaming leading Cyrus closer as they all emerged like starving ticks searching for prey, for her. His rifle grew hot with each blind shot fired. He split the smoke and shot the grenadier dead before he scarred the torn floor with another grenade.
The smoke cleared.
"To the escape pods, men!" The red clad Sith screamed, leading his shuddering men over rubble and splattered corpses. "Catch the Jedi before they deploy!"
The alarm urged the Sith squadron on, each red blare illuminating carbon-scored lightsaber wounds on Sith men and metal alike. Cyrus gritted his teeth at the sight. Leftover battles stained the halls red and black the deeper the Sith ravaged the scorched maze. Were we too late?
A fellow Sith tripped over a singed silver chest plate cut cleanly in two, cursing as the Endar Spire fell suddenly silent. Cyrus' entrails tied themselves into knots. He released his jaw, cautiously shifting his eyes left and right. The alarm whimpered, then refused to blare again. A Jedi's work…
After a moment, Cyrus trusted the quiet, so he slowed and crouched down, examining the ruined Sith armor. Other Sith, forced to a halt, did similar. The room was vacant, besides the Sith poking about. The ruined armor was scorched from the inside out, like the man wearing it had swallowed a power generator.
"Nothing here! Move move move!"
Cyrus sprung upwards instantaneously, rushing into the bowels of the Endar Spire with the rest of his men. The alarm screamed, the ceiling groaned, lights flickered as they ran. His heart pounded, throwing itself harder and harder against his ribs. He dodged a gutted corpse, matching a marching pace with the rest of his like. The hallway squeezed narrower and narrower the closer the Sith got to the escape pods.
His senses prickled. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end—
"Get down!" Cyrus screamed, pulling the closest Sith to him and sprinting forward. Strained beams and hull collapsed onto the hesitating crowd, silencing their gasps with a crumple of armor and bone. His chest shook and sputtered as Cyrus inhaled futile breath after breath. He couldn't find their commander, it was just him and the fellow faceless Sith. They looked to each other, armor flashing red and white as the alarm mourned their fallen brethren. The Sith he saved clasped his armored hand, trembling. Cyrus clasped back.
An electrical box burst beside him, illuminating his armor as lightning danced upon it. It seared beneath, but Cyrus was protected.
Someone was laughing. A woman. Her voice harmonized with the alarm. Cyrus let go of the Sith's hand, swiveling around and cocking his rifle—
The Endar Spire froze. The halls rang as a mighty gunshot boomed and ripped the air, clipping the top of Cyrus' helmet and leaving an inch wide hole in the durasteel behind him.
His veins bled ice. Not even a Jedi could survive a lead bullet. Few could recognize the eldritch horror of a gun.
He pointed his meager blaster rifle at the short woman, who held her revolver to his full-face visor at point blank. He could almost smell the gunpowder inside the barrel. The alarm blared again. Cyrus hesitated. The metal revolver glinted under the lights. The woman wrapped her finger around the trigger. Something else glinted, distracting him—
The glimmering Sith he saved barreled into the woman, knocking her from her footing. She staggered to the side, gun clattering to the ground before—
BANG—
~
Cyrus had to find this Jedi on a planet with a population pushing one trillion.
Out of the dozens of escape pods the Endar Spire housed, only four deployed. The Sith are brutal and efficient in their work, but a city world's population is always double what the census claims once squatters and homeless are accounted for. Out of four escape pods, each could support on average of three people. Out of the twelve Republic survivors, one was the Jedi.
One in a trillion.
Cyrus' chest tightened beneath his scorched armor as he examined the shredded, top-most platform of the endless city. Whisps of vertigo turned the scene slightly askew as he approached the first crashed escape pod the Sith uncovered.
It nested itself within the rather thin durasteel the platform was made of, secure over the edge despite the demolished guardrail clawing at its hull. Caution tape was set up around the perimeter of the crash. The freshly appointed Sith governor proclaimed a curfew, leaving the city's streets eerily empty for grunts like Cyrus to work atop through the night. The escape pod still reeked of smoke and fuel.
Cyrus, gritted his teeth while his strained breaths combated the faulty air filter in his helmet. He ran his armored hand over the warm wreckage, peeking over the ruined guard rail's open ledge. The survivors are lucky to have the door facing the platform, otherwise they would have crawled out and fallen into a fatal man-made hell. Lord Malak wanted the Jedi alive, after all…
Flashing advertisements and street lights flickered down endlessly into the void, each and every one cradling a web of thin metal platforms just like the one Cyrus and the other Sith in this search party stood upon. For all he knew, this escape pod probably crashed miles above the natural surface of this planet... He looked for any signs of a second crash on some lower platforms underneath the open ledge, but the metal remained intact. Cyrus turned his attention back to the escape pod.
A squadmate, who's name Cyrus hadn't learned yet, passed him a lantern, motioning to the swinging door toward the front of the escape pod. It was slightly ajar, indicating that the survivors had managed to escape and flee in the few hours it took for the Sith to organize a party of competent enough soldiers and scouts to investigate. Cyrus noticed three bloody footprints leading to a nearby building before disappearing entirely.
Approaching the door, he nudged it fully open. Being one of the smaller men in this group, he was more than capable of doing the crawling, so he lifted the lantern and peeked inside.
This particular escape pod seemed to have only housed two survivors. Cyrus clipped the lantern onto his belt, crawling inside of the wreckage and gripping a torn seatbelt to keep himself steady. Planting his feet on the floor, he grabbed the lantern again.
By nature of his busted air filter, Cyrus nearly choked on the stench of blood. Quickly, he noticed the steaming pools on the floor. The escape pod was freshly vacant.
"See anything, Sero?" The lantern Sith asked him from outside.
"Just shrapnel and blood," Cyrus responded, crawling deeper into the escape pod. The interior was faulty. Only half of the required air bags had deployed.
Remy, recognizable solely by his height in uniform, peeked his helmeted head inside. "I don't think anyone survived this one," he said, adding an unhelpful observation to the search. Cyrus was beyond grateful Remy wasn't tasked with ravaging the Endar Spire like he was, and instead was tasked solely to poke around the ruins. The escape pod strained as a few other Sith pulled pieces of the outer hull loose.
Cyrus looked back at Remy. "Well, there are no bodies, and this planet can't host wildlife." He looked away and pried open the survival locker. It was entirely looted. "Someone must have dragged them off."
"Who though?"
"Anyone could have."
Remy grunted and chose to explore the exterior instead of responding. Cyrus scoffed, returning his attention to the bloody floor— his breath hitched.
Handgun bullets— Metal, roaring, gunpowder bullets rolled about like loose marbles as they guarded freshly forged Republic dog tags. Cyrus snatched the tags like a snake striking at its next meal. He abandoned all thought as he held the lantern up and read the information printed onto the metal sheets:
NAME: RENIER SKATASKI
SPECIES: HUMAN
SEX: FEMALE
HOME WORLD: DERALIA
Cyrus turned the tags over, noting this soldier's age as he read her birth-date. Thirty-eight. She was much too old to be a freshly recruited grunt. He looked at the loose bullets as his stomach turned. This was the crazed woman on the Endar Spire. Sneering beneath his helmet, he pocketed the dog tags. Given the amount of blood pooling about, it was unlikely she survived this crash at all. He noticed a long curly black hair stuck in the fastener of the torn seatbelt, vaguely recognizing it as hers. She truly was done for. Cyrus was content adding her tags to his collection. A corpse had little use for them anyway.
Regardless of Renier's tags, however, Cyrus was on the lookout for any signs of Jedi. Brushing aside bullets and shrapnel, he checked beneath the escape pod's seats only to find, unsurprisingly, more bullets. The gun was nowhere to be seen either, but it wasn't much use without ammunition— the one strength blasters had against actual guns. Cyrus collected a few bullets as well as the dog tags, then finally crawled from the red-stained wreckage.
Fellow Sith were growing bored, others uneasy. Cyrus clipped the lantern onto his belt and powered it off.
"Any luck?" Remy asked, his modulated voice harsh against the silent city night. Something is very wrong…
Cyrus shook his head, keeping his eyes on the bent, carbon-scored metal for a while longer. Then, he spoke loudly so the entire search party could hear, "No sign of a Jedi, survival locker looted. Only two passengers, one likely killed in the crash then dragged off."
Various Sith nodded slowly, then there was an attention grabbing clap.
"Niras," Remy turned his visor to the Sith clad in red armor, their commanding officer, "write the report."
Remy sighed and pulled his work-issued datapad from his belt, typing slowly. The more often he was asked, the funnier his reactions got. Those higher in command had a liking toward making Remy do grunt work solely to watch him give himself an ulcer swallowing his egotistical complaints. Remy kicked aside a piece of shrapnel, following the red Sith waving his silver men along. Cyrus hated that he found Remy's shattered expectations for glorifying battle funny. It happened to everyone. When he enlisted, he was promoted to Bread Sergeant.
That was three years ago, though, before the war got too real too quick, before he was snorting gunpowder from the barrels of antique guns.
Cyrus escaped the Endar Spire before it was shot down, donned in smoldering armor, then celebrated his life with another assignment. It was all the same desperate mission, though. Any living man could be useful. He was near unscathed.
Hours since then, Cyrus' chest was still tight and heavy. Each breath felt like inhaling through a straw. Lingering remnants of the Endar Spire's battle popped and crackled beneath his singed armor. His orders loomed over his small stature with claws around his throat. The governor's freshly imposed quarantine felt useless in context of this planet's colossal population. His promised view of the sky was too polluted to amount to anything pleasurable.
Cyrus looked up. The four moons of this planet were half shrouded in smog. The void beneath the uppermost platforms twinkled brighter than the sky. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Remy grouchily hit "Submit" on his datapad. Cyrus smiled softly at the imagined eye roll Remy gave beneath his black visor.
A shorter Sith interrupted the silence. "What planet are we on? It looks like Coruscant, but we're too far out to be at the capital."
"Glad you ask!" The Sith that passed Cyrus the lantern mimicked a salesman-esque voice. Cyrus recalled him briefly say he wanted to be an actor when he was young. "We are on Taris, the Coruscant of the outer rim!" He waved his hand slowly and dramatically as he spoke.
"Taris?" A third piped up, "My grandma's from Taris."
Cyrus was vaguely familiar with the planet of Taris, though he did not realize he was stationed here until he was told. The atmosphere was quite unassuming. When he was a child, his people had overtaken the city world in the previous war, though he didn't hear much else of the seige and planet alike. His schooling years consisted mostly of whatever war tactics could have been used to guarantee more planets were taken similarly, and taken permanently, so that Revan could be defeated.
It was hardly useful.
His fellow Mandalorians were either dead, in exile, or sworn into feeble loyalty underneath those who wrecked them.
Revan was formidable, and her inevitable victory felt just. There was no shame in adapting her tactics and following the victor when your entire faith regarded battle, but she was killed a year prior. Her apprentice, Darth Malak, took control of the Sith militia, then sent ex-mandalorian grunts like Cyrus on impossible searches for his precious Jedi.
Cyrus considered it almost as an insult, but then he'd sound like Remy and risk his life. Powerful ex-Jedi such as Darth Malak had a deadly ego, and deadlier bias. Malak was not as sympathetic toward Mandalorian children as Revan was.
"I heard the wine is really good here," a fourth Sith added. "Tarisian Ale. Three-hundred credits for a bottle back home."
"Three hundred???" The first asked, jaw likely agape.
"Three whole hundred. Hopefully it's cheaper here… I wanna try some."
Cyrus cared little for alcohol. He'd be too young to drink deep into the organized Core anyway, not that anyone knew. This was in the outer rim, and nobody gave a shit.
"I got credits, boys," Remy offered, poorly masking his enthusiasm, "maybe on a day off we could get together, have fun!" He grabbed Cyrus' shoulder, shaking him softly. Cyrus tensed.
All Cyrus felt, however, was their commanding officer's unseen warning glare.
"Maybe we could all pitch in for the wine?" The shorter sith, getting the memo, whispered.
"Great idea. Let's call it a plan," Remy confirmed, smirk in his voice as he let go of Cyrus.
"Boys." The commanding officer warned. The Sith fell quiet.
Cyrus held his breath as they rounded a bend. He knew Sith, especially Remy, were stubborn. This party will happen even if Darth Malak crashed directly into the military base riding on an asteroid. He remained quiet, listening to his armor clink against itself as he walked.
Propaganda and Sith embalms were quick to conquer the signs and bulletins of upper City Taris. If Cyrus had access to the holo-net, he was certain that would have been overrun as well. If Darth Malak was not praised, then the Jedi's wanted posters took up the space instead. She, despite the divine nature of which she was described, looked just about as average as Cyrus did. Her features were quite easy to forget, and her hair was the same shade of brown his was. Plus, they were both humans. Humans spanned the entire galaxy and had a look-alike on each planet. Now Cyrus would have to find her on a planet of a trillion people when she looked just about as plain as plain could be. He felt impending dread crush harder against his windpipe.
~
The clock struck 06:00 AM by the time Cyrus and the others entered the military base. Day shift troopers buzzed about like wasps awaiting their queen, their chatter and marching painfully sharp against Cyrus' weary ears. He remained at attention. Held in place by the red Sith's hidden, cold stare.
"None of you boys are going anywhere until this Jedi is in Sith custody," he spat, looking each and every Sith beneath his command in the eye. He approached the lantern Sith, leaning close before addressing the group. "Write to your mothers now." His voice carried like a cannon. "Lord Malak will gladly leave your feeble corpses to rot in this hell if any of you were to fail the empire." The red Sith examined Cyrus, then moved down the line. "Understood?"
"Yes sir!" Cyrus shouted, modulated voice blending with the rest. His gaze followed the red Sith, the rank he nearly grasped a year prior. His commanding officer was a short man whose towering demeanor faltered for just a moment.
Are you afraid too?
"Dismissed."