The Rise of the Final Order - A Star Wars Story

Chapter 21

Kaia Kestis

Kaia awoke in a cold sweat, startled awake by a nightmare. Except, it hadn't felt like a nightmare. It was too real. It had to have been a vision. In her vision, she had seen Caedaris, her best friend, now a Sith, entering an apartment on what appeared to be Coruscant, killing the Rodian woman who tried to stop her and taking her child.

She wasn't quite sure what the vision meant yet, but it made her uneasy. Why was Caedaris going to steal a child? She lay in bed for several minutes, pondering over the question, before the realization hit her. Caedaris needed children to train. She needed to renew the Sith's strength. And to do it, she was going to steal Force-sensitive children from their homes, just like she was going to with the little Rodian boy from Kaia's vision.

There was no time to waste. Kaia had a feeling that the events of her vision were going to happen soon, and she had to prevent them. She was still on Scarif, having been asked to stay by Ersela, so she had to hurry if she wanted to make it in time. She didn't have time to wake everyone up and tell them the situation. She was doing this on her own.

She quickly changed out of her expensive silk nightdress, into her regular travel clothes, and clipped both of her lightsabers onto her utility belt. Then, careful not to make any more noise than necessary, she opened the door to her room and snuck down the hall towards the elevator.

Before she could get there, however, she nearly slammed into Ben as he emerged from his room, fully dressed like her, both his new lightsaber and his blaster hanging from his belt. They both stared at each other for a moment, before Kaia whispered, "Where are you going?"

"I could ask the same to you," Ben responded quietly, eyebrows raised.

"I was going down to the hangar," Kaia admitted. There was no use lying to him. "I-I had a vision. About Caedaris. On Coruscant. She was stealing a child. I can't let that happen."

Ben blinked at her. "I had the same vision. I was going to go stop her on my own."

"Then I guess we're doing this together now," Kaia responded. "Now let's hurry. We don't have much time."

They were down in the hangar in a matter of minutes, and while it wasn't empty, even at this time of night, it still wasn't very busy either. There were only a few mechanics, working on ships that needed repairs, and a group of pilots playing a game of sabacc by one of the X-Wings.

"What should we take?" Kaia asked, keeping her voice low so as to avoid attention, although she suspected that no one would really care that they were in here anyway.

"Well, the Mantis is off limits," Ben remarked. "So we can't take that, unless we want Greez to murder us."

"Right," Kaia agreed, allowing herself a small chuckle at the comment. "That reminds me. I need to go grab something from there. You keep looking for something for us to fly. I'll be right back."

She hurried over to the Mantis and immediately went inside. She moved to where she still kept her things, having yet to fully move into the First Light or her room in the Capitol Building, and opened one of the compartments. Inside was her sniper rifle, albeit dismantled for storage purposes. She hadn't found much use for it recently, but she had a feeling it might be useful on this mission.

She reassembled the rifle in swift, practiced movements, then slung it over one shoulder, clutching the strap with one hand as she reemerged from the Mantis. For a moment, she couldn't see where Ben was, but then he ended up spotting her first and coming over to her instead.

"I think I found our ride," he announced with a triumphant grin. "Well, rides." He caught sight of Kaia's rifle and added, "You think we might need that?"