He stepped down from the shuttle, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun. Yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.
She kept him still and held his beating heart with one gaze, feeding off of him. She was a succubus, beauti...
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As soon as the starlight shrank back from its speed-shift elongation, the Marauder came upon the homeworld of the clones. Straggled south of the Rishi Maze was an ocean world, a planet with no visible landmasses showing behind the nearly solid cloud cover. It was a pearl of white and grey against a blue background, sporadic flashes of lightning indicating the harshness that dwelt beneath the surface.
The hull of the Marauder was unusually silent. Wrecker, whose mouth normally ran any chance it got, didn't dare speak first as the tension between Hunter and Crosshair grew. The giant, who was a child at heart, squirmed in his seat under the palpable tension.
At last, Tech, who harbored little to no soft skills, broke the silence instead. "We're coming up on Kamino."
Wrecker let out a sigh of relief for more than just the prospect of returning to the familiar water world. "It's good to be home," he said, kicking back in the copilot's seat with arms crossed. "How long's it been?"
"One hundred and eighty rotations in a standard cycle, but galactic zone changes put the adjusted figure at around two hundred and five," Tech replied with a hand on his chin.
Wrecker paused, an eyebrow raised. "What?"
Echo, standing in the space between, let out a tired sigh. "A long time," he clarified.
Wrecker laughed aloud. "You got that right."
Towards the shuttle's end, Hunter and Crosshair sat in silence. A crack had split the ground between the two brothers. It was a rift that was widening, Crosshair on one side and Hunter on the other.
Arms crossed and eyes closed, Hunter leaned back into his seat, visions of the past few hours flashing across the undersides of his eyelids. He could see Talia, grinning up at him, her eyes, filled with mischief, somehow looking right into his own despite the dark reflectiveness of the visor. The image disappeared, replaced by another.
She was staring at him again, this time with fear and hesitation swimming in those endless oceans, how it had made him feel something strange. The visions flashed again, and she stood amidst a firing squad of troopers, her blade a purple whirlwind of movement, until her frozen form, eyes filled with betrayal, was enveloped by blue energy... Another flash, and he could see her limp body, lying supine amidst the falling snow.
If she were dead, he had tried his best to complete her dying wish. But Caleb Dume had been cautious, and rightfully so.
"We have a situation," Tech's voice had come over the comm when he and Crosshair were in pursuit of the Padawan.
Hunter put a hand to his helmet. "Tell me something I don't know, Tech."
"It appears the regs have been ordered to execute the Jedi."
