Star Wars: The Last Qymaili | ✔

34 | Salvation

Song: "The Asteroid Field" from The Empire Strikes Back OST

She pulled her blade away, but Dooku wasn't finished with her yet. As she tried to run, an invisible hand pressed against her stomach. She was thrust back near him.

Violent redness slashed upon her organic wrist, cutting her hand from the arm. A ghastly scream tore at her throat, blood spattering across her mask as she lost hold and fell to the ground. Clutching her arm to her chest, Ronderu longed to breathe, but a hand clamped itself over her mouth.

A green light bore through the door of the room, and Arna barged in, his saber ablaze. "You traitor," he snarled at Dooku. "Let her live."

Dooku chuckled regally. "Report this to your Republic. I lose nothing."

"He's....he's right, Arna," Ronderu choked out. Ice spread across her face. "I saw....everything. He is the murderer we're looking for. He's looking to....to assassinate...."

Arna ignited his lightsaber and charged the old man. With massive effort, Ronderu crawled across the floor, gripping the drive between her metallic fingers and holding her stump to her chest. Blood dripped hotly down her breastbone, pooling at the bottom of her bodice, and desperate breaths escaped her mouth.

She made it to the stained-transparisteel window, looking down at the great expanse below. The words she'd said to Qymaen so long ago, when he'd been scared of falling to his death, came to the front of her mind.

Don't worry. If you fall from here, the tree will catch you.

Her head and metal hand slammed against the window. Tiny shards of glass bounced off her scales, and she sent a message to Arna. Jump after me. You're not strong enough.

✺✺✺

Colors exploded in her vision. Her hands went limp. "Ru," his voice called to her, gripping her hand. "Ru, stay with me. It'll be okay. We'll get you fixed up."

She couldn't speak. Several people lifted her up, brought her into a shuttle. She was placed in a frigate. A tube was forced over her mouth.

"Step out, Master Jedi," a voice said. "This requires a surgery. Her regulator broke when she landed."

"I won't leave her," Arna cried out as they pushed him away. "I swore I would protect her."

You're my debtor, Ronderu thought drowsily. Not my friend. Those words might have been true then, but now....

"Keep him....keep him here," she gasped. "Let him stay."

As the medic took her stump and bandaged it, he chuckled. "Your chest will be bare for the replacement, miss."

She began to drift off. "Let....let him...." she murmured before her brain sputtered into unconsciousness.

✺✺✺

She willed swollen eyes to work. Her voice came out in a whisper. "Arna...." She was in an unfamiliar room. "Arna, I need Arna...."

His soft hand touched her jaw, and she turned. "Did you....deliver the drive to the Council?"

"I'm sorry, Ru," he said quietly, running a hand over her forehead. "The drive was destroyed when you fell."

Drive....destroyed.

But she could not put those words together. The image of Qymaen's body crushed beneath the droid pulsed in her vision....his sobbing as he screamed for her to save him....