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Her quarry was spotted on a nearby system. Finally, the interim-assignment officer agreed to send her. She should have been sent in first. A little snarl had curled her lips the first time she was denied her revenge. Now three more of her own had fallen. It was time to send in the she-wolf.
The thin taps of boots attached to the long legs of a poised killer resonated from the steel gangplank of the awaiting troop transport vehicle as she stepped inside.
“Sir, are you certain you do not want the TIE?” A lone officer asked.
“The TIE would be effective only if I wished to destroy the ship from the outside.” The First Sister lifted her chin towards the man. “I have no such intentions. We will commence the drop as planned.”
She would have smirked at the man’s bewildered expression, had she been in a better mood. The ramp began to lift behind her, and she braced herself against the nearest handle bar. The female Pau’an inhaled a sharp breath as the vehicle shuddered, lifting off the ground for takeoff. She promised herself this flight would be short, and the rewards would be great. Still, she was grateful no one else was in the loading area to view her obvious discomfort. She slumped down into the floor as the ship jumped into hyperspace.
It was not long before a voice came over the intercom, declaring that they were hovering above the desired target within the atmosphere of Devaron. She stood up to full height just before the wind started whipping in through the opening loading bay door. Rage tingled up her spine, raising the hairs on the back of her neck as she caught sight of the diamond-shaped freighter taking shape below her. Blood rushed up to her face, making her clan markings pulse a deep crimson. Good. This blood would be for her clan.
A blaster strike singed by, narrowly missing her transport. So, they had spotted an Imperial ship. They couldn’t possibly know what was to come. It was insane, she was told. But in order to make it work, she had to move, fast. With a savage hiss, she ignited her lightsaber, and stepped into the air.
There were a few seconds of the air whipping at her face before she finally collided, feet-first on the Ghost. She needed a moment to recover from the jarring before her first strike. Her first objective was to ensure the vehicle that brought her here could escape, as well as strike fear into the crew on the decks below. She had memorized the locations of all the external gun turrets, and set to work disabling them. Permanently.
She ran, dragging her blade across the surface of the ship, allowing sparks to fly. The one on top would be the first to go. She jumped onto the glass dome, giving a frenzied smirk to the young Mandalorian Girl below. She jumped back in surprise, a most delightful reaction. A quick red slash to the turrets, and they would no longer be troubling the transport above.
There was a smaller fighter attached to the back of the ship that also had firing capabilities, as she recalled. She continued to hack at the metal below her feet as she dashed to the rear of the vessel. A large, hairy non-human’s eyes widened, and in a flash the Phantom’s guns were severed.
Almost time to say hello to the pilot. But first, she needed to get the guns at the front of the vessel. By now, the crew had caught on to her attack strategy. The freighter angled sharply, and her stomach turned, but she stayed on by pushing herself against the ship, using the Force. It felt good, almost effortless, with all the anger surging through her. She had hardly felt so alive. She climbed her way to the belly of the ship, considerably slowed as it rolled in an attempt to shake her free. At last, she reached the front guns, and made short work of them.
She lurched forward, striking blade first with all her strength into the glass dome of the front turret, surprising the blue-haired boy within. Her heart pounded as she looked into his crystal blue eyes, the ones she had once seen on an assignment some fifteen years earlier on Lothal. Her first failure, the seed of her father’s demise. She would not fail again, not this time. Her fist tightened around the grip of her lightsaber as she struck savagely against the glass until it gave. The boy ran. Good.
The First Sister unclipped a small explosive charge from her belt, tossing it into the opening in the hull. It was not enough to destroy the cockpit above, only to disable it. She preferred to finish off the crew in person.
After the charge was set, she hauled herself up into full view of the pilot’s cabin. And there he was, right next to the green-skinned Twi’lek. She could practically taste the metallic tang of his blood already. Disappointing, really. Here she was, in full view of her father’s killer for the first time, pulsing full of all the life and rage of someone about to experience the rapture of revenge, and he had no eyes to see it. But his pilot did.
The Twi’lek raced for the controls, and the ship took a deep dive. She struggled to maintain her grip. It was fine, really. She needed to get away from the coming explosion as is. Shifting her weight to her side, she slid off the sleek bubble and back to a metal foothold. Quickly, she climbed for the top of the ship as it dropped altitude. A few blaster shots echoed out from behind her, but she deflected them with ease. Then, the ship shuddered. The Mandalorian who had fired at her quickly dropped into her hatch. The Ghost started to buck as it twisted left and right, only barely clipping the tops of the trees below it. There was a clearing up ahead, and as soon as it was within range, the vessel dropped to the ground.
The sudden change in speed caused the First Sister to lose her balance, and she was flung from the crashing ship. She landed on her knees this time, not far from where the wreckage came to a screeching halt. The metal groaned under its own mass until it stopped, and then there was silence.
Like a shadow, she crept forwards, searching out the silhouettes of her targets as they emerged from the ship. They stood back to back, stepping cautiously away from the damaged hull. Just the pair of them. So alone. The blind Jedi sensed her first. His head whipped towards her location. She rushed forward for a strike, but something was wrong.
There was a voice on the wind. A whisper. She couldn’t make out the words, but she knew the voice. It made her wince. The Jedi dropped his lightsaber.
“Kanan!” The blue haired boy yelled. She knew his name. Bridger. The home on Lothal. The parents with terror in their eyes as she clutched their infant. She was so young then. Too young. Too naïve. If she had known her actions would have led to her father’s undoing, she never would have hesitated to do what needed to be done. Still, looking at him now gave her a painful swelling behind the eyes.
“Ezra, drop your saber, do it now!”
His voice made her sharpened teeth grind. She felt the blood rising back in her face, returning her to full flush. The Bridger boy questioned his master, but dropped his saber all the same. She growled.
“Pick. Them. Up.” Only four more steps separated them. She could easily kill them both, right then. The dim hum of her lightsaber reminded her of that. But something buried deep within her held her back. What once she might have called honor. The pair didn’t move.
“I said- Pick them UP!” She hissed through her clenched jaw. The master Jedi started to ease backwards, holding his arm out in front of his padawan, who did likewise. She cried out in anguish, the heat from within her unbearable. Her head swam with the sensation. Her heart pounded. Her hair bristled.
She took one step forward, for a brother she hardly knew. He was younger than her. Arrogant. Athletic. But he was part of their group, all the same. His struggles belonged to all of them. His blood was on them to avenge. She breathed in.
One more step, for a sister, for a close friend. One laugh that could give the hardiest man chills. A step for secrets whispered back and forth. For exhausted kisses on warm summer nights. A woman who could reign over all the others with a simple look and a smile. How she had envied her. She let out a shaky exhale.
Another step. For another brother. This one with haunting green eyes and a sharp-toothed grin. He had the softest voice she had ever heard. This step was for love poems, sang out into the night. For the guilty pleasures of his sweet lips, knowing her father would disapprove. He was large and he was frightening, but he was also so soft. She gulped in one more breath.
One last step. For a leader. For a father. For the memory of the one constant in her entire life. For the purest love, the deepest connection. For the man who gave up everything good in his life for her alone. Her cheeks were damp. For the man who held her and told her everything was going to be okay when her world came crashing down. Who sacrificed his body and soul just to keep her alive. She gave her own soul for the guilt of seeing him fall. That hollow feeling, deep inside her, knowing that if she had just taken a boy on Lothal back to her headquarters, that he, her father, the Grand Inquisitor, Temple Guard, Knight of the Jedi Order, the great Tsino Ke, may perhaps have continued to walk this universe, it ate her alive. Nothing, no worldly good, no person, no intangible sensation of revenge could ever begin to replace the emptiness in her soul that she felt from his loss.
A great rumbling sound from beneath her interrupted her grief. The ground lit up, markings all in an ancient language coming to life. A Temple. She looked up, her breath shaking, her vision blurred, eyes wide with fear. All she could see was this blinded Jedi knight standing before her, arm stretched out between them.
“Please, just- Please.” He stammered. She tightened her grip, trying to steady the red blade shaking in her hands.
His voice stilled. The air grew quiet. He opened his lips again. “Put the lightsaber down, Tsiri.”
She blinked. Frozen. Then it fell from her hands and hit the stone floor below with a hollow thud, blade simmering out. The First Sister was undone by a name she had nearly forgotten. No blood, only tears. Tsiri Ke fell to her knees, and it was over.