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I woke up with a pounding headache. Lifting my head, I looked around at my surroundings, to find myself in a small, simple cell. I looked down and found myself floating off the floor about a half meter, just as a mild electrical shock flashed through me, disrupting my concentration.
I sighed, and let my head hang for a bit, content to wait for someone to show up to either kill me or gloat. Or both.
Turns out I was in for something of a wait.
I'm not sure how long I hung in that contraption. What I do know was that by the time he walked in I was rather hungry, and starting to feel the effects of dehydration. My guess would be a good two days. I think that might have been the most bored I had ever been in my life. I couldn't think straight because of the energy shocks, and later on the dehydration. I couldn't exercise because the mechanism held me basically immobile, and if I tried to stretch too far it rewarded my efforts with a bit of pain.
Ultimately, my enforced patience won out. Someone came into my cell.
He wore a Guard uniform, with a Major's rank insignia attached to the lapel. No name rested on his chest, but his blue eyes were cold and hard, and stared at me with the utmost disdain. With his blondish-brown hair, and the same dimpled chin as Uncle Han, he almost appeared as if Dad and Uncle Han had had kids.
I fought the urge to vomit due to the dehydration and really wished for a drink of water. Or a good hours worth of sleep.
The Major stepped in front of me, his thumbs tucked behind his belt, a smirk touching his lips. "So, what do you have to say for yourself Lieutenant Skywalker?"
I lifted my head, and answered his smirk with one of my own. "About what, Major? Besides, it's not lieutenant anymore. You might not have heard, but the Guard was disbanded."
"A likely bit of propaganda," he replied. "But ultimately a futile attempt. The Guard is eternal, and we serve at the behest of our Lord."
Something about his speech rankled my mind, but I was too out of it to fully comprehend. Instead, I shook my head. "Well, I don't really have a lord that I can serve behest, but there are a couple girls out there that like to order me about."
His fist cracked against my jaw, and stars flared through my vision. I blinked them away, and gave my head another shake just as yet another jolt of energy flashed through my body.
"Your impudence will gain you nothing. Now are you prepared to grovel for forgiveness, or shall we just go ahead and have you executed for your treason?"
I barked a short, brittle laugh. "Such options. Debase myself to the likes of you and your erstwhile commander, or be dead. I think I'll take being dead."
Even as I said it, I felt a slash of regret. I still hadn't patched things up with Seha, and Jys still hated me. It was just another in a long line of things that I had either failed to do or in general screwed up beyond belief.
You'd think I would have been used to it.
The major smiled at me, and unsnapped the strap on his holster. "I was hoping you'd say that."
As he started to pull his blaster, I barely caught a chirp coming from his ear. His hand snapped up to it, and he bolted around to face the door. I lifted my head to look over his shoulder, and saw the locking mechanism turning a bright orange and starting to melt. Gobs of molten metal flowed down the door, and soon it sprang open to reveal Jysella and Seha standing on the other side.
Jys grinned. "I think you have something that belongs to us."
I grinned and said, "Took you girls long enough." I also noticed that the major was subvocalizing into his comlink.
Jysella looked at me, her eyes narrowing slightly. "That's enough out of you Skywalker. Be happy we're here at all."
Finally, the major spoke up to the rest of us. "Thank you for taking the time to turn yourselves in. Now, lay down your weapons."
Seha arched and eyebrow at him and then looked at me. "Is he serious?"
I nodded my head, and sighed in acceptance. "I'm afraid so. The Guard didn't hire people with intelligence or a sense of humor."
Snorting, Jys replied. "That explains why you were a part of it." Grinning, she stepped forward and shoved her saber into the major's gun shoulder, and placed two quick burns to his legs, hobbling him. "Stay there."
Stepping over him, she deactivated my restraints. Which of course allowed me to drop to the floor.
Hard.
On my face.
Rubbing my bruised nose, I got to my feet as the world wavered around me. My eyes flickered between the two of them. "Would either of you happen to have some water?"
Seha nodded and passed me a small canteen. I quickly drained it, and feeling lightyears better handed it back. "Thanks Seha. Now all we need to do is find my saber."
Jysella nodded her head, and then crept back to the doorway, and glanced out into the hall. She then looked back at me. "Can you sense your saber? And don't forget you owe us one for finding you."
I snorted, and closed my eyes, stretching out my senses to find my lightsaber. It's odd, the relationship between a Jedi and his saber. In theory, we're not able to sense inanimate objects at rest, but we spend so much time and put so much of ourselves into the melding of the parts, that as long as it's within a few thousand feet, we can feel our saber, as if it were just another part of our body.
Opening my eyes, I pointed towards the left. "I feel it that way."
Jysella took point, while I hung back with Seha, her attention divided between watching our backs and helping me. She really was good with that healing stuff, as I felt her Force presence flowing through me, shoring up the parts of my body that wanted to do nothing more than collapse.
Surprisingly, we never did run into any guards as we hunted for my lightsaber. We saw plenty of bodies leftover from the girls' entrance, but the base appeared pretty much abandoned after they got me out.
My saber was the sole artifact on a desk littered with datapads. Looking around the small office, I assumed it had to have been the Major's office. I gently picked it up, and grinned at the device, happy to have my saber back in hand.
As I turned back to the girls, the overhead lights shifted to red, and a siren began wailing.
I looked up at the lights, a frown on my face, at the same time as Jysella spoke up. "Shavit. That's a destruct system."
My head snapped towards Jys, my mouth dropping open. "Destruct?"
She shook her head, and darted into the hallway, all pretense at subtlety and discretion gone. Seha grabbed my hand, and pulled me along ran after her.
After darting through a number of empty corridors, we burst into what appeared to be a lobby, and discovered where our opposition was. Three of those fine, upstanding X9 combat droids. I started backing towards the hallway we had just came through as a blast door dropped down closed behind us.
I lifted my saber, and thumbed its ignition switch at the same moment that Seha and Jys turned on their blades.
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