A Flow'r, Once Fallen/Part 7

The guards in the gatehouse were both unconscious, and the lingering tingle in their nerves suggested they had been stunned; Tirien had feared they were dead, but he had neither the time nor the spare energy to revive them. He had weathered the run back to Aldera better than Narasi, rejuvenated by the Force all around them, but he was still tired, and with a threat at hand it was better to conserve power for when it was really needed.

Aldera Palace was silent and still; it had to be after midnight, and the squeak of Tirien's dew-soaked leather boots echoed down the marble halls. He opened doors with the Force to clear his path, lightsaber hilt in hand, following the feeling of danger and narrowing it to a single spot. He was closing in when he almost ran into a cluster of royal guards.

Chief Marsh was at their head, and his eyes widened. "Tirien! I thought you were in the mountains."

"No time to explain—the Organas are in danger. We tried to call, but we were being jammed."

"We know," Marsh replied, grimacing. "Where's Narasi?"

"I sent her to the Organas. I'm trying to hunt it down from this end."

"You did?" Marsh's eyes widened, and Tirien felt the man's unease. "Is…are they that close already?!"

"I don't know."

"We're going that way too, we'll back her up. May the Force be with you, Tirien.  Double-time!" he added to his men, and they ran off.

Tirien hesitated a second, wondering if he should go with them; together he and Narasi could hold off almost any threat. But if there was a Sith Lord loose in the palace, it would be best to tackle that kind of danger alone, and far removed from civilians. He stretched out into the Force, risking revealing his own presence for a clearer sense of his target, but though the danger was magnified, he could not sense the bitter cold or scalding heat that accompanied the Sith wherever they went. Alecto, he knew, could mask her presence in the Force, but the Sith Narasi had described did not sound like Alecto…

Puzzling it out was wasting time; Tirien took off again.

He could feel spots of life, and he thought he had a sense of hostile intentions, but when he banked that way, the Force urged him not to follow. Instead, his senses led him through a storage room and cellar in the residence wing to a small door that opened onto a balcony where a speeder idled. An Aqualish and a Human stood anxious guard, and their tension led them to fire the moment they saw Tirien was not one of their band. His blade snap-hissed to life in time to deflect their fire, but with two shooters firing from different angles, it was all he could do to protect himself without reflecting it back along its trajectory of origin.

After a dozen shots, though, Tirien's subconscious realized the two shooters had no strategy beyond squeezing the trigger as fast as they were able, and reacted accordingly. A Force push slammed the Human over the balcony, and while he was screaming Tirien reflected a shot into the Aqualish's face. As the Aqualish fell and the scream faded, Tirien also reflected that he had left himself no one to interrogate, but he surveyed the scene, replaying the engagement in his memory. There was something he was missing, some important conclusion for which he had all the evidence but which his subconscious had not yet bothered to share with his conscious mind…

A feeling of pressing danger interrupted him before he could get there, and he quickly weighed the risks of letting the strike team escape with the Organas as hostages against backing them into a corner. Deciding that he and Narasi could work around corners, he replaced the lightsaber on his belt, pulled the Aqualish's dropped blaster to hand, shot out the speeder's controls, gave it a push out into space, then turned and ran as it started to fall.

He could sense violence elsewhere in the palace, but the Force guided him to a nearer threat. He passed two more stunned royal guards before he came upon a quartet of dark-garbed mercenaries. One of them spotted him and cried out in alarm, but Tirien raised a hand and called on the Force for light. It was like raising a palm to block out sunlight; he merely squinted, but all four mercenaries gasped and staggered blindly. Tirien pulled both his hands toward him, and all their blaster rifles flew across the empty space and clattered to the floor. One mercenary lurched after his rifle, blinking furiously, but Tirien sent him back into his fellows with a Force push.

"That was without drawing my lightsaber," he called, and the mercenaries froze. In the silence, Tirien asked quietly, "Would you like to find out what happens when I do?"

Several seconds passed, and then one of the men dropped to his knees and put his hands on the back of his head.

"What're you doing?!" one of his companions hissed.

"Kriff this," the mercenary answered. "The captain said a few pushover royal guards at most. Nobody said anything about fighting Jedi."

The others seemed to weigh this before they, too, surrendered one-by-one, but Tirien had already moved past them in his mind. He was closing on it now, what he should have deduced at once. Alert for threats, he only noticed the approach of reinforcement royal guards when his peripheral vision caught their movement.

"Sir?!"

"They're here for the royals. Take charge, I'm going to…to…"

He got it, then, and broke into a sprint.