Tuanal, Jakku, 34 ABY
Lor San Tekka had insisted that Dameron and Alihandross attend a service the day they arrived in the village, and that’s what saved them. Before the service itself, Hyle Alihandross had had to explain that he was not a student of Master Skywalker’s Jedi order, but the old man had somehow suspected that he was force sensitive.
They had landed at the Niima outpost, and they had to hire a speeder to take them to the village where they would found the man who had the information they sought.
As they sat and meditated, he was taken back to another temple on another world six years ago. The first Officer of the ship on which he served had been a devotee of the Church of the Force, and had taken him to a service shortly after his first combat mission. He had collapsed during the briefing. The first inkling that something was wrong was the smell, things that weren't there, ozone, blood, burning flesh. Then came the screams, and the feel of the driving rain. Hyle didn’t open his eyes but he could see a figure in black brandishing what looked like a burning branch. No, a sword. He’d been sweating and shivering for the rest of the day, delirious. Commander Docker insisted that this was a vision from the Force, and then he heard the news. The Jedi had been slaughtered, and already people were calling for resistance against this First Order. So it seemed that he was Force sensitive, and with no means of honing his ability but through third hand knowledge.
For the past six years he had learned what he could from third hand sources about how to focus his mind and perceive through the Force and to find any information he could in order to hone his ability to use it. Most of that had come from the collections of Grakkus the Hutt, including a Holocron, which people in the know had said would best be sent to Takodana for study. Maz Kanata had taught him what she knew, and what she’d learned from what he’d brought her, she was no Jedi and sometimes he suspected she was learning as much as he was. The hunt for a lightsabre had been much more complicated, when they had tracked down items from the collection, they had either already been acquired, or stripped of most useful components as display pieces. An expedition to the ruins on Jedha had finally yielded a Kyber crystal, but that had been less than a year ago, and he hadn’t dared risk exposure by using the weapon he had built, or rather rebuilt, except when he had been sure there were no witnesses.
As Lor San Tekka guided them through the meditation, he felt himself lurch as he often did when he had a vision. He saw him again, the black figure with the burning blade, but there was no rain, nor any other black clad figures.
Hyle hauled himself unsteadily to his feet. “We need to get the information we need and go, now.”
He called driver of the speeder they had hired, but there was no response.
“What’s happening Alihandross?” Dameron asked.
“We’re all in terrible danger, that’s what.” San Tekka did give them the file, and the villagers had armed themselves for trouble, which arrived in the shape of a First Order drop ship. Dameron had insisted they help hold off the initial assault before leaving. Things were going well until Hyle saw the half remembered figure from a feverish vision six years previously. There was nothing else for it.
Hyle ignited his lightsabre.
“Take the old man and the droid, send a message any way you can, go!”
“Who are you? Where did you get that Lightsaber?” The metallic voice asked, its owner striding through the smoke.
Hyle answer the figure’s question with a wild backswing that could have disembowelled a wampa
had it not been contemptuously parried.
“Pathetic. You are no Jedi.” The voice was right. Blade clashed, and the figure lunged. Hyle dodged, and his opponent’s blade scored across his side. He parried a downstroke to his head, and he felt a hand at his throat, except there was no hand. He stuggled furiously to breathe and fend off his opponent, succeeding more in the former than the latter. Two more cuts, deeper this time across the chest and in the right shoulder, and a fist to the side, were he had nearly been run through. Another fist to the head, and Hyle collapsed, barely holding onto consciousness.
A blaster shot. Dameron’s voice. He should have left when he had the chance. He was leaving now.
While everyone was distracted, he slipped his lightsabre back into his jacket, and pulled out an identical cylinder filled with explosives. The figure bent down and took it from his hands, evidently intent on taking a trophy. The explosion threw them both several metres apart. Hyle himself as singed in places by the other man seemed totally unharmed. It seemed to have worked, the First Order had left him for dead, and the figure had decided his Engines roared and the enemy were gone, along with Dameron. Hyle limped through the remains of the village. The black figure had ordered his lackeys to leave them to rot, and he was glad of that. Then he saw the old man.
He was alive but had been injured by shards of brick. There was nothing broken, but he was unseady on his feet.
“Where’s the droid?” Hyle asked.
“I didn’t see any droid with them as they left.” That was something at least.
“Will you help me bury the dead?”
“Of course.” If the speeder hadn’t answered, it was doubtful the freighter captain would.
It was first light by the anyone came for them.
“Greetings friends.” The Blarina said.
“You some kind of scavenger?” Hyle asked?
“Maybe, find anything?”
“Greetings Naka.” Lor said.
“You know each other? Good, now, Naka, make yourself useful and start digging.
While Lor and the Blarina rested, Hyle kept watch. He could see something falling through his binoculars.
“There’s a First Order fighter out there that’s been shot down.
“Venegeance is not the Jedi way.” Lor said quietly.
“No, but they were shot down by the first order, Dameron might still be alive, come on.”