"Was that...?" He panted at her before wincing at the eruption of soil.  The blasters had missed, but they wouldn't again.  He slid down the makeshift trench, looking at her as his feet hit the bottom.

"I can't believe it."  She snorted at him, hands slipping another blaster pack into her rifle.  The report of heavy blasters all but deafened them, the crewed emplacements billowing smoke and fire at the enemy.  They couldn't see the target, but they could feel the concussive force of every blast in their chests.  

He reached inside the robes, to the natural pocket between the dark broadcloth and the durasteel cuirass, pulling the blade back.  It was a meter long, curved and jagged all at once.  He let it fill his palm, felt its weight, its balance.  It had a natural feel, graceful and menacing in the same moment.  He wondered for a moment the history of the blade.  Who had forged it, who had left the hammer strokes that glinted dully in the smoke filled light, who had set the handle and carved the symbols along the spine all were mystery to him.

The warning was more of a gut feeling than anything else.  The hairs on the back of his neck quivered, and he had learned enough to trust them.  He ducked, rolling to one side a moment before the debris fell, heavy chunks of duracrete splashing out from the prefabricated barriers above.  He stared at it for a moment, her voice lost in the roar of cannons before he looked up to see her shouting.  He stared at her lips, cracked and coated in dust, watching her form words he couldn’t hear.  

“We have to go now!” She widened her eyes at him, expectantly.  He nodded, tucked the weapon back into the folds of his robes, and bolted to her.  She turned and ran, weaving through trenches carved by turbolasers .  The throb of heavy guns blaring overhead gave way to the excited chatter of soldiers riling themselves with distance from the siege.   

“What do we do, Sergeant?”  

Alara stared at him like he had just soiled himself.  “What part of ‘Bring all the artifacts you find to me’ was unclear?”

“Yes, but, wasn’t that..?”

“If it was, do you think he would have let you get away?”  She sniped back at him. “I mean, really?”  She juked the corner hard, the journeyman right behind her, nearly knocking over a pile of crates as he tried to keep up.   She barreled past the pair of sentries into the bunker, a hollowed out frame of duracrete that was all but launched at the planet’s face from low orbit as a waypoint for the Emperor’s forces.  She turned, pushing through a pile of spent magazines and discarded kit.  

She found it, pulling the crate loose and knocking loose carbon from the biometric scanner before resting her hand on it, feeling the subtle click of the lock disengaging.  She raised the lid, exposing the foam padding inside, some shards of a holocron, a few crystals, and a small stone figure nestled within.  “Even if it was, he’s with Sadow.  Did you want to go just hand it back to him and say sorry?”  She sneered, looking up at him.  “Now give it here.”

He gave a nervous smile to her.  “I guess I didn’t think that through.”

There was a dull crack and the sound of something heavy falling, then another.  She looked past the journeyman, eyes widening. 

“We agree on something, then.”  

The voice was deep, resonating inside her head as though he was speaking the words with more than just his voice.  She shook her head slightly as she tried to focus.  The journeyman turned on his heel, looking up at the top of the trench at the Grand Master.

Self-preservation waged a war with duty in her head, her mind trying to find a path clear of this scenario that did not end in…

The sound of energizing adegan filled her ears.  She blinked.  The Journeyman had lit a saber.  Muz looked at him through the tops of his eyes.  She swore she saw fatigue, boredom, and more than a touch of disappointment in him.  

“To the victor goes the spoils!” The journeyman howled, stepping forward quickly, the blade of his saber burning the air.  

There was another dull crack, the sound of whirling air as he moved, faster than her mind could really understand.  Her throat was in his hand before the journeyman had even finished falling to the ground, his head spun the wrong way on his neck.

She gasped, her hands natively going to her throat and his hand as her feet swung, searching for the ground.  

“Did you think this through?” He tilted his head at her, expressionless.  She tried to gargle words out at him as the corners of her vision started to lose color.  She started to feel the dread rising up in her heart, the fight or flight response singing ‘run away’ for the first time since she was little.

He nodded once, lowering her to the ground, as he opened his other hand.  The blade wiggled free from the journeyman’s robes and came to him, gloved fingers closing around the ancient weapon.  He brought the blade up, letting her see the prize.  She felt the flush of power, the familiar tinge of the Force pooling in a tidal wave.   

 “Bait.”  

The Force swept her away from him as his fingers let go of her throat, the Force sending her back against the far walls, banging her head and legs against the tables and amassed crates. 

“Tell Oscura that we haven’t talked in a long time.”  He smiled.  “A long time.”  Another wave crashed over her, the unseen hand of the Lion’s mind hammering her against the wall.

Then, darkness.

The sound of blasters woke her, in an uncomfortable heap of carbon and armored bits. She struggled past the cobwebs in her head, pushing herself to her knees, finding her feet gingerly.  She hobbled over toward the entrance, her eyes telling her what she really already knew.  The biometric lock had been sabered off, along with half of the lid, the contents gone.  Her hand reached for her pouch, the commlink brought to her face.  “Deathbane  to Operations, priority message for the Proconsul...”