The lower decks of the "Enlightened Justice" groaned under the strain of battle damage. Kalden moved with purpose through the darkened corridors, lightsaber unlit but ready in his hand. The Force flowed through him, heightening his senses, warning of dangers ahead – not just the Inquisitor's malevolent presence, but also structural weaknesses, electrical hazards, and areas where the hull's integrity was failing.

  He needed to draw the Eighth Brother away from the shuttle bay, away from Lyra and the others. Every minute he could delay the Inquisitor was another minute for the escape shuttle to prepare for launch.

  As he ducked beneath a collapsed support beam, Kalden's mind drifted back to those early days with Lyra, when everything had seemed simpler – and infinitely more complicated.

  The rooftop garden of Lyra's Coruscant apartment was private, sheltered from prying eyes by artfully arranged plants and a modest force field that scrambled casual surveillance. The perfect place for forbidden training.

  "Focus," Kalden instructed, kneeling across from Lyra on a meditation mat. "Feel the energy flowing between us."

  Lyra's forehead creased with concentration, eyes closed, hands relaxed on her knees. "I'm trying," she said, frustration edging her voice. "But all I sense is... static."

  "That's because you're trying too hard," Kalden replied, keeping his voice gentle. "The Force isn't something you command. It flows through all living things. Through you. Through me."

  He reached across the space between them, taking her hands in his. "Here. Let me show you."

  The touch was meant to be instructive, a physical connection to help guide her Force awareness. But the moment their hands met, something else flared between them – a spark that had nothing to do with Jedi training and everything to do with the way her eyes met his, the way her pulse quickened beneath his fingers.

  Kalden pulled back, suddenly aware of dangerous territory. "I'm sorry," he said, rising to his feet. "This was a mistake."

  "Which part?" Lyra asked, standing to face him. "The training, or whatever just happened between us?"

  "Both," he admitted, though the word felt hollow even as he spoke it. "I'm a Jedi. We're forbidden from forming attachments."

  "Why?"

  The simplicity of her question caught him off guard. Most people accepted the Jedi Code without question, viewing it as ancient wisdom beyond reproach. But Lyra's eyes held genuine curiosity, not challenge.

  "Attachment leads to fear of loss," he recited. "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. It's the path to the dark side."

  "That sounds..." Lyra searched for the right word. "Simplistic. As if love and attachment can only lead to negative emotions."

  "It's more complex than that," Kalden said, though part of him had always harbored the same doubts. "Attachment can cloud judgment, make us act selfishly rather than for the greater good."

  "And is that what you felt just now?" Lyra stepped closer, fearless in a way that both alarmed and attracted him. "Selfishness?"

  Kalden found himself without an answer. What he had felt wasn't selfishness – it was connection, warmth, possibility. Things the Jedi taught were distractions from duty, yet in that moment had felt more right than anything he'd experienced in years of service.

  "I should go," he said finally. "This was unprofessional of me."

  "Will you come back?" Lyra asked as he moved toward the door. "To continue my training?"

  He knew he should say no. Knew the Council would disapprove. Knew he was stepping onto a dangerous path.

  "Yes," he said instead. "Tomorrow. Same time."

  Her smile haunted his meditation that night.

  A sudden explosion jerked Kalden back to the present. The ship's automated voice echoed through the corridor: "Warning: Reactor containment system compromised. Core overload imminent."

  Time was running short. He needed to get to the designated confrontation point – a large cargo bay midway between his current position and the shuttle bay. There, he would make his stand against the Eighth Brother.

  As he rounded a corner, he nearly collided with a group of crewmembers fleeing toward the escape pods. Their faces lit with recognition and hope at the sight of him.

  "Commander Nyros!" One stepped forward – Tomas Revik, one of the former Jedi Temple pilots. "We thought you were headed to the shuttle bay."

  "Change of plans," Kalden replied, guiding them away from the direction he'd come. "Get to the escape pods. I'm buying time for the main evacuation."

  "Sir," Revik hesitated, "the Inquisitor is on board. We saw him near section twelve. He's... he's killing everyone he finds."

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  Kalden's jaw tightened. "All the more reason for you to hurry. Go."

  As they continued their escape, Kalden fought back a wave of guilt. How many would die because of his choices? Because he had broken the Code, formed an attachment, created a life that the Empire now hunted?

  Six months after their first training session, Kalden stood in Lyra's apartment, staring out at the Coruscant skyline. The lights of endless traffic streams created rivers of movement against the darkening sky.

  "You're troubled," Lyra said, coming to stand beside him. Her Force sensitivity had grown remarkably under his guidance, her natural talent flourishing with proper training. She could sense his emotions now, even when he tried to shield them.

  "The Council has assigned me to the Outer Rim," he said quietly. "There's increased Separatist activity near Felucia. I leave tomorrow."

  "For how long?"

  "Uncertain. Months, perhaps longer."

  Lyra was silent for a moment, absorbing this. "Will you continue my training when you return?"

  Kalden turned to face her. In the months they'd spent together, something had grown between them – something beyond mentor and student, beyond even friendship. Something neither had put into words, but both felt with increasing intensity.

  "Lyra," he began, struggling to find the right words. "These sessions... they've become more than training for both of us. You know that."

  "I do," she agreed simply.

  "The Jedi Code forbids what I'm feeling," he continued. "What we're feeling. I've tried to release these emotions into the Force, to meditate them away, but..."

  "But they remain," she finished for him. "Is that so terrible?"

  "It could be," he admitted. "The Code exists for a reason. Centuries of Jedi wisdom caution against the path we're walking."

  "Yet here you are," Lyra observed, "still walking it."

  Kalden ran a hand through his hair, conflict evident in every line of his body. "When I'm with you, the Force feels... different. Clearer, somehow. As if I'm seeing colors I never knew existed."

  "Then perhaps the ancient wisdom isn't as absolute as you've been taught," Lyra suggested. She reached out, her fingers lightly touching his. "Perhaps there's more than one path to serve the light."

  The contact sent a ripple through the Force between them – not the dark temptation he'd been warned about, but something pure and harmonious, as if the Force itself approved of their connection.

  "I don't know what this means," Kalden confessed. "I only know that when I try to imagine walking away from you, following the Code as I should... it feels wrong."

  "Then don't," Lyra said simply, her eyes meeting his with certainty. "Stay. Or go if duty calls, but come back to me."

  In that moment, standing in her apartment with the galaxy on the brink of a war that would consume them all, Kalden Nyros made his choice. He leaned forward, closing the distance between them, and kissed her.

  It wasn't the fall to darkness he'd been warned about. It was stepping into light.

  The memory faded as Kalden reached the cargo bay. The space was vast and mostly empty, crates and equipment having been jettisoned earlier to lighten the ship. Emergency lighting cast long shadows across the metal floor, and distant explosions created a constant backdrop of impending doom.

  A perfect place for what was to come.

  Kalden moved to the center of the bay, kneeling in meditation. He composed a message through the Force, projecting it outward, knowing the Eighth Brother would sense it: I'm waiting. Come alone.

  Then he closed his eyes, centering himself. His thoughts turned to Lyra, to their unborn child, to the journey that had brought him to this moment of sacrifice.

  The war changed everything. Clone troopers became storm troopers. The Republic became the Empire. And the Jedi became hunted fugitives.

  Order 66 had caught Kalden on Mygeeto, leading a battalion against Separatist holdouts. One moment, his troops were following his commands; the next, they had turned their weapons on him.

  Only his battle meditation ability – his unique connection to their minds during combat – had given him warning seconds before the betrayal. Even so, he had barely escaped with his life, forced to cut down men who had been his comrades for years.

  He made his way back to Coruscant in disguise, driven by one thought: Lyra. He had to reach her before the Empire did, before they discovered her Force sensitivity.

  Their reunion was brief and desperate – a hurried meeting in a lower-level cantina, both disguised, both afraid.

  "The Jedi are being hunted across the galaxy," he told her, voice low. "Palpatine has declared us traitors. Anyone connected to us is in danger."

  "What about you?" Lyra asked, fear evident in her eyes. "Are you safe?"

  "Nowhere is safe," Kalden admitted. "But I have credits, contacts. We can disappear to the Outer Rim."

  "We?" The hope in her voice was painful to hear.

  "I won't leave you behind," he promised. "Not now, not ever. But Lyra, you need to understand what you're agreeing to. A life of hiding, of looking over our shoulders. Never staying in one place too long. Always afraid."

  "As long as we're together," she said, taking his hand beneath the table, "I can face anything."

  That night, they left Coruscant on a cargo freighter bound for the Outer Rim. As the planet's lights faded behind them, Kalden felt a strange mix of loss and liberation. He was leaving behind everything he had known – the Order, the Code, his identity as a Jedi.

  Yet somehow, with Lyra beside him, it felt like coming home.

  The distinctive sound of mechanized breathing broke the silence of the cargo bay. Kalden opened his eyes to see the Eighth Brother standing at the entrance, crimson lightsaber casting an eerie glow across his masked face.

  "Kalden Nyros," the Inquisitor said, voice distorted through his helmet. "The last time we met, you showed mercy. A mistake you won't live to repeat."

  Kalden rose to his feet, igniting his own lightsaber. The green blade hummed to life, illuminating his determined face.

  "Hello, Doran," he replied, using the Inquisitor's abandoned name. "I see you've fully embraced the darkness now."

  "Doran is dead," the Eighth Brother snarled, advancing into the bay. "Killed by Jedi weakness. Jedi failure." He tilted his head, studying Kalden. "Speaking of failure... how does it feel to have betrayed everything you once stood for? The mighty Kalden Nyros, defender of the Code, now running with a woman heavy with his child."

  Kalden's grip tightened on his lightsaber, but he kept his emotions in check. "You always did talk too much before a fight."

  "Not a fight," the Inquisitor corrected, beginning to circle him. "An execution. But don't worry about your little family. The Empire will take good care of them. Your child will make an excellent Inquisitor someday."

  Kalden's heart froze at the threat, but outwardly he remained calm. "You'll never touch them."

  "I won't have to," the Eighth Brother laughed coldly. "My troops are already on their way to your precious shuttle bay."

  With a silent prayer to the Force, Kalden raised his lightsaber into the opening stance of Soresu – the defensive form he had mastered. Whatever happened now, he had to hold the Inquisitor here, had to give Lyra and the others time to escape.

  "Then let's not waste any more time," Kalden said.

  With a roar of hate, the Eighth Brother charged, twin crimson blades spinning in a deadly arc toward Kalden's heart.