On his 17th birthday, Jest’s parents revealed to him the dire financial situation that afflicted their family. His father’s medical bills for one, the mortgage on the homestead for another. There were many holes of different sizes and shapes siphoning funds from their account.

  That same evening, Jest got sidetracked from his mission to make a sizeable deposit at the bank and may have imbibed one-too-many Corellian sunbursts at the Drunken Houk—a Dantooinian watering hole. Afterwards, he wandered into a nearby casino after mistaking it for the branch office of the banking clan. An overly friendly Rodian employee prompted him to make a deposit in an upcoming swoop race. Deposit. That was where the misunderstanding arose. Addled as he was, he ‘deposited’ over a thousand credits on Bluebird: a then unknown, mid-rim swoop racer. This race would be his debut, and the odds were stacked against him.

  Completely unaware of what he had done, Jest waltzed out of the betting house in blissful ignorance and returned to his family’s rural homestead. Upon waking up the next day, he would discover two things: 10,000 credits sitting in his account, and that he had expended a lifetime’s worth of luck in a single moment. Bluebird won, and he kept winning; spawning heated cries of ‘bet on blue’ to follow him wherever he raced.

  Up until the day they died, his parents believed the sudden windfall was due to a ‘Wisely-placed investment in an offworld trading company’ and that their son was possessed of ‘great foresight’.

  That is why, on his ‘third life’, Jest concocted and executed operation: Bluebird. He could have simply called it ‘operation: run-for-your-fraggin’-life-as-fast-as-you-can’—because that is all the operation entailed—but the former was more auspicious.

  He clambered awkwardly down the stairs with no destination in mind. Just, away. Away from her. The hard edges of his body armor, specifically, the plating covering his thigh prodded and dug into his hip with every step.

  It was a long and treacherous hike to the bottom. Apparently, whatever ancient civilization built this ruin did not think for a moment to install any handrails. Despite this, It was an unwelcome sight to see the stairs taper off; he wished he could follow them into the ground and escape to a hidden, underground fortress unreachable by the Jedi.

  Looking around, the basin was a little more cramped then he would have liked. Apparently, the chamber’s walls tended inward the further down one went. The area at the bottom of the chamber was far smaller than the vast emptiness above might suggest.

  His internal clock told him that Reese was probably dead by now. The poor guy refused to come along with him, insisting instead on guarding the entrance. There just wasn’t any time to explain, every second he spent in vain trying to persuade Reese, was a second closer the Jedi got. Sure, a court martial for abandoning post was bad, real bad; but it was a hell of a lot better than dying—again!

  A small tent bearing an imperial insignia was pitched not far off from where the stairs ended. He could make out two humanoid figures within. He approached. The two’s conversation was a refreshing tonic that soothed his taut nerves.

  “That’s what I am trying to tell you, lieutenant! Break through the jamming!” A hoarse, angry voice. It was familiar. How many times had that voice screamed into his ear through the comms this mission alone? It could only belong to one man; his commanding officer: Captain Darada.

  “But Sir—” The squirming young man in an officer’s uniform made a face.

  “—No buts! It will be our butts, our asses mounted on the inquisitor’s wall if—”

  “Pardon the *gasp* intrusion, Sir.” Jest interrupted.

  “—you fail…. Ugh. DAMN—What?!” Darada spun around. He had a face that could put the fear of the emperor into even the bravest men. Judging from his lack of reaction, either Jest was braver than most, or he was wearing a helmet that masked his horror.

  “Sir! *gasp* J, Jedi—haaa…. Jedi spotted!” Only now did he realize how gassed he was from running down all those flights of stairs.

  He was only semi-coherent, but the gist seemed to be relayed to the captain as his scowl immediately flatlined at the mention of ‘Jedi’: “You. What the fuck is your designation?”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “TK-902. Sir”

  “Great.” His scowl returned even deeper. “Alright, chuckles, where’s the Jedi? The post you abandoned?”

  “Yessir!” Jest said without a smidge of shame.

  Darada’s eyes never left his helmet, he raised a hand to activate his in-ear communicator: “TK-127. Come in… TK-127, this is Captain Darada, I repeat, Come in. What is your status?”

  [Bzzzt…. Zzt.]

  Jest balled his fists. The static was suffocating.

  Darada turned off the communicator. He might have been grinning, but the way his deep facial scars intersected with his lips made his expression appear anything but pleased. He raised his hand, Jest thought he might lash out and braced himself. But the impact never came. Darada’s hand was now at his chin, stroking the misshapen patches of graying facial fuzz that grew interspaced between the scarring like weeds. It was not cut to regulation, but then again, nothing about Darada was regulation.

  He remained like that for several drawn out seconds. His gaze alternated from the stairs, to the distant monolith, and back again. Jest and the fidgety young officer remained silent all the while, awaiting orders.

  “Nix that last order Jenkins. Go to the lower floor and report to the Inquisitor that the forces stationed outside have been wiped out.”

  “W, Wiped out? The rearguard—S, Surely—”

  “Go. Now.”

  “Yessir!”

  “Haaah. That explains why we haven’t heard from them, I guess.” Captain Darada sighed deeply as he watched Jenkins run off in the direction of the monolith. His expression softened for a moment before turning rigid like stone. “With me, soldier.”

  Jest had questions about this ‘lower floor’, but he did not need to be told twice. He straightened his back and followed his captain into the tent.

  “According to standard protocol, you should have called it in. However, considering the gag-order issued by the inquisitor for her experiment—you did not technically break any rules in running the intel down here on foot. But, of course—” He said, stopping at a weapon rack and removing a large, bulky object before turning to face Jest. “—We both know why you fled down here.”

  Jest did not like what he was insinuating; still, he silently received the object. A C-49x Flamethrower. It was heavy—weighing many times more than the E-11 strapped over his shoulder.

  “I’m rather old-fashioned, you see.” He said. Turning his attention back to the weapon rack, he plucked up another flamethrower, one identical to the one in Jest’s hands. “Current imperial military dogma states that abandoning one’s comrade in the advancement of the Empire’s agenda is an acceptable, if not laudable act. However.”

  He sneered at Jest. “As I said, I’m old-fashioned. So, as a reward for your strict adherence to code, you now have the honor of assisting me in flushing out the Jedi.” Click. He racked a slide along the flamethrower in his hands.

  “Toss that E-11 and strap on a couple fuel packs. Time is critical.”

  “Yessir.” Jest replied mechanically. He shrugged off his E-11 and hoisted two large fuel cannisters onto his back—one over each shoulder. The interface was relatively simple, and he had learned how to operate one of these back at the academy… In theory, anyways.

  Theoretical knowledge was enough to get the tanks connected, but which cord was he to connect to the weapon itself, and where? Somehow, trapped in time and place in this godforsaken pit, fearing for his life and addled with adrenaline; this obscure, niche piece of information evaded him.

  “Look here.” Darada slapped the back of his helmet to get his attention. He jolted before waddling his body around to see the man’s aged and weathered body was not only holding up the entire apparatus without issue, but a small gout of pilot flame flickered out the nozzle of his flamethrower, signaling that he had managed to put it on correctly.

  “You need to connect this cord to the receptacle—here.” Jest stood by as Darada forcibly connected the weapon to his right fuel tank. “When the tank runs empty, flick this nob here to cycle tanks. Got it?”

  “…Yessir—err. What… Do I do if both run out?”

  “Pray?” He scoffed, cracking another one of those fiendish grins: “You could always try swinging it like a hammer. It’s pretty damn heavy, after all.”

  “Oo-kay then. Maybe I should take my E-11… y’know: just in case.” His eyes moved to the spot where he had deposited his trusty blaster rifle.

  Darada shook his head. “Absolutely not. You’ll get us both killed. Blasters are nothing but a liability when fighting Jedi. Now then. If there’s nothing else…? we’ve got a Jedi to fry.” He turned and walked out of the tent. Jest followed along, reluctantly leaving behind his E-11. His hands coiled around the textured grips of the C-49x and his index finger traced an anxious path around the trigger guard.

  A liability? Jest considered what the captain had said. “What about the Inquisitor?” He asked, hope seeping into his words.

  “What about the inquisitor? She won’t help us. Our lives are nothing next to the success of the experiment.”

  “…Nothing?” Jest muttered, too low for Darada to hear. What was it with force users disregarding his life as expendable?

  He entrenched himself behind a stack of imperial crates located not far from where the stairs ended. Darada hid himself in the shadowy recess of a stone overhang with an angle of fire perpendicular to his own. Ideally, they would catch the Jedi by surprise and in a crossfire. The Jedi should have few other options as the Imperial encampment was situated at a choke point in the chamber; sandwiched in between two large walls. Unless one had the means to travel through the air, the only way to reach the monolith and alleged ‘lower floor’ from the ground was through this bottleneck.