Chapter 2: The Rescue Begins
Barriss stood outside the detention cell for several long seconds before opening it. The corridor lights cast pale bars across the floor, humming softly beneath the distant groan of the Star Destroyer’s engines.
Inside, Luminara Unduli sat exactly where Barriss remembered her—cross-legged on the cold floor, hands resting in her lap, eyes closed in meditation. She looked thinner now, her robes worn and faded, but her posture remained dignified.
The cell door hissed open.
Luminara opened her eyes slowly, surprise flickering across her features at the sight of Barriss standing there in dark Inquisitor armor.
“Barriss.”
Barriss avoided her gaze. “On your feet.”
The words came out colder than she intended.
Luminara studied her quietly before rising without resistance. “So,” she said calmly, “they’ve finally decided to question me properly.”
Barriss said nothing.
Luminara stepped closer, chains rattling softly around her wrists. “If this is to be my end, then so be it.” Her voice remained composed, though tiredness lingered beneath it. “My only regret is that I never had the opportunity to make amends with you.”
That nearly broke Barriss’ resolve on the spot.
Instead, she simply gestured toward the corridor. “Move.”
The two walked in silence through the labyrinthine halls of the Star Destroyer. Stormtroopers stationed along the route paid little attention at first—an Inquisitor escorting a prisoner was hardly unusual. Barriss kept her pace steady, though her pulse hammered in her ears harder with every turn.
Luminara noticed the route almost immediately.
These were not the corridors leading toward interrogation.
She glanced subtly toward Barriss but said nothing.
Then came the voice.
“Halt.”
A stormtrooper stepped into their path at a checkpoint junction, blaster lowered but ready. Another trooper behind him turned to look.
“Identification and transfer authorization,” the lead trooper said mechanically. “Who cleared movement of this prisoner?”
Barriss stopped.
Think.
“Special orders from the Grand Inquisitor,” she answered evenly. “The prisoner is being relocated.”
The trooper hesitated. “I wasn’t informed of any transfer.”
“You are now.”
“That’s not protocol.” The trooper’s grip tightened on his rifle. “I’ll need confirmation from command.”
The corridor suddenly felt very small.
Barriss could already feel the moment collapsing around her. One transmission. One delay. Then alarms. Then Vader.
The trooper reached for his comlink.
Barriss moved first.
Her lightsaber ignited with a violent crimson snap-hiss, bathing the corridor in red light. In one fluid motion, she slashed across the trooper’s chestplate. The armor split apart as he dropped instantly to the floor.
The second trooper shouted in alarm and raised his blaster—
—but Luminara thrust out her bound hands.
The Force erupted outward in a powerful wave, hurling the remaining stormtroopers backward into the corridor walls. Rifles flew from their hands as bodies crashed against the metal plating.
Klaxons immediately began to scream throughout the ship.
For the first time since entering the cell, Luminara truly looked at Barriss.
“This is a rescue,” she realized softly.
Barriss extinguished her saber for only a moment, breath shaky. “I’m getting you out of here.”
More boots thundered in the distance.
Barriss grabbed Luminara’s restraints with one hand and sprinted forward. “Come on!”
They tore through the corridors together as red warning lights flashed overhead. Stormtroopers poured from adjoining hallways, blaster fire scorching the walls around them. Barriss ignited her saber again, deflecting bolts with aggressive precision while Luminara used the Force to wrench weapons away and slam troopers aside.
Years fell away between them. Despite everything—the betrayal, the prison, the Empire—their movements still flowed together instinctively. Master and Padawan.
They burst into the hangar just as squads of troopers converged behind them. Waiting near the far platform sat a TIE Reaper shuttle, its engines already humming.
Barriss pointed toward it. “That’s ours.”
“You planned this alone?” Luminara asked as they ran.
“I didn’t think you’d come if I explained first.”
Blaster fire rained around them. Barriss spun, cutting down two troopers while Luminara hurled cargo crates into another advancing squad. The path cleared just enough.
They reached the shuttle ramp.
Barriss turned for one final defensive stand as stormtroopers flooded into the hangar entrance. Red bolts lit the air like rain.
“Go!” Barriss shouted.
But Luminara didn’t leave her behind. Instead, she stepped beside her, raising a hand as the Force swept outward again, scattering the first wave of soldiers long enough for them both to retreat into the shuttle.
The ramp sealed shut moments before the TIE Reaper lifted violently from the deck.
Alarms screamed across the hangar as the shuttle blasted through the magnetic shield and vanished into open space.
The shuttle’s cockpit was a cacophony of screaming proximity alerts and shuddering turbulence as Barriss wrestled with the controls. Luminara collapsed into the co-pilot’s chair, her breath coming in ragged gasps, the worn fabric of her robe sticking to her skin with sweat and adrenaline.
For a long moment, they just stared at the star-streaked void of hyperspace swirling outside the viewport, the silence between them thick with everything unsaid.
“You came back,” Luminara finally whispered, the words soaked in a disbelieving relief. She turned in her seat, the genuine smile on her face softening the deep lines of exhaustion. “After everything, you chose to pull me from that tomb.”
Barriss’s hands were steady on the controls, her profile etched in the console’s cool blue light. She didn’t return the smile. “The navigational data is scrambled. They can’t track our exit vector.”
“That’s not what I mean, Barriss.”
“I know what you mean.”
Luminara reached out, her chained hand hesitating before resting lightly on Barriss’s forearm. The touch was electric, a conduit for a flood of emotion Luminara had long suppressed—pride, a fierce, aching joy, a hope she thought extinguished. “Thank you,” she said, her voice breaking. “My child. Thank you.”
Barriss finally looked at her. The hard, calculating mask she wore as an Inquisitor was still there, but something underneath was fissuring, a pane of transparisteel webbed with cracks. She held the gaze for a three-count, then slowly pulled her arm away.
“We’re not clear yet,” Barriss said, her tone detached. She unbuckled her harness and stood, the movement fluid. “We need to get those binders off you.”
Luminara nodded, the joy in her chest warming her. She presented her wrists. “The lock is magnetic. A simple—”
She stopped.
Barriss wasn’t reaching for a tool or her lightsaber. She was holding a small, sleek ST-7 stun blaster, its polished barrel pointed squarely at Luminara’s chest.
The warmth in Luminara’s veins flash-froze. Her eyes darted from the weapon to Barriss’s face, searching for a joke, a tactic, any explanation. She found none. Only a terrible, resigned certainty.
“Barriss?” The name was a plea.
“I did pull you from that tomb,” Barriss said, her voice horribly calm. The crimson glow of the console lit the side of her face, making her blue eyes look ghostly. “But you belong in mine.”
Luminara’s mind raced, trying to bridge the chasm between the woman who just fought beside her and the one now aiming a weapon at her heart. “Please. We can talk. Whatever you’re planning—”
“Talking is what got us here the first time.”
Barriss’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Luminara’s body tensed, not to fight, but to accept. She saw the conflict in Barriss’s eyes, the same terrifying conflict that had consumed her Padawan years ago, now fully hardened into a decision. The relief she’d felt moments ago curdled into a profound, chilling fear—not for herself, but for the woman pointing the blaster.
“Don’t do this,” Luminara whispered.
The stun bolt cracked through the cockpit’s hum, a brilliant blue ring of energy that struck Luminara center-mass. Her body convulsed violently against the chair, a sharp cry caught in her throat.
Then nothing.
Her head lolled back, eyes rolling shut, the brief glimpse of hope extinguished as completely as a star in a black hole.