Chapter Text
It’s surprising, the results that years of training can yield. Max counts his breaths in and out in a pattern that is nearly muscle memory, though it feels wrong with no grass beneath him, no sound of flowing water in his ears. Instead there is only unyielding metal and the cacophony of Coruscant’s guts, the lifeblood of a city-planet pumping through pipes and vents and wires. He can’t even close his eyes, won’t dare look away from the opening into this small space.
In. Out. Find balance, find peace. His hands don’t shake and he feels no pain from his wounds even if the rest of him feels like it should be screaming. In. Out. He wrestles himself into stillness even when the animal thing in his chest writhes with a blind sort of terror.
It’s an electrifying, helpless sort of fear that is just one thought away from defiant rage, from something burning and powerful. From wrong.
Yellow eyes and a blue blade, tunics in the same shades of browns and blacks that he too favors.
“Where is Blue now?” He asks quietly.
Laira looks up from where she had been picking at the burnt edges around the mask’s eye, which causes Io to look up too. She points, her finger slowly moving to track an unseen point. “Over there.”
The words are followed by another clumsy nudge in the Force that Max follows to find that thing among shadows, less a presence in the Force and more a displacement of it. He doesn’t know how the little girl sees it, but from her chatter it appears that she had named each and every guard and knew how to tell them apart, Blue included.
The shadow moves fast in what Max guesses can only be freefall between levels. Whoever it is didn’t know to use the elevator, then, which is a comfort. They clearly know how to find them despite it, which is not.
His right hand shakes, tremors that wake the pain in his mangled shoulder. He wills it away while he still has the strength to do so.
“They’re very nice,” Laira says. “They’re friends with Master Halcyon.”
“You can’t know that. They never speak. Or move. Or do anything.” Io says, poking his friend in the arm to punctuate his words. He stops the moment she just barely swats at his fingers. Though the more outspoken one, he follows her cues.
“They feel like they’re nice,” Laira huffs, clearly unhappy to be questioned. “And they feel brighter whenever Master Hal says hi on our way to the room of fountains.”
Odd kid. Max hopes she’s right, because there aren’t many things they can do if she’s not.
He closes his eyes once more, reaching out, searching for Akta. He doesn’t know where they are except that they are near. They don’t shield like this Blue can, have not built up that strict discipline, but through whatever training their Master has imparted they somehow scatter themself, turning their light into a diffuse source instead of a sharp pinpoint. It turns a direct ‘there’ into ‘somewhere’.
Somewhere near, somewhere hidden. Backstabbing is not honorable, but honor has no place in these oily guts of Triple Zero. Max and the children are just bait so that hopefully Akta finds their hunter before it thinks to look for them.
He breathes in, out, and hopes that he won’t have to feel this one source of light vanish too.
He nearly jumps to his feet when he feels it flare, sharp and attention-grabbing and what does it mean, they can’t- nothing happens. The light remains, there next to the shadow. Max collapses back to where he sat, nearly crumbles with relief.
The initiates look at him with wide eyes and he forces out a smile.
“Akta found Blue,” he says. “Surprised me, that’s all.”
“Are you okay?” Io asks, hands already reaching out for him.
He’s not. He gently pushes the small hand away.
“All things considered,” is what he says because there isn’t enough there to ring as a lie.
From around the corner, voices so low they can’t be heard over the footsteps, both nearly drowned out by the noise of the level.
Akta turns in first and Max takes in his own saber in their hands and a glassy look in their eyes. Max knows it well, from friends coming back from the front, laughing about battles during the day and screaming themselves awake at night.
There are tear tracks in the soot on their cheeks, wiped away with a seemingly careless brush of their hand a moment after Max takes notice. He finds that his heart now rolls around at his feet. Clearly, if the guard had news, they weren’t good ones.
His mind rings empty and echoing where bonds once wove a blanket of comfort.
“Blue!” Cries Laira as she all but launches herself at the guard and though Io is a moment late in getting up, he overtakes her in their race to run up to the man, following his friend’s directions as always.
The initiates don’t seem to care much that the guard’s uniform is stained, carbon trails splattered across armorweave joined by deep red where enough hits struck the same spot and made it through. Slashes have had more luck, leaving ugly red welts, the worst of which crosses the face hidden under the shadow of the hood. Max finds himself looking away automatically, the absence of a mask simply wrong to his mind.
He still spies the ghost of a sad smile before he fixes his eyes somewhere else, on the children asking about the Temple while the guard practically collapses to his knees when he lowers himself to their eye level. His arms twitch like they’re being puppeteered more by the Force than muscle as he reaches up to simply put a hand on their shoulders.
The questions peter out without a single answer spoken. Laira nods, holds up the mask she had been carrying, and finds it pushed back into her arms.
Max looks away when he sees Io start to wipe at his eyes. Next to him, Akta is looking up at the ceiling where ducts and wires disappear into the black. They’ll have to move soon.
“His name is Ren, not Blue,” Akta mutters.
For another minute, Max keeps silent, trying not to hear the guard comfort the children. He wants to be useful, wants to help, but doesn’t know where to start. Master San-Ari always said that the first move was to ask. “Which level are we on?”
“Maintenance 92.”
That sounds familiar. Why does it sound familiar? Max quickly does the calculations, matching the uneven patterns of maintenance levels to normal inhabited ones, a bit of a tough job since they are sparser in some layers and are counted from the top down instead of from the surface up. Were they in level 92 proper, they would be dead. Maintenance 92 is still in the lower end of the upper 2000, which means-
Ah, that’s why it’s familiar.
“We need to go towards the Works,” he blurts out.
“What? The security-”
“There’s a smuggling ring the senators use. It’s all hush-hush but the aides had been getting chatty because rumor was the CG was drawing close and they wanted the chancellor to order the investigation closed, or so I overheard,” he hurries to explain. If they need to leave, then this might be their best chance. “If Coruscant is put on lockdown, I’m sure Orbital Sec knows to look the other way for these guys. Wouldn’t want the senators to get testy without their wine, eh?”
The attempt at levity sounds wrong to his own ears, more habit than anything, but he considers it a win when Akta’s lips twitch up, just a little.
“We’ll make a shadow out of you yet,” They say, an old refrain.
“Over my dea-” The words lodge in his throat. Far, far too early to say that when he’s halfway there already. “Let’s just get going.”
When a minute later Max finds himself repeating his second-hand information, the guard only tilts his head like an inquisitive bird for a moment then nods and turns on his heel. Following the untold command is a habit built over multiple failed attempts to sneak out of the Temple in the years before the order suddenly came back into the hostile light of the public eye.
It’s surprising how quickly walking becomes routine after this. With the guard keeping point and also keeping a close eye on the initiates, there really isn’t much to do besides making sure he doesn’t trip over his own feet. Max doesn’t even need to give directions past recounting what scant few details he remembers.
They walk and sometimes Ren holds up a hand then disappears for a few minutes to scout ahead before returning. When Max thinks to check, the red stains on those armored tunics grow progressively larger, but the guard never complains and Max never dares bring it up.
So they walk on, fleeing without running. Were it not for the pain, were it not for the company, it would almost feel calm. Horrifyingly mundane.
The spaceport itself isn’t even hidden, probably why the guard knew exactly where to find it, and the workers are all clustered around holoterminals so tight that the blue of the display can barely be seen, the spacers chatting so loud that Max couldn’t hear the broadcast if he tried. He points out the spaceships bearing the symbol of the perfectly legitimate shipping company which dabbles with far less legitimate business on the side and Akta points out the modular cargo compartments that are positioned in such a way that means they’re already fully loaded, unlike the last one which has the hatch still open and a line of droids hauling in boxes.
The cargo is due for Corellia judging by the script on those labels, a short flight that won’t even last a day but which will land them in a wholly separate sector. As good of a start as any.
The lock dials turn obediently under Ren’s palm, disks easily yielding under his will and his years of practice. They pile into the dimly-lit compartment littered with boxes of all shapes and sizes and with another wave of Ren’s arm the doors slide shut and re-lock, shutting out the world beyond the metal room.
And just like that, their running is over. They can, if not relax, then at least stop.
Max should let go. He should let Akta rest after dragging his useless ass so far, should sit down because each step is pulling at the half-healed wounds on his back and being unconscious sounds like the best thing to do.
“Have you tried turning it off and on again?” Master San-Ari would joke whenever Max insisted that sleep solved most problems. Thinking of them is like picking at a scab that hasn’t even had time to form.
He thinks sleep will become a hot commodity once he's not so exhausted that he knows he won't dream.
So, he should let go. He finds that he can't. Even when he finally wishes his grip to open, Akta tightens theirs. He lets them drag him away, into some crevice behind the haphazard piles of cargo, where the shadows are deep and light from the bulbs in the compartment ceiling barely reaches.
The metal floor is cold when Akta lowers both of them down and Max realizes that he can’t see the doors from here. They’ll have some warning if someone was to come, though from the weight in his bones he knows he won’t be of much use in such a situation. His new human-shaped pillow protests when Max slumps against them, too tired to sit straight but not wanting to risk pressing his smarting back against unyielding metal crates.
“I should-” Akta begins.
“I’ll check the crates,” interrupts the quiet rumble Max has now learned to associate with the guard. He blots out the rest of the light from the small passage into the little crevice. Io and Laira wander in following an encouraging nudge from the man.
The nautolan is still carrying the guard’s mask so there is nothing to hide how the burn across his face still weeps. He hasn’t even tried to stop to treat it this whole time, doesn’t even seem to register it. The ruined surface gleams even under the shadows his hood casts.
“Rest,” it sounds like an order, or maybe a blessing. “I’ll call if need be.”
Io doesn’t hesitate to plop down between Akta and a crate. All it takes is a slight shiver from the boy for the padawan to curl an arm around him, drawing him into their side in a move that seems almost automatic. Max can feel Laira settle by his back, carefully propping him up more securely. Smart kid.
The children do not speak. Max watches Io silently look around, taking in every detail again and again and again. Waiting for something, maybe. The boy only stops staring at the blank walls when a massive yawn makes him screw his eyes shut.
“Try to sleep.” The guard advises when he returns. There is something in his hands now, a mechanical wreck that may just be a holopad that sure has seen better days.
“Okay,'' says the boy. He hides his face in Akta’s robes without another word.
Max can feel Laira shift behind him, but doesn’t turn to see. He and Akta share a look that he cannot read yet still interprets as some sort of understanding. Maybe later, when the scope of it all hits the children, the loud tears will come, the screaming. Quiet is good now, though. Safe.
So he shuts his eyes too and listens to the quiet scrape of the guard trying to fix the piece of junk he had found. The cargo hold shudders, just slightly, as the ship carrying the compartment takes off. Minutes later Max hears a glitchy fizz as the holopad activates at last. Tapping. A long pause. More tapping.
The guard is probably looking for answers, ones for all the many questions and the one simplest one - why? Max dares not ask, but soon another tap and then a different sound altogether - the static-wreathed susurrus of a quieting crowd. Voices.
The volume is set so low that Max can barely catch the noise of the broadcast over the rasp of his own breathing. He knows that voice, he realizes, from poring over senate debates and the broadcasts spewing half-truths over the slowly boiling unrest of Coruscant’s streets.
Chancellor Palpatine, though now odd somehow, he can’t quite tell over the faint distortion of the holo. A word makes his breath stutter to a stop as he strains to listen.
Jedi.
He must be hearing wrong, because what follows it makes no sense, conspiracy and Republic ruin.
“The Jedi hoped to unleash their destructive power against the Republic by assassinating the head of government and usurping control of the clone army.” Declares the chancellor, a reedy whisper in the dark. “But the aims of the would-be tyrants were valiantly opposed by those without elitist, dangerous powers. Our loyal clone troopers contained the insurrection within the Jedi Temple and quelled uprisings on a thousand worlds.”
What insurrection?
Was it insurrection, for him and Akta to complain at one another over dinner in the refractory until their Masters were laughing, until he knew that evening to meet the other padawan in the southern salles where they would spend the night sparring, laughing and mocking one another until they were too exhausted to continue, one claiming victory and the other arguing against it because they once again forgot to keep score in this nonsensical rivalry of theirs?
Was it insurrection for Io and Laira to sneak out of bed to run around darkened halls, giggling into their sleeves while they made up stories about the jedi that once walked them, as they shoved one another into tapestries and pretended to be some great heroes or cunning foes, painting the ancient walls with whatever their imaginations dreamed up in those moments?
Was it insurrection, for his Master to wish him goodnight and warn him that he still had that essay to finish in the morning for the Treatises of Moons and Their Planets module of his health policy class?
Was it insurrection, for his crèchemates to wonder if they had time to throw a party for Rowen, because tomorrow she and her Master would be leaving once more for the front to do their duty as Jedi?
What cruel plots could be made by children whose voices had echoed in failed whispers down the halls, Io wondering out loud if they would soon have pancakes for breakfast because he really loved the ones that Master Terz would make, with blueberries and a bit too much sugar?
“The Jedi rebellion has been foiled. We stand on the threshold of a new beginning.”
It feels very much like an end.
He can’t listen anymore, turns his face away into the cloth of Akta’s robes. He has a nonsensical wish for a blanket so that he could hide under it like a crècheling, when the scariest thing in the world was the dark.
He thinks he can feel something land in his hair, roll down until he feels moisture on his cheek. Surely a spacefaring cargohold would not have a leak and it never rains this deep in Coruscant. Despite having seen the proof of it before, he still cannot fathom Akta crying because they had always been annoying like that, smiling no matter what.
The nonsensical whispers peter out as the broadcast comes to an end and so do Akta’s tears. Silence reigns and he could almost pretend at sleep if he could just stop thinking about everything and nothing at once. The rise and fall of Akta’s chest is almost meditative, if only it didn’t stutter sometimes before regaining its rhythm.
Time passes as they both fail to sleep. He’s sure he had felt the guard stop by them sometimes, felt careful fingers brush just barely over the top of his head as something vast and hidden leaned, just barely, against the crumbling outside of his shielded soul. The lights of the children have vanished behind that presence, minds sheltered behind those carefully built walls.
Maybe that’s why they’re asleep like the world isn’t screaming. But the guard always departs and neither Max nor Akta ever stop pretending like they can do this on their own, now that their own shelters, their Masters, are gone into the weeping void of the Force.
“Do you think we’ll make it?” Max asks, when the question buzzes so loud in his head that he can't trap it behind his teeth anymore. It might have been hours, or maybe minutes, since the end of the broadcast. His voice comes as barely a whisper.
Akta would know. They're the sneaky one, the shadow, the one Max had made fun of for having to slum it with the dregs of the outer rim while he and Master San-Ari got negotiator duties.
But Akta got them here and all Max has is stories of dining with the same men and women who they just heard applaud the slaughter of their order, their dreams, their family.
“We will,” Akta replies after a moment, having waited so long that Max almost thought that they had been lucky enough to find rest where he couldn't.
“How?”
He can feel Akta shift, probably looking around, so he opens his eyes and moves his head just enough to do so too.
Io is out cold on Akta’s other side, curled up into such a tight ball that only the tips of his montrals are visible beyond the cloth of his robes. Laira is making a soft chirring sound with each breath in, like a snore. She's still holding on to Ren's mask like it's a teddy tooka, though the burnt edges around the jagged slash have stained her sleeves with streaks of black.
The guard is moving around somewhere in the cargo hold, the swish of his robes being heard every so often along with the noise of opening crates.
“We need to survive just one day,” Akta says at last, still whispering. “We make it to tomorrow and tomorrow we make a plan to reach the day after, and that day we make a plan for the next. Day by day. We're jedi, we've done harder things than survive a single day.”
“It's a stupid plan,” Max says, because it is. It ignores everything that could ever go wrong. It is nonsense of the highest calibre and hinges on dumb luck and nothing more.
They’re two initiates with no experience, two padawans without Masters, and a guard with no temple. The rest of their order are somewhere, already beginning to rot.
But Akta’s right. They’re jedi - not a people, not a bloodline, but a creed. An idea. The thing about ideas, Max has learned among senators, is that once they’re out there, even when quieted, locked behind teeth, hidden behind eyes, they come back.
So Max adds, “I like it.”
A low buzz settles under the floor, a telltale sign of hyperspace travel and them leaving Coruscant behind.
“We'll make it,” Akta insists, maybe for themself.
“We will. Day by day.”
They have to.