The city is a corpse still twitching.
Acid smoke curls through broken towers, the smell of burnt plastoid choking the air. Neon signs hang dead on their cables. Fires smolder in half-collapsed apartments like faint, dying eyes. Every shadow is alive with rumor—riots, looters, ghosts.
A shuttle glides in low and silent. No lights. No Republic transponder. Just matte-gray plates and the hum of stolen gravity, slipping through smoke like a shark's fin.
It lands in the ruins of a transit plaza. No one greets it. No one dares.
The ramp hisses open.
Mace Windu descends first—cloak drawn, jaw locked. The wind claws at his robes, pulling ash across his boots. He scans the horizon without moving his head. He doesn't need to. The air here is thick enough to see with his lungs: sweat, fear, gunpowder.
Kaelen follows.
No insignia. No Jedi braid. Just black armor, treated to eat light, matte as void. His saber is hidden, his helmet clipped to his belt, his face unreadable. He looks less like a Jedi than the shadow cast when one dies.
Windu's voice cuts through the smoke, low enough the wind nearly steals it.
WINDU:"No saber. No spectacle. This world doesn't need heroes. It needs no more targets."
Kaelen doesn't reply.
Because he's already gone.
One blink, and he's melted into the ruin—flowing between girders and rubble like smoke becoming shape. No sound. No trace. Even his presence vanishes, swallowed into the blackout until it feels like he was never there at all.
Windu watches the darkness a second longer. His expression tightens.
WINDU (murmuring to himself):"One day… he won't come back from the dark."
He exhales. And walks forward. Calm. Inevitable. Like a man who's stepped onto battlefields too often to be surprised by another.
Overhead, clouds churn soundlessly.
Below, something more dangerous than fire moves without sound.
Sublevel Tunnels – Beneath the City
The tunnels breathe like lungs that forgot how to live. Steam hisses. Pipes groan. Emergency strobes flicker dim red, painting the walls like arteries in a dying body.
Kaelen moves at the front. A phantom in matte-black. No helmet. He trusts his own senses more than optics. Every step is intentional, silent. His hand never strays far from his belt—but he doesn't need the weapon yet.
Behind him, the senator's detail struggles to keep pace. Their fear is loud: quickened breath, blasters held too tight, muttered prayers too small to hear.
Windu closes the rear. His eyes stay on Kaelen—not with distrust, but study. Measuring. Testing.
Kaelen signals with hand gestures—two fingers up for pause, a low sweep for cover, a fist for halt. The team obeys instantly. Even the senator, famous for his speeches, hasn't spoken a word since the tunnels swallowed them.
At a junction, Kaelen stops. Doesn't look back. He brushes one wall with the tips of his fingers, tilting his head slightly.
He feels it. The vibration. Wrong.
His voice is low. Calm. Certain.
KAELEN:"Stop. Two above."
The squad freezes. Weapons half-raised.
A moment later, the sound comes: boots overhead. Heavy. Armored. A patrol pacing the concourse.
A bolt drops from a grate above. Clinks once. Every chest tightens.
The patrol keeps moving. Oblivious.
Kaelen doesn't move until silence returns. Then he's walking again. Slow. Unhurried. As if the air had only ever belonged to him.
Windu watches closely. His own senses hadn't caught the patrol.
That realization lingers.
Tactics in Shadow
As they descend deeper, Kaelen reshapes the battlefield without firing a shot:
– He scorches a faint sigil into the wall near a node—a mark only Windu will recognize.– He scatters broken machinery across a hallway, ensuring noise will betray any pursuer.– He lays his palm on a junction box, sending a subtle Force ripple through the magnetic field. Enemy comms in the next sector will collapse silently.
Windu says nothing.
But in his mind, something shifts.
This is not a weapon. Not even an assassin.
This is absence, sculpted into utility.
The Overwatch Killzone
They reach an exposed walkway flanked by ruined towers. The senator's guards whisper nervously.
Kaelen slows. His head tilts. Eyes narrow.
Not a sound. Not a shape. Just an absence. A hole in the current.
He breaks from the group without a word, slipping into shadow.
Windu doesn't stop him. Doesn't ask. He feels it too, faintly.
High above, tucked between fractured beams, a sniper lies prone. Cloaked. Patient. Rifle aimed at the senator's chest.
The shot never comes.
Because Kaelen is already behind him.
No saber. No hum. Just steel. A vibroblade whispers across the rifle, shearing it in two. Before the sniper can gasp, Kaelen's gloved hand clamps his mouth. A pulse of the Force floods his body—silent, surgical. He collapses unconscious.
No alarms. No blood. Just absence again.
Windu glances up once. Sees the silhouette standing half-buried in dark. Watching. Not asking. Not explaining.
Windu turns away. Keeps walking.
The mission moves on.
The Hangar – Extortion
The transport bay looms like a tomb. Banners hang in tatters. Thrusters hum low, ready but waiting.
Windu leads the senator in. Kaelen lingers at the edge, eyes scanning shadows.
Then:
VOICE (cold, commanding):"That ship doesn't leave without my clearance."
From a side office, an administrator steps out. His uniform is old, his rank meaningless, his smile smug. Three armed guards flank him.
ADMINISTRATOR:"The Senate doesn't own Varta anymore. You want him gone—you pay tribute."
The datapad flashes red. Extortion dressed as sovereignty.
The guards raise weapons slightly.
Kaelen steps forward.
Slow. Silent. The kind of walk that makes the air itself hesitate.
The guards stiffen. The official falters—but doesn't draw. Not yet.
Kaelen stops inches from him. Leans in.
The camera doesn't hear what he whispers.
But the official's face changes. Confusion. Then dread. Then collapse. His datapad slips from his hand.
ADMINISTRATOR (to his men, breaking):"Let them through. Now."
The guards hesitate. He snaps again—voice cracking:"Now!"
Windu never blinks. The senator stares in shock.
SENATOR (to Kaelen, low):"What did you say to him?"
Kaelen brushes past, already gone.
KAELEN:"Just enough."
The door slams behind them. The guards don't follow.
The official stands pale, sweating, staring at the floor like it might open and swallow him.
Debrief
Later, in the shuttle's inner chamber.
Kaelen sits forward, cloak damp, fingers laced. No tension. No pride. Just stillness.
Windu enters. Closes the door. Studies him. Sits opposite.
Silence. Then:
WINDU:"You didn't wait for my order."
Kaelen lifts his eyes, steady.
KAELEN:"You didn't need to give one."
Windu leans back, weighing him.
WINDU:"You intercepted a sniper we didn't know existed. You dismantled the blockade without firing a shot. Half the mission zone will never know we were there."
A pause. The faintest trace of something like respect.
WINDU:"That's not luck. That's discipline."
Kaelen nods once. Quiet.
KAELEN:"They built me as a weapon. You taught me when to be one."
That lands. Something flickers in Windu's eyes—pride, or doubt. Maybe both.
WINDU:"And yet you still broke protocol."
Kaelen exhales slowly.
KAELEN:"I didn't break it. I obeyed the moment."
Silence. Heavy. Testing.
WINDU:"How did you know about the sniper?"
Kaelen tilts his head, thoughtful.
KAELEN:"The wind shifted, but the current didn't. Patrol cadence broke. Too much quiet in the noise."
His gaze turns distant.
KAELEN:"The Force didn't show me a man. It showed me… an absence."
Windu studies him long. Then nods, once.
WINDU:"Your instincts aren't wild anymore. They're refined."
Kaelen looks back at him. Voice low, edged with something heavier.
KAELEN:"And what happens when they don't want that refinement?"
Windu rises. Stands over him. Not Master to Padawan—just two sharpened edges.
WINDU:"Then we use it anyway."
He moves to the door. Stops.
WINDU:"This was meant to test you."(beat)"But maybe it was to test me, too."
He leaves.
Kaelen sits alone, silent. Then rises and walks to the viewport.
Below, the broken city flickers back to life. Lights sparking in the black, one by one. A dead world breathing again.