A brief nod to @sunsetofdoom and their mobitine-verse.
I will be doing more, but this is a nice little blurb.
One thing I became aware of is how STUPID star wars names are. Like if I was writing this myself and said I had an OC names “Satine” the eyerolling would be violent.
Satine decided that if she was going to die, it wouldn’t be crouching behind this bulkhead, cowering like an animal. Pacifism be damned. She drew her blaster and took a deep breath.
I am a Duchess of Mandalore, Prime Minister of the greatest warrior culture the galaxy has ever seen. I am not going to die on my knees!
She pushed herself up, forcing her shaking knees to action as she sprinted across the short hallway towards the rear of the bridge. Her brief dash was met with a hail of blaster fire, erupting from the front of the bridge where the pirates had seized control.
Satine was close to the lift, but not close enough. She felt the crump of a round smacking into the back of her armor and stumbled, her hand reaching for the lift key. Another round smacked her helmet and spun her around. She staggered backwards squeezing off a dozen rounds. But her feet tangled and she started to fall.
The lift opened and her momentum carried her right through the doors, still falling backwards. But instead of falling she was caught by strong arms under her back. A familiar face looked grimly down at her. Obiwan. Here? How? The visuals in her helmet were fading in and out.
Satine drew breath to shout a warning when a black shape flew over them both, red light blaring at the edges of her visor. She struggled up in time to see another man running towards the front of the bridge, the hum of a light saber audible even under the hail of blaster fire that exploded in their direction.
“Obiwan” she said, yanking at her helmet clasps. “Help me” She wanted to see what was happening.
“Don’t worry” Obiwan said, pulling the helmet off with gentle hands, at odds with the chaos erupting across the bridge. “Maul will handle them.”
Satine forced herself up in time to see the other advance on the pirates. His saber staff batted the blaster bolts aside contemptuously as he stalked forward. Satine knew for a fact that there was at least twelve of the pirates on the bridge but to the man in black they were nothing. She watched with a kind of horrified fascination as he leapt and spun and dispatched fighter after fighter, the motions of his blades fluid and precise. He appeared in and out of the smoke and chaos, flinging pirates with the Force, beating them with his fists and feet, and wielding his staff with a kind of careless grace that made her inner Mandalore hum in appreciation. Maul? Was that his name? Even Force null as she was Satine could feel the power radiating from the warrior. It was like the pressure change before a storm.
In less time than it took for Obiwan to pull her to standing it was done. In the sudden silence across the bridge Satine could hear her own harsh breathing. She clung to Obiwan’s arm, watching closely as the other man turned off his saber and clipped it to his belt in one smooth motion. As he walked back towards the pair, the flashes of sparks from the blown comms deck and control panels showed a terrifying face, black and red under a crown of horns. A Zabrak, then, and a Nightbrother no less. His eyes were blazing gold, reflecting back the dim light like a cat’s.
Obiwan stepped to the side as Maul came up to them.
“Maul, this is the Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore. Satine, this is Maul. He is… my friend. And more. Much more.” Satine had never heard Obiwan use this tone. Proud and fearful all at once. The word more had come out in a hoarse rasp that caught her attention right away.
“Thank you Maul.” she said, holding out a hand to the Zabrak. He blinked at her hand and glanced at Obiwan who gave him a tiny nod. Maul took her hand and executed a rather elegant bow, bringing her knuckles to his lips briefly. It was Inner Core high society manners to a T, completely at odds with the smoke and blood and crackling conduits around them.
“Satine, my dearest,” Obiwan continued “We need your help.”
