Hide and Seek

Posted on Fri Aug 21st, 2026 @ 2:04am by Shipmaster Allore Titha

1,524 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Daiyu
Location: Daiyu

The maintenance skiff dropped steadily through Daiyu's industrial haze. Allore remained beneath the tarpaulin covering a stack of replacement power couplings, one hand gripping the edge of the cargo rack every time the small craft banked. She had no idea how long she'd been lying there. Ten minutes. Twenty. Long enough for the adrenaline to begin wearing off. Long enough for everything she'd done to start hurting. Her shoulder throbbed where Second Sister had thrown her into the cargo container. Her ribs objected every time she breathed too deeply. There was a burn across her jacket from the reflected blaster bolt and another tear across one knee from landing on the skiff. She'd had better days. Above her, the engines changed pitch.
Descending. Good. Allore closed her eyes. Immediately she saw the Gauntlet explode. Her eyes snapped open. "No."

Not now. Illenya was safe. Kyle was safe. Miran was safe. Tex was with them. Jaden and Connor had gotten clear. The others should have reached the safe house by now. The Gauntlet had done what Allore needed it to do. Ships could be replaced. She repeated that silently. Ships could be replaced.
It didn't help. The Gauntlet hadn't been just a ship. It had been the first place since the Temple where she'd eventually learned to sleep without expecting someone to come through the door. Miran had learned which deck plates squeaked.

Kyle had discovered exactly how many components he could remove from a functioning starship before Allore noticed. Illenya had claimed part of the ship as her medical bay and defended it with considerably more ferocity than some Jedi had defended entire planets. Tex had somehow acquired several favourite charging locations despite insisting that an astromech did not have favourites. The crew had left half-drunk mugs of caf everywhere.
They had argued there. Laughed there. Cried there. Hidden there. For a little over a year, while the galaxy they had known collapsed around them, they had become a family there.

And Allore had destroyed it. She swallowed hard. They were alive. That was what mattered. The skiff jolted. Voices carried through the hull.
"...Platform Twelve." "Got it." "Then we're done. I'm getting something to eat." Footsteps moved away. Allore waited. Thirty seconds.
A minute. Two. Then she pushed the tarpaulin aside. The skiff had landed on an industrial maintenance platform deep in Daiyu's lower levels.

Perfect. She slipped over the side. No one noticed. Allore didn't immediately head toward the safe house. That was the first rule. Never go directly home when someone might be following you. Especially when that someone was an Imperial Inquisitor. She moved into the lower-level traffic and let Daiyu swallow her. Only then did she reach for the Force. Not outward. Inward. Allore drew her presence tightly around herself. She had always been unusually good at hiding. Master Sif had considered the talent useful, though hardly one of the great accomplishments expected of a Jedi Knight. Allore had disagreed.

Even before the fall, she'd understood there was value in being somewhere without announcing yourself to every Force-sensitive being within reach.
During the Clone Wars she'd used the ability for infiltration and reconnaissance. Since Order 66 it had become something else entirely. Survival. She folded herself deeper. The sensation was difficult to describe. She didn't disappear. Anyone looking directly at her could still see her. A security camera would still record her. A stormtrooper could still recognise her face. But within the Force, Shia Teraan simply ceased to be there. No light. No shadow.
No frightened Jedi Knight desperately trying not to be discovered. Nothing. Second Sister could stand on the other side of the street and reach through the Force looking for Shia Teraan and find nothing at all.

Allore opened her eyes. "Find me now." Then she disappeared into the crowd. Daiyu helped. Daiyu always helped. Thousands of beings moved through narrow streets beneath flickering signs. Vendors shouted over one another. Speeders screamed through gaps between buildings. Steam rolled from food stalls. Music spilled from somewhere overhead. Nobody cared about one bruised woman moving through the crowd. Allore kept her head down and walked. Her leather jacket was ruined. The reflected blaster bolt had scorched one shoulder and there was no disguising the damage. She found a clothing stall wedged between a food vendor and a dealer selling questionable droid components.

A coat hung near the back. Cheap. Dark. Forgettable. Perfect. "How much?" The vendor named a price, Allore didn't haggle. She pulled physical credits from an inside pocket and dropped them onto the counter. No bank. No account. No chain code. No electronic trail. The vendor barely looked at her. Exactly how she liked it. Three districts later, Allore discarded her damaged jacket into an industrial waste chute. She changed direction. Twice. Entered a public refresher station and emerged through its service corridor. Crossed an elevated market. Took a freight lift down six levels. Walked through another market. Changed direction again. The Force might conceal what she was. It couldn't conceal who she was. And Allore wasn't stupid enough to rely upon one trick simply because it was effective.

She'd learned how to disappear long before the Empire existed. Years ago she'd slipped away from Master Sif to explore Coruscant's lower levels. She'd learned how ordinary people moved when they didn't want to be noticed. How to recognise surveillance. How to use crowds. How to disappear through service corridors. How to become just another face. Master Sif would have been horrified if he'd known half of it. Allore smiled faintly. It had saved her life more than once. She bought a cup of caf she didn't want. Again, she paid cash. Then she sat. Watched. Waited. Nothing. No stormtroopers. No Imperial Security. No woman in a black leather duster. Still, Allore waited. Because Second Sister frightened her. Not simply because she'd nearly beaten Allore. That was almost expected. Allore hadn't fought another lightsaber wielder since the war. She'd barely allowed herself to use her own blade since Order 66. Second Sister had apparently spent that same time becoming better at hunting people like her. But that wasn't what bothered Allore most.

It was the name. Shia Teraan. Second Sister had known it. Not guessed. Not questioned. Known. Someone had connected Captain Allore Titha with Jedi Knight Shia Teraan. Or Second Sister had recognised her. Allore wasn't certain which possibility frightened her more. Because if the Empire knew who Allore really was, there was another question she couldn't ignore. What did they know about Illenya? Kyle? Miran? Her fingers tightened around the cup.
No. She crushed the thought before it could take hold. They were safe. She intended to keep them that way. Allore left the caf. She continued moving for another hour before she even began working toward the safe house. Even then, she never approached it directly. Not tonight. The Empire knew her face. Second Sister knew her real name. And no amount of skill with the Force would stop a security camera from recording Shia Teraan walking through the front entrance of the building where her family and crew were hiding. So Allore kept descending. Past the markets. Past the crowded residential levels. Down into the older industrial sections of Daiyu where the lights became unreliable and the air carried the permanent smell of machinery, stagnant water and overheated power conduits. The crowds thinned. That made her more cautious, not less. She crossed an abandoned service platform and slipped through a gap in a maintenance barrier. Beyond it was darkness. Allore stopped. Listened. Nothing. She waited another minute anyway. Then climbed down. The drainage system beneath this part of the city was ancient. Some sections were still maintained. Others had apparently been forgotten decades ago.

That was precisely why she'd chosen it. Water moved sluggishly through a channel several metres below the narrow walkway. Allore followed it. One junction. Two. At the third she stopped. Waited. Listened. Then doubled back. Anyone following her would expect her to continue deeper into the system. Instead she slipped through an access opening half-hidden behind a bank of old pipes and entered a much narrower maintenance channel.
The walls closed in around her. Allore continued. Only now did she allow her concealment to change. She was close. Close enough. She stopped and closed her eyes. The Force moved outward. Not searching. Covering. Her awareness passed through the old duracrete and rusting conduits until she reached the familiar boundary of the safe house. Then she expanded the concealment. A sphere formed around it. A bubble. A void. Everything inside remained exactly where it was. Nothing became invisible. Nothing ceased to exist. But to anyone searching through the Force, there would be nothing unusual within those walls. No Jedi Knight. No former Padawan. No younglings. No frightened children. No crew hiding alongside them. Nothing for an Inquisitor to find. Allore strengthened the boundary. Held it. The technique had kept them hidden before. It would keep them hidden now. Second Sister could walk the streets above them. She could reach through the Force until she exhausted herself. She would find nothing here.

TBC....

 

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