"Far, Far Away..." - Part Three

 

Part Three

The breathing filled the room.

Slow. Mechanical. Unnatural.

Skeeta didn’t move. Tabitha didn’t breathe.

The shadow stretched across the wall—long, distorted… inhuman. It swallowed the light, swallowing the room, swallowing them.

Each step forward made the floor feel smaller beneath their feet.

“Y’all…” Tabitha whispered, her voice barely holding together, “…that is not normal.”

“No,” Skeeta murmured, eyes fixed ahead, body tense like a coiled spring. “…it isn’t.”

The towering figure stopped just outside the cell.

Silence.

Then—a voice.

Deep. Resonant. Cold enough to freeze bone.

“You are…not from this place.”

Tabitha blinked rapidly. “Oh! Well—uh—we’re actually just visiting—”

“SILENCE.” The word didn’t echo. It pressed.

Tabitha’s voice died instantly in her throat as if something had physically reached in and shut it off.

Her eyes widened.

Skeeta’s jaw tightened. “…Telekinetic authority,” he muttered under his breath. “…Lovely. Somewhere, Paul Atreides is blushing.”

The black figure tilted his head slightly. “…You will come with me.”

Skeeta took a small step forward—just enough to put himself slightly in front of Tabitha. “No,” he said.

A pause. A dangerous one.

The air grew heavier.

Tabitha leaned toward him, whispering urgently, “Skeeta, I don’t think this is a ‘say no’ situation—”

“I’m not goin’ with him,” Skeeta said flatly.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop.

The officer behind the figure stiffened.

The Stormtroopers raised their weapons.

And then…Skeeta moved…fast.

He grabbed Tabitha by the wrist. “Run.”

They bolted.

Blaster fire erupted behind them—red bolts scorching past, lighting the corridor in violent flashes. Tabitha screamed as they sprinted into the sterile maze of the Death Star, boots pounding against cold metal floors. “Left!” Skeeta barked.

“Why left?!” she shouted back.

“Because right gets us killed!”

“That’s not comforting!”

They turned sharply—blaster fire slammed into the wall behind them, sparks raining down like fireworks.

“Okay, okay, okay—!” Tabitha gasped, trying to keep up. “Was that who I thought it was back there?!”

“Uh-huh,” Skeeta confirmed flippantly.

“I mean, like…how?! He’s just a character in a movie!”

“I don’t have time to explain it all to you. Let’s just say that things are stranger than fiction.”

“That is the worst explanation I’ve ever heard!”

“It gets worse!”

“How?!”

Skeeta didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. He stopped dead in his tracks.

Tabitha nearly ran into him. “What are you—why are we stopping?!”

Skeeta wasn’t listening.

He was staring through a wide observation window into a secured Imperial chamber. Bright white lights. Technicians moving frantically. Energy readings flickering across holographic displays.

And in the center of it all—a sphere.

Sleek. Impossibly smooth. Utterly alien.

Tabitha frowned. “What…is that?”

Skeeta didn’t answer right away. His expression… changed.

The anger?

Gone.

The edge?

Gone.

Replaced with something quieter. Something heavier.

“…That,” he said softly, “…is my ship.”

Tabitha blinked. “Your—wait—that’s your ship?! That little ball?!”

“It’s bigger on the inside,” he said automatically.

She stared at him. “…You’re kidding.”

“Does it look like I’m kidding?” He shot her a glare—a very intense glare—that chilled her to her core. His dark brown eyes were so intimidating…piercing. Clearly, he didn’t joke very often.

Inside the chamber, Imperial engineers circled the sphere, scanning it, probing it, running diagnostics that clearly weren’t working.

One of them tapped the surface—

—and was immediately thrown backward by a burst of unseen energy.

The others hesitated. Nervous now.

Tabitha looked back at Skeeta.

For the first time…she saw it.

Not anger. Not arrogance.

Loss.

“You can get it back, right?” she asked, quieter now.

Skeeta stepped toward the door, his hand tightening and eyes locked on the sphere.“…Yeah,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

Alarms suddenly blared.

Red lights flooded the corridor.

“Escapees detected in Detention Block AA-23.”

“Great!” Tabitha said. “That’s us! That’s definitely us!”

Footsteps. Coming fast from both directions.

Skeeta glanced left…right…and then back at the sphere.

He could feel it calling to him.

Home.

Kristin.

Everything he had lost—everything he had left behind—

Right there.

Ten feet away.

Behind a sealed door.

“Skeeta…” Tabitha said gently.

He didn’t move.

“…Skeeta, we have to go.”

His jaw tightened.

Every instinct in him screamed to stay…to fight…to take it back.

But—

More blasters.

More soldiers.

And that presence…getting closer.

Watching.

Waiting.

He exhaled slowly. “…They’re not getting inside it,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“They can’t,” he added, almost to himself. “Not without me.”

He reached subtly into his coat and tapped something barely visible. A soft, inaudible pulse passed through the air. Inside the chamber, the sphere flickered faintly and then went still…dormant…locked.

Skeeta turned away—that was the hardest part.

“…Come on,” he said.

Tabitha didn’t argue this time.

They ran.

Blaster fire erupted again as Stormtroopers flooded the corridor.

Tabitha ducked, barely avoiding a bolt. “Okay!” she shouted. “New plan! What’s the new plan?!”

Skeeta grabbed a fallen trooper’s blaster without breaking stride. “Get off this thing,” he said.

“And then what?!”

“…Then I figure out how to get my ship back.”

Tabitha glanced at him.

            At the weight in his voice.

At the man who, just minutes ago, she thought she understood.

She didn’t say anything.

She just nodded.

And kept running.

Behind them, deep within the Death Star, the sphere sat in silence.

Unyielding.

Waiting.