Chapter Seven: The Ghost Station
911 Words
Echoes Through the Force
Chapter Seven: The Ghost Station
The assassin changed everything.
For days, Seris couldn't shake the image of Kade stumbling back as the crimson blade sliced across his shoulder. She had replayed the moment so many times that she could still hear the hiss of the weapon and see the sparks flying from the shattered corridor.
It frightened her how much she cared.
So she buried herself in work.
When General Taren summoned her to the briefing room, she arrived with dark circles beneath her eyes and a determination not to think about the man she should have wanted dead.
A hologram blinked to life.
An abandoned listening post drifted near the edge of a dying star.
Ghost Station.
Official records claimed it had been abandoned decades ago. Unofficially, it had become the hiding place for smugglers, pirates, and spies.
A Resistance informant had sent one final message before disappearing:
"They're looking for the Twin Stars."
Seris felt her fingers instinctively close around the pendant beneath her shirt.
"You're the only one close enough to reach it in time," General Taren said.
She nodded once.
"I'll leave immediately."
---
Far away, Kade Vire received a nearly identical report.
An encrypted archive recovered from the assassin's destroyed shuttle contained only one decipherable line.
Retrieve the Twin Stars before they awaken.
No signature.
No explanation.
Just coordinates.
Ghost Station.
His advisers recommended sending a fleet.
He refused.
"This requires discretion."
One officer frowned. "You expect Resistance interference?"
Kade looked out through the viewport into the endless dark.
"Yes."
He didn't explain why.
He simply knew.
---
The station floated like a corpse.
Half its outer hull had been torn away by centuries of meteor impacts, exposing skeletal corridors open to the stars.
Seris entered through an emergency maintenance airlock, her boots echoing softly against rusted decking.
No power.
No lights.
Only her flashlight cutting through the darkness.
She passed abandoned crew quarters where cups still sat on tables, frozen in time.
She found a nursery with tiny toys scattered across the floor.
The silence felt wrong.
Not empty.
Waiting.
---
Without warning, the Force bond opened.
The darkness around her dissolved into another corridor.
Kade stood there, his own light illuminating the same faded walls.
He looked almost as surprised as she was.
"You're here."
"So are you."
They both realized it at the same instant.
They weren't merely sharing a vision.
They had arrived at opposite ends of the same station.
In the real world.
Separated by only a few hundred meters.
For the first time, they existed in the same place.
The thought sent an unexpected thrill through them both.
---
"We should leave," Seris said quietly.
"I agree."
Neither moved.
Instead, they walked.
Through the Force, they saw each other's paths as they navigated the maze of corridors, turning corners that mirrored one another until the bond overlaid their realities like transparent glass.
It became impossible to tell whose footsteps she heard.
Or whether the shadow ahead belonged to her…
Or him.
Then she rounded a corner.
And froze.
A handprint marked the wall.
Fresh.
Someone else was here.
---
Kade sensed it too.
He extinguished his light and slipped silently behind a collapsed support beam.
The Force carried Seris's quickened heartbeat to him.
You're not alone.
Neither are you.
For once, there was no teasing between them.
No smug remarks.
Only instinct.
Only trust born from necessity.
A metallic scrape echoed through the station.
Then another.
Figures emerged from the darkness.
Not First Order.
Not Resistance.
Masked mercenaries dressed in matte-gray armor bearing no insignia.
One of them carried a scanner that pulsed bright blue when it swept over the walls.
"They're searching," Seris whispered through the bond.
Kade's expression hardened.
"They're searching for us."
---
The mercenaries split into teams.
One moved toward Seris.
Another advanced on Kade.
Without discussing it, they acted.
Seris tossed a small distraction charge into a side corridor.
The explosion drew half the group away.
At the same instant, Kade manipulated a loose maintenance hatch with the Force, slamming it into another pair and sending them sprawling.
The coordination was flawless.
As though they had trained together for years.
Neither acknowledged it.
They simply moved.
---
Deep within the station, beyond a sealed blast door, Seris discovered a circular chamber untouched by time.
At its center stood a stone pedestal.
Resting atop it was a small metal cylinder engraved with the same six-pointed star as her pendant.
As her fingers brushed its surface, ancient machinery groaned awake.
The room filled with pale blue light.
A holographic recording flickered into existence.
An elderly woman appeared.
Her image was faded, distorted by age.
"If you are seeing this," she began, "then the Twin Stars have found one another."
Seris held her breath.
The woman continued.
"The pendants were never symbols of lineage."
"They were keys."
The recording crackled.
"The path ahead must be walked by two souls bound across the Force. Alone, they reveal nothing. Together…"
Static swallowed the rest.
The image vanished.
At that exact moment, blaster fire erupted outside the chamber.
The mercenaries had found her.
And somewhere on the other side of the station, Kade heard the shots through the bond.
He didn't hesitate.
Ignoring every tactical instinct, every lesson in self-preservation, he sprinted toward the sound.
For the first time since fate had tied their lives together, he wasn't chasing an enemy.
He was racing to save her.
- Writer
