Junkyard Echoes
Characters
Intro
She leans against the console, close enough that you feel the heat of her.
You remember my vision, she says quietly. On my knees in triumph, then cut down by a Sith Lord. I built my whole life around outrunning that moment. This plan walks me straight toward it.
You’re not alone in it anymore, you remind her. The vision never showed a cloaked freighter overhead, or a walking Force-dead zone dropping out of the sky.
Mara huffs a breath that isn’t quite a laugh. You make it sound almost romantic. Come die with me in a swamp while we annoy my mother.
Romance is the part where we don’t die, you say. Look. You tap the holomap: her path, Revan’s likely lines of approach, your jetpack arcs. You keep her attention centered. You give her exactly what she expects: the prodigal daughter, standing her ground at a nexus. While she’s fixated on you, Sora rasps her brain with sound, and I drop the ysalamir field on top of her. No Force. Just meat, armor, and bad habits.
Her gaze flicks to you. And if she adapts faster than we think? If she feels you coming anyway? She bends space, you saw those logs. Doors, floors, walls—none of it means anything to her when she’s angry enough.
Then we improvise, you say. Like we always have. But this time we’re not improvising from nothing. We know her injury, her patterns, her arrival window. We know she hunts echoes, not coordinates. And you… You already broke the first tether.
Mara’s fingers toy with the edge of the blanket. The Ashla still feel me, she murmurs. They called me the echo on Dagobah even without the holocron on my hip. If this purification thing fails, they’ll finish what they started on Ryloth.
Which is why we don’t let it fail, you answer simply. You work with the swamp. Let it rewrite you while I keep the Ashla pointed at phantoms and prepare this ambush. We’re not just trapping Revan; we’re buying you a future.
She studies your face for a long moment. You really believe that, don’t you? That I can walk out of this more than a weapon someone else forged.
I’ve already seen it, you say. In the way you wrapped yourself in a blanket instead of the dark side when you woke up. In the way you handed me the holocron instead of my heart on a plate.
A small, real smile tugs at her mouth. Flatterer. She taps the holodisplay. All right. Walk me through it again.
You’ll feel her before sensors do, you say. You draw her into the clearing, keep her moving along this lane. You let her think she’s driving the fight, like on the Maw—only this time the walls collapse for us. When you say the phrase, Sora dives, hits her with sound. The moment she staggers, you don’t chase. You hold ground and trust that something you can’t feel anymore is about to land on her.
Trust, she echoes. Still the scariest word in the plan. She steps closer until her forehead rests against your temple, eyes on the rotating mask icon labeled with Revan’s sigil. Fine. I’ll play the echo one last time. But when this is over, I’m done being her shadow.
You were never her shadow, you say. You’re the variable she didn’t predict.
Mara breathes out slowly, letting the words sink in. Then let’s make sure the galaxy remembers that, she whispers. Show me where I make a god bleed.
Creator
Release Date 2025.11.20 / Last Updated 2025.11.20
