Kai took a slow step forward, palms open at his sides, feigning calm.
"Look, if you're here about a debt or a misunderstanding, I think you've got the wrong guy."
The bounty hunter didn't move. "You've got a ship docked here under no registry. You bought rare tech without credentials. You keep to the shadows like you're allergic to sunlight. People notice things like that."
Kai forced a small, tired chuckle. "That's life on a station like this. Everybody's hiding from something."
"Sure." The modulator hissed slightly. "But most people don't ping every black-market net the second they show up. You did."
Kai shifted a few more steps toward his X-wing, subtly angling himself between the hunter and the cockpit ladder. Behind the ship, R6-T3 rotated its dome with a soft wrrrr, catching Kai's small hand motion.
Be ready.
The bounty hunter tilted their head slightly, as if amused.
"Strange thing, though," the voice continued. "There's a bounty on your head. Big one. No name. No background. Just an alert and a payout number high enough to make someone drop a warlord for the day."
Kai's breath caught for a moment. No name? That meant whoever issued it didn't want him found—at least not publicly. No trail. No questions.
Still, he kept his tone casual. "Then you're wasting your time. You don't even know who I am."
"Not yet," the hunter replied. A blaster unlatched from their hip with a soft click. "But you're going to tell me."
Kai's hand twitched—but not toward his weapon. Not yet.
"R6," he said calmly, "now."
The astromech shrieked a burst of binary and slammed a hidden button on the X-wing's panel.
The ship's repulsorlift groaned to life—and in that exact moment, Kai thrust his hand forward.
The Force surged through him like a flood.
With a sharp blast of invisible energy, the bounty hunter flew backward, smashing into a stacked wall of metal crates. The crash echoed through the hangar, and one of the piles collapsed on top of them in a rain of steel.
Kai didn't wait.
He vaulted up the ladder in two steps, yanked open the cockpit canopy, and dropped inside.
R6 rocketed into its port, plugging into the socket with practiced speed.
"Power it all up. We're going now!"
The engines sputtered—then roared.
Outside, the bounty hunter stirred beneath the rubble.
Kai's jaw clenched. "Not today."
The X-wing lifted with a burst of thrusters, metal crates scattering in the repulsor wash. In a flash of light and flame, the fighter punched out of the docking bay, slipping between the station's outer scaffolding and into open space.
Alarms lit behind him. A voice crackled on the comm, demanding identification.
Kai didn't respond.
He gripped the controls, the Force still humming hot through his veins. The power cell in his pouch pulsed faintly in sync with the crystal resting nearby.
The saber wasn't ready.
But he would be.
And someone, somewhere, really wanted him dead.
Starlines stretched like threads of light as Kai's X-wing rocketed into hyperspace. The stars twisted and warped around him, forming that familiar tunnel of silence that always came with faster-than-light travel—a moment of calm between chaos.
He leaned back in the cockpit, the tightness in his chest beginning to loosen as the adrenaline ebbed. His hands remained steady on the controls, but his mind raced.
A bounty. No name. No face. Just an anonymous transmission and a promise of credits—enough to motivate the galaxy's worst to come crawling from the cracks.
"Someone's watching," he muttered, mostly to himself.
R6 chirped in quiet concern from its socket. Kai glanced over at the astromech's flickering display.
"I know," he said, running a hand through his hair. "We can't go back to the station. We can't go anywhere obvious. Not until I figure out why they want me and who they've told."
He reached for the navicomputer and overrode the current route. The star charts flickered, projecting a web of systems, trade lanes, and dead zones. His eyes scanned quickly past the populated sectors and busy hyperspace intersections—places that would be watched, or worse, waiting.
"What we need," he murmured, "is quiet."
His gaze landed on a section of space between Outer Rim sectors—uncharted nebulae, abandoned mining colonies, forgotten moons.
There. A minor moon orbiting a gas giant in an ignored system. No traffic, no patrols, no reason for anyone to care.
He set the coordinates and watched as the X-wing shifted course, aligning for the jump. The new path was longer, slower, and off-grid. But it would be silent. Isolated. Safe.
For now.
Kai exhaled deeply and leaned his head back against the seat, the hum of hyperspace a steady lull in his ears. The powercell he'd stolen still rested in a compartment on his belt, the weight of it reminding him how close he'd come to failure. The crystal pulsed faintly at his chest, its shifting hue a muted purple now—still not ready. Still waiting.
He thought of Naga Sadow's voice, the way the specter had spoken of power and legacy, of understanding history not just through knowledge, but through experience.
And then he thought of the bounty hunter—blasted through the air like a leaf in a storm. That power had come too quickly. Too easily.
It scared him a little.
Not because he couldn't control it.
But because it had felt... right.
He shut his eyes.
There were answers out there. In the Force. In the past. In the saber he was trying to build. But for now, he would disappear. Regroup. Meditate. Let the galaxy forget he existed for a little while.
And then?
Then he would start hunting them.