Lance hit Bravo's checkpoint like a man trying to outrun his own heartbeat.
He burst through the brush, coated in sewer grime and smoke, one sleeve half-burned, a shallow cut on his forearm bleeding into the fabric. The riflemen behind the log snapped their weapons up instantly.
"Code," the nearest rebel barked.
Lance lifted both hands, chest heaving. "River cuts north. Stone sleeps south."
The rifles lowered. Two soldiers lunged forward and dragged him behind cover before he could take a second step.
"Easy—easy," one of them hissed, yanking him down. "We got you."
Lance's eyes flicked past them toward the treeline. The firefight was still there, but it didn't feel like one anymore. Blaster pops came in distant, irregular bursts—no rolling thunder, no shouted orders. And under it all there was something worse than gunfire.
Quiet.
No birds. No insects. Even the wind sounded like it was holding back.
"Status?" Lance rasped, forcing his lungs to behave. "Where's your captain?"
A lean officer crouched on the other side of the log, wrist-pad already projecting a shaky holo-map. "I'm Captain Ressa. You're Lance. You're late."
Lance yanked the chip pouch from his chest and slapped it into her palm. "Here. Seventy-five percent. Facility's gone."
Relief flashed across Ressa's face—then she saw his expression and the relief died.
"What?" she demanded. "What happened?"
Lance leaned in, voice low. "They came."
Ressa frowned. "Military response teams?"
"No." Lance shook his head hard. "Not military."
One of the riflemen scoffed. "You sure? Osborne called in a sweep."
Lance's jaw tightened. "I'm sure."
He stared out at the mist threading between trunks. It wasn't thick yet, but it was creeping—patient, deliberate.
"They weren't wearing standard armor," he said. "Their gear looked… ceremonial. Like armored monks. Robes, but reinforced. Plates that looked like bark turned into metal. Helmets that didn't show faces."
Ressa's eyes narrowed. "That's not a thing."
"It's a thing," Lance snapped. "And they didn't kill. They… removed people. Soldiers vanished. Rebels vanished. No bodies. No screams. Just—quiet."
A woman with a portable interface pack—Bravo's slicer—shifted closer, her hands already moving. "If there's a third party, the facility files should show it. Unit IDs, deployment orders, anything."
Ressa threw a look at her. "Do it."
The slicer jacked the chip into her reader. Lines of data scrolled across her lens.
Lance kept talking, faster now, like if he stopped the fear would catch him. "Mist rolled in right after the reinforcements clashed. Comms fuzzed. Shots went into shadows and hit nothing. Then vines—actual vines—wrapped wrists and weapons. It was clean. Controlled."
The rifleman who'd scoffed earlier frowned. "Could be new military tech."
The slicer didn't even look up. "If it is, it's not in these files." She flicked her gaze to Ressa. "No unit registered for that sector tonight. No special operations authorization. Nothing."
Ressa's mouth tightened. "So either they're off-book… or they're not military."
A heavy silence settled. Somewhere far off, a grenade boomed, muffled like it detonated under a blanket.
One rebel slammed his fist lightly against the log. "They buried our people in a coffin. Hit them again tonight. Hard."
Another soldier—older, calmer—shook his head. "If there's a third force, we don't fire blind. We confirm first."
Ressa looked down at the holo-map, then back at Lance. "You saw them. What do you want?"
Lance didn't answer immediately. He pictured that helmeted silhouette in the fog. The way it didn't rush. The way it waited like it had all the time in the galaxy.
"I want proof," he said finally. "Before we make them decide we're enemies."
Ressa nodded once, sharp. "Recon team. Eight. Slicer and medic included. Strict orders: confirm, do not engage."
The revenge-minded rebel started to protest, but Ressa cut him off with a glare. "We shoot at ghosts, we get killed by ghosts."
She toggled her comm and sent the order. A minute later, a small team peeled away into the forest edge, moving low and tight.
Lance watched them go, then looked back toward the mist.
It was thicker now.
And it was coming.
Narwuvar's eyes snapped open mid-meditation like the Force had slapped him awake.
Migura, cross-legged across the inn room, inhaled sharply at the same moment. "Master…?"
Narwuvar didn't answer. He stood, slow and deliberate, as if sudden movement might shatter whatever he was sensing.
The Force… wasn't screaming.
That was the problem.
It had gone hollow in one direction—like a room where sound had been removed, not silenced by death, but by design.
Migura rose too, face tense. "Where did they go?"
Narwuvar's jaw tightened. "Not gone. Hidden."
They were moving within minutes, speeder cutting across the dark road toward Yuonin forest's border. The closer they got, the stranger it felt. The Force around the treeline didn't surge with fear or rage the way battlefields usually did.
It flowed… contained.
They dismounted and walked in, cloaks brushing wet leaves.
The battlefield appeared in pieces first: scorched bark, snapped branches, a crater where a grenade had gone off.
Then they saw what made Migura stop cold.
Weapons.
Neatly stacked at the base of a tree—rifles arranged in rows, pistols in a separate pile, grenades gathered like someone had catalogued them. No frantic scattering. No abandoned scramble.
"Master…" Migura whispered. "That's not retreat."
Narwuvar crouched, ran fingers over the ground. Boot prints—dozens—ran through mud and leaf litter… and then stopped mid-stride, as if the walkers had been lifted straight up and carried away.
"No bodies," Narwuvar murmured.
Migura turned slowly, scanning. "There should be—"
"There should be blood," Narwuvar finished, voice flat.
He moved deeper, senses probing.
A faint surge of plant-growth lingered in the air like an aftertaste. Not natural spring growth—guided growth. Force-shaped.
He touched a leaf. The impression that came back wasn't weather.
It was intention.
Migura knelt near a torn strip of cloth caught on a thorn. Something clinked softly beside it. She picked it up carefully and held it in her palm.
A fragment of plating.
Dark, smooth, and faintly iridescent—like bark that had decided it wanted to be metal.
Narwuvar's eyes narrowed. "That's not Republic issue."
Migura looked up, unsettled. "Or Rebel."
A ripple moved in the brush to their right.
Narwuvar's head snapped around instantly. His hand lifted, palm open.
For half a heartbeat he felt it—someone watching. Disciplined. Calm.
Then the feeling slid away, like mist slipping between fingers.
He strode toward the disturbance and found only leaves settling.
Migura swallowed. "Did you—?"
"I almost did," Narwuvar said quietly.
He stared into the trees, where the fog still clung too low and too evenly, refusing to behave like real weather.
"This isn't mediation anymore," he said. "This is something else."
Migura's voice tightened. "Where do we go?"
Narwuvar looked toward the forest line—toward the unseen territory where the Force felt… anchored. Not chaotic. Not wild.
Structured.
"We follow the edge," he said. "Toward whatever is holding the forest like this."
Migura glanced back at the stacked weapons one last time, a chill running up her spine.
There were no bodies.
Only discipline.
And Narwuvar realized the forest wasn't hiding a battle.
It was hiding an army.