(From the perspective of Lt. Daren Voss)
He ran.
His side burned where the blaster bolt had grazed him, and the heat of the twin suns bore down like orbital fire. But he ran anyway — across the dunes, over stone and dust and salt-flaked wreckage.
Not from the Rebel.
From the thing that watched them both.
---
Voss reached the remains of his TIE Interceptor just before collapse. The cockpit was a molten mess, the long-range comms antenna severed mid-fall, but the auxiliary beacon still pulsed. He yanked the casing open with shaking fingers.
He had seen war.
Partisan ambushes on Jedha. Mutinies on Raxus Prime. Zabrak raiders tearing through supply lines on the Outer Rim.
But this?
This was different.
He pressed the emergency uplink key and fed it into his belt comm unit. A moment of static. Then a sharp tone. Connection acquired — short burst, encrypted, bouncing off a sub-orbital relay.
"Lieutenant Voss to Command. Emergency transmission from grid sector 12-F. Tatooine surface. Confirm receipt."
A pause.
Then: "Acknowledged. Proceed with report."
Voss took a breath.
"No protocol for this. No reference. State what you saw."
"Engaged hostile Rebel pilot. Ground skirmish. Interrupted by unknown... machine. Floating drone. Not Separatist. Not Imperial. Design—completely unfamiliar."
"Describe."
"Spherical. Silent. Surveillance-focused. Energy signature—unknown. Observed with intent. Didn't engage. Pattern suggests intelligence."
Another pause. Longer this time.
Then: "Repeat. Energy type?"
"No known match. Readings inconsistent with standard classifications. Movement consistent with advanced AI or unknown remote-control construct."
He waited.
The voice returned — colder now. Clipped.
"Your engagement was recorded?"
"Affirmative. Bodycam attached. Visual feed corrupted at moment of appearance—possibly disrupted by unknown tech."
"Remain at your location. Await extraction. This incident is to be classified under Protocol Theta-Nine. Do not speak of this to other units. Data will be transferred to Central Analysis."
Voss closed the comm link and let the wind scream around him.
Protocol Theta-Nine.
The last time he'd heard that invoked, it was during the early Death Star deployments. Something about a "Force-related anomaly" in the Deep Core. He hadn't believed it then.
Now?
Now he wasn't so sure.
---
He looked back to the distant dunes — where a Rebel had nearly killed him, and something else had chosen not to.
Voss didn't believe in ghosts.
But whatever was out there...
It wasn't from this galaxy.
And it was building something.