And she stands. She 'sabers the door open - she couldn't fight like this, but for simple things it's fine; she knows precisely where he is, she'd no more hit him than her own self.

The closest prisoner is a few doors down; she seems to be in okay physical shape, aside from being a little thin. She's cowering in the back of the room by the time the door is open.

“We’re going to get you out,” they say, and he puts the Force behind their words so she knows that it’s true. “Come with us.”

He knows she can see his arm.

- she didn't mean to talk. That's weird. And not in a good way.

The prisoner stands and follows, docile and silent.

Her tongue's missing, she observes after a moment.

Oh. Right.

It could have gotten even worse, from here.

let’s

keep going

The next one is naked, curled up in a ball in the corner, his cell bare except for a mattress on the floor. He starts screaming even before the door opens.

He knows how he feels about this.

put me down.

She doesn't want to, but she does it anyway.

He moves closer — but not too close — shuffling on his knees, and waits, putting his hand up so it can be seen empty.

He doesn't seem to notice.

It hurts.

He reaches out to touch him, but he thinks he already knows what’s going to happen.

The screaming goes shrill and he lashes out.

The Sith is there, Force-fast, and catches his hand with her own; he whines and writhes even as she lets him go again.

there’s not enough of him left.

They can’t take him any more than they can take the one on life support.

Yeah.

Take her outside, she shouldn't see.

He takes her hand in his and leads her out and towards the next room.

The screaming stops quickly. She joins them a second later.

The man in the next room is calm and collected, weirdly so; his legs are prosthetic but he seems to be otherwise fine, physically. "Who are you, then?"

“We—”

No. He was unnerved, by the steadiness – he messed it up. He tries again.

“We’re getting you out. Come with us.”

He comes.

The Sith is unnerved, too. I don't trust this one.

yeah. me neither.

watch him?

My attention's spread thinner than I like. But yeah.

Speaking of which - whoop, yeah. They have another couple minutes; enough to take care of the guy on life support, probably not enough to get the other two.

Fuck.

we can’t leave them, is his first thought, and the fact that the answer is “we have to”—it doesn’t help.

okay.

(i’ll watch him too.)

She doesn't want to be separated from him. Even the little bit they already are hurts. But she's a Sith, damn it. She can do this.

She takes the latest prisoner's hand and sets off, slashing the locks off the remaining two prisoners' doors as she goes by.

It hurts. But they can do it.

He pushes open the first door.

The woman in the first cell is a scaled, blue-skinned near-human, heavily scarred over most of her body where the scales have been removed; she walks with a limp and flinches at anything that might even suggest that he intends to touch her, but she comes along readily enough when he tells her to.

The woman in the next cell is tied down to her bed, restrained so that she can barely move; a black bag covers her head, with the mouth of the bag locked around her neck.

(The Sith finishes what she's doing and starts back to them. She can get the restraints off but then they have to go, immediately.)

He turns to the other two.

"Be ready to run."

She comes in, lightsaber already out, makes short work of the restraints, and picks her up, bag still in place - there's a fresh wave of pain at it, that she can't be carrying him instead - and off they go, back out through the hole in his room, picking up the money box on the way.