Chapter 78: Chapter 68
"Oooh, look at you. You've grown up soooo much!" Renn's grandmother said, fussing over Renn as she looked him up and down.
"Grandma? H-how?" Renn said stunned, still not understanding how his grandmother who died when he was five could be standing in front of him.
"Shush," His grandmother hushed him before continuing, "Don't get caught up in the semantics, I'm here and you're going to tell me all about what's been going on in your life."
Renn stared at his grandmother, she had removed the hood of the robe she had been wearing so now he could see her face.
Emotions welled up inside him as he stared at his grandmother's face, a face he never thought he would see again.
"Grandma!" He exclaimed and jumped forwards to embrace her. Only to yelp in surprise as he passed straight through her and fell face first into the muddy floor.
"W-what happened?" Renn muttered in confusion as he pushed himself up and out of the mud.
"I told you to stop getting so hung up on the little things. Buuut since its sooo important to you, I'm a ghost. There, happy?" His grandmother said as if returning from the dead was something someone did every day.
"Now, start telling me all about your life. Oh, and tell me about those three girls you're living with. I want to know all about my future granddaughters in law." She said happily and Renn couldn't help blushing slightly as she finished her talking.
-
Lilk Dredd gazed happily at her grandson. He had grown up so much over the years and she was overjoyed to be able to finally speak to him in person.
She had been subtly keeping tabs on him over the years. She wasn't about to let a little thing like death stop her from looking out for her adorable grandson.
Lilk had known she would die. Ever since that day when she had lost her son and sustained that terrible wound, she had known her life would soon end.
Her had lived a long life, fell in love, married, had a child, and explored the galaxy. She had also been forced to watch as the few survivors of her clan began to die.
At first it had been coincidences. Warriors journeying out into the galaxy to do mercenary work being killed on missions.
The risks on missions were high, so that didn't immediately raise concerns. But when more and more began dieing, Lilk realised too late that they were being hunted.
She had tried to construct safehouses across the galaxy, the main being her personal one on an abandoned asteroid mining station in wild space.
It had been too late though and eventually the only remaining members of house Dredd had been Lilk, her son and his wives.
Lilk thought about that day she lost her son and his wives, almost lost the last of her clan, would have if it hadn't been the same day her grandson had been born.
-
40bby, Dantooine.
Lilk Dredd ran as fast as her tired old body would allow her. Her age was catching up with her and now she only had the memory of moving without pain.
She glared enviously at Alpha from behind the privacy of her helmet. The droid was older than she was, but he didn't need to suffer from aching joints and the other sufferings caused by getting older.
But she pushed through the pain, desperate to arrive in time to save the last of her family.
The run from her ship to the compound wasn't as far as she would like to admit. The compound was isolated, deep in one of Dantooine's large grasslands, and so Sapphire had been able to set the ship down very close to the compound.
The compound where Lilk's son and his family had settled down only a year before. A compound that was now on fire.
She had already been on her way to Dantooine, wanting to visit her son and his family, when she had received a distress call from them.
Lilk had responded right away, rushing to try and assist them, but their home had already been burning when they arrived.
She had sprinted inside the compound, Alpha, and his droids close behind her. Since she had left Aruum all those years ago Alpha had never been far from her side, and as her age had started to make things difficult for her, she became more and more glad of that.
Alpha and Scythe pulled ahead of the group and burst into the main room of Lilk's son's house, Lilk close behind them.
They stopped almost immediately and gazed in horror at the room's contents.
A large number of dismantled assassin droids lay scattered across the floor. Their broken bodies little more than scrap metal.
An Arkanian woman, one of her son's wives named Urma, lay crumbled near one of the room's walls. Her snow-white hair stained red from a wound on her skull.
Another woman, wearing Mandalorian armour and clutching a small bundle to her chest with one arm and a blaster in the other was lying with her back to the far wall. Unmoving.
She was Lilk's other daughter-in-law, a Mandalorian who was the last of her house named Zhia.
Lilk felt a pang of sorrow as she saw the women, but that quickly turned to rage when she looked at the centre of the room.
Her son, Diz Dredd… her child, who she had named after her deceased farther… was suspended two feet from the floor. An 'arm', more a mass of corded muscle, pierced straight through his chest.
Lilk's breath hitched as she stared at her son, blood streaming from his ruined to his chest to the floor.
The 'thing' that had its arm stuck in her son's chest, was a mass of muscular tentacles looming in the centre of the room.
Armour plates, made of durasteel, protruded from the beast like spikes along its corded arms and torso.
The creature, that Lilk had recognised as a Gen'dai, took a step towards the fallen body of Zhia. Its arm still lodged in Diz's chest.
Lilk was worried about attacking the thing and hurting her son, still holding out hope that despite his injury he could still be saved.
Diz however seemed to have other ideas.
Lilk could only watch in horror as Diz pulled out a thermal detonator and holding it in one fist rammed it deep into the chest of the Gen'dai.
A second later the detonator exploded consuming the Gen'dai, and Diz's arm in fire.
Nothing else was touched by the blast however, and Lilk realised that Diz had contained the blast using the force so that it didn't harm anyone else.
"NOO!" Lilk screamed as her son was thrown across the room, his right arm severed bellow the elbow.
"Scythe check on Urma, Alpha you check on Zhia, Spark, Earl, Crow make sure that 'thing' is dead" Lilk shouted as she ran to her son's side.
Diz was lying in a pool of his own blood and Lilk could feel his life force leaving his body.
"Mum?" He said weakly looking up at her.
"Yes, it's me. Don't worry, you're going to be okay." She said, though she knew it was a lie.
A large hole was cut through the centre of Diz's chest and his arm was severed, blood was pooling from the wounds and Lilk could tell he wouldn't survive.
"I-it's okay," Diz said quietly slumping over, "Please… protect...Renn…" and then he was still.
"Diz? Diz?!" Lilk shouted her voice filled with sadness as she knew her son was dead.
"Lady Lilk," Alpha's voice broke Lilk out of her mournful daze and she turned to look at the droid.
He was cradling the small bundle that Zhia had been holding, and Lilk realised that it was a child.
Lilk looked at the child and her son's last words flashed through her head, "Renn?" She said softly and the baby began crying in response to its name.
"Zhia?" Lilk asked looking up at Alpha and the droid shook his head sadly, and Lilk's heart clenched in sadness.
"Scythe checked on Urma. She didn't make it either." Alpha said solemnly.
"Boss!" Spark shouted from across the room, "This thing's healing or something."
Seconds later blaster fire broke out behind Lilk, and she spun in place.
"Alpha, get the child out of here, Scythe you go with him." Lilk said and levelled her blaster at the reforming mass of tentacles and began firing.
The Gen'dai ignored the blaster bolts scorching his limbs and let out an ear-splitting roar towards Lilk.
Lilk glared at the Gen'dai and holstered her blaster. She then released a torrent of force lightning towards the Gen'dai.
The beast-like being screeched in pain and Lilk increased the intensity of the lightning.
The Gen'dai flailed its only remaining arm, its other having been blown of by Diz's thermal detonator, and it slammed into Lilk's chest, sending her flying across the room.
Lilk gasped in pain as she hit the wall but kept the stream of lighting burning into the Gen'dai.
She directed the stream of lighting into its head and after a moment the creature went still. When its only non-regenerative body part, its brain, disintegrated.
She stood shakily and clutched her chest in pain. Her armour had protected her, but her frail old body had betrayed her, and she was pretty sure she had broken something.
-
The effort she had put into killing the unknown Gen'dai that had killed her son had exacerbated the injury she had received in the fight.
She had known her remaining lifespan couldn't be more than a decade and had made peace with that. Her only regret being she wouldn't be able to watch Renn grow up.
Then Lilk remembered all the talks she had with her bestie Yaddle about force apparitions.
Yaddle had told her about Jedi and Sith who had died but refused to move on after death and had managed to come back as force ghosts.
Lilk as a force sensitive herself had managed to achieve this state after her death and had used it to watch over her grandson after her death.
She hadn't revealed herself to Renn though. Wanting to show herself for the first time when Renn went on his journey to forge his armour.
Which was way she was now standing before her grandson. Secretly pleased by the shocked expression on his face.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone