2.04

The corridor ahead of me made a sharp turn to the left and broadened to double its current width, nothing interrupting the open area but the tall durasteel walls that defined it. No cover, no concealment, not even a shadow, the bright artificial lights high overhead destroying any chance of sneaking by unseen. Destroying them wasn't an option; no weapon at hand had the reach and firepower. Charging ahead blindly would not work so I paused, took a few deep, calming breaths, and concentrated. I ignored the pull of artificial gravity weighing down my limbs and slowing my movements, simulating harsh environmental conditions. I paid no attention to the layer of light armor wrapped uncomfortably around my body and restricting mobility, simulating either a much heavier combat load or exhaustion... not that it needed to simulate much of the latter. I... tried to forget the rivulets of sweat and trembling muscles after the latest encounter with the enemy... it was hard.

Concentrating on my senses I reached out, awareness expanding beyond what eyes could see or ears listen, around obstacles, and through disguises. It was like trying to push back one of the ancient (for this Galaxy) water-beds, long since replaced by repulsorlift or zero-gravity rooms for the very rich; a weight that was soft and yielding at first but became massive and unwieldy the more you pressed against it until you stopped pushing. At which point it naturally snapped back to its original position, undoing all your hard work. Sensing things with the Force actively was much harder than being receptive to passive warnings. I suspected Astra would not have managed it at all as a twelve-year-old, but I had more than two decades of experience and growing up to back me up. Even then, it might not have happened at all without foreknowledge that is was possible, and having to spend long hours in a bacta tank with nothing else to do but stare at the inside of my own eyelids.

Exhaustion became more distant as breath after breath fell into an even, slow, and deep pattern, the immaterial dome defining the limit of this supernatural awareness being slowly pushed back. Too slowly; staying too long in one place was a bad idea. I closed my eyes, discarding sight in the normal world to gain in the supernatural like a blind woman whose hearing is sharpened to make up for her loss. It worked, my senses both sharpening and expanding... which was why I sensed the energy bolt shot my way in perfect clarity, originating from only a few feet away.

The ion discharge went through my nervous system like wildfire through the woods, burning everything in its path. For a split second my every muscle shook uncontrollably, then darkness.

xxxx xxxx xxxx

​

The red flag waving around in a nonexistent breeze less than a hundred yards away was undoubtedly a trap. If the hundred-foot-wide chasm separating me from it hadn't been obvious enough, the series of thin pillars - more like metal telephone poles than anything else - instead of a bridge would have been a clue-by-four. Last but certainly not least, with my every sense sharpened as it was, the array of small trapdoors in the walls around the chasm was painfully visible. No, not trapdoors; that configuration reminded me nothing so much as the gunports of the earlier Galleons back on Earth.

Unfortunately, the only way to end this torture session - because that's what it was however well disguised - was to get that flag. Sighing, I centered myself and focused on the Force. Painful as previous lessons had been, they had also been necessary; ignoring or even discarding my normal senses to make focusing easier could and eventually would get me killed. Remaining focused while fully aware of my surroundings, or even while in motion... I learned it because I had to. That didn't mean I wouldn't one day shoot the Bitch for programming that training remote to follow around and shoot me if I didn't pay attention.

Speaking of which, there was no sign of my bodyguard and trainer's presence. No other Force-sensitive within range of my awareness, no well of emotions or harmful intent to pick up... which didn't mean anything. Aurra Sing had been an initiate in the Jedi Temple two decades ago; that much our information had revealed. And yet I could not sense her any more than House Andrim's information network could uncover anything else before her reappearance as a bounty hunter. It should not come as a surprise. If she could walk up to Anakin Skywalker with a drawn gun in Disney canon without the 'Chosen One' sensing her... maybe if I was less annoying than she expected a merchant princess to be and paid her enough, she'd teach me that trick? It beat trying to learn it from Palpatine.

Sighing, I stopped procrastinating and leaped forward. Fifteen feet wasn't much of a gap... if you discounted the weight of the armor and the increased gravity. Still, building up momentum until I moved at a dead run coupled with leaping with as much power my compact twelve-year-old frame could manage got me across and to the first vertical pole. As soon as I stepped on in there was a mechanical click, and the first two gunports opened up, the stun-guns hidden within already firing. Good thing I'd never stopped moving, right?

More clicks, more gunports opening, a torrent of stunners shooting at yours truly. Low-power settings or no, even making me stumble would throw me into the chasm below, and I really wanted to avoid that. Last time I hadn't, and it had been horrible. Banishing the memory with an angry growl, I put in a final burst of effort that saw me crossing the last fifteen-foot gap and landing on the other side. Sweat drenched me from head to toes, my light armor positively reeked, my every muscle protested both from the effort and the stunner I'd failed to avoid hours earlier... but I had made it. No improvised gun emplacement or trap sprouting out of the steel floor... or walls... or ceiling to shoot at me. No Aurra Sing appearing at the last moment. Just me and the red flag of my victory only a few feet away.

I got up immediately, but did not charge blindly ahead; I waited a few minutes to catch my breath just in case I had another fight or emergency escape to go through. Even after I felt reasonably recovered, I did not approach the flag; instead, I spent another ten minutes searching the area for traps. Finding none, I finally walked up to the flag and grabbed it. Its fabric was thick, coarse, and cold to the touch, closer to metal than synthetic silk. It seemed odd, but not immediately threatening, so I pulled it off... or tried to. The fabric resisted, and so did the pole it was attached to. My blaster had run out of power disabling the hunter-seeker remotes half an hour before, and the fusioncutter had run empty getting me out of a series of locking rooms, the friendliest of which had started filling with knockout gas as soon as I was trapped inside.

I would get this flag; I would finish this stupid, insufferable, torturous so-called training course! I grabbed the flag with both hands and pulled with all my might, muscles strengthened by Arkanian genetic tinkering, months in hypergravity, and the Force straining against the metal fabric. Then the flag crackled silver-blue without warning. Electricity went through my nervous system like wildfire through the woods, burning everything in its path. My every muscle shook uncontrollably at the extremely painful but relatively harmless current, but I refused to blackout. I still toppled, gravity pulling me off the flag and to the metal floor.

A holographic cover turned off in the ceiling above, revealing a hidden alcove with the Bitch inside. The real flag was strapped to her belt, flaring out behind her as she leaped thirty feet down as if the distance was nothing. I struggled to get up as she stowed the remote she'd used to activate the electroshock trap next to the said flag and walked up to me, saying nothing.

She punched me in the face, then darkness...

xxxx xxxx xxxx

​

Another day, another fucking torture course. Thinking, even using the curse words from my original world felt right, if nobody else would know what they meant here. As tired as I'd ever been, as smelly and drenched in sweat, leaden limbs shaky from several recent shocks; such language felt more than appropriate... because the alternative was getting beaten up in silence.

Back on Earth, I'd never been in a serious fight. A couple of years in the gym, a self-defense course or two, rough-housing with my siblings; those really didn't count. Hell, a full-on martial arts training would not have counted because all those fancy dojos and senseis did was to teach you a sport or two, or prepare you against a typical untrained civilian with bad intentions at best. All those epic fights in television where Van Damme or Statham beat up bad guys with fancy moves? Nothing but eye candy. I'd learned the hard way a fight between a trained opponent and an untrained one ends in three seconds flat, a single blow if the attacker is actually competent.

Electricity flashed as I parried the Bitch's shock-stick with my own. We weren't practicing with full staves because they were twice as expensive, twice as hard to use, and twice as stupidly useless, in Sing's professional opinion. Seeing her and, more importantly, feeling her lunge through my defenses to deliver a duel-ending blow time and again, I readily agreed. Not this time though; after another month of repeated humiliations, I was getting to the point where I didn't lose before I could blink.

Faster than I could have followed two weeks ago, the alabaster-skinned woman disengaged by simply pulling back, twisted the shock-stick around, and hacked at me with a speed any swordsman back on Earth would have killed for. It was all I could do to bring my own weapon around in a perpendicular block despite having a much smaller distance to cross. Another flash, the electricity generated by the two shock-sticks dancing like a demented squid. The bounty hunter disengaged, aiming another wild and unpredictable hack at my legs, but I leaped back.

Then the mock battle changed. From a chaotic whirlwind of wild slashes, direct blocks, and confusing footwork, Aurra Sing suddenly lunged a direct, shockingly fast extension of the body, arm, and weapon in a straight line that would have ended with the tip of her weapon in my gut. But I had seen that move before, and prior experience coupled with the barest whisper of danger through the Force had me twisting aside, turning a decisive blow into the barest graze. The charge of the shock-stick still burned through the nerves in my right hip, but I gritted my teeth and continued.

A wild hack, the fastest and most unpredictable I could manage in response, was dodged by less than an inch, my teacher twisting minutely to momentarily become almost parallel to my own blade. I did not delude myself that I had come close to landing a hit for the first time ever; she'd simply avoided my clumsy blow in the briefest, least tiring change of stance possible. The nerd inside me perked up in recognition. LARPing had taught me a few things, and further research both before and after finding myself in a new galaxy had revealed more. Where until now both Sing and I had been hacking around in raw, wildly unpredictable and, in the older woman's case, both accurate and potentially crippling slashes like a knight of old, my teacher changed her style into that of a duelist, lunges, soft parries, redirections, and controlled dodges being the order of the day.

We exchanged a few more blows in the two seconds that followed, and it became evident my almost total lack of training prevented me from keeping up. She sighed, engaged our weapons in a near-parallel parry, then twisted her own in a circle with the parry close to the base of her blade and near the tip of mine. The imbalance of both leverage and strength forced me to drop the shock-stick or suffer a broken wrist, then she lunged.

The tip of the electrified, two-foot-long stick of Phrik alloy was buried in my gut, electricity burning through my nerves. The shock and pain coupled with exhaustion and the after-effects of previous attacks were too much, and darkness followed...

xxxx xxxx xxxx

​

The hot shower after hours of training and more hours spent in a bacta tank was pure heaven. I slowly washed off the traces of the slimy, sticky miracle medicine, careful not to put too much pressure on areas stun bolts or shock-sticks had hit. Exhaustion, bruises, sprained muscles, even the occasional cracked bone or two faded away after every healing session, and the grime and sweat went away in a brief sonic shower before the bacta treatment, but electrical burns were persistent buggers. Fortunately, bacta could regenerate all sorts of damage short of entirely severed limbs or Dark Side corruption, so they only left those areas somewhat sore for a few hours.

Closing my eyes, the bathroom, the healing rooms, and my private chambers the only places I was allowed to do that now while awake, I sensed the barest traces of life flowing down the drain. Hundreds of hours spent in meditation surrounded by the medicinal bacterial culture had finally given me the ability to sense it, and other forms of life if they were close enough. I could have sworn I could even feel how that energy flowed from the bacta into my wounds, rapidly regenerating them... was that how Force Healing worked? Better apply that hypothesis in animal tests before trying it on anything sapient, let alone my own body.

An hour later the aches had vanished entirely, my muscles were no longer trying to seize up for the foreseeable future, and I felt at least clean, if not well-rested. Considering the advantages and potential problems of getting Ratty a massage program, I put on true silk underwear from Alderaan, a simple tunic in new Kuati fashion, and walked towards my bed for a well-earned rest... where I stumbled upon Aurra Sing, Ratty nowhere to be found.

"This is my room," I said evenly, too tired for another confrontation. "How did you even get inside?"

"A bodyguard has to be able to guard her client," the pale-skinned older woman stated as if it explained everything. Maybe it did; I was not aware of every detail in the contract she and Father had agreed on. So far, I had not had any nasty surprises, and the assassin, bounty hunter, and remorseless criminal masquerading as a young woman had not refused my orders, even if she was very creative in carrying them out. Maybe that should change?

Another glance at Sing showed that she too had come out of the bathroom not long ago. Her hair was wet, and the short, sleeveless red dress she wore was nothing like her usual leotard. For a moment I wondered how often she usually changed clothes, how many changes she brought with her in the field, but was quickly dismissed as useless (and icky) speculation. A flash of thought, an echo of memory went through my mind, and I wondered if Sing had carried me to the healing room... if she did so after our every session. I'd certainly not seen Ratty around when she was close, just like now.

Irrelevant, for now. I'd ask Father later when I had no more pressing business. Speaking of which...

"Why are you here?"

The question caused the older woman to stare at me for several minutes, a time during which both of us remained silent. I'd come to know Aurra Sing, one of the most dangerous assassins in the Galaxy that didn't carry a lightsaber, was a woman of few words, never speaking up when a silent action would do. In this case, though, I couldn't see how my question could be answered in her usual manner, and I really wanted to have a few words with her. Back on Earth, I had few acquaintances and even fewer friends, but with those, I did have I talked quite often. Astra had been a socialite before being possessed by yours truly, and this young body came with a significant portion of her memories and character too. In short, I wanted to talk with someone, and while Aurra Sing was not nearly my preference in conversationalists, she was probably better than Father.

"You hired me to protect you, and teach you to protect yourself," Sing said, looking at me with an intensity few people could match. Technically, her reply had answered my question, yet she didn't stop there. "You are not bad for your age, and quite tolerable for a merchant princess, but abysmal for someone of your... advantages."

So... she had actually noticed. Not that it was very difficult for any former initiate of the temple. I wondered how much she used the Force herself, beyond masking her presence.

"Why training? Why this way?" I considered the question carefully, as well as the tone in which it was made. It was neither idle, nor a request, and suddenly I remembered that Aurra Sing hated Jedi in Legends, and had no love for them in Disney canon either.

"Do you believe in visions?" I asked, trying to couch this in terms that wouldn't make me sound either a liar or insane.

"Some do. A few even see them become true." She scowled. "They've never interfered with my job before."

"I saw visions of the coming years - many of them." The Clone Wars cartoon alone had had over a hundred episodes. "A few have already come to pass, so I no longer doubt their accuracy. Most are still to come, all showing a great war coming in less than a decade."

"Honey, we live in a dangerous galaxy," Sing said, laughing. "Wars happen all the time - just look at Naboo. And they are very welcome, both for my business and yours."

"That is true for normal wars, not religious ones," I countered. "What maintains relative stability in the Galaxy is the laziness of politicians first, and the Jedi Order second. But what if another power attempts to upset this balance?"

"Like the Huts? I can't see those overgrown slugs do anythi -"

"Like the Sith," I interrupted her. "You know; the ancient enemy of the Jedi, nearly managed to destroy the galaxy many times, supposedly extinct? What if they came back? Fancy being a Force-sensitive in a bitter, Galaxy-spanning war where both sides would be searching for new recruits? Because I would not."

"The Sith are a legend. A ghost of a distant past to scare little girls," the assassin growled back, but for the first time I felt a hint of emotion from her; doubt. Why doubt? And why not aimed at me?

"Are they? Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn died in the battle of Naboo, and not by a blaster. It happened the same year the Jedi warned the Senate their ability to divine the future has diminished. Both things that never made it to the news, but the information is there if someone knows to look for it." That much I had House Andrim's intelligence network confirm, gaining both a favor and their attention for knowing to tell them where to look.

"You hired me because I am force-sensitive," Sing hissed, both her hands reflexively reaching for guns that weren't there. A limitation of her contract about entering my personal rooms, perhaps? Since she could still easily twist my head off I said nothing. "How did you know?! How?"

"Visions, remember?" I refused to retreat as she invaded the hell off my personal space. "I saw you hiding from Jedi that should have sensed you. I saw you fighting in the coming war on the side of the Sith. I saw you die, along with many other Force-sensitives." The assassin's hands clenched into fists, her too-pale skin blushing for the first time ever. Fury? Fear? I didn't know, for she had hidden her presence and mind from me once more.

"You have a plan to prevent those visions?" This time the question was but a whisper, yet still frightening in its intensity.

"I have several."

Too bad none of them were nearly enough without help...