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Chapter Text

It is a time of upheaval in the galaxy. The expanding Galactic Republic continues in a decades-long campaign to liberate as many star-systems as possible from the Zygerrian Slave Empire. Among the Republic’s greatest allies are the Jedi Knights, who Zygerrian lords have already come to hate.

            Ten years ago, the Jedi helped to liberate Ryloth, restoring power to the native clan governments, but victory came at a price. Their Knights on Ryloth were ambushed and brutalised by a mysterious enemy thought to be part of the shadowy Order of the Sith. Struggling to cope with this loss, the Jedi Order have since withdrawn from the system. Now, they must confront the truth: the growing light casts shadows, and in them old enemies prepare to reemerge.

Chapter Text

Soft gold light slithered through the canopy, creating a serpentine pattern across the roots and ferns below. A'i crept across the forest floor, her footsteps muffled by a layer of coniferous leaves. Her eyes were trained on a small pool about a hundred meters away. There was rustling in the surrounding brush and she froze. The eyes of a jayfox were not good at seeing contrast, and her pale-green skin could easily blend, but they were finely tuned to movement. Amidst the heart-shaped leaves of the undergrowth and wide-eyed forest lilies, she saw the head of the jayfox emerge as it drank from the pool, her first clear shot since she began stalking it an hour ago. 

            She unslung and sited her laser rifle. Its construction was haphazard and partly of her own design, accurate but much slower to reload than a military blaster. She would have only one chance. Time slowed as she lined up the perfect shot. She breathed with the forest, heard the metronomic drip of recent rain falling from the leaves above, felt the flow of moisture beneath her feet as it sank through the earth before being pulled up by the tree roots. 

            Then the wind was on her back. The jayfox’s ears pricked as it caught her scent. She could tell it was about to bolt. At the last possible second, she adjusted her aim and fired. In the same instant, the jayfox leapt for the brush in exactly the direction of her adjustment. The laser bolt struck it straight in the eye and it fell crumpled, its back sliding a few inches into the water. Wasting no time, she ran towards the pool and collected her quarry. 

            This was an excellent kill: a large adult with a bright, blue-green pelt and plenty of fat around its stomach and hind-quarters. The pelt would fetch a good price once she got back to town, and the meat would make a nice stew for her mother and younger brother. Once it was safely stowed in her pack, she drank from the pool herself. Her blue eyes, reflected in the water’s surface, stared back at her as she did. Light glinted off the white birth-mark on her left cheek. She stopped to rest for a moment. 

            Although the stalk had taken her deep into the wilderness, she would have no problem navigating home. If she aimed for just right of the sun, she would be clear of the forest in a few hours and make it to the market while business was still ongoing. Ryloth was tidally locked, meaning the sun only moved a little in the sky throughout the whole year and could be used to orient oneself. To mark the hours, one looked for the nearest of Ryloth’s five moons. This close to the meridian, there was a season where the sun sank low enough to kiss the horizon, and further north it would disappear completely. 

            As she started her journey home, her mind began to wander. Hunting was always meditative, but now her thoughts turned to accounting. She could get ten credits for the pelt, maybe fifteen if she was lucky. That would barely be enough for the next week or two, even considering what her family grew themselves. If she got another before then, they should be able to limp along until her older sister, Jemma, sent more money home. Of course, that had come late last time, so she probably shouldn’t count on it being timely now. 

            The ardoketti were in bloom, their pink flowers dotting the canopy high above. In an earlier time, A'i might have stopped to climb one of these trees and make a wreath of the flowers as her mother had taught her. Today she barely noticed them as she walked below, conserving her energy for more important things. After another hour of hiking, she arrived at a familiar landmark: an overgrown stone structure of uncertain origins. Her father once told her it was an outpost constructed long ago by the Mandalorians. She couldn’t be sure if this were true, but had once stripped the vines from a portion of the interior walls to reveal a series of faded pictographs. Although too faint to make out, she thought perhaps through squinted eyes that some resembled a depiction of battles between the Mandalorians and the Jedi, though this was not unlike looking for shapes in the clouds. If they were ever here, the participants in these battles must have left a long time ago, as this structure had been abandoned for centuries. Still, she couldn’t help but be reminded of the stories her father used to tell. When she was young, she’d been transfixed by his tails of the fearless Mandalorians, the noble Jedi, and the power of the Force, so much so that sometimes her mother would tell both of them off for being up so long, though always with a smile in her lekku. 

            Somewhere in the forest beyond, a branch snapped. A'i stiffened and then crouched. Even this close to the edge of the forest belt there were some large predators. She listened, straining to hear any other sound, and heard another crunch of undergrowth being trampled. A hunting beast would not be so careless. These were foreign footfalls – slavers. They couldn’t have been more than a hundred meters away. If she made a run for it now, they might hear her. If she hid inside the outpost, she would be cornered. Even if she were prepared to shoot, there’d be no chance if there was more than one of them. 

            The branches of a nearby tree hung over the roof of the outpost, the lower ones growing on a collision course before turning upward as they ran against it. She crept toward the tree, planning where she placed each step to create as little noise as possible. She was an excellent climber, and it took only a few moments before she was fifteen feet off the ground. She climbed over to the roof of the outpost and hid as best she could amongst the needle-like leaves. She unslung her rifle. The wind carried hushed voices, growing closer. She could tell it was Galactic Basic, but couldn’t make out what was being said. Most slavers were afraid of the massive forest that covered Ryloth’s prime meridian, and stuck to patrolling the same areas near the edge of the belt, or along the paths to the temples further north. If she was lucky, they would pass right by her. 

            The footsteps got louder. Human and Zygerrian footfalls had a certain quality, like they thought they owned whatever they were walking on. The noise grew until she could tell they were passing near the outpost. She could see a disturbance in the shadows on the forest floor below, and then two men came into view. She held her breath. Through a gap in the branches, she could just make out their torsos and part of one face: two humans, neither wearing the usual uniform of republic soldiers, but carrying stun rifles and electrified shackles. She hid her face. After a few more agonising seconds, the footsteps started to grow fainter, and she took a slow, silent breath. With the way her nerves stretched the time, she couldn’t be sure how long she waited. Business for that moon might be over by the time she got to town. Because there was no sunrise or sunset, people in the countryside just slept when they were tired, but in larger towns and cities, standardized time was becoming more prevalent. She climbed down and continued on her way. 

            The threat of slavers had cast a shadow over her childhood. Growing up, A'i was precocious in everything that had to do with the forest and, from an early age, was confident navigating, finding food and water, and avoiding predators all by herself. But for reasons she didn’t understand at the time, her parents were incessant about not letting her out of their sight and avoiding certain paths during certain seasons. They seemed to be even more restrictive of her movements than her sister’s, even though she was barely older and not as savvy about the forest. It wasn’t until later that she finally saw her parents’ prescriptions in a new light. Reminders about these rules would tend to follow when someone she knew went missing. 

            Things were supposed to be better now. The Republic had outlawed slavery, but the abductions hadn’t stopped, especially in the wild parts of Ryloth where the law didn’t reach. The slavers she had just hidden from probably worked for the same Zygerrian aristocrats who had retreated to residences on distant worlds. Even now, as the treeline began to thin, she could make out the fortress on top of a mesa in the distance, a now-derelict monument to the slave empire that had only been pushed out by the Republic about a decade ago. Before then, a group from the nearby town and surrounding villages would go to that fortress once a season to offer tribute – gems or spice or food, to their local Zavu. Zavu and Zabu were what the Zygerrians called their lords and ladies. A’i didn’t have many memories from that time, but one season when she was about six, her village was inspected after the tribute was judged too small, and these titles were drilled into her. Speak only when spoken to, her mother had said, and call them Zavu or Zabu – look at their horns to know which. She could remember her exact tone of voice as she lectured her older brother and sister. Say it every time you speak, like it’s a charm that protects you. Don’t interfere if they start to tear our home apart. Listen to my words or it will be your death. Before going outside, her mother had wrapped A’i’s face in a scarf so that the mark on her cheek was hidden. Little one. They’ll take you if they see you were touched by the Goddess. 

            Touched by the Goddess. That was what her mother and some of her elders said of the Lethan mark on her face, a rare variation in normal Twi’lek pigmentation. Back then, millions were taken and sold, shipped around the galaxy to be slaves for the wealthy, and one with a mark like hers would have been prized for their rarity. When the Zavu and his procession arrived, everyone had kept their eyes down, so she did the same. After a while though, when she thought it wouldn’t be noticed, she had peaked. It was the first time she saw a Zygerrian up close. Even after hearing them described by her siblings, the furry, wolfish face was horrible. They looked like beasts that walked upright, but it was her and her family that got treated like animals. 

            Now, the mesa and its fortress hardly registered as more than a landmark as she adjusted her course toward town. The now-uncovered sun was warm on her back. In the clear-blue sky above, A’i could see the silhouettes of two medium-sized freighters. She had been so excited the first time she first saw a space-cruiser overhead, marvelling at its enormity and how it could hang in the sky as if by magic. She kept her gaze forward now, toward the two shadows that eclipsed a large portion of the town below. 

            Magic. As a child, she had believed the stories of her elders. Believing the mark on her face was a special sign helped when the others called attention to it. Her mother was trained as a priestess and, years ago, would lead the surrounding villagers in religious ceremonies as A’i learned from her. The most significant of these happened during the dark season, when they would go deep into the forest to a temple where the sun disappeared and the only light came from blinking bioluminescent insects. At the time she really thought she could feel the power of the Goddess, Kija’Lekki. It was a kind of flow that moved through her and every other living thing. 

            She remembered thinking it was quite unequal though, the distribution of magic in the galaxy. The people around her would pray together, burn herbs, and chant for hours or moons until their bodies became weak, and little seemed to come of it. The Zygerrians on the other hand had an unimaginable amount of mysterious power. She learned later of course that their ships and weapons weren’t powered by a deity, but it had seemed like it at the time. Back then, her mother’s profession had at least commanded respect, and even during the hardest times they could count on others in their village to lend help if they needed it. Now, though, A’i doubted many would care even if her mother still had the strength to lead them in prayer. 

            Signs of civilization started to come into view. First there was the sign marking the limits of the town of Davum with the name in both Twi’leki and Basic, the latter including a crude rendering of its pronunciation. Next was a slum on the outskirts of the city which seemed to grow larger every day. A few other Twi’leks emerged from scrap-metal shelters and greeted her in Twi’leki. Even after several years, she wasn’t accustomed to these interactions. 

            “I’m sorry but I have nothing for you,” she said, her expression flat. This happened so often on her way into town that it was almost a nuisance, a realisation that made her feel wretched. It pained her to look at them, and felt heartless not to. Maybe she could give one of them the tail of the jayfox on her way back home. 

            Nearer to the centre of town were larger, multi-storied buildings, many constructed in the last several years. She passed a mechanic shop, outside of which two dirty-looking humans sat on speeder bikes having lunch, then some sort of warehouse probably owned by spice-miners, and finally a brothel with a mostly-naked Twi’lek standing in the window. She caught the attention of a Hutt inside, whose pensive, hungry eyes followed her as she averted her gaze and walked on. Hutts were a rarity in settlements this small, but Davum wasn’t as small as it had once been. 

            A few moments later she rounded a corner and arrived at the market, a sprawling open area near the center of town full of shops and stands where various craftsmen and merchants advertised and haggled with one another. One stand was full of vegetables, probably brought here by a farmer from outside the city. At another, a jeweller argued with a hovering Toydarian about a reasonable price for some Rylothian sapphires. She dodged two children chasing after a squirrelly, four-legged droid, then passed two republic soldiers holding heavy blasters, eyes scanning the bustle around them. In the narrow band of shade by Rax’s Mercantile, two Loth cats began a harmless duel, batting at each other with their talons before falling in a downy heap. The owner, Rax, was a friend of hers who traded mostly in furs and machine parts, although she suspected his wares also included somewhat less savoury commodities. 

            “Hey there Star-child,” he said with a smirk. He knew she hated that nickname. Both it and his speaking Basic were negotiating tactics. “You have something for me?” 

            “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” she said. He flicked one lekku in feigned offence. Twi’leks used these two tail-like appendages at the back of their head to emote. There was so much you could say just by the way you held or moved them. 

            “What’s got you in such a mood?” he asked. 

            “Just tired I guess. Here, take a look at this.” She pulled the dead jayfox from her pack and set it on the counter between them. 

            “Wow,” he said. “Nice one. The fur has that glimmer you only find on well-fed adults.” 

            “Yeah. I had to stalk it for about an hour. I could tell it was a smart one. Fifteen credits.” He scoffed. 

            “I have to make a profit on this too, you know.” 

            “And I’m sure you will, just like you’ll make even more off whatever you sell under the table.” 

            “Best I can do is ten,” he said, with a tone of finality. 

            “Twelve, at least,” she countered. He paused for a moment, his expression somewhat sour as he twirled one lekku pensively. 

            “Fine, but only because you’re a friend.” Within a minute or two her kill was skinned and she was stowing the naked fox back in her pack. Some lingering thoughts from her hike over must have shown, because as he handed over her credits, their eyes met and his expression became one of concern. 

            “You ok?” he asked, discarding his bartering tone. 

            “Ka.” He seemed to want to say more, but she didn’t give him the chance. 

            “I’m fine,” she said. “Sahak chir.” 

            “Sahak chir.” Avoid death. A tongue-in-cheek goodbye. Before leaving the market, she used two credits to fill the rest of her pack with krit, a nutrient-dense, creamy fruit which grew in jungles to the southeast. She knew her younger brother Kanē liked stew made with krit. 

            She started home. Close to the edge of the city, she passed by more makeshift shelters and beggars. This time though, she heard raised voices and turned to see the source. To her left were another pair of Republic soldiers. One gripped the wrist of a young Twi’lek while the other restrained a ragged-clothed, crying adult. It was clear both were malnourished. Before A'i could look away, the woman caught her eye, and her emaciated lekku beckoned, asking silently for help. She wasn’t just hungry – A’i noticed the tell-tale tremors of spice sickness. The mother was an addict. A’i tried to numb herself again as she’d done on her way into the city, but against her better judgement found herself walking toward them. 

            “What are you doing?” she asked in stiff Basic. The soldier who had been arguing with the woman turned to her momentarily. 

            “Government business,” she said. 

            “Kidnapping children is government business?” A’i asked before she could stop herself. 

            “Unsafe conditions. If the parents of a minor sentient can’t provide for them, the new government takes them to a boarding facility where they’ll be taken care of. It’s not a permanent separation. Now stand back.” She caught enough of what the soldier said to understand. Her face betrayed no disrespect, but her lekku stiffened and pointed at them. May spice salt your wounds, they were saying. She unslung her pack and ripped off the tail of the Jayfox. Stepping around the soldier who had answered her, she handed it to the woman along with a krit-fruit. 

            “There,” she said, “now there’s no problem.” The other soldier lost his grip, and the child ran behind their mother. 

            “Where did you get that?” The first soldier asked her, making a point to speak more slowly now. 

            “That’s not important,” A'i replied, and this time she could not hide her contempt. “The little one has something to eat. I save you the trouble.” The soldier opened her mouth as if she were about to say something, and then seemed to think better of it. 

            “We’ll let them go,” she said, “but we have to come back in a few days.” The pair left the alley as the woman embraced A'i and, now in Twi’leki, sobbed her thanks. A'i maintained a numb stiffness throughout the gesture, knowing her charity was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. 

In the grasslands of the country-side, she was alone with her thoughts once more. The spice trade had only accelerated under the new government. The arrival of the Republic had fueled a rush on it and other mineral resources as Ryloth became increasingly connected to the rest of the galaxy. Even as land taken from the imperials was returned to its original inhabitants, many Twi’leks were selling their land and moving into rapidly-growing cities. As mining and industry started to dominate the planet’s economy – a boon to the upper class and merchants, other goods became almost worthless, and many were forced to take dangerous jobs in the same mines their ancestors had worked as slaves. With the increased trade and space traffic also came foreign influence, especially human politicians from other Republic worlds, and Hutt syndicates. Both races prized Twi’lek bodies as much as the Zygerrians, if not more so, and the legal industry of providing Yobanas – masseuses, grew alongside illegal trafficking of slaves. Two years ago, as it became clear their family could not sustain itself, her sister Jemma had left on a Huttese ship. 

            The draft was supposed to be the Republic’s answer to slavers and sex-traffickers, though A’i guessed these weren’t the primary motivation. Regulating commerce and enforcing order across hundreds of planets required man-power, and Republic forces from the Core Worlds and Inner Rim were already stretched to their limits. With movements for planetary independence on the rise in more than one system, drafts were instituted in the more populous outer rim planets. She hadn’t seen her older brother in many years. If this had been any deterrent to slavers, it wasn’t felt here. 

            These thoughts had flashed through her mind more than once, and now A'i regarded them with a tired pragmatism. Focussing on the demands of the day kept her thinking concrete, never lingering for too long on injustices she could do nothing about. The ground beneath her feet began to soften, and in the distance she could now make out the trees and creeping vines that marked the edge of the forest. As she drew close to the treeline, she saw the scarred land a few hundred meters beyond where exploratory hand-mining had cleared away a section of forest. Whatever the miners were looking for, they hadn’t found it there. The area had been abandoned for years, and erosion had left it a muddy pit, still thirty meters or more deep, which hikers had to be careful to avoid. 

            Amongst the trees, she felt at home again. To the east along the edge of the belt was what was left of her family farm and their traditional underground home with a concealed door. The entrance was surrounded by large trees with patches of fungus growing underneath them, descendants of past crops no longer tended. Past the entrance was a clearing with a small plot of root vegetables that Kanē was able to keep growing by himself. She swung open the lichen-covered door set flat into the ground and skipped down the ladder. Kanē came bounding into the entryway to greet her. They embraced. 

            “How was school? Did you finish your chores?” After talking to the soldiers, it was a relief to speak Twi’leki and use lekku again. Kanē flicked his in a show of affectionate exasperation. 

            “Ka, I finished. And it was good! We’re learning all about how the planetary government works. I bet my Basic is getting even better than yours!” The public school in town was a recent innovation meant to be a primer for academy training in civics or engineering. Kanē, who was eighteen, was nearly finished, and excited to look for a place at an academy. She had attended for a short time herself when it was first established, but dropped out as soon as she was allowed. She disliked getting lessons in Galactic Basic, using it so much she sometimes caught herself thinking in it on her way home. The subject matter didn’t resonate much with her either. She preferred the lessons she used to get from village elders, who would speak to young Twi’leks about history, legends, and how to survive in the forest. 

            “I don’t doubt it,” she said, taking off her pack. “Here, I got some krit at the market.” His eyes lit up as she opened it. 

            “Wow, arni numa! And what a fat fox!” 

            “I thought I’d make a stew tonight,” she said. 

            “Let me. I heard when you got up. You need to sleep sometime. Go see rymma and I’ll get things started.” She thought about protesting, but now that she was home, exhaustion was setting in. 

            “Arni,” she said, and walked past him toward their mother’s room. She was reading in bed – one of her long scrolls of Tukian calligraphy, and looked up when A’i came in. 

            “How was hunting?” 

            “Better than usual. Kanē is working on a stew now.” A’i sat beside her on the bed, admiring the beautiful script. 

            “Oh good,” she said. “I swear that boy is growing so fast he’ll eat half the forest by next year.” 

            “Ka.” A'i’s lekku quivered in a half-hearted laugh. Her mother must have noticed her lack of conviction. 

            “Are you alright dear?” 

            “I’m fine,” she said, her voice still flat. “I’m the one who should be worried about you.” Years of working in spice mines had taken their toll. Most days, her mother wasn’t even able to tend what was left of their farm. 

            “That’s what I mean,” said her mother, with a forlorn smile. “You’ve had to grow up so fast I worry what it’s done to you.” 

            “It’s ok, really. I’m just tired. I saw some soldiers today taking a child from their mother because they had nothing to eat. Can you believe that?” 

            “They’re doing their best to do what’s right, just like everyone.” 

            “Somehow I doubt that.” One of her lekku curled around A’i’s shoulder. 

            “There have always been those who do not have enough, and those who would take advantage. I know how much you care about the people here. I love you for it. But you can’t give in to anger. Think about what kora would say.” A'i sighed. Despite being born a farmer, her father had worked for a few years doing grunt work on a starship. It gave him the opportunity to hear stories from far-off worlds and even once to visit the archives of Corellia. He was a prolific reader and fond of quoting the ways of the Jedi. His dream job was short-lived though. The better pay working in a spice mine was too much to pass up. 

            “He would say to let go.” Her mother wished her sweet dreams, and A'i went to her own bed in the next room over. She said a quick prayer before lying down. Exhaustion overpowered rumination, and she fell asleep. 

Chapter Text

When A'i woke up, she knew something had startled her awake. She liked to have a long sleep after a good hunt, and Kanē would have been careful not to wake her. Then the sound that had woken her came again: three sharp knocks at the door, not timid or casual, but firm and enunciated, as could only herald official business. She had just finished processing this when she heard Kanē’s footsteps and then the ladder creaking as he went to investigate. And then she had an awful, sinking feeling and hurried to follow him. 

            She couldn’t see who had been knocking until she pushed the door open and climbed up to the surface, and once she emerged, she felt her heart twist. Flanking the doorway were two Republic soldiers. So soon after waking, this felt like a nightmare. Why were they here? Had she been followed home earlier? A fitting punishment for her good deed. 

            “What do you want, humans?” she spat and then realised she had asked in Twi’leki. The soldiers looked at her as if she’d just cursed them. It probably sounded like she had. Kanē was quick to correct the confusion. 

            “It’s alright, she just wants to know why you are here.” He spoke in slow but perfect Basic. 

            “We’re doing an investigation. Can we do a quick scan?” Kanē looked at her. She wasn’t sure what that meant. 

            “You can’t come in,” she said. “Be quick.” One of the soldiers took out something that looked like a gun, but wasn’t. He aimed at the palm of his other hand and tested the trigger. A line of green light appeared on his palm, almost invisible in the bright sun. Before she could protest, he raised it and swiped the light over each of their faces. The other soldier consulted a portable computer. A’i wasn’t great with human facial expressions, but knew he was looking at it for too long for everything to be alright. He looked up at Kanē. 

            “Can you come with us and answer some questions?” A’i cut in. 

            “He is a child. What do you want with him?” 

            “We need to ask some questions. His face came up on a recording of people leaving a meeting for the Hands of the Mother.” A’i didn’t know what that was. She and Kanē exchanged another look. 

            “We don’t know anything about that.” 

            “If that’s true, we’ll have him back in a few hours, but this is serious. The Hands blew up a trade federation depot a few weeks ago.” 

            “No.” A’i stuck out her arm and got between him and the soldier. Her brother wrapped one lekku around her outstretched arm, trying to assure her it would be alright, but she didn’t relent. “Your tool must not be working right. He goes nowhere but here and school.” 

            “It’s just a few questions!” The soldier paused for a moment, maybe trying to regain his composure. He lowered his voice and spoke slowly. “Look, it might just be a mistake. But we have to follow procedure.” He turned to Kanē. “Are you hungry, son? We can get you something back at the base.” 

            “No!” Without being fully conscious of what she was doing, she stepped forward and shoved the soldier who’d been speaking. The other forced his way between them and grabbed her wrist. She made a circle with her arm to escape, but lost her footing as she did and fell, cracking her head against the roots of a nearby tree. 

The knock to her head should have rattled her, should have clouded her thoughts. Instead, it clarified. Like a layer of ice being shaken off a branch, the numbness she had built up over the years disintegrated. The feelings beneath began to coalesce and, just as quickly, to burn. The result was a conflagration of pure, uncontainable fury. Something was flowing through her, as though energy were being pulled from the earth up through her feet. Without really knowing what she was doing, she stood to face them and raised one hand toward the soldier who had grabbed her. 

            An arc of lightning erupted from her fingertips and caught him in the chest. He convulsed, flying backwards, and landed hard, sprawled and twitching. The other yelled and went for his blaster pistol. Instinctively, she reached toward him and another flash of lightning sprang from her hand and shot up his arm. He screamed, dropping his weapon as he stumbled backwards. 

            “His communicator!” Kanē yelled. “He’ll call for backup!” Now totally committed, A’i charged and knocked him over. She pinned his arms while her brother took a small device off his belt. It’s good he thought of that. She got up and looked back to the first soldier, who was still sprawled on his back, groaning. Kanē darted over to him and grabbed his communicator as well. The pulling at his belt seemed to rouse him, and he sat up, scrambling backwards when he saw her. 

            “Witch!” he cried, his eyes wide with panic. She could almost smell the fear coming off him like the nauseating sweetness of overripe fruit. She didn’t know the word, but it seemed to be directed at her. She brought her hand up again and curled her fingers, as though threatening a reprisal. He jumped to his feet, turned, stumbled and almost fell, then took off running, his companion close behind him. She watched them until they were out of sight. The flow she had been feeling went slack, and she sank to her hands and knees. Her vision dimmed and shrank as though she were looking through a tunnel. 

            “What did you do?” Her brother’s voice was muffled, but she could tell it was shaking. He hadn’t even sounded like that when they were chased up a tree by a gutkurr and nearly mauled. He was terrified. “They’ll be back! Kija’Lekki, what did you do?” 

            “Shut up,” she hissed, “I don’t know, I – ”. It was too much to process, and her mind was now being frustratingly slow. He was right of course. More would come looking for them. She would be arrested, perhaps her whole family too if they were judged to be accomplices. Her mother would never survive it. But what had she done? She hadn’t even understood her own intentions just before doing whatever it was. It felt as though the planet itself had risen up to enact her fury, but that was stupid. It was magical thinking. 

            She dug her fingers into the dirt as she took account of this, biting back tears. A few agonising seconds later, her vision began to return and she found the strength to stand. Now that it was moving again, her mind was racing. Kanē was still staring at her with a mixture of awe and fear. She felt herself growing irritated again by his gawking, but checked herself this time. 

            “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry I don’t know...” she reached out to him and was relieved when his fearful expression broke and he hugged her. 

            “What are we going to do?” he kept repeating. He was crying now. She could tell he was trying to stifle it. They stood there a while, holding each other. The white blur of her thoughts began to slow, their individual identities becoming recognizable again. His shudders quieted. She finally stepped back to meet his eyes. 

            “I would let them take me away if it would protect you – ” 

            “Please don’t,” he interrupted. “I don’t know what we would do without you.” 

            “Then we need to leave,” she said. “All of us. Now. If we make it deep enough into the forest, maybe we can stay with uncle.” Kanē nodded. His eyes seemed to be looking at something far away, and then they focussed on something much closer, some spark of hope perhaps. 

            “Look what they used to get here,” he said, gesturing behind her. About fifty meters back was something neither of them had noticed until now: a military speeder, an older model which had seen better days, but obviously functional. 

            “Do you know how it works?” she asked with some trepidation. 

            “No, but I bet I can figure it out.” His voice was starting to brighten a little. He had always been interested in ships and speeders, and used to have long conversations with their father about hyperdrives and shields and other things she didn’t have the patience for. 

            “Alright then,” she said, “you go down and pack up all the food we have. I’ll help rymma get to the surface.” He nodded and climbed back down. She followed. 

It was cooler below ground. The dark was soothing but melancholic. A’i lingered outside her mother’s room, trying to think about what to say. She didn’t want to lie, but the truth seemed nonsensical. 

            “What is it dear?” her mother asked through the door, as if she could sense her presence. “I heard Kanē come down in a hurry.” A’i came in and knelt beside her bed, unable to meet her gaze. Her mother reached over and stroked her head. 

            “I’m so sorry,” A’i whispered. “They came to question Kanē for something he didn’t do. I couldn’t let it go. They talk like we’re ungrateful guests on our own planet. I just couldn’t take it anymore… I threatened them and made them leave. I think we need to stay with uncle for a while.” Her mother’s hand froze on the back of her neck. She was silent for a moment. 

            “I know that anger,” she finally said. “It’s the kind of thing that comes out when a spirit is tired, when there’s been so much pressing down on it for so long that it starts to burn like a new-formed star. I remember it when I was young. We hid it – your father and I, at first because we had to under the Empire, and later because we didn’t want you to see it. Now I see we were just teaching you to hide it yourself, and you can’t forever, not without hurting your soul.” There was pain in her voice. “I know I bring up your father and his high-minded lessons a lot, but I shouldn’t let you forget that he also had a fierce sense of justice. You’re very much like him.” 

            They headed for the ladder. A’i brought along some blankets to make a comfortable place on the back of the speeder. She tried to help her mother up the ladder, but was waved off. Kanē was already back on the surface studying the controls, his concentration visible. Her mother took a seat under a tree near their front door, her lekku calm but otherwise unreadable. A’i approached the speeder again. 

            “If you think you can drive this thing, try to get to uncle’s house. Hug the tree line with the sun on your right until you get to that river that flows out of the forest.” 

            “I remember,” he said, regaining some of his usual affect as an impatient younger sibling. They hugged again, and he used those few seconds to whisper to her. 

            “I think you used the Force back there. Remember kora’s stories? I don’t know if you meant to, but don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” Even in a whisper, he sounded excited. This was partly a relief, but the observation made her uneasy in a whole other way. 

            Their mother got to her feet and made her way over to the back of the speeder, her movements slow but steady. The back seat was just wide enough that she could sit half-reclined in a nest of blankets, but there was no room for a third person. When A’i was satisfied she’d be secure, the two of them hugged goodbye, and each wound their lekku together at their back in the symbol for love. 

            “You’ll have to tell me sometime how you managed to chase off two soldiers in such a rush that they left their speeder behind. You’re a better liar than your brother, but I can tell when you’re leaving something out.” A’i was embarrassed by how obvious she’d been, but her mother’s countenance was light, humorous even. They broke apart. 

            “Promise me you’ll meet us there,” said her mother. 

            “I promise.” Kanē touched the throttle, and the speeder lurched forward. He tried again and within a few moments had gotten a feel for it and begun smoothly accelerating. A few seconds later they were disappearing over the horizon. 

Chapter Text

As soon as they were gone, A'i started into the forest. Her plan was to hike at least a few hours into the belt to be sure she wouldn’t be followed before heading towards her uncle’s house. The influence of the nascent planetary government might be far-reaching, but the vast, sparsely-populated forest belt with its inhospitable terrain and large predators was still a wild country. Even many Twi’leks were fearful about venturing too deep, and the ones that lived there often considered themselves especially brave and strong. 

            When her parents had first been married, some of her mother’s relatives had looked down on their relationship for this very reason. Her father was from a more populous region in the south of Tukia, a part that some more traditionally-minded would mock as ‘soft rock’, meaning it was easy to live there. She remembered her uncle still making jokes about this when Kanē was born and some of her mother’s family had come to visit. It was hard to tell if he really meant anything by it. She was sure he would have something to say now about Kanē’s teeth. They were supposed to be sharpened when he came of age half a year ago, but with his father and older brother out of the picture, the tradition had been deferred. A'i wondered if he had been getting trouble at school about his manhood. If he had, he’d never shown it. Kanē’s school. 

            This thought jarred her. Even if what remained of her family could continue to live their lives in obscurity, Kanē would have to abandon his lessons and hopes of attending an academy. She knew he loved school and wanted to work on a ship like their father, and going through the academy would mean he might be a pilot or engineer. And now that would be impossible. She tried to clear her mind as she walked, letting sounds of the forest in to swirl around with that thought, but it wouldn’t fade. Her lekku tensed and twisted together, writhing back and forth with guilt. After another hour she decided her only recourse was to turn herself in. She could visit her uncle’s house and say a proper goodbye, and then she’d find the nearest authority and explain the whole thing. Explain what? 

            She thought again about what had happened. The memory was bright, but blurred by adrenaline. Had lightning struck all of them? Twice in the same place within seconds? She remembered the arc beginning at her fingertips, but it was so fast she couldn’t be sure. Lightning was rare on Ryloth except in the brightlands, and there had been no storm clouds. What about an equipment malfunction? That seemed more plausible. Kanē had been quick to connect the freak events to their father’s mystical beliefs, but he was prone to doing that. There was something she couldn’t shake though: the memory of that flow. In that moment, she had felt something immensely powerful surrounding and permeating her, and as she tried to recall the feeling, she started to have it again. The chirps of insects grew louder, until she felt she could pinpoint the location of every one of them. The fire inside her roared to life once more. Without thinking about what she was doing, and without breaking her stride, she began to look upward towards the canopy. Light shone through the cracks like a golden embroidery, and she noticed for the first time how the trees seemed to create their own territories, with the golden seams their borders. Each respected the space of the others, and kept an arsenal of chemicals to maintain their own. Her perception of the flow started to expand outward. It seemed there was nothing that wasn’t somehow caught up in it. A hundred meters or so to the west, she knew there was a jayfox hole where a pair of newly-mated adults had made their home. She couldn’t see it, but she knew it was there. A moment later, she knew a gutkurr somewhere downwind of her had caught her scent. She could feel its hunger, not unlike her own after having nothing to eat yet that day. She could feel him begin plans for a hunt and then just as quickly felt those plans dissolve, almost as if he knew she was aware of his intentions. But the flow didn’t stop there. She was now aware of the land moving beneath her feet, the earth swelling with the tides as the whole of Ryloth spun, hurtling around its central star, and all of that was itself spinning around – 

            She tripped over a tree root and fell hard. She reached out in time to stop from breaking her nose and a sharp pain ran up her left wrist. She cursed, then scrambled to her feet and scanned the forest around her. Any number of animals or sentients could have heard that. That should teach you not to let your mind wander. There was no change in the forest’s background noise. 

            She didn’t know exactly where she was –- she had made it quite a distance without paying attention, but A’i was confident she could navigate using the sun. She could hear moving water nearby and decided to try and find the source. It was going to be a long journey. A few minutes later, she found it: a stream flowing near the base of a mountain. These mountains were a familiar landmark. This would be deep enough. After drinking and collecting as much water as she could, she let her wrist soak while she rested for a short time. This stream must have been fed by rain closer to the top of the mountain, and the cold water was soothing both physically and mentally. The dizzy, spiraling feeling of her overwhelming perception had faded and, in retrospect, could be easily explained. Her senses were sharpened from a life of hunting and avoiding danger. Anything else she thought she may have felt was just her emotions boiling over, stress, or leftover adrenaline. She still felt a little light-headed, and decided to eat something from her pack before continuing on. 

            The trees this deep in the forest were massive, and the canopy was thick enough that the forest floor was mostly in shadow. Whatever had happened earlier that moon, it had drained her. She didn’t think she could make the whole trip without sleeping. The immediate area wasn’t familiar, so she couldn’t count on finding any natural shelter nearby. If she wanted to sleep and not risk anyone or anything finding her, she’d need to do it up a tree. 

            She kept walking, but began to take note of what plants she was passing by. There was a certain purple vine which liked to grow around the trunks of trees. It only took a few minutes for her to see one and use her hunting knife to sever it near the base of the tree it was growing around. While staying away from the cut end, she reached above it and began shaking the vine to let the fluid in the centre flow out. She knew from experience that getting this sap on your skin was not a pleasant experience. Once the flow had slowed to a drip, she made another cut higher up and came away with a section of vine about four meters long. 

            She wrapped the section of vine around her shoulder and continued on her way. Now her eyes tilted toward the canopy for practical reasons: she needed to find a koda tree. They were shorter than the giant conifers, with wide, red leaves similar to palm fronds, and also common in this part of the forest. The red was easy to spot, and she had soon found one and started peeling off some of its branches. Once she’d found enough –- she stopped at several trees so as not to hurt any of them too much, she sat down on the forest floor and started weaving the leaves together. The branching leaves from the koda tree could be woven over and under in a tight lattice. Nothing was knotted, but with enough of them together it was like interlacing the pages of two books. You couldn’t separate them even by pulling very hard. At two opposite ends of the woven mat were forking branches from where the fronds had been attached to the tree. She cut the vine in two and twisted each piece back and forth until the tightly spun fibres became flexible, then wound a section of vine through the forking branches at each end and made a simple knot. The result was a hammock which she could suspend between two tree branches. 

            As soon as she was done, she found the largest nearby tree with plenty of sturdy branches and began to climb. She remembered how easy climbing to the very tops of trees had felt when she was a child. Now she was pushing her luck after twenty-five feet or so. After testing her weight on a couple of branches, she strung her hammock and nestled herself inside. The leaves cradled around her, blocking out most of the light from above. She had forgotten how cozy it felt to rest suspended in the air, and she soon fell asleep. 

Chapter Text

Almost as soon as she slipped out of consciousness, A’i felt the sensation of hot light around her. She must have shifted in her sleep so that the sun was in her eyes now. Only she wasn’t in her hammock anymore. In fact, she was lying on rocky, sandy ground. 

            Her eyes flicked open and then squinted from the sunlight. Heat was beating down on her face. She sat up, eyes almost closed, and got to her feet. She had a momentary wave of panic as she realised her pack and rifle were gone, but for some reason it faded as quickly as it had come. Where am I? she thought in the lazy way one sometimes thinks halfway between waking and sleeping. The answer didn’t seem urgent, but she was curious. She looked down and opened her eyes wider. Red rock and sand. And the blinding light still overhead. She must be near the brightlands. As her vision adjusted, she could see more of the terrain around her: flat, red, and desolate, with a pale sky that met the horizon in a blur of heat waves. 

            And then, somehow now directly in front of her, an enormous red mesa towered above. Still in a dream-like state, A'i craned her neck to try and see the top. There were no clouds to obscure the summit, but she couldn’t have guessed how high it was. Her gaze began to slide from the very highest point she could see back to the base. Without intending to, she realised she had started to think about how one could climb it. There were plenty of holds near the base where the surface was more uneven, but about a third of the way to the top, the sides became almost perfectly smooth. While she was puzzling about this, she began to feel the flow again, and this time it was pulling her toward the mesa. 

            “Find me!” Said a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. What does that mean? She was still thinking about climbing the mesa. Is that what the voice wants? 

            “Find me!” The voice insisted, breathy but deafening, like a harsh wind. Reflexively, she yelled back to no-one in particular. 

            “How?” 

            “Reach out with your feelings. You will know the way!” This last declaration was punctuated by a thundering crack, and for an instant A'i saw the mesa split down the middle. 

Chapter Text

She startled awake. She was back in her hammock. She felt dazed, as though she hadn’t really slept, and there was a nagging feeling inside her, as though something had happened while she lay unconscious that needed to be addressed. Brushing aside the feeling, she sat up. Her first fully coherent thought was that she was very hungry. She took stock of what remained in her pack, which wasn’t much, but it was only another moon or so of hiking that remained. She’d survived on less before. 

            After eating what remained of her dried meat and fungus, she had some water and made her way down to the forest floor. She packed the hammock just in case, and began hiking again, but something was wrong. She knew she was headed in the right direction, but every step felt forced, as though her legs were a stubborn animal that just knew it needed to go a certain way. Then the memory of her dream came back in a flash: the brightlands, the mesa, the voice. Somehow she knew that right now, every step was taking her farther from something important, something which had to do with that flow. She couldn’t explain it, but somehow she was sure the mesa had answers. She stopped, lost in these thoughts, and then chided herself. How foolish. You’ve turned your family into fugitives and now you want to die of exposure looking for something you saw in a dream. This did nothing to stop the feeling that she needed to go a different way. Perhaps it was more than a dream. She had felt the heat from the sun and the rocks under her feet, and she was confident she had been in the brightlands, or somewhere near them, even though she had never seen them before. Kanē thought there was something to it –- what happened last moon. 

            She finally decided to give in. She would see if she could find the place from her dream, being careful to not go so far that she couldn’t safely return. If she was delayed reaching her uncle’s house, they would worry, but she could return within a few moons of when she was expected after convincing herself that these strange feelings meant nothing. Of course, that still left the question of where she was meant to go. Her vision hadn’t exactly given many details. The voice had told her to reach out with her feelings, whatever that meant. She remembered the previous day when she had ‘felt’ so much more around her than what her senses could usually tell, how that feeling had expanded out as though to encompass the entire galaxy. This was her best guess, so, still feeling somewhat foolish, she sat down on the forest floor and tried to feel the flow. 

            It was easier to find this time. A'i realized it had never really stopped, but, just like a sound, seemed louder when you were listening for it. This flow was a constant flux throughout the entire world and beyond. Like before, she began to attenuate to everything around her, first to what was nearby and then further and further away. It was overwhelming though. At great distances it was harder to tell exactly what she was sensing. She was looking for something far away and wouldn’t know what it was until she found it; and she’d never find it if she had to sift through every inch of the planet. 

            She let the sphere of her perception continue to expand. Movement in her field of vision started to be a distraction, and she closed her eyes. The small flows of life around her faded into the background as she became sensitive to bigger flows further away, like streams combining into rivers that flowed to the great sea her eyes had never seen, but that she was now aware of. She could sense distant cities full of people, then the movement of the crust, and finally the rotation of the entire planet. But almost as soon as she was aware of this and inured to the local noise around her, she noticed an anomaly, a kind of ripple which should not have been. Identifying enough of the circumference of this ripple, she soon found the centre. There didn’t seem to be anything of note there, but this itself was noteworthy. Somehow, it seemed a single entity was creating a disturbance which could be felt across the system, small, but just large enough that she could separate it from the natural flows and trace it back to the edge of the brightlands. 

            But it was far. After passing west through the mountains, the journey south would be longer than she could ever hope to cover on foot, traversing almost the entirety of Ryloth’s habitable zone. The climate would be harsher too, with water becoming more scarce as she approached the brightlands. How did the voice expect her to cover such a distance? In her mind, she began to trace a path from the source of the disturbance to around where she would eventually exit the forest, and something in the desert planes caught her attention. Organic life seemed to be the easiest for her to sense, and this had the same luminosity. The forest teemed with it, while the desert seemed like a void, but the relative void made something stand out, something very long and alive which moved through the desert faster than any animal. She had no idea what it was until she considered it might not be one living thing, but many traveling in a line. A train! She remembered her family had once taken a magnetic hover-train to meet her father when his ship came to port. This had to be one of them. She tracked it in her mind’s eye for several minutes. If it kept along its current heading, she could find a station once she was out of the belt and it would take her close enough to reach the mesa on foot. She opened her eyes, and knew the way. 

Chapter Text

A'i walked with confidence now. She wasn’t sure exactly how far it would be before she found the station, but was unconcerned if she would have the strength to reach it. Her attention was toward the way just ahead. Her internal compass was directing her through a ridge of mountains, the furthest west she had ever travelled through the forest. These mountains ran almost a full longitude on this side of the planet before turning east, forming a natural barrier between Tukia and the clan to the south. Deeper in the forest, there was a pass through to the west. She had come near it before while hunting, but had never gone beyond it. Still, she was confident it was passable without any special equipment. After getting past the mountains, she could change her heading to leave the forest and make a direct path south toward Ryloth’s arid plains. 

            She felt the warmth of the sun on her head each time there was a break in the canopy, and occasional drops of transpiration fell from high in the trees as she continued to walk. The sensation prompted her to consider her water supplies. She didn’t know if she would meet any streams or rivers on her way, and while her water skin was full for now, it wouldn’t last for long outside the forest. She hoped she could find more before the soft light she was accustomed to gave way to the eternal noon of the brightlands. 

            Being alone with her thoughts was not a new experience, but it had been different since last moon. The lightning and screams were seared into her neurons and now remained as a ghostly after-image. She thought about what her mother had said afterwards. She couldn’t shake the thought that some sort of reaction had begun inside her. A reaction which, like the bright star above, was now self-sustaining. Was anger really the driving force of her new power? Even thinking about it now, she could feel her senses sharpen and the flow within her intensify. 

            Her pain had turned to anger before. When her older brother left with the military she had flown into a rage, screamed at both her parents, and ran out of the house, only returning after more than half a moon. The embarrassment still stung. Her parents hadn’t really been angry over her reaction, though it had seemed that way at the time. It was kishvatoff –- twin-shame -– that they were feeling. It meant the frustration a parent feels when they see their child is just like them, including their worst qualities. They had wanted to react exactly as she had. 

            Back then her anger had been different: childlike, a response to the hurt she felt without concern for greater context. The context of slavers, spice, and a self-interested planetary government had filled in as she matured, and she had long considered her tacit acceptance of these forces as a sign of that maturation. She had mourned those taken from her village and those lost to mining accidents, but these things were the way of the world. It was no more use getting angry at them than at a long walk home, or the kree-krees which liked to sit in trees above other animals and warn them when a hunter was nearby. Now something groped in the back of her mind, wanting for a word in Twi’leki, perhaps from an elder’s tale when she was young. 

            The maze of massive conifers around her seemed to stretch on forever. A breeze wound its way around their trunks. The needle-like leaves on the ground were soft and gave off a calming scent. Somewhere in the distance, the shrill call of a small primate sounded, and she began scanning the branches above her, searching for movement. The call was far away, but looking for prey was a good distraction. Already used to her new sense, she tried to see if she could find the source of the call. Everything was part of that flow, and everything made a kind of ripple or disturbance, even the rocks and the soil underfoot. The disturbances from insects were more noticeable, and those from more complex animals larger still. 

            She thought she had detected a primate somewhere in the trees a few hundred meters away when she sensed something much more significant. Something disturbing. But it wasn’t caused by something, rather the absence of something. A mile or so in the direction she was heading was an almost perfect circle of nothing. No trees, no animals, hardly a worm. A dead spot in the middle of the forest. What could that mean? Perhaps her senses weren’t as keen as she thought, or perhaps whoever or whatever had set her on this path was blocking her perception of that particular spot. There was no other way through the mountains, so she kept on. When she got nearer to the spot, she would approach with caution and skirt around it if she could. 

            The soil beneath her feet grew rockier. The ferns that laced the forest floor became fewer, giving way to boulders and rocky outcroppings. She was now hiking up a slight incline as she drew closer to the mountain pass. The lingering sun maintained a perpetual golden hour that was beautiful and pacifying, but she was too tired to appreciate it. For the first time in the last two moons, her legs started to ache. There was a rustling in the undergrowth a few meters to her right as some small animal made a meal of an insect, and she was reminded again of her own hunger. Though she couldn’t say how, she was still confident she would reach her destination before it became crippling. Or perhaps she would die somewhere on the way. The grim resignation made it easy to continue, or at least that was her cynical interpretation. She wouldn’t admit it to herself, but deep down she felt more confident than ever that she was doing exactly what she was supposed to. 

            About an hour later, as she was approaching the dead spot, A’i focused again on her senses. It was still empty, and there were no large life forms nearby except for the trees around it. As soon as she was on the other side of the mountains, it would be in view. Even though this was the lowest part of the mountains for miles, the last twenty feet or so was a sheer cliff. Luckily there were plenty of tree roots and other hand holds, and she began climbing. There was a lot of mud near the top that she couldn’t avoid dragging herself through as she scrambled up the summit. I never remember climbing requiring this much effort as a child, she was thinking as she got to her feet, trying to wipe the dirt from her arms and chest. When she finally looked up, she startled and nearly stepped back off the cliff. The dead spot she had been sensing was exactly that: an almost perfect circle of bare rock and eroded mud. It had to be nearly a kilometer in diameter. What could cause such a thing? She needed to get closer. 

            She approached the edge of the trees. The forest floor sloped gently, and her pace quickened as she reached the border, only just before crossing it, she choked and knelt down, covering her face. Dying or damaged plants communicated their distress by releasing chemicals. With her senses so attuned she was sensitive to these chemical signals, and it was like the smell of sweat after a stillbirth. 

            As she caught her breath, she reached out with one hand and stretched her fingertips over the dirt on the rim of the dead spot. It seemed normal. She touched the ground with her fingers. Something was off. A subtle fluorescence, as though the dirt remembered some recent extreme energy. Her mind groped for that word in Twi’leki again, and this time found it: ja’kthel. The closest translation would be something like ‘wrath’, but with some extra connotations. It could also mean the anger of a parent when one of their children is hurt. In the myths told by her clan elders, it was often used to refer to the anger of the Goddess, Kija’lekki. After a few deep breaths, she set the memory aside and focused on her destination. The dead spot didn’t seem to pose any kind of threat, but she decided to skirt around it anyway. Soon after, she passed fully out of the mountains and adjusted her heading to get out of the belt. She had been checking the location of the train periodically and had a good guess as to where she could find a station. Several hours later, when she knew the trees would start to thin soon, she started to think about water again. She sensed there were no rivers or streams nearby so, changing tactics, she began looking for another special plant. Its stocky, cactus-like body had water inside which, while revolting, was safe to drink. Just as the tree line was starting to get noticeably more sparse, she found one and began twisting off the flat spines so that sections of the body could be broken off. After drinking as much as she could and filling up her water pouch, she continued on. 

Chapter Text

The train station was almost empty. Most people in the area would be asleep right now if they were following the city schedule, but the sun remained bright in the sky. The platform was underground, and the dim light and cool temperature were soothing after the hike. She would have to be careful not to fall asleep while waiting. To her right near the end of the platform, a group of Twi’leks and one human talked amongst themselves –- something about a conference in Nabat and a painfully long trip. The benches to her left had just one occupant. He looked noble or at least rich from his clothes, but was sleeping with his head hanging back at an awkward angle, occasionally letting out little snores. 

            A display near the ticket office told passengers the next train was a few minutes away, but she could tell without looking by the vibrations in the magnetic scaffolding they ran along. A male Twi’lek in a yellow uniform came out of the office. 

            “Anyone for the next train,” he said to no-one in particular, beckoning towards himself. He didn’t bother to repeat himself in Basic. The group that had been complaining about their journey quickly lined up, and A’ i realized she hadn’t brought any money. She hadn’t expected to need any when she left home, but got in line anyway. There was a story her father used to tell about the Jedi. According to him, they could use the Force to trick people, or make an obvious lie be believed. This didn’t exactly seem like a worthy situation, but she needed to try something. A few seconds later it was her turn in line. 

            “Where are you going?” he asked. 

            “What’s the closest stop to the brightlands?” 

            “Litu, end of the line this way.” 

            “There then.” 

            “Five credits.” No small amount either, dammit. During this exchange, she was trying to focus on his mind. The brain gave off an intriguing energy –- not overwhelmingly powerful, but she could tell there was a richness to it. She tried to pinpoint executive function, the energy that had been active when he chose to leave the office and call them forward. 

            “I don’t need to pay,” she said in a passive but confident tone. 

            “Pay for the train or get out, vagrant girl.” He clicked his sharpened teeth at her. It hadn’t worked. She was turning to leave and think of something else when the maybe-Noble from before stopped her. He must have woken up and gotten in line behind her. 

            “No need to be nasty,” he said to the train attendant. “I’ll pay for both of us. Just going two stops myself.” She began to protest but then hesitated. She was trying to keep a low profile. On the other hand she had no other ideas for getting where she needed to go. The distance was far too long, and the climate would only get more inhospitable. The chance to object was over a moment later, and she hurried onto the train after him. 

            They were the only two in this compartment and sat opposite each other in silence for the first several minutes. He didn’t look much older than her, too young to be a Dinek, but his ornate robes and jewelry reminded her of one. 

            “Arni,” she said quietly. “You didn’t have to do that.” 

            “I wanted to,” he said with a smile. His Twi’leki was different than hers, more lyrical, a quality she associated with her brief experience in the Tukian capital. 

            “Why?” she asked reflexively, and then worried she was being rude. This was probably not someone she wanted to offend, but he laughed like her prickling suspicion was a joke. In spite of his clothes there was a distinct unseriousness to him. 

            “Why do you want to be anywhere near the bright lands?” he asked. What could she say that would be plausible without giving anything away? 

            “I just want to get close enough to see what they’re like. I’ve heard the mesas are beautiful.” 

            “There are mesas a shorter journey away if that’s what you’re after,” he eyed her with one lekku raised in exaggerated suspicion, “but don’t let that stop you. That’s the great thing about the trains. They let even common folks see our whole planet. I don’t care for the places near the brightlands though. Too hot.” 

            “You like to take the trains?” she asked. “You look like you’d have a ship or something.” 

            “Oh,” he said, seeming self-conscious for the first time. “Ka, my father is Dinek of clan Daria.” She didn’t know what to say. She was nervous again about speaking out of turn. Her silence seemed to worry him. 

            “I know I might not seem like a politician, but I’m just learning. It’s why I like to take the trains: to talk to the people and see how we can better serve them. I’ve been all around my home clan and to most of the big cities in the others.” 

            “I like that,” said A’i, and she meant it. “Many are struggling to get by where I live. Just a few moons ago I had to hide from slavers while hunting in the forest.” His lekku stiffened. He looked shocked. 

            “I’ve not heard of such things since the time of the Empire. I know there have been issues even since the Republic outlawed slavery, but there’s nothing like that in Daria.” The train was slowing. He stood up. 

            “This is me. I’ll bring up what you said the next time I get a chance.” The doors opened, and he waved goodbye with one lekku. 

            Once the train was moving again, she relaxed. She preferred not having to talk to anyone, but now that she was alone it was harder not to fall asleep. It would be several more hours before they reached the end of the line. She’d been awake for a long time, and was sheltered for now from the persistent sun that would be waiting when she got off. She tried to stay alert by planning her next steps. When she got off the train she would take a moment to meditate and reorient herself. Then just a little more walking. Walking. Why was this so important again? Her legs were complaining, and she scolded them. You’re the ones that wanted to go this way. 

            She was just beginning to lose consciousness, inured to the movement of the train and the recorded voice that came on at each stop when she heard the voice say Litu and jerked awake. The train was slowing. She double-checked the display on the platform outside and stepped off. She wasn’t alone on the platform, but found a corner and sat on the floor, not caring what anyone might think. It would be easier to focus out of the heat. She closed her eyes, and tried to read the flow. It was easier this time to find that unusual disturbance from before. It was much closer now, close enough that she could locate it more precisely. She could tell her intuition wasn’t perfect, but once again felt that strange confidence. If she kept heading in the direction she felt was right, she’d be able to find it. 

            The sun on the surface was more intense than she’d predicted, and she had to shade her eyes when she emerged from the underground platform. Dusty red sandstone dominated the surrounding landscape. A few white domed structures in the distance were the only visible sign of the village of Litu. Most of the dwellings were probably underground. Once her eyes had adjusted, she took the hammock out of her pack and took apart one side of it. By sliding some of the leaves down the back of her shirt and tying them around her waist, she created a crude shade for her face, head, and back. She focussed again to make sure her heading was true and began walking. 

Chapter Text

The ground was rocky and loose, but flat, a welcome change from dense forest highlands. The strangest part to her was how empty and monochromatic the landscape was. The sky was pale and cloudless, and met the red earth in an endless, smooth horizon. The sun was almost fully overhead. She was accustomed to being surrounded by green. The land here seemed desolate. 

            After the first hour, she took a drink. She wondered how far she could go while still being able to make it back. Not more than a half-orbit of the nearest moon probably. She stopped for a moment to scan the sky around her and realized she couldn’t see it. Being so close, it was usually easy to see, but it had either set or was too near the sun to be visible. 

            After another two hours, a speck appeared in the distance which turned out to be a rocky outcropping. It provided a small area of shade, the only shelter for miles. When A’i passed it, she sensed life –- some small, dark-green cacti and perhaps other things hiding in the shaded crevices. The environment seemed so inhospitable that she hadn’t really been paying attention to what life she could sense. Now that her attention was drawn to it, she sensed something else high above her, something much bigger. 

            She looked up, shading her eyes with one hand. Something was circling above her. When it came out of the sun, she could just make out its silhouette, a long and slender body with two sets of wings which alternated between rapid beating and gliding. She reached out with her feelings, trying to detect any aggressive intentions. What she found was somehow worse. Hello you, it seemed to be thinking. You are far from home. The desert is a hard place to live. After a while, you will be weak, and I will be waiting. She carried on. 

            She was close enough now that she could pinpoint the mesa in her mind’s eye. Just a few more kilometers. The pale horizon shimmered in the distance. It was like walking in a dream. The sun was depleting her faster than she had expected, but finally, she could see it. It wasn’t much more than a bead on the horizon, but she knew that was it. She had a long drink and continued on, sensing her patient companion was still circling above. 

            The bead on the horizon grew larger, but the empty flatness made the distance look shorter than it was. And it was hot. Her legs protested. This might be a one-way trip. If she managed to climb the mesa now and no one was there, she doubted she could make it back to Litu. Once it was really in view, though, all doubt dissolved. It was exactly as she had seen in her vision: a huge mesa, almost perfectly smooth near the top, with a long, narrow crack running straight down from the summit to just below the middle. 

            She approached the bottom, passing under the little bit of shadow it cast in this direction. She touched it. The stone was still hot even on this side, but it was cool enough to hold onto. She couldn’t take too long, but she needed a strategy. She took a step back and examined the rock above her. There were plenty of handholds near the bottom, but after that the only way up would be to use that crack. The easiest path to the halfway point didn’t quite meet with the bottom of it. She would have to find a way to climb sideways from there. 

            She drank the rest of her water as she continued to plan the climb, but it was difficult to see further up. She would have to figure it out after getting up there. She removed the leaves she’d been using as shade and, after thinking for a moment, placed her rifle and pack on the ground beside her. She started to climb. 

The first thirty or so feet weren’t too bad. The sandstone was easy on her bare hands, and the reminder of her vision was inspiring. Then she reached up to grab a jutting rock, and felt it crumble in her hand. Her feet slipped and she scrambled to keep her grip, looking down as she did without meaning to. It was already a long way. So there was a drawback to the soft stone. After that she avoided putting all her weight on a hold right away. She was getting close to the halfway point, and starting to look for a way to get over to the crack, when she remembered the flying thing that had been following her. Pausing for a moment, she could sense it was still nearby, circling just above the top of the mesa. 

            Her feet were now level with the bottom of the crack, but it was still about two meters to her right. The stone between was perfectly smooth. If she hesitated for too long, she wouldn’t be able to make it –- up or down. Gathering her nerve, she jumped sideways, braced one foot against a corner of rock to the right of the crack, and at the same time jammed both her hands into it. 

            Almost immediately, her forearms began to burn. She shifted her weight, getting as close to the wall as possible and bracing herself with her legs. Careful, her polite stalker seemed to be thinking. You wouldn’t want to fall from there. She began to shimmy upwards. She was starting to find a rhythm when she felt a subtle change in the air currents on her back. The thing was diving toward her. She stopped and clung to the rock, tucking her head forward to protect her face just as she felt a gust of wind and jagged claws rake her right shoulder. It was aiming for her arms. The arms she couldn’t move or use to fight back, and which she needed to stay alive. It was trying to make her fall. She looked up. It was circling again, slowly ascending, getting ready to dive once more from behind the sun. 

            A’i started climbing again. She had to be fast. Her senses tracked the progress of the thing. Her shoulders burned, and she quickened her pace in spite of it. A few moments later, the thing started diving again. She braced herself. This time, she looked up in time to see it flying away. Its wingspan was almost twice the length of her body, and it weighed enough that it was hard to hang on when it struck her. She checked how much further it was to the top. Too far. She could take maybe one or two more strikes like that. There wasn’t enough time. 

            That left one possible recourse. As she sensed the thing beginning another dive, she braced herself like before, keeping both hands in the crevice, but this time she clenched her left hand so that it filled the gap by itself, digging her knuckles into the rock. It was coming down towards her right arm again. If you know where to claw me, you must have keen eyes, sensitive eyes that you need to get by in life. As it dove towards her, she tucked her head like before and focused on using her new senses to track it. The moments slowed. When it was just a few meters above her she looked up toward it. Its mandibles opened and let out a chittering screech. Its talons swung forward, aiming for the same spot again, and in the same moment she removed her right hand from the crevice and swung outward, driving her fingers into one of its two clusters of black, compound eyes. She couldn’t put much force behind the strike, but it was enough. The thing tumbled through the air for a second before struggling to right itself, and she sensed something new, something that reminded her of the things she hunted: fear. Trick! it was thinking. Prey does not fight back! You are not prey. 

            It didn’t leave after that, but it stayed high above, high enough that she couldn’t really see it. She started climbing once again. Something in her left arm spasmed, threatening to fail, but the crack was now wide enough that she could get help from the toes of her boots. She kept going. The calluses on her hands were beginning to tear, and the hot rock burned the fresh skin underneath them. Her muscles were cramping from strain and dehydration, but she forced them on and, after a few more meters, the crack had widened even more, and she could now wedge her whole body in the gap. She was overheating so much from the effort that things were starting to go hazy, but she was so close. Shimmying up the last few metres, scrambling up over one edge of the crack, she dragged herself over the top. 

Chapter Text

A’i stayed on her hands and knees for several minutes after finishing the climb. She couldn’t control her panting breaths. Her head was pounding. It was so hot, she thought she might pass out. After a while, she was able to slow her breathing and things came back into sharper focus. She had come here to find someone, but at the moment she could barely stand. She crawled a couple of meters to get a safe distance from the edge. On cramping legs, she got her feet. 

            The first thing she noticed was the ship. It was huge, and much different than the freighters and military cruisers she was used to seeing. The second thing she noticed was the alien sitting beneath the shade of one wing in a dark, hooded robe. Even in the shade, he must have been quite hot, but it didn’t seem to bother him. What she could see of his face looked almost human, but even for one of them his skin was pale, and his features looked stretched or distorted. He must have been some other species, but she didn’t know what. They locked eyes. She felt a presence in her mind as she had during her vision. He was the one who had beckoned her here, she was sure of it. He did not speak. 

            “I’ve come,” she said in Basic. Her throat was dry, and the words came out in a quiet rasp. 

            “As I knew you would,” he said, and she was surprised to hear her own language.

            “You speak Twi’leki?” 

            “I speak many languages. Welcome. I am called Batu.” 

            “I’m A’i. Why did you call me here?” 

            “You know the reason. It is the same reason you came to me.” She paused for a moment, but there was no real hesitation. 

            “I want to learn the ways of the Force,” she said. His lips curled in what she guessed was a smile. 

            “In our order the relationship between master and student is one of reciprocity,” he said. “The master owes their student knowledge. The student owes their master loyalty. I will teach you to harness your natural gifts, if you pledge your loyalty.” 

            “How do you know I have these natural gifts? Why did you give me that vision in the first place?” 

            “How did you come to find me here?” Just as she had sensed tremors in the Force and followed them here, this Jedi must have sensed it when she created lightning. As if he knew what she was thinking, he continued. 

            “I had not sensed such passion in many years. One who is strong with the Force and knows its ways can draw immense strength from passion.” She didn’t break her gaze. 

            “I will be your student.” 

            “Good. Come aboard my ship. I expect you need water and rest.” 

It was beautifully, mercifully cool aboard the ship. She had never been inside one. Fatigued, and almost shocked by the cool air, she was dazzled by the various electronic displays. A droid working at one greeted them. 

            “Fetch our new companion some water. Are the guest quarters ready for her?”

            “Yes sir,” the droid said as it left the room. He led her to a small room with a cot. The droid brought a metal pitcher of water and poured her a cup. 

            “Just leave it,” he said, and the droid left the pitcher on a small shelf beside the bed. 

            “While you rest, we’re going to travel to some lava fields in the north of Tolia. It will be the perfect place to train one like you. Our order once had a school there, which I have reclaimed.” A’i went to take a sip and then involuntarily began gulping the water down. He showed no sign of offense, refilling her cup without a word. 

            “What will this training entail?” She asked. 

            “Three trials. The first involves a show of devotion to your Master. By finding me here, you have already completed this first step. I will tell you more tomorrow, when your training really begins.” 

            Once she was alone she drank the rest of the pitcher. The cot was softer than she was used to. Everything ached. Her thoughts were somehow cloudy and racing at the same time. The vision had been real. There was something to the stories after all. I need to find a way to let my family know I’m alright was the last thought she had before falling asleep. 

Chapter Text

The ship didn’t feel like it was moving when she woke up. The journey must have been smooth. Her new teacher was waiting in the common area, and showed her to another room with a built-in shower. Luxury. At home she had to build a fire if she wanted hot water. Then there was breakfast –- free food, the ship rations her father had once described that expanded when you added water. She was ravenous. 

            “Let us go for a walk,” he said when she was finished. 

            Outside it was dusk. The sun was almost set, and lit up the sky orange on one side. The landscape was similarly desolate as it had been around Litu, though they were now in the far north. Plains of black lava rock stretched as far as she could see in one direction, with a lonely mountain far in the distance. In the other, she could just make out a gradient of rock and increasingly old vegetation that eventually became dense forest. They were near the nightlands, and the lava rock everywhere meant there must have been a volcano nearby. A big one from the look of it. 

            “Look around,” he said as he walked and she followed beside him. “What do you see?” 

            “This came from lava,” she said. 

            “Indeed, there is a volcano some miles away.” They walked in silence for a moment. She had gotten the impression before that he was quite old, but his gate was quick and limber. It seemed he wanted her to say more. 

            “Forest grows here,” she added. “The volcano kills it off every so often, but the desolation left by the lava eventually becomes space for new seedlings.” 

            “Correct. Some trees can even sense the fire, and accord their release of seeds to it.”

            “Interesting.” She failed to appear genuine when she said this. She was still sore from the previous day. 

            “I do not suffer flatterers. Speak plainly.” His speech was still measured and quiet, but the words somehow felt ice-cold. 

            “Well, what does this have to do with me or the Force or anything?” 

            “You have nascent abilities. You have already developed a keen sense for disturbances in the Force, but do you even know what it is?” She thought for a moment. It wasn’t really a thing, more like a flow through things. Everything. She didn’t know how to describe it. 

            “No,” she said simply. 

            “The Force is an energy field which permeates all things. It is life, death, light, shadow, creation, and destruction. Like all forces in our galaxy, it flows to maintain the order of nature, to separate the weak from the strong. You seek my knowledge for strength. To what end?” Even without having had the time to think about it, the answer was obvious, and she was forthright. 

            “I want the strength to protect those I care about. I want to punish those who cause us to suffer so that my family and people can live in peace.” 

            “Peace is a lie,” he hissed. “There is only passion. That is your first lesson. Any apparent tranquillity you might perceive is the net effect of thousands of passions colliding. To deny this and remove one's own from the equation is to give up the only power you have in this galaxy.” She considered this as she followed him through the lava fields. The terrain became more rugged as they approached the mountain, but his pace didn’t slow. A’i started to notice small caverns and crevices in the ground giving off steam. 

            “Where are we going?” she asked. 

            “Somewhere to meditate.” 

            “Why here?” 

            “Not here, inside.” Closer to the base of the volcano was an opening just big enough to step through with your head bowed. The air inside was hot and wet. It was almost pitch black within. Condensation dripped from the sponge-like rock, and billows of steam came from every direction. 

            “Does it have to be so uncomfortable?” That contorted, thin-lipped smile again. 

            “One day you will burn as brightly as your name suggests. You must become accustomed to heat.” 

He instructed her on a mantra and left her there, telling her to return to the ship when she could see the near-moon through the entrance. Even just existing in the steam vents was exhausting. It was almost impossible to clear her mind. The minutes stretched on, and she doubted whether it would even be possible to see the moon through that crack of an entrance. Sure enough though, after what felt like at least several hours, its light came glinting through and she opened her eyes to see the big, pale moon right in front of her. That was tedious. 

            She was spent by the time she got back to the ship, but there was more. When she arrived, Batu was waiting outside, speaking to a human. This new man was wearing some kind of plate armour and carried a blaster at his hip. Her teacher introduced him. 

            “This is Stenor, a Mandalorian. He works as my bodyguard among other things.” 

            “Hello,” she said. He didn’t return her greeting. 

            “He will be your sparring partner,” Batu continued. 

            “Sparring? With what?” The Mandalorian opened a long case that had been sitting beside him and produced two metal sabres, handing her one and taking the other himself. Nearby was a flat stretch of lava and four large boulders in an almost rectangular shape, perfect for a makeshift arena. 

            “These will do until you have the skill to wield the true weapon of a Force-user,” Batu explained. She guessed he was referring to a jelashakk. He had to be a Jedi then. 

            “First you must learn Shi-Cho, the most basic form.” 

            “What is this form?” She was expecting some instruction on technique. 

            “The best way to learn Shi-Cho is on one’s own.” His expression was placid, but she got the sense he was amused. 

Chapter Text

The first moon of her training was the model for each thereafter. After breakfast, she would hike to the volcano and meditate until the moon shone through the cavern entrance. She would return and spar the Mandalorian until she could no longer lift her sword, and then, after another quick meal, retire to the ship, exhausted, sore, and bruised. 

            Meditation, as it turned out, was a natural extension of what she had already been doing to attune her senses. At first, the heat and humidity made things difficult, but soon she was able to slip into the space between her thoughts, just as she used to during long walks in the forest, only now she was becoming ever more perceptive of the Force as she did. She began to gain an appreciation for the way it flowed through Ryloth, especially for the magma veins deep in the earth. All the while she would repeat her mantra, and each time she did her feelings flared as though the words were bellows over coals: 

            Peace is a lie. There is only Passion. 

            Through passion, I gain strength. 

            Through strength, I gain power. 

            Through power, I gain victory. 

            Through victory, my chains are broken. 

            The Force will set me free. 

            It didn’t exactly feel like letting go, but it did bring relief. Repeating the words quieted her mind, focused her, even as her emotions flared each time. They flowed through her like the lava below, the power to sunder the earth and create it anew. Now, rather than feeling afraid or hopeless when she thought about her childhood, or how her family would survive, she was angry, and the words turned that anger into strength. 

            Learning Shi-Cho on the other hand, whatever that was, seemed impossible. The Mandalorian was incredible with a sword, and though he only struck her with the blunt side, he didn’t hold back much. Even though he never spoke, she started to realize he was being instructive. If she failed to stop something, he would usually do it again until she found a way to reply, then add something new. It was like a wordless conversation back and forth, only she was still learning the language. Despite all that armour, he was more agile than her. If she let her guard down, or was even slightly off balance, he could take advantage with a lightning fast strike or by crowding her guard and pushing her over. If she simply tried to defend herself, he would feint or disarm her. None of this seemed to bother her teacher though, who would watch their one-sided duels impassively. He seemed to be waiting for something to happen, but not at all concerned that it wasn’t. Quite the opposite. As A’i became more and more frustrated by her meagre progress, his anticipation only seemed to grow. 

            Distractions didn’t help. She felt guilty for abandoning her family. They probably thought she was in prison by now or worse. After her first few sessions meditating, she thought she could sense them if her focus was good enough. Her mother and brother had made it alright, but she wasn’t strong enough to make her presence known within their minds at such a distance. She wanted to see them, but was afraid to ask so soon after beginning her training. She reminded herself that there wasn’t much she could do for them now. The best hope for improving their lot was to stay the course. If the Force was as powerful as her teacher made out, she would be able to put things right soon. The good she could do would even extend beyond her family. If other politicians were as clueless about the slavers as the one she met on the train, someone would need to step up and truly end the problem. After the first couple of weeks though, leaving them in the dark became difficult to bear, and she asked about a way to contact them. 

            “As a Force-user, you must learn to detach yourself,” he said at first. “Nevertheless, I can make such arrangements.” She was shown a map on the ship’s navigation computer where she could point to the approximate location of her uncle’s house. 

            “How long will the trip take?” she asked. 

            “I will send a courier droid with a communicator,” he said. “You can speak with them in a few days.” 

            That was enough for her. Two cycles later, the droid had arrived and begun transmitting a video feed of the area. After one more, she noticed a waterfall in its field of view that she recognized, and directed it to her uncle’s house. They were able to speak that moonset after Batu gave her her own communicator –- a small gold disk which flipped open to reveal a screen and holo projector. In addition to letting you speak to someone far away, it kept track of planetary standard time and could store maps or other data. She waited a few seconds for the connection, and then a hologram of Kāne’s head and shoulders appeared. 

            “A’i? Can you hear me?” 

            “Ka, nerra,” she teared up a little. 

            “It’s so good to see you! This thing is so cool, it’s like you’re right here!” She was happy to see he was his usual wide-eyed, excitable self. 

            “It’s good to see you too.” 

            “We made it here just fine,” he assured her. “Uncle and I are trying to refit that speeder so no one can tell where it came from. Where are you anyway?” She wasn’t sure what to say, but something told her she should keep it vague. 

            “Near a volcano halfway across the world. Don’t tell anyone but rymma, but you were right. I found someone to teach me. That’s why I’m here.” He was awestruck. 

            “You’ll be just like the heroes in kora’s stories! Here, I’m gonna bring you over to rymma.” His hologram went askew for a few seconds as he was moving the communicator, and then her mother’s face came into view. 

            “Hello little one,” she said. “I’m so glad to see you’re alright.” 

            “And I you,” said A’i. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t talk to you sooner. How have you been?” 

            “Well,” said her mother. “I had forgotten how the air is different deep in the forest. I think it’s good for me.” Relieved, the two of them spoke for a few minutes more. A’i gave a vague summary of her training: meditation and martial arts, and other than that, focused on how her family was doing. Her brother was keeping busy, and her uncle was excited by the possibility of a vehicle that could help him with his trapping business. When the conversation lulled, A’i said she had to go. As usual she was exhausted after a moon’s training. 

Chapter Text

Her focus was better after that, but progress remained slow. She was at least beginning to get the hang of sparring. The trick, she realised, was to watch the opponent’s face rather than his sword, whose motion at first could be deceiving. And sometimes it wasn’t about seeing at all. She was beginning to learn to rely on her new senses during their duels. A few weeks later, she stood in front of the Mandalorian for their first bout of the day. 

            They each raised their swords. He was left-handed and she favoured her right. He took a small step forward and slashed at her sword hand. She parried and countered, making sure he couldn’t get any closer. He tried to step forward again and she slashed. He parried, and lunged. She dodged and stepped forward, trying to get inside his guard, but not before he turned and tripped her. She tumbled backwards and had her sword up just in time to block his next strike. 

            He swung for her head, and she raised her sword to block again, but he was feinting. She had kept watch of his face, but his back foot had shifted almost imperceptibly, and when she began to block he took advantage of their open stance and spun around, slashing from the opposite side. He’s going to hit you again. Another clock to your back or head. Damn it. She could sense what was coming, but wouldn’t be fast enough to stop it. 

            And then, at the peak of her frustration, something flared inside her. The anger she had just felt rippled from her chest down her arm, making it move faster than her muscles ever could. In an instant she lashed out three times with impossible speed. Her first strike parried the incoming slash with enough force to break his guard. The second was a backhanded swing aiming for his head, which he only barely avoided by leaning back and going off balance. The third was a downward slash aimed at the space at his neck, which he only just managed to block with one of his plate bracers before falling on his back. He rolled to his feet, rubbing his right forearm. 

            “Well done,” said Batu. “That was Shi-cho.” 

Chapter Text

After a sleep, he gave her a new task. 

            “Take this with you when you go to the steam vents today.” He handed her a stone, maybe twenty kilograms. 

            “What am I supposed to do with it?” 

            “Use the Force to move it.” 

            “There are stones all around the steam vents.” 

            “But you will take this one. Bring it back when you’re finished.” 

            She took the rock with her even though it made the hike harder. Back in the steam vents, she put it down in front of her and started to meditate as before. Peace is a lie. There is only passion. The Force flowed through her. She stared at the rock. Through passion, I gain strength. She tried to direct the flow underneath the rock. Nothing happened. Through strength, I gain power. She didn’t feel nearly as powerful as when she’d created lightning. Why couldn’t she find it again? Through power, I gain victory. Those Republic peace-keepers were more concerned with harassing poor Twi’leks than dealing with the slavers she’d seen just a few kilometers away. There was no incentive to protect those who couldn’t fight back, who couldn’t punish a government that ignored their pain, but this power would turn the tables. Through victory, my chains are broken. It was victory that drove the Empire from Ryloth. Victory would end the slave trade. She focused everything she had on commanding the rock to move. The Force will set me free! It floated an inch or so in the air. Her focus wavered a few seconds later, and it fell to the ground again, but that was all the encouragement she needed. She resumed her meditation, and a short while later tried again. And then again. And again. 

There were more new lessons before sparring when she returned. Shi-Cho was just the beginning, and now that she’d discovered the secret for herself, Batu began teaching her the more advanced forms. It was clear now why he had insisted on giving so little instruction at the beginning. The anger she had felt was part of the design. Far from letting it go, she needed to burn it like fuel, to channel it into rapid, unpredictable strikes. This was the basis of the more advanced aggression form, Juyo. After a few hours of practice, she accompanied him on another walk across the lava fields. 

            “You have shown great devotion to your training,” he said. “Your progress is impressive. Have you been practicing your lightning?” She wasn’t sure how to respond. The truth was she had tried to practise more than once. She could barely create an arc strong enough to scorch a dead tree, and could only maintain it for an instant. It was no stronger than it had been when she incapacitated the two soldiers, less even. 

            “I sense there is doubt in your mind,” he said, “that you hold yourself back. You must understand that your connection to the Force is your birthright. It is the power to write your will upon the galaxy. Lightning is the corrective result of an imbalance of natural forces. When one like you perceives an imbalance, they can manifest that feeling.” With that he raised one hand and fired a torrent of bright blue lightning at a nearby outcropping of lava rock, turning the whole formation to shimmering black glass. She considered all of this. As with dueling, the key was to channel one’s passion. It made sense. The first time she made lightning, it was borne of anger, anger that she had carried with her as it built up for years. 

            He began giving her texts to study after that as well. She still struggled with written Basic, and the computer-generated Twi’leki translations made the old writings even more difficult. Not all of them were strictly about the ways of the Force either, with other topics ranging from spying and subterfuge to political philosophy. Unlike her old schoolwork, though, she forced herself to struggle through it. Batu’s instructions so far had seemed strange, mystical even, but following them had already produced results. As weeks passed, she found she tolerated these study sessions more and more, just as her body adapted to physical exercise. Some of the authors sounded like Jedi, and some like nothing of the sort. Her favourite, or at least the one she found most engaging, was Belya of Dathomir, who wrote a manifesto over two hundred years ago on the role of the Force in social upheaval. Even in Twi’leki, her prose came across well. The writing was dense, but the words had power beyond their exact comprehension, and A’i was content to let them flow around her even when she didn’t exactly understand them. 

            One of the most powerful and profitable ideas spread through our galaxy instructs the masses that institutions of law and government operate on a sort of higher plane, constraining us as products of nature, but at the same time existing apart from it. They are told adherence to their order will spare them from brutality. This is a lie. These institutions are tools of the mortal world, and the ones who master them know this. Any head of state will happily dispense with any law or institution when it suits them. Not only is politics merely a suppressed form of war, the suppression at that is illusory. One should therefore exploit anomy where it exists, and appeal to law when advantageous, rather than as an axiomatic good. 

            Peace is a lie, and so the pretense of the unnatural state is false. It does not negate the state of nature, for it is a product of nature. At most, it removes it by a degree. What we have is then a state of nature wherein institutions, industries, and norms of civil society protect the powerful while disguising or laundering violence against the disempowered. This false state, this peaceful violence, this civil brutality, cannot be redressed by law, for it is born of law. Rather than preventing exploitation, it magnifies disparities, enables weakness, and suppresses worthy individuals. 

            It is this inevitable product of legalism which only the primal beauty of action can solve. The Force then finds its role in returning individual greatness to primacy. Anomy, chaos, violence! These are the invisible hands that restore the natural balance. 

            For the first time, A’i felt there were words to capture frustrations over contradictions that had been piling up in her head over the years. Systems of law were not unlike religions. Each civilization had their own, but their relative influence was determined by material power. Of course, she didn’t agree with everything she read. Life was treasure. Twi’leki didn’t even distinguish the two. She wouldn’t accept the cold attitude taken by some of these scholars, but they were right about one thing: you had to be ruthless to get anything in this galaxy. She was used to this truth in the realm of hunting, and applying it to the rest of the world seemed only too natural. 

Chapter Text

She repeated this regimen for months, practicing forms until they became second-nature, and meditating until lifting the stone was almost effortless. The sun, which had already been near setting when she arrived here, was now a red bead whose edge barely broke the horizon. Then, one moonrise, Batu explained her next trial. 

            “In the forest north of here, there is a cave which I sense has special properties. I believe it is suitable for students such as you, but there’s no way to tell for sure unless you investigate.” 

            “And what am I supposed to find in this cave if you are correct?” 

            “An opportunity to show your strength through an act of ferocity.” Her first task had nearly killed her, and she guessed this one would be similar. 

            “I will need a sword then.” 

            “It is tradition that you take only this,” he said, drawing from his robe a cruel-looking dagger with a black hilt covered in some sort of runes. She thought about questioning why she could only have a dagger after spending weeks getting competent with a sword, but thought better of it. 

            “Where is the cave?” 

            “Head in this direction,” he said, pointing towards the forest. “If you are ready, you will be able to sense it. I’m surprised you have not yet detected its pull.” 

            She started off, a bit irritated by his last remark. Once she was able to concentrate, she reached out through the Force. Even from a distance, the life of the forest was palpable. Each living thing was like a bead of light, its brightness proportional to its size and level of consciousness. The Force flowed through them and through the relative void of the lava fields. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but deep in the forest, in the direction she’d been pointed in, there was a feature of this flow that was just barely unusual: a subtle, vortex-like current she hadn’t encountered before. 

            As she kept walking, she tried to further attenuate herself. If she could get close to the level of concentration she had when deep in meditation, she was sure she could figure out what the disturbance was. The last ember of sunlight behind her began to slip out of view, leaving her in the moonlight. Quietly, she chanted her mantra. Peace is a lie, there is only passion. She had already been going for miles and was only at the edge of the forest, but her body was so conditioned that it felt like a casual walk. Through passion, I gain strength. The energy that had risen in her when she performed Shi-cho flared again, and suddenly her senses could detect something new, something which was neither light nor void, but which connected with that energy inside her. Something at the centre of the vortex was beckoning her toward it. 

            The darkness beneath the canopy was almost absolute, and the trees only became thicker as she continued. They were conifers, but not the sort she was used to seeing near her home. They had thick red bark and branches only starting high up on the trunks, perhaps to protect from fires. Thorny underbrush covered the forest floor. Nearly all the plants here were a deep red, maybe because of how little light they got. As she got closer, the power of the cave became more apparent. Through the Force, she could hear it whisper. I feel your anger, it seemed to say. I grieve with you. I share in your wrath. An unknown animal chittered in the distance, and A’i tightened her grip on the dagger. She thought back to hunting –- how she used to hide anytime someone was nearby, and cursed her weakness. If any slavers crossed her path now, she would gut them where they stood, even with just a dagger. 

            Now several miles into the forest, she breasted a hill and sensed the cave was somewhere in the valley below. Let me make you strong, it was saying. She started to descend. With only a solemn sliver of moonlight, she could barely see a meter ahead. She closed her eyes, feeling for its pull. Two steps to the right, then forward, forward. She took each step slowly, tracing her feet along the ground so that she didn’t trip. A few more steps, and she touched stone. She opened her eyes. She couldn’t see the entrance. She felt around in front of her. Nothing but a rock wall. Damn it. It didn’t make sense. She could sense it. She was certain of it. Then she had a thought. What she was sensing was the epicentre of the cave’s influence, probably deep within it. She needed to find the way in. 

            She began to feel her way along the wall. Much of it was covered in roots and shed leaves so that a small entrance would be easy to miss, but after about a hundred metres, she felt something different: a slight draft of cool air coming through a thick web of roots. She started cutting away some of the smaller ones. Behind them was emptiness. This was it. She could feel the entrance was a large arch easily over her head, but using the dagger and her bare hands to uncover it was slow going, and it was better in any case to spare the trees above unnecessary harm. Once the space was just large enough, she crawled through. 

            Darkness. It was cold, even for a cave. She stood up slowly with her hands above her head, in case the ceiling was lower than she thought, but felt nothing but empty air. She made her way deeper in, hands stretched out in front of her, following the pull as she had before. She was close. Just a few more meters. 

            And then something in the cave seemed to turn on. The area around her became dimly illuminated, as though she were giving off a faint light which the floor and ceiling reflected. Outside of this bubble was an infinite darkness. Whispers came from all around. Then a moment of silence before the cave spoke again. Be strong…or die! Out of the darkness emerged two men, the two she had hidden from all those months ago. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the time, but she knew it was them. They were coming for her. 

            She charged, catching one of them with two wild slashes before the other tackled her. They tumbled to the ground with her underneath. He was much heavier. She wrapped her left arm around his neck and stabbed him in the side. Before she could strike again he rolled over, flinging her through the air and slamming her to the ground. Gasping and winded, she couldn’t get to her feet fast enough and sensed he was coming up behind her. From a crouch, she spun and swept his leg. He stumbled, then fell, and she was on him. Two strikes to his chest finished the job. Still kneeling over him, her gaze darted around, frantic eyes searching for the other attacker. But no one was there. Her first strikes must have been enough. She looked down again and saw nothing but the rocky floor of the cave, and then out of nowhere there was a hand on her throat. She tried to slash at the arm of her attacker, but something stopped her blade midair. She grabbed at their wrist with her free hand and was surprised when the skin felt Twi’lek. She felt herself being lifted so that she was now face-to-face with the one choking her. Their yellow eyes burned in the darkness. It was a Tukian woman with a Lethan mark on her left cheek. 

            Then, just as quickly, she was gone. A’i fell gasping to her knees. She strained to hear over the sound of her own breath. Silence. The light around her that seemed to come from nowhere dimmed to nothing, and she found herself in darkness again. Was it over then? There was no sign of the humans she had killed, or the Twi’lek who’d just attacked her. The fight had disoriented her, but she felt her way forward until she found a wall and followed it around to the entrance. She barely perceived the hike back – besides another near-death experience, the cave had given her a lot to think about, though she was too exhausted to think clearly by the time she could see the ship again. Batu was waiting for her inside. 

            “What did you find?” he asked. 

            “I found the cave. There were two slavers inside waiting for me. I killed them, and then they disappeared like it was a hallucination. But they were real, solid, while I was fighting them.” 

            “You have done well. It is as I suspected.” 

            “I also sensed something coming from that place.” She had been troubled by it before even entering, but was unsure of how to describe it. “It was a kind of…darkness.” 

            “As I have said, the Force has many aspects. To realise your true potential, you must understand all of them.” This didn’t quite put her at ease. 

            “Is it evil, this darkness?” He made a derisive sound, as if the question were stupid. “Consider any other natural force, gravity for example. It is responsible for the deaths of billions. Every crashed starship, every meteor impact, every child who falls and cracks their head. All are due to gravity. One day it will cause this planet to be consumed by its star. And yet, without it, the galaxy would not exist. Stars, higher elements, planets, and life could not form. But it is all the same force. How we judge its effects is entirely dependent on our point of view. There is no sense to be made in saying some gravity is evil, likewise with the dark side of the Force.” That was an explanation she could accept, at least for now. She didn’t have the mental energy to argue about it, but she could still sense the darkness coming from north of them. She was sure she’d be able to hear it whispering if she dared to listen. It felt as though it had connected with something in her, and the feeling made her skin crawl. 

            “There’s one more thing,” she said. “At the end, someone else attacked me. It…it was me, but it wasn’t. I mean, they looked just like me except for their eyes. What was that?” Batu appeared to think for a moment –- she wasn’t familiar with his species’ facial expressions. 

            “These special places do many mysterious things. I sense there is conflict in you. Perhaps the cave chose to manifest that conflict.” 

            “Was it trying to tell me something then?” 

            “Even with all my knowledge of the Force, I could not say for certain. Rest for now. Whatever it saw in you, trust that it will make you stronger.” 

Chapter Text

A’i’s progress only accelerated after her success in the cave. The hike to the volcano became easy. Her senses became more and more attuned, even without her conscious direction. She began to feel her connection to the Force at all times, and commanding it was slowly becoming a reflex. Stenor was still a challenging opponent, but she fought him harder every day. The rapid, unpredictable attacks of Juyo became even more effective when combined with acrobatics, or Ataru. She was fit enough to learn the new forms quickly, but integrating them into her fighting was more challenging. To make the style practical against a skilled opponent, you needed a super-natural level of strength. Otherwise the flashy tumbling was just too slow. To attain this, you had to use the Force to enhance your physical movements. When she first started training the technique, Batu took her to a nearby cliff. His orders were characteristically curt. 

            “Jump up it.” She noticed some small ledges of jutting rock. The lowest was only two meters off the ground, but the gaps between them grew larger as you went up the cliffside with the largest being more than eight. 

            “That doesn’t look possible.” 

            “The Force is your ally. Use it.” Even now, she could feel it flowing through her. Not knowing what else to do, she tried to direct more of that flow into her legs, thinking as she did of the many times she’d have liked to kick someone across a room. She aimed for just above the first ledge and leapt. She only cleared it by a few inches, but two meters vertically was still higher than she had ever jumped. She tried for the next one and was only able to grab the edge, dangling for a moment before dropping and sliding down the last few meters. 

            “Good. Again.” He left her there to practise. 

            When she returned hours later, she was almost too tired to stand. The muscles in her legs had seized up, and she felt a metallic wrench of pain as she climbed the stairs into the ship. She collapsed into bed, but found she was too sore even to sleep properly. It had been weeks since she spoke to her family. She wasn’t sure if they’d be up –- she hadn’t checked the near-moon on her way back, but retrieved the communicator from the shelf beside her cot all the same. After thirty seconds or so, her mother’s face appeared in its usual column of light. 

            “Hello my child.” Her lekku seemed tense for some reason. 

            “I hope I didn’t wake you.” 

            “No, I’ve been off the city schedule for a while now.” Her voice became hushed. “How is your training?” 

            “It’s going well. I’m getting the hang of swordplay now. But of course, the spiritual learning is important too,” she added. 

            “That’s good to hear.” A’i could tell something was still off. 

            “Is something wrong, rymma?” she asked. 

            “It’s your uncle. He’s taking spice again, staying up too long and snapping at your brother over nothing.” A’i’s anger flared. She wished she were outside where she could fire a stone across the lava flats. 

            “I’m so sorry. I can come home and – " 

            “No,” her mother was firm. “What you’re doing is too important. He’s struggled with this demon for a long time now. I just hope he comes back to Kija’Lekki soon this time.” A’i felt tears well up behind her eyes and stared over her mother’s head for a few seconds to stop the dam breaking. 

            “I’ll have the strength to put things right soon. I promise. The spice, the slavers, every affront to Twi’lek dignity.” Her mother smiled. 

            “I know you will. Just don’t forget to keep things right inside yourself.” 

Chapter Text

It turned out A’i was a natural at Ataru in particular, and soon she began conditioning herself by running, lifting boulders, and jumping up the sides of cliffs. It was like having an extra supply of blood that you could push into one part of your body or another when you needed it. Her strength and new forms began to show during sparring, so much that her bouts with Stenor began to look more even. She lost track of the weeks, but could perceive the seasons changing. The sun would rise until it was fully visible, the forest would become more lively; and then it would sink again to a red ember. Kanē and her mother brimmed with joy each time she called, but the tension in her uncle’s house was growing. There just wasn’t enough money coming in, even though Jemma had finally bothered to send some home, and her uncle was still going out for spice. The next time Batu asked her to walk with him, she made a request of her own. 

            “I am in your debt, teacher. I have obligations to my family as well though, and I must admit I’m eager to use what you’ve taught me. I would ask for a short leave.” 

            “How do you plan to use my knowledge?” Far from taking offense, he sounded pleased, but something scaly lurked in his question. 

            “I thought things would improve under this new government, but every year it becomes harder for us to survive, and before I met you I was still forced to hide or be taken as a slave. I want justice.” 

            “You are a fool if you think you can bring justice to the galaxy.” 

            “Maybe not to the galaxy, but here, for Rylothians, at least. If the Republic won’t end the slave trade here, I can.” 

            “You can cut down all the slavers you can find,” he said, “and it might not end it. The strong will exploit the weak. Why waste your strength fighting the natural course?” She was beginning to be offended by his sophistry, but she had a counter. 

            “From my point of view the slavers are the weak ones. They're cowards who rely on the strength of others.” He seemed amused by this. 

            “Very well,” he said after a short silence. “Your final trial is to pursue your own power and prestige. Now that you’ve chosen something to pursue, you should have the proper weapon of a Force-user. I have the necessary components on my ship. First though, you must answer: if I were to give you the resources to pursue this mission, what would you do? Besides exacting vengeance on any traffickers unlucky enough to cross your path of course.” 

            “What do you want me to say?” She was getting frustrated now. 

            “I want you to show me you have some understanding of the other forces in our galaxy. Now think. Why has the Republic not ended the taking of Twi’lek slaves?” She was dismissive at first. 

            “Because they’re evil or indifferent to our suffering!” 

            “A useless ascription, even if it is true.” 

            “Then they’re incompetent!” 

            “Perhaps, but governments often are. One person can hardly change that.” His disaffection was infuriating, but she understood now this was as much a test as climbing the mesa or surviving the cave. She paused for a moment to think. 

            “The slave trade is a part of the economy,” she began, “even if it’s illegal. It’s a part of the flow. It probably doesn’t hurt that allowing it placates the Hutts, but mostly, it’s that doing what’s really necessary to stop it entirely would require resources. Allowing it costs the government nothing.” 

            “And so, what would you do to have them change their course?” Now it was clear. 

            “I would make it cost them something.” 

            “Go. Do.” 

They did not speak again until she was ready to depart. She spent most of this time constructing her jelashakk, literally light-sword: a sabre with a blade of plasma focused through a crystal and contained in a magnetic field. It could cut through just about anything, and was capable of deflecting blaster bolts, though it would take time to develop that skill. She spent a full week on the hilt design, Batu’s words echoing in her head as she did. In ancient times, a sword was used to signify birthright. This weapon will represent the power your newfound strength is owed. The handle was wrapped with strips of iridescent jayfox hide. The hilt and pommel were surrounded by volcanic glass etched with a floral design from her clan’s coat of arms. After dozens of hours, it was time to finish assembling the internal components. She tested the blade for the first time and admired her work, her face illuminated by scarlet light. 

Chapter Text

With her lightsaber finished, she got a briefing on the new resources her loyalty would now afford her. 

            “As my apprentice, I have supplied you with a ship. A slip of a thing, but it has sophisticated computers and shouldn’t attract too much attention. Since you’re not a pilot, there’s a droid aboard with capabilities for flying and protocol, among other things.” A’i didn’t know what to say. 

            “I’ve also arranged for a modest operations budget,” he continued. “Ten thousand credits.” Her eyes went wide. Had she heard that right? Out of habit she began trying to calculate how many meals that could buy and found she couldn’t do it mentally. She bowed her head. 

            “Arni.” 

            “I have given you much of my knowledge, and am prepared to give much more. In not too long, I expect I will have use for your loyalty.” She composed herself. 

            “When that time comes, I will answer.” 

            “One more thing before you away. It is customary to take a new name when joining our order. Think on it, if you do not wish to decide now.” This reminded her of something. 

            “One of the humans I first used lightning on called me something. A ‘witch’. I had never heard the word before.” He smiled. 

            “In human folklore a witch is someone who uses the power of nature to do things that seem impossible.” Her lekku ticked with amusement. 

            “I like this title.” 

            “Appropriate, given your penchant for Dathomiri writings. Perhaps ‘The Witch of Ryloth’ then.” It sounded right. 

Her new craft was much smaller that Batu’s, with just a cockpit, a lofted bed in the back, and a small cargo hold. It was a sleek design though, reminiscent of the luxury vessels from Naboo she remembered seeing in the city –- the kind of thing you’d expect to be used by a politician or wealthy merchant. Her new droid, B2-TZ, greeted her as she climbed onboard. In the back, beneath the bed, was her old stone, strapped down so it wouldn’t move during flight. One of her lekku couldn’t help but shake out a small laugh when she saw it. Next to the rest of his behaviour, this gesture from Batu seemed almost affectionate. There was something else too. Folded on top of the bed was a hooded cloak, like the one Batu always wore, with a matching bandana that could cover the lower half of her face. 

            “Where to madame?” her droid asked in Basic when she returned to the cockpit. It looked like the same model as the one on Batu’s ship –- black with a silver visor and featureless face. 

            “Speak Twi’leki, if you can.” 

            “Ka, Vashna.” A relief. 

            “Arni,” she said out of habit. “The capital then.” 

            They took off. Their ascent was smooth, but so sudden A’i felt her stomach lurch. On the way to Lessu, she queried the droid’s databanks. 

            “Do you have information on the Clan Assembly?” 

            “Ka, Vashna. I can collect any files of interest and transmit to your communicator.”

            “Sure. Who in the assembly do you think is most knowledgeable about the slave trade? Who is most sympathetic to those affected?” 

            “Based on the information available to me, I would suggest Vashna Machira Timeer of Clan Rutia. She organized a volunteer corps to combat trafficking within her own region, and recently sponsored legislation which would devote more Republic peace-keeping forces to ending the practice.” A’i thought back to her history lessons on the clans. Daria, Rutia, Tukia, Tolia, and Tyria. Stone, water, spirit, fire, and music. The first two were the most powerful, having been the first to trade with visitors from other worlds. A long time ago, Daria, and to a lesser extent Rutia, used their new weapons to take over portions of the other clans. Later, all of them would be brought to heel by the Zygerrian Empire, but even now Daria retained some of its colonial territory in Tolia and the Tyrian caves. 

            “Can you locate her offices in the capital?” 

            “Ka. The next legislative session is approaching, so she is sure to be around. Shall I find the nearest port? 

            “Put us down near the commercial district. I need to do something else first.” 

            “May I ask what?” 

            “If I’m going to be meeting with politicians, I need new clothes.” 

Chapter Text

They touched down. It cost enough credits to feed her family for a week –- now a pittance, just to dock. Lessu was by far the largest city she had seen, and despite all she had been through it rattled her nerves. From far away, the cluster of lights and massive buildings had seemed peaceful, like looking at the moon, but the streets were crowded, and there was a constant rushing sound as speeders or larger ships roared overhead. She didn’t think she’d ever miss the quiet rumbling of the volcano. 

            The commercial district was like another world. The planetary capital was fairly far north, and the sun was low, but the evening sky was lit up by huge digital billboards with dazzling colors, images of people she didn’t know, and sometimes words in a language she couldn’t read. When it was in view, she took a moment to admire the skyline: obelisks of glass that towered so high they blended with the clouds. 

            She wasn’t sure how to handle being around so many people. Nearly everyone in the crowded streets seemed to be ignoring everyone outside their bubble, but so many wanted to talk to her. Street merchants and vagabonds tried to get her attention every few steps. Some Twi’leks, and more than one human commented on her physique. 

            “That’s a hot one,” a man said to his friend. 

            “Nah, too skinny.” 

            “You’d still want it.” 

            “Shut up!” Their faces were red, and they leaned slightly on each other as they walked. Just before passing them, and without raising her arm, A’i made a hooking motion with one finger. One of the men seemed to trip over nothing and fell, taking his friend with him. She stepped on each of them, then turned and feigned surprise. 

            “Oh sorry!” She said in Basic. “I didn’t see you.” She disappeared into the crowd as they were getting up. 

Even with the maps on her communicator, it took some wandering to find what she was looking for. The tailor, who supposedly served some of the most influential people on Ryloth, was suspicious when she first entered his shop. 

            “I don’t think our wares would be affordable for you.” Her lekku twitched with laughter. 

            “I have credits,” she said. “I can’t exactly look the part if you won’t serve me.” She tapped her communicator and allowed a digital check of her account. He was at least professional enough not to let his surprise show in his lekku. 

            “My apologies, Vashna.” He motioned to two human assistants, who ushered her behind a curtain and began taking her measurements. She recoiled at first when one of them took out a laser tool, reminded of the facial scanner the Republic peace-keepers had used. 

            “Don’t worry, dear,” one of them said. “It’s just a fancy ruler. Drikthi wants everything to be perfect.” She spoke Twi’leki, albeit with a bad accent. 

            “Precision is beauty,” said Drikthi, who had come in after them and was now seated in a corner of the room, watching, with some kind of portable computer. “It’s all mathematics. Dimensions, curvature…torsion.” She thought she could feel his eyes on her arms, legs, and the small of her back as he said this, and hesitated before undressing further. 

            “He stares at everyone like that.” whispered the other assistant, seeming to know what she was thinking. “It’s his craft he’s obsessed with, not you.” 

            “And there’s no need to be shy,” added the first. “You Twi’leks have beautiful bodies. Such nice skin even in a world so harsh.” After at least an hour of taking measurements, the tailor addressed her again. 

            “Don’t say anything yet,” he insisted, before she had considered saying anything. “I can tell what you need. You need something formal, something that will ensure you’re taken seriously by the people that matter. Is that right?” 

            “Ka,” she said. Maybe this was part of the sales pitch. It was an easy thing to guess, a bit like fortune-telling. 

            “It’s more than that though,” he said, his eyes narrowing. You have something to prove. You want to feel powerful.” This made her laugh. 

            “That’s right,” she said. They worked out the details of her order. She wanted enough formal gowns and robes to convince any politicians she met with that she was noble or at least well-to-do. Some less formal dresses would be useful too in case the occasion called for it, styles that would complement her athletic build. 

            “I’ll set to work. It will take a week or two to finish everything, but I will see to it you have something appropriate to wear within a few hours. In the meantime, you should visit the spa and baths next door. I don’t know where you’ve been living, but a lady like yourself deserves better.” 

She went to the baths, which were glorious. Each one was huge and fed by a waterfall of hot water. Mosaic designs on the walls and ceilings depicted native flora and historical landmarks of Ryloth. There was even some sort of perfume in the air that relaxed her. The quiet solitude was a welcome reprieve from the city, and a long soak in the hot water was perfect for her muscles, which had been knotted and sore almost every day for years now. Even better was the massage she got after. A dress arrived for her during all this too, a deep purple silk which looked especially beautiful alongside her light-green skin. 

            Perhaps it was the lingering effects of the perfume, but after the spa and a change of clothes, the city felt more approachable. One thing she liked about it were the lights and colours. Everything was so bright and beautiful, even if it was artificial. Beset by wanderlust, she walked the streets for two or three hours before returning to her ship, ignoring anyone who tried to talk to her. 

Chapter Text

A’i worked on researching the clan assembly for the next week while waiting for the rest of her wardrobe to come in. She continued to meditate a few hours every day, and as she repeated her usual mantra, her mind filled with thoughts of vengeance. She was meditating on her grievance, on the imbalance she saw in the world, and the passion was electrifying. Even so, her first week in Lessu felt idle compared to her time training. When she wasn’t meditating or exploring the city, she would pour over the data compiled by 2-TZ, but there was only so much she could stand to read each day. Legalese, it turned out, was more tiring than a ten mile hike, or even esoteric Jedi philosophy. She kept at it though, still not sure what information could prove invaluable.

            Although the Republic had outlawed slavery throughout its member worlds, much of the infrastructure of the Zygerrian Empire remained. The oligarchs who had previously controlled the trade on Ryloth were forced to go off world, or make their operations more covert, but they continued nonetheless. Enforcing the ban required more planetary security and policing of ports and cargo, which in turn required greater taxation. The legislation proposed by Vashna Timeer was meant to implement exactly that, so perhaps not all in the assembly were callous or clueless. She didn’t know whether House Timeer was involved in Rutian imperialism, but that was a long time ago and, in any case, this Vashna Timeer seemed to be on the right side of things. Reading about her gave A’i hope for a swift resolution, hope that was tempered when she began looking into how the public saw these policies. The prevailing view appeared to be that the problem of trafficking barely existed, and that more levies or regulations would drive trade and opportunities away to other worlds. She knew some Twi’leks had gotten rich doing business with off-worlders, but they were hardly a majority. After over a week of increasingly elaborate queries, 2-TZ suggested a meta analysis of all the archived texts and broadcasts on the subject. She didn’t know what that was, but agreed, and something in what the droid prepared for her next piqued her interest. Looking over an array of data that summarized everything at once, she noticed most of the media critical of Timeer’s policy came from Daria, where most of the influential planetary news networks were based. Not only that, most of it was traceable to one source: a sociological research firm funded by the Darian royal family. Whether or not they gave a fair accounting of the cost of these policies, A’i knew the way forward: she had to make the cost of inaction greater. She was starting to get restless, but kept Batu’s advice in mind. She would start by seeking a meeting with Vashna Timeer.

Wearing her best formal clothes, a flowing gown of dark blue that shimmered like water, A’i paid for a speeder to fly her to the city centre. She disliked the extra cost, but wanted to give every appearance of being wealthy and important. It might not matter –- from what she could tell, Vashna Timeer was regarded as a woman of the people and something of a bleeding heart, but she wasn’t about to rely on the opinions of others.

            The clan assembly offices, and the assembly building itself, stood around a circular courtyard. In the centre of the courtyard was a bronze statue: a giant wheel with the mark of each clan engraved on it, each corresponding to a spoke of the wheel. She had learned in school it was meant to represent their unity. Between the wheel and the assembly building was a large, white tent, apparently disguising some project currently underway. Each office building in the circle was huge –- fifty stories at least, and while she had an address from 2-TZ’s archives, there didn’t seem to be any way to tell the buildings apart. After walking half the circle looking for some clue, she realised each building aligned with a spoke of the wheel in the centre. Maybe the statue also served as a sort of directory. What was the mark of clan Rutia? Their region bordered her own, so she should have seen it at some point. Water. The Rutians had extensive irrigation networks that made their land some of the most verdant on Ryloth. After walking back towards the statue and circling for a moment, she spotted it: a sigil of a fruiting tree beside a river that looked familiar.

            A guard stopped her as she entered and swept her with some kind of sensor. She had come unarmed. He asked where she was going and directed her to an elevator. Her memory for the clan symbol had been correct. She stepped off the elevator into a lobby where a secretary sat at a large semicircular desk in the centre of the room. The secretary looked up as she approached and made a friendly gesture with her lekku.

            “How can I help you?”

            “I’m here to see Vashna Timeer.”

            “What time is your appointment?” Of course. A’i was trying to decide whether lying might be a viable option when something at the desk began to chime.

            “Just a moment,” said the secretary. It must have been someone she knew personally because her face lit up at the voice that came through her headset.

            “Kassura you! No I’m not off for a few hours what with the session coming up. I’ll talk in a minute though.” She looked up again. Now, A’i had a plan. There had been a very specific reaction in her mind when she answered the call. A’i was much more attuned than she had been in the train station years ago, and could sense the exact activation that had triggered the feelings of familiarity. It was like a warming spark in a specific part of the brain. She reached out, trying to create that same spark.

            “We spoke the other day,” she said. “It should be in just a few minutes.” For a moment, the secretary looked confused, her eyes seeming to look at something far away.

            “Oh, ka…I remember you, but,” she checked the display on her office computer, her lekku fidgeting a little with embarrassment. “I must have forgotten something. Please accept my apology. I’ll speak with her now and ask if she can see you. Do you mind waiting?”

            “Not at all, arni.” Close enough. A’i had a seat nearby. She could just overhear the secretary’s side of the conversation as she apologised for her ‘mistake’. It sounded like the conversation went well though. Maybe ten minutes later, she was pointed toward a private elevator which took her up one more floor.

            Vashna Timeer’s office wasn’t as big as A’i was expecting, but that impression might have been due to how cramped it was. Most of the space was taken up by a large desk made from a single piece of dark, polished wood. The tree it came from must have been at least four meters wide. The surface was mostly empty, but there was a holo projector in the centre and, on the far side, some trinkets and propped up frames which A’i guessed were pictures. The walls to the left and right were lined with bookshelves, flowering plants, and vines that used the shelves as scaffolding. Opposite her was a huge window with a view of the courtyard below and Lessu’s skyline in the distance. The light streaming through the foliage reminded A’i of home. Maybe this was the idea.

            “Have a seat,” said Vashna Timeer, dismissing the hologram text she was reading and motioning to a chair on A’i’s left. Despite it being near the end of Lessu’s work cycle, she still looked pristine. Her robes, which matched her sky-blue skin, were affixed with a pin bearing the Rutian sigil.

            “What can I do for you?” she asked as A’i sat down. “Jaya downstairs said you were supposed to have an appointment, but she didn’t say what for and already sounded flustered enough.” Her lekku tittered. She gave off a warmth that seemed to validate her reputation. Despite being part of the assembly, she didn’t look much older than A’i herself. Even so, and even after rehearsing what she was going to say, A’i was nervous and cursed herself for it.

            “I very much admire your work in the planetary government, Vashna –”

            “Please, call me Machi.” A’i thanked her and began again.

            “I would like to make a donation to your future efforts.”

            “Arni – it is an honour, and very generous. Of course I must ask that you go through the proper channels. Political donations need to be transparent. I can put you in contact with my financial officers.” Her speech had a similar elegant quality like the noble on the train that made the words sound beautiful, but also rehearsed and impersonal.

            “Very well. I was happy to hear you had formed a local network to combat slaving operations. Many from around my village still live in fear.”

            “I’m sorry for that. Are you from Tukia?”

            “Ka, the closest city is Davum.”

            “I’m not familiar. Is it near Sakish?” That was the Tukian capital.

            “Much further north, near the forest.” Machi’s lavender eyes lit up.

            “Oh, my home city in Rutia is near the same latitude. The light up there is just perfect isn’t it?” A smile rippled through A’i’s lekku.

            “It is.”

            “Rutia also seems to be a favourite target for slavers, especially along our southern border.”

            “How have you been combating them?”

            “Information, first and foremost. Slavers think they can target poor, rural areas with impunity, and often they’re right. We’ve disseminated to all our local prefectures that this is no longer the way of the world. They report to us whenever there’s a suspected abduction, and we integrate that data with reports from other clans, especially Tukia and Tolia.”

            “And what do you do with the information?”

            “We investigate and organize patrols of certain areas. My region is more fortunate than most, so we send volunteers to the south.”

            “Have you caught anyone?”

            “Several, ka, but convictions are difficult to secure. We need to find the facilities they use for trafficking victims and get to the higher-ups.”

            “You must have some idea who is responsible and where to find them? If you share what you know I – ” She was interrupted again.

            “I would be grateful for your help if you wish to join our network, but I can’t simply share information about current investigations. It’s the business of the government and interplanetary police.” A’i’s frustration prickled. Another canned response.

            “I just want to help,” she said, keeping her lekku calm as best she could.

            “I know,” said Machi, her sincerity now audible. “Many join us hoping to find lost loved ones. It is a pain I cannot begin to understand.” Her way of speaking was so perfect it seemed ill-suited to the topic. The well-chosen words hung and died in the air. A’i’s gaze fell, and then Machi spoke again.

            “Why don’t you meet me later for a drink? It’s the least I can do for a supporter who came all this way.” A’i was taken aback, still disappointed that this meeting hadn’t led to anything, but accepted all the same. Better not to offend someone important.

Chapter Text

After returning to her ship and changing into something slightly more casual, she had just enough time to make it back to the commercial district. Machi’s preferred place to relax turned out to be a bar not unlike the saloons in Davum. The inside was more colourful, and the music was different, but it was far from being an establishment one would expect anyone in high society to frequent. Even if she looked out of place in her work clothes, Machi seemed at home here. She knew the bartender and most of the customers by name, and everyone seemed to like her. Her drink of choice was some sort of wine which came in a slender glass bottle. A’i let Machi pour her a glass and sipped just to be polite. It was heady and sweet, with a floral aftertaste she thought was familiar but couldn’t place.

            “What is it like living near the forest? I’ve heard it’s quite dangerous.” A’i didn’t know what to say.

            “It can be. My family only lived on the edge but the rest of my rymma’s relatives still live inside it. I used to go hunting all the time.”

            “Really?” Machi flicked one lekku incredulously and, emboldened, A’i continued.

            “Sure. I’ve had run-ins with predators before, but if you have good senses and are quick at climbing trees it’s easy enough to stay safe.” She went on to recount a number of close encounters, including her and her brother narrowly avoiding a gut-kur. Machi was enthralled.

            “Which academy did you go to?” she asked when A’i paused to take a drink. “Some of my friends trained in Tukia.” That was something she couldn’t answer truthfully if she wanted to maintain the appearance of being from the upper class, but she had probably already given herself away by describing her home and vocation. Maybe it didn’t matter with someone like this.

            “I didn’t.”

            “Oh, I’m sorry I just assumed. It’s a pity our public education isn’t more accessible.” She looked a little embarrassed and changed the subject.

            They went on talking for a few hours, mostly about nothing of consequence. As the time wore on, the lights of the city outside dimmed, even as the sun remained. The wine –- whatever it was, was working, and a pleasant warmth washed over her. Machi regaled her with stories of trouble she’d gotten into during her academy days and some bits of political gossip, and A’i found she was really enjoying herself, even if she didn’t understand everything being said. A lot of the context and references in the stories were unfamiliar, but Machi’s effervescence was contagious. Most other patrons had left by now. It looked like the bar was close to closing, but the owner seemed to be ignoring them. Machi’s tone changed, becoming hushed.

            “You must keep this between us, but I have a theory about the slavers,” she said. A’i was surprised. Was this change of heart a result of the wine, or had it been the plan all along to defer this conversation until they were away from prying eyes?

            “What is it?”

            “To traffic people off-world, they need access to hangars, but we’ve made barely any progress finding them. The only way they could be continuing at this scale is if they’re able to disguise what they’re doing as part of legitimate commerce. I think a corporation is trafficking slaves and passing it off as some other kind of cargo.”

            “Which one?”

            “I don’t know for sure but I have my suspicions. Czerka in particular has a bunch of hangar facilities with cargo going in and out all the time, and they’ve been fighting against more security and oversight at ports.” Finally. This was progress.

            “You're proposing a law to do that aren’t you?”

            “Yes, but it’s unlikely to pass. The Czerka corporation has a lot of officials in their pocket. If I could just find some proof that would expose them, I know it would bring a surge of popular support.” A’i looked around. No one was watching them. No one left at this hour looked conscious aside from the bartender, and he was washing glasses, seeming to face away from them almost deliberately. It was time to put her cards on the table.

            “I have certain talents which I think will be useful.” A’i made a small gesture with her hand. The slender glass bottle rose a few inches into the air and tipped gently, pouring Machi another glass. Her lekku whipped up in surprise.

            “You’re a Jedi!” Even as a whisper, it seemed to come out louder than she intended, and she covered her mouth, her eyes wide.

            “Share what information you’ve gathered with me, and I can find the proof you need.” Machi didn’t reply for a few seconds, but looked excited.

            “I’ve never met a Jedi. They helped the Republic drive the Zygerrian Empire out of this system, but I was only a child then.”

            “Why did they leave?”

            “I was hoping you would know. From what I hear they don’t much like politicians.”

            “Well, I think I like at least one.” Machi laughed.

            “So it’s real then –- the Force?”

            “As real as you or me. It’s a kind of energy that flows through everything, especially living things. I think I felt it even as a child. I could always tell when an animal was nearby.”

            “So you can sense life, even without seeing or hearing? That’s perfect! You can bio-scan cargo without anyone knowing.” They were arriving at a plan now. Machi ordered another bottle of wine.

            “It’s fitting, your Lethan mark,” she said, gesturing with one lekku to the mark on A’i’s face. “Maybe there’s something to the legends.” This remark might have made her self-conscious if it weren’t for the fresh bottle. She touched one lekku to it.

            “As a child, this was more a curse than a blessing.” Machi’s expression became somber.

            “Forgive me. I should have thought about what it meant for you under the Empire. You must have been even younger at the time.”

            “Just old enough to remember.” They were silent for a time, and then Machi suggested they go for a walk. A’i felt her heart lighten as soon as the fresh air hit her face, and they decided to explore a nearby market. This was a rough area of Lessu, but Machi insisted the markets here were the best for finding interesting antiques and strange off-world items. Even in the off-peak hours, there were quite a few people on the street, and A’i noticed other people went out of their way to part around them. Expensive clothes and Machi’s posture, which was as courtly as ever even after drinking, seemed to make all the difference. They passed a merchant selling scarves, which were beautiful even if his claims about their materials and origin were dubious. Then, through the dark windows of a mercantile, A’i started hearing voices in Huttese. She didn’t know what they were saying, but could tell they were negotiating. She wondered if the merchant there dealt arms –- Rax back home was known to sometimes. She would have to come back and see if she could buy a new rifle.

            There was a commotion up ahead, and A’i peered down the street to find the source. Outside what looked like a jewelry or antique shop, a human, probably the shop owner, was restraining a Twi’lek boy as he tried to pull away.

            “Let me go, damn it!”

            “Give it back you little thief!” They were fifty metres away down the street, but A’i reached them in a matter of seconds and separated them before either of them noticed she was approaching. She hadn’t thought ahead to what she would say though, and finding the words in Basic took a moment. She sensed the boy was about to flee just in time to grab him by the collar.

            “Not so fast, child,” she said in Twi’leki, then turned back to the shop owner and found the words.

            “What’s this about?”

            “This thief took a necklace from me.” The boy gave up trying to escape and turned to face him.

            “It’s not yours! It’s my rymma’s.”

            “And she sold it to me.”

            “It’s the only thing she has from home and she sold it because of me. I would have starved before I asked her to do that.” He tried to pull away again and fell to his knees.

            “How much were you asking for the necklace,” A’i asked the merchant.

            “Two hundred credits.” She suspected he was lying but decided not to press the issue. If Batu asked about the expense, she could say she needed to bribe him for information.

            “I’ll pay for it.” The merchant sneered at her.

            “I can’t tolerate thieves. I’m calling the authorities. Keep him here until they arrive or I’ll report you too.” Machi, who had since caught up and spent the last few moments examining the merchandise behind them, now cut in.

            “Excuse me, but, can you tell me more about this piece?” She was looking closely at an ornate, oval mirror almost a meter wide. There was something strange about it. It glowed like a moon even though it was in shadow. The inscription around the border was Twi’leki. The script even looked like the religious texts her mother used to study.

            “A polished stone mirror,” he said, his tone still surly. “From an abandoned forest temple in northern Tukia.”

            “I suspected,” said Machi. “I hope you have the proper documentation. We in the government take a hard line against the sale of plundered Rylothian artifacts. Do I need to have a chat with my friends in the bureau of commerce and open an investigation of your shop?” The merchant noticed her pin. He didn’t need lekku for A’i to know he was mad as hell. For a couple of seconds, he seemed too angry to speak.

            “Fine. You, pay for the necklace.” A’i agreed and let go of the boy, who thanked her but wasted no more time before bolting.

            “I’ll take the mirror too,” she said. It felt wrong to leave a Tukian artifact with someone like this. Money changed hands. He couldn’t help but add a parting remark.

            “Glad you’re taking this off my hands. Not even a proper mirror. Did you have any technology to speak of before getting conquered?” A’i punched him in the nose. She did it so fast that nearby onlookers weren’t sure what had happened, but Machi saw. The merchant himself seemed a bit stunned as blood began running down his face, and A’i took advantage of the moment and grabbed the mirror.

            “Let’s get out of here.” They made it around a corner and Machi called a speeder to pick them up.

            “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said as they were jetting off. “He was being an ass, but the situation was resolved.” A’i sighed.

            “I know. It’s just…I spent so long hearing people talk that way and believing it. Now that I can fight back I just can’t stand hearing it anymore.” For a while the only sound was the quiet whir of the engine, and then a guilty laugh crept into Machi’s lekku.

            “It did look funny, his face. Like he couldn’t believe what you’d done, and damn me if he didn’t deserve it. Just try to pick your battles more carefully in the future.” She traced the inscribed edge of the mirror, which now lay across A’i’s legs.

            “It must be ancient. It just looks like a polished black rock.” Strange. A’i could see her reflection just fine. If anything it looked especially bright, as though there were some kind of backlighting.

            “Really? I can see myself easily.” Machi looked doubtful.

            “Well, maybe your eyes are better than mine. Personally, I don’t think it does you justice. You’re stunning, you know.” A’i felt her lekku blush.

            “Arni.”

            “Where are you staying?”

            “Just on my ship.”

            “That can’t be comfortable. There are extra rooms in my family’s chateau if you’d like a nice place to sleep.” As much fun as their meeting had been, A’i wanted some time to herself. Even the fanciest bedroom would be less comfortable than her cot if she had to worry about acting right in front of nobility.

            “That’s very kind of you, but I should return to my ship.” Machi nodded and let A’i instruct the pilot where to drop her off. As she was leaving the speeder, she felt one of Machi’s lekku touch her shoulder.

            “I’ll send you information on where to look next moon.”

Back on her ship, A’i found a place for the mirror. The only clear bit of wall that could accommodate it was under the lofted bed. You had to hunch over a bit to look at it, but it was a nice addition anyway. She noticed again how her reflection looked bright even in the shade. Behind it, she could see churning tongues of black smoke and glittering light. She looked more closely at the inscription. The ornate writing was difficult to make out, but she was used to reading similar script. I reflect the light and shadow both. I reveal the Goddess’s gift.

Chapter Text

Lessu’s industrial zones were much less alluring than the rest of the city. Hangars, warehouses, and factories stretched as far as you could see, almost all a uniform grey. The tall buildings and clouds of smoke blocked out much of the sunlight, creating an artificial twilight illuminated by sterile white lights along the streets and building facades.

            A’i was walking down a side street, consulting a digital map every few hundred metres. She had re-docked her ship to be closer to the area, and spent the last month walking these streets. The information on her map passed along by Machi contained more than a dozen locations where she thought captured Twi’leks might be being transported. They were all large warehouses with adjoining hangar-docks which received a lot of cargo, and almost all were owned by the Czerka corporation. She didn’t have specific information about when shipments would be received or where, but every hour she wasn’t sleeping or meditating she spent walking between these locations, watching anyone going in or out. Besides using her Jedi senses to look for living things in any cargo, she was also wearing an ocular camera –- a lens over one eye that recorded everything she saw.

            She stopped in front of a warehouse with a familiar steel-grey roof and peered around the corner down an alley, scanning along the side of the building. About a hundred meters on was a loading entrance, and next to this entrance was a large speeder with a trailer meant for moving cargo. She could sense at least one life form aboard the speeder. A short while later the loading bay doors opened, and she ducked out of the alley. She could hear a pair of footsteps exit the building. Another two got out of the speeder’s cockpit. She peered around the corner again. All three were at the back of the trailer, out of view. She could hear the sound of the trailer doors being opened and someone climbing into the back. A few moments later, the trio came into view again, now guiding a large container which hovered on its own. As she had several times before, she reached out with her feelings, probing the container, and this time, she felt life. A shock went through her. She had to be sure. The thick metal made it difficult. She pulled the hood of her cloak over her head, and stepped back into the alley.

            Without breaking her gate or acknowledging the three men, she strolled past just as they were moving the container through the loading bay doors. A random civilian would be considered out of place here, but she was well within her right to walk down a public street. As she passed close to the container, she reached the fingers of one hand toward it, as if she were just stretching them. It was unmistakable. There was someone in that container, alive, and afraid. She sensed something different in this fear too. It seemed sharper, pricking her nerves in ways she hadn’t felt in years.

            As soon as she was out of the alley, she turned a corner and continued walking. The plan now was to make an anonymous tip. Jedi senses probably weren’t admissible, but she could say she had seen or heard signs of movement from within the container and get interplanetary police to search the facility. They were supposed to be transporting machine parts, mostly for mining equipment, so there was no plausible reason to be receiving any living cargo. She was about to pull out her communicator when she heard voices coming from the alley behind her and strained to make out what the men were saying. She wished she were better at understanding Basic, but she caught the phrases “pilot checked in” and “off-planet in an hour”. A ship was already coming to take the container. Without conscious decision, A’i found herself slowing and then stopping. Was she really going to leave now? She couldn’t get that fear out of her head. It had felt like the fear of a child, she realised. Fury began to swell in her again, and as it did she felt her connection to the Force intensify. This situation required more than the authorities. It required action. If more people saw what a wretched thing was happening right under their noses, things would change.

            She went back to the alley, sensing it was empty now. There might be cameras, but her mark was covered. There was no visible handle or locking mechanism on the loading bay doors, but they didn’t seem very thick. The machines in the factory next door gave off a steady mechanical grinding. She ignited her lightsaber, and cut a hole in the centre of the door.

            The circular piece of metal clattered to the floor as she stepped through, and she froze, trying to hear if anyone had just been alerted. It was quiet, save for the noise from outside, which now sounded distant as it washed over the outside of the warehouse. It was almost totally dark, but she could tell this entrance led to a large storeroom which was mostly empty. The whole building was several stories, but the adjoining room was a single floor with a high ceiling where she guessed one or more ships were docked. To her left was a metal staircase. She reached out again, trying to find the container. Before she could she noticed life forms on the floor above and heard footsteps. Someone was coming down the stairs. She had just a few seconds before they’d appear on the landing above and be able to see her. There was time to hide, but she was through with that.

            As soon as he spotted her, she could sense he was going for a weapon. Before he could, she raised one hand and used the Force to pull him over the railing. He protected his head as he fell, but was winded when he hit the ground. She was on him before he could stand. Like in the cave –- kill or be killed. She pressed the hilt of her sabre under his chin and quickly ignited it.

Everything seemed to come into sharper focus. Her sensory range was expanded. She felt stronger than before. She climbed the stairs and waited on the top landing out of view. She could sense someone at the opposite side of the room beyond. His mind was peaceful, not concerned about his colleague’s return.

            Seizing the opportunity, she pushed open the door and sprinted toward him, but his reaction was faster than she anticipated. Sensing the danger, she leapt to the side just before the orange flash of a blaster shot rippled through the dim light. In one fluid motion, she sprung off her hands and vaulted from a nearby computer terminal, igniting her lightsaber as she sailed through the air. If he were a moment faster, she could have been killed, but now she had closed the gap. The first slash severed the hand holding his pistol. The next would have killed him, but she stopped herself and, instead, knocked him over with a kick to his sternum.

            He fell to the floor, shuddering and groaning. She held the blade of her sabre near his face, using the light to take in his appearance. Aside from its hum, all was quiet. It might be pushing her luck, but maybe she could interrogate him. It was possible he knew more about the operation.

            “Where are you taking the container you just brought in? Who's buying it?” He didn’t respond. He seemed to be having trouble forming words. She brought her blade closer, getting a whiff of burnt hair as she did.

            “I’m…just…a courier,” he wheezed, and then seemed to find his breath. “It’s going to Kessel. Please don’t hurt me. Here, take my key-card. Whatever the computer can tell you, that’s all I know.” The words came out frantic and pained. She didn’t want to linger, but took a few moments to put his key card in one of the computers and look over the manifests before going back downstairs, using the Force to drag him behind her.

            It was easy now for her to sense the person in the container, even from some distance away. It was locked. She could cut an opening in the top, but didn’t want to risk harming whoever was inside. She turned to the man on the floor behind her.

            “Keys,” she said, kicking him in the ribs. No response. She kicked him again.

            “Belt,” he rasped after a few seconds. She found a key fob on his belt with no markings on it. When she held it near the locking mechanism on the front of the container, there was a click. She opened the top. A figure was huddled in a corner – a young Rutian, maybe twelve years old or so. A’i reached out and touched her arm.

            “I’m here to help you, child.” The girl stirred, surprised to hear Twi’leki words. Her fear remained.

            “Come with me. I’ll take you home.” She was still cowering, but when her gaze lifted enough to see A’i’s face, she scrambled out of the container and into her arms. Her grip was almost constricting, but she didn’t weigh much.

            “What’s your name, little one?”

            “Ann,” the girl whispered over her shoulder.

            “Mine is A’i. Moon and Star. I think our meeting was fated.” The man on the ground, who’d been quiet for the last minute, began laughing –- that rabid hyperventilating way humans did it. It was unsettling.

            “Did you just break in here to get the kid? Do you know how much of the galaxy Czerka owns? You’re dead already.”

            She quieted him with a boot on his face. They needed to get out of here as soon as possible. Was it worth bringing a prisoner? She could carry Ann out and walk back to her ship, but she couldn’t carry both of them herself. She took out her communicator and called her droid.

            “I need you to come pick me up. I’m sending my location now.”

            “I’m afraid there are no places nearby where I’m permitted to land.”

            “It’s small enough to use lanes for speeder traffic right?”

            “Ka, Vashna.”

            “Then you don’t have to touch down, just get as close to street level as you can.” She ended the call, and looked down at the courier again.

            “Get in the container.”

            “Hell no.” She ignited her blade once again and held it under his chin.

            “Alright! Gods!” He held up his hands. She let him up. He crawled in and she used the key again to lock him inside.

            All was quiet. Her thoughts raced. She knew the maimed courier had been trying to get to her, but it was working. Had she overplayed her hand already? She couldn’t think about that right now, but his words also made her think of something else. The manifest data she had gotten off the computer listed quite a few valuable items. One that stuck out in memory was a shipment of gemstones and rare metals: a briefcase-sized chest that was probably worth a lot. She found it. With the chest on top, and the courier inside, the hovering container was heavy, and by the time she made it back to the hole she had come in through, she was almost exhausted. The alley outside was, mercifully, empty. She counted the seconds until she could see lights coming from around the corner, and her ship came into view at the end of the alley, hovering thirty feet or so in the air. She flipped open her communicator again.

            “Open the hold doors. I’m going to push some stuff up there.” She closed her eyes, taking a moment to gather her focus.

            After a couple of deep breaths, the weight she was carrying faded from her awareness. She felt the Force flowing through her, and commanded it, focussing everything she had on lifting the container. She had lifted things almost this heavy before, but never so high. Moving anything got harder the further away it was, and the last few meters were agony. Her body shook with the effort, but she didn’t doubt herself. She couldn’t. She had to focus on the act. The second she slid it into the hold and released, she staggered and had to kneel.

            “Sorry,” she said to Ann, who was still clinging to her chest. “You alright?” Ann said nothing, but her lekku stirred and then wrapped around each other.

            “Meet me back at the hangar,” she said to 2-TZ. “I’ll walk back.” Her muscles ached. Her mind begged for rest, but she needed to sense whether they were being followed. Once they were far from the warehouse and it seemed no one was coming, she let herself relax. The streets were deserted. The sounds from distant machines coalesced to white noise a bit like rain or a waterfall. In a few hours, the next work cycle would begin. These buildings would be full of people, and the space around them full of speeders and ships taking off or landing. But for now, it was peaceful.

            They were still several kilometers away. She had been almost exhausted before, but was enjoying the walk. She was finally making a difference. Finally, those responsible for so much suffering would be given their due. This would just be the beginning. The excitement made her feel like she could walk forever. It took almost three hours to reach the hangar, but the streets around them remained almost empty the entire journey. A’i climbed up to the narrow, lofted bunk in the back of her ship and set Ann down beside her. It was such a relief. She had to fight to keep her eyes open.

            “Where is your home?” Ann met her eyes but did not speak right away. She was expressionless. She seemed afraid of breaking her own silence. Muffled banging came through the wall to their right. A’i’s prisoner was making noise. There was soundproofing on the container, but he was slamming into the side so hard it was banging against the wall of the cargo hold. A’i called back to the cockpit and asked 2-TZ to take them up, then turned back to Ann.

            “You’re safe now. I just need to know where your home is.” Still no response. A’i was getting impatient, but forced herself not to show it. She took Ann in her arms and held her as the ship took off. A few minutes later, they were cruising in the upper atmosphere.

            “Mokta village, Rutia,” Ann finally said. Her voice was flat and quiet. “I don’t know the way.”

            “That should be enough for me to find it.” She craned her neck around in the direction of the cockpit again. “2-TZ! There’s a Rutian village called Mokta. Can you find it?”

            “One moment, Vashna. We’re in luck! It’s quite a small village, but I’ve located it. Southern Rutia near the Tukian border. We’ll be there in a few hours.”

            For a while, the two of them sat on the bunk in silence. The only sounds were the quiet hum of the ship’s engine and the man in the hold, who was still pounding on the wall every so often.

            “Is he hurt?” Ann asked quietly. Some colour was returning to her voice.

            “He’ll live,” A’i assured her.

            “Are you the one that hurt him?”

            “Yes.” She didn’t know what else to say, but she could sense Ann’s apprehension.

            “Why?”

            “He was a kidnapper.” Her posture tensed. A’i considered asking about who took her, but thought better of it.

            “Just try to ignore him,” she said. “You’ll be home soon.” They landed on some grassy planes. Jungle-covered mountains loomed far to the south. As soon as they were outside, Ann’s eyes brightened. The area, or at least the biome, was familiar to her. A’i checked her map and the two of them set off, now hand in hand, Ann gripping tightly. After a few miles, they came to a path which led east to the outskirts of the village. A short while later, a meandering stream came into view. In the middle of a small footbridge were two other Rutians. One of them, perhaps a hunter or trader, carried a large pack. The other was crouching to collect water from the stream.

            A’i waved to them. The one with the pack waved back and said something to the other, who looked up. Even from a distance, A’i could see the surprise in his face as he ran to meet them. Ann seemed to recognize him as well. The two of them hugged.

            “Hail, stranger,” he said to A’i. “How did you come to be travelling with Ann? She went missing from our village a week ago.” His tone was a mixture of awe and suspicion.

            “I found her in a Czerka warehouse before they could take her off-planet. I’ve come to return her home.” He bowed his head, showing his lekku linked behind it.

            “Then we are in your debt. I’ve seen more than one taken from us. More than one child even. None has ever returned.” He put a hand on Ann’s shoulder. “I can take her to her parents. They’ve been sick with grief.” A’i exchanged a look with Ann.

            “If it’s ok with you I’ll let you go now.” Ann nodded.

            “What is your name?” he asked before departing across the bridge. “I must tell others about what you've done.”

            “I gave Ann my name,” she said, “but I ask that you not repeat it. My aim is only to protect our people, and punish those who exploit us. If you wish to speak of my deeds, I am called the Witch of Ryloth.”

Chapter Text

After returning to her ship and taking off, the reality of her actions sank in. Aside from the confrontation in the cave, which seemed like a fever dream in retrospect, she had never killed another sentient before. She hadn’t even hesitated. It was an almost out-of-body experience. But that decisive ferocity had kept her alive, allowed her to rescue an innocent girl, and she couldn’t deny it had also been cathartic. There was more noise from the cargo hold.

            “Give it a rest,” she yelled. “We’re in the upper atmosphere, no one can hear you.” The banging continued. It was making it difficult to concentrate. Saving even one person was something to celebrate, but it wouldn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things if she couldn’t create some kind of systemic change. She needed Rylothians to hate Czerka and their ilk. Then the government would start doing its job.

            “I do wish he would be quiet,” said her droid. “He might draw attention to us if we return to Lessu.”

            “Keep us in orbit for the time being. I need to think.” The recording from her eye-piece camera contained all the proof they would need, but she needed some way of extracting excerpts or still images from it so that her extralegal methods weren’t so obvious. With help from 2-TZ, she was able to upload the recordings to her ship’s computer and begin watching the footage back. They were the same images she had seen just a few hours ago, but somehow it was different now. It was hard to believe she was the one behind the camera, not just because of how far she had come in her training, but also because of how cold and confident she was. Doubt began to creep into her mind. Had she needed to kill the guard? At the same time, a part of her was angry for thinking this way. If she hadn’t acted, Ann would probably never have seen her family again. Besides, he was helping to traffic a child. He deserved what he got. Indiscriminate compassion would only make her weak.

            “Is there a way to slow it down?” she asked as the video approached the part where she rescued Ann. 2-TZ showed her how to adjust the playback speed and go frame by frame. She paused on a frame of the container which showed Czerka’s logo, another with Ann huddled inside, and a third with the manifest data on the computer. With a little more help, she was able to prepare a file with each of these excerpts and transmit them to a Rutian government office which handled anonymous tips about slaving.

            She was about to make a call to Machi’s private communicator when she hesitated. Her actions had been justified –- she didn’t doubt that, but perhaps Machi wouldn’t see it that way. By now A’i considered her a friend, but being too honest might get in the way of both their goals. One of them needed to play by the rules, and A’i didn’t want to make her choose between the protocols of her office and accomplishing what they needed to accomplish. After a few minutes of thought, she made the call. A hologram of Machi’s head and shoulders appeared. Most of her wasn’t visible, but it looked like she was dressed more casually than when they had first met in her office.

            “Are you alone, Vashna?”

            “Ka. Just catching up on some reading. Why?”

            “You were right. I saw a cargo container being delivered to one of Czerka’s hangers and could sense there was a child inside. They were about to be moved off-planet. Forgive me, but I just couldn’t bear to stand by. I went to save them, and as soon as I was inside, one of the guards attacked me.” Machi’s lekku tensed.

            “You made it out alright?”

            “Ka, and I was able to save the child. She’s back in her village in Rutia now.” Machi put a hand to her face.

            “Kija’lekki. A daughter of my own clan.” A’i continued.

            “My camera was damaged during the fighting, so the data are partially corrupted, but I managed to get some excerpts and send them to your community defence network. I only wish things could have been resolved more peaceably.” They were both silent for a few moments.

            “I can’t blame you for acting as you did,” Machi said finally. “In your position, I would have done the same. May I see the evidence you recovered?”

            “Of course. I’ll transmit it now.” A’i waited as she appeared to be looking over the images. If she hadn’t looked horrified before, she did now.

            “These are damning indeed. With any luck, interplanetary police will be allowed to search all of Czerka’s facilities. I really can’t thank you enough. Are you in the capital now? We should see each other again.”

            “I’d like that,” said A’i. “But I should return to my Master. I still have much to learn.” Machi nodded.

            “I’m so glad there are Jedi on Ryloth once again, and I’ll keep your identity a secret of course. Until we meet again.”

A’i called Batu next, greeting him with a small bow.

            “Hello my young apprentice,” he said. “How have you progressed in your mission?” She knew she didn’t have to hold back. It was a relief.

            “I’ve just found evidence that will expose the Czerka corporation as complicit in the slave trade. I killed one of them to get to it, and saved a child in the process.” A whisper of amusement seemed to cross his face at her mention of Czerka, and then he gave her an approving smile.

            “Then you have done well. The more prestige you gain in combat, the stronger with the Force you will become.”

            “There is more: I captured a man at that facility whom I’d like to interrogate.” As if on cue, there was more banging from the cargo hold. “I want to learn the mind-trick. I’ve tried it before but without much success.”

            “I applaud your thirst for knowledge,” he said. “The mind trick, however, is a bastardization of a truer power. It affects only the weak-minded, and only for a brief time. I will teach you to do much more. Come to these coordinates –- not far from where you began your training. I’ve located and begun rebuilding the school I spoke of earlier. You can keep your prisoner there.”

            “Thank you, Master.”

Chapter Text

A’i went to the back of her ship to rest during the flight. It wouldn’t take long, but she needed sleep. She’d been up nearly a full orbit of the near-moon, and using the Force was draining. She felt she had only just fallen asleep when she was woken up by 2-TZ telling her they had arrived. He couldn’t help it of course, but she was starting to find his voice annoying. The perfect evenness was pompous and grating after a while.

            She stopped on her way out to look out the cockpit window. More lava fields. The terrain here was more uneven though. The exact location was still a few kilometers north, at the foot of some mountains.

            “Why aren’t we closer?”

            “My security protocols won’t allow it, Vashna. I will find a hangar once you disembark and await your instructions.”

            “Stay here a little while, I’ll need to retrieve him in a minute.” She motioned towards the cargo hold. “I’ll be in touch.”

            Cloaked, with her communicator in hand, she set off. It was the light season, and even up here, she could feel some warmth from the sun. She breathed deeply. Something in her relaxed for the first time since landing in the city. She could sense the flow of a magma vein a little to the east. As she approached the mountains, she kept expecting signs of the school to come into view, a building or evidence of an underground dwelling, but there was nothing. A short time later, she was standing a couple of meters from a wall of gray rock, apparently at the exact coordinates. Still bleary, she was about to get annoyed when a metal arm with an ocular probe at the end extended from the rock just above her head. It cocked back and forth, considering her from one angle and then another with avian curiosity, then retracted. A section of rock slid down, revealing a set of reinforced metal doors that likewise opened. She entered.

            It was cool inside, probably climate-controlled. The hallway she was in extended about fifty meters straight into the mountain. The walls were silver-grey steel, and white electric lights shone from the ceiling. She could hear a mechanical whine coming from somewhere, the sound of plasma cutters challenging rock. Batu was waiting for her in a circular foyer at the end of the hall.

            “Welcome. Let me give you a tour,” he said, leading her down some stairs to the east of the foyer. We are only just beginning construction, but I think our facilities will be sufficient for your purposes. Soon they will extend all throughout this mountain.” A project like this would require labourers, equipment, and more credits than she could conceive of. Exactly how powerful and connected was he?

            “What will all this be used for?”

            “My coalition is one of several throughout the galaxy that trains those with Force-sensitivity. This school will specialise in methods of espionage and subterfuge, suitable for your new ambitions.” They reached the bottom of the stairs and came to another door. A curtain of green light passed over his face, and the doors opened to reveal a series of desks and holo-terminals. Stacks of black memory banks with blue lights lined the walls.

            “These are our archives. I’ll give you access to some research materials on Force powers and the mind.” More reading. She wasn’t looking forward to it, but thanked him all the same. He led her back up the stairs and down another hallway toward the sounds of machinery. There were a few small alcoves built into the wall on either side which provided spartan living quarters: a stone bed, standing desk, and light. As they passed one of these alcoves, she noticed some parts on the desk inside which might have been lightsaber components. They stopped in front of another.

            “You may sleep here, if you wish,” he said. “The diggers up ahead will finish their shift in a few hours.” It was nice to have her own space, though she had no possessions to leave here, only her lightsaber which she kept on her person.

            To the west of the foyer were more stairs. The room at the bottom was mostly unfinished, with the metal giving way to rock after five or six meters. Another locked door separated them from a smaller room, maybe twelve feet on a side and bare except for a hole in one corner of the floor. This was the beginning of what was meant to be a series of detention cells, a disturbing facility for a school to have, but she supposed it made sense if he intended to train people in interrogation techniques.

            “You can bring your prisoner here after I show you our arena.” The final offshoot hallway led to a huge, circular room with a domed ceiling at least twenty metres high at the highest point. There were markings on the floor she recognized as guides for the footwork of various lightsaber forms, as well as other symbols which were unfamiliar.

            “There are some remotes here which you can use to practise defending blaster-fire.” With her tour finished, she returned to her ship to retrieve the courier. Batu sent a droid along as well, which hovered behind her. It was a relief to have an extra set of hands. She wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to drag him all the way back here herself, but also didn’t want to admit that. He stirred as she pulled the container from the cargo bay, but he wasn’t moving as much as before. She hoped he didn’t die, or all this would be for nothing. She took the case of gems in one hand, and with the help of the droid, began pushing the container back towards the mountain. Even with help it was hard work. The hover engine below the container wasn’t suited to the terrain, so the container was constantly in danger of tipping over. Her breathing was heavy by the time they got back. Batu said nothing as they approached the cell, but regarded the courier and his injuries with some interest when she opened the container.

            “Do you think he’ll survive?” she asked.

            “I can have a medical droid assess his vitals and ensure his wounds don’t fester,” he said, “but I expect he will live.” Once he was locked in the cell, she showed Batu the case.

            “I took this as well.” He seemed pleased, letting out a breathy, clicking sound.

            “I have a connection who is happy to pay credits for stolen items. Whatever he pays will go to your account – to do with as you please.”

            “Arni.”

            “Retire for now. I have other matters to attend to, but continue training. I will be back to check on your progress.”

Chapter Text

Three cycles after A’i broke into the warehouse, a small ship landed on a platform that extended from the fifty-second story of Lessu’s Goddess Hotel and Casino. Inside the ship were two men. There was a pause before either moved to exit the craft.

            “Well? Go in,” said the pilot.

            “Can’t we go together?”

            “You already asked me to do the flying. Just run in and get it done.”

            “That’s because I wanted to go in together.”

            “Why? All you have to do is hand someone a bounty disk.” He didn’t answer right away.

            “I’ve been to this hotel before to see a hunter. There’s something off about them.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Will you just go in with me? We could have been in and out by now.”

            “Fine!” They both got out and crossed an outdoor gangway bordered by ferns and decorative fountains. A receptionist inside directed them to a suite one floor above. The pilot buzzed the door.

            Nothing happened for a few seconds. The pilot thought he could hear muffled laughter coming from inside, but couldn’t be sure. There was a quiet, mechanical whoosh as the door opened, revealing a shirtless man with sullen eyes. He might have been impressively fit, but there was nothing about him that deserved so much uneasiness. Maybe the dead-behind-the-eyes look, but that was it.

            “We’ve got a job for you,” said the pilot, wanting to get this over with. “My companion has the disk.” Instead of replying, the man turned and sauntered away, gesturing for them to follow him inside. They waited in the entryway as he disappeared into another room. This suite must have cost hundreds of credits just for a single work cycle. Another shirtless man came out of the same room and approached them. This one was carrying a young woman, at least, the pilot was pretty sure she was a woman. Her head was shaved, but she wore elaborate makeup, and her slight frame could perch on one shoulder of the man carrying her. This was a bit strange. It felt like they’d walked in on some kind of private party.

            “What’s the job?” asked the woman. The pilot’s companion handed her the disk and she opened the hologram of the target’s face with the reward – twenty-thousand credits, below. That was when it hit him. It wasn’t just her strange face, or yellow eyes that didn’t quite seem human, or the two men who acted hypnotised. That was all creepy enough. But there was a certain implication that took a moment to register, and then struck a special kind of fear in a deep part of your brain, a part mostly unchanged since it resided in some primitive common ancestor. Like being surprised by a brightly-coloured, many-legged thing. If it’s small and not camouflaged and nothing’s eaten it, you do the maths. Her demon eyes narrowed as she consulted the bounty information.

            “There’s no name or other identifiers. A green-skinned Twi’lek. I can’t even see the bottom of their face.”

            “Our boss is under the impression that you are particularly skilled at finding targets with little information.”

            “That’s because I am. Nevertheless this isn’t a lot to go on. It would help if you had an object connected to them.” The pilot’s companion spoke up.

            “He had one additional message. He said she uses a weapon like yours. He said you would know what that meant.” For the first time, she seemed interested.

            “I’ll call you when it’s done.” The two men hurried to leave.

Chapter Text

In the weeks that followed, A’i trained harder than ever. Alongside meditation, she returned to physical conditioning, going for long runs across the lava fields and practising her acrobatics. She was already used to pushing her physical limits after years of hiking and hunting, but her tolerance for pain and exertion was now becoming supernatural, and after hours of channeling her passion through meditation, her focus was so intense she barely felt her muscles protest.

            The remotes her master alluded to, small floating automatons with low-powered laser cannons, also became a part of her regimen. If she could master defending herself from blasters, it would take a whole squad of soldiers to match her, but there would be no room for error. At first, she struggled with just one remote. The bolts weren’t powerful enough to cause injury, but they stung like hell. Now and then, she would notice Stennor lurking around. He seemed to enjoy watching her train with the remotes from the edge of the arena. Perhaps he took pleasure in watching her struggle. As with swordplay though, her work was paying off. Her reflexes, already honed from duelling, were now razor sharp to the point of being precognitive. These special senses had saved her when she fought the courier, and it didn’t take long before she learned to trust them.

            Though she wasn’t excited about reading through the archive files Batu had selected for her, she worked at it all the same. They were at least more interesting than reading about politics in the capital. They covered a range of topics, including the neurophysiology of several species, history, and writings of past Force-users. If the latter were to be believed, one with the proper skill could do incredible things. As her Master had said, the mind trick only scratched the surface. It was also possible to provoke certain feelings, to read thoughts or extract memories, or even to dominate someone’s will entirely and make them a thrall to your whims. At its most extreme, it was possible to use the Force to induce an eternal sleep, or even a perpetual nightmare. As usual, the texts were dense, and the awkward translations made things even more difficult. When she felt like stopping, she would watch her prisoner through a security camera to remind herself of her goal. Someone had bandaged his severed hand, and taken care of feeding him. The hole in the floor, it turned out, was for waste. He looked bored, unhappy even, but not hopeless, and that was motivation to keep studying.

            After her first month at the base, she decided to apply what she had been learning. She planned each detail of what she would say and how she would use her powers. She took careful note through her research materials of how fear manifested in the human brain. Of the psychological forces, she seemed to have a special affinity for fear. It would be her tool of choice, and the image she created of herself would be just as crucial as her use of the Force. A long time ago, she had helped to act out myths or spiritual parables for the rest of her village, and now she needed to play a character again. She needed to be someone ruthless, cruel even. Standing outside the cell door, she rehearsed her plan once more, and then opened it.

            As soon as the door was open and he could see her, everything she did had to be part of a performance. The courier was reclined in a corner of the room, but she didn’t move her head to look at him as she strode in. Instead, she used the Force to lift him with a flick of her wrist and move him into the centre of her gaze. Keeping him pressed against the far wall, she continued forward until her face was just a few inches away from his.

            “Enjoying your time here?” she asked. He grinned at her.

            “Can’t say it’s the worst place I’ve ever lived.”

            “Are you ready to tell me what I want to know? Or shall I leave you to rot for even longer?” He was silent.

            “Who do you work for?” she began. He snorted, but said nothing. She ignited her sabre and held the blade next to his face. He winced a little.

            “Remember this? You know I can kill you right now. Or maybe I’ll just cut your other hand off. It might be fun to watch you take your meals like a dog.”

            “I know you’ll definitely kill me if I don’t have anything that you want,” he said.

            “And even if you don’t, I won’t be able to go near a civilised system after squealing on my bosses. The only power I have now is pissing you off, tailhead.” She didn’t react to his slur. Instead, she put away her sabre and reached out her hand, fingers spread, and held it above his forehead. She could feel his body heat on the tips of her fingers as she began to target his amygdala, forcing the cells to fire. His pulse quickened.

            “There are worse things than death in this world,” she said. “Have you ever had a nightmare you could not wake from?” He was sweating. She could sense the frantic signals darting through his brain. “I can make that the rest of your life.” He took a deep, rattling breath and then spit at her. It wasn’t enough. She focussed even harder. He began to shudder. The veins in his head stood out, threatening to burst.

            “Tell me who you work for!” she commanded. “I saw you arrive on a speeder. Where did you come from?” He didn’t respond, and she realized they were approaching an impasse. She could cause fear, but the base physiological response wasn’t enough to control his will – not so far anyway. If she pushed things any further, it might kill him. Being careful not to betray her frustration, she threw him aside and left the cell.

Chapter Text

She didn’t know how to proceed after this failure. If she tortured him for long enough, he might decide death was preferable, but judging by his response so far that could take months. Even then, she didn’t think she could stomach what it might require. She had acted cruelly as a rhetorical tool, but she wasn’t a sadist. Even if she thought he deserved to be punished, it wasn’t easy watching him suffer. Batu returned to the base a couple of weeks later, and she was still making progress, at least with the remotes. She could now handle two at once, learning to tumble away when they tried to flank her.

            He agreed to accompany her to the cell and waited outside the door. She had continued with her research and prepared a different approach this time. The courier was huddled in his usual corner, and she knelt in front of him and put her hand out again. Instead of stimulating more activity, this time she tried to suppress it, lulling to sleep the parts of his brain responsible for higher-level thinking. His eyelids began to sag. His head listed to one side almost drunkenly. She tried to force a feeling of familiarity like she had done to Machi’s secretary.

            “What do you do for work?” she asked, keeping her tone casual.

            “I accompany packages,” he said absent-mindedly.

            “The last container you were with, where did it come from?” He laughed a little.

            “Nice try. Dunno what you’re doing to me, but it’s much nicer than last time. It’s been boring here. Say, can I touch one of those things?” He gestured at her lekku. “What are they for anyway?” She couldn’t keep her composure. Abandoning her second attempt, she stood and kicked him in the ribs before turning to leave the room.

            “What am I doing wrong?” she asked as soon as the door was closed behind her. Her frustration was audible, and Batu clearly found this amusing, letting out another series of gleeful clicks that she now guessed was his species’ way of laughing.

            “A plying approach. Almost demure. Bargaining, seduction, and even intimidation engage the will. Instead you must crush it. But I suppose I should have expected as much from a she-Twi’lek.” Something in her turned. Bastard. Was this his idea of teaching? The fury she had felt when she first used lightning resurfaced. Without speaking she entered the cell again. She would get what she wanted, or kill her prisoner in the process, but she would not be made fun of again.

            “Back again so soon?” he said. Tired of his taunts, she lifted him again and threw him against the wall. It wasn’t just that she was angry, or even that she thought he deserved to die. She hated him. He had become an object, an effigy for everything she despised. His thoughts, his pain meant nothing to her. They were nothing. And this conviction was a diamond drill that she forced into his mind. Reaching forward, she gripped his head, digging her fingers into his temples.

            “Tell me who you work for.” His eyes unfocussed. He began speaking in a stilted monotone.

            “A gangboss in Daria.”

            “I want a name damnit!”

            “I forget his real name. Everyone in the gang just calls him Aola’Tak.” Flower vice.

            “He is Twi’lek?”

            “Yes, he owns pleasure houses and other businesses in Vohara. His hideout is outside the city.”

            “Where exactly?” He gave her the coordinates.

            “Is that where your cargo comes from?” she asked.

            “No, the meet point is further north, near Kysgari castle on the Darian border. That’s where we take off for Lessu.” What else?

            “How has this gone unnoticed?”

            “Don’t know. The Darian government could be in on it, or at least paid to look the other way.”

            She released her grip on his mind, but kept him pressed against the wall. He blinked, his expression dazed. And then she shot a blast of lightning into his chest. Unlike before, it wasn’t a single flash, but a continuous arc. He cried out. She could sense his internal organs cooking. By the time she let it stop, his charred corpse was unrecognisable.

            “Well done,” said Batu as she emerged from the cell. “See what you are capable of when you give into it?” She left without another word.

Chapter Text

A’i called ahead to 2-TZ as she left the base, and soon they were taking off again. A part of her wanted to head to the Darian capital and visit Aola’Tak’s hideout right away, but she decided it would be better to rest and discuss her new findings with Machi. She sent word that she’d be returning, then slept like a rock on her way to Lessu. When she woke up, they had already touched down at another hangar in the commercial district. There was a recorded message from Machi. She sounded excited.

            “It’s so good to hear from you! We have a recess coming up. I’ll be at the Wild Vine after work next moon. There’s a lot I’d like to fill you in on. For now I’ll just say Czerka isn’t happy.” Then her voice became hushed, and she leaned toward the camera. “But if you’re coming back to Lessu, be careful. I’ve heard stories about them hiring bounty-hunters before.” The message ended there. If a bounty hunter was looking for her, it was probably best to stay in her ship. A bore. She decided to meditate, but after five or six hours it became difficult not to be distracted.

            Not knowing what to do with herself, she checked her operations account –- she hadn’t looked since leaving the capital. The more she knew about Batu’s various connections, the less she wanted to know. That being said, the contents of the case had fetched just over four thousand credits. And she could use it however she wanted. She’d start by sending some of it home. Her sister would send money this way a couple of times a year from wherever she was, but now that her family had relocated, she wasn’t sure which receiving office would be nearest them. She tried calling. A hologram of her mother’s head and shoulders appeared after a few seconds.

            “Kassura’rymma.”

            “Kassura, how are you, love? I’m just working on dinner now.”

            “I’m fine. I have money to send to you. However Jemma does it –- I don’t know how it works.”

            “You don’t need to worry about us.”

            “No, really, there’s more than enough. I’ve been away for so long.” She paused for a moment. “You have to keep this a secret, but I’m helping to bring down a corporation that’s been trafficking slaves. I just returned a captured girl to her family.” Her mother’s face lit up.

            “I’m so proud of you, my dear. You must at least let me tell your brother. You know how much knowing that would mean to him.”

            “Alright, just let me send you both some money.”

            “Alright then, there’s a code for the account. I can have your uncle go into town and make the withdrawal. We really should share some with him since he’s taken us in.”

            “Of course.” As long as he doesn’t put all of it up his nose. Now that she thought about it, she wished she could be there when he saw the amount. His soft-rock brother-in-law's daughter had just made more money than he had in the last several years.

            “How's Kanē?” she asked.

            “He spends all his time in the forest or working on that speeder. I expect he’ll learn as much about engineering as he would anywhere else, so long as he doesn’t get eaten by anything. There’s too much of his father in him to stop studying any time soon.” It seemed she knew what A’i was worried about.

            “That’s good to hear.” Both were silent for a short time.

            “Since you mentioned Jemma, I was meaning to tell you. A few months ago I sent Kanē and your uncle to pick up what she usually sends us, but he said nothing had arrived. She’s been late before, but never this late.” A’i sighed. One of her lekku waved in exasperation. Supporting the family had been her rationale for leaving them, for breaking them up even more. What was Jemma doing? At least it wouldn’t matter now, thanks to her own windfall.

            “Do you know where she is?”

            “Not for sure. Her messages usually include where they come from though. The last few have been from Taris.”

            “I think I can find her. I have contacts in the government now.”

            “Only if it’s no trouble – she may have just forgotten. You know how she is.” There was still that glint of humour in her mother’s lekku.

            “It’s nothing. I’ll find her. She should come home anyway.” There was another moment of silence.

            “You know, you’ve been away a long time yourself. Do you think you’ll come back to us soon?”

            “I’d like to, but now that I know I might be able to make a difference for our planet, I have to try.”

            “You will make a difference wherever you choose to be. But I understand.” Her mother looked away. “Oh, that’s the pot now. I should go, but please come see us soon.”

            “I’ll try.”

A’i spent the next few hours meditating and using the Force to lift her old stone. Her body was used to more activity, and it was hard to sleep, but she finally did. When she woke up, she checked the time on her communicator rather than go outside to look for the near-moon. The next work cycle was starting. She wasn’t meeting Machi until after the end of it, but she couldn’t stand staying on the ship any longer. Even the crowds in the city would be preferable. She moved to the cockpit.

            “I’m going to find a market,” she told 2-TZ. “I want a new rifle.”

            “I must warn you these areas of the city can be treacherous. Swindlers and worse are common. Perhaps I might be of help, at least as an interpreter for any merchants who don’t speak Twi’leki.”

            “Do you think I can’t handle myself?”

            “No, in fact I’d prefer to accompany you for my own well-being.”

            “Czerka could come after me. It’s safer for you to stay here.”

            “Not if they find your ship somehow while you’re away?”

            “You really think they’d hurt a protocol droid?”

            “It’s not so much that as it is that I’m programmed to self-destruct if captured.”

            “Interesting…very well then, you can come.” She paid a speeder to take them, wearing her cloak and keeping her face mostly hidden. She didn’t remember exactly where she and Machi had gone, but it was easy enough to find the market again once she was near the Wild Vine. The sun in Lessu was still soft, and with the heavy clouds, everything looked just a little bit pink.

            On the outskirts were street-food vendors ready to serve people still drunk from the previous cycle. Further in they passed some garages selling machine parts, then a jeweller, then a man selling exotic animals. 2-TZ had been right about this place. The deeper they went, the more people she saw sitting or sleeping against the sides of buildings, and the more people on the street tried to get her attention, not that she was about to let them. As they were approaching another shop, she heard a voice from inside.

            “We have reports you’re selling spice. We need to see your license.” It sounded like soldiers or interplanetary police. They changed direction.

            After a while, A’i noticed the shop where she had bought her mirror up ahead. She gave it a wide birth, but used it as a landmark to find the potential weapons dealer she had noticed last time. The shop didn’t look open, but she tried the door anyway. A probe, similar to the one back at the hidden base, extended, only a voice came from this one. It said something in Huttese, 2-TZ responded, and, to her surprise, the door opened. The human merchant inside greeted them with a chuckle. She asked 2-TZ to translate what the man found so funny and, for the first time, the droid seemed to hesitate as if torn between two directives.

            “He remarks that he’s never seen someone with less street-smarts than a droid.” The merchant added his own emphasis, pointing at her droid, then at her.

            “This one knows our house words, and you don’t even speak our language,” he said in Basic. The insult, she knew, was a tactic. If he didn’t want to deal with her he wouldn’t have let them in.

            “Show me what you have,” she said.

            “If you’ll allow me, Vashna,” said 2-TZ, “the gentleman requests that any business be conducted in Huttese.”

            “Fine.” He repeated her request. The merchant revealed a series of glass cases with different types of blasters, swords, and even a dagger that looked similar to the one she’d used in the dark place. Looking closely at this one, she noticed the same symbol as in the centre of the arena.

            “Do you have rifles, something good from far away?” she asked in her own tongue. After hearing her words translated, he led them to a back room. Most of it was filled with spare parts and partially dissembled droids, but he cleared a space on the counter and retrieved a case from a safe against the back wall. He set it on the counter and opened it. Inside was a long rifle with a large scope. It was beautiful, almost as elegant as a lightsaber.

            The merchant began speaking again. She could tell from his cadence that she was getting a sales pitch. 2-TZ translated for her. This was supposedly the latest laser rifle meant for snipers. The scope could make something thousands of meters away look close, compensated automatically for recoil, target trajectory, and coriolis forces; and had thermal imaging. It was also capable of firing heavy calibre plasma rounds which could penetrate even thick armour. These were illegal for civilians to have, but the merchant had some she could buy.

            “You should be careful,” she said, “I just overheard a spice dealer about to get arrested.” After hearing the translation, the merchant laughed.

            “I pay them,” he said in Basic, then said something else in Huttese.

            “What did he say?” Another slightly longer pause than normal.

            “You might prefer not to know, Vashna. It’s not germane to these negotiations.”

            “Tell me anyway.”

            “He says ‘Everyone has their price. I bet there’s a number that would make you my boss’s new favourite thing to squeeze.’” She thought about killing him just for saying that. She had brought her sabre, but she couldn’t afford to attract any attention. Instead, she picked up the rifle and sited it. It was surprisingly light. She saw an opportunity to use the one phrase she knew in Huttese.

            “How much?” A thousand credits, and more for ammunition. A lot, but this could come out of her operations budget. He packaged it discretely for her, and she left. Outside, the fresh air settled her nerves.

            “What did he mean by house words?” she asked her droid.

            “Hutts have special phrases they only tell to allies, usually a call and response.”

            “And you know these?”

            “Some. They’re a part of my black market protocols.”

By the time they got a speeder back to the hangar, the work cycle was close to being over. It would have been nice to go to the baths again, but she knew she shouldn’t risk it. Instead, she started deciding what to wear, settling on a purple slip dress with an asymmetrical cut at the bottom. It didn’t have to be held up like some of her more formal things, and the colours against her skin reminded her of sunset season in the forest. As she admired her reflection, she considered the inscription on her mirror again. I reflect the light and shadow both. She didn’t know what that could mean, but the stone surface did seem to be illuminated even when there was no light around. That must have been useful so close to the nightlands, but then what did the second part mean? She let the question go for now and called a ride. ​

            “I’m going alone this time, 2-TZ. You can change hangars if you think it’s safer.” ​

            “Ka, Vashna. I’ll fly back to Tolia until you need me again.” As the speeder was crossing the city, A’i saw activity in the entertainment district was ramping up. On the larger streets, Twi’lek performers did traditional dances or juggled torches while others, mostly of other species, gathered to watch. They passed a couple of clubs with flashing projectors that illuminated their outside walls. The Wild Vine’s street was dark by comparison.

            There was live music this time, provided by a Twi’lek duo in a corner of the bar. One played a traditional wind instrument A’i recognized from clan gatherings, but the other used some kind of synthesizer. There was a bigger crowd this time as well. She was looking around for an empty table when she saw Machi waving at her. There were two other women at her table, but she seemed to shoo them away as A’i approached. She must have come here straight from work. They hugged.

            “I’m so glad to see you. It’s been too long.”

            “It has.” A’i took off her cloak before sitting down.

            “Kija’Lekki, you look gorgeous.” Around A’i’s home, using the name of the Goddess that way would have been considered vulgar, but she didn’t care.

            “Arni.”

            “I’ve got something to show you, but first, you need to try one of these.”

            “One of what?” The bartender, who Machi called Grez, set down two glasses in front of each of them. One was tall and slender with some sort of green liquid. The other was a shot glass with something that looked like water, but which she was sure wasn’t.

            “You pour the small one into the big one,” said Machi. A’i did as she was told, and blue flames appeared at the top of the glass, giving off lavender smoke that smelled like fruit and pine. A few seconds later, the flame burned out, and the liquid in the glass turned sapphire blue.

            “Now go for it!” A’i quaffed her drink. It had a fruity, herbal flavour that left her tongue tingling. The effect was almost immediate. Machi took out her communicator and tapped a few quick inputs. A hologram collage of headlines and videos appeared above it. The display was small, but A’i could make out a few words here and there. “Czerka Corporation Implicated in Slave Trade”, “Executives Deny Knowledge”, “Scandal in the Slice: Czerka stock takes a hit”. The video clips showed various people discussing charges and investigations. When the images faded out, A’i’s gaze rose to meet Machi’s. She was beaming. Her lekku made a silly, satisfied gesture like ‘there you have it’.

            “This is all because of you,” she explained. “The evidence you provided has brought on a full-scale investigation. Even if its validity is subject to review, they’re likely to find more by raiding Czerka’s other buildings in the region. On top of all of that, the word is getting out all over the planet. There was even an interview with the parents of the girl you saved – it kept them anonymous. I’ve already heard from most of the Tolian and Tukian representatives that they intend to support my legislation next session, and more details of the case should be made public in the next few cycles. By the time we reconvene, I expect it will be political suicide for anyone not to vote for it.” A’i smiled.

            “I’m just glad I could help. I’ve wanted things to change for so long. Now I believe they finally can. And I couldn’t have done it without you. I…don’t really know anything about politics. I needed your connections.” Machi mixed her own drink, waited for the flame to die down, then took the whole thing in a few seconds. Her expression became suddenly coy.

            “You know,” she said, “I knew you weren’t a noble from the moment we met.” A’i looked down, embarrassed.

            “How’s that?”

            “It’s your accent. You pick up this kind of thing when you speak with nobility all over the planet. You’ve got a great sense of style though.” She remembered noticing how people in the city seemed to speak a bit differently, but she hadn’t been so aware of herself. She didn’t know how to speak any other way. Machi must have seen her expression turn downcast, and was quick to try and repair the damage.

            “Please don’t be self-conscious about it. I like it. I like you. Politicians treat everything like a game. It’s nice to be close to someone with real passion.” Her prose was still lovely, but now it was betraying some familiarity. It was hard to know what to say. A’i’s thoughts felt haphazard and blurred. Maybe it was the drink. A decisive current cut though, and she lifted her gaze again and smiled.

            “Well, we have something to celebrate don’t we? Let’s get another round. You can pay since you’re so sophisticated.” Machi laughed and obliged.

            “What were you doing while you were away?” she asked as they enjoyed their second round. A’i thought about the compound, about the man she’d interrogated and then killed with lightning.

            “I was continuing my training, and looking for new information.”

            “What is it like to train as a Jedi?” She had a look almost like Kanē did whenever the subject came up.

            “It’s boring most of the time. I did the same thing nearly every moon while I was gone.”

            “Where were you exactly? Have you been to see the council on Dantooine?”

            “No, my master found me here on Ryloth.”

            “What’s his name? I know some people in the government who’ve been in contact with the council. Maybe you could introduce me?” She wondered what Machi would think after meeting a Jedi Master in the flesh. Batu didn’t exactly act like the stories portrayed them.

            “I’ll ask.”

            “You said you were looking for new information too?”

            “Yes.” A’i looked around. It was still crowded. “I’ll tell you later. It’s something big though.” Machi scanned the room herself, her eyes seeming to recognize each patron.

            “What you’re doing is heroic, but you must be careful. Czerka is incredibly powerful.”

            “Right, I remember you saying. I’ve been staying on my ship since I got here.” Machi seemed to want to say something, but didn’t right away. For a while, they sipped their drinks and enjoyed the band.

            “Perhaps you’d like to stay with me while you’re here? There’s plenty of space, and I get a private security detail.” It did sound more comfortable.

            “Does it have a bath?”

            “More than one.”

A speeder was waiting for them when they left. The ride was long, and they put the windows down to feel the breeze. They flew over a river near the edge of the city, and a few minutes later came to Machi’s chateau at the top of a hill. It was huge, more than ten times the size of A’i’s family home. Behind it was a small orchard full of ardoketti. She could smell their white and purple blossoms.

            A guard outside the front entrance waved to them as they entered. The inside felt climate-controlled. The electric lights that came on as they walked left arcs of shadow on the high ceilings.

            “Do you live here alone?”

            “Pretty much. Really it belongs to my whole family but I’m the only one who spends much time in the capital.” In the next room was a statue of a Twi’lek noble. A servant was waiting for them.

            “Welcome back, Vashna.”

            “Kassura, Svarc. Have some wine brought to us.” She talked to him a bit like A’i talked to her droid.

            Machi’s favourite room had a balcony which overlooked the orchard. The two of them sat together at a table outside, looking down at the trees below in the pink evening sun. Someone brought them wine, the same kind as before. As A’i took a sip, the wind changed, and she was again aware of the sweet, hazy smell. A thought crossed her mind.

            “Is this wine made from those flowers?”

            “Not these specifically but this sort yes.”

            “I thought I recognized the smell the first time I had it. We have these flowers in Tukia. I used to make wreaths from them for weddings and things like that.”

            “In Rutia, we make wine with them. It’s a personal favourite of mine. Strong, but sweet.” There was a way she held her lekku as she said this last part that made it seem like she was talking about something else. A’i remembered feeling left behind when those sorts of games had begun between her friends. Not that she didn’t get noticed, but even when she did she was usually too hard-headed to make it last. They sipped their wine in silence for a few moments, and then Machi spoke again.

            “I’ve heard Jedi must abstain from life’s passions, including love.” That didn’t sound like anything A’i had learned.

            “My power comes from passion,” she said. “I think about the ones I love, what I fight for, the injustice all around me, and the Force hears me and does my will.”

            Machi seemed to approve of the sentiment even if she looked puzzled by this. A’i was more confident now, but had to be sure. She closed her eyes. Below, a single flower plucked itself and began floating towards them. It stopped and hung in the air a few inches from Machi’s nose. She took it. A’i opened her eyes and watched her twirl it between her fingers and take in the scent. Her sky-blue skin glowed in the rosy light.

            “You look beautiful, Vashna.” She giggled. A’i knew the formality made her uncomfortable, which only made it funnier. The breeze picked up. Machi slipped one of her lekku over A’i’s shoulder.

            “Are you cold, noble Jedi?” She was, now that she mentioned it.

            “A little.”

            “Would you come to bed with me?”

            “For you, Vashna, I would do anything.”

            “Then I will ask a bit more of you.” They went inside together, and A’i continued to follow her orders.

Chapter Text

A’i woke up some hours later. This bed was so soft and warm. What was she doing here? Then she remembered, like a beautiful dream, but knowing it was real made her heart pound and her head feel light. She could feel Machi’s slow sleeping breaths on the back of her neck. If it were anyone else, it would have annoyed her, but she closed her eyes and didn’t move an inch. They spent a while longer like that, tangled together in and out of sleep.

            But A’i was stiff. After training for months and then doing nothing the last few moons, her muscles were seizing up. She untangled herself and went looking for the bath. Everything outside the bed felt cold. The halls were lined with jungle plants which the high sun had turned green. Once it started to descend, the wide-leaved vines and ferns would become red again. She could see herself partially reflected by the windows, translucent.

            After getting lost more than once, she found it: a bathroom nearly the size of her entire home. The floor was black marble with flecks of pink crystal, and she was surprised to find that it was heated somehow. Her bare feet had gotten cold, and the feeling of the warm stone was glorious. The bronze tub was big enough for two or three people. A’i drew a hot bath and helped herself to some of the oils and perfume from the nearby shelves.

            Her muscles started to relax as she soaked herself, floating with her face just out of the water. She watched her faint reflection in the skylight above. What a way to live. It would be hard to go back to training after this, but she had earned some rest. She thought about the symbol on the floor of the arena. Perhaps it had something to do with the organisation her master kept alluding to. She would visit Lessu’s archives and see if she could look it up. Batu didn’t exactly act like the Jedi in her father’s stories, but of course, those were only stories. Great warriors were often remembered as better than they were. Still. She hadn’t been interested in the details in the beginning, and now it was hard not to be. Whatever she was becoming a part of, it was very powerful. Her thoughts were interrupted a few minutes later when Machi came in and joined her in the bath.

            “I missed you.” They shared a kiss.

            “I was sore. This bath is amazing.”

            “Isn’t it? It’s my favourite thing after a long moon of work.”

            “I was working awfully hard.” They laughed.

            “Ka, you did well.” For a while, A’i continued to float there while Machi cradled her head and shoulders.

            “You have eyes like the sea,” she said. “Have you ever seen it?”

            “No.”

            “You must come with me to the Rutian coast sometime.” A’i had heard the coast was beautiful, but she had other things on her mind.

            “One of the men in that Czerka warehouse worked for a gang boss called Aola’Tak. He suggested they were using a castle on Daria’s border, bringing Twi’leks from there to Lessu before moving them off-planet.”

            “Did he mean the castle Kysgari?”

            “That’s the one.”

            “In the time of the Empire, Kysgari was the Zygerrian’s seat of power in the region. It’s a huge castle built right into the mountainside.”

            “Then slavers could be using it to hide.” Machi remained doubtful.

            “The Darian government would have noticed that.”

            “He suggested they were in on it too.” A’i felt one of Machi’s lekku stiffen.

            “That’s a serious charge,” she said. “How do you know his information is reliable?"

            “I can use the Force to make people tell the truth.”

            “You mean you tortured him?”

            “No, just influenced his mind to make him obey me.”

            “It still sounds frightening.”

            “It’s not something I’d like to do again, but he wouldn’t tell me otherwise. I had to do it.”

            “But there must be a limit,” Machi said, wrapping her arms under A’i’s shoulders and pulling her up to her chest.

            “Why should there be? You use your power to do what you think is right.”

            “I was elected. I can only do what my role allows, what my citizens will.”

            “But you’re nobility. How many children of farmers or trappers or miners do you see in government? Kija’Lekki, you live in a palace. If someone crossed you, you could probably have them arrested or worse with the money and power you have.”

            “I would never do something like that. I have to uphold my allegiance to our people by serving honourably. My commitment is to democracy.” Her voice for once was unbalanced. She sounded hurt. A’i turned around so they were eye to eye.

            “I shouldn’t have said it like that. I know you care. I’ve read up on most of the clan assembly, and you’re doing more for our people than any of them. My point is, your station in life is a power not unlike mine. If you weren’t such a kind and honourable person, you could get away with a lot.”

            “It’s true, but that only means we both have to wield it cautiously. In a real democracy, perhaps no one should have that kind of power.”

            “But some do, and I don’t like our chances if the good ones are the only ones who hold themselves back.”

            “You should be more optimistic. People are already responding to the evidence you found.” A’i felt the need to lighten the mood. She was a guest after all.

            “Maybe you’re right.” She leaned in and kissed her. The steam from the bath was making everything hazy. The two enjoyed each other's company in silence for a while longer. As they were drying off, A’i broached the subject again.

            “I’d like to go to Daria and investigate –- see if I can find out more.”

            “I’ve spoken with Dinek Rekkish quite a lot during the assemblies. He’s been opposed to more oversight of our ports, but that’s not uncommon. There’s a lot of political pressure not to raise tariffs or slow down trade. I have some friends in the area. We can fly there together and I’ll introduce you.” Back in her bedroom, Machi put on a silken blue-green robe while A’i redressed in her clothes from the night before.

            “A trip to the Darian capital would be a nice vacation for me anyway,” she continued,

            “now that we’ve got a bit of a break. I do still have legislation I should be reading though. You’ll have to excuse me for the next few hours, but you’re welcome to stay if you want.”

            “You’re too kind. I should do some research of my own while you’re busy. Do you know where I can find Lessu’s archives?”

            “Oh, I have a private network with a connection to them right here. I’ll show you.” The front half of the study was full of bookshelves that held mostly ancient-looking volumes with enough dust across the ends to indicate they hadn’t been moved in years. Further back was an armchair flanked by flowering plants, a writing desk, and computer terminal with a huge display. Machi pressed two fingers to a pad on the control panel and the display came to life.

            “There’s an artificial assistant that can help with your search. Just talk to it.” She pressed a few keys.

            “Please describe your search terms”, said a slightly robotic voice.

            “I’ll leave you to it.”

            A’i wasn’t sure how to start. She wanted to know more about this ‘order’ her master was referring to. Her best lead was that rune from the dagger and the arena.

            “I want to know about a certain symbol –- what it means,” she said tentatively.

            “Do you know the name of this symbol?”

            “No.”

            “You can draw on the screen below.” A smaller screen on the control panel lit up. A’i did her best to draw it from memory.

            “Let me see what I can find.” A’i waited in silence for a minute or two. The computer gave off a faint electrical hum.

            “The origin of this symbol in history is not known, suggesting it originated in a non-Republic system. The only appearance in our archive data is a language used by the Sith Brotherhood.”

            “What’s that?”

            “An ancient order of Force-users. They are believed to still operate a semi-autonomous government on the planet Auratera. Alleged loyalists have included leadership and shareholders in some major interstellar corporations, including Panakium Medical and Conglomerated Outer-rim Military Contractors. Both of these companies divided their business when the current war started, and executives working in Republic-controlled systems deny any involvement.” The name Panakium Medical was familiar for some reason. The computer was silent, but there had to be more.

            “Is that all you know?”

            “Further data is classified in accordance with the Republic Military Security Act. I will need voice confirmation from Vashna Timeer to say more.” She would ask Batu when they met next. Even if he wasn’t truthful, that would tell her something. She spent the next few hours meditating on the thought of her new enemy. She had begun to pull the thread, and soon, all who’d tied their fate to it would suffer.

Chapter Text

They used the next few cycles to plan the trip. A’i retrieved her rifle from her ship, and Machi arranged for them to stay with Count Dashe, a political ally from another powerful family in the region. He was known for being a firebrand who supported more independence for Ryloth.

            “I’m sure you’ll like him,” she said.

            Daria was the largest of the five clans, and its territory included most of the deserts near the brightlands. These desert settlements depended on water from the mountains on the northern border, which was transported by a complex network of channels and aqueducts. The capital, Vohara, where most of their aristocrats lived, sat up against the edge of these mountains, and historically, it was controlling the flow of water that gave their Dinek his power. There was a yearly festival to celebrate the beginning of the rainy season in a little over a month, and Dashe had offered Machira his seat at Dinek Rekkish’s table during the palace dinner. This brought them to an awkward subject.

            “I’m afraid I can’t bring another guest,” said Machi, “just a maid in waiting.” A’i was fine with this arrangement, though. It would keep her identity a secret, and she would still have the opportunity to snoop around the Darian palace.

            “Then I guess I’ll be calling you Vashna while out of bed too.” Machi’s lekku blushed.

            When they were ready, they left for a nearby port where Machi’s ship was waiting. It was much larger, but without the sleek construction of A’i’s own craft, being one of the few ships actually produced on Ryloth. Flying was still a novelty for A’i, and she watched the view out the windows for the whole journey. The clouds thinned out as they made their way south, and she could see when they passed over a large range of mountains. Those mountains, and everything to the south of them all the way to the brightlands, belonged to Clan Daria. As they approached the capital, Machi filled her in on some Darian politics. Rekkish had been Dinek since the arrival of the Republic, but was close to being voted out in the last election. His son, Cato, A’i already knew from the train, and the impression she’d had of him seemed to be accurate. He was well-liked, but still inexperienced, lazy even, according to some of his peers.

            One of Dashe’s servants was already waiting for them at the port. He extended a hand as Machi descended the ramp from her ship, and she took it. A’i followed behind, wearing one of the uniforms meant for Machi’s housekeepers. He led them to a speeder and they got in. Now that they were further south, the sun was higher, but the light was starting to go pale this time of year, the shadows starting to grow longer. A few minutes later they were leaving the Vohara city centre. The elevation began to change as they approached the edge of the mountains and turned east. A’i noticed a barrage of new scents, probably from the jungle further upland. She missed her home.

            According to Machi, Daria’s eastern castle was the smallest, almost dwarfed by Kysgari a few hundred kilometers northwest. A’i had trouble imagining anything bigger. It was already larger than Machi’s property in Lessu, at least five stories with two towers that went even higher. The architecture looked older too. It must have been built before the occupation. The red sandstone was covered with intricate, fractal-like carvings, and the whole thing overlooked a cliff from which you could just make out the edge of Vohara far to the west. They crossed a stream which tumbled down the edge a few hundred metres on.

            They stopped near the front doors and the same servant helped both of them out of the speeder. Two of Dashe’s private house guards flanked the entrance, breaking the gentle aesthetic. They stood aside, inclining their heads slightly. Just inside, the servant spoke to them again.

            “I expect you will need refreshment after the long journey. Count Dashe, clan representative, has ordered a dinner prepared in your honour.” He led them through a hall lined with portraits and tapestries, then to a dining room where the count was already waiting for them. His robes were similar to those worn by Cato, decorative like the garments she remembered being worn by important people in her own clan, but lighter, probably because of the warmer climate.

            “Kassura,” said Dashe. A’i felt Machi’s fingers on her back and quickly bowed.

            “Please, sit,” he gestured to both of them.

            “I’m so glad you’ve finally taken advantage of my open invitation, Machira. After your support the last several years, I’ve been anxious to repay the favour.” The table was so large it looked strange being set for so few.

            “The pleasure is mine. It’s a welcome vacation after the session.” His lekku flicked out a dry laugh.

            “Then I’ll spare you having to talk about work so soon after your journey. Let’s eat.” More servants began bringing plates to the table. Too many to count. A’i didn’t know what was expected of her. She glanced over to Machi, who nodded one lekku almost imperceptibly as if to say ‘go for it’. She looked around the table. Most of the food she didn’t recognize, but the smells were divine. How had she not realised how hungry she was? At first, she watched Machi and Dashe, waiting for them to try something and then copying them, but eventually she couldn’t resist digging in on her own. She’d never eaten so well in her life. Even if she were supposed to speak, she’d have had nothing to say. The two of them were talking mostly about people she didn’t know. After a time though, the subject turned back to dra’damor.

            “So you’re still looking for some votes?” he asked.

            “Ka, Rekkish’s coalition hasn’t swayed, and most of the wealthy, northern prefectures in Rutia are still undecided, even after everything with Czerka. Still, we only need a couple of Darians to break with him to have a chance, or perhaps he’ll be more amenable himself when he’s got food and drink and no pages bothering him.”

            “My thoughts exactly. There will be other festivities of course leading up to the holiday. I can provide transport if you’d like to explore the festival grounds.”

            “That’s very kind, arni.” Dashe’s tone had been relaxed and conciliatory so far, but A’i sensed tension in him, as though he were waiting to say something.

            “With respect, Vashna, I would like to talk about why you have come. You said you have sensitive information.”

            “Of course. As I told you I recently enlisted the help of a Jedi to uncover Czerka’s crimes in the capital. Now she suspects one of the castles on the northern border is being used as a base of operations for slavers. I’m still skeptical, but I’ve looked over data from my clan and the regions where people get captured the most are all near the Darian border.”

            “She? Strange that a young woman would want to live with monks.”

            “Strange that someone would want to realise their potential as a guardian of peace and justice in the galaxy?” He laughed.

            “My apologies. I see the long hours at the assembly haven’t dulled your tongue. In any case, I’m saddened to hear this, but not surprised.” Machi seemed perturbed by his attitude.

            “But you can’t be sure it’s true? People high up in the government would have to look the other way.”

            “Perhaps. At your suggestion, I’ve been recruiting locals to gather intelligence about slaving operations, and in months of patrols, we’ve turned up nothing. As far as we can tell, no one in Daria is being abducted. Of course, Rekkish attributes this to his regional security forces. It’s one of the reasons he’s been able to maintain his popularity, even though everyone knows he’s in the pockets of foreign shareholders who don’t give a bluurg’s hole about our people.” Machi’s lekku were pensive, noncommittal.

            “Yes, I was sorry to see you lose the last election for Dinek so narrowly.” Dashe seemed to temper himself.

            “The respect they have for him is earned, even if their confidence in him is misplaced. He’s been Dinek since our so-called independence, and his strength has never wavered.” There was a short silence. “I was hoping you would bring this Jedi with you. I’m meeting with political allies in two moons and had planned to introduce her. You must at least give her my thanks. The revelations may well tip the balance next election.”

            “She couldn’t be here now,” said Machi, “but has come with me. She can come to your meeting.”

            “Excellent. I take it you won’t be there yourself?”

            “No, as sympathetic as I am, I know what your associates are like. You have a higher tolerance for xenophobes than I.”

            “Many of my constituents have good reason to be distrustful of foreigners. For some it’s a product of prejudice, but not all separatists are like that.” He didn’t sound too invested, but there was more tension.

            “Well, that is true,” said Machi. “You must forgive me for being such a disagreeable guest.”

            “Please, your keen moral sense is what I value most about you. It’s a light in a dark world.” The conversation died down after that, and they agreed to retire. A’i was looking forward to a long sleep. The Count showed them to a pair of adjoining bedrooms, one much larger than the other. Once they were alone, Machi let out a long breath.

            “This is difficult. I wish I could have explained things to you.”

            “Don’t worry. You can fill me in after we have a rest. Is there anything else I can do for you, Vashna?”

            “Ka. You can join me in bed again.” A’i obliged her.

Chapter Text

They both slept deeply, sedated by food and the heavy-eyed warmth that comes from sharing a bed. But A’i was dreaming. Heat. More than that from another body. She was standing on a grassland hill somewhere, surrounded by a circle of flames. The light-brown grass crackled, sending up black smoke. The flames opposite her parted, and a figure stepped through them, a human with a shaved head and pale face. For a while, they watched each other. A’i looked into the stranger’s yellow-streaked eyes. Above her, there was a chittering screech, and when she looked to the pale-grey sky above, she saw one of those things was diving at her. When she looked forward again, the human had drawn a lightsaber.

            A’i woke up in the darkness with a start. Her breathing was heavy. It took a moment to remember where she was. Machi was beside her, still sleeping. She had dreamed since her vision of the mesa, but not like this. She had felt the heat from the fire, smelled the smoke. For a while, she stared at the ceiling, thinking about what she had seen. She tried to hold onto the image of that face. She was sure it wasn’t familiar. Without the hair, it was hard to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman. When she had her vision of the mesa, Batu was speaking to her, but there was no clear message to this vision. Could this be a premonition? She thought the grass plains looked like the lowlands in central Daria that she’d travelled through on the train. If that was right, continuing down this path might lead her to a new enemy. But the details were already slipping away, mixing with the images of earlier recollections like clear water that flows into a silted pool.

            She didn’t know how long she was laying there, but these thoughts slowly became less urgent until she was in and out of sleep again. Machi stirred and then rolled over, pulling her close.

            “Kassura you.”

            “Kas,” said A’i, relieved to break the silence. The dream still pulled at her, and she decided to get dressed. She had started to get out of bed when there was a knock at the door.

            “Come in,” Machi said lazily. A’i, who would have liked to be consulted first, hurried to cover herself as a servant opened the door.

            “Kassura’Vashna. May I open the shades for you?” There was a just-detectable twitch in one of her lekku. She hadn’t expected Machi to be with someone.

            “Ka, arni.” She began uncovering the windows, letting in the cool grey light outside. A’i was reminded again of the sky in her dream. With the room lit, the servant offered to bring breakfast to them, and Machi accepted. Then the two of them were alone again.

            “You speak as if I’m not here,” A’i said without thinking.

            “It’s just a force of habit. Are you worried about what she might have seen? Believe me they’re used to it.”

            “You make a habit of displaying companions to your housekeepers?”

            “Well I don’t, but Voharan aristocrats have more old-fashioned sensibilities about these things.”

            “They certainly like their titles.”

            “Yes.”

            “And so many servants.”

            “The upper class here are some of the wealthiest Twi’leks around. The opulence is a cultural holdover from before the Empire. Service to a house was a family business – most of the servants here have worked for this family for generations.”

            “A servant caste? Like slavery?”

            “They’re paid. And they don’t have to work here.” She sounded a little indignant. A’i was silent for a time. Something must have shown in her lekku.

            “Is everything alright?” asked Machi.

            “Yes…I had a bad dream.” She softened.

            “Let me hold you a while my dear.” A’i felt her anger fade like a whisper of smoke.

After breakfast, she was feeling better, fully back in the waking world, and Machi suggested they explore the city. A speeder and chauffeur were waiting for them outside. Clouds were collecting on the mountains behind them. The air felt damp. They took a moment to admire the view of the valley below before getting in.

            “These mountains catch the clouds and make them condense,” Machi began explaining as they took off. “The Darians dig channels and build aqueducts to collect as much of it as possible, with some help from Rutia, and bring it to the southern parts of their clan that don’t get enough rain. That’s why they celebrate the start of the darker season.” They were coming down into the valley now, passing by a faintly-visible rainbow created by the waterfall. “They’re probably just starting to set up, but we should go see the festival grounds. The celebration goes on for weeks. It’s about life, growth, and love.” She took A’i’s hand as she said this.

            They reached the outskirts of the city. Other speeders travelling back upland flew past from time to time. The skyline of Vohara came into view: efficient, glassy skyscrapers, most probably built by off-world companies. Having fewer predators to worry about in this region, traditional Twi’lek dwellings here were above-ground. The buildings in the old part of the city were stone: beautiful, ancient constructions from before the Empire. Some had been damaged and rebuilt during its conquest, but many had stood unchanged for centuries. Before A’i could take in much more, they were bearing south toward the festival grounds. A short while later they crested a hill and she saw tents in the distance, each one a different shape and colour, brilliant against the pale-grey sky. The parched grass crackled beneath their feet as they got out. A’i looked around. The tents that dotted the grassland around them were few and far between, but for each one fully erected there were another two still being set up. Some of the smaller ones seemed to be for personal use, or were stalls for small vendors. The beating of drums emanated from a larger one which sheltered a stage and dancers underneath. A bit further away, smoke rose from the top of an even larger one. A’i could smell roasting meat. At the top of a nearby hill were two small space cruisers, probably freighters with supplies.

            “Lead on, Vashna,” A’i said with a bow.

            “If you keep doing that I’m going to start liking it.” They both laughed and began walking together. It wasn’t crowded yet, but there were plenty of people milling around, and those they saw seemed to come from every walk of life. A’i spotted some modern fashions she had first seen in the capital, as well as plenty of traditional linens and furs. Nearly everyone was Twi’lek though. The different races, or original five clans, had been travelling and mingling for centuries, but she’d never seen so many Darians, Tolians, or Tyrians before. People must have come from all over the planet. She felt a certain comfort being around her own kind that she hadn’t felt in years, not since the ritual services back home. They passed merchants selling talismans, instruments, and fabrics with intricate patterns, and Machi stopped to look at each of their wares and make small talk. A’i would have followed her nose to whatever that food was straight away, but was happy to follow along and see what there was to see. The next tent was full of flowers. She recognized some of them, but others didn’t look like anything that grew on Ryloth. She found some with lavender blossoms almost as big as her face and bought one for Machi. She put her nose to it, then turned her head and braided her lekku together. Beautiful. This really was a celebration of vitality. The colours, the pounding of drums, the warble of strings and flutes was infectious. It didn’t just make you want to move, it made you want to tear off your clothes, or maybe someone else’s.

            “Fill me in about what you and Dashe were discussing,” said A’i as they began walking again. “What sort of meeting am I supposed to go to?”

            “Rekkish and his supporters have the majority of power, but Dashe’s coalition has been gaining momentum. He’ll be meeting with certain allies of his house.”

            “You called them xenophobes. What did you mean?” Machi paused before replying, seeming to want to choose her words carefully.

            “Rekkish might be corrupt. He’s known for enriching himself by making deals with off-world investors. Deals that tend to hurt most Twi’leks. But his opposition goes further than saying this. They play on people’s fears and tell them all our problems are caused by foreigners. To some of them, membership in the Republic at all is just another case of Ryloth being exploited by the rest of the galaxy.”

            “Is it wrong to think that?” Machi looked at her, her lekku pensive with perhaps a trace of pity.

            “I work to see a world where our people have the representation they are due. I know that work is not done, but it’s not so black and white. We don’t have the option to close ourselves off from the world, and we would lose important allies if we did.”

            “You really think they care about us? The humans and other species in the senate?” There was an edge to A’i’s lekku as she said this. Her only associations with humans in particular were soldiers, slavers, and maybe the owners of spice mines or factories.

            “I know some of them do. Not all Twi’leks think the same way, likewise for humans.” A group of children dashed past, splitting around them, and A’i felt a pang of jealousy. Running wild with no fear. She wished she could have come here as a child.

            “I’m glad for that at least,” she said without much conviction.

            “In any case, Dashe and his closest associates have been meeting in secret for the last couple of years. I only know because I’ve been invited before. I believe he’s made friends in the Hands of the Mother, a violent separatist group.” There was that name again. It occurred to her to bring up her brother’s situation. Maybe there was something Machi could do. Then again, it could do more harm than good if she didn’t approach the subject carefully.

            “I’ve heard of them. And you want me to meet with them?” They stopped to admire a pyrotechnics display. A performer had just ignited each end of a staff and begun to spin it, sending red and green sparks in every direction.

            “I should be clear,” said Machi. “Dashe is a good man. He wants what’s best for our people, like you. Together, you might be able to end slavery here once and for all. And if doing so also exposes Rekkish’s corruption, maybe he won’t be tempted to continue down this path. That being said, he may want you to do something illegal. I must warn you not to indulge him if that happens.” A’i locked eyes with her.

            “I’ll be sure to heed your words.” They eventually did reach the source of the delicious smell: a large green tent that sheltered a dozen or so long tables. At the centre was a fire pit and an enormous spit turning slowly. A’i could hear occasional pops and hisses as drips of rendered fat hit the fire below. Machi must have seen her looking at it, because she offered to keep exploring while A’i waited for some food and then to meet back under the tent. A’i got in line. They were serving everyone, not even asking for money, but had a box for donations in which she made a generous deposit. Once she had a piece, she found a seat and dug in. She didn’t know what animal it was, but it tasted amazing. She was so engrossed she didn’t notice a Tukian at another table was trying to catch her eye. After a few minutes he got up and approached.

            “Kassura’Vashna’hirani,” he said with a small bow. “May I sit?” He gestured to the place opposite her.

            “I won’t stop you,” was all she said. His lekku chuckled as he did.

            “Enjoying the festival?” She made an affirming sound between mouthfuls. He watched her eat for a few moments more before speaking again.

            “You know, I like a girl who can eat. Are you here with anyone?” She swallowed.

            “You’d rather look for a mate elsewhere,” she said with a small wave of her hand. He looked dazed for a moment, then got up and walked off. Machi joined her a short time later and tried a bit of her meat.

            “I have something for you,” she said, and placed an ornate, blue mask on the table in front of her. A’i admired the finely-etched leaves and flowers that covered the cheeks. The area around the eyes glittered like the sky during the darkest time of year.

            “It’s beautiful.”

            “I thought you might need something better to cover your face,” she explained. “It’s supposed to be Kele. Anyway, it made me think of you, and the colour matches your eyes.” Now it made sense. Kele was a mythical figure, an incarnation or daughter of Kija’Lekki. She was known as a protector of nature.

            “I love it, arni.” A’i’s thoughts turned back to her next task. She would want to be well-rested before meeting with Dashe. After eating they flew back to the eastern castle and bed together again.

Chapter Text

There was more than enough time for a long sleep, but A’i woke up again after a few hours. When her mind wouldn’t quiet, she decided to sneak out for a run. She kept her uniform on while leaving so the guards wouldn’t be suspicious, then changed once she was outside. The sky had cleared a little, letting yellow sun through to the base of the mountains. The cool breeze and smell of leaves reminded her of hunting. Her breaths deepened as she breasted a hill. She breathed easier when she was alone.

            It took around two hours before she started to tire and turned back. She stopped for a moment by the stream near Dashe’s estate to cool off, splashing water on her face. Back inside, she found Machi sitting up in bed.

            “Another nightmare?” she asked.

            “No, I guess I’m just not used to the city schedule.”

            “You still have some time to rest. Come back to bed for a few more hours.” After a quick bath, A’i did. At first, she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, but Machi dimmed the lights again and she was drifting off a few minutes later.

Her next waking perception was sunlight on her closed eyes. She opened them, blinking. Machi was uncovering the windows again, her lekku swinging back and forth a little as she did. For a time, A’i watched her, half asleep. But they had things to do.

            “Sorry to wake you.”

            “It’s alright.” She got dressed again and they prepared to leave. They would get a ride to the entertainment district as before, then part ways so that A’i could double back and meet with Dashe. This time, she brought her cloak, mask, and lightsaber.

            They walked together for a few minutes after being dropped off, and then A’i donned her cloak and mask and paid for a ride back. She was silent during the trip, thinking about Machi’s warning, and about the word illegal. She had used the same word to describe the slave trade. And yet the latter persisted. There were more guards than before around the main entrance. She saw what must have been two of his other guests enter ahead of her. The guards at the front door stopped her.

            “What is your business here, stranger?” one of them asked as another behind him adjusted his grip on his blaster rifle.

            “The Count requested my presence. I am the Jedi Vashna Timeer spoke of.” He seemed suspicious.

            “I will take you to him.” Rather than just letting her pass, he accompanied her inside, exchanging a look with the other guards. A’i followed him to the main hall where they had had dinner before. The huge table was now set for twenty or so. Half a dozen guests had already arrived and were chatting over drinks. Dashe got up and strode over when he saw them.

            “Why aren’t you at your post?” he asked the guard.

            “This woman claims to be the Jedi you requested.” Dashe turned to her.

            “Well, it is an honour, but I must ask, how do I know you are who you claim?” A’i presented her communicator with a hologramatic letter bearing Machi’s signature. He seemed satisfied.

            “So you are this Witch I’ve been hearing about.”

            “I am.”

            “Please, have a seat.” She sat across from him. Other guests were still arriving. Some wore brightly-coloured dresses or robes in aristocratic fashions, but others were more plain. Dashe began making introductions. A few of them were wealthy donors who shared his political vision. Another was a chief executive of a Ryloth-based news corporation, who A’i recognized from the fallout surrounding Czerka. The man seated at Dashe’s right, a Tukian who dressed like a hunter from the forest belt even if she could tell his clothes were much more expensive, owned a factory that built armaments. When he leaned forward to toast the man across from him, A’i noticed a tattoo on his chest: five interlinked circles with outstretched hands in the center. With everyone in place, Dashe stood to address them.

            “Kassura friends, it is my pleasure to inform you we have a special guest. We are joined this moon by the hero who exposed Czerka’s crimes, the Witch of Ryloth.” There was applause. A’i could see guests near the ends of the table trying to get a good look at her.

            “Her intelligence confirms our darkest suspicions,” Dashe continued. “Slaver vermin continue their disgusting practice in the regions north of us, most likely operating out of one of the border castles.” There were hisses and murmurs all around, and he held up a hand. Quiet. “I believe the ugly truth is now inescapable: our so-called Dinek is allowing it. This is why Clan Daria is spared their plague.” More whispers from the guests. She sensed apprehension, but no one dissented, and the whispers faded a few moments later.

            “We need a strategy to respond to this new information, but let’s not make plans on an empty stomach.”

            A line of servants entered from a side door which must have connected to a kitchen. What was laid before them was even more extravagant than the previous dinner. A’i realised she wouldn’t be able to enjoy the food while keeping her face covered, and had to steel herself just to resist the smells, telling herself there would be more opportunities later. Instead, she focussed on listening to the conversations around her. The pair to her right were discussing one of the new public academies and the need for more courses in Ryl.

            “The least they could do is learn our language,” said one of them. “I’ve insisted my children attend the Voharan Royal Academy. It’s worth the cost to make sure they don’t come back sounding like off-worlders.”

            “I’ve stopped doing business in anything but Ryl,” another said, lekku curling with devilish humor. “The last negotiation I had with Outer Rim Mining they had to hire interpreters. Make it cost them and I’m sure there will be more Ryl-speakers in a few years.” She couldn’t help but smile at this. Perhaps noticing her reticence, the guest to A’i’s left struck up a conversation.

            “It’s an honor to meet you, Vashna Witch.”

            “Arni, it’s a pleasure to be among so many who support me. I have had to stay hidden since my first mission in the capital.” The Tukian to Dashe’s right flicked his lekku in disgust.

            “A hero shouldn’t have to hide her face. If only interplanetary security were as concerned with the crimes of Czerka executives as they were with a handful of Twi’leks showing solidarity with their species.”

            “Indeed, I was most excited to hear the Jedi have once again taken up our cause,” continued the one who had first spoken to her. “As soon as this so-called democracy took control they were nowhere to be found. You on the other hand seem not to have confused justice with Republic rule of law.” This last point struck a chord. Now she realised why Machi’s words had for once felt grating. Illegal. Not evil. Not an affront to a spiritual or intellectual principle, but a procedural violation. She’d never given much thought to the letters of law. Besides the bit of research she did her first time in the capital, her only experience was with its enforcement, the end of the stick rather than the handle. From that side of things law was not a principled thing, not a fixed and formulated rule that could be applied to or invoked by anyone; but a vaguely understood force constraining your behaviour. Like forest predators or the desert sun, it was something to be contended with when it stood in the way of your life, and the stronger or richer you were, the easier it was to overcome or to avoid altogether.

            “I couldn’t help but take things into my own hands,” she replied. “I lost friends as a child. I was taught to live in fear. Now I know who’s responsible.” She thought of Ann’s face and was reminded again of the fear she had sensed. She thought about the cowards who would have shipped her like an animal to a life of servitude. Hatred clawed at the back of her throat.

            “With a few good soldiers,” she said, meeting the eyes of Dashe and his neighbours at the table, “I can breach Aola’Tak’s hideout and let everyone watch as I execute him myself – after he tells me everything about their operation.” Dashe’s countenance cooled.

            “I applaud your conviction,” he said “but I can’t endorse terrorism.” He leaned towards her and his tone became hushed. “You must be careful what you say, even here. In a meeting like this, someone is sure to be a secret informant. Rekkish has been paranoid about me in particular for years.” Something in her began to flex its claws. The character she had played back at the compound now saw another chance for action.

            “Do you suspect anyone in particular?” she asked quietly.

            “No but I’m confident there must be someone.”

            “I believe I can find whoever it is. Would I have your consent to operate at my discretion?” He looked surprised.

            “Don’t kill anyone, at least not without asking first,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “And I can’t stomach torture.”

            “Very well,” she said with a smile. “Tell your guards to bar the exits.” She stood, sliding her chair back with one heel so that it screeched against the floor, and addressed the room.

            “Honoured guests! It has come to my attention that one among us is a traitor! They have chosen to condemn children of Ryloth to chains like nabrina, all for their own gain. Is this any way to honour our Goddess?” A few guests rapped the table, signalling their shared disgust. Rather than speaking over the sound, she waited for quiet and lowered her voice.

            “Whoever you are, you must not be familiar with the powers of a Witch.” She raised her right hand as she said this, and lightning crackled along her fingers, winding its way between her knuckles. Everyone froze. All eyes were on her. She began walking around the table, fingers hovering above the heads of each guest. Without warning, she took one of them by the shoulder.

            “Stand and face me.” He complied. She could sense his fear. Placing one hand on the side of his face, she locked eyes with him. Now that she had done it before, it took only a few seconds to take his will.” His lekku, which had been tensed with fear, went limp. Before asking the important questions, she wanted to show there could be no deception.

            “Will you do as I command?”

            “Yes, Vashna.”

            “You would not lie to me?”

            “No, never.”

            “Then answer me. Are you informing on our activities here?”

            “No. My loyalty is to Count Dashe, representative and true leader of our clan.”

            “Good.” She let go and he collapsed back into his chair, shuddering. She continued, taking her time walking by several guests before selecting another at random. After ordering them to stand as she had the first, she clutched his face the same way.

            “Would you do anything for me?”

            “Yes, Vashna, anything.”

            “You would kill for me if I ordered it?”

            “Without hesitation.”

            “Speak the truth then: are you working on behalf of Rekkish?”

            “No, I would never do the bidding of someone who puts their own gain ahead of our planet and species.”

            “That is good to hear.” She released him and kept moving, as though she intended to give the same treatment to everyone in the room. After the first two, it was clear there was no resisting her. The only hope for the spy would be a preemptive strike, and she was counting on this. She would be exhausted before going through a dozen of them.

            As she rounded one side of the table, someone at the opposite end sprang to his feet. He was fast, but against her reflexes there was no contest. She reached out and clenched her hand and he froze in place. His right arm, which was cocked, about to throw a concussion grenade, slowly pivoted toward her, palm up, as though he were now offering it as a gift. She flicked her wrist, and there was an audible crunch as his hand spun all the way around. He screamed in pain.

            “Filthy, filthy traitor,” she cursed as she strode up to him. As quickly as the two before, she took his will. With a nod from Dashe she began to interrogate him.

            “You’re an informant of the Dinek?”

            “Yes.”

            “What is he paying you for?”

            “To watch his enemies. He believes Dashe is working with the Hands of the Mother.” A’i saw Dashe and the guest to his right share a look. “He wants proof. I take bribes from his coalition too.” This was new.

            “Bribes? For what?” she asked.

            “I oversee intraplanetary shipping and commerce for Clan Daria. I’m paid to ignore certain traffic – many small freighters going from the northern border to the capital, connecting with larger ships capable of hyperspace. I don’t know what they carry, but I’m sure it’s not legal.”

            “Are they using Kysgari to operate then?”

            “I don’t know, but it would make sense.”

            “Do you have any evidence that would implicate Rekkish in these bribes?”

            “No, the one who contacts me on his behalf uses some kind of encrypted channel which anonymizes their side of the conversation.” Beginning to tire, A’i decided further questions could wait.

            “Thank you for your cooperation,” she said. As a final act of showmanship, she grabbed the back of his neck, slammed his face into the table, and tossed him to the ground. In her periphery, Dashe signalled for the guards just outside the room to collect him.

            “Take him to the old detention block until I decide what to do with him.” As they were dragging him off, A’i took the glass from his place at the table and raised it.

            “Vahs ka!” she toasted. Everyone else followed her lead.

            “Vahs ka!” All to the mother of balance.

            Able to speak freely, Dashe and Vindo – the man to his right, discussed her earlier request.

            “It would be an honor to lend you troops to go after this gang-boss if you’re confident he’s involved,” said Dashe.

            “I am. As you can see, I have a talent for extracting the truth from people.”

            “You can consider it a public service,” added Vindo. “Even if her intelligence is wrong. I’ve heard of Aola’Tak. He’s known for employing Tukian women as yobanas. He could be paying desperate families under the table, then selling them as slaves. It was a common thing before the Republic outlawed it.” The three of them agreed to meet again soon.

Each guest stopped on their way out to thank A’i for her service. She could sense fear in most of them, but one, an artist and political activist named Lashni, spoke with her at greater length. He was famous enough that she had heard of him before, and there was a photo reproduction of one of his murals in Vohara that stuck out in her memory: the symbols of Ryloth’s five clans being butchered on the floor of the Galactic Senate while various senators of other species squabbled over the pieces. His current project, a monument to the Twi’lek Goddess, was underway beneath the tent A’i had noticed in the court of the assembly during her first time in the capital.

            “It’s an honor to meet you, Vashna Witch,” he said with a graceful bow.

            “The feeling is mutual,” she said. “I’ve seen your work before. It speaks to me.”

            “I’m not surprised. After seeing you today, I believe you have the vishrani. I’d like to speak again sometime if you’ll indulge me.” Vishrani. That was a word A’i hadn’t heard in a long time, not since the plays and religious ceremonies she used to help put on. There wasn’t really any equivalent in Basic. It meant something like artistic vision or dramatic flair.

            “Of course.” She didn’t quite know what to make of the invitation, but had to imagine he’d be interesting company. She followed the last of them out and hired a speeder to take her into the city. As soon as they were off, she removed her mask. The wind on her face felt glorious. Catching that spy had been satisfying, and now what she needed was a nice rest and maybe another kind of satisfaction.

            “How was the party, Vashna?” Asked the pilot.

            “Lovely, arni.”

Chapter Text

Machi was already at the bar where they had planned to meet, but something was wrong. She was staring at something for work while clearly not reading it, and it looked like she had already been drinking for a while.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “I spoke with some representatives from the south of Daria while you met with Dashe. We still don’t have the votes.”

            “What? How?”

            “Czerka was good at doing damage control. I’m sure some credits have changed hands as well – so they had time to cover their tracks. I was counting on outrage from citizens, but they still haven’t made your files public yet and now attention is waning.” A’i was indignant.

            “Why won’t they show people?”

            “They’re challenging its authenticity, and the courts won’t release it until that’s been decided. They’re dragging out the legal process as much as possible.” This only made her angrier, but she checked herself enough to keep her voice hushed.

            “Nothing will change as long as people can ignore what’s happening. The nobility will only act if their power is threatened. If we have to shove this under people’s noses to make that happen, why not do it?” Machi seemed to take issue with this framing.

            “Many of us in the assembly consider this an important issue. I’ve devoted most of my career to it. So much that if that evidence gets out I could be accused of leaking it.”

            “After seeing it, who would think less of you even if you did?” Machi remained unconvinced.

            “There’s still no guarantee it would make enough of an impact, and it could further complicate the legal process.” One of A’i’s lekku struck the table.

            “Magic words damnit! That’s what your legal process is. And they didn’t protect me as a child anymore than the prayers of my people. I want our planet’s children not to have to live in fear!” Some other patrons were watching them now, but she didn’t care. She felt she had more to say, but was having trouble getting the words out and gave up. Machi took her by the hand, wrapping one lekku around her forearm.

            “Beautiful warrior,” she whispered. “So much has been asked of you for so long. I’ll consider your proposal if you agree to have a rest before thinking any more of this.” A’i gave her assent in silence. Machi ordered drinks for both of them and gave her time to defrost. As much as she wanted to, it was hard to stay angry, and after a while she allowed herself to be dragged to the dance floor. She had been feeling tired, but found some new energy watching Machi move. She had obviously trained in dance at some point in her life. For the next few hours, A’i forgot all about the earlier argument, and when the two fell asleep together back at the eastern castle, it was peaceful for both.

            A’i felt balanced again when she woke, and Machi’s warmth and smell kept her thoughts away from darker things. She herself began to stir a short time later, and then she slid a hand between A’i’s legs and began a further welcome distraction.

Chapter Text

The next few cycles were uneventful. Privately, A’i was still fuming over the setback with Czerka, but she knew Machi had a point. If they were going to make the evidence public, they needed to do it to maximum effect, some way that would ensure it got attention. In the meantime, they continued to visit the festival grounds and A’i continued to meet with Dashe and Vindo to plan an assault on Aola’Tak’s hideout.

            At first, she thought it would be easy, but after scouting the coordinates the courier had given her, they had to change their plans. It was a derelict fortress in the foothills to the north of Vohara, and their scanners picked up high-calibre laser cannons mounted on the roof, much like the fortified border castles to the north. It would take a small army to get in by force –- even if she could deflect rounds from those cannons, the radiation pressure would stagger her. That left finding a plausible disguise to get an invitation. Aola’Tak owned pleasure houses and had invested in other Voharan businesses, but after hours of surveillance they saw almost no one going in and out of his hideout. Aboard the lone speeder they saw arrive during their stakeout were two Tukian women, seeming to confirm Vindo’s theory. Though the others protested, A’i thought the way forward was obvious in light of this. She could sense Vindo’s opposition was a matter of courtesy even at the time, and a week later, he was the one to put the details of her plan into motion. He had insider knowledge of Daria’s gangs and black markets, being himself the main reason the Hands of the Mother were so well armed. His circle was even close enough to that of Aola’Tak that seeking a meeting wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

            “I’m going to pretend you’re my daughter,” he explained, “and propose he and I join our houses through a marriage between the two of you.” This made no sense to her.

            “You don’t really think he would agree to such a thing?”

            “I expect he won’t, but it’s a perfect excuse to get us talking. When I remark that what I really want is to get you off my hands, I expect he’ll make me an offer.” Smart. A’i had one further suggestion.

            “Be sure to mention that I have a Lethan mark.”

Vindo’s plan worked. The following cycle, an hour after moonset, she’d arrive at one of the pleasure houses at the east end of Vohara and be taken to the fortress from there. Soon, she would have another opportunity to turn her hatred loose.

Chapter Text

A wisp of cloud slid over the sun as their speeder whipped through the sky.

            “You know you don’t have to do this, right?” Asked Vindo. A’i kept looking out the window.

            “I do believe I must.”

            “Then I should apologize in advance for how degrading it may be.” She turned now to meet his eyes.

            “Do not doubt my commitment.” He was silent for the rest of the trip. They arrived outside a domed, marble building, a house for yobanas and other similar entertainment. The house madame and her assistant, a human, received them. A’i made sure Vindo wouldn’t shy away from his role.

            “So my future husband owns all of this? You really did come through for me, Kora.”

            “Ka,” he said, barely disguising a smirk in his lekku. The madame’s expression remained placid as she led them to a private lounge, but A’i could see her assistant wince. She must have known what was happening. He left her there a few minutes later, excusing himself to discuss business with the madame. The assistant sat A’i down in front of a large mirror and began inspecting her face.

            “Let me add some pink to your cheeks,” she said in passable Twi’leki. A’i resisted saying that she didn’t wear human stuff like that. Paint that pretended to be skin disturbed her, but she allowed it. The effect was subtle anyway, not too unnatural-looking. She recoiled, though, when the assistant tried to slip a gold circlet on one of her lekku.

            “I am not a slave, girl,” she snapped.

            “It’s jewelry, Vashna – a fashion off-world. Things will go better if he is pleased with your appearance.” A’i relented. The circlet made her skin crawl.

            Another human with dark goggles and a bandana covering the lower half of his face arrived a short time later -– her ride to the fortress. He didn’t speak during the journey, and she didn’t bother trying to make conversation, giving her best effort to look bored as they shot past Vohara’s skyscrapers and out of the city. The grass on the hills below was still a golden brown. When she knew they were approaching the fortress, they descended and slowed as the pilot spoke to someone over the radio. He was speaking basic, and she could barely hear what he was saying, but guessed he was hailing whoever controlled the front gates. Anyone who approached without permission was in danger of being blown away. A few seconds later they were covering the last few hundred meters and gliding through the large, steel gates.

            The pilot motioned for her to get out and she did. The inside of the fortress was three-quarters lit by jury-rigged strings of yellow lights. The walls were dingy with dust and droid oil, and scrap was piled in tiers like pagodas in every corner. Before she could get a good look at her surroundings, the pilot grabbed her wrist.

            “This way, tail-head.” That, she could understand. She went with him, taking a deep breath as the hatred in her chest continued to seethe. Two floors up it was cleaner, and the light was better. They came to a set of double doors flanked by two Twi’leks with blaster rifles. Inside, Aola’Tak was lounging on a large couch, enjoying a drink and a hologram broadcast of some Rylothian fencing while ignoring the giggling companion sat beside him. A’i recognised him from Vindo’s description: a tall Tukian with powerful arms and a beer gut.

            “New meat,” was all the pilot said.

            “Wouldn’t exactly call it new,” he retorted, slapping one lekku on his chest. “You can leave us now.” The pilot and the woman on the couch both left the room. It would be easy now, even without her lightsaber. He turned off the projector and beckoned her close.

            “Well don’t keep me waiting. Let’s have a look at you.” She could still hear a trace of a Tukian accent, even if his Twi’leki was more like that of Darian aristocrats. She sat beside him. He took her by the chin and turned her face towards his.

            “A Lethan mark, as promised, not bad” he said, as though speaking to himself. “Do you know why they call me the flower vice?” She shook her head. “Because I take pretty things like you and I crush them.” She flicked one lekku over her shoulder in a wry smile as she met his eyes.

            “Do you know what they call me?”

            “No,” he said with a chuckle. She leaned close and put a hand on the back of his neck, whispering in his ear.

            “The Witch of Ryloth.” Fear coiled around his mind as her grip on his neck turned to iron. It was harder to break his will than it had been with the others – they were already under duress at the time, but it was still only a matter of seconds before he was under her control.

            “Now,” she said, “apologize to me and our Goddess for your disrespect.” He bowed his head.

            “Forgive me, Vashna. I pray Kija’Lekki may see my contrition.”

            “There is a speeder a few kilometers south of here, a model V with Darian hailing codes. Have your men contact the people aboard. They will be our honored guests.”

            “Of course, Vashna.” He got up and moved to a nearby computer terminal to give the order. She stayed close to make sure her spell wouldn’t be broken. It took nearly all her concentration to maintain it, but she only had to make it another few minutes. They went back to the couch. The seconds dragged by, and then she heard approaching footsteps. She realized someone was coming in just in time to make Aola’Tak put an arm around her and belt out another chest-slapping laugh. Their visitor, another gang-member, half-entered with his eyes down.

            “I’m sorry to disturb you, Vishna. I wanted to confirm your orders about these unexpected guests.” It took A’i a moment to resume full control and puppet a response.

            “Orders?” His expression was vacant for a moment. “Ka! Of course. They’re personal friends of mine. Now stop bothering me!” Maybe it was his strange affect, or the way his head lulled to one side as he spoke, but the man remained suspicious. Instead of leaving, he stepped inside and got closer.

            “Are you alright, boss?” A’i didn’t know how she was going to get out of this, but she could tell she was about to be discovered, and as soon as her senses identified that, her instincts and training kicked in. Before she was even aware of her decision, she was using the Force to drag the man toward them. Then she summoned in herself every fear she had ever felt, and, with a wave of her hand, forced that fear into him. He cried out, eyes wide. One of his pupils withered to a pinprick while the other eclipsed its iris, and he fell to the floor. She could sense he was still alive, but wasn’t sure if he would recover mentally. One of the guards outside poked his head in, but she was quick enough this time to give a convincing performance.

            “Out!” said Aola’Tak with a dismissive wave. “Quit bothering me and let my guests in or you’ll get the same treatment.” Seeming to notice the man on the floor, the guard retreated.

            There was a barely-perceptible rumble as the gates below opened. A few minutes later, chaos erupted downstairs as A’i began to hear the energetic screech of blaster reports. One of the guards outside rushed towards the source of the commotion while the other went back in to warn their boss. He hadn’t gotten two words out before being struck by an arc of lightning. A’i took Aola’Tak’s cloak from the hook beside the door, and stepped over the smoking, twitching body as she left the room, letting her thrall go ahead of her. The upper floors were mostly empty, and the handful of gang-members she encountered running to get weapons were distracted by the sight of their boss. They either fell to her lightning or had their minds shattered by Force-imparted horrors. Using her powers had become a reflex, and loosing them was more satisfying than food or Machi’s bed.

            She descended the stairs carefully, her thrall in tow. The fire-fight near the entrance was still raging. She could see several gang-members had been gunned down by Count Dashe’s soldiers in the first moments of the surprise attack, but others, now armed, were rallying. It was curious to her that so many of them would rush to defend their boss’ hideout rather than save their own skin, that is, until she considered that the way they came in may be the only way out. Good for security, and for loyalty. In any case, the group engaging Dashe’s soldiers was focused on the area around the front entrance, and it was easy for her to sneak up behind them. She gathered her focus and put the same fear she had used before into all of them. It took enough energy to target so many that she felt herself getting light-headed, but it ended the fight almost immediately. A few of them fell convulsing while the others abandoned their positions and fled mindlessly out from cover. Only two managed to escape deeper into the fortress. The soldiers ran to shackle Aola’Tak as their commanding officer returned her lightsaber and mask. She kept the hood of her cloak up and her face down until it was hidden.

            “Arni, Vashna Witch,” said the officer. “We might have been pinned down if it weren’t for you. We should be able to take care of the rest.” A’i was fatigued, but didn’t want to pass up on an opportunity to keep fighting.

            “How many more are we expecting?”

            “A dozen at most.” She closed her eyes and consulted her senses. The fighting had sharpened them so much she could count the remaining life-forms throughout the fortress with ease.

            “Thirteen,” she said. “I will fight with you. I want more prisoners to interrogate.” She could see his lekku were perplexed, but he didn’t protest.

            “As you wish.”

Clearing the building took another three hours, but they managed it without incident. A’i used her senses to find the remaining gang-members, who were scattered throughout the upper floors. A few were held up in the armory behind a reinforced door, but their combat engineer made quick work of it, using his cat-sized ordinance droid to plant explosives, and allowing two other soldiers to throw grenades inside in the wake of the blast. Three more she had to drag out from cover using the Force so that the soldiers could pick them off. The others, though, seemed to think being captured was preferable, and surrendered right away, and by the end, they had three more prisoners. The Tukian woman A’i had seen earlier had survived as well, and Dashe’s men promised to return her home. To make room on the speeder, a few stayed behind waiting for an extraction.

            “I will send for my droid to bring my ship here,” A’i told them. “I have access to a facility to house our prisoners.”

            “I’ll need details about where you’re going to pass along to the Count,” said the CO.

            “That won’t be possible. My master’s instructions forbid it.” It was obvious this troubled him, but he didn’t want to challenge her tone of finality. She could sense his apprehension, his doubt about how to proceed, and almost laughed. The weakness was so palpable. 2-TZ arrived a few hours later, and she crammed three of the four prisoners into the cargo bay. Aola’Tak wouldn’t fit with the rest of them, but a soldier helped her shackle him to the cot in the back of her ship.

Chapter Text

He was hoping more than anything that he could sleep for a few hours. The sterile white light that illuminated the cell wouldn’t allow it right now, but if he had to be here much longer, maybe they would turn off. Everything was so white it was giving him a headache.

            He shifted his position on the floor, trying to block out the light. He was alone now. He hadn’t spoken to the others on the way over – they seemed to know each other, but he wasn’t familiar with most of Aola’Tak’s gang. His job was accounting and he made a point of involving himself as little as possible aside from that. The other two had exchanged only a few words during the trip, their sparse conversation mirroring his own internal deliberations. Their captors’ uniforms looked like those from one of the Darian noble houses. That meant, most likely, they were either targeting the gang as part of a conflict with another house; or while working on behalf of Darian regional security. They probably wouldn’t have left them alive if it were the first alternative. Assuming the second obtained, he’d have no qualms about giving them whatever information he could, that is, whatever he knew they could already glean from the evidence in the fortress. Of course, only an idiot would believe he didn’t know what was going on there, but proving otherwise would be another matter. They would leave him here to stew for a while as a soft interrogation tactic, but they’d have to let him go within a few cycles at most, and the time would pass more quickly if he could get some sleep.

            There was one thought, though, that kept him awake, one thought that gained more and more purchase in his mind as the hours ticked by. It had to do with the Tukian woman in the black robe who seemed to be leading the soldiers. She didn’t seem to fit with the rest of his theory, and there was something about her icey-blue gaze that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It had been her that took them off the ship, after hooding them so they couldn’t see where they were going, and from the quick look he got around before that, it looked like they were in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t seem like the normal process for detainees, though he wasn’t knowledgable enough to say for sure. He supposed she could have been a Jedi. He knew they sometimes worked as agents of the Republic, but out here in the Slice they were practically a myth. Considering all of this, he found he couldn’t get those eyes out of his head. Who was she? He felt like he was choking on the question. A name was slowly crawling up his throat. He started to sweat. Whatever the name was, he didn’t want to know it.

            There was an echoing sound of wrenching metal and a bang as the door to his cell flew open. His head jerked up, but there was no one behind it. Quiet. He was too afraid to breathe, much less move. Then there were footsteps. The closer they got, the further up his throat the name crawled until he was gasping and heaving on the floor, trying to cough it out. He knew it would be her before she appeared in the doorway, and as soon as she did he felt himself lifted by an invisible force and thrown flat against the wall behind him. The name was finally knocked loose, and he didn’t know whether he had half-heard it on a broadcast while working and only recalled it now, or if she herself had planted it in his mind. The Witch of Ryloth.

            “So you’ve heard of me,” she whispered. He must have said it quietly to himself instead of just thinking it.

            “I’m just an accountant. I didn’t – ” she put a hand over his mouth and clenched his jaw shut.

            “Before you speak, know you cannot lie to me. You cannot hide anything. But if you choose to tell me the truth now, whole and unaltered, I promise you will live.” As soon as she relaxed her grip, he started talking. He told her how Aola’Tak would buy slaves and fund kidnapping squads in the clans to the north; how their gang would bring them to the mountains on the border where someone moved them to the capital and then off planet. He told her how, in addition to the credits, the one paying their gang to do all this offered the protection of the Darian government. He spoke at length about all of this, giving as many relevant details as he could, and only slowing down when he ran out of breath.

            “The name, please,” she said when he finally paused. He didn’t answer right away and she slapped him so hard he heard his jaw creak.

            “Give me the name of the one who pays you to enslave my people!”

            “I don’t know, I swear!” His back contorted in a spasm. It felt as though someone was drilling into his skull and rooting around inside. There was someone else in his mind, and therefore no room for him. The seconds dragged by until she was satisfied, and he felt the presence recede.

            “I believe you,” she said as she ignited a lightsaber, the blade shining like fresh blood.

            “But you said – ”

            “I lied.”

Chapter Text

The first prisoner whose mind she searched couldn’t give her what she wanted. Neither could the second or the third, but unlike the first she left them alive, their reward for not being such cowards. Aola’Tak on the other hand was able to give her the name, and that name was now an ember in her mind. A’i could feel its fire spreading, lighting up time-darkened memories, fusing more and more circuits to that name. Daggo Thrycheck. He was a Zygerrian oligarch who still resided in Kysgari, his old castle in the mountains on the Darian border. Along with the name, the imprisoned gang-boss had also given A’i a lead on finding proof of Thrycheck’s guilt. The Zygerrian had supposedly cut a deal to get the protection of Dinek Rekkish, the ruler of Daria, and Aola’Tak was sure Rekkish would have recorded their communications as a kind of insurance in case Thrycheck ever turned on him. After three cycles alone at the secret base, A’i had all the information she was going to get, and the burning name was making her impatient.

            As 2-TZ flew them back to Daria, she decided to meditate and lift her stone. It had just begun to rise into the air when she caught something out of the corner of her eye that broke her concentration. The stone clattered to the floor. What was that? She thought it had come from the mirror, but it looked the same as always. Come on, focus. As before, the moment she began to move the stone, something in her periphery lit up again, only this time she turned to look while keeping it in the air. Light was coming off the mirror. Light that didn’t come from anywhere.

            She decided to do an experiment. Leaning the mirror against one wall of the ship, she positioned the stone in the center of the floor in front of it, then raised one hand and used the Force to lift it. In the mirror, she saw a fountain of intertwining light and shadows welling up beneath it. She understood now. This mirror reflected disturbances in the Force the way a normal one reflected light. That explained why she could see herself and the others couldn’t. She watched her reflection. Her lekku were shifting from uncertain, to penitent, to defiant. She could tell the silver ribbons of light that surrounded her image in the mirror were the thing she sensed in all life, that kind of luminosity. So then what was the black smoke that intertwined it? She thought about the cave again, about the energy it exuded. I reflect the light and shadow both. If sensitivity to the Force was the Goddess’s gift, then the light and darkness were two aspects of it. She had seen both around her the first time she looked in the mirror. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the shadows were thicker than before.

            They would arrive soon, and she decided to use Dashe’s access to the archives to do some more research. The Count had already offered her space in his hangar. She moved to the cockpit and watched the streak of green jungle that lined the mountains far below them. The thrill of her discovery had rebalanced her in a way meditation had failed to do. Her people, centuries or more ago, knew about the Force. They even had technology that relied on it. With the resources she had now, she might be able to launch expeditions to the far-north temples. There could be more lost artifacts or ancestral knowledge.

Chapter Text

After A’i returned to the eastern castle, it was only a matter of time before the smoldering fuse lit by that name led to a detonation. It was a funny trick of fate then, that the only further squabble she had with Machi during their time there started over something completely unrelated. Completely unrelated, that is, except that it had to do with flowers.

            “I used to fantasize about being bonded beneath a wreath of ardoketti,” A’i said as they lay in bed. “It’s an ancient Tukian tradition.” To her surprise, she felt a wiggle of laughter go through one of Machi’s lekku.

            “It can’t be that old,” she said. “We brought them to Tukia less than three hundred years ago when we were expanding our plantations.” It might have been the way her accent made the correction sound condescending, or it might have been the feeling of betrayal knowing one of the traditions near to her heart had been implanted by another clan. The words made A’i furious.

            “Expanding plantations? You mean your colonies in eastern Tukia. You used laser rifles from off-world to take our land.” Machi looked hurt but remained calm.

            “I didn’t do anything. My house gave up their colonial holdings a long time ago.”

            “Then why did you say ‘we’ before?” She was quiet for a moment.

            “You’re right. I shouldn’t have.” It was obvious she didn’t want to argue, and A’i could have left things there, but the name still burned. She sat up.

            “I interrogated Aola’Tak and his henchmen. They confirmed the Darian government is looking the other way. The Count of Kysgari –- a Zygerrian, is the one behind it.” Machi began twirling one lekku. The news must have made her uncomfortable.

            “I know Dinek Rekkish is corrupt, but this is beyond the pale. You have to be sure.”

            “I am,” A’i said, almost cutting her off. “I searched their thoughts, plucked the name Daggo Thrycheck from that disgusting man’s mind. It’s all true.”

            “I thought you weren’t going to use your powers for that anymore.”

            “Why shouldn’t I?! I have a way to fight back now. And you question me while those bastards enslave our people right under your nose.” Machi took her time composing a reply. Her relative calm only made A’i angrier.

            “I know this is personal for you,” she finally said. “It is for me as well. Maybe I don’t agree with your methods, but we have the same goals.”

            “I hate them.” A’i said simply. “I didn’t choose to. My loathing is a wave that began at the end of a Zygerrian’s whip, and now it’s brewed a storm. I’m going to hunt down every last one of them.” Machi put an arm around her.

            “I won’t say you’re wrong to feel this way. I only worry going down this path will bring you more pain. Holding onto that kind of hate…it makes a person small, makes them care about all the wrong things.” Frustratingly, A’i felt her anger begin to diffuse again. She let it go for now, let Machi pull her close. One tear broke from the bottom of her eye.

            “I might be strong with the Force,” she said, “but you should know I’m powerless against you.”

            “Is that so?” One of Machi’s lekku wrapped around A’i’s neck as she whispered something to her, something that made her heart leap. She watched as Machi called downstairs and sent for some ropes, her lekku now curled in a devious smile. She let Machi tie her to the bed, and for the next few hours, her mind was at ease. It wasn’t over though, not forever. Now that she knew who was behind it, she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t forget her goal in coming here. As the two fell asleep, she was already planning how she could put her still-living prisoners to use. After a sleep, she asked Count Dashe to contact Lashni. She had an idea.

Chapter Text

The banquet at Rekkish’s palace would be another opportunity for intel, but A’i couldn’t stand to simply wait as the date approached. In the week that followed, she began patrolling along the northern border with Tukia on the far side of the mountains, taking a contingent of Dashe’s house guards with her each time. A few miles south-east of the castle Kysgari, where the jungle was starting to thin to the north of them, she noticed a speeder near the base of some cliffs and told Dashe’s men to spread out. She unslung her new rifle, using the surrounding foliage as cover. About an hour later, a door in the stone opened out of nowhere and two Zygerrians emerged. She watched them through the scope. They were carrying stun-rifles and restraints. They got into the speeder.

            They were already near the edge of her range, and she only had a few seconds to act. The first of those seconds was wasted in indecision, the next half of one cursing herself. And then she was focussed. She exhaled. Her first shot put a heavy bolt of plasma through the speeder’s engine. One of the Zygerrians inside made a dash for where the door had appeared and caught another bolt in the chest, a perfect centre of mass shot from well over five hundred metres. The other tried to use the damaged speeder as cover. She was about to fire again when she heard a voice from behind her right shoulder.

            “Vashna, stop!” She turned toward the sound and saw one of Dashe’s guards. He looked stricken, but conflicted as to whether he should speak again. And there was a faint scent of fear. She looked down her site again, but her target had already escaped, probably back through the hidden door. Damn.

            “Please, Vashna,” said another. “We need to get out of here.” She followed the retreating men back to their speeders, and they took off back towards the city.

            “You can’t just open fire on people,” he said. “Especially with no proof they were doing something illegal.” There was that word again.

            “Funny,” she said, “I thought I just did. That’s what you’re upset about isn’t it?”

            “I’m not getting arrested because of you.” She looked at him hard for a few seconds. When she could feel him start to worry he shouldn’t have said that, she spoke again.

            “I saw what they were carrying. They were slaver scum.”

            “I’m sure you’re right, but it won’t do any good in the long run to just shoot them in open light. You’ll end up in a military prison.” They flew on in silence for a while. The bile in her throat ebbed.

            “Fair enough,” she said. “Can you tell me where you think those two came from?”

            “These mountains have been quarried by our clan for centuries, creating a honeycomb of tunnels in the process. They facilitated trade during times of peace and sneak attacks in times of war. When the Empire came they took over the border castles and connected these tunnels to Kysgari, the largest of them.” Now A’i was even more confident that what Aola’Tak told her was the truth. The range of mountains on which Kysgari sat ran for hundreds of miles, even reaching up near the forest. Kidnappers could grab a victim, then run back to the border and use the tunnels to return to Kysgari. Small ships from the castle took them to larger ports in the capital where they were sent to other worlds. At least she’d put some fear in them now. Maybe the survivor would think twice before going out again. But the thought that she was the one who had to worry about being covert was fresh fuel on the fire. She needed to put the energy toward something.

            When they were back over the mountains and approaching the outskirts of Vohara, she ordered them to stop. She had planned to return with them to the eastern castle before going to rendezvous with Machi, but now decided she would run from here to the festival grounds so she’d be good and tired when she got there. She took her communicator just in case. She had continued wearing her mask for patrols and kept it on –- by now it felt like nothing, and her lightsaber, as always, was at her hip.

            She got out. They left with a whoosh, their speeders creating little wakes in the light-brown grass as they flew away. She started south, still thinking about the Zygerrian vermin she’d allowed to escape. Her ataru conditioning turned each stride into a small leap. These grasslands would eventually become the arid plains which stretched all the way south to the desert and the brightlands. She thought about climbing the mesa, about the heat. She felt hot now, even with the overcast sky. She thought about the one who had called her there. Either Batu wasn’t a Jedi, or he was using the symbol of the Sith Brotherhood for some reason. Her own ancestors knew about the Force, so maybe the rune came from his own culture’s traditions regarding it. But if he was a Jedi, why was one now, for the first time in more than a decade, taking an interest in Ryloth? Perhaps Machi’s connections would be able to contact the council and get some answers, unless of course they were all as aloof and disaffected as him. In any case, he’d taught her to use the Force, and she’d seen him use it himself. He couldn’t lie about that. More to the point, why should he and his order –- whatever it was, deserve her suspicion? He was the one helping her protect the ones she cared about. He was the one helping her settle the score. If he wasn’t a Jedi, he was compensating for their failure.

            The landscape was becoming flatter, each series of hills smaller than the last. It was dryer too. The anaemic grass crunched under her feet. She crested a hill and heard a screech high above her. A scene from her vision flashed to mind and she stopped. She sensed one of those things gliding above the clouds. It flew on, heading toward the desert. And then she sensed something else: a disturbance in the Force –- the kind she had traced to the mesa that was only made by someone else who could use it. And it was getting closer. A’i scanned the horizon. She knew who it would be. There might be time to run, but something told her this meeting was inevitable. Besides, she wasn’t a coward. She watched them come over the next hill into view and approach her. They stopped about a hundred meters away and took off their cloak, revealing their shaved head and pale, androgynous face. The face from her vision. A’i noticed their probably-female frame was smaller than hers. She might have an advantage there, but knew things were not always what they seemed when dealing with the Force.

            The stranger crouched, making some motion over the ground, and a fire roared to life and engulfed them. Through the flames, A’i could see them raise a hand and make a dragging motion through the air. The fire spread, but not outward like a normal brush fire. It moved only in one direction, creating a perfect circle around both of them in a matter of seconds. A’i tried to see if the flames were moving inward. If she sprinted to the edge now, she could jump out. But they didn’t encroach further, and she realised this wasn’t a snare. It was an arena.

            A’i ignited her sabre. Her adversary stepped through the flames into the circle, and produced their own. The red plasma hummed and spit. Their blade, A’i guessed, was an inch or two shorter than hers. Reach would be an advantage. She charged, telegraphing a forehanded strike. When the stranger prepared to block, A’i leapt and spun around, slashing where their sword arm should have been. It was her own take on one of Stennor’s old tricks, but as she turned, still sailing through the air, she saw only the ground below her. A’i reached out with her senses. They were behind her. She tucked and rolled, springing up and turning just in time to parry a lunge, but her counter was still forceful. Perhaps she really did have an advantage, at least in brute strength. Her opponent had anticipated the trick, though. She would need to take a more nuanced approach.

            A’i stepped forward and slashed, testing their guard. When her adversary tried to get close, she parried and stepped back, trying to use her superior reach. They went back and forth like this for several minutes, neither able to get an advantage. If A’i were too aggressive, she risked letting them inside her guard. It would take the right combination of strength and speed at just the right moment. She predicted the next time her opponent would try to get close and side-stepped her. With a surge of aggression, she put everything she’d been thinking about earlier that moon into a strike that forced her opponent’s blade down. Having taken the initiative, she continued with a flurry of slashes, moving forward again and again. A’i was starting to think she was getting them off balance when she had a flash of precognitive warning. Without time to even apprehend what she was perceiving, she tumbled backwards to avoid whatever it was. There was a high-pitched rushing sound, like an arrow flying past your ear.

            The shaved-head human came at her again. A’i parried and tried to keep beyond their reach, but had to react to the same precognition. This time though, she kept her eyes on her opponent for a split second longer as she jumped back, and saw what was happening. With supernatural speed, the human’s empty hand was reaching in her direction. There was no weapon or arc of lightning, just outstretched fingers, as if they were trying to touch her. The motion was so fast it tore the air like a bolt from a bow. If she let her reflexes falter for even a second, she wouldn’t be able to react in time. It was too fast to counter unless she saw it before it happened.

            A’i backed up, trying to make a plan. As her opponent advanced again, she fired a barrage of lightning at them, but the human used their sabre to block it, barely having to slow down. Not a good use of energy. A’i swept aside another lunge and retreated, anticipating the human trying to touch her again. Whatever they were trying to do, she wasn’t going to let them do it.

            The two fought on. A’i stayed on the edge of her opponent’s reach and prepared to counter-slash a reaching hand, but she wasn’t getting the opportunity, and fatigue and frustration were starting to gain purchase. Whoever this was, they must have gotten a contract from Czerka. It was the only explanation. Who would use such power to serve people like that? A’i’s slashes became faster and wilder. She would overpower this selfish human, this one who stood for nothing but their own purse. But as she swung again, just a little too wide, the human crouched. There was that rushing sound again. Behind you. A’i started to turn her head, dodging just inches out of reach of the blade. She felt the heat of the plasma on the back of her neck and then –

            pain. A white shot down her left lekku. She sidestepped the next slash, barely, still distracted by what had just happened. A’i prepared to block another slash, but it was a feint. She heard the now-familiar rush and then felt bare fingers on the side of her chest. The mask of Kele slipped from her face, its ties singed through from the earlier attack she’d failed to dodge, and for a split-second the two were face-to-face. And then the hand was gone, and her enemy was sprinting away back through the flames. A’i started to follow, pain and rage fueling her resolve even as they clouded her mind. After crossing the dying flames on the far side of the circle, she searched the horizon, but something was happening to her vision. Her eyes couldn’t focus. The grass around her seemed to be breathing and slithering. She tried to find the nearest moon to steady herself, but it was a glowing red orb she saw in the sky. You need to get back. You need to find a safe place now while you still can.

            She tried to orient herself. Under normal circumstances, she could make it from here to the eastern castle on foot, even if it took several hours, but now her legs were starting to cramp. Her head throbbed. She felt feverish. After a few minutes of walking, it was a challenge even to stand. Then she remembered she still had her communicator. Why did it take her so long to remember that? She took it out and tried to contact Machi. Her fingers were shaking. She sank to her knees with a hushed cry. The pain was getting worse. Everything was going red. She just managed to send her coordinates and a request for a holo-call before it fell from her seizing hands. You lost damnit. She wanted to scream, to tear off her own skin. You lost, and now you’re calling on someone who cares about their precious laws more than your whole life. I hate them. I hate them all! Her last thoughts before passing out.

Chapter Text

The time that followed was a haze of intermittent consciousness marred by hallucinations and intertwined with dreams. Now and then, A’i would feel light on her eyes and blink as if she were waking, but she could only see disintegrated shapes and colours, impressions and auras that flowed and dispersed like smoke as she tried to make them out. She would find she couldn’t move and start to panic, and then hear Machi calling to her. She couldn’t make out the words, but could tell they were meant to calm her. At other times, she was back in the lava fields practising her forms, or under the grey sky in that fiery arena. For a while, these periods seemed the most real, and then the waking times became clearer. Impressions began to unify into white walls, a window, and a beautiful sky-blue face and lavender eyes. Everything still had an aura of red, like the afterburn of a bright light on your eyes. It was making her hot. Machi’s eyes were making her hot. She wanted to kiss that face. The next time she had an opportunity, she did, and then she knew she was awake.

            “Oh A’i say something.” Things were in sharper relief now. She still couldn’t move. It felt like she was swaddled and couldn’t get free.

            “You look pretty.” Machi was tearing up. She reached for something behind A’i’s Head.

            “What happened?” she asked.

            “A bounty hunter I guess, another Force-user.” A’i started to look around. She was connected to some kind of machine. “Where are we? How long was I out?”

            “A medical centre. It’s been three and a half cycles since I brought you in. I’m so sorry I got you involved in this.” She looked like she hadn’t slept the entire time.

            “No,” A’i wanted to take her hand but couldn’t. “It’s not your fault.” A human technician walked in.

            “Awake now and talking,” he said. “That’s an improvement.” A casual tone given the situation.

            “Yes, and I’d like to be able to move.”

            “Bear with me for just a minute.” He checked her eyes with some kind of instrument and consulted the readout on the machine she was attached to. A few moments later, he unbelted the jacket that had been restraining her.

            “You were having seizures,” he said. “Looks like you’re in much better shape now, but we’re still not sure what was happening in the first place.” A’i and Machi shared a look.

            “I don’t know what happened. I just passed out.” She sat up. Something felt wrong, unbalanced.

            “One of your head tails was severed,” he said. “Could you have been in some kind of accident? It looked almost like a wound from a plasma-cutter.” She reached behind her head. The last five or so inches of her left lekku were gone. The severed end was dressed. She ran her fingers along the edge, feeling the boundary and the numb emptiness beyond.

            “I don’t think so.”

            “What about exposure to any toxins? Heavy metals, spice, radiation?”

            “No.” He looked perplexed.

            “Alright then. You should stay here a few days in any case so we can observe you.” He left. A’i looked back to Machi.

            “Where’s my lightsaber?”

            “Easy,” she said, “it’s safe. I kept everything you had when I found you. Just try not to worry about any of that.” A moment of silence. “Do you really not know what happened?”

            “We fought a duel -– the bounty hunter and I. Then they just touched me and it started. It was like a fever or poison.” Machi was looking tearful again. Tired and emotionally raw, she was an open book. A’i didn’t have to use the Force to know she was holding something back.

            “I should let you rest,” she said finally.

            “I’ll be alright. Get some yourself.”

Alone, the silence felt heavy. The hum of the machine and the noise of her thoughts were magnified. She couldn’t stop trying to analyse what had happened in the last moments of their duel. She thought she knew exactly where the blade was, but it was as though it had suddenly extended a few inches. She had overestimated herself. The fight hadn’t exactly been one-sided, but it wasn’t close either. Once she recovered, she’d start training again even harder.

            And what if you don’t? She tried to set aside that thought for now. She’d made it through the worst. She was still in pain, but the pain was a welcome distraction. It helped keep her mind quiet. Someone brought her a meal a short time later, and then something to help her sleep. The pain was dulled when she woke up again, but the waking hours crawled by. Machi stayed by her side most of the time, but wouldn’t let her talk about anything of substance. A’i wanted to make sure she could still attend the feast at the Dinek’s palace. It was only a few cycles away if she remembered right.

            She tried to pass some time watching the machine to her right. The electronic displays were full of numbers and charts that meant nothing to her, but some of them seemed to respond to changes in her breathing and heart rate. She used to have excellent control over the latter while meditating, but it was difficult to concentrate now. Without meaning to, her gaze fell on some patent information etched into the side of the computer’s metal housing. Panakium medical. She tried again to think of why that name was familiar. It was infuriating, being so weak, but she needed not to exert herself. She thought about the food she would eat when she got out of here, about Machi’s bed in her place outside Lessu. She began to doze, and in her dreams, she was back in the desert. A shadow passed over. One of those flying things landed nearby and began to investigate her. When it got close, she would swipe at it, and it would back off, but it kept coming. It seemed almost gentle. Finally, she let it come, extending a hand and stroking its head. A voice she didn’t recognize was saying come back to me, and then she woke up.

            A couple of hours later, a medical droid came by to take her blood. As she turned her head and felt the needle in her arm, she had a sudden recollection. She had seen one of these droids before. As a girl, her mother once took her to a place like this when she had a fever that wouldn’t break, a then newly-built medical centre that contracted with the government to provide free public healthcare. They had waited a long time, then a droid just like this one –- a floating silver torso with nimble hands and a creepy, unnatural face, had taken some blood. Only after quite a struggle though. It took two technicians and her mother to keep her still.

            Within another cycle, the pain had subsided, and A’i was regaining her strength. It seemed whatever this affliction was, it was as ephemeral as it was mysterious. But it should have been deadly. It was an uncomfortable thought. Her enemy had retreated as soon as their attack connected. It was meant to kill her, so why didn’t it? Maybe her conditioning and Force-sensitivity made her more resilient.

            As soon as she was steady on her feet, she was asking to leave. The centre let her go with some reluctance, and Machi outlined her own terms. She was not to go off alone again, or do anything too physically demanding. A’i stopped listening halfway through, but agreed to everything.

Chapter Text

A’i stepped out of a luxury speeder from Naboo at the foot of some stone steps. She was back in her uniform. At the top of the steps was Dinek Rekkish’s palace. The facade was interlaid red sandstone and black volcanic rock, with a relief showing the Darian coat of arms. Protruding from the upper levels were what looked like recent additions: higher floors and towers more similar to the modern skyscrapers in the capital to the south. She walked to the other side of the speeder and opened Machi’s door. They went up the stairs together, A’i holding the bottom of Machi’s gown. This dress was like nothing A’i had seen before, a deep green with prints of blue and black that reminded her of the eye-shaped patterns on insects. She admired the fabric in her hands, feeling how soft it was. They passed between the red and black columns and approached the wooden double-doors.

            An attendant led them on a small tour of the palace: The throne room. The office where the Dinek gave addresses and corresponded with other politicians. Another room which featured a display of the royal family’s collection of gemstones. A’i had never seen such opulence. Stones this size could only be found on occasion after years of exploratory mining.

            The back courtyard stretched for miles. They stepped outside onto a huge veranda at least ten meters high and descended one of the twinned, curving staircases. From the top, A’i could see more than a dozen tables set for the banquet, each one with its own decorations. The largest of them, meant for the Dinek’s personal guests, was set apart. Beyond the tables were stages with musicians and dancers like the public festival in the valley to the south, the same drums that made it so easy to lose yourself. Here in the shadow of the mountains was the perfect place for light and pyrotechnic shows, and even the lights in the entertainment district in Lessu were not so dazzling. A’i admired one performer in the midst of spinning torches. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, their arrival was announced.

            “Vashna Machira Timeer of Rutia, and maid in waiting A’i Selestus.” They arrived at the largest table and A’i bowed as Machi greeted the others and sat down.

            “Kassura’Vashna Timeer,” said a Darian across from them. His robes were similar to the noble from the train, and he wore a headdress covered with gems.

            “Kassura’Dinek Rekkish,” said Machi.

            “How are you finding our city so far? You chose an excellent time to visit.”

            “It’s impressive. I’ve not been here for the rain festival before. It’s the best time I’ve had letting my lekku down in a while.”

            “Curious,” said the Dinek, “I’ve not thought of you as one for frivolity.” He pulled the guest to his right inward.

            “You should see what she’s like in the assembly,” he said, pointing at Machi. “I’m telling you, truly venomous.” He laughed as though it were all a big joke. Machi smiled.

            “Oh you mustn't think I’m always so severe. There’s nothing I like more than a good dance, a good meal, and a good love. I only think everyone should have the freedom to enjoy these things, not just those with enough credits.”

            “Already implying I mean to leave some behind?” His indignance was clearly feigned. “Why don’t we look at your clan? From what I hear, you can’t even protect your own people from being put in chains like the old days. Perhaps if you attracted more investors, you could afford enough security to at least wriggle out from the Zygerrian’s boots.” He caught A’i’s gaze and others’ seated near her before continuing. “You know, Daria has a far larger regional military than any of the other clans, and we’re the only ones with our own fighter fleet. Others might be content to rely on the Republic, but we like to do things ourselves.” Machi looked wounded, but it was subtle enough that A’i guessed the others couldn’t perceive it. She was preparing to strike back.

            “It’s a shame so many of your constituents don’t see it that way. Oh, the things I’ve heard, for instance, about the mining contracts you hand out in exchange for gifts. Downright slanderous. As for the remnants of the Empire, doesn’t a former oligarch still reside in the fortress Kysgari? You know, like in the old days.” Now Rekkish’s displeasure was genuine. A’i could see his lekku sneerring. He was calculating a reply when another guest returned to the table and took his seat just to the left of Rekkish, a tall Zygerrian in an ornate cloak.

            “Hello new arrivals,” he said in Basic, turning to Machi and taking her hand. His own was adorned with heavy, jeweled rings. A’i almost gagged seeing the fur-covered fingers curl around Machi’s.

            “You must be Lady Timeer,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Daggo Thrycheck.” A’i stiffened. Now there was a face for the name. The sounds of Machi returning his greeting seemed far away. She could kill him right now, even without a weapon. Someone might guess what had happened and then she’d be done for, but it would be too late for him all the same. She decided it wasn’t worth it, at least not yet.

            “Your help doesn’t seem to like me,” Thrycheck said, and A’i realised she had been staring at him since he arrived. He looked amused. “Does she speak Basic?”

            “Yes,” A’i answered for herself. He flashed her a toothy, wolfish smile.

            “So you do. Why so surly my dear? Don’t care for Zygerrians?” He spoke slowly to her, then more quickly to the rest of the table: “Perhaps she doesn’t know the war is over here. I expect news travels slow when you live in the forest.” He turned back to her. “I am a citizen of the Republic. A businessman, nothing to fear.” She met his gaze, the mark on her cheek now visible in the low light.

            “I’m not afraid of you,” was all she said. Something further seemed to spark his interest.

            “My dear, you have the mark of the Lethan. I’ve only ever seen a few Lethans, and only one with the partial phenotype.” The way he said it used the Ryl word, but badly mispronounced. She felt his eyes on her as he continued. “Good musculature too. There was a time when you’d be worth quite a lot, even with the injury to your head tails. Did your old Zavu do that to you. They used to do that – cut one off so you could tell whose was whose.” A’i didn’t reply. She was trying to decide whether it was worth it now. She noticed Machi was staring daggers at him.

            “You’ve offended our guest, Daggo,” said Rekkish. “Make nice with the Lady, bleeding heart though she is.”

            “My apologies,” he said to Machi. “I meant no disrespect. Old habits die hard I suppose. Speaking of old habits.” He produced a small, gold cylinder with a rounded top. After fiddling with something for a few seconds, he brought the end to his face and sniffed. Spice.

            The conversation diffused as the first round of food was brought out. A’i wasn’t interested. She felt twisted inside. The play of lights and fire around them should have been enchanting, but where she really wanted to be right now was a dark, quiet cave, alone.

            “With your permission, Vashna,” she asked in Twi’leki, “I would go for a walk about the courtyard.” Machi looked as though she understood. Her eyes plead a silent apology.

            “Of course, I’ll be fine.”

            “Arni.” She excused herself. There was a clinging feeling on the back of her neck as she left the table, but it faded as the distance grew. She focused on the music. The even-cut grass of the courtyard blurred with a wilder back-garden area. In the pulsing light, she could make out a footpath circumnavigating a pond surrounded by white lilies, and began walking along it, skirting the tree-covered rock faces on the boundary of the garden. When she was around to the far side of the stages, she stopped for a while to admire the party. The largest of these hovering platforms was the source of the music. The area around it was full of rough dancing, but from back here, A’i had a good view of the performers. Drummers and string-players formed a half-circle in which a woman twirled a hoop attached to a web of glittering lights. A man near the edge of the crowd gave A'i a once-over look and flicked one lekku at her. He wasn’t hard to look at himself. Almost automatically she tried to return the gesture, then realised she couldn’t use her left for that anymore.

            She kept moving around the periphery. When she was once again nearing the stairs to the veranda, she started to scan the crowd. No one seemed to be looking this way. She wandered around the corner, reaching out to touch the stone wall as she did. Someone would probably see her taking the stairs. She glanced toward the crowd again, but they were almost completely out of view. She took a deep breath, crouched, and jumped, landing a little hard on the stone railing.

            She crept toward the back entrance to the palace. There was a guard by the door. She reached one hand toward a group of miniature trees growing from clay urns on his right. They began rustling and knocking as though someone were behind them, and he went to investigate. By the time he returned to his post, she had slipped inside.

            She retraced their path through the palace, trying to see if she could get into the office adjoining the throne room. She noticed as she crossed the threshold that there was a small crack running along the bottom and top of the doorway, as though it could expand to accommodate another set of doors. She had almost reached the throne room when she heard a familiar voice.

            “Looking for something?” It was Cato. She remembered herself just in time, and gave a small bow.

            “Begging your pardon Vishna. My Vashna asked for something out of the speeder and…I got lost.” He laughed.

            “Oh yeah, this place is a maze. Especially after a couple of drinks.” Then he seemed to recognize her.

            “Hey! We met before on the train.” His lekku looked a little embarrassed. “I was actually hoping I’d see you again, but I didn’t think it would be here.” She wasn’t sure what to say. Her nerves were still rattled from being caught.

            “I remember you,” she finally got out. “Thanks again for the credits.”

            “Koahiko. You know, I was just going to have a drink up on one of the towers. If you prefer to enjoy things from afar, perhaps you’d like to join me?” She noticed he was holding two bottles of something.

            “I should attend my Vashna.”

            “She’ll be alright, won’t she? I can tell her it was my fault.” A’i thought about mind-tricking him, but decided against it.

            “Alright then, Vishna.”

            “Please, it’s Cato.”

They took an elevator up through one of the more modern towers, a helix of glass panels topped by a lookout. As they stepped on, A’i could sense a huge amount of electrical energy somewhere beneath their feet, a generator maybe. She tried to pinpoint where it was –- a hundred meters down or so.

            On top of the lookout, the wind was high. It was cold up here, but peaceful. She admired the pulsing ball of lights below while he opened the bottles and passed her one.

            “It’s a lovely view,” she said, trying to be polite.

            “Ka, it’s my favourite place in the palace.” He took a long drink. A’i took a swig herself and almost choked. It was something strong and pungent. Like a punch to the face with an aftertaste of highland fungus and tree bark. A little gross, but it seemed appropriate given how things had been going lately.

            “I’ve not seen you attending any of my father’s guests before. Do you work for Machira?”

            “Yes, I’m new to her service.”

            “She’s quite impressive. I know she and my father don’t get along, but I admire her.”

            “They were really getting into it earlier.” One of his lekku tapped his chest.

            “Now that’s something I would have liked to see. You can learn a lot at a table like that.”

            “Oh yes, I was just learning about how expensive I’d be as a slave.” Now his lekku curled with disgust.

            “I see you’ve met Daggo. I’m sorry for that. He’s a foul man.” He took another drink as he stared toward the horizon. “I think father’s up to something. After what you told me on the train I started looking into things. Trafficking is still happening in all the other clans. Everyone but us. Our troops in the wilderness don’t even report seeing any slavers. And then there’s that Zygerrian lord. I know his business is good for our clan but he’s just awful.” He already sounded drunk. A’i thought about bringing up that Machi shared these suspicions, but thought it might be overplaying their hand. She sipped her drink.

            “What exactly do you think he’s doing?”

            “I think they cut a deal,” he said. “The only reason Daggo kept his castle is because he capitulated with the Republic right away.” Then he seemed to remember himself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t talk about such things now. This is a party. I brought you here to have a good time.” She let out a muted giggle through her severed lekku as she sipped again, then, suddenly self-conscious, brought it behind her head, running her fingers over the end again. The empty space still felt strange, and it hurt a little each time it moved. She’d never realized how often she used it without even thinking.

            “Hirani, if I may say so.”

            “Arni.” She felt slightly light-headed. That was fast. She took another drink, watching the trees along the mountainside bend in the wind. Somehow the taste wasn’t so off-putting anymore.

            “Where’s home for you?”

            “Tukia, just south of the forest belt.”

            “You’ve been inside the great forest?”

            “Ka, I used to hunt to support my family.”

            “What did you hunt?”

            “Foxes mostly.”

            “Sounds like a hard way to make a living.” She stared down at the fire and lights below. Her lips and neck felt warm.

            “In some ways what I do now is harder.”

            “If you say so. I guess high society can be demanding. A lot of stress over nothing if you ask me.”

            “So I’ve noticed.” He laughed.

            “I don’t know many servants who speak so plainly.”

            “I’ve never had a noble ask me to join them for a drink at the top of their tower.”

            “Really? I would have thought it happened all the time.” Now her cheeks were feeling warm. Her lekku tittered and she felt a twinge of pain again in her left. After a thought, she turned so he could see her right, and made a sultry gesture, one her sister had once taught her with a specific meaning. Do you like what you see?

            “I do,” he said. This was a new development. Maybe she could use it to her advantage, but not now. She didn’t have a plan, and the drink was getting to her. She would focus on enjoying the rest of the evening, but if she waited to act, the opportunity might be lost. She needed to plant a seed. She looked into his eyes. Deep green, like the forest floor. She beckoned him close with her lekku, smelled the drink on his breath. Their lips touched. She let it go on a few seconds, and then gently pulled away.

            “How do I know you’re not just looking for a scandal with a common girl to upset your father?”

            “If that’s all I wanted, I could have it. How do I know you’re not trying to spy on my family for Machira?” She laughed.

            “You came on to me.”

            “Fair, but you were wandering around inside.” She was pretty sure he was being facetious. As she was deciding whether to elaborate on her lie, he spoke again.

            “Hell, I don’t know if I’d care even if you were. I’d be careful poking around the palace though. Slice Security retrofitted the whole thing: cameras, blast doors, and I’m sure anything important is kept in one of the secret rooms that even I can’t get into.”

            “Slice Security?”

            “It’s a company. They work mostly in a region of the galaxy called the slice, which includes this system. It’s a sort of double meaning, since breaching a computer’s security is also called slicing.” He took another drink.

            “I should return before I’m missed,” she said.

            “Alright. Can I see you again? I’m in Lessu from time to time.”

            “You can contact Vashna Timeer the next time you are. If I’m ever back here again, I’ll make sure you know.” She tried to recompose herself during the elevator ride down. As they descended, she could once again feel that intense power somewhere below.

By the time she returned to the courtyard, most of the guests had dispersed from the dining tables and were enjoying the music and spectacle. She found Machi dancing near the main stage, also at least a little drunk. When they had a moment of quiet, she filled her in on what had happened at the Dinek’s table. She had argued a bit more with Rekkish and some other Darian representatives about why they should support her legislation to secure their ports, which had a possibility of passing when they returned to the assembly to vote in a couple of months, but which would certainly pass if he put his weight behind it. In return, she was offering water rights to some of her family’s own land in the south. For someone with capital and infrastructure to move it, that water would be worth a lot, but they still weren’t interested. As the exchange became heated, she had implied she had evidence slavers were operating out of Kysgari. She could tell Rekkish had a reaction to this, though he was quick to mock her invocation of an anonymous source without elaboration; and she had let the issue drop.

            “And there’s one more thing,” Machi added, looking a bit guilty as she did.

            “What is it?” Machi pressed something into her hand. It was the bullet-shaped thing Daggo used for taking spice.

            “He was just so horrible to you that I wanted to get him back somehow,” she explained. “He left it on the table when everyone was leaving to join the dancing and I couldn’t help myself.” A’i smiled. Not such a bad time after all. Even if negotiating with the Dinek was a lost cause, she had created a potential opportunity to infiltrate the palace later, and she finally had a face to go with that name.

Chapter Text

After a long sleep, A’i woke up with a pain in her head. Machi was up already, but hadn’t uncovered the windows. She was reading something for work.

            “Let me get you some water,” she said. A’i sat up in bed, holding the glass and staring into space for a while. She didn’t want what was on her mind to be the first thing she said, but the longer she waited, the less she could think of anything else.

            “I need to return to my Master. This moon if I can. To continue my training.”

            “You mean to continue working with Dashe then, even after what happened?” Maybe it was the headache, but something in Machi’s tone drew a spark.

            “So what if I am?” A’i turned to look at her and saw she was on the verge of crying.

            “I understand you feel this is something you have to do but when I found you in the field –” she choked. “You weren’t just seizing like you’d been poisoned, you were clawing at yourself and screaming. I was sure you were going to die.” Hearing that cut deeper than her last duel. A’i reached out and hugged her.

            “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how horrible that must have been. But it’s why I want to keep training. So I won’t be beaten again.” For a while, they held each other in silence.

            “Why not just stay in Lessu with me? You’d be safe.” They broke apart.

            “You know why. Would you walk away from your station knowing you could have made a change for the better?”

            “I guess not.”

            “Then please understand.” Machi took a deep breath.

            “I understand. Can you do something for me first?”

            “Of course.” A’i was feeling guilty for her quick temper.

            “Return with me for just a little while. Rest. I have an invitation to see the unveiling of the new statue at the Court of the Assembly. We could go together.” The unveiling. A’i had almost forgotten about her plan with Lashni. She wasn’t expecting Machi to be there.

            “I can do that…you really want to see it in person?”

            “I thought you’d like it.”

            “Oh I would. I –- never mind.” She was stuck.

She spoke once more with Dashe as her masked alter-ego before they left.

            “Machira said you were attacked by an assassin. Are you fully recovered now?”

            “Yes, aside from my lekku.”

            “Well I’m glad to hear it’s not worse. Do you know if she made any progress with Rekkish during the banquet?”

            “She did not.”

            “Not surprising. He’s been beyond reason for a long time.”

            “She did say he had a reaction when she brought up Kysgari. And Thrycheck was there.”

            “Circumstantial, but it only makes me more certain.”

            “I believe I might have found a way to access the palace.” His lekku perked up when she said this.

            “Go on.”

            “The Dinek’s son fancies me.” Dashe let out a derisive laugh.

            “That’s quite a vulnerability. I always suspected that boy might be Rekkish’s downfall.” His eyes seemed almost starry with the possibilities. “Notwithstanding, the palace has impressive security systems.”

            “Yes, Cato told me Slice Security retrofitted everything.” That laugh again.

            “May I propose something?”

            “Of course.”

            “You’ve shown yourself willing to take things into your own hands. The interrogations, the Zygerrians you shot in cold blood.” She was about to apologise for the latter, but he motioned for her to be quiet. “If you were able to use this new fling to get into the palace and damage its power source, all their security would mean nothing. If some Hands happened to attack the palace at this vulnerable time, it could provide enough of a distraction for you to reach the Dinek.” This wasn’t the direction she had expected him to take.

            “And then what?” His expression became more sober.

            “Let me explain. If something were to suddenly, tragically remove Rekkish from the picture, his son would have to appoint a regent. He has a degree of personal discretion over the choice, but it’s a long-standing tradition that he select the next-most senior representative in the assembly. That just happens to be me. If, in addition, you have him wrapped around your finger, the two of us would be able to shape the future of Daria.” There it was. What Machi had suspected might happen. And not just a crime. Regicide.

            “I’ll have to think about it.”

            “Fair enough. With all respect to your future decision, I think this arrangement serves both our interests. You might be aware that Daria has a regional fighter base. With us in charge, if you find the proof you’re looking for during or after the operation, fighters could easily be scrambled to prevent anyone escaping Kysgari. Then, should its current occupant be ousted…how would you like to add Countess to your list of titles.” Countess. She would wait to make a decision still. With the right use of her powers, she might be able to expose Thrycheck without so much bloodshed. But you know he could get out of the system and leave Republic territory if the authorities are too slow. If she had to break in to get the evidence, it might not even be actionable, but if she went along with Dashe’s plan they could make it actionable. Quick action would guarantee justice, and once the proof was brought to light, no one would question them. Still, so many lives could not be taken so lightly. She needed to wait, to see if it was really for the greater good. She was about to take her leave when Dashe spoke again.

            “I suppose it goes without saying that you have no entanglements which could complicate your relationship with Cato.”

            “Why do you ask?” He smiled.

            “I have a talent for telling when two have bed together. There’s a certain look, a certain energy. I saw it between Machira and a servant of hers, and now I’ve seen a flash of it in your eyes when I mentioned her. I’ve no interest in whether you are one and the same, but even if you are, you wouldn’t be the first she brought home from the Wild Vine. She’s quite prolific there.”

            All of this twisted inside her as she departed. He might have filled her with doubt about some things, but on one, she was now resolved. She would go through with her plans for the statue. Machi might have been content to argue with Rekkish over a fancy meal as if this were all a game, as if it were about finding the right words or principles rather than power, but she knew better; and soon, every politician on Ryloth would see the light as well.

Chapter Text

The season was getting darker, and in Lessu it was already an evening sun. Electric lights created a dome of light around Lashni’s tent, but made it harder to see beyond. The security guard standing watch outside yawned, then jumped as his radio crackled to life. Lashni’s ship was arriving with more supplies. It seemed strange, given how close the artist supposedly was to being done, but it wasn’t his job to question that. He watched the small cruiser touch down in its usual place on the edge of the courtyard. It was hard to see, but he could make out someone unloading three large containers. He didn’t recognize the Twi’lek woman who accompanied them as one of Lashni’s assistants.

            “What’s in these?” He asked.

            “Scaffolding and curtains for the ceremony,” she said.

            “I’ll need to see some identification.” She showed him something. He couldn’t remember even a few moments later whether it was a Republic universal ID or just a regional identity card, but it was fine. She definitely showed him something. Besides, he could tell she and Lashni knew each other. The only strange thing was that she was comfortable being alone with him. Personally, he thought Lashni was a creep.

Chapter Text

A’i’s short time back in Lessu was blissful. She could tell Machi was doting on her a bit, even as the end of her recess neared. The unveiling was in just a few cycles, but as it approached, she was glad. She wouldn’t want to leave if she stayed any longer, and her duplicity was eating at her. Before they left for the capital Court to see the ceremony, she decided she needed to say something.

            “I need to tell you something, Love.”

            “What?”

            “When they reveal the statue, look away. There will be something the others need to see, but not you.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “Just, trust me. I know you can’t stand cruelty.” Machi didn’t ask further questions, but looked suspicious.

            In a stretch of courtyard between the statue and Assembly building, a couple of hundred seats had been set out for the guests. A’i and Machi passed the giant wheel with the clan insignias. The tent that had enclosed the art piece in progress had been replaced by a wall of curtains. Floodlights supplemented the low sun so that plenty of light was cast on the red fabric.

            The ceremony opened with speeches, which A’i half-listened to. The first was given by one of the younger members of the assembly, a recently-elected Tukian, and was heavy on platitudes about restoring Ryloth’s culture and autonomy under the new government while also welcoming friends across the galaxy. It closed with “Circoo aj passi ya'kii zela'jumu kijaleei”. There is good to be found in everyone. The second came from a politician in the Galactic Senate, and addressed the Republic’s commitment to fighting against imperialism. A’i got the impression that she was an excellent orator, but the speech was in Basic and elaborately composed at that, and some of the words were lost on her. When it was almost time, Machi whispered in her ear.

            “I don’t know what you’ve done, but whatever it is you think people like me need to see, I expect I’ll find out soon anyway.” The curtains fell.

            Reactions unfolded around her second-by-second. An instant of silence. Then gasps. Screams. Commotion as some people fell or leapt out of their seats. A’i didn’t break her gaze though. Her expression was placid, reverent, the picture of a young Twi’lek woman at Temple.

            The statue, Mother of Balance, was a beautiful rendering of Kija’Lekki with her arms outstretched, evoking at once generosity and the scales of justice. It was made from two different types of marble interlaced, so that half her face was pearl-white and the other jet-black. But something had been added just for its unveiling. Draped around one of her arms was a mass of chains stained with blood, and hanging beneath the other were the bodies of A’i’s three prisoners. Under the bright lights, even those in the back could tell they were dead, and that their hands had all been cut off. They swung a little in the breeze, the elongated shadows they cast against the floodlights waving back and forth across the crowd. A memory disk with all of A’i’s evidence, now in its entirety, protruded from one of their mouths, and a hologram projection of the video lit up the darkening sky above the statue. Left whole, the recording could be authenticated. It probably couldn’t be used as evidence, but everyone would know it was real. The finishing touch was draped over the Goddess’s shoulder: a scroll of primitive paper made from tree pulp which bore a short message in elaborate, Twi’leki script. These men steal your daughters so that Humans can fuck them.

            She had wanted to write more, but Lashni had convinced her it was better to be pithy, and now that she was looking at it, she was right to trust him. Most of the message was left to implication, but it was nonetheless clear. Someone is insisting that Twi’lek exploitation end. They aren’t afraid to use violence. Money and government cannot protect you. And no one, Human or Twi’lek, who opposes them is safe. It took only a few minutes before a horde of interplanetary police and Republic soldiers descended on the courtyard. Lashni would probably be arrested, but he had planned on it, and there was no physical evidence that would let them detain him for long. Soon the soldiers were ordering everyone to clear the area. For those few minutes though, there were hundreds of politicians and a dozen cameras taking in the scene, watching the video of Ann being rescued, and the gently-swinging corpses.

            Machi didn’t speak as they retreated to the outskirts of the crowd, or on their walk back to the speeder, or on the ride home. She was probably waiting to be sure they wouldn’t be overheard. A’i could sense a fight was about to happen as clearly as she had in that circle of fire. It started as soon as they were inside and away from any servants.

            “Why would you do this without speaking to me first?” Her voice was even.

            “I didn’t think I needed to. I’m doing what needs to be done without affecting your career.”

            “There was no need to bring species into it. Things are already tense. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are riots.”

            “There should be!” Machi still didn’t raise her voice, or break her gaze.

            “You aren’t the only one who suffered under the Empire. You’re not the only one who’s still haunted by it. I had to be around imperials nearly every day. When the war started, things got worse. They knew they were losing and became even more cruel. When I was twelve they shot my mother in front of me. She was trying to bargain with them to protect the rest of our clan, but they were going to do what they were going to do. Because by then it wasn’t about land or credits. It was about making someone suffer who they felt was below them.” A’i looked away. She didn’t know how to reply. Part of her wanted to apologise, and part of her wretched at the idea. She still thought she was right, but then why did she feel like this? The silence stretched on. Her face felt hot.

            “How can you not hate them for that?” she finally asked.

            “Who says I don’t?”

            “I didn’t sense it just now.”

            “Well I did. For a long time.”

            “What changed?” Machi had an uncanny ability to speak eloquently even through tears, maybe developed from a lifetime in dra’damor.

            “I realised that the pain they caused me and the hatred I felt because of it were two faces of one beast. I couldn’t hold on to one and not the other. It didn’t do any good to keep hating them, to keep imagining what I could have done to stop it. It was making me hate myself. I didn’t give up, I just moved on.”

            “I’m sorry.” A’i felt defeated. Machi shook one lekku.

            “You don’t have to apologise for being ferocious, but you went behind my back, and I saw your video –- you lied to me from the start. I don’t know if I can keep working with you.” A’i bowed her head. Involuntarily, she remembered an exchange they had in bed a couple of cycles ago. Sinking to her knees, she looked up to meet Machi’s eyes again.

            “I’ll behave from now on. Is there anything I can do to regain Vashna’s favour?” For a second, Machi was ambivalent. One lekku seemed to say What are you playing at? while the other was starting to curl with arousal. In the end, she took A’i by the chin.

            “Your penitence is a good start. I’m sure we can think of a few more things.”

Chapter Text

A’i’s boots crunched on the sun-warmed lava rock as she approached the mountain and its secret door. She didn’t know anymore where things stood between her and Machi –- they hadn’t spoken about it since, but their goodbyes had still been warm. Inside, all the tunnels were now finished. There were living quarters, a mess hall, even an area to relax and socialise, assuming anyone else was here. Then, down the corridor that led to the archives, she heard faint voices. As she drew closer, she recognized one of them. She was reaching the end of the corridor when the doors opened and revealed the one Batu was speaking to.

            It was the bald human. The one who cut her. A’i drew her sabre, and the human did the same. They stared each other down, but Batu remained impassive. Were they working together? Was this a trap? A’i got ready to defend herself while retreating back outside.

            “I see you’re back again,” said Batu. “This is Singe, my most senior apprentice. I believe you’ve already met.” Rabid delight simmered beneath his last sentence. Neither of them reacted to this introduction right away. Then, slowly, her enemy began to lower their weapon. There was a look, a silent message. I won’t if you don’t. They both put their sabres away, but did not speak.

            “I was just leaving,” he said. He motioned to Singe, then to her. “You, remove some weakness from this one, if you can manage that. And you, in the short time you’ve been here I’ve sensed more doubt and indecision in you than I ever have before. I suggest you finish your task soon.” She stood her ground.

            “I just need a little more time to get the justice I seek.”

            “Then take what you will, cut down whoever stands in your way, and if you cannot, at least have the dignity to make them kill you this time.” He shot a look at Singe and then left. A’i stayed quiet. Batu’s footsteps faded. She turned and walked back down the corridor, back to her quarters where she laid down on the stone bed and pulled up something to read on her communicator. A few moments later she heard footsteps again, lighter ones. A small silhouette crossed the doorway to her room.

            “Are you just going to ignore me then?” asked Singe. Her tone was flat, as though she didn’t really care what the answer might be. It took a moment for A’i to translate from Basic and formulate a response.

            “I’m not ignoring you. I have nothing to say to you.” She didn’t look away from what she was reading.

            “Fine. But he wants me to help train you and I already got a tongue lashing for not finishing you off last time.” The words twisted a still-fresh wound. A’i turned to face her.

            “So he wanted me dead then?”

            “If that’s what he wanted you wouldn’t be breathing right now.” A’i was getting sick of being condescended to.

            “Then what?” Then she remembered the way he had reacted when she mentioned the Czerka corporation, that flash of amusement. “Did he know our paths would cross?”

            “He knows I take contracts from a certain Hutt, one with a large stake in Czerka who’s not shy about sending bounty-hunters when one of his investments is threatened. And it’s clear he’s pleased with how things turned out, less so, I think, that it didn’t lead to one of us killing the other, but still pleased.”

            “How can you work for people like that?” Singe laughed. Her high-pitched human laughter was grating.

            “Do you even know under whom you apprentice?” A’i didn’t want to admit it, but what was there to say? It was inescapable now.

            “I thought he was a Jedi, but he’s not like any in the stories I heard.” More laughter.

            “I see your misunderstanding. Jedi are Force-users, the most well known order of them, but not all who wield the Force are Jedi.” A’i couldn’t believe it, but it had to be right. Batu had never called himself a Jedi, she had just assumed.

            “Then what is he?”

            “A lord of the Sith.” The Sith brotherhood. Things were falling into place.

            “Which means?”

            “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected you to know. It’s not easy to find information on the Sith. They’re a secret alliance of dark-side specialists, enemies of the Jedi. Most of them are also politicians or major corporate shareholders.” This was almost worse than their last interaction. It felt unreal.

            “And what does that make us?” Singe shrugged.

            “I’m me and you’re you. Say what you will about him, but he teaches you to get what you want. Whether that’s good or bad is up to you, not him.”

            “He doesn’t seem to care about anything. And he’s a sexist.”

            “He is anything if it serves an end. Has he not made you more powerful?” A’i thought for a moment.

            “He said something to me before I took someone’s will the first time. You think he said it just to make me angry?”

            “Did it?”

            “Yes.”

            “Then yeah, probably.” Her tone was so casual, as though explaining this were boring, but for A’i it was overwhelming. She felt betrayed, lied to. But you haven’t been. You didn’t ask questions. You’ve no one to blame but yourself. This last thought was infuriating. She needed to decide what to do with these new revelations, but she couldn’t think straight. After a long silence, Singe sauntered out of view back down the corridor. And then she spoke again.

            “Fight me.” A’i followed after her.

            “What?”

            “Even I can sense your uncertainty. You’re angry and you don’t know what to do next. I’m going to the arena. Fight me.”

The two faced each other in the centre of the arena. A’i’s gaze was drawn momentarily to the rune on the floor. She ignited her sabre and Singe did the same. A’i slashed and their blades collided once again. Sparks and stray bits of plasma arced through the air as A’i pressed forward, but Singe sidestepped and countered, forcing her on the defensive. She wasn’t just incredibly fast. Her form was so perfect that no movement was wasted. But A’i was determined to be more patient than last time. The way Singe fought was hard to pin down. Just when you thought there was a solution to her defences, there would be some new nuance, but perhaps it was convoluted.

            A’i tried again to use reach to her advantage. If she could force Singe to use her agility more, dancing in and out of range, maybe she’d get tired. Their blades clashed again and again. A’i kept her from getting close and, when her reflexes warned her, dodged just in time as Singe lunged with impossible speed. Only the lunge was just a way to get inside her guard. She wasn’t ready to block a follow-up slash and had to unbalance herself dodging out of the way, and as she did she heard a quiet click before the blade of Singe’s lightsabre extended just enough so that the strike was now connecting.

            They both froze. The blade was so close to A’i’s neck that she could feel the heat coming off it. Damn. They both turned off their sabres.

            “That’s how you cut me before. What was that?” She could tell Singe was pleased with herself, but supposed that at least meant she wasn’t bored.

            “When you spend all your time fighting people bigger than you, you have to incorporate a few tricks, like a dual phase lightsaber.” To demonstrate, she ignited hers once again and then flipped an additional control that toggled between two different crystals, allowing her to lengthen or shorten the blade. Using it in the middle of a fight created so many possibilities. Such a complex weapon. And she had actually believed they might be closely matched.

            “I can’t beat you,” A’i finally said. Singe was impassive.

            “How long have you been training?”

            “A little over three years.”

            “I’ve been Batu’s apprentice for more than ten.” A’i was struck by this. She didn’t look more than twenty.

            “You look young.”

            “They start you young when they can. Let’s see if you can catch up.” They prepared to duel again.

            Even knowing what to expect, it was still a challenge to anticipate. A sudden lengthening of the blade could give slashes and lunges extra reach without warning while shortening it again allowed her to evade A’i’s blade and get close. She didn’t show any sign of tiring either. Their second bout was a little longer, and though it ended in much the same way, A’i wasn’t deterred. By the third, her reflexes were starting to adjust, but fatigue was also setting in. Still, she didn’t stop there. She tried again and again until she couldn’t stand and had to crouch to catch her breath.

            “How do you feel now?” asked Singe. Nothing should have changed, but for once A’i’s mind was quiet. She was exhausted, but also saw a way forward. After some sleep she would go back to it. Action would bring clarity. However she decided to react to what she had learned about Batu, she would need to get stronger.

            “Better.”

Chapter Text

This kept up for thirty or more orbits of the nearest moon. The artificial light underground and the endless evening sun above made it easy to lose track of time. If she and Singe happened to be awake at the same time, they would fight in the arena. At other times, A’i would go to the steam vents to meditate or practise with the remotes. Her progress with lightsaber-on-lightsaber combat was steady, but she hit a plateau with the remotes at three. It took all her concentration just to defend that many blasters, and even that was inconsistent. Still, she was relentless about her forms and physical conditioning.

            News about the statue and the Witch’s message had spread too, and the more A’i saw of the fallout, the more vindicated she felt. Machi’s prediction had come true. There were mass protests in Lessu and across the clan capitals. Dozens of representatives in the assembly were now scrambling as they realized they were close to losing their seats, and the ones most-aligned with Czerka were afraid to appear in public at all. When she needed a pick-me-up, A’i would enjoy reveling in their fear.

            The two apprentices spoke little to each other, but would sometimes exchange words after their duels. A’i was catching her breath after contending with Singe’s greater experience and dual phase lightsaber for an especially long time when Singe asked her a question.

            “You call yourself Witch, but are not Dathomiri. Why?” A flick of A’i’s lekku registered her indignation.

            “It wasn’t a title I chose for myself. A soldier called me that the first time I created lightning.” For the first time, she seemed interested.

            “Fitting then. He probably called you that because he was familiar with the legends of my people.”

            “Your people?”

            “The Nightsisters of Dathomir. We take the title Witch upon coming of age.” Now A’i remembered why the name was familiar.

            “I’ve studied some of their writings too –- they spoke to me more than any others.” Singe’s interest seemed to be waning again, but A’i wanted to ask a question of her own now that she had her talking.

            “How did you find me after taking that contract? And what did you do to me the first time we faced each other? How can you do that just by touching someone?” Singe regarded her with that same empty, slightly-bored expression. Her reply, though, was prosaic, as if it were something she’d thought about putting into words before.

            “You have used the Force to dominate someone’s mind, so I expect you know the power of hatred. It breathes, it grows, it reproduces itself. It can even be passed from one to another like a virus.” That must have been what she had felt, that ugly, boiling feeling that had overwhelmed her before she lost consciousness. Somehow, Singe could use that feeling to give someone a kind of deadly illness with only a touch. Combined with incredible bursts of speed, A’i could see why she was a successful bounty-hunter.

            “As for how I found you,” she continued, “the path you leave in the Force is easy to track. Since you’re another like me, I wanted to find a moment alone and have a duel before I touched you. I could have done it sooner.” A’i had more that weighed on her mind.

            “Your touch is meant to kill, but I survived. Did you let me live on purpose?” She didn’t answer right away.

            “I underestimated what it would take to kill you. I’m guessing I wasn’t far off.” The humiliation still stung, but did nothing to deter her ambition.

            “How did you learn to do that?” The eagerness in her voice was palpable.

            “Not in any way I could teach you,” was all Singe said as she left the arena to shower and sleep. A’i went to meditate on what she just learned.

During her sessions in the steam vents, A’i repeated what she now knew was called the code of the Sith. Though conflicted, she couldn’t help but feel she was beginning to comprehend an important truth: the law alone cannot break chains. Law was an expression of power, and when that power was corrupted or wielded to exploit, those who remained within it could provide no remedy. The Republic had not delivered them from exploitation by off-worlders, it had created a veneer for that exploitation. Conditions which led to thousands working in mines or being shipped around the galaxy to places outside Republic control were still permitted, but the law was an obstacle to her ending those conditions. Victory, not law, broke chains. Those in government often seemed to omit this truth, so much so that the conventions of Galactic Basic implicitly contained this omission. They used the word justice to refer to the mere application of law, as opposed to its actual effects. They even used the word in the name for some parts of the government. In Twi’leki, on the other hand, the best translation of justice was literally balance. It was something derived from nature.

            That was what she thought about as she practiced her lightning. It was now almost as powerful as what Batu had demonstrated, but it sapped her energy faster than anything. Her routine was to first use the Force to pile together large pieces of lava, turn the pile to glass with lightning, then cut the black glass to some pleasing shape, like a flower or totem on which she could carve calligraphy. She was starting to realize something that made her heart lurch the same way it had when Machi whispered in her ear: with the Force at her disposal, she could do anything. The only limitation was her stamina, and that was increasing with each passing week.

            Satisfied with how she was progressing, she started to experiment. Before considering Dashe’s plan, she had to know if it were even possible. Old droids purchased on trips to a nearby city, and decommissioned electronics were her first subjects. Most fell easily to the torrent of blue lightning she could now release at will from her fingertips. Sensitive electronics, without protection, were quick to succumb. Battle droids on the other hand were more insulated. If she had to rely on melting their armour to reach their central systems, it took a lot of energy. She reasoned that if it only took frying some computers to get the palace’s security offline, it wouldn’t be so hard, but taking out the power source itself might be beyond her abilities.

            She couldn’t guarantee she’d be able to do what was required unless she got schematics of the palace. A little research showed where to find the corporate office for the Ryloth division of Slice Security. The next time she wanted a respite from training, she would spend a few cycles in the capital and pay them a visit. After another few weeks, she told Singe she’d be leaving for a short time.

            “I’ve got business in the capital. It should only take a couple of cycles.”

            “What are you doing?” Another rare spark of interest. A’i gave the bare minimum of information.

            “I need security schematics for a certain building. I’m going to visit the headquarters of the company that retrofitted it and make someone give them to me.” Singe grinned. What she said next took A’i by surprise.

            “Why not have some fun while you’re there? We’ve both been training hard for a while now. I could use a few days off myself.” A’i had been planning to use the trip as an excuse to visit Machi. She would be back in the capital now for the upcoming votes, unless they had already happened by now. A’i wondered what Singe’s idea of fun was.

            “What do you propose?”

            “Baths, dinner, something for your head. I’m guessing you grew up poor, like me. Let me teach you how to enjoy the city.” A’i was surprised to find herself tempted by this offer. She could still see Machi for a cycle or so –- she would probably be busy with work anyway.

            “That works. Where can I meet you once I have what I need?” Singe gave her the details of a spa and bathhouse.

            “Come find me there first. Better to leave the mission for when you’re ready to leave in case something goes wrong.”

Chapter Text

A’i took her ship back to Lessu. She chatted with 2-TZ during the trip.

            “May I ask what brings you to Lessu this time?”

            “I have business with Slice Security.”

            “I see. Would you like me to contact their offices in advance of your arrival?”

            “That’s alright. I have a feeling they’ll be eager to help me find what I need.”

            “Mind domination does tend to make dealing with bureaucracy easier.” This comment made her smile.

            “Ka, how did you know about that?”

            “I’m programmed as an assistant for apprentices in the Brotherhood. My archives include your training and research materials.”

            “You know about the Sith then?”

            “Yes I do.”

            “What is it that they want? Does my master work for someone in turn?”

            “I’m afraid that information is classified. I suggest you ask my primary operator.”

            “Batu I take it?”

            “Yes.” So he was keeping her in the dark deliberately. Her apprehension was only growing, but she set it aside for now.

The spa was on the outskirts of Lessu, far enough from the city centre that the buildings had thinned out, giving way to rolling grasslands with the forest looming in the distance along the deep pink horizon. It was a few months away from the darkest time of year, and the sun in Lessu was close to setting. The outer walls of the spa were all glass, so wherever you were you could look out at the surrounding landscape. The price for their services was high, but more than affordable for her. Two floors up, she found the baths, which were built to look like natural rock pools fed by bubbling hot springs. A’i stepped into one and was surprised to feel something soft and pillowy under her feet. The bottom of the pool was covered in some kind of fluffy green moss. She laid back and let herself sink below the surface. It was like lying on a cloud. She came up for air. A subtle but heady perfume whispered to her. She floated there for a while, admiring the sunset, her muscles beginning to relax after being sore for months. An attendant in a white smock came by with a tray of drinks, something bright orange that frothed as she sipped it. For a rare clutch of moments, her mind was quiet. This was the proper way to unwind. Another good suggestion from your would-be assassin.

            Singe found her a while later and said she was going downstairs for some skin treatments. A’i wasn’t so interested, but followed her anyway to investigate. Most of the patrons here were humans, and the eyes of more than one lingered on her. Another attendant, a male human, offered A’i a massage. She was skeptical at first, but it ended up being divine. This was already starting to feel like more of a vacation than any of her time in Daria. She watched Singe get her face painted in front of a large set of mirrors. She seemed especially vain about her eyebrows, maybe because there was no hair on her head. Not that A’i thought there was anything wrong with that –- all human hairstyles looked strange to her, but she’d seen enough humans to know it was unusual. She finished by having them add a smoky pigment around her eyes that made them look huge and imperious.

            The two left together. Singe had rented a speeder and chauffeur, which was waiting for them outside. Their next destination was a restaurant and theatre in the heart of the entertainment district, where they enjoyed a show from couches in their own private sky-box. It was a kind of cinematic opera. The story A’i could tell drew inspiration from folklore about a war between two clans, but the details didn’t seem to be important. It was more about spectacle. There were special effects to simulate explosions and magic, gymnastics and choreographed fighting, all put to music. So the service wouldn’t be a distraction, food and drinks were brought through a vertical conveyor from a kitchen below up to the table in front of them. A’i lost count of how many courses there were. She didn’t know food like this existed. What she’d sampled while traveling with Machi had been delicious but mostly still recognizable to her. This meal though used ingredients and techniques from all around the galaxy, and took ostentation to another level. Singe highlighted some of the most exotic items, where they came from, how hard they were to acquire, the danger or cruelty involved in finding or preparing them. If she’d known some of this beforehand, A’i might have thought twice about agreeing to the reservation, but she reasoned it would only be a waste now to abstain. In some deep part of her mind, the part that warned her of danger a moment in the future and made her salivate when she smelled stewing fox meat, the added context improved the taste.

            Next was a nearby dance club, an opaque black spire with a massive digital sign that read Refraction. A’i saw Singe pull out a communicator and send a few messages as they jetted over. The club was laid out like a corkscrew, with a spiral staircase winding from the entry level up to the top and a series of landings each with its own dance floor. Through the centre of the spiral hung a massive chandelier made from tens of thousands of suspended crystals. They started ascending the stairs, wading through the crowds and the fog that crept along the floor. Lasers, beating in time to synthesised tones, were split and scattered by the crystals, and strobing lights made everything seem like a low frame-rate video. The drinks she had earlier were just desensitising enough that it was dazzling and hypnotic instead of overwhelming. Near the top of the stairs was a glass room, a lounge with its own bar that they would be sharing with a handful of other rich patrons. For a while, she just watched the floors below, drinking in the visuals.

            A man came into the lounge. Most of the people dancing and drinking here were wearing flashy or exotic styles, but he had on a nondescript brown tunic and black jacket. His face was covered by a mask, the mouth and eyes of which were asymmetrical so that the face gave different expressions depending on the angle you saw it from. He seemed to recognize Singe and strode over to them.

            “Timely as always,” she said, with more excitement in her voice than A’i had ever heard. He didn’t speak. Credits and a couple of minute packages changed hands, and then he was gone.

            “Do you want some?” asked Singe.

            “Some what?”

            “Neural modulators. You can speed things up or slow them down. Whatever suits you.” To A’i, it sounded too much like spice.

            “No thanks.” She didn’t seem at all put off by this.

            “More for me then.” A’i watched her take a sniff of something and slam the bar with a crow of satisfaction. Her usually-flat affect was for a moment stirred almost to arousal. Then she cracked her neck and, without warning, got up and moved to sit by another human at the opposite end of the bar. She brushed a hand against his shoulder, and when he turned, locked eyes with him. A’i recognized the vacant expression that came across his face as she leaned close and whispered something in his ear. He motioned to the bartender, who started preparing something for each of them. A’i moved to sit by her other side and ordered a round for herself. She wasn’t quite sure how to express what she was wondering in Basic.

            “What’s the deal with you and him?” she asked. Whether she got it right or not, her irritation seemed to come across.

            “Oh he won’t be any bother,” said Singe with a dismissive wave. He was already turned back towards the bar. “If it bothers you, you can get your own,” she added with a grin.

            “How can you control someone so easily?” asked A’i.

            “It’s not full control, just a dose of lust. You know how to use fear, but a human philosopher once said love and fear aren’t mutually exclusive. You become most powerful by mastering both. Love can be a powerful intoxicant. If you just need to make someone docile, a lighter touch uses less energy than true mind domination.” A’i looked around.

            “Everyone here is human,” she said.

            “You don’t like them?” A’i couldn’t hide a look of disgust, which made Singe laugh.

            “Fair. I don’t much like them either.” A’i wasn’t sure what that meant.

            “Don’t you enjoy…company from time to time?” She didn’t answer right away.

            “I don’t usually like being touched.” She took another sniff of something and changed the subject. “Anyway, the love doesn’t have to be genuine. It’s a physiological thing.” Singe looked at her thoughtfully, as though she were considering her physique for the first time. “I don’t think it will be hard for you.”

            Not to be outdone, A’i prepared herself and picked out a target, someone sitting near a corner of the room who already seemed drunk. She didn’t think she could stomach touching him, but went over to him and found a way to catch his gaze. There was a flash of something in his eyes and then his expression melted. She leaned close. Come over there and sit with me, and see what happens. He followed her back and got each of them another round. Pleased with her success, and already under the influence, a wave of euphoria washed over her.

            “You really know how to have a good time,” she said to Singe, who smiled.

            “I used to have nothing. After joining with Batu, I didn’t know what to do with it. I thought you might be in a similar situation.”

            “You were right.” A’i took a long drink. “You didn’t answer my question before – when we first met at the base.”

            “Remind me.”

            “Why do you take jobs from Czerka? You must know how much pain they cause.”

            “Don’t think I give a shit about the corporate drones I take money from. They’re greedy cowards who’ve never known real struggle. But they’ll always have someone to pay to do their dirty work. No reason it shouldn’t be me.” There was a momentary silence. She seemed to be able to tell A’i wasn’t satisfied.

            “Want to find one of their offices and burn it down?” she asked. A’i couldn’t tell if she was serious but looked thoughtful for a moment, which provoked a cackling laugh.

            “No, I’m having fun here,” she said after a time.

            “If you’re sure.” They enjoyed the music and drinks in silence for a while. Singe, despite her size, had an almost supernatural tolerance. The thump of the deepest synthesised drums created a slight vibration in the glass walls and floor of the lounge. Every now and then, A’i would have to refresh the spell on her date as he came out of his stupor and tried to touch or talk to her. The lights were starting to put her into a trance herself when Singe spoke again.

            “Is it sinking in yet?”

            “What?”

            “We’re special, you and I. We can have anything we want.” This thought had been forming in the back of her mind, unarticulated even internally. Now it was at once nerve-wracking and arousing. With what she knew how to do, she could afford to live like this every day if she wanted. It didn’t have to stop there either.

            “We can,” she agreed, “but that doesn’t make it right.” Singe scoffed at this.

            “I never met someone born rich who worried about whether it was right. Some are kind, more are cruel, but none of them ask why they have and others don’t. Your preoccupation with the question weakens you.” A’i was considering this, her mind half somewhere else, when she was startled by a voice behind them.

            “What is this?” She turned to see a woman in a red gown gesturing indignantly at the man who’d been buying Singe drinks. “You’re with this now? I can’t even tell if it’s a boy or a girl.” He blinked, seeming to recognize her, and then Singe brushed the back of her fingers against his arm again. She looked at the woman and smiled, then back to him.

            “Which one of us is more beautiful?” she asked him in a sickly sweet tone A’i had never heard her use before. He seemed disoriented, but stared at her with a look of adoration.

            “Definitely you.”

            “You would make love to me right now, in front of her, if I asked?”

            “Oh yes.” She giggled and let him go, then took A’i by the arm.

            “Let’s go dance.” They left for one of the nearby dance floors.

The pulse of the music was hypnotic. Exertion and the cacophony of sensations with time created a paradoxical peace, an eternal here-and-now sustained by rhythms and dazzling lights. A’i gave herself over to it, she didn’t know for how long. Sometimes, she would see Singe in her periphery. She was coordinated and had a sense of rhythm, but seemed to be making things up as she went, off in a world of her own. A’i saw her run into other patrons more than once, and eventually, she ran afoul of two men holding drinks.

            “Hey! Watch yourself!” one of them yelled as the other tried to shake the remnants of his drink from his bright blue fur coat. Singe stopped, seeming to consider them both. A’i saw a glimmer of anticipation cross her face.

            “Make me,” she said. He scoffed and stepped close, his much larger frame looming over her.

            “What’s your problem?” She tilted her head up to meet his gaze.

            “A very stupid man who thinks himself important and who won’t get out of my way.” A’i could sense what was about to happen, but it was over almost before it started. He had barely cocked his fist before Singe darted behind him and unleashed a flurry of kidney-shots. He screamed in pain and fell to his knees as she slipped into the crowd. A’i followed her down a level, and on the floor below, found her dancing just as before. A’i had been awake for a long time now and was starting to wear out. Besides, she didn’t think they should stick around after what had just happened. Singe didn’t want to leave though, and communicating with her was starting to become a chore, both because of the surrounding noise and whatever she’d been taking. After some trying, A’i was able to put across that she was going to bed and would see her back at their hotel.

            The air outside was cool, but the entertainment district never slowed down. The light-up signs against the dusky sky seemed dark after what she’d just experienced. High above, the rush of speeder traffic was still going strong. A’i took a deep breath, feeling the wind on her face. The beat of the music was so burned into her mind that she could almost still hear it. She checked the time and the positioning system on her communicator. The next work cycle would be starting in a few hours. It was a long way, but she could walk to Machi’s place and be there around the time she was getting up. She felt a second wind coming on and started walking.

            By this point, she was used to navigating the crowds in the city, and now with the way she was dressed, they almost parted for her. She thought about what Singe had said. It was clear she was a ruthless hedonist who, like their master, didn’t care about anything but her own gain. At the same time, there was a shared understanding between them than spanned worlds: what it was like to count the days when you knew you could eat, to not know how you would feed your family. Her response to A’i’s question had also been incisive, bewildering even. She hadn’t tried to sidestep or minimise what she participated in. It was about the big picture. You couldn’t change a thing in this world without power, and you couldn’t get power without taking it from someone else. Suffering, like energy, was conserved. She passed two more clubs and a bordello with a mostly-naked promoter outside. Maybe that would be the next institution she tried to eradicate.

            The traffic, both on foot and above, began to thin as she approached the edge of the district. Every now and then, the black sky that blended with the purple horizon would be illuminated by a passing ship. Machi’s bed would feel amazing after being up for so long. It would be the perfect way to cap off such a satisfying time.

            The guards outside Machi’s chateau would have recognized her and let her in, but just for fun, she decided she would sneak past them. Keeping a careful watch for any perimeter sensors, she went around back to the orchard. The scent of ardoketti filled her lungs as she leapt onto the roof. She crept up to one of the skylights and, with a wave of her hand, unlocked it from the inside and slid it open, sensing the hallway below was empty. She couldn’t quite remember the layout, but heard running water and saw a light at the end of the hall. As she approached though, she sensed something that worried her. Hoping she was wrong, she crept up to the door and opened it a few inches. It creaked as she did, and there was a yelp and a splash as someone inside startled. A’i pulled away, her back to the wall. She had seen enough.

            “A’i, is that you?” She didn’t reply. “Don’t go. I’m coming out.” She wanted to leave right then, but hesitated just long enough for Machi to come out wrapped in a towel.

            “How did you get in here?” Her voice was hushed, but A’i didn’t bother to follow suit.

            “Is that all you have to say? A skylight if you must know. Enjoying your newest trophy from the bar?” Machi flicked one lekku in a way that was caustic while still being above this conversation.

            “Yes, A’i. I like sex. Not as much I expect as you like revenge. You didn’t feel the need to tell me your plans for the latter. We haven’t even spoken in weeks.” A’i turned away.

            “Fine,” she conceded. “I guess I should have tried to talk sooner.” Machi’s expression softened.

            “I suppose I could have made the effort too. I’ve been thinking of you though, and now I can tell you in person: we voted two cycles ago and my measure passed!”

            “Congratulations.” A’i wasn’t able to muster much enthusiasm, even though she knew it was expected. Machi looked crest-fallen.

            “I thought this victory might convince you to stay, but I suppose that was wishful thinking.” A’i’s lekku stiffened.

            “To me it is not victory.”

            “You’ve done so much already. You don’t need to keep risking your life. We have our new law –”

            “And I suppose as soon as the ink was dry, all those children were returned to my village?” Machi took a moment to respond, and half-choked on the words once she found them.

            “I grieve with you. I wish I could heal what has been done to you, to all of us.”

            “It may be beyond your power, but not mine.”

            “What are you planning?” Machi looked fearful now. A’i sighed.

            “Nothing. Yet.” A long silence. A’i sensed there was more. Machi took a couple of deep breaths before speaking again.

            “There’s something I need to tell you. I sent an inquiry to Dantooine a few weeks ago, asking the Jedi council about their contacts here. They said there have been no Jedi on Ryloth for many years. The question seemed to trouble them too. According to them, whoever is teaching you is trained to use the dark side –- to use the Force for evil.” A’i thought about what she had sensed exuding from that cave, that which was neither light nor void. Her thoughts raced. Several grappled for her tongue, but it was the most vicious that triumphed.

            “So any Force-user who doesn’t follow their way is evil? Perhaps they’re jealous of my Master’s power.” She noticed Machi try and fail to completely hide a look of exasperation.

            “They have wisdom about these things. Using the Force to destroy or to dominate –- it changes you. I’m afraid it’s already changing you.” The frustration left her lekku as she said this, replaced by sadness, but A’i didn’t lose her conviction. This was something she felt comfortable arguing about after everything she’d learned.

            “The difference between creation and destruction is one of perspective,” she said.

            “Your laws did not protect me from slavers. They didn’t protect my father from the fumes in the spice mines. And now they protect the ones who oversee both.”

            “I wish I could do something to help your pain. But bloodshed and cruelty won’t help either. It won’t bring peace –- not for you or our planet.” A’i’s expression became stone.

            “Peace is a lie.” Machi didn’t reply. A’i began to feel a gnawing regret in the silence that followed, but she wasn’t backing down this time. She was about to say she was leaving when Machi’s Tyrian companion opened the door and strode past them, her lekku stiff with discomfort as she tried to make it down the hall and away from them as quickly as possible. A few silent seconds later, when she was nearing the opposite end of the hall, one of her lekku made a wide, indignant sweep.

            “Well don’t stop now,” she called back to them. “Kija’Lekki. I’ll be in the bedroom.” A’i couldn’t be there any longer. Before Machi could speak again, she took off down the hall in the opposite direction, jumped up through the same skylight, and used the Force to lock it behind her. The darkness and fresh air were no comfort. She couldn’t be alone in the silence with these thoughts. As soon as she was back on the street she broke into a run again, and once she was alone in the countryside, she let out a scream and scorched the earth around her with a blast of lightning.

Chapter Text

The corporate office for Slice Security was a looming, crescent-shaped tower of tinted glass that widened near the top. The first floor was spacious and empty aside from a large circular desk with a secretary, another Twi’lek, at the centre. A’i prepared herself. Others could overcome what she was about to encounter by station or wealth, but she would do it through the power of the Force. She crossed the black marble floors, her footsteps making a barely-audible echo. The only other sound came from the fountains that lined the walls.

            “Can I help you?”

            “I’m an engineer. I need to see the schematics for one of the company’s old projects.”

            “You want floor thirty-six. That’s the project archives. You’ll need your identification to get there.” A’i thought for a moment and feigned a look of embarrassment. Emoting wasn’t painful anymore, but it still took extra effort to express herself.

            “I left my work ID in my office on the other side of the city. I really need those plans as soon as possible.” The secretary looked amused.

            “You’re not even the first today. You scientists are always forgetting things. See if the security office on twenty can give you a temporary access code.” A’i thanked her and headed towards the elevator.

            The sterile white walls and low ceilings of the twentieth floor offices were almost claustrophobic by comparison. There was a guard standing by as A’i got off the elevator. The administrator on this floor was a human.

            “I need a temporary access code for some old plans.”

            “Which job?”

            “The installations in the Darian royal palace.”

            “Sure, I just need to confirm you’re one of the engineers who’s designated on the project. What’s your name?”

            “I’m a new hire, so I’m not sure I’m in the computer.”

            “Well I can’t just give you access. You had better contact the project manager.” A’i’s lekku let out a short laugh.

            “But you can,” she said with a wave of her hand. “No one is stopping you. You can just give it to me.” His look of irritation faded. He seemed to be looking at something far away.

            “Alright then, I’ll get that for you.” He slowly focussed his gaze on the monitor to his right and started typing. A’i heard footsteps behind her. The guard was approaching them, but she had anticipated this and was ready to practise what Singe had taught her. Before he could ask what was going on, she whipped around and looked into his eyes.

            “Be still,” she commanded. His eyes rolled back in his head. He looked like he was sleepwalking. At her word, he shuffled back to his post by the elevator doors. As uncomfortable as it was to admit, working with Singe was already paying off. She looked back to the man at the desk to make sure he kept working on his task. Then, with the code in hand, she went back to the elevator. The project archives interface was easy enough to figure out, especially after being shown Machi’s system. A little while later, A’i was exiting the building with schematics of the entire palace and its security systems stored on her communicator.

Chapter Text

Half-awake, A’i stared at a hologram projection of the stolen schematics. This was the fourth cycle since she had returned to the Sith base, and she’d spent several hours during each of those cycles in the archive room looking over them. Batu wasn’t there, a fact she was grateful for, but understanding these blueprints and engineering notes had been her most frustrating task yet. Going back and forth between the plans and archive entries explaining their terminology was painstaking. Sometimes, those entries themselves would use words she didn’t understand. It was starting to feel like a waste of valuable training time. The three-dimensional rendering of the palace and its installations, which could be rotated and inspected, made it easy to see the architectural layout, security cameras, and blast-doors. The finer details, however, were mostly incomprehensible technical jargon. She was able to confirm the palace had its own power source –- some kind of generator with an adjacent control room underground. The specifications for the generator and computers that controlled it meant nothing to her, but an overview of their security measures mentioned both shielding against electrical surges and weapons as well as something called a grid hindbrain. From what she could understand, the latter meant that even if the main control station for the generator was destroyed, a much-simpler, hardened backup computer could take over so that the most important systems would still have power.

            The plans also showed where to find the secret room Cato had mentioned, though it had its own curious security measures. The computers inside, which A’i guessed contained the Dinek’s secret archives, were rigged to self-destruct if the room was breached by force, and the electronic locking mechanism was state-of-the-art. It took hours of pouring over engineering research before A’i could find a recorded lecture that explained the technology in a way she could understand. The innovation, essentially, was to implement in an artificial intelligence the phenomenon of not knowing what you were looking for until you found it. The computer didn’t know the password until being shown the correct one, so it was nearly impossible to slice into.

            Knowing what the shielding on the generator was made of was a start at least. The material wasn’t cheap, but she was able to get enough to make some crude armour for the torso of a droid which was half the thickness of what she’d actually be dealing with. By the light of the now-setting sun, she brought it to a large empty patch of lava and began gathering her strength. Then she tried her lightning. Not only was the armour durable, its conductive properties meant that her lightning caused almost no damage. It just couldn’t reach the electronics inside. For a final verdict, she unleashed everything she had, creating an almost half-metre-wide arc of solid blue. She sustained it for as long as she could before sinking to her knees. Her head was swimming. She could tell she had come close to hurting herself, and still the droid’s electronics were fine. A’i was gathering the strength to stand when she sensed Singe was behind her.

            “I could hear you lighting up the sky all the way downstairs. Is this a bad time to ask what you’re working on.” A’i forced herself to stand and face her. Despite her ever-flat tone, she seemed to be regarding the smoking armour with genuine interest.

            “Seeing if I have the strength to take out a hardened power generator.”

            “And?”

            “No, not yet. Any suggestions?”

            “Lightning’s not really my thing.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Studying the physics of fire made me stronger. It helped me use its power more efficiently, in ways I didn’t anticipate. Try learning about lightning.” Already tired, A’i sulked at the prospect of more research.

            “I’m exhausted already.” Singe didn’t acknowledge this and turned to walk back inside.

            “Come, we’re going to practise with the remotes.”

Back in the arena, A’i faced off against three of those pesky floating orbs. She ignited her sabre, and the remotes began to move, two of them splitting off to circle behind her. She started to retreat out of the circle they were making, using the defensive forms she had learned to deflect their first couple of shots. But it was hard to keep her concentration after using so much lightning. It wasn’t long before her reflexes faltered, and she felt the familiar stinging sensation. She turned off her sabre and paused the exercise, rubbing the sore spot on her back with a look of disgust.

            “That’s worse than my last try. I can sense what’s about to happen but it’s too much to react to at once.” Singe looked at her as though she were missing something obvious.

            “You’re not using Juyo, but you last quite a while in our duels with almost nothing else.”

            “Why would I? The aggression form is meant for attacking. I’m only trying to defend.”

            “It’s not so simple,” said Singe. “I would have thought you understood that an act of aggression can also be one of defence.” Tired and frustrated as she was, A’i felt the lesson crystalize. Every action had two aspects. The most obvious interpretation of Juyo might have been offensive slashes, but the fast, sweeping strikes could just as easily be used to deflect blasters. Instead of responding to each shot individually, she would use these wide slashes to shield the important target areas. It would be more practical in a real fight too, since whoever was shooting at her would have to keep their distance or be cut to pieces.

            She tried again. It took some getting used to, and she soon got zapped twice more, but she kept going. Having something new to try was an energy boost, and pushing to increase her speed just a little more, it started to work. She was able to deflect their shots while forcing the remotes to maneuver away from her, rather than constantly retreating herself, and keeping the initiative stopped them from encircling her. It took a lot out of her, even after just a few minutes, but for the first time fighting several opponents with blasters seemed within reach.

Chapter Text

A few hours after their session with the remotes, Batu hailed Singe on her communicator and requested a private conversation. Singe moved to the archive room where they wouldn’t be overheard. 

            “Hello my apprentice. How fares your new understudy?” 

            “She is talented. Her progress has been adequate so far.” 

            “More talented than you?” 

            “I would consider her precocious if she didn’t start training so late in life. She has a lot of raw power, but will need time to catch up on technique.” 

            “You avoid the question.” He seemed to delight in teasing her. “Do you think I had all those samples tested for my own amusement? I may have been delayed in finding her, but her blood alone should make her strong enough for what I have planned. Now, I am asking you if I am mistaken.” Singe looked at him hard, betraying no emotion. 

            “She will be strong enough. But I beat her before. If I needed to, I could again.” 

            “Is this what the threads of fate tell you? Or only your pride?” 

            “You know as well as I that they’re always in flux, but every time I look for her in them, I see her playing the role required.” He was silent for a moment, as if suspicious of whether she were telling the truth. 

            “Very well.” Unease crept into her expression now. 

            “You are right about her talent. The threads show she will be a great Sith. But I sense doubt in her. I know you did too. You’re not concerned her culture’s reverence for life could compromise her?” 

            “On the contrary,” he said, grinning – she never stopped getting the creeps from a smiling Muun – “it will be this devotion that drives her to the dark side. And once she learns to draw power from the cave, she will not stray.” There was a long silence. Singe’s unease didn’t fade. 

            “Master, I hear whispers, rumours, that you defied Lord Bane by returning to Ryloth. The Brotherhood believes what you’ve set in motion may bring the Jedi to our doorstep before we are ready. The Twi’lek is not all I see when I glimpse the threads.” 

            “The Jedi will know of our plans only what we want them to know, and if any come to Ryloth to investigate, it will only tempt the confrontation I desire. Their entanglements with the Republic will work against them, and their interference will ensure her loyalty to us.” 

            “You know,” said Singe, “you’d have more power in the Brotherhood if you followed orders.” 

            “Many would find a better station than they have if they stopped thinking for themselves. It gets you power, it doesn’t keep it.” 

            “To be honest I’m more worried about myself. I’d rather not be accused of disloyalty by association.” 

            “Then make sure the two of you are ready, and do not fail.” He ended the transmission. 

Chapter Text

Cycles of the nearest moon stretched into months. The sun continued its descent as they approached the darkest time of year. A’i continued dueling Singe when she was around and practising with the remotes. She was making steady progress since her earlier breakthrough. Her stamina was increasing too, and her bouts with Singe could last hours. They spoke more often now, and though she still disliked speaking it, her Galactic Basic was improving. 

            At first, further research about lightning seemed promising. Singe’s philosophy was principled: a diamond was hard to scratch, but easy to shatter. If she could learn to direct her power in just the right way, the shielding wouldn’t be any help, but understanding enough physics to find this metaphor born out might take years. She had tried to marshal the little she learned before quitting the public pre-academy school, but it was slow-going. Even so, it only took a couple of weeks before she came across something relevant: weapons that used electromagnetic pulses to disable electronics. The security schematics even mentioned these. The shielding on the generator could easily shrug off even powerful flows of current, but was less resistant to concentrated bursts of radiant energy. Even then, the specifications asserted only very powerful devices could get through. Still, it was a tantalising potential way forward. Lightning and the pull of magnets were different incarnations of one thing, opposite extremes of the electromagnetic force. If she could harness her Force-lightning to create such a pulse, maybe it was possible, but reading up on this was beginning to look like a dead end. There were references to several types of Force-lightning and related abilities in her earlier research, including some techniques for disabling droids, but nothing that addressed interpolation between the electrical and magnetic. Most of it was pretty vague too. 

            The more the project seemed to stretch out before her, the more she thought it might be better abandoned. She tried to tell herself to take things as they came, one cycle, one fight at a time. After a long one, A’i stood opposite Singe in the arena, panting a little as they put away their sabres, and asked about another thing she wanted to learn. 

            “You said before that the path I leave in the Force is easy to track. What did you mean by that?” 

            “I mean you’re bad at containing the disturbance you create. You no-doubt sense it when another like us is nearby. You create the same kind of noise, especially when you use your powers.” The ripples. A’i felt wounded, like she’d missed a trick. 

            “There’s a way to suppress it?” 

            “It’s difficult. You have to use some of your energy to dampen the ‘noise’. I’ve practised for years and still can’t do it completely. Study it if you will.” Her expression turned smug. “I can find people from far away, even when they aren’t Force-sensitive. It’s a power I learned from my ancestors.” 

            “Before you were Batu’s apprentice?” 

            “Yes. We had our own name for using the Force. In Basic it’s something like ‘reading the earth and sky’. Some of the first things we learned were scrying – using the Force to watch someone from afar, and seeing the threads of fate.” Fate. A’i had dreamed about Singe before their duel. 

            “I saw your face in a dream before we first met. I was seeing the future then?” 

            “Perhaps. Most who study the Force for long enough see something. Few see enough to actually divine what the future holds.” A’i was tired from the last several hours of training, and everything was starting to feel irritating. Nothing was ever simple. One could spend a lifetime perfecting even one technique, and there were hundreds of years of history on hundreds of planets to study from. They left the arena to get some food. On the way, something else occurred to her. 

            “If you had a teacher before, how did you come to be Batu’s apprentice?” Singe’s face went flat again. 

            “Have you ever heard of the Emperor’s Shadow?” 

            “No, what is it?” 

            “It was the Zygerrian Empire’s only super-dreadnought class battleship. A beautiful example of imperial thinking: lots of big guns, not very agile, mediocre computers, and not enough point-defense weapons; but with one brutal innovation. It had an extra-large scuttling charge, and enough thrusters to maintain a close orbit geosynchronous over a major population centre. If a fleet of would-be liberators destroyed or disabled it without being very careful, it was designed to quickly fall to the occupied planet’s surface and explode.” 

A’i didn’t like where this was going. Arriving at the underground mess hall, they sat down. A servant was quick to bring something out to them. 

            “What happened to it?” 

            “It was destroyed near the beginning of the war. The Zygerrians have been losing for most of it, but back then things were less certain. The planet where I was living was one of the first imperial protectorates targeted by the Republic fleets. They could have used fighters and troop pods to capture it, even tractor beams to stabilise its orbit while it was scuttled – like I said, the Zygerrians never did well ship-to-ship. But it would have meant a lot of dead marines. The fleet commander was new to the title and wanted a perfect victory that would showcase their newest tech against an effigy of the Empire. A volley of proton torpedoes brought it down with hardly any casualties, if you didn’t count the human shields below. The design worked as intended.” 

            “It didn’t fall on them – your family?” A’i was horrified. 

            “Well, pieces of it. When we came to that planet, we were poor. But we had each other, and the craft of our ancestors. I was the only one of us that survived.” A’i thought about her own family. They hadn’t spoken in months. 

            “Was your hair burned off in the fire?” A’i asked before realising the question might have been insensitive. She wasn’t sure how human hair worked. Singe let out a hollow laugh. 

            “No, that came after, during the occupation. Credit where it’s due – I think the Republic has gotten better at them over the years. Dealing with masses displaced or orphaned by war isn’t easy, and soldiers do all sorts of unbecoming things when they’re away from home for too long.” Singe was quiet for a moment, seeming to stare hard at nothing in particular. “One of them cut it off. My hair used to reach down to my waist. I haven’t let it grow back since.” So much about her was starting to make sense. For once, A’i didn’t feel like eating. 

            “Then did you see him in a vision – Batu I mean?” 

            “Eventually he came to me, to the government shelter where I was living. He said he knew I was strong with the Force, that if I learned from him, I could get revenge.” 

            “Revenge? Why would he say this?” 

            “I expect he could feel my hatred. I’d been keeping the face of that fleet commander in my mind for a long time.” 

            “You knew his face already?” Singe smiled. 

            “I saw it. Everything I explained to you: his face, the command, the rain of fire. I saw it before it happened. I didn’t know what I was seeing until later – it was only jumbled images, a moment here, then there. I hated that I couldn’t put it together in time. And I hated him – the one responsible for all of it.” A’i wasn’t sure she wanted to know more, but part of her needed to. When Singe didn’t continue, she asked. 

            “Did you find him?” 

            “Oh yes. When my scrying showed he was on planet-leave, I went looking. I found him in a fancy lounge on Coruscant. I was in disguise. It was so easy I hadn’t had time to decide what I was going to do. In the end, when I finally laid eyes on that face, I almost froze, then I slapped him and walked away. Everyone around thought it was funny – an angry daughter or scorned girlfriend maybe, but a couple of minutes later he was foaming at the mouth and clawing out his own eyes. He died a short time later.” One more question came to mind. One A’i was afraid of. She wasn’t sure how to put it across in Basic. 

            “Did it help?” was all she asked. Singe didn’t answer right away, but A’i could tell she understood. 

            “It made me what I am, gave me purpose when I wanted to lay down and die. After I killed him, I realised I could have whatever I wanted. Now I enjoy the best life has to offer. And sometimes, I work to see the Republic fail, to pay back the humiliation that was done to me.” A’i could sense the hate coming off her. Her words, once spoken, seemed to remain around them like heaps of ash. A’i thought about taking exception to what she just said. Who did she want to be in charge instead? Probably not the Zygerrians. The Sith then if that were possible? But maybe it wasn’t about that. She talked as though it were personal, and after hearing what she said, it was hard to argue. They both sat there a while before Singe silently excused herself. 

Chapter Text

After a sleep, A’i went to her usual place in the steam vents. Singe’s story clung to her in the sweltering darkness. Condensation dripped from the ceiling, amplified by the enclosed space. She imagined what it would be like to confront Thrycheck, what she would say, what she could do if it were just the two of them, and as she did, she felt her power grow, her focus deepen. Her awareness of the Force began to stretch out around her, and then she felt the pull of that cave in the forest further north. The dark place. The more she focused on her passion, the more it seemed to beckon to her, to offer its strength. But she was afraid to indulge it. It still felt wrong to entreat such a dark power, as though it somehow corrupted her original motives. But you already have. A darker thought still: that the same darkness she sensed in it lived in her, and that this was already the source of much of her power. She could tell it was growing stronger, and with it, the pull from the cave. Killing increased its affinity for her, and vice versa. She had recognized that from the start, but denied it to herself for too long. And now that she had pledged her loyalty, it occurred to her that disentangling herself from the Sith might be difficult even if she wanted to. 

            Rather than continue with this train of thought, A’i started to practise tracking Singe by sensing her disturbance in the Force. She expected to find her back at the base and was surprised when she couldn’t. She expanded her search. About five miles northeast, near the edge of the forest, she sensed a familiar turbulence. A’i had no idea why Singe would be there, but she knew it was her. The disturbance wasn’t moving. Maybe she herself was meditating. After another hour or so, A’i went to investigate. 

            The season of eternal night had arrived, but the sky was clear at the moment, and the stars and nearest moon were enough to see by. As the trees were just coming into view on the horizon, she saw a column of smoke rising near the forest’s edge. On closer inspection, the smoke was coming from the top of a domed, wooden hut. This close, A’i was sure this was the source of the disturbance. It even felt like what she’d sensed as Singe first approached her in the grasslands. The hut was small, no more than twelve feet in diameter around the bottom. Facing the forest was an opening covered by furs. A’i was reaching out to part them when she heard Singe speak from inside. 

            “Is that you?” 

            “Yes.” 

            “Come in.” A’i parted the furs and ducked inside. There was a powerful smell of herbs inside. At the centre of the roof was a circular hole, and below it in the centre of the floor was a fire pit, the source of the column of blue-grey smoke A’i had spotted earlier. Singe was knelt by the fire, tending to something in an earthen pot. The smoke was bothering her, but A’i was curious about the pot’s contents. It didn’t smell like anything you’d want to eat. 

            “What is it?” she asked, sitting down beside Singe to inspect the bubbling, brown liquid.   

            “You’ve been looking for inspiration, right? Guidance perhaps? I’m making something to inspire you. In my ancestors' tradition, students of the Force take it when they come of age. I made it for myself when I was old enough.” A’i looked at the brew again, a bit nauseated. 

            “What does it do?” 

            “It opens your mind. Shows you things beyond your usual perception. It amplifies your sensitivity to the Force, at least temporarily, but what you see and what you learn stays with you.” 

            “So I have to drink that?” A’i had a sinking feeling the answer would be yes, but held out hope anyway. 

            “Yes. The charts show we are not far away from the darkest hour. It is the perfect time.” If it would make her more powerful, maybe this was worth a try. A’i sat watching Singe work for the next hour, listening to the sounds of insects in the forest beside them. She had forgotten how much she missed that. The comforting sounds and the heat soon became almost soporific. Then Singe took a shallow, earthen bowl from the floor beside her and filled it. 

            “Drink this while it’s still hot.” 

            A’i took the bowl and put her nose to it. The smell was horrible, like burnt, mouldy wood. She drank. The liquid was grainy and so bitter that she gagged as soon as it touched her tongue. She forced herself to take it down as fast as she could while it was still almost scalding, then passed back the empty bowl. She watched as Singe drank herself, struggling somewhat less to swallow the brew. After ten minutes or so, her lips and tongue began to tingle. Then her whole face. There was something strange about the flickering of the fire. Colours she hadn’t noticed before. She stared into it, feeling as though she were diving headfirst through the flames. When she finally looked away, everything shimmered like the fire. 

            “What you perceive is a form imposed by your mind. Alter its rules but a little, and reality as you know it unravels.” That must have been Singe who was speaking again. Her voice sounded strange in a way A’i couldn’t describe. She knew those words, but as she tried to consider their meaning all together, she was suddenly aware of how the sentence was nothing but a collection of sounds. She tried to recall what the sounds meant, but the more she thought about them, the more meaningless they became. Singe held a hand over the fire, which sank to its embers at her command. A’i felt a sense of foreboding come over her as the light dimmed. 

            Her vision was going strange now. The walls seemed to breathe, the patterns in the wood spiraling and distorting. The white starlight from above was throwing threads of red and green into the shadows. Even the twilight was now almost overwhelming. A’i wanted to ask what was happening, how much more intense it would become, but couldn’t find the words. Why had she agreed to this again? As the world around her was unravelling, so was she. She was suddenly aware of being a thing sat atop a spinning rock hurtling through space. Then she felt the need to feel cool fresh air on her face and started to crawl back towards the door. 

            “You may feel a part of you is dying. Don’t fight it. Let it take you.” A devilish laugh from behind her. “We are not luminous beings. If you have a soul, it’s sewn to your stomach.” As if on cue, A’i pushed her head just outside the door and vomited. More laughter. “That always happens the first time.” 

            A’i crawled outside. The rock under her ebbed and flowed like black water. Tiny crystal deposits she’d never noticed before glittered in the starlight. Not wanting to stray too far, she turned over to face the black sky, and saw it unzip and shower the heavens down onto her. 

            Or was it she that was flying through the sky to meet them? Memories flashed through her mind of the dark season back home when, deep in the forest, the sun dipped below the horizon and the stars came out. The deeper she went through the blackness, the more she could see. On and on past the stars nearest them, past a silver shower of meteors to the far reaches of the outer rim, until the whole edge of the galaxy was visible as a swirling mass of lights. She felt as though she were seeing the Goddess. Vahs ka. She waited for guidance or judgement. There was a question she had before coming here that she couldn’t recall now, but the stars around her burned on, impassive. For once, she felt no impatience. She watched the heavens turn before her. Everything she’d ever known was on a tiny speck on one little wisp of the outer rim. And now she could see and feel it was all in freefall. Everything was tumbling toward everything else, but from the right vantage point, the eternal crash of stars seemed peaceful, beautiful. These balls of fire had forged the worlds. She was made of the same stuff. She raised one hand to her face, stretching and curling the fingers, and felt herself falling back to the ground. 

            A’i bolted up. Everything was still breathing in and out. The trees bristled and curled, stretching upwards before her eyes. She found she was able to stand, even though her arms and legs felt detached from her. Then, without a thought, she took off into the forest. The crunch of leaves. Their scent. This was where she needed to be. She stopped for a moment to take off her boots. She wanted to feel the earth beneath her feet. She’d never seen such colorful shadows. 

            The blackness beneath the canopy was easy to navigate with her other senses. Bioluminescent insects blinked in the dark, beckoning her forward. It was quiet except for their trilling, and then her ears picked up the sound of flowing water. There was a stream somewhere nearby. Even without her hearing, she could have found it by feeling the moisture in the ground. She could sense its path in the Force as well. Reading that flow felt more intuitive than ever, as did its strength in her. Her senses began to embrace the world around her. The forest breathed with her. 

            She reached the stream and began to walk along the bank. Recent rain had made the water silty. Mud seeped between her toes. Her eyes adjusted just enough that she could make out small patches of ground or leaves when one of her little guides lit up. Each tree, each rock, each patch of moss she crossed over had a different aura, and out of sight she found these corresponded to a kind of signature in the Force. She picked up more and more of these signatures the further she walked. There was so much life here, such amazing energy. 

            The stream began to widen, and she reached a place where an eddy had carved out part of the bank and formed a deep pool. The current was calmer around this pool, which left the water clear. She reached a hand in and watched the ripples it created, mesmerised. There was a flash of something in the shimmering water, and she looked closer. Another fleeting image. She saw Singe’s face, and two other humans she’d never seen before. One of them made a motion as if to warn of something behind her. She turned, but saw only empty forest, and when she looked back to the water, it showed her nothing more. She couldn’t have explained the inference, but she was sure they were fighting someone together. 

            The slower-moving water in the pool was bracing, but warmer than upstream. She took off her clothes and slipped in, reminded for a moment of an old story – a favourite of hers as a child, about a hunter who happened to see Kele bathing in the forest and paid a hefty price for it. Floating with the back of her head resting on the moss of the bank, she focused on taking in the signatures around her. Never before could she sense things in such sharp relief. There was something big a few miles downwind of her, a gutkurr she guessed, that seemed to have caught her scent, but she wasn’t afraid. Further away in the direction she had come from, she sensed Singe’s familiar disturbance. As her sphere of awareness expanded further, she thought for a moment she could pick up a subtle sign of another Force-user somewhere on the other side of the planet. It didn’t feel the same as the disturbance she’d followed to find Batu, but it had a similar quality, as though the source were hiding its real size. 

            After cooling off for a while, she got out and kept walking. The gutkurr was closer now, but still more than a mile away. A little while later, she came to a small clearing near the base of some cliffs. Beside it was a massive boulder, ten times the size of the stone she had first lifted during her training. She ran her hands along it. She thought about how it would feel to crush Thrycheck with it. The Force flowed through her. She raised one arm. Move. It floated a few inches into the air. She took a deep breath and began to lift it higher. Her enemies would spare no moral transgression in pursuit of their ends. If she wanted to defeat them, she could not afford to hold back. Her anger was the product of their crimes, the beginning of an equal and opposite reaction. And now she needed to embrace it. Whipping around, she swung her arm as though throwing from a sling and tossed the boulder fifty meters. 

            Turning around, she could sense the Gutkurr was nearby, just outside the clearing. She waited until it began to come into view, a mass of chitinous scales and horns that crawled like a lizard. It was a male, the biggest she’d ever seen. She could kill it with lightning or crush it with another rock, but she had too much respect for it to resort to such things. She stood her ground as it emerged from the trees and undergrowth. She widened her stance, bringing herself eye-level to it while still looking as big as possible. Its beady eyes flashed yellow as it turned to face her and then they locked with hers. She watched its posture falter ever-so-slightly. It was used to being feared. For a while, neither of them moved. Then, A’i took a slow and purposeful step forward. They stared at each other. It was so still it didn’t look alive except for its glowing eyes. Then it turned and began to walk around the edge of the clearing, keeping an eye on her as it did. She looked past it through the trees, as though it no longer interested her. As it approached the bottom of the cliffs to her left, it lingered for a moment, then crawled back into the darkness. 

            Somehow, she found her way back out to Singe’s hut. She remembered no conscious decisions about navigating, or even meaning to find her way back in the first place, but here she was. After the cool water, the warmth was inviting. Everything was still breathing in and out. The near-moon was large, and high in the sky, directly in line with the circular opening in the roof. Its pale-white light she was still seeing in its separate components. A wonderful feeling of satisfaction came over her. 

            Singe said nothing as she crawled inside and curled up on one of the blankets that covered part of the rocky dirt floor. She watched the grain of the wooden slats above her flow, admired the swirling auras bathed in the moonlight. She started to look at one of her hands, holding it up against the light from the circular hole in the ceiling. There was something strange about it that she found entertaining. She bent and flexed her fingers. Circles. She curled and uncurled them again. As she slipped into unconsciousness, there was a feeling of elation, as though a question she’d forgotten now had an answer. She didn’t know how long she slept. It felt like a long time. But when she finally sat up, Singe was still there, sitting by the wall opposite her. 

            “How was it?” A’i looked around, as though trying to remember what it was. Her vision was almost normal again now. The effects of the brew had faded to an afterglow. Everything had a shimmering quality to it, like the airbrushed holograms of models on billboards in the capital. She could speak now. 

            “Good except for the beginning.” 

            “Yes, it’s a rough ride. Gone a bit feral have we?” A’i realised she was still naked. She went to cover herself but Singe only laughed. “It’s no offence to me. You did it exactly the way one is supposed to.” She grinned. “Now you’re a real Witch.” A’i felt ragged, almost ill, but clean somehow, and calm. She laid there for a while longer, recollecting everything she’d seen. It was easier now to put her thoughts into words. The question. She wrapped herself in a blanket, and walked back to the base without another word. 

Chapter Text

A’i stood alone in the empty lava fields, as she had more than a dozen times over the last few weeks. In front of her was the armoured torso of a droid – the same one she’d put together earlier to test her lightning. In addition to her usual cloak, she was wearing a pair of silken, elbow-length, black gloves. These were a new addition, a custom job by her old tailor, Drikthi. They were woven from filaments of a near-superconductive material. Just the small amount she needed cost several thousand credits, and she wasn’t yet sure if they were going to work the way she intended. 

            She gathered her concentration like so many times before. Raising one hand, she curled her fingers, like the coils of an electromagnet, and told herself this would be the time. Lightning began to crackle in her hand, but instead of releasing it, she contained it by making it flow in a circle. Immediately, she could tell the gloves were working. Their conductivity made it easier to guide the flowing current, and it began to generate a powerful magnetic field. She started to force more and more energy within her coiled fingers, putting everything she had into the effort until the compressed waves couldn’t be contained any longer, then slammed her palm down on the armour, releasing everything at once. 

            There was a burst of blue light and a reverberating sound like a turbo-laser. She checked the droid’s internal systems. The main computer had been running before, but everything was deactivated now. She watched its eyes. They were dark. She was tired enough now to be patient, and noted the time on her communicator. She waited. After almost two hours, there was a flicker of light and the electronics came to life again. Some of the processors seemed to be permanently damaged as well. She no longer doubted whether it was possible. 

            It took two more months to perfect the technique. Her work with the remotes progressed too, and she became confident she could defend herself now even in a pitched battle. Nothing would stop her now if she decided to go through with Dashe’s plan, and even as Machi’s warning returned to mind, all she could think of was the Tyrian in the bath with her. A’i had tried things her way and the verdict was clear. Force, or the threat of it, was what got a response. The statue proved that. The next time Singe was around, A’i made her an offer. 

            “There’s someone I’d like you to keep an eye on – a Zygerrian oligarch. I’ll pay you of course.” She passed her Thrycheck’s spice bullet as she said this. Singe’s scrying worked best when she had a personal item from the target. She turned it in her fingers, regarding it with her usual lack of interest. 

            “If it helps screw over someone rich, I’ll do it.” Now, A’i would know when Thrycheck was sure to be in his castle. 

            She contacted Dashe through a secure channel and sent him the palace schematics. 

            “I have developed a technique that will disable their security,” she explained, and then bristled her lekku in a devilish grin. “And I can kill a half dozen armed men by myself. What would you have me do?” 

Chapter Text

The sun in Vohara had started to ascend, and though it was bright as always, it was low enough in the sky that through the clouds, it gave everything a subtle aura of red. A’i leaned against a warm stone wall, watching the crowded street in front of her. She was in a market district near the southern edge of the city that was buzzing at most hours of the moon, but she was only half-paying attention to her surroundings. In her mind’s eye, she was tracking Cato, as she’d been doing since returning here. Finding him was hard the first time, but it didn’t take long before keeping track of his path in the Force was almost second-nature. 

            Now, she could feel him getting close – a few minutes away by foot on this very street. She started walking. To be convincing, the timing had to be perfect. She kept her gaze toward her right, scanning the shops as though looking for something, all the while sensing exactly where he was. She needed to pass by close enough that he would see her and make the first move. Just twenty meters now. Then ten. There was an instant of doubt whether he would notice or even still be interested and then 

            “Hey! A’i!” She turned and tilted her good lekku in surprise as he jogged up to her.

            “Kas. Sorry I didn’t get in touch yet, I’ve only just arrived on an errand for my Vashna.” She had rehearsed this moment before, and mustered a flirtatious flutter as she said this. 

            “That’s alright. What’s she sent you all this way for? Not that I’m complaining.” 

            “Picking up from a tailor nearby. The fashions must have made an impression on her the last time we were here.” For a moment she looked down the street, as though she needed to be going. 

            “Will you be staying at all?” he asked. “I would be happy to accompany you.” She smiled. 

            “Arni. Vashna Timeer was kind enough to give me a short time off here as compensation for the journey.” They began walking together. As organic as their meeting seemed, A’i had selected this place after watching his comings and goings for weeks. It was both somewhere he frequented and somewhere she had a plausible reason for being. 

            “You’re more stunning than ever. You must exercise a lot.” 

            “Thanks, I do. It’s one advantage of serving others for a living.” The black dress she was wearing now made showing off easier. Luxurious, but practical, and short enough that it was easy to move in. It matched her new gloves too. She kept one eye to the side of the street as they walked, looking for the shop. She had never been there before, but found it through Dashe. The owner had ties to the Hands of the Mother. When they arrived, A’i explained to the clerk that she was picking up an order for Vashna Timeer, and a few moments later they were leaving again, and she was now carrying a large satchel over one shoulder. 

            Cato’s speeder was a new model, small and sleek with a powerful engine. His flying was smooth, and he navigated the traffic with confidence, though it was faster than A’i was used to. Soon they were rocketing past the outskirts of the city, but he didn’t adjust course towards the palace. Instead, it looked like he was heading a little northeast of it. 

            “There’s something I want to show you,” he said. She was careful to look interested, even if she was disappointed. The act might have to go on for quite a while, but she would be patient. She watched the jagged line of jungle-covered mountains that stretched out ahead of them. Under the evening sun, it really was beautiful. Cato began flying just over the tops of the trees, then pulled the nose up as they flew up the mountain. 

            “We call this mountain Kath,” he said. “It’s special to us because of how much life you find here. My father had a preserve built around it – for his friends to use for hunting.” A’i looked away from the blur of green below them. 

            “Nice of him to leave it unspoiled.” She flicked one lekku. “I expect hunting is quite fun when you own the whole mountain.” He laughed at this. 

            They continued climbing higher. The jungle began to give way to the conifers which dominated most of the mountain tops in this region. The smell wasn’t quite the same as the forest back home, but similar enough to remind her. They banked toward a clearing and set down on a small platform. As A’i stepped out, she felt herself connecting with the environment as she had under the influence of Singe’s brew. There was so much to sense in the Force around her. This was a special place. She followed him down a narrow, but well-kept trail. 

            “We’re almost there. It won’t be too rugged for your shoes I promise.” She smiled reassuringly, admiring the foliage as they walked. She noticed a krit fruit tree and some blue flowers she’d never seen before. She was reminded for a moment of Machi, but had to shut out the thought. A hundred meters further down the trail was something that stood out among the trees: a mesh of metal bars rising from the jungle floor to above the treetops. Judging by its outer curvature, it was at least several hundred meters across. If this was an enclosure for some animal, it must have been huge. The gaps in the mesh were big enough to fit your head and shoulders through. Then she sensed it. 

            “Not sure if we’ll be able to see it, but I thought you’d be interested. A couple of months ago they caught a can-cell that was eating livestock nearby.” It was getting closer. A’i heard the familiar chittering screech as one of those creatures with the two sets of wings erupted from the trees a few hundred meters beyond and began coasting toward them. 

            The can-cell reached the wall of the cage in front of them and perched, wrapping its talons around the bars just a few meters from them. Its wingspan was massive – over four meters, and it had different coloration than the one she’d met in the desert, green instead of black. It was even bigger too, maybe big enough to carry someone off in its claws. It didn’t try to lunge through the bars at them, or even continue to call. Instead it cocked its head, black compound eyes trained on them. She could sense its aggression, even something like anger, maybe over being locked up by weaker beings. 

            “Amazing isn’t it?” She could tell Cato was pleased to get to show her. 

            “It is. You said this is called a can-cell?” 

            “Ka, you don’t often see them this far north. This one probably found it was easier to get food here than in the desert.” 

            “I got a glimpse of one while near the brightlands, but I never knew what it was.” He seemed surprised. 

            “From what I’ve heard, you don’t usually see them unless one is hunting you.” Her lekku gave a wry smile. 

            “I think it was. I’m lucky it wasn’t as big as this one.” A’i watched the beast adjust its perch and begin grooming its eyes and antennae. This can-cell, she decided, also had a different personality, as though it were more of an active hunter than a scavenger or opportunist. It almost had an air of pride about it. A minute later, it took flight and left them, dipping out of view back below the trees. If they didn’t have food or anything else of interest, it wasn’t going to let them keep watching. Having gotten their fill of the scenery, they returned to the speeder. 

            “Have you eaten?” 

            “Not for a while.” 

            “Let me take you somewhere.”

Back in the city was a restaurant that specialised in luxuriant but traditional Ryloth cuisine. The tables near the entrance were all occupied, but a host seemed to recognize Cato and led them to one he kept reserved. 

            “How long are you staying this time?” he asked her. 

            “Not long. I had better be off by the next high moon.” He looked for a moment disappointed, and she pretended to consider something. “But I’m sure Vashna Timeer will be alright if I’m a little late. She’s always kind.” The atmosphere would be cosy under normal circumstances. Intricate Ryloth landscapes adorned the walls, and the ornate light fixtures flickered in a way that mimicked firelight. 

            “I would expect so. It’s a pity she and my father don’t see eye to eye.” He smiled. “Well, one day me or someone else will be in charge and then things will be different. I’ve told him he should retire before, but I think he’s afraid to give up the power. Or maybe he doesn’t think I’m fit. He wouldn’t be the only one.” A’i returned the look. 

            “I’m sure you’ll do well when the time comes. You’re thoughtful and caring.” Even though she was putting on an act, she really did think so. 

            “I’ll certainly try. To be honest I’m not sure I want that much power, at least not anytime soon. Are you interested in dra’damor? You must hear a lot about it working for Machira.” 

            “Only as much as I need to be in order to serve her.” Her lekku giggled. “I don’t really have the patience for politics.” 

            “That’s understandable,” he said with a laugh. The food arrived, and A’i ate just enough to not arouse suspicion. Normally she would devour a meal like this, but anticipation of the tasks ahead had her stomach in knots. Besides, she would need to be fast and alert for what was to come. As they were finishing, a familiar song began to play, one that tugged at childhood memories she hadn’t dusted off in years. It was an old north-Tukian hymn about finding a quiet place in the woods to pray. Without willing it, she found herself transported to the old ritual grounds, surrounded by chanting. She only came back to the present moment when he spoke again. 

            “I was at a wedding a few years ago between two spirit Twi’leks. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. They sang this song. I couldn’t get it out of my head afterwards.” It took her a moment to reply. 

            “I remember this one. My mother used to be a priestess. I loved the ceremonies, but it’s been years now.” Her good lekku curled in a teary smile. “Arni.” 

            “There’s one more thing.” She detected a hint of nerves in his voice. He brought out a necklace made of silver and amber, with a flower-shaped pendant. “I bought this while I was in Tukia. Ever since I met you on the train I’ve had this attraction I can’t explain. I want you to have this.” She admired the craftsmanship. She had seen enough Tukian jewellery to know it must have cost hundreds of credits. 

            “You barely know me.” She kept her countenance warm. “I can’t accept this.” 

            “They told me it was good for a new love, but of course they were trying to sell it to me. Please, take it anyway.” She waited a moment before replying, pretending to consider. 

            “Help me put it on.” She stood and turned her back to him so he could drape it around her, lifting her lekku as he fastened the clasp behind her neck. Turning to face him again, she kissed him. She was prepared to suggest they retire to his room in the palace, but didn’t have to. 

Chapter Text

This was the one step of her plan she hadn’t practiced for. In hindsight, maybe she should have, but now she had to hope confidence and enthusiasm would be enough. It was better than she was expecting. Though he had the heavily-muscled torso of a duelist or wrestler, he was gentle. When it was done and they lay still together, beginning to think of sleep, she reached out and started stroking the base of his lekku. 

            “That was brilliant.” 

            “I’m glad you thought so.” He sounded tired, satisfied. 

            “You must be tired. Let’s just sleep for a while.” He didn’t reply. 

A’i let out a slow, quiet breath. He stayed asleep as she got up and opened her bag. In it, amidst some clothes, was her lightsaber and a device for slicing electronic locks. She tucked the latter in a strap of her dress, and took a seat on the floor, focusing her senses outside the door. Two people were walking down the hallway. Guards on their usual patrol, she guessed, but she would have to see to be sure. When they were just past the door, she came out and began to walk behind them, cradling the hilt of her sabre against her leg so it was barely visible. 

            She tried to stay close behind the two guards so she’d have more time before the next patrol, but kept her walking pace casual. The carpet, a fanciful weave of geometric patterns, made footsteps quiet. She was just stepping out to fetch something for Cato, a drink perhaps. About fifty meters later was a junction. The guards went right. She went left, toward the stairs to the ground level. At the end of the hall beside them, a glass case displayed an old laser rifle with a wooden stock, one of the first to be assembled on Ryloth if the plaque below it was to be believed. She started down the stairs. 

            She encountered no one on her way to the ground level, but as she was nearing the door to the basement, she sensed someone was about to come around the corner up ahead. He came into view a moment later, an old man in formal robes. He said nothing, but gave A’i a warm look as they passed each other which she was a half-second slow in returning. 

            The door to the basement with the power generator and central computers was only a few meters away now, but she passed it, stopping instead further down the hall and hugging the left wall. The small space where she now stood was a blind spot at the midpoint between two cameras – barely visible black disks on the walls and ceiling, which she had found in the schematics. The one on the ceiling to her right watched the door. 

            She loosed a small jolt of lightning and it popped with a puff of smoke. Running back to the door, she took out her lock slicer and placed it over where a key-card would normally be touched. There was a quiet, electronic whir and then a click. She opened the door and descended the metal steps as quickly as she could, one flight, then another, then a third. She listened for noise behind her, but heard nothing. The sterile half-light and monochrome steel walls seemed almost foreboding after the colorful opulence of the rest of the palace. 

            She wasted no time when she reached the bottom, almost sprinting past monitors, control panels, and dials to the far side of the room where a sloping pyramid of metal rose out of the floor up to the dark ceiling hundreds of meters above. This was the outer housing of the power generator which protected its internal computers and fusion chamber. This close, she could hear a faint roaring sound coming from it. She used her communicator to signal Dashe’s forces, who by now should be hiding in the surrounding mountains, ready to rush in on speeder bikes. 

            A’i breathed deeply and curled the fingers of her right hand. Arcs of electricity began to crackle around them, growing in intensity until her hand was almost obscured by the whirling blue glow. She felt the excitations in the EM field begin to accumulate, and forced them to remain within her grasp. She needed to use just the right amount of energy. Too little, and there wouldn’t be enough time before things came back online. Too much, and she wouldn’t have the strength for the fight ahead. When the energy was almost too much to contain without exhausting herself, she let out a yell and pressed her hand against the side of the generator, releasing the superposed waves in a single burst. There was a flash of blue light, and then everything went dark. 

Chapter Text

For a moment, A’i was worried she had blinded herself. Then she realized it wasn’t just dark but silent too. The power was off, and with it, the only source of light down here. After an about-face, she knew she would find the stairs straight ahead. By feel, she found them and started up. She could sense two or more people outside the door above her. Guards had probably come to investigate when that camera feed went out. The sudden darkness now seemed to be giving them pause. A’i slowed her pace toward the top of the stairs to keep quiet, and listened through the door. An argument about what could have happened was dying down. They were about to check the basement now that they had a key and personal lights. A’i readied her saber. If there were more than two or three already, she would be in trouble. There wasn’t much room to maneuver behind her. It didn’t matter though. Before the guards outside could make a move, there was a thundering boom from somewhere else in the palace – the kind she had been taught could only be caused by a thermobaric explosion. Someone had just used a thermal detonator. That was the signal to her that the first of the attacking Hands had arrived.

            In an instant, all was havoc. A’i sensed fear bloom in the hearts of the guards outside the door as they shouted at each other, and there was an even more enticing feeling: panic. A few seconds later, the hallway outside was empty as new orders came in and they ran to their posts. Any who tried to escape would be easy prey for a rear guard of snipers outside. 

            With resistance either routed or distracted, her next task was to get to the hangar as quickly as possible. If Rekkish’s first reaction was to run, that was his only option. Otherwise, she’d have more time, at least, that was the hope. She couldn’t be sure how long the power would be off. Probably at least an hour or two, but there was no way to know, and no time to worry about it now. She stepped through the door and began sprinting down the hallway. 

            Blaster reports filled the air, along with occasional screams as she ran down the hall. The areas without natural light were almost pitch black, but she moved with confidence. She had studied the blueprints of the palace for so long she could navigate the entire way from memory by counting her strides. You could get to the hangar either by an elevator, which wouldn’t be working now, or by a step-ladder near the northwest corner of the fourth floor. At the base of the stairs, a guard spotted her. 

            “Hide Vashna, it’s –” he had barely reacted before she ignited her saber and beheaded him. None of the palace guards who saw her face could be allowed to live. Not even breaking her stride, she forced her legs up the stairs as fast as she could. Sounds from the unfolding skirmish began to fade. By the last flight, she was breathing hard, but didn’t slow. Another fifty meters, then left, then a straight shot to the northwest-most part of this floor. Her senses picked up another precognitive flash as she was about to round the corner, and she prepared to defend herself. Another three guards about a hundred meters away. They had time to react as she charged down the hall, but she brushed away their projectiles and leapt, delivering a sweeping blow as she sailed through the air that maimed all three of them. She paused only for a moment to make sure none of them remained a threat before continuing on to the ladder. 

            She sensed no-one, but was still careful as she climbed the last couple of steps and emerged in the hangar. She recognized the only ship as the Dinek’s personal craft. That should be his only means of escape. Wasting no time, she pushed her saber through the cockpit controls and held it there until she was satisfied the ship would be unflyable. Then she stopped for a few seconds to focus her senses and plan her next move. The first wave was composed mostly of about fifty militants from the Hands of the Mother, equipped by Vindo and spoiling for a fight even if they didn’t know all the details. They were led to believe this was a battle they would win, rather than a distraction to facilitate an assassination. Even with Dashe’s house guards coming through the windows to give flanking support, they would be outnumbered, and would eventually have to retreat. She needed to get to Rekkish before then so his death could be attributed to the apparent terrorist attack unfolding downstairs. Her next step was to look for him in either of the two panic rooms on the second and third floor. She reached out, trying to sense life around where those rooms should be. She should have been tired by now, but the energy from the battle was electrifying. As before, the fighting had sharpened her. Something was off though. She sensed more of the enemy in the eastern wing, and it felt as though Dashe’s men on that side were getting pushed out ahead of schedule. The safe room in that wing was on the second floor, much further from her than the other one, but she decided to go there first. Of course, it also weighed on her that Cato was more likely to be in the western half of the palace – if he woke up and saw her during all of this, she wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to do what would be required. 

            She jumped back down rather than taking the ladder. More palace guards had come to investigate after the three stationed under the hangar didn’t respond, and she had to dart around a corner to avoid a volley of blaster fire. It would be faster to take a detour than fight that many head-on. At the top of the stairs were two more, who she knocked aside with a Force-push as she started down again. 

            The fighting was in full swing on the second floor, but her work with the remotes had paid off. Even the five guards she met outside the second floor landing didn’t stand a chance. Soon she was pelting towards the eastern panic room. At the next junction, she could see blaster fire flying in both directions down the hall perpendicular to this one. Some of her allies had made it here. She was almost there when her instincts warned her something was coming, and she threw herself through the nearest door just in time to avoid an explosion right at the intersection she’d been running towards. In the confined space, the fiery blast made it fifty meters down each of the four hallways. 

            She got up. Her ears were ringing. This was some kind of gallery or ballroom – mostly empty with high ceilings and big windows. There was enough light to make out some frescos along the interior walls. She retreated from the door and drew her saber once more, preparing for another explosion. Instead, someone ran in after her, someone wearing armor that she recognized. Rekkish, like her master, must have kept a Mandalorian on retainer. 

            They opened fire with the pistol in their right hand and touched something on their shoulder with their left. A’i blocked and leapt aside, reacting to another precognition and a strange whistling sound. The sound followed her. There was only a second to stop whatever it was and only one thing she could think to try. She fired off an electromagnetic pulse, much smaller than the one she’d used to disable the generator. A pistol shot grazed her shoulder as she did, but the whistling sound stopped. Three small, metallic objects clattered to the floor. Some kind of guided projectile. 

            A’i wasted no time trying to close the gap, but the Mandalorian pulsed their jetpack and jumped out of the way, throwing a grenade back in her direction. She pushed it away before it exploded, but the blast staggered her, and their next shot nearly found its mark. A’i started forward again. If they tried to jump, she’d meet them in the air this time. They kept firing as she advanced. Their aim was excellent, and they were smart enough not to group their shots so she had to keep moving her saber. When she got within striking distance, she lunged, but the Mandalorian blocked her slash with one of their beskar bracers. A’i did a forward arial over them as they drew a knife with their free hand and tried to counter-lunge. 

            With another pulse of their jetpack, the Mandalorian put some distance between them again, but she wasn’t going to be delayed any more. She unleashed an arc of lightning before they could fire again, and it connected. She advanced on the stunned Mandalorian and shocked them again, and then again. They fell to their knees. She could tell they were trying to raise their weapon and shocked them a final time, then her saber found a vulnerable place under their arm. 

            A’i caught her breath while planning her next move. Out of curiosity, she pushed off her slain foe’s helmet with her foot. A young man – human. Nearly all his armor looked like the same material. She slipped off one of the bracers he had used to block her saber. It was ill-fitted for her, but surprisingly light. It wouldn’t slow her down if she took it with her, and might be useful for blocking blaster fire. 

            Back in the hallway, the fighting had resumed after a brief reprieve following that fiery explosion, which A’i now guessed was a Mandalorian rocket. If their eastern flank was pinned down near where they had entered, the fire coming from the northern hallway came from more of Rekkish’s guards. While they were focussed on the south, she would go around behind them. 

            With her next objective in mind, she had to keep moving. For the first time, fatigue began to drag at her, but her concentration couldn’t waiver. She needed to sense any guards in her path so she could dispatch them before they had time to call for help. Around a corner were three more. She could feel they were only a few meters away, and they were ready, waiting for someone to come this way. She stopped. As painful as it was, here she needed a slow approach. She knelt, hiding the armor and the handle of her saber beneath her legs, and made sure the wound on her shoulder was visible. 

            “Oh Kija’Lekki help me! Someone’s attacking the palace!” A man appeared around the corner – a palace guard with his blaster rifle raised. She flinched as though she’d never seen one and held up her hands. 

            “Who are you?” he asked her. Then yelled to his comrades down the hall. “I’ve got a civilian here. Cover me just a moment.” 

            “I’m a guest of prince Cato. I was going to get him a drink and then – oh goddess what’s happening?” 

            “You need to come with me.” He seemed to notice her injury as he approached. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Can you walk?” 

            “I think so just please help me up.” Without lowering his weapon, he extended a hand. As soon as she took it, his eyes unfocused for a moment and he stood, unmoving, as she whispered her will. Without speaking, he went back around the corner, and turned his weapon on one, the other, and then himself. 

            She was moving again, sprinting over their corpses. A few seconds later she was running headlong into another two who had heard the blaster shots. She maintained the element of surprise though, and killed both of them without slowing down. The half-dozen at the end of the hall were busy fighting a group of Dashe’s soldiers and didn’t notice as she ran up behind them. With a wave of her hand, she forced them to break ranks in terror, and after a flash of red plasma, they lay in pieces on the floor. She could smell burnt flesh on the air. Straight ahead, she found the first of her allies who’d managed to get to this part of the palace and survive the Mandalorian. One of them noticed her and thumped his chest. 

            “Vahs ka!” 

            “Vahs ka,” she replied. She counted eight more behind him now waiting for her lead. “You five – head back this way.” She gestured with her saber at where she had come from. “The rest of you with me. We’re going to surround any that remain near the door to the eastern panic room. The entrance is hidden about two hundred meters from here.” 

            With four well-trained marksmen giving cover, making her way there was easy. More fell to her blade, or to the blasters backing her up. When some guards behind cover threatened to force a prolonged engagement, she used the Force again to cloud their minds with fear. It seemed as though she would be fast enough – most of the remaining security was still focussed on the frontal assault, but they needed to finish the job before all those silent radios revealed what she was trying to do. 

            She touched the wall, behind which she was now sure her quarry lay. There were a lot of life forms for such a small room. The hidden door used an analog locking mechanism that worked even without power. At her instruction, they laid charges around a section of wall and then took up positions before detonating them. The men inside were ready with auto-blasters and grenades, but A’i’s senses gave enough warning that they only wounded a couple of her soldiers. They were forced away from the door though, and the guards continued to use suppressing fire to stop anyone from approaching. The fight only ended when A’i floated a concussion grenade in through the door and stunned everyone in the small room. 

            And then there was nothing between them, like she had once imagined. Rekkish knelt empty-handed, bruised and scraped by shrapnel in a corner of the room, and she stood over him. 

            “You could at least do me the respect of telling me why you’ve come to kill me. I expect you have thirty seconds to spare.” 

            “Perhaps, but I have no respect for you.” 

            “Why? Because I protected my people.” 

            “You sold your people.” 

            “My people. My clan. We were the most powerful in the world before the Empire, before outsiders humiliated us. Others accepted its continuation under this Republic. I looked out for my own and made us powerful again.” 

            “We are all Rylothians,” she said. “We are all bound to the same fate. We suffer for the same reasons.” He didn’t cower or avert his eyes. His lekku were stone. 

            “You have your people. I have mine. We’re both willing to kill for them, and both honest about that willingness.” There was a note of respect in his voice that had never been present at the feast all those months ago. Not wanting to waste more time, she brought the tip of her saber to his throat. 

            “You have secret archives somewhere else in the palace. I want the communications between you and the Zygerrian dog who was at your party. Tell me where to find them, and I’ll make it quick.” 

            “Did you figure out all this from that loose-lipped boy of mine?” His lekku jerked in a sarcastic laugh. “Despite what he may think, I do love him. He’ll be a fine man one day. How about this: I’ll tell you where they are and you can use them to nab Thrycheck, but you leave my legacy out of it. Let people think it was all him.” 

            “So you did cut a deal with him then. You looked the other way while he continued taking slaves, and in return he spared your clan.” 

            “Ka. I did a hard thing. The way you’re about to do a hard thing.” A’i considered. It was hard to set aside her revulsion at the idea of letting people believe this man was a just ruler, but time was still of the essence. If, in the end, he and Thrycheck were dead, it didn’t matter. 

            “Fine.” 

            “There’s a painting near the doors to the library with a keypad behind it. The password is ‘caged can-cel’.” She ended the Dinek’s life with one swift stroke. A cheer went up as she emerged from the room. 

            “It’s done. Now get out of here. Once things come back online and the blast doors come down, you won’t be able to escape.” She took off without further ceremony. She didn’t know how much longer she would have. At least an hour must have passed already. And she was really getting tired now. 

            The hidden archives were back on the fourth floor not far from Cato’s room. Enemy reinforcements were trickling in toward the east wing on the second, but she was able to avoid most of them and get up the eastern staircase. The painting outside the library swung aside to reveal a keypad just as the Dinek said. When she entered the password, a seam appeared in the wall and then a section of it retracted upwards, revealing a small room with computers and memory banks. The archive system had a search function, and it was easy enough to look for Thrycheck’s name and find what she needed – a whole dossier of incriminating conversations. After anonymizing Rekkish’s half of the communications, she downloaded the whole file to a memory disk. Then, she deleted everything from the computers. From here, she could access not just secret communications, but security archives as well. With no recordings, there would be no evidence of her going near the basement. What had transpired during the last hour or so would be decided by whoever was in charge once the dust settled. 

            She made her way back to Cato’s bedroom, but could sense no-one was inside. She hoped he hadn’t been killed. After stashing her lightsaber, the memory disk, and the piece of armour, she found another room nearby where she could pretend to have hidden the whole time, and waited in the closet as the sounds of the battle petered out. A while later, the lights came back on, and the blast doors came down. 

Chapter Text

She waited for what felt like an eternity. With the fighting finally over, her breathing began to slow, but the closet she had hidden in was cramped, and her muscles began to feel like they were full of lead. In reality, it was less than an hour before she heard footsteps outside the room. 

            “You two check in here.” Two sets of footsteps entered the room. A’i pressed a finger to the wound on her shoulder until her eyes began to tear. She could sense them getting closer. When they opened the doors to the closet, she flinched and held up her hands. 

            “It’s alright, miss. You’re safe now. They’re taking people to the great hall downstairs while we secure the building.” One of the men radioed back about finding another survivor. The other helped her up. They were both Twi’leks, but spoke to her in Basic. She noticed they were wearing tan fatigues with the Voharan coat of arms rather than the jumpsuits and insignias usually worn by Republic soldiers. These were regional security forces. It was part of Dashe’s plan that they be the first on the scene. 

            “The Prince…is he ok?” After speaking with Singe for months, her Basic was much smoother, but she spoke as though she were barely familiar. The soldier switched to Twi’leki. 

            “We don’t have a final accounting yet. Please, you need to come with us.” They escorted her back downstairs. 

            She remembered the great hall from their walkthrough of the palace the last time she was here. The hallways leading to it were covered in scorch marks from blasters and explosives, but it had been untouched by the battle. Inside were a few dozen civilians who lived in the palace, or at least were there when the attack started, about twenty of the remaining guards, and a small group of Darian soldiers and officers in uniforms like the two escorting her. Medics had already arrived and were tending to a handful of wounded in a far corner as they awaited the second round of medical evacuation. She couldn’t see Cato anywhere. Had Dashe ordered them to go after him too? Was he really so vindictive? Fatigued and full of stale adrenaline, the possibility was overwhelming. She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if he died after being nothing but kind to her. 

            After scanning the crowd, she took a closer look at the Darian officers. One was wearing a pendant with a religious symbol. Dashe had told her to look for such an officer. She approached them. 

            “Pardon the interruption Vishnas, but do you know what has happened to Prince Cato? Please tell me the Goddess protected him.” This last sentence was a code. 

            “Wait a moment and I’ll make a call,” said one of them. “There are still some survivors staying in the western part while we clear the upper floors. There were a lot of casualties in the other wing. Some of the blast doors there are still down until we reach them.” 

            “Try to be calm for now,” said the one with the pendant. “Have you come a long way? You sound northern-Tukian.” The proper response to her code. He was the one. 

            “Yes, I travelled here from the forest. I guess the prince took a liking to me and I was enchanted by him. The time in his chambers was lovely, but I had no idea how dangerous it could be.” 

            “Enough bragging about who you’re bedding,” said the other, now finished with the radio. 

            “She’s just traumatised,” said the one with the pendant before speaking to her again. “I’ll find you as soon as there’s news. Until then, see the medics about the burn on your arm.” She did as he bid her. The last thing she said told him where to find her bag so he could have it smuggled out before the process of collecting evidence began. She had to wait a while after being triaged – there were other wounded in worse shape than her. As she was being bandaged, she heard a familiar voice, and her heart jumped like she was waking from a nightmare. 

            “Get out of my way dammit!” Cato pushed his way inside, eyes frantically searching the crowd. The creaking and slamming of the large double-doors momentarily drew the eyes of everyone around. 

            “My love!” she cried and ran to him, a loose bandage on her arm trailing behind her. He squeezed her so hard it almost knocked the wind out of her. She was only able to speak again when he put her down. 

            “Are you alright?” she asked. What happened?” 

            “They’re not sure yet. I keep asking about my father and they won’t tell me anything. It sounds like everyone around the eastern safe room is dead and…” he turned away from her and brought a sleeve of his robe to his face. 

            “I’m so sorry.” She put a hand on his shoulder, went with him as he sank to the ground. They embraced again, and sat against a nearby wall. They waited like that until news came from the east wing. The news that wasn’t news to her. And she watched the Prince cry out and cried with him. And when he said he wished they’d spoken more and that he’d been a more responsible son, she told him she was sure he loved him, and she was. 

            “I bet it was the fucking Hands! I knew they hated him, but I never thought they could pull off something like this, attacking us right here through the front doors. How could this have happened?” Republic military and officials were now beginning to arrive. Some of them were taking statements from survivors before releasing them. Dashe arrived on the scene a short time later. 

            “Kassura’Vishna Cato. I came as soon as I got news of the attack and only just heard. You have my deepest sympathies. There’s nothing more difficult than losing a parent.” Cato got to his feet, already resuming a stoic expression. 

            “Arni.” 

            “Apologies in advance for asking this of you in a time of grief, but Daria must move quickly to respond to this attack, and to do so, we need our new Dinek to step up and choose a regent to advise him. Decisions need to be made, and the people need to see you taking charge.” 

            “Yes of course. Let’s find a more private place to speak. A’i, accompany me if you will.” A’i saw the slightest smile flicker through Dashe’s lekku as he recognized her. No one was allowed to leave the palace at this time, but they were let out of the great hall to an empty room nearby after Cato shouted at the guards that he was Dinek now anyway and they answered to him. He continued speaking to the two of them alone. 

            “I know the procedure. I inherit the office, though I must continue holding it in future elections. Since I’m a couple of years young to run for Dinek, I appoint a regent who will share some of the power. It requires the consent of the assembly for either one of us to overrule the other. Dashe, you are the most senior Darian representative in the clan assembly. It is an unwritten rule that I base my choice on this…” His speech was poised, unnervingly even given what had just unfolded. Dashe had taken a breath to reply when Cato continued again. 

            “However, given the circumstances, and the associations you’re rumoured to have, you must understand my trepidation.” 

            “Vishna, I’m not sure what you’re referring to.” 

            “I believe you are.” Dashe took a moment to respond, but met Cato’s eyes as he did. 

            “You’re right. I shouldn’t insult you by playing dumb. In leading the opposition against your father, I’ve taken money from people suspected of aiding terrorists. At the time, I was willing to accept their support, not because I agreed with their tactics, but because I thought I could do more good if I’d won the last election for Dinek. Frankly, I think I had a good chance at winning the next one.” Cato was pensive. His expression, for once, was unreadable. He might be lazy, but he’s not stupid. She could sense fear and grief in him though. Even as he kept them out of his face, they clouded his mind. And then he looked at her. 

            “I’m sorry to have involved you in this.” 

            “There’s no need to apologise. I – ” 

            “It was a pretext for my next question. But I’ll not apologise for what I ask next. As the one I hope to be bonded to one day, what would you advise?” A’i thought for a moment. What she said next needed to be perfect. For a few seconds, she pulled from everything she’d heard Machi say, with a little of her sister’s wisdom thrown in. 

            “It would be presumptuous of me to say anything about such matters. I only know what I overhear from my Vashna. She has said more than once that democracies are built on unwritten rules. One should always be careful when breaking with traditions meant to keep balance.” She took his hand in hers and looked into his eyes. “I’m sure you have learned well from your father. Now who better to advise you than one of his critics.” Cato nodded. 

            “Then I’ll trust you, even if I’m not entirely sure about him.” They hugged again. From over his shoulder, A’i’s gaze met Dashe’s, and the tip of her good lekku sent a clear but silent message. Now your end, quickly. 

            “There’s more, my Dinek. We’ve just been shown overwhelming evidence that Kysgari is being used as a base for slavers, and that Thrycheck is responsible. I’m loathe to raise an unrelated matter at such a time, but we need to move quickly to make sure he can’t escape. Does our regional military have your permission to scramble fighters and blockade the fortress?” 

            “How did you find out about this?” 

            “Video evidence of Thrycheck admitting to it during meetings with some unknown individuals. It was procured by Machira’s network.” Dashe already had the partially-redacted holochron on his communicator. 

            “Do it.” 

Back in the great hall, A’i gave statements to two regional officers, three republic counter-terrorism investigators, and a private contractor in charge of the palace’s security. It took a few hours all together, even though she had nothing to say. She had left Cato’s room and was on her way to fetch them some drinks when the power went off. She tried to find her way back, and hid in the first place she could find after hearing an explosion. Her mind started to wander. Thrycheck. She wanted to be sure she could get to him. In spite of everything, she was starting to feel bored, though she was tired enough that it didn’t show. The questioning might have persisted even longer if Cato hadn’t retrieved her. 

            “She’ll be here if you want to talk to her more later. We’re going to bed.” Then he looked at her. “I don’t mean to presume…would you like to sleep here?” A’i smiled. 

            “A Dinek may presume. I would not sleep alone after everything that’s happened.” They passed by the kitchens on their way upstairs for some water. She could still smell the aromatics from the previous service. The bloodshed alone wouldn’t have spoiled her appetite, but keeping up appearances did. In the twilight of Cato’s bedroom, a new wave of fatigue overtook her. Her use of the Force had left her completely drained. She wasn’t sure what to say next and watched in silence for a while as Cato undressed, splashed some water on his face and checked a small cut on his arm in the mirror. 

            “My love, you should have someone see to that.” She went to him, but he pulled his arm away. 

            “It’s nothing, leave it.” He waved her off like she was a maid. She was almost too tired to function, and he was already getting on her nerves. Her train of thought, diffuse and wandering as it was, touched upon something her sister once told her – when she had complained about a young man who insulted her after they’d exchanged some boastful stories about hunting. Men act better than they are, for you, she had said. They don’t want you to be better, they want you to need them. 

            “Sorry. I act busy when I’m nervous. I was…just so frightened.” She made her voice break on the last word. Turning away from the mirror, he took her in his arms, and the two of them melted into bed together. 

            “You’re safe now.” She wrapped her legs around him and looked into his deep green eyes. Like the forest in the dark season. 

Chapter Text

Two cycles after the attack, A’i was still staying at the palace, amusing herself while Cato was in meetings. Most of the usual operations had resumed by now, and she was taking full advantage of the chefs that would make anything you wanted at any time. She was just finishing a joint of roast shaak when a servant knocked on the door. 

            “The Dinek wants to see you.” It was the first time he’d sent for her this way. Maybe he was tired, or maybe he was getting confident with his new power. A’i walked downstairs to the throne room. She found him there, still speaking with advisors, and greeted them with a bow. 

            “You wanted me?” 

            “Ka, arni. I wanted to speak privately.” A few seconds later, they were alone. As confident as he looked dismissing them all with a wave of his hand, she could sense he was unsure of something. 

            “I’ve been thinking more about my choice of regent. You spoke well before, but after what’s happened it’s hard for me to know who to trust.” A’i started to worry things might be unravelling already. 

            “The clause is somewhat obscure,” he continued. “It might even be challenged if invoked, but the spouse of Daria’s Dinek or Daesha has power as well in this scenario –- another check on the regent.” Her stomach dropped. “Would you, A’i Selestus, join me in a sacred bond?” She felt breathless. The back of her head was hot. Fate had a way of giving you everything you thought you wanted and then twisting it. She’d known this was a possibility, but until now it had been an abstract, distant one. She was silent for a while, not as a negotiating tactic, but because she couldn’t speak. She felt as though she were about to betray her own heart even more than she already had. Dashe’s words from before returned to mind as well. He waited as she considered all of this, and if her silence made him nervous, he didn’t show it. 

            “My family has no lands or titles to speak of,” she finally said. “It could attract suspicion. I heard the former Count of Kysgari was recently arrested. For the castle and its lands, I will be your wife.” Now it was his turn to be shocked. She didn’t back down, and after a moment, he laughed. 

            “You continue to surprise me. It’s a high price.” She took his hands and placed them on her hips. 

            “Am I not worth it?” He stared into her eyes for a while. 

            “Very well. I’ll have to have the territory seized and made a part of clan lands again, but I doubt anyone will oppose me. It seems appropriate that the new occupant be a Rylothian.” 

            “Then kiss me.” 

After that, he had to return to work, and A’i was looking for a distraction. She watched a couple of old messages from her family. There was still no word from Jemma, and no money sent home for nearly a year, though that at least didn’t matter now. She thought about calling home, but decided against it. She’d visit as soon as she could and see them in person. Instead, she contacted Stennor. His image appeared, but didn’t speak. Obscured by his helmet, his face was unreadable. 

            “I want to pay for your services…if that’s something I can do.” He didn’t answer right away, and his hologram would tilt slightly every now and then. Maybe he was flying. 

            “What’s the job?” he asked after a time. 

            “I want you to bring me someone – my sister. Last I know she was working for a Hutt named Yubura.” 

            “Dead or alive?” 

            “Alive! Goddess I’m glad you asked. I thought it went without saying.” He was silent for a while. 

            “Five hundred credits plus expenses. And I’m not breaking into a Hutt’s palace if that’s what it takes.” 

            “She’s not his property. Just find her and get her a message from me if you can.” 

            “Pay a thousand up front, and I can start in twelve hours.” She nodded. 

            “Money is no object.” He ended the transmission, leaving A’i alone again with the twisted feeling. When a walk around the garden offered little comfort, she had a servant take her for a pleasure cruise around the mountains to the northwest, so she could admire her new castle from every angle. Seeing it first hand, it was incomprehensibly large. The keep was built right into the face of the mountain, with the only way in on ground level heavily fortified. Its three great towers stretched toward the clouds, their elongated shadows reaching all the way to the valleys far to the north. Taking in the view against the evening sun should have been soothing, but wasn’t. 

            Their path back would take them close to the game preserve Cato had shown her, and she had her pilot land in the same place. Without a word she got out and started retracing the path to the can-cel’s enclosure. 

            “Vashna, this jungle is dangerous.” 

            “You can wait in the ship.” He obliged with some trepidation. When she found the boundary of the cage, the can-cel was waiting for her. It’s head swivelled, black eyes regarding her with eerie calmness, but she could sense it wanted something. Hailing the ship on her communicator, she gave her pilot another odd request. 

            “Go back to the palace and fetch a carcass from the kitchen. Something big.” 

            “I don’t think the Dinek would like you being left alone here.” 

            “Worry about what I will like. Unless you prefer for me to have an argument with him about why his servants are trying to control me.” There was no further protest. He returned with help –- it took three of them in total to drag a mostly-carved carcass of something along the jungle path and up to the edge of the enclosure. She thanked them, and began tearing off pieces and tossing them inside for the can-cel to devour. There was a high-pitched squishing sound as its mandibles went to work. The servants around her averted their eyes, even if they weren’t willing to leave before she did. She watched it eat. 

            “If you can’t stomach this, you’ve no appetite for life,” she said. “Everything that lives kills. Ones with power can hide it. They call it law, morality, economics. But predators are predators. It’s all of a piece.” 

Chapter Text

At the beginning of the next work cycle, as the funeral service for his father began, Cato gave a speech that was broadcast throughout Daria and most of the rest of the planet. He spoke from the balcony behind his palace, flanked on one side by Dashe and his other closest advisors, and on the other by his new bride-to-be. All of them had had some influence on his address, but it was he who had to strike the balance of projecting strength even as grief registered in his tone. 

            “My people, Rylothians, and citizens of the Republic; though this day may be marred by tragedy, it is also a time of upheaval, an opportunity to come together in strength so that our clan, our planet, and our new democracy may move forward and flourish. My intelligence analysts and colleagues in the planetary government believe the surprise attack and assassination of my father was perpetrated by the militant group known as the Hands of the Mother. Fortunately, our clan is more equipped than any to respond to such cowardly violence. Daria’s regional army, aided by the resources of the whole galactic Republic, is currently working to identify and capture the culprits. Furthermore, my regent has approved an order to create a new investigative task force with expanded authority – to protect our citizenry and nobility. Their first priority will be rooting out the network of terrorists most likely responsible for this atrocity. 

            “There are other reasons for strengthening our security. An average citizen should focus on their time of grief, but my duty is more than theirs. I would therefore be remiss to not address the arrest of Daggo Thrycheck, an outer-rim investor and supposed ally of my father. Thanks to the work of Vashna Timeer and others, we have uncovered incontrovertible evidence that his castle – which he was allowed to retain after the Imperials retreated, has since been used for the same industry it was during the Empire. I refer here, to the taking and trafficking of slaves. This may be shocking to you, but it’s a reality we must confront. It is a betrayal that not only violates everything our new government stands for, but is poison to the cooperative efforts between our species and the Galactic Republic already impeded by a history of exploitation and mistrust. I call on all of us to support new efforts to extinguish this horrid practice from our planet. We Darians rejected Zygerrian rule when it was thrust upon us. Now we must reject its lingering effects wherever we find them. My father fought long and hard for our clan to be self-reliant, to empower us as Rylothians, and now I better understand why.” He was silent for a few moments before allowing a gentle smile to creep back into his lekku. 

            “Finally, and on a much happier note, I am proud to announce my marriage to the Countess A’i Selestus of clan Tukia, the new Vashna of Kysgari.” A’i smiled and waved, and the two shared a tasteful kiss as the broadcast ended. 

Chapter Text

Daria’s military had moved quickly. Just as news of the attack was starting to make its way to the public, a squadron of fighters had taken off from the airfields south of Vohara and begun to circle the mountains around Kysgari. Soon after, regional security forces had surrounded the castle. Thrycheck refused to surrender right away but, out-numbered, and demoralised, most of his private soldiers had given up. 

            He was supposed to be transferred to a prison in Lessu, as cases involving interplanetary trafficking were normally handled by Republic courts. The whole process was likely to take months if not years. Republic investigators would comb over every inch of Kysgari and build a case. The original evidence would be challenged. Public outrage, perhaps, would begin to play a role. 

            But none of that happened. Just a few cycles after he was imprisoned, a stranger wearing a black cloak and a mask of Kele visited the high security detention facility to the west of Vohara. When the guards at the entrance stopped her, she showed them a digital seal – the approval of the Dinek’s regent, and they let her pass. In the deepest bowels of the cell blocks, a guard stood watch outside the only occupied cell. He eyed the masked visitor nervously, and then their eyes met, and his face went blank. 

            “You will take a break outside for a few minutes,” she whispered. “When you return, you will see that your prisoner has died trying to escape. Incinerate the body before informing anyone.” He walked out, leaving the prisoner alone with the visitor. 

            “Who are you?” asked Daggo. His voice had lost none of its royal sneer. “I’m supposed to be moved somewhere more comfortable while my advisors prepare my legal defense, and I’m not answering any questions before then so don’t bother asking.” A’i snapped her fingers. The camera above their heads went out with a pop. 

            “I’m not going to ask you anything.” His eyes narrowed. 

            “Why are you here? You’re not dressed like the other government underlings.” 

            “I’m here to kill you.” To his credit, she sensed no fear.

            “Do you know who I am?” 

            “Ka, Daggo Thrycheck eswa,” she said in Twi’leki. “I know exactly who you are. That’s why I’m here.” 

            “Speak a real language child. I’m the most powerful man in the outer rim. I can give you anything you want. Did someone you know get kidnapped? I can get them back for you. If someone’s paying you I’ll double it.” A’i’s lekku tapped against her arms in raucous laughter. She couldn’t help it, because she had only just realised. In a flash she used the Force to pull him towards her, pressing his face against the bars of the cell so that it was only a couple of inches from her own. 

            “Don’t you see?” she crooned, speaking Basic again. “That’s the funny thing about our situation. What I want, you cannot buy, not for all the credits on Ryloth.” 

            “I said anything. Name your price! What is it?” now she could sense the fear creeping in. Ripe, mouth-watering. She removed her mask. She could see the mark on her cheek reflected in his dark eyes, and waited to see the gleam of recognition before she spoke again. 

            “I want you to suffer.” With a wave of her hand, she lifted him off his feet and began throwing him this way and that against the walls of the cell. Again and again until his cries became whimpers and, finally satisfied, she brought her two hands together in closed fists and slowly pulled them apart, using the Force to rip him in two. 

Chapter Text

A couple of cycles later, A’i told her fiancé she was going to visit her family. 

            “I’ll go with you.” 

            “It’s a three hour hike from the closest place where you can land a ship – maybe an hour if you have the right speeder bikes.” 

            “Oh, I see. You can bring them here of course. There’s more than enough space.”

            “Arni, I’m sure my mother and younger brother will be grateful for your hospitality.” “It’s no favour to you. You’re family now. Would you accept an escort through the forest, if only for my peace of mind?” 

            “Of course my love.” 

As she boarded the ship along with a half-dozen soldiers, she had a pang of kasha’se – feeling like you’re in a dream. She was going home, or close to it, after nearly four years. The feeling only intensified when the edge of the forest belt appeared on the horizon, and more so when they touched down and began preparing the speeder bikes. She recognized the smell as soon as they got out, and it made her heart flutter. It was near that golden time of year again, as if everything had stood still while she was away. 

            It took a little over two hours to find her uncle’s house. The entrance was hard to see if you weren’t right on top of it, and she’d almost forgotten the surrounding landmarks. Soon enough though, she found the wooden door set into the ground and knocked. There was some muffled noise from inside, and then her brother pushed the door up a couple of inches. 

            “You’re finally back!” He threw the door open and jumped up to hug her. 

            “Is uncle home?” 

            “Out laying traps. He should be back soon.” 

            “He’s back on the trail then?” 

            “Off and on. It was alright for a while but he’s been in a rotten mood lately.” A’i addressed her escort. 

            “You’d better take a walk. He won’t like seeing a bunch of armed men surrounding his house.” She stepped down the ladder. The entry tunnel led into the kitchen. 

            “Wait,” she called back to the surface. “One of you come down here with me.” One of the soldiers climbed down after her. 

            “This kitchen is filthy,” she said. “Clean it.” He hesitated for a moment and then slung his rifle over his back and began scrubbing the wood-burning stove. Kanē bombarded her with questions as they sat down at the table across from each other. 

            “What have you been doing? Are you a great Jedi now?” He gasped. “Goddess! What happened to your lekku? Were you in a fight?” A’i couldn’t help herself. 

            “It was a lightsaber duel. I’ll tell you sometime.” He was awestruck. 

            “Who’s he?” he asked, watching the man work. 

            “Part of my escort. I’m marrying a noble.” His lekku jumped. 

            “Oh numa, that’s great! You’ve got to tell rymma.” 

            “How is she?” 

            “Asleep right now with a fever.” A’i stiffened. 

            “Bad?” 

            “No, but she’s been having them now and then for a while. Something happened with the water a few weeks ago. Everyone got sick. A couple of older people died. Rymma was alright thanks to the credits you sent us. We were able to get her to a medical centre quickly.” 

            “Sick how?” 

            “Shaking, ataxia, seeing things that weren’t there.” It sounded like spice-poisoning. She had heard about it happening in other villages. Runoff from mines would get into the well water and anyone who drank it got sick. The anger that had slept since she killed Daggo stirred again. Reaching out with her senses, she looked for nearby disturbances in the Force. About two miles to the west, she could sense a dead spot just like the one she’d found while hiking years ago. She had more important things to attend to now, but would return to investigate. If this epidemic was caused by mining, Goddess help whoever was involved. 

            “We can live in the royal palace in the clan to the south now. How long do you need to get ready?” 

            “Not long!” She could tell he was excited to leave. A’i found the spare bedroom while he gathered his things. Her mother sat up when she came in. 

            “My dear, I was hoping it was you.” A’i sat at the foot of the bed. 

            “I’m sorry I was away so long. How are you feeling?” 

            “Not so bad. Did you accomplish what you wanted?” 

            “The one behind all the abductions was arrested. No one will know, but it was because of me.” She smiled. 

            “You were touched by the Goddess. It’s no wonder you’re doing great things. I’m so proud of you.” 

            “While on this adventure, I met the new Dinek of Daria, a kind and just man. We’re to be bonded to each other.” Now her mother’s lekku curled in a rakish grin. 

            “That’s amazing news! You’re…happy then with this new love?” 

            “Of course.” 

            “Then I’m very happy for you. I’m just a little surprised it’s with a man is all,” she said with a laugh. 

            “Rymma!” A’i’s good lekku flicked upward to cover her eyes, a gesture of embarrassment she should have grown out of. It only made her mother laugh harder, at least until she noticed the damaged one. 

            “You’ve been cut! What did this to you?” 

            “It’s a long story. I’ll have to tell you later.” A moment of silence. A’i was impatient to leave, but it wouldn’t take long to gather her mother’s possessions. They hadn’t been able to bring much of anything with them that day. 

            “When’s the wedding? You must let me help plan things.” 

            “I was hoping you would. I came to bring you and Kanē back to the palace.” 

            “Oh this is so exciting!” 

            “Do you have the strength for a short walk?” 

            “I can make it outside at least and then – dear, what’s happened to your eyes?” 

            “They’re fine. It’s the fever making things look strange.” A’i heard the door to the surface creak open and fall shut again. Someone had just come in. She got up to investigate as her mother was getting up to pack her things, and saw her uncle come down into the kitchen. He was still spry, but didn’t look to be aging well. He stopped when he noticed her, but there was no warmth in his expression. 

            “You’re here now. Your rymma said you’d be coming, but that was years ago. You have anything to contribute? Or are you just another mouth I didn’t ask for?” She was aware now of his strong northern-Tukian accent. A’i did her best to give a measured response. 

            “I suppose it’s been a while since I had those credits sent home. I can have two thousand more transferred at once. That should more than make up for the last few years.” He sniggered. 

            “How do you have all that? Finally wised up and learned from your sister’s example? Not that she’s been any help lately.” A’i smiled in spite of what she was feeling. 

            “Something like that. I’m betrothed to the new Dinek of the southern clan.” 

            “Just like when you were a child. Always making up stories.” She said nothing, but he still wasn’t satisfied. He looked closely at her face. “Your rymma has blue eyes. So did that soft-rock she married. I bet you aren’t even – ” she slapped him so hard he fell over. He yelled at her to get out of his house, and she obliged. Her mother and younger brother left in a hurry to go with her. 

By the time they got back to the palace A’i wanted to go straight to her bedroom, but they had to make introductions. There were visitors on both sides of the previous royal family who had come for the funeral and were still staying, possibly even until the wedding, but fortunately for her, most of them were either out and about or in bed when they arrived. Cato found time to share a leisurely meal with the three of them; and had a private doctor flown in who would attend exclusively to A’i’s mother, who seemed to find new energy discussing wedding plans with a couple of new relations. Kanē, who had enjoyed roughing it in the forest for a while but felt he was languishing the last couple of years, was quick to take advantage of the palace’s archives and private networks to continue studying engineering. 

            When it was clear the rest of her family was comfortable enjoying their new home, A’i excused herself to get some rest. There was something she wanted to check on though, after what her mother and uncle had said. Before crawling into bed, she studied her reflection in her mirror. Her eyes, once steel-blue, were now a burning yellow. 

End of Part I

Chapter Text

A beam of sunlight struck Jaina’s shoulders.  The clouds must have been breaking up.  The sun on Dantooine was warm this afternoon.  It tickled memories, which sprang to mind and faded like shots from a geyser.  These were the earliest sensations she was able to recall: the sun and the rustle of trees around this very spot, perched on the roof of the Jedi enclave.  Eyes closed in meditation, she took in the sounds around her.  A bird nearby was singing an unrequited song.  Water trickled in the stone fountain in the courtyard below.  The Force flowed through her, connecting the three of them.  She felt herself melt away, vanishing into that flow.  Peace.  Then a hollow rapping sound.  The bird had given up on its song and found a seed to crack against a rock.  It rapped again.  And again.  It was too loud to be a seed.  A shell then.  The rapping continued.  How was it so loud?  She came back to herself and opened her eyes, deciding there would be time to practice later today.  She hopped down from the roof.

            “You let yourself be distracted.”  It was her Master, Entiko.  Somehow he was always able to sneak up on her.  

            “I tried to ignore that bird, but I couldn’t.”

            “Don’t try, just accept it.  Listen to it until it becomes nothing, the way a word loses its meaning when you say it over and over.”  She nodded.  

            “Thank you, Master.”  They began a walk around the courtyard together, being careful to avoid the patches of flowers and fruiting plants.  It was Entiko who first brought her here.  Most Jedi began their training young, but Jaina had no memories at all before the temple.  In fact it was a running joke that the first time she stood up it was to grab a wooden saber and join the other students in forms.  She couldn’t say if this were really true, but it seemed plausible.  It was no surprise then that she took to training like a gundark takes to flying.  Even Entiko had struggled to contain his pride over the last few years.  It was one of the only times she saw him show any emotion.  

            “The council wants to speak with you and Isaac about an assignment, now that you’re both Jedi Knights.  Master Dias and the others are testing new Knights in pairs to see who’s most suitable.”  Jaina wasn’t thrilled about the pairing, but didn’t dare protest.  It made sense.  She and Isaac were easily the best Jedi in their cohort.  

            “What kind of test?”  

            “No idea.  I expect he wants it to be a surprise.”  Jaina watched the fish in the fountain as they passed it.  

            “And the mission?”

            “If they select the two of you, you’ll be sent to Ryloth.  You’ll find out all about it soon enough.”

            “The Outer-Rim?”

            “Ryloth should be of interest to any Jedi.  Its culture emphasises balance and living in harmony with nature, and its people have struggled for centuries to find justice.”  He still hadn’t addressed what was really on her mind.  

            “Are the rumors true?  Have the Sith really returned?”  He looked stern now.  

            “You have very good ears if you’ve heard rumors like that,” he said, “or you were somewhere you shouldn’t have been.”  She didn’t back down.  

            “That doesn’t answer my question.”  He sighed.  

            “I suspect the mission has to do with finding that out –- it wouldn’t be the first of late.”  Now it was starting to sink in.  This would be her most important assignment so far.  

            “Thank you Master, I promise you I will not fail.”  

            “Your duty is to the Jedi order, and the Republic, not to me.”  They were approaching the entrance to the council’s enclave, but he stopped before they reached it.  

            “What do you know of the Sith?” he asked.  

            “They’re Force-users like us, but cruel, fascistic, and hedonistic.  They care only for themselves and for power.”  She was confident, but he didn’t seem impressed.  In fact, he looked melancholy.  

            “All true, and all from a book written by someone else.”  

            “What do you mean?” she asked, ever eager.  

            “I mean this isn’t a legend, Jaina.  There’s no heroes or villains –- just people.  I think you’ll find they’re fascinating once you stop judging them.”  She wasn’t sure what to make of the last part, but thanked him all the same before going inside.  

Jaina had never been inside the council chambers before.  The yellow sun coming in the tall windows through hanging vines was beautiful and tranquil, but she was nervous, because seated across from her were Master Dias and two other members of the Jedi council.  Everyone in their order wore the same simple, brown robes, but their presence was still intimidating.  Beside her was Isaac, who like her had recently been made a Jedi Knight.  There was a bit of a rivalry between them, even if they were meant to suppress their competitive impulses.  She hoped they could at least work together well enough to be chosen for the mission.  Master Dias began briefing them both.  

            “During Ryloth’s liberation, Jedi Knights and their Padawans were assisting in the fighting, planning to stay afterwards to help the new government and root out any remaining imperial influence.  As with other worlds, they were having success, until they became the target of another unknown Force-user, one trained to use the dark side.  They had never encountered such an enemy before, and our losses were shocking.  As more evidence accumulates, it seems all but certain that this unknown assailant was a Sith.  We’ve seen signs of them in the shadows across the galaxy, and now we’ve received reports of a likely Sith agent who calls herself the Witch of Ryloth.  She may be behind the recent assassination of a Twi’lek clan ruler.  We need you to investigate and see if you can identify her, but that’s not all.  We don’t know a lot about the Sith except through legends, and history bears out that every time they reemerge, they’re a bit different.  We need to know how they think, and most importantly what they’re planning.”  Master Vess took over after that.  She was known for being a meticulous teacher.  Jaina once heard she would sometimes scold her Padawans telepathically if they weren’t being mindful during their training.  

            “This Witch recently displayed bodies at an exhibition outside the centre of Ryloth’s government.  The artist responsible for the project was initially suspected to be involved, but he only supported her cause by giving her the means to put on this show.  This is the scene she left us.”  A hologram appeared over the table between them: a statue of a Twi’lek woman covered in blood, with three corpses hanging beneath.  It was hard to look at, but Jaina forced herself to take in every detail.  As she suspected, Master Vess now posed them a question.  

            “What can you surmise about the person who did this?  What are their motives, or guiding principles?”

            “Take your time,” added Master Djem.  “And you can ask questions.”  He was well-known for being kind to everyone, though Jaina heard he once defeated an entire battalion of Zygerrian mercenaries by himself.  They continued to study the hologram for a while.  Isaac spoke first.  

            “How were they killed?”

            “Strangulation,” said Master Vess.  “The lightsaber wounds on their extremities came after.”

            “Using the Force?”

            “That’s right.” 

            “No Jedi would use the Force to kill.  This Witch is a brutal warrior, possibly a sadist.  There’d be no reason to cut their hands off after she already killed them.  She put their bodies on display at a public gathering to show off her power, to send a message to politicians that they could be next.”  Jaina was still thinking.  

            “What does the plaque on the statue say?” she asked.  

            “Mother of Balance.  It’s the name the artist gave the statue.”

            “Is it their deity then?”

            “Yes, it’s the Twi’lek Goddess.”  Something clicked.  

            “She’s religious.  She has a spiritual interpretation of her connection to the Force, like we do.  And she cares about symbols.  The chains on the Goddess’s left hand stand for Twi’lek enslavement.  Beneath her right are the bodies.  Isaac was right to say she’s threatening politicians, but it’s more specific than that.  She’s saying one is paying for the other.  Were the men she killed involved in the slave trade somehow?”

            “We believe so.”  Master Vess remained impassive, but Jaina sensed she was onto something.  

            “So she’s acting as a vigilante,” said Isaac.  “What does the banner say?”  She gave the translation.  

            “She’s using a species-based grievance,” he said.  Jaina had something more to add.  

            “But it’s also personal.  She cut off their hands to take away their power.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this Witch is a Twi’lek who has personal experience with Zygerrian slavers.”  A moment of silence.  Master Vess ended the exercise there.  

            “Well done, both of you.  Prepare yourselves for the journey.  You’ll receive all the relevant data we have on your way to the Outer-Rim.  Jaina, you will take point with the investigation, but work together.  That’s an order.”  One more question weighed on Jaina’s mind.  

            “Did any survive the encounter with the Sith all those years ago?”  

            “No,” said Master Vess.  

            “Then how do we know anything about this enemy or their powers?”  A rare moment of apparent indecision.  

            “Of the two Knights and two Padawans who engaged him, three were killed immediately.  The final Knight was so stricken by grief and despair at seeing a practitioner of the dark side in action that he gave chase against the orders of the council.  He renounced our ways and was killed a short time later, but he did give us some information on the identity of the attacker.  He was a Muun, with enormous power.  His apprentices called him Lord Havoc.”