A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

  63

  Dathomir. 36 BBY/964 GSC.

  As the sun started to set and the world turned golden with twilight, Allaya finished up the last of her chores—dropping the birds she had hunted off to be added to the community food reserve. Hurrying home, she dropped off her bow and arrows and her bag, before poking her head inside.

  “Mom! I’m done for the day! I’m going to go play!” the redhead called, not bothering to stick around and hear the answer.

  A devious chuckle escaped her lips as she hurried through the village, patting the pouch on her belt that she could swear practically squirmed under her hand. The thought of getting her new ‘Master’ back for the humiliation this morning with that damned cat made her excited and practically giddy knowing she’d be there to see it.

  Finding the ship, she looked it over and felt her feelings stir at the thought that tomorrow, she would be leaving the planet on it. Leaving her home, her friends, family, and her mother behind for the next several years at least. It was a scary thought, but also exciting. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she kind of already missed her mom. But she’d get to meet her father in person soon, not just over a holocall, so it would be worth it.

  Forcing those thoughts from her mind with a shake of her head, Allaya found the recessed panel for the keypad and flipped it open. Humming, she considered the buttons for a moment. She had been reading some books on the computer that her father had sent her about ships some months ago—with chapters and sections in particular highlighted, especially those about getting into those ships in an emergency.

  Weirdly enough, one was even a manual for this ship, or one very much like it. The one in the manual hadn’t had nearly as many guns, and she felt like this one might be a bit bigger. Regardless, they were the same, right? So they probably had the same ways of getting in.

  So, Allaya pushed down on the buttons with a grin, expecting the door to open. To her surprise, an alarm sounded—blaring over the area and drawing the attention of what felt like the entire village.

  “Crap!” she yelped. Turning, she yelled at the village, “Sorry! That’s my fault! Just ignore it!”

  Turning back to the panel, she pressed what she thought might cancel it, only for the alarm to increase in volume and frequency, and the running lights to light up and start blinking as well. “Ack! Stop it! Stop, stop, stop!” she smacked the panel repeatedly until the alarms shut off. Allaya breathed a sigh of relief, then grinned as the hatch hissed and started to open.

  Allaya started to enter, only for a black and gray painted astromech droid with a clear dome standing in the entrance to beep at her. “Uh. Hi?”

  The redhead made to go around the droid, only for a panel to open up on the front of its chassis. Allaya’s danger sense flared and she jumped back just in time to miss getting shot with a blaster bolt. “Hey! Crap!”

  She yelped, jumping out of the entrance entirely as the droid fired at her again and again, the mechanical arm protruding from its chassis, tracking her movements and forcing her back. Finally, when she was several yards back, the droid beeped and the hatch closed again as it put away the blaster.

  Panting as her heart raced, Allaya stared wide-eyed at the entrance as it finished closing. From somewhere behind her, she heard someone from the village laugh and felt herself blush. “Shit,” she hissed quietly, kicking the ground at her feet.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin as something rubbed against her other leg. Stepping away, she found the irritating cat following, arching up and rubbing her leg. Sighing, Allaya reached down and gave the animal a scratch on the top of the head. “Your owner sucks,” she grumbled.

  “Mrow?” The cat made a sound, looking up at Allaya with what felt like way too much smarts for an animal to have.

  “Mhmm,” she complained, picking the cat up and squeezing the ball of fluff to her chest. Burying her face in the fur, Allaya inhaled and sighed—she smelled like she’d been in the sunshine all day. Which she had. “I guess we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, huh?”

  The cat shifted and jumped down out of Allaya’s arms and the girl pouted. “I wasn’t done petting you!”

  Catya turned and walked away, tail up like a flag and the end flicking back and forth as she headed not for the village, but towards the east and the forest below. “Uh, you shouldn’t go in there!”

  The animal paused, turning and looking over her shoulder at Allaya. Once more, the redhead had the feeling that the animal was entirely too smart. “You… want me to come with you?”

  When the animal simply waited, Allaya slowly followed. When she was within a few feet, the cat turned and started running—not full out, like she was trying to get away, but more like she was just in a hurry. Allaya picked up the pace, lengthening her stride to follow—

  Everything twisted around her and then they were elsewhere. Allaya’s mouth fell open as she looked around. They were somewhere deep in the forest where the last rays of twilight couldn’t penetrate. “What just happened?!” she whispered as she slowed down, wondering for a brief moment if she was going crazy or maybe dreaming. But no, she had felt as whatever happened did so, so she knew this was real. Instead, she began to worry about how she was going to get back like this—alone in the forest, in the dark, with only a cat for company, and entirely unprepared for such a journey.

  I’ll have to make camp up in a tree and spend the night on watch, then try to get back at first light—

  Her thoughts and slowly mounting panic were interrupted as she felt a nip at her ankle, then a tug at the material of her tights. Looking down, she found Catya with the cloth of her tights between her teeth, trying to pull her. When the cat saw she was looking, Catya turned and started running again. Allaya hurried to catch up and, as soon as she had, there was that twist again and they were somewhere else.

  “Are you doing that?!” she asked, only to get her answer a few steps later. Now that she was focusing on the cat, she felt the twist in the Force come from the animal herself, then the scenery changed again. And again. And again.

  Until finally, the cat stopped on the side of a mountain. Catya flattened herself against the ground, then turned to look expectantly at Allaya. Hesitantly, Allaya did likewise. Then, Catya crept forward through the tall grass. Allaya followed, until she came to a point that opened up, overlooking a valley below and more mountains across from them. The area was lit by torches—some burning normally, but those around the mouth to a cave on the other mountain glowed an eerie green that felt wrong to her fledgling senses.

  Below, people moved around as they went about their lives, and Allaya realized it was another tribe. Except this wasn’t the Singing Mountain clan. No, they didn’t wear the right colors for that. Most of them wore brown and gray, but a few wore all red. It was hard to make out in the low light, but a few seemed to be wearing full body paint, making their bodies look covered in ash.

  She recognized them by description, if not by sight.

  Nightsisters! This is… Mother Talzin’s clan, isn’t it? That stupid cat brought me right to that crazy red girl!

  Allaya knew she should escape, hurry back the way they had come and try to get the cat to take her back, but… she was also deeply curious to see what her new ‘Master’ was going to do. Deciding it couldn’t hurt to watch a bit longer, she settled in to do just that.

  The first thing she noticed was that it wasn’t just Nightsisters (and Nightbrothers) in the camp. There were a couple of ships in the clearing, and men and women who were dressed differently moving about the camp like they owned the place.

  Those must be the pirates mom mentioned, she reasoned, nodding to herself.

  Something caught her eye and Allaya blinked, turning her gaze up. Above the camp, a brightly colored bird circled, before coming in for a landing on a branch some distance from the camp.

  Those are only active during the day. It should have gone to its nest to bed down by now, to avoid predators. So… what’s it doing out?

  It was weird. Really weird. To the point that she was still wondering about it when Catya’s ears flicked and she perked up a bit. Squinting in the direction the cat was looking, Allaya couldn’t see anything at all. Just a pirate walking out away from the camp by himself, possibly to take a leak.

  The man stopped beside a tree facing away from Allaya and began relieving himself. He was finishing up and she was just about to look away, wondering what had set the cat off, when a shadow dropped out of the tree. It swirled around the man, cloaking him in darkness, before flying back up into the tree and apparently taking the pirate with it.

  “Whoa!” Allaya quietly hissed, focusing on the tree. She could make out a lump in the upper branches that separated. One part remained behind, while the other part flew out of the tree, hit the ground, and disappeared into the lower vegetation. “What was that?”

  The only answer the cat gave was a flicking of her tail back and forth as her head turned, apparently somehow tracking the movement in the dark. Following along, Allaya watched as the shadow leapt from the brush and grabbed another pirate, before disappearing without a sound—it never so much as slowed down, even.

  Not far away, one of the red clad Nightsisters went down to the shadow. This one, Allaya was able to follow as the shadow moved quickly to the river, before tossing the Nightsister in. In the brief moment of the throw, Allaya caught a glimpse of white and everything came together.

  That was her new Master’s hair she’d seen, coming out from under the hood for a moment. She glanced over at the cat watching with interest and suddenly realized that those two were a matching set. The way her master moved, the speed, strength, stealth, the tactics—it was like watching a big cat take down prey. And all of it, Allaya realized, without so much as a whisper to her sense of the Force.

  Now certainly, she was new to sensing the Force, but there should have been at least something. One of the Nightsisters should have noticed something, right?! And yet…

  Her Master stalked the camp, clearing out the stragglers on the outskirts and slowly making her way in. Grabbing and dragging someone away here. Slipping up behind them from the other side of cover there. Catching a group of three around the campfire by throwing a rock in the dark and getting them to look away, then two flashes of light in the dark as the only sign of the flight of a pair of knives burying themselves in the backs of necks. The last Nightsister standing had just enough forewarning with the sound of the impacts to start to turn around, before her Master descended on her from a leap, a pair of bright silver blades flashing in the light of the campfire as she bore the other woman to the ground.

  Then her Master worked quickly, clearing away the bodies—moving them away from the camp and throwing them into the woods, where the scavengers would find them. From there, she removed something from her belt and made her way over to the ships, doing something Allaya couldn’t see. When she was finished, the red skinned woman moved away from the ships, setting up with a view on the entrance.

  This is going to be my new Master? Is this what she was trying to teach me? Allaya wondered, conflicting feelings of awe and fear running through her. The Jedi was scary, but she was also good—as good as the best of the Singing Mountain Clan, maybe better. And Allaya… she wanted that. She wanted to be someone who could confidently walk into a camp full of enemies knowing she was going to win. She wanted to be the ghost people were going to whisper about tomorrow, afraid it would come back the next night and take more of their people.

  She’s so cool~!

  It wasn’t long after that Allaya saw someone exiting the cave. A pirate, taller than all the rest and with an oddly large head, came dragging a young girl with him—the girl bald headed and wearing the same gray skin paint. She couldn’t be much older than Allaya herself, and as she struggled in the man’s grip, the pirate smacked her head—dazing her, then hefting her up onto his shoulder. Two more pirates came with him, along with what looked like a Nightsister shaman and two more Nightsisters.

  “Oh, shit,” Allaya whispered.

  As they crossed the open ground between the cave mouth and the ships, the Nightsisters slowed, looking around with wary looks. One of them held up a hand and brought their party to a halt. “Where is everyone?”

  The pirates stopped, looking around as they seemed to come to the same realization. “Where the fuck did they go?”

  “I smell blood,” one of the Nightsisters said, and both groups began drawing weapons.

  “Have you betrayed us, Hal’Sted?” the Nightsister shaman demanded.

  “My men are missing as well. What do you think, Charal?” the pirate sneered, looking around. “We’re leaving—”

  Whatever he was going to say next, Allaya missed it as she sensed danger in the Force and heard a quiet grinding of stone on stone from a footstep—behind her. She turned just as a Nightbrother rushed the last few feet at her, picking her up with a laugh and holding a knife against her throat. “Look what we got here!”

  “Let me go!” Allaya yelled.

  All hell broke loose.

  Catya spun around, filled with a sudden terrible intent. Her presence in the Force swelled as it suddenly felt like her Master was right there and not hundreds of yards away. The cat leapt.

  Allaya had seen the cat move before—she’d been chasing the damned animal all day, after all. She was fast, but nothing Allaya couldn’t follow.

  This was not that.

  The furball shot off the ground in a blur, claws stretched out ahead of her as something in the Force screamed deadly danger and Allaya jerked away. An animal that small couldn’t possibly do much damage to a grown man, and yet… There was a rending, tearing sound, followed by a thump of something hitting the ground. Something hot and wet covered the side of Allaya’s face and head as the smell of blood filled the air.

  The Nightbrother’s body went slack, nearly knocking her over. Allaya shoved him off, revealing a headless corpse spewing blood from the neck like a geyser for just a moment, until it tapered off.

  She stood in shock as her eyes were drawn back down below, and several flashes of sickly green fire. The shadow that was her Master rushed out of the underbrush, dodging around the fire, weaving in between fireballs as they exploded on the ground behind her and leaping over them where they aimed in front of her. The pirates opened fire, orange blaster bolts lighting up the night below, only to cut off suddenly as there was a glint of something thrown.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The pirate leader, Hal’Sted, fell over dead with a hollow thunk as something caved his face in. One of the others did likewise, while the third dropped his blaster and clutched at his throat as it opened up and spewed blood.

  One of the Nightsisters rushed to intercept her Master with a songsteel blade that Allaya could tell was somehow especially deadly with the Force, flashing in the dark. The red woman flipped over the blade and down below, the air was filled with an ominous hum as a bar of white-silver flashed and the Nightsister’s head hit the ground.

  “Jedi!” The shaman Charal spat. The woman weaved her hands in some strange pattern, words that hurt Allaya’s ears spewing from her mouth in hisses and guttural intonations as Allaya felt power build, the hairs on her arms standing up. The other Nightsister beside Charal spat a few of her own words, before being enveloped in a faintly glowing green mist and rushing at Allaya’s Master, drawing a pair of daggers.

  A bolt of sickly green lightning flashed out from Charal, striking the red woman—or it would have, if it hadn’t splashed off of a glowing blue shield made of multiple small hexagons. Allaya thought for sure her Master was blinded by the light of the attack, unable to hold it back and open to the other woman rushing around the shield and coming in from the side.

  That turned out not to be the case at all.

  Her Master made a grabbing motion and the other woman stopped dead in her tracks, only to be picked up and bodily thrown between her Master and Charal, getting blasted by the beam of Force energy. “Wha—AHHH!!!”

  Charal realized her mistake immediately and cut off the spell, but by then it was too late. The other woman was a smoking ruin—a hole burned through her chest from the lightning.

  As if to add insult to injury, her Master flung the body at Charal, nearly knocking the witch off her feet as the red woman rushed across the distance between them in a blur. The clash that followed was short lived and couldn’t even really be called a fight.

  Her Master swung her lightsaber. Charal summoned a sword of green energy, dripping something that looked absolutely poisonous and intercepted the blade. They clashed three, four, five times blade against blade before her Master did something and locked the green blade into place with one of the two parts of what looked like a glowing hilt. Then, a second white-silver blade joined the other. It flashed out and Charal released her blade, trying to back away and disengage, only for the blade to abruptly lengthen.

  Charal ducked, rolling away. Allaya’s Master spun her arm over her head once and the blade grew even longer, as it changed—shifting from rigid blade to flowing whip. The witch began to change, her body shifting into something with wings as it rapidly grew smaller. The beam of energy caught her in the chest and whatever transformation had been in progress stopped there as the two halves of her body spun away.

  Yelling came from within the cave and the red woman shut off her lightsabers. She took a moment to kneel and collect something from Charal’s corpse, before rushing over and grabbing the pale child. As she went, the two daggers and the sword from the other Nightsisters floated into the air after her, spinning around her body. Then, she turned and flew up the side of the mountain at Allaya. There was a thump and a weight on Allaya’s shoulder and she had just a moment to register Catya digging her claws into her shoulder, before her Master scooped her up at speed, knocking the wind from Allaya’s lungs.

  They rose into the air and she watched with wide eyes as more Nightsisters and Nightbrothers poured out of the cave.

  Instead of running however, her Master turned in midair, forcing Allaya to shift around so she could see. Then, the madwoman laughed as she brought up the blaster rifle against her chest and opened fire. White-silver bolts streaked downwards and Allaya felt the Force from them so strongly it made her teeth ache. Down below, the enemy had it worse—the bolts exploded in the middle of their group, detonating like bombs and blowing many of them into chunks before the first witch could even get a green shield up. Then, her Master released the rifle and pulled out something else. The two ships below erupted into flaming ruin, sending debris flying over the camp and catching many of those below in flames from the fuel.

  Apparently deciding that now she was done, Tanya turned and flew them away, climbing higher as the wind whipped around them. Then, the world around them twisted and they were miles and miles away—still in the sky, but nowhere near where they’d been. It happened twice more before they were back above the village.

  Allaya’s stomach did flips as her Master dove for the ground. Beside her, the gray girl made a stifled noise of fear, before they slowed and came to a landing with barely a jolt to show for it. Catya hopped down off of Allaya’s shoulder and strolled away, towards the red woman’s ship.

  Tanya sat them down and Allaya started to run away, only for a hand to latch onto her shoulder. “We’re going to speak with your mother,” the Jedi warned, before grabbing the other girl’s arm and pulling her along as well as the weapons she’d brought with her stabbed into the ground beside the ship. “You’re coming too.”

  She’s going to have me mucking the rancor pens for a month! Allaya mentally whined, but kept her mouth shut.

  Her Master pulled them through the village, ignoring the shutters that opened as people had a good look at them. A few of them frowned at the obvious tiny Nightsister in their number, but none said anything. Finally, Tanya opened the door to her mother’s home.

  “I’m back. And I brought a guest.”

  “I see congratulations are in order. That didn’t take nearly as long as expected,” Augwynne greeted as we entered.

  Spotting Allaya covered in blood, a brief look of worry crossed her face, before her eyes settled on the other girl. She raised an eyebrow, before sending me a curious look. Considering us for a moment, she motioned for us to follow and led us to her kitchen, where she put on a kettle to make tea. Then, she took a wash cloth and wet it before starting in scrubbing Allaya’s face and head.

  “Alright. What happened? I take it my daughter did something… ill-advised?” she asked, moving to the sink to wring out the cloth than had already turned pink.

  “Good guess,” I nodded, earning a wince from Allaya, who squirmed at the attention from her mother. “But I don’t believe it’s entirely her fault.”

  “Oh? This I’d like to hear,” Augwynne sent her daughter a glare. “Out with it.”

  “I um,” Allaya murmured, refusing to meet her mother’s gaze. That is, until the older redhead cleared her throat in a way that had even me sitting up a bit straighter. “I was going to put bugs in Tanya’s bed to get back at her for this morning.”

  I sent the girl a raised eyebrow and made a mental note of the offense, and her potential penchant for retaliation if she felt inconvenienced or embarrassed. Because that’s what this was about. She had felt slighted by being made to chase Catya around and wanted to get back at me.

  This won’t change what I have in store for her. I’ll definitely have to do something to discourage this sort of behavior in the future, though. I can’t have her acting out every time she disagrees with something.

  I listened as Allaya went on to detail her side of the story. Apparently, she had tried to break into the Rusted Silver, not knowing that one of the first things I’d done when I’d gotten the ship—or the original, at any rate—was to change the security codes, the emergency access codes, and set the factory emergency access codes to alarm if someone tried to use them. Cindy must have pulled that system straight over, because it still had the settings.

  “Then some murderbot tried to kill me!”

  “Arthree is an astromech,” I raised an eyebrow. “And I assure you, if he had tried to kill you, you would be dead. That was just a sternly worded warning against attempting to trespass.”

  Allaya looked annoyed, but continued on with her story. I stayed silent as she spoke of how Catya apparently led her through the forest straight to me, my mind turning once more to the potential uses of a teleporting cat I could control and apparently get her to bring passengers along—as I had experienced on the flight back. I hadn’t realized the cat was the one to bring her there of her own volition, however. That could potentially be a problem.

  On the other hand, it shows a certain level of intelligence. That she made the association between myself and Allaya, that she chose to bring her to me. I knew she was intelligent, but that is much more intelligent than I gave her credit for.

  “—and then she was all whoosh! and we flew up. Then, ‘Aha-ha-ha-ha~! Get some! Get some! Get some!’”

  “I did not—” I started to protest, but Allaya was entirely too into her reproduction to be distracted now.

  “Pew pew pew! And then the ships blew up! Then we came home, aaand here we are,” the diminutive redhead finished.

  “Mm. I see,” Augwynne hummed, sending me an amused look for a moment before apparently giving up on wiping off Allaya’s face herself. She tossed the rag in the sink and pulled the kettle off the stove, before looking to Allaya. “Alright. Go get cleaned up and go to bed. You have an early start in the morning.”

  “Aww, but mooom~! I wanna—”

  “No buts, little lady. Except your butt. In the bath scrubbing the blood off, and then to bed. Now.”

  Allaya jumped up from the table and hurried off deeper into the home. With her gone, Augwynne let out a quiet sigh as she poured cups for us and sat. “You have your work cut out for you.”

  “So I see,” I gave a rueful chuckle, accepting the offered cup.

  “And how close was that to what actually happened?” she asked, taking a sip of her tea.

  “She downplayed how much danger she was in,” I admitted. “Other than that, close enough. If a bit embellished.”

  Nodding, Augwynne sat in silent thought for a few moments before asking, “Then she was being truthful about the cat saving her? She didn’t manage to free herself?”

  “That was me, using a Force technique. She did not manage to free herself, no. I didn’t exactly give her time. When I realized she was there, and in danger, I acted without thinking,” I explained, and Augwynne made an affirmative sound.

  “I see. Something else I’ll need you to take care of while you’re away then.” Augwynne straightened, looked at me and said, “See to it that…”

  But the words died in her throat, and the Clan Mother looked away with a sigh. I watched Augwynne’s gaze lift outward, into the cold glitter of the night sky. A billion inhabited star systems hung distantly as though to remind Augwynne that beyond this little planet stretched a galaxy that did not care for innocence. Her shoulders stiffened, a small but telling piece of body-language from the normally controlled clan mother.

  I think I knew what she was going to ask next.

  And when Augwynne spoke again, but this time, her voice was low, almost unwilling. “…See to it that Allaya is Blooded before she returns.”

  Blooded.

  My mind turned back to the events just an hour or two earlier. Allaya, reckless and bratty Allaya, had trailed me into my little extermination/relaxation op. And before I could completely clear the AO of hostiles, the girl had been seized. A knife pressed to her little throat by some half-trained Nightbrother. Allaya had frozen then, practically did nothing but stand there wide-eyed when the killing began. It wasn't too surprising. The girl likely saw more death in that scant few minutes than she had in her entire life.

  Augwynne was right. The galaxy would offer no pity. It would definitely be better that Allaya be hardened now rather than later. I felt my respect for Augwynne deepen slightly for that. Few mothers would even consider that, and fewer still would seek to address it over just hiding their daughters behind walls and guards.

  “I’ll take care of it.” I inclined my head, already mapping out the ‘lesson plan’ in my mind.

  Harden the girl. Sear away the flinching at the sight of blood. Teach her how to open a throat cleanly and without hesitation. And although it would normally be challenging to translate the trite adage of ‘practice makes perfect’ in killing, in this galaxy, there were quadrillions of beings. No one would miss some lowlifes. I could just line a crowd of them up and—

  “Not just someone off the street. And not some dreg of society you’ve found in the lower levels of Coruscant that no one will miss.” The clan mother practically shredded my existing lesson plan to pieces.

  Over a sip of tea, my eyebrow rose at the request.

  That was not how I would advise doing it… I was of the opinion that, if hardening a person to killing was the objective, the relative social worth of the ‘volunteer’ wasn’t in any way at all important. At the end of the day, it wouldn’t matter much to Allaya’s growth whether she ran her knife across the throat of General Gobbledigook of Backwater Prime or across the throat of some random Rodian gangbanger from Coruscant.

  However… if the clan mother insisted that Allaya’s first kills be people of some social importance, then I could arrange for colorful characters who had long, self-assigned and needlessly ostentatious titles. Titles that were disproportionate to their actual worth as sapient beings. It wouldn’t even be that difficult! After all, we had a galaxy full of them.

  Problem once again solved. I smiled at Augwynne reassuringly and nodded again. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Also, there should be a valid reason for it. I’m not trying to turn her into a murderer.”

  I paused, already reading between the lines, and seeing the assumptions that was nestled between them. I frowned, “Hold on a minute. Why would you think—?”

  “And not something that can be excused as the heat of battle, or self-defense. Don’t just let her wander around somewhere dangerous until someone takes a swing at her.”

  “I’m starting to get a little angry.” I glared, lips tight. “Just what sort of person do you think I am?”

  Augwynne smiled serenely, pouring me another cup of tea. “The sort of person who needs very strict boundaries to act within, otherwise they will come up with creative interpretations to any instructions given if it suits them.”

  I stared at her for several moments as the clan mother innocently sipped from her teacup. Finally, I exhaled through her nose, half a growl. “You’ve been speaking with Master Dooku, haven’t you?”

  “His sister, actually,” she corrected, her chuckle soft in the night air. “Jenza is lovely. And a wonderful guide on handling particularly difficult Jedi.”

  “That traitor,” I sighed, picking up my own cup and taking a sip. I wasn’t actually angry, of course. Only faintly and slightly irritated that my Master and his sister seemed to delight in spreading their little stories about me behind my back, painting me as some loose cannon that needed taming.

  I was a perfectly reasonable individual! I didn’t just go out of my way to creatively misinterpret orders! And while I could certainly think of some times that I had, those were the exception, not the rule. Exceptional circumstances required exceptional solutions. I preferred to think of it as thinking outside the box.

  So, my thoughts circled back to the task at hand.

  Allaya's Blooding.

  The restrictions: not a chance encounter, not in response to some ganger’s vibroblade in some alley in Coruscant, and definitely not a pirate ship’s worth of crew conveniently lined up for her. No, Augwynne wanted Allaya’s first kills to matter. It had to be people of some “importance” in the galaxy, likely whose titles or social function a clan mother of witches like her could respect. And most importantly, it had to be a deliberate and conscious act from Allaya, one that she committed with full knowledge of what it meant to end that person.

  A new, rough lesson plan formed in my mind.

  And with a muted click, I set my teacup down, confident that I understood the assignment perfectly.

  “Now,” Augwynne straightened, turning her gaze to the girl at my side, who had been silently watching this entire time. She sent the shaved bald girl a smile. “What’s your name, little one?”

  The pale girl blinked blue eyes, before looking down into her cup. “Asajj.”

  “And how did you come to be in the company of pirates?” the matron asked, her tone more patient and… maternal than I had ever heard from her.

  Not that she wasn’t maternal with Allaya. No, this was the sort of maternal one took on with a frightened child. The sort of maternal attitude she had with Allaya was that of a mother who knew exactly who their child was and wouldn’t tolerate any sass.

  “Mother Talzin wanted the pirates to help them,” Asajj began, and Augwynne nodded.

  “Yes, we suspected they had hired them to attack the other clans.”

  “No,” Asajj shook her head, and Augwynne arched an eyebrow.

  “No?”

  “Nn,” the girl denied again. “I heard them talking. She hired them to find her son.”

  Augwynne hummed, before nodding. “Very well. Then what do you have to do with that?”

  “She traded me to the pirate, Hal’Sted.”

  Augwynne blinked. Slowly, she raised her cup and took a sip. Despite her calm exterior, I could sense murder on her mind as she took a few moments to regain her calm. Finally, she nodded. “Then you have no family to return to,” she mused.

  The redhead studied the girl for a few moments as I sat and finished off my tea, then pulled the kettle over with the Force to pour myself another. Her eyes settled on me and I felt amusement radiate off of her. I paused in my pouring, meeting her gaze.

  “No.”

  “But Tanya, you’re already taking on Alaya. Surely a second student wouldn’t really add to the workload.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Hmm…” Augwynne took the kettle from me and slowly refilled her own cup. As she poured, she sighed. “Well, if you insist. It’s a missed opportunity though. While you’ll have to hand off my daughter to Dooku eventually, there is no such stipulation on young Asajj. And good help is very hard to find. You practically have to raise it yourself.”

  My eye twitched as I glared at her over the rim of my cup, the woman radiating smug victory as she sent me that smile. She knew she had me. The only thing I could really do now was damage control.

  “I’m going to collect more songsteel tomorrow morning.”

  Augwynne frowned at that, before shaking her head. “She’s not a member of the Singing Mountain clan. You’ve caused enough of a stir yourself over the years. I can’t extend the same benefit to her when she hasn’t lived among us, hasn’t observed our rites. I’m sympathetic, but young Asajj is an outsider to the clan. Worse, she’s a Nightsister—or she was. That’s all the others will see at the moment. They would sooner cut her down than allow her to stay, let alone part with something so precious. I can’t make an exception.”

  That was news to me. I wasn’t aware that my own membership within the clan was still a point of contention causing her political turmoil. Narrowing my eyes as something clicked, I said, “My test. You’re going to use it to argue my worth to the naysayers and strengthen your position in the clan.”

  The redhead didn’t bother to deny it as she nodded. “It sounds like you’ve crippled Talzin’s clan, so yes. I absolutely am. Then again when Allaya returns, she will inherit my position after I deal with any who have maintained their obstinance over the coming years. But until then, my position is less steady than I would like.”

  “I see,” I murmured, glancing at Asajj.

  I’m not sacrificing the songsteel I collected to make parts for her saber—I need it to make a spare computation orb. But I collected two songsteel daggers and a sword from her clan, along with the strange ring, as spoils of war. It could be argued that those rightfully belong to her, as what her clan owes her in recompense for trying to sell her into slavery. And I’m not exactly hurting for weapons. I also wouldn’t want to start off showing favoritism to one student over the other. That causes issues.

  “Very well. I’ll handle it,” I nodded. Standing, I stretched, then motioned for the girl to follow.

  I led her back to the bathroom where Allaya was just getting out. Moving inside, I took a rag and knelt, then began wiping her face clean of the markings it had been painted with. “You understand what this means, don’t you?”

  The girl shook her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize for not understanding or knowing something. Ignorance or a lack of understanding aren’t something to apologize for. They can be fixed with study, and by asking questions. Stupidity, refusing to learn or ask questions when you don’t know something, is a problem,” I said, and she nodded.

  “You can’t go home,” I began, and she nodded.

  “I know.”

  “And because of who your clan were, you won’t be welcome with the Singing Mountain Clan for some time.”

  When she nodded again, I continued. “I suppose proper introductions are in order. I am Tanya Mereel, a Jedi. I will be taking you on as my Padawan. In public, please address me as Master, or Master Mereel. I will care for you, protect you, instruct you, and assume responsibility for you.”

  Staring up at me, she asked, “Am I a slave, if you’re my master?”

  “Different kind of Master,” I shook my head. “In this case, you will be my student and I something like a combination of teacher and guardian in a parental sense.”

  “Oh.”

  Standing, I tossed the wash cloth in the dirty clothes hamper. “Get cleaned up. I’ll ask Augwynne about a bed for you. I’ll wake you in the morning.”

  With that, I left her there and made my way outside. Passing Augwynne, I asked her to look after Asajj before making my way to my ship. Collecting the three new songsteel weapons, along with what I’d gathered for myself and Allaya, and a chunk of what was left of my kyber crystal.

  I took off for the crashed Jedi ship. It was going to be a long night, but it would be best if I worked on my new computation orb alone. I’d finish that tonight, then bring the two girls by in the morning to make basic lightsaber parts out of songsteel. Then, with any luck, we could leave by midday and I could catch some shuteye once we jumped to hyperspace.