A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

  71

  Dantooine. 36 BBY/964 GSC.

  “It’s pretty,” I heard Allaya whisper from behind me, and felt Asajj’s agreement.

  Looking out over the blue and gold planet below, its sky dotted by fluffy white clouds, I couldn’t help but agree. Dantooine was very pretty to look at. Even from space, I could tell that a lot of the surface was oddly flat and smooth—as though this planet didn’t have a lot of geological activity and hadn’t in the past. Mountain ranges were sparse, there didn’t seem to be a single desert visible, and what few true forests existed were few and far between. As we descended closer to the surface, I could make out a few very large lakes and rivers.

  The scanners on the Redoubt had picked out only a few population centers. The old capital and home to the space port, Garang, was the largest. The rest were all tiny villages and farming towns, not terribly far from Garang. Capt. Keen’s analysts estimated there couldn’t be more than three hundred thousand people on the entire planet.

  But we weren’t here to visit the locals.

  Reaching out with the Force, I let it guide me in as I directed the Rusted Silver down towards the planet’s surface. To my utter lack of surprise, I found I was being guided towards the mountains—the largest mountain range, in fact.

  When we got close enough, I found a flat enough piece of ground and set the ship down. Unstrapping, I made my way back to the hatch as the girls followed. Arthree followed after as we left the ship. Looking to the droid, I asked, “Arthree, are you ready to try out that new seismo scanner?”

  The droid beeped and a probe extended from the bottom. There was a faint whine, then the droid’s upgraded holo-projector turned on, producing a colored holographic map of the area from the surface down into the mountain. It looked like we were parked on top of a cave system.

  “Color everything at the density of kyber crystals as red, please,” I instructed and, a moment later, the colors changed. The interior of the cave lit up red and I whistled. “Alright, let’s find an entrance. Arthree, continue making intermittent scans to fill out the map.”

  We left the ship in place and I followed the Force, hoping to find an entrance to the cave. What we found instead was a relatively open area on the side of the slope and a thin section of cave wall without any kyber crystals on it, according to Arthree’s scans. So, I pulled out my lightsabers and activated them. Using the Force to direct them, I cut a circular slab of rock out of the side of the mountain fitting the size of the cave mouth—shaped so that I could easily put it back into place and close the cave back up when we got done.

  “Arthree, lights,” I instructed, and the droid moved out ahead of us, lighting up the cavern.

  It was only a few hundred feet down the winding path before the light caught something that glinted. The girls sucked in a breath as we turned a corner and entered a much larger open cavern, full of glowing crystals. The walls, floor, and ceiling all seemed to be covered in kyber crystals—large deposits of them jutting up from the ground, hanging from the ceiling, joined in the middle as massive columns. They seemed to come in all colors of the ROYGBIV scale, but I noticed that shades of red seemed a bit more prevalent.

  I felt the awe and wonder coming from both of my Padawans and a small smile pulled at my lips. It really was beautiful.

  “Arthree, shut off the light. Allaya, Asajj, close your eyes,” I instructed, and the girls did so as the droid’s light cut out, leaving the cave lit only by the internal glow of kyber crystals. “Now, reach out with the Force. Feel the crystals around you. Let the Force guide you. You’ll know when you’ve found yours.”

  As I spoke, I did the same, reaching out to the cave around me. To my surprise, it felt as if the entire cavern was willing and eager to be used. So, I narrowed things down, looking for a red crystal in particular. I let my legs carry me across the cavern until eventually, I stopped. Opening my eyes, I found myself in front of a pillar of rock covered in kyber crystal nodules—and on the end was a fist sized red lump.

  Reaching out, I grabbed it and the whole crystal came off in my hand. Feeding the Force into it, the crystal lit up a nice, solid, bright red. Slipping it into the pouch on my belt, I made my way over to where Asajj had found her own crystal. Or rather, crystals.

  The blonde girl looked up at my approach and held up both hands, feeling nervous. In one was a crystal that put off an almost grass green glow. In the other, another crystal with a bright, sky blue shade. “Did I do it right? It felt like two of them fit?”

  I reached out and rested a hand on her head, running my fingers through her hair as she calmed. “It’s normal to sometimes have multiple crystals respond. We can make use of both.”

  She nodded and I directed her over to where Allaya was frowning. She felt conflicted and a bit sad. Looking up as I approached, she held up her own crystal. “It broke.”

  It was a crimson red crystal that had apparently broken just past the midpoint. I hummed, then shook my head. “It looks big enough to use for something else. A smaller saber, or a blaster pistol.”

  Looking around the chamber, I hummed quietly, considering the remaining crystals. Finally, I led the girls and Arthree back outside. Pulling my holocom out, I called the Redoubt and a moment later, the comms officer picked up.

  “This is Mereel. Bring the ship down to these coordinates and open the cargo bay. I’m going to be moving some things onboard.”

  “Understood, ma’am. I’ll pass it on to Capt. Keen,” the girl confirmed, before I hung up.

  My Padawans sent me confused looks. After a few moments, Allaya asked, “Why do you need the ship?”

  “Because I’m not leaving all that kyber back there. You didn’t get a chance to see the dome on Jedha when we visited,” I began, before projecting an illusion of the inside of the dome. The girls made quiet sounds of appreciation as they took it in. “I also can’t just take you to Tython for a few years to let you soak up the Force directly on top of a nexus. So, I’m going to build us a meditation and focusing chamber for the Force, to make a small nexus of our own.”

  That, and having enough leftover crystal of a variety of colors to make properly Force attuned blasters from was just good sense. I was eventually going to teach them to do what I did and I didn’t want their weapons falling apart on them.

  We didn’t have to wait long for the Redoubt to appear on the horizon, slowing as it approached our position and lined itself up. The ship descended and I reached out and put a hand on each of the girls’ shoulders. “Go back to the Rusted Silver and engage the autopilot. Tell it to dock with the Redoubt. Then head back to the training area and practice. Do not try to complete your lightsabers until I return. Got it?”

  “We don’t get to fly it?” the redhead pouted, and I sent her a smile. The girl shivered and stepped away.

  “Sure, you can fly it. But if you put so much as a scratch on either ship…” I warned, and Allaya gulped, before shaking her head.

  “When can we fly?” Asajj asked.

  “When you’ve had more time on the simulators. Now, go,” I waved them off as I saw the big ship’s docking and cargo bays open and the shields shut off.

  Arthree followed me back inside, into the heart of the first crystal chamber—just one of many, according to his scans. Using a mage blade, I carefully began carving the crystal out in sections—leaving the larger crystals solid where I could. I didn’t bother trying to separate all of the kyber crystal from rock for now. I could do that back on the ship.

  Making my way outside with the first load floating along behind me, I found a group of uniformed crewmen waiting for me outside with cargo loading equipment. More were being ferried down to the surface by speeders. The one in the lead saluted. “We’ll take care of this, ma’am. I’ll have some people go down with you with equipment to make this go faster.”

  “Thank you,” I nodded, putting my load on one of the carts and leading the way inside. They began setting up floodlights along the way as they pushed in repulsor lift hand trucks and carried tools that looked like handheld tractor beam units.

  Once we got back to the cave, things went quickly as I was able to cut things into sections and let the men lift and carry it all outside—the deck crew moving in a constant, efficient stream as they moved carts back and forth. As the room began to look rather bare, I turned to the leader of the loading crew and asked, “Do we have room for some extra on board?”

  “Am I correct in assuming that you really just want the glowy bits and the rock is going to get tossed out an airlock?” he asked, and when I nodded, he grinned. “Then that’ll reduce the amount of space it’s going to occupy, once we get it crated up properly to make sure nothing breaks. We can spare one of the long term storage rooms. Do you need help getting it out of the rock?”

  I considered what I knew about kyber crystal before nodding. “I’ll take whatever help you can offer in your free time. Paid, of course. Just make sure to be very careful not to crack, chip, or break any of it—especially the larger pieces.”

  “I’ll let the crew know. That offer for some extra credits open to anyone?” he asked, and I nodded.

  “Anyone who has free time and wants to earn credits. I’ll pay time and a half for whatever you’re being paid when broken down into an hourly rate.”

  With that, we got back to work stripping the rest of the cave, then moved deeper to clear a second, connected cave. It took most of the day, but eventually, I was satisfied that I’d have enough to play around with and any leftover, I could either put to other uses or move to Tython or somewhere and leave an emergency cache.

  When I got back to the ship after sealing the cave up, I saw a section of the cargo bay had been set aside and a couple of benches set up with tools, where crewmen were already working at carefully extracting the kyber. I felt the ship rumble beneath my feet as we rose and broke atmo. Making my way up to our deck, I found the girls in the training room, sparring.

  They stopped as soon as they saw me and I motioned them over. “Do you have your lightsaber parts?” I asked, earning two nods in answer. “Good. Come with me.”

  With that, I led them back down to the Rusted Silver and back to my workbench. I began opening drawers as I glanced at the girls. “Who’s first?”

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  The pair exchanged a look, before engaging in a quick game of rock, paper, scissors. Asajj won and smiled as she stepped forward. “I am, Master.”

  “Alright. Do you know what kind of lightsaber you want?” I asked, gesturing for her to sit down at the bench.

  She considered for a few moments before answering. “I want one like yours.”

  “Oh? What do you mean?” I asked. Mine had been through several upgrades and refinements over the years, and I likely wasn’t done making changes.

  Asajj pulled out her bag and put her parts on the table. Both girls had pooled their songsteel to make enough components for the internals of two lightsabers each, and all that we really needed to do was put them together and put a hilt on—unless they wanted to do something different.

  As she laid out her green and blue crystals, the blonde girl explained, “I want them to come together on the bottom. And can you help me make one into a whip?”

  “Whips are a little advanced. Let’s get you used to practicing with a normal lightsaber for now,” I shook my head, and the girl frowned, but nodded. “What I can do, for both of you, is set it up so they can extend and retract. Also, we’re absolutely putting in a training mode. If you two are sparring, I expect you to use that exclusively. Understand?” There were also a few upgrades I’d show them how to apply right from the start, since there was no point in not having them—like the convenient one for allowing a lightsaber to function underwater.

  ““Yes, Master,”” came the synchronized answer, and I nodded.

  From there, I got to work helping them construct their first sabers. They ended up somewhat generic looking due to the parts I used and weren’t the finished product, obviously. I fully expected them to improve and customize them as they got older. But it was better that they had lightsabers now that they could practice with and defend themselves with if something came up, than not having a lightsaber at all.

  In the end, both girls went for making them so that they could be used both individually and in the double-bladed configuration. Asajj opted to leave hers at that, while Allaya wanted a crossguard on the larger one and a telescoping staff like mine to mount it on. Unfortunately, while I could modify it for a crossguard, I couldn’t do anything about a staff at the moment since we didn’t have that much songsteel.

  “Alright. Now,” I stood as Allaya finished her sabers. Moving over to my weapons locker, I pulled out the two A-180 blaster pistols I’d bought for them while we were on Mandalore. “I’ll show you how to improve a blaster to use the Force with it, so you don’t destroy it.”

  The girls perked up and moved in closer as I got to work explaining the steps for tearing them down.

  Focusing on the rectangular panel of durasteel in my hand, I reached into it with the Force. Felt its very essence. The molecular structure that made it durasteel. The feel to it within nature. Then, I touched the songsteel of my computation orb and did the same. Compared the two. Saw what would need to change and how. Finally, I did the same for the piece of junk in my other hand, a chunk of rock left over from extracting kyber crystal.

  Then, I reached into the junk rock and pulled, using the Force to separate out what I needed.

  Rock and durasteel grew hot as the Force pulled at one and pushed at the other. A shine of silver spread through the dull gray of durasteel as the piece of rock in my hand began to crumble into dust—what was left over from the process. Until finally, I was left with a panel of songsteel in my hand, imbued with the Force—not just any Force, but Force that had come from me, as it matched my signature perfectly.

  Then, I lifted the panel to the ceiling of the ship, back into place with the rest of the ceiling panels. But I didn’t want this one coming loose, so I used a hand laser to weld it securely into place. Several pieces of kyber crystal flowed up from the ground and floated before me as I scanned them, ran the numbers, then began cutting them using a mage blade with mathematical precision into millimeter thin slices. Those slices floated up to the ceiling and touched the songsteel, and another application of Force sorcery welded them into place on the molecular level, further expanding the trail of kyber crystal leading through the corridor.

  “Can’t believe Aylin agreed to this,” Cindy chuckled, watching from nearby as I took down the next panel in line and one of the small service droids accompanying me vacuumed up the dust before it could become a problem.

  “I explained the benefits and she saw it was a reasonable modification to make to the ship,” I shrugged as I got to work converting the new panel.

  This was one of the simplest uses of Force sorcery I had learned from Revan’s holocron, as taught by the echo of a man who had walked the path of the Jedi and the Sith and who had spent thousands of years learning every secret added to the holocron’s database, then using his experience to both sort the wheat from the chaff and, where possible, to find a better way.

  In the case of Sith sorcery, he had found that most of it—practically all sorcery dealing with non-living material—didn’t need to use the dark side of the Force to fuel it. After all, there was an entirely natural process for losing and gaining atoms and their constituent components and all that was required was to use the Force to perform that process. Using the Force to perform said natural process was not only much easier, and apparently cheaper on energy cost, but the Force itself didn’t try to fight what it felt was an unnatural or corrupt act.

  Now, of course, there were sorcery techniques that not just used but required the dark side. Corruptive, nasty things. Mostly, they dealt with either manipulating biology in cruel and unusual ways, or doing the same with the soul. Not that those were the only dark side uses of sorcery, just the most prevalent ones. There were obviously neutral and light side uses for both of those schools of sorcery, but the Sith sorcerers of the past had gone a bit nuts with them, giving them a bad reputation.

  So, Revan had separated sorcery into Sith sorcery and Force sorcery. And then grudgingly agreed to Jedi sorcery for any variant that only used the light side, when I’d asked if there were any.

  Which led to me working in the corridor, setting up a network of kyber crystal and songsteel through the ship to conduct the Force. After seeing some of the things sorcery could do, and the implications of what other things could do, I had expanded on my plans for the Force gathering array a bit. I was currently building an entire network of such pathways through the interior of the ship. I didn’t have to cover the whole ship, just enough for the effect to cover it.

  I would be incorporating a bit of light side sorcery to protect against certain esoteric threats typically found in deep hyperspace—which would also have the added benefit of protecting against attempts like my own use of Force Projection for remotely observing and killing enemies. It would also have the added benefit of allowing any Force user onboard to tap into the network and enhance their senses multiple times over.

  My holocom chimed from my pocket and I glanced at Cindy. “Can you get that? I can’t stop in the middle, unless you want radiation poisoning.”

  “No thanks!” she yelped, and dug into my pocket. Clicking the answer button, she held it out for me.

  “Go for Mereel.”

  “Colonel, there’s a call coming in for you from Mandalore,” the comms officer reported. “Do you want it in your office or…?”

  “Send it to this unit,” I answered absently, curious but not enough to get distracted.

  “Yes ma’am. Also, we’ve received a transmission from ah… an unknown sender? It’s addressed to you. We’ve scanned it and it appears safe, so we went ahead and sent it to your terminal.”

  “Curious,” I murmured. “Thank you.”

  With that, the line switched over to full hologram and I glanced over to see an unfamiliar face looking at me from what looked to be the inside of Satine and Jaster’s office. She was pretty, to the point that if this weren’t a full color hologram I’d suspect she was another Zeltron. Frowning, I asked, “Can I help you…?”

  “So you’re her,” the woman hummed, and I could feel her studying me from the other side of the comm. After a moment, she said, “I was expecting someone more imposing.”

  My eye twitched, but I ignored the jab as I focused on finishing the panel. “That’s your mistake. Name, rank, and purpose for your call. Otherwise, when I get done in about thirty seconds, I’m hanging up and calling my contacts on Mandalore. You won’t like what happens after.”

  “Xana Ceres, Confederate Intelligence Service,” the woman introduced herself, and I could hear the amusement in her voice. As though she thought that her position would be enough to shield her from any retribution. “I suppose you don’t recognize my name, then?”

  “Should I?”

  “You should. I was one of those who relocated to Serenno at your behest, after all.”

  The panel finished and I dropped the dust in my hand, turning to eye the woman again. Reaching out and taking my holocom from Cindy, I muted it and told her, “Call Jenza.”

  “I don’t exactly have her number, boss,” the blonde smiled apologetically.

  Rolling my eyes, I handed her back my holocom and took hers, before dialing the number from memory. A few moments later, Jenza’s secretary picked up, before blinking as she recognized me. “Oh! Ms. Mereel! I didn’t realize you had a new holocom?”

  “I’m borrowing one from a friend. Add this one to your list of numbers to forward directly to Jenza,” I instructed. She nodded and the hologram went on hold for another few seconds, before coming back in Jenza’s office.

  “Tanya?” she asked, sending me a smile. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. Someone irritating called. Hang on,” I grumbled. Tapping buttons, I linked the two holocoms, merging the calls and unmuting Xana’s side.

  I could tell the moment Jenza’s hologram propagated on the other side, as the supposed CIS agent paled and straightened, the amusement dropping away from her face. “Ma’am!”

  Jenza raised an eyebrow and I nodded at the agent. “Is this yours?”

  My Master’s sister sighed, sending the agent a disappointed look. “Yes, she’s one of mine. My best, actually.”

  “She’ll be taking remedial courses on how to address her superiors, or I’ll come to Mandalore and carve them into her skull with my lightsaber myself,” I growled, and both women flinched.

  “I’ll make sure she understands,” Jenza nodded, the disappointment falling off in favor of anger.

  Taking a breath, I sighed. “Thank you. I apologize, Jenza—”

  The older woman waved the apology off. “It’s fine, Tanya. Now, unfortunately, as much as I’d love to chat, I really am very busy preparing for the upcoming announcement. You’re welcome to come by any time after and catch up.”

  “Mm,” I nodded. “I will, when I find some time. I have some things to take care of myself.”

  We said a couple of quick goodbyes and the older woman disconnected. Shifting my attention to Xana, I asked, “I trust you won’t need another attitude adjustment in the future?”

  “No.” My eyes narrowed and she corrected herself quickly. “No, ma’am!”

  “Good. Now, why did you call me? If you couldn’t tell, I’m kind of in the middle of something important.”

  The woman quickly launched into an explanation and, as I listened, I found myself slowly nodding along even as a frown pulled at my lips. When she finished, I sighed. “Very well. I’ll put in a call and arrange for a pickup. But make sure your people understand that she’s my ship. She’s not a luxury liner or a cruise ship. She is a military vessel and is run as such. There won’t be special accommodations for your people. You should bring your own shuttle and bunk there if you want privacy or secrecy. She’s under the command of Capt. Taris, who answers directly to me. Neither you nor your people give orders. You can request to move to a location, you can request deployment of resources and support, but you will run everything by the captain first. And if for one second I feel that you’re trying to snake my ship out from under me, I will come and remove them from it. Directly into space. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the older woman nodded.

  “Alright. Did Master Dooku forward any sort of list to you, for targets and persons of interest?” I asked, and she nodded. “Get started on that and have the data sent to me. I’ll decide what to do with it from there. Dismissed.”

  I disconnected the call and sighed as Cindy whistled beside me and fanned herself. “Damn, boss. Seeing you take charge just, mmf,” she teased, grinning. “Gets my motor running, you know?”

  “Careful,” I grumbled at her, ignoring the teasing and opening up the message I’d been sent. My eyebrows went up before a smile spread over my face. Tapping into the local holonet, I called the bridge.

  “This is comms.”

  “Have Capt. Keen meet me in corridor…” I glanced at Cindy.

  “A-03.”

  “Corridor A-03. We’re towards the end. Then inform the nav officer to make ready to change course. The captain will let you know where we’re going,” I said, before hanging up and pocketing the holocom.

  Taking up another panel of durasteel, I began converting it. As I did, Cindy asked, “So… where are we going?”

  “Have a little patience and you’ll learn our destination at the same time as the captain,” I rolled my eyes.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” she asked, planting one hand on her hip and cocking said hips to the side in a way that was quite literally dangerously distracting, given what I was currently working on.

  I tuned her out and focused, before she got us blasted with radiation. I was just finishing up when I heard the captain’s boots on the deck as she came hurrying down the corridor. “Colonel,” she saluted, and I gave a distracted nod in acknowledgement.

  “Captain, we have a new destination. We’ll be going to Kamino.”

  The captain frowned. “Never heard of it.”

  “I’m not surprised. They generally keep to themselves,” I nodded, finishing up the conversion and lifting the panel to the ceiling. I quickly welded it in place and then put in the last of the kyber crystal slices for this run. “Let’s go to my quarters. I have the coordinates and hyperspace lane data stored safely there.”

  As we went, I couldn’t help the little pep in my step. The Kaminoans had finished the little project I’d assigned them before my stint in the Republic military.

  I should set up the same thing for my Padawans. Replacement parts and some upgrades, specifically for them. The more I can do to protect them with the war coming, the better. A safety net in case they’re injured is the least I can do.