A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

  19

  Mandalore, Sundari Outskirts, 42 BBY.

  “Jaster,” Jango’s voice called from outside his tent, and Jaster looked up from the book he was reading as the man who would be his son poked his head in.

  “What is it?” he asked, taking in the serious look on Jango’s face.

  “Jedi are here.”

  “Tanya’s back?”

  Jango shook his head. “No. Looks like it’s two of the masters. Dooku and the one you’ve been talking to.”

  “Master Sifo-Dyas,” Jaster nodded. “Alright, I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Jango nodded and left, and Jaster took a moment to pull his boots back on, along with his belt, sidearm, and the chest piece for his armor. He didn’t think there would be trouble out of the Jedi, but he had a certain image to maintain among the troops.

  Striding out of his tent, he found the two Jedi Masters standing in the middle of the camp. They were both facing southward, studying the sky. Frowning, Jaster made his way over. “Something wrong?”

  “It’s Tanya,” Master Dyas answered, looking away from the sky to meet Jaster’s eyes. “She was captured by the Death Watch.”

  Jaster stilled for a moment, before anger filled him. His jaw clenched hard enough that his teeth ached for a moment. “Jango. Gather the troops. I want us prepped and ready in ten minutes.”

  Master Dyas shook his head. “Don’t bother.” When Jaster sent him a look that said he had better explain, and quickly, the man continued, “She called back and reported that the site was secure. She took care of it. She’s coming here now. Tor Vizsla had her kidnapped and brought to his camp. He threatened to kill her if we didn’t leave the planet. Based on what he said, he intended to strike against both factions tomorrow.”

  “Which means he’s probably got assets in place,” Jaster murmured, earning a nod from Master Dyas. Looking to Jango, he said, “Put together a security team and send them to Sundari. Have them sweep the surrounding buildings for trouble. Put a strike team on standby. If she’s got actionable intel, I want to hit these bastards back, where they live.”

  “Will do,” Jango agreed, and hurried off to carry out his orders.

  They fell silent after that, waiting. Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait terribly long. Soon enough, they spotted the running lights of a small ship coming in. The ship slowed and Jaster got a good look at it.

  It was somewhat small, more like a heavy starfighter than a transport or gunship, falling into the ‘blastboat’ category—a gunboat typically used for patrols. The front held a small crew compartment where, depending on the loadout, it would hold between one and four crew—pilot, copilot/sensor officer, and two gunners at most. On this model, there was a rotating wing assembly on the rear equipped with ion cannons, a double barreled laser cannon on top, sensor pylons to either side of the cockpit, along with two missile tubes and a laser in the nose.

  Jaster had been in the business for many years at this point and he recognized the model. It was an SFS—Sienar Fleet Systems—boat, with the utilitarian design typical of their ships. The problem was, it was new. It had only come out within the last year. He kept up to date on all the new toys everyone was getting, and as far as he knew, only the Republic had this one. Aside from the Mando paint job, it was pristine—if he stuck his head in it, he bet it still had that new ship smell.

  Either the Death Watch got lucky and stole a few of these, or someone’s supplying them, he mused, as the wings shifted from vertical to horizontal and it came down to land lightly on its landing gear. That second option was worrying, but something he could deal with later.

  The ship shut down and, a moment later, the hatch on top opened. Tanya clambered out, stumbling as she made her way down to the ground. The two Jedi Masters hurried over and Jaster followed. Spotting Jango returning, he called out, “Get a medic!”

  The girl looked like shit. Her robes, which had been a pristine white when he’d seen her earlier that evening, were now stained the dark red of drying blood and the gray of ash and soot, and looked like they were barely holding together with how much damage they’d taken. He could see blackened lines of flesh in the gouges blasted in the robes, lines of black in otherwise healthy red skin.

  Jaster nearly fumbled as Tanya tossed a helmet underhand to him, before plopping down on the sandy ground. Dooku knelt in front of her and silently began checking her over, only for the girl to lightly brush his hands away from where he was prodding her. Turning the helmet in his hands, Jaster let out a quiet chuckle as he recognized just who it had belonged to.

  “It’s yours. Keep it,” he handed her Tor Vizsla’s helmet back and she accepted it. His eyes were drawn downwards to her robe belt, and the much larger leather belt strapped on over it, where a very recognizable rectangular lightsaber hilt hung. “…Is that what I think it is?”

  “He had it on him,” Tanya confirmed. “It’s got a pretty black blade. It’s mine, now.”

  Master Dooku shook his head and sighed as Master Dyas chuckled. “You can’t keep it, padawan,” Dooku broke the news, putting voice to Jaster’s own thoughts. Regardless of who wound up with it, be it him, Kryze, or the Jedi, it couldn’t stay with Tanya. Having the Darksaber would make her a target for every leftover member of the Death Watch, along with every other Mandalorian who felt that having it would make them Mandalore by default.

  The girl frowned, before asking, “Why not?”

  “It’d make you a target for anyone wanting to claim the title of Mandalore,” Jaster explained, and her frown deepened.

  “We can discuss what to do with it later,” Dooku decided, and Jaster nodded his agreement. “Tell us what happened.”

  It was at that time that a medic came rushing up and Master Dooku stepped back, letting the medic take his place, the man quickly stripping the girl’s outer robe off to get a better look at her wounds and start cleaning and disinfecting them. As he worked, Tanya began her after action report.

  “I left the ship after my private meditation to return to the hotel. I was waylaid along the way by a woman whom I later identified as being related to Satine Kryze…”

  Jaster listened as she went through the events dispassionately, breaking down everything that happened and her reasoning at every step of the way with a sort of objective thoroughness that he wished he could hammer into the rest of his troops. “…And that was when I engaged a combat stimulant formula and painkillers.”

  “Explains how you stayed on your feet,” the medic murmured, standing up. Looking between Jaster and Dooku, the man said, “Nothing immediately life threatening, but she needs more treatment than we can provide here. The cauterized flesh needs to be excised, cleaned, and dressed properly. I don’t have the tools or a clean room to do it in the field.”

  “My thigh?” Tanya asked, and the medic turned to her.

  “It should be fine with some bacta and time. The hospital in Sundari should have a bacta tank. Drop her in it for a few days and she’ll be good. There’s gonna be scarring, can’t help that.”

  Tanya shrugged. “I don’t care. I was more worried about losing feeling, movement, or function.”

  The medic nodded, before turning back to Dooku. “The sooner she goes, the better.”

  “I’ll take her now, then,” Dooku agreed, and bent down, picking the girl up in his arms.

  “Ah, before we go,” Tanya said, leaning around him to look at Jaster. “I collected a bunch of armor and weapons off of the fallen Death Watch. You’re welcome to it. I’ve already taken what I want and left it in the cockpit.”

  Jaster nodded. “We’ll have it cleaned up and ready when you get out.”

  “Also,” she squinted and, a moment later, a hologram sprang up above her palm. “This is where their camp was. There are more supplies there. The survivors fled southeast.”

  “Towards Keldabe. Jango,” he turned and found Jango already moving away, knowing what he wanted.

  The girl nodded and the two Jedi Masters made their way back to their ship. It took off, turning for Sundari. Jaster made his way over to the ship Tanya had arrived in and poked his head in the hatch. Whistling quietly at the pile of armor on the deck, he turned and waved over a couple of his people.

  “Gather this up and have it redistributed to any who need it. Any left over, melt it down into ingots.” Pointing to a set of black armor he recognized as belonging to Vizsla, matching the man’s helmet, he pointed it out. “Except that. Melt the armor down into ingots and keep the weapons. Keep it separate from the rest and put it back on this ship when it’s done. And get a couple of people in here to go over this thing for traps and do maintenance on it.”

  He didn’t wait for them to acknowledge him. Instead, he made his way inside, up to the cockpit. He raised an eyebrow at the crate of grenades sitting beside the pilot’s seat, along with the blaster rifle. “Girl likes her hardware,” he murmured, taking a seat. “Now, let’s see where you came from…”

  Powering the computer on, he was greeted with a brief splash screen showing the SRS logo, the schematic of the ship, and the model name: GAT-12h Skipray.

  “Miss, we can’t let anyone in—”

  Dooku heard the beginnings of a commotion on the other side of the door, cut short immediately by the soft, if annoyed voice of Obi-wan. “I am allowed inside.”

  “…Yes, of course.”

  The door opened a moment later and Obi-wan hurried inside, stopping beside Dooku and Master Dyas. The girl looked and felt upset to his senses as she asked, “What happened?”

  “She was kidnapped and fought her way out,” Master Dyas answered as they watched the surgeon carefully clean the last of the unconscious girl’s wounds free of blackened, charred flesh. A nurse sprayed them down with more anti-septic and a sealing agent, then they rolled the gurney out of the room.

  The surgeon pulled off her gloves and mask and made her way out into the room where the three of them were waiting. “We’ll be moving her to a bacta tank from here, where we’ll keep her in an induced coma for the next few days—”

  “Don’t,” Dooku cut the woman off, and the surgeon flinched.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t sedate her.”

  The woman frowned. “Master Jedi, I just spent the last three hours surgically excising burned flesh from her wounds. She’s going to be a bundle of raw, exposed nerves—not as bad as if she’d gotten burns over more of her body, but still pretty bad, especially for a child. If she’s not doped to the point of unconsciousness, the amount of pain she’s going to be in for the time required for it to heal enough to stop being in pain… I can’t, in good conscience, allow a patient to undergo that sort of neglect. It’s inhumane.”

  “She’ll heal faster if she’s conscious, and she can provide her own painkillers,” Master Dyas explained, drawing the woman’s gaze to him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We can use the Force to accelerate healing. Tanya’s actually really good at it, apparently. The medical corps wanted to recruit her, before we left Coruscant,” the man smiled. “Just trust us, she’ll be fine.”

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  The woman looked upset, but slowly nodded once. “I’ll allow it, under protest. She will be monitored. If it looks like it’s becoming too much for her to bear, I will have her put under.”

  “Very well,” Dooku agreed. “Where are her personal effects?”

  “I’ll have a nurse get you the box,” the surgeon agreed.

  Dooku nodded, and the surgeon left. Quietly, Obi-wan asked, “What now?”

  “Now, we wait,” Master Dyas sent her a smile. “And in the meantime, continue with the negotiations.”

  “What? But—” the girl gestured towards where they had wheeled Tanya away, only for Master Dyas to shake his head. It was Master Dooku who spoke up, however.

  “Do you think this happened by accident?” he asked. When Obi-wan sent him a confused look, he continued, “They have been observing us since we arrived. Masters Sifo-Dyas, Jinn, and I were planning to engage them soon. However, Tanya was obviously aware of their interest and correctly identified herself as the weakest link, to an outside observer—the easiest target. I would not say that she went out of her way to attract their attention, but she didn’t do anything to dissuade them from making a move, and she was prepared if they did. I assure you, if she had not wanted to be captured, she would not have allowed herself to be captured. Her goal in doing so was ultimately to eliminate an obstacle to the negotiations and avoid stalling them, so we can move on to Serenno soon. To do anything other than to continue as we have would mean that her efforts were wasted. Do you think, when she wakes up, that she would appreciate learning that she was the cause of such a delay?”

  “No,” Obi-wan didn’t whine, but it was a near thing, and drew a chuckle from Master Dooku.

  She opened her mouth, only to fall silent as a nurse entered the room with a small box. “These are her effects. The sheet on top has her room number and everything you’ll need.”

  “Thank you,” Master Dooku nodded, taking the box and handing it to Obi-wan, who hugged it against her chest.

  The nurse left and Obi-wan waited for the door to close and her footsteps to fade, before she admitted, “I just can’t help but feel guilty. If I hadn’t been spending all of my time with Satine lately…”

  The older man reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, pulling her gently but firmly from the room. “And had you been there, the Death Watch may not have chosen that moment to make their move. They may have instead decided to strike the meeting tomorrow without trying to force us to leave, which could have cost us all our lives. You’ll find that as you grow older, there is little point to what ifs. You will only burden yourself with regrets if you continue down that path. Instead, focus on what you can do in the present, and the future. In your case, I believe it best if you continue meeting with Ms. Kryze in a less official capacity, the same way Tanya is with Jaster Mereel’s faction.”

  “Alright,” the girl murmured as they stepped into an elevator and Master Dyas selected the option to take them out to catch a ride to their hotel. “Is it alright if I come visit?”

  “Of course,” Master Dooku nodded. “I am sure she would appreciate the company. I can’t imagine being stuck in a tank of bacta to be particularly mentally stimulating.”

  “Heh. Yeah. She’ll get bored,” Obi-wan giggled. “It seems like she’s always busy with something.”

  I floated for days.

  At first, I panicked upon realizing I was submerged. However, I quickly realized that there was a mask over my face providing air and I had been intubated from both ends—though, I think the one down my throat was to provide food and water, while the other two were obviously for the purpose of removing waste. It was uncomfortable, but when I realized I wasn’t drowning, I got used to it. After all, it was less uncomfortable than the wounds across my body.

  The pain was pretty bad, but if I was being honest… I’d hurt myself worse that time I blew myself up pulling a kamikaze maneuver against enemy troops. An application of combat stimulants and painkillers—magical methe and morphine—had me feeling better and the pain dulled to a level I could ignore.

  From there, I focused inwards, towards the worst of the wounds, and used my life force and the Force itself to begin the process of healing. Whatever I was suspended in helped a lot and sped things up, but it was still a very tiring process, leaving me drained in more ways than one. I went through several cycles of healing, resting, drawing on the Force to recharge my reserves, and waiting for them to pump in more food so my body had material to work with—even if it seemed to actually be using whatever I was in for the most part.

  From time to time, I felt the familiar presence of Obi come around. Less often were the Masters, but I appreciated the visits nonetheless.

  With nothing to do physically but heal and keep my body occupied with a series of twitch exercises and stretches, and no external stimuli except for the blue light suffusing everything since whatever gel I was in made everything too blurry to see through, I was left with a lot of time to think… and my stimulant-addled mind kept itself busy.

  Of most immediate concern was how I could avoid ending up in this situation in the future. The answer was painfully obvious: don’t get hit. The other answer of course being: if you do get hit, don’t be a squishy target. The last was equally simple: kill them before they can hurt you.

  There were a few ways of going about the first. I needed to get faster, stronger, and more flexible. I needed to expand and hone my danger senses. I needed to work on my mental control and multi-tasking, so I could handle more things at once.

  As for the second, there were really only two answers. Firstly, I needed to refine my control over my shield formula and find a way to tie it into a detection and trajectory calculation formula, so that I could set up a sort of semi-automated defense, projecting shields automatically in the path of anything I missed to deflect it.

  Secondly… I needed armor. It was just going to have to be something I invested in, if I was going to be in the field, even if I had to update it or get it refitted every three to six months with my growing body. Pieces that could be adjusted in the field would be best. Failing that, I’d look into the best low cost/low weight/high defensive potential armor I could find and have several pieces commissioned in a range of sizes. Realistically, I didn’t need much—a chest guard, vambraces, boots, and shin guards. Maybe a helmet.

  Finally, killing anything looking to kill me before it could sounded great. I had excelled at that strategy in the Empire.

  I needed to increase my lethality and combat potential, by a lot. And for that I needed to circle back to increasing my control and multitasking, my efficiency with the Force, work on my lightsaber forms, keep up and find a way to increase my physical training, learn more Force techniques from Ajunta Pall’s projection and whoever else I could get them from, work out translating more of my formulas over from magic to the Force… Honestly, the biggest force multiplier I could give myself would be getting my computation orb up and working.

  That would take who knew how long, however, so the best I could do was improve what I had now. I had my staff and two lightsabers, not counting Exar-kun’s. I also had two new blaster pistols and a blaster rifle.

  This battle had proven that there were limits to what I could do with multiple weapons, while also trying to juggle shield and targeting formulas, combat stimulants, painkillers, and weaponizing my empathic gifts to produce a fear aura by projecting my memories of the Great War all while trying to fight, run, and dodge—and then throw in an illusion and invisibility formula for fun. I had hit nearly the end of my current mental bandwidth.

  In other words, I needed to narrow my focus and pick the right tool for the job. Having options for other tools, or more tools, was good but I couldn’t get bogged down in sorting through a golf bag’s worth of tools to use to kill an enemy or handle a situation.

  My sabers got the last improvement, adding songsteel. I should do something about the blasters, I finally decided.

  I had some songsteel left over, but that was back at the temple on Coruscant. However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t take them down, examine their components, and find ways to upgrade them. And that was before I bought the parts to reconfigure them, because at least one of the ones I’d gotten was reconfigurable. I had recognized all of the ones I’d claimed, simply because I was still a military otaku and weapons enthusiast.

  The blaster I had confiscated from Ms. Kryze’s relative was a WESTAR-35. It was a standard blaster pistol and couldn’t be reconfigured with new furniture. It was kind of big and bulky, and had been very large in my hand—not really comfortable, if I was being honest. It was made for a much larger hand. The weapon reminded me of something along the lines of a 1911 from Earth, or maybe a Desert Eagle. I liked the fact that it put very big holes in people, but I didn’t like that it was unwieldy and heavy. If I couldn’t do something about that, I’d stick it on a shelf as a trophy, or maybe see what I could get for it in trade with the Mandalorians.

  The one I had taken off of Tor Vizsla’s cooling corpse was an A-180. It looked something like a scifi Luger pistol with a barrel shroud. The A-180, unlike the WESTAR-35, was reconfigurable—between blaster pistol, rifle, sniper rifle, and an ion launcher, with the right parts. Just holding it when I’d taken it off of Vizsla’s belt to put it on, it had felt very comfortable in my hand and I was already looking at making it my primary sidearm. With its multi-function capability, I’d wind up buying and testing out all the kit for it and seeing what I could do with it. If it took too long to reconfigure, I wouldn’t bother and would instead just bring a sniper rifle if I felt like I’d need one.

  The third blaster I’d taken was a DC-15A with an ascension gun attachment—which, given that many Mandalorians had jetpacks and the hook had blood stains, I was pretty sure they weren’t using it for ascending, but it could still prove useful, which was why I had taken it. The DC-15A was the newest modern blaster carbine of the Republic. As far as I knew, it had only just entered production, so it was a bit odd that the Death Watch had some.

  With its built in folding stock, it could be unfolded and shouldered, or carried folded as a submachine gun. It had a select fire option between single and automatic, for sustained suppressive fire, and an ammunition capacity of 300 max power or 500 low power shots, and a range of about four kilometers when mounted and at full power. It had about forty percent of the range of the DC-15A blaster rifle, the larger version of what was essentially the same weapon. What it lacked up in range, it made up for in less weight and portability.

  My thoughts on modifying the A-180 and DC-15A were pretty simple: work on basic overall improvements. Ammunition capacity, heat dissipation, strength of each shot, and range. If I could increase their penetration power, or the damage they did on hitting an enemy that would be ideal. I’d need to strip them down, have a look inside, and do some research to find out the best way to modify them floating around on the space internet.

  A niggle in the back of my mind began to grow as I thought on them, however. Memories of my own weapons, back as an aerial mage. All of our weapons had been enchanted, as had every single bullet. I’d spent countless hours enchanting my own formula bullets alongside my men. The formulas for that were pretty much imprinted in my memory.

  I didn’t believe it was possible to enchant a blaster bolt, as it wasn’t physical and would be moving when it came into existence. However, enchanting the weapon should be perfectly possible. My only issue there was the same one I was working on with my computation orb—converting everything over to work on the Force instead of mana.

  Perhaps it was the magical methe talking, but a thought occurred… Something that honestly, I should have probably considered before now.

  Why not make a formula that just uses Force natively? Start with something simple. Maybe add a bit of Force to every shot, just as a proof of concept?

  My mind wandered off on that tangent for some time…

  Standing in front of the hospital mirror, I wiped the steam off of it and looked over my small body. Of the wounds I’d sustained, only three had scarred significantly from what I could see—the one on my left thigh, the one under my breast, and the deepest of the three across my back.

  “Not bad,” I murmured, taking up the provided towel and quickly drying off. I had come out of the tank covered in what I had learned was bacta. The stuff was gel and stuck to everything. In every crevice. In my hair. And if I’d let it dry, it would have been a nightmare to get out. Thankfully, the hospital provided soap and shampoo for that purpose, and had flushed it out of my ears for me before the shower.

  Pulling on the provided robe, I stepped out of the bathroom attached to the bedroom I had been assigned to stay in overnight for observation. I wouldn’t be staying. As soon as I found a comm terminal, I would be calling—

  A blur shot from the direction of the bed and for a moment, I almost reflexively spun up a mage blade, despite my danger sense not going off. Obi froze, her eyes going wide and falling to my hand, which had flattened out in preparation to cut whatever had charged me in half. We stood there awkwardly for a couple of seconds, before she slowly closed the distance between us and pulled me into a hug.

  I sighed, relaxing into the embrace as she attempted to smother me by pulling my face into her chest. “This isn’t necessary,” I mumbled, muffled by the taller girl’s body.

  Pulling away, Obi pulled at my robe, working it open as I fought to keep it closed. “Let me see how bad it is.”

  I rolled my eyes and let go, since I could feel her need to fuss over me—along with a bit of guilt and shame. “It’s fine. See?” I spun around, giving her the full view. “Just a few scratches. Nothing I couldn’t heal. Now, it’s cold in here, so give me that back!”

  “I brought a fresh change of clothes,” Obi supplied instead, moving over to the bed and taking up a folded pile of clothing.

  “Thank you,” I sent her a smile, then quickly got dressed.

  I felt her guilt again, shame, and a bit of sadness. “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?” I asked distractedly, pulling on the red bodystocking that went under my robes—great for wicking sweat away, I’d found. I’d bought them after Dathomir on our little shopping trip and so far, they had been amazing here on Mandalore any time we went out into the desert.

  “I was with Satine when I should have been with you—” I turned and sent her a look and she fell silent.

  “You were doing your job,” I pointed out. “It may sound callous but yes, establishing and improving relations outside of negotiations and work is, in fact, part of the job. The more favorable their opinion of us, the better. I am not angry that you were where you were supposed to be. So why do you feel guilty about it?”

  “I, that is, nf. Stop doing the Zeltron thing,” she mumbled, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring.

  “No,” I shook my head. Reaching out towards the bed, I grabbed the rest of the pile with the Force and pulled it over, quickly pulling on my socks, then pants. “I’ll take a stab in the dark. When you first met Satine Kryze, your heart nearly leapt out of your chest.” I could feel her brief surprise at that, then a bit of anger at having it pointed out. “You were infatuated—still are.”

  “Stop,” Obi murmured.

  I kept going. “You’ve been told all your life that Jedi shouldn’t form attachments, that it’s bad. Love leads to fear, fear leads to anger, and all that. Right?” I asked, and she nodded jerkily. “So you feel guilty about feeling happy with someone, but the reality is, that’s a perfectly normal feeling. We’re human—or close enough, in my case. Humans are social animals. Whoever made that rule clearly didn’t understand what it means to be human. In all likelihood it was probably an alien. I’ll do some digging when I get back to find out for sure. I’m antisocial and enjoy being on my own, and I understand that and still crave human interaction from time to time. Why do you think I enjoy our time together so much? It’s some of the little time I choose to spend with other people, and I choose to spend it with you, because I enjoy your company.”

  “Tanya, please?”

  “But you can’t reconcile what you feel with what you’ve been taught, so the only thing you can do is try to find an excuse one way or another to either justify continuing it, or not. If it’s for the mission, then it’s acceptable, but you know we’ll have to leave eventually so you can enjoy it while it lasts with only a little guilt. Or your friend was injured because you feel like you abandoned your duty to indulge in those feelings, so that’s your excuse to break it off. I’m telling you not to. You were right where you were supposed to be, and so was I. All according to plan. So if you’d like to spend more time with Ms. Kryze while you still can, don’t give it up on my account.”

  Obi made a frustrated, angry noise as she radiated annoyance, anger, mortification, shame, and a bunch of other emotions I didn’t have a name for. Finally, she sighed. “You’re a jerk. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Turning, she stormed out of the room and I felt her hurrying away, retreating down the hall at speed.

  Spotting the box sitting on the bed, I made my way over and saw it contained my things. I quickly pulled on my computation orb and tucked it beneath my robe, followed by putting on my lightsabers, then the belt with the A-180 in its holster. The W-35, I tucked into the back of the belt, but I’d be making a trip to our ship to drop it off in my quarters soon.

  I need to check in with Master Dooku and see what I’ve missed.

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