A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

  09

  Dathomir, 43 BBY.

  The next morning, I woke early and made my way outside, finding a spot of open ground nearby to work in. After stretching out and doing a few exercises to warm up, I settled into practicing with my lightsaber, falling into the familiar pattern of strikes as I worked on the basics as Obi-wan had taught me.

  I felt and saw an older woman approach, stopping at the edge of the area where I was training. “I’ve been informed you’ll be joining us.”

  Finishing out one last strike, I shut off the lightsaber and stuck it on my belt before turning to the newcomer. “Yes. Your clan mother extended the invitation to me. I’ll be in your care.”

  The woman nodded and waved for me to follow. “I am the captain overseeing training of the children. You can address me as captain or leader. We rise with the sun. You’ll start every morning by coming to the trail head,” she instructed, picking up into a jog as I ran along behind her. “The trail is an obstacle course and splits into three paths, marked with red, blue, and purple markers. Red is for beginners. Blue is for those of intermediate skill level and will require a certain level of mastery over both your body and the Force. Purple is for those who have a mastery of both their bodies and the Force. You will start on the red path for today and I will follow to evaluate your progress. Do you understand?”

  “I do, captain.”

  “Mm,” she slowed as we approached a trail marked off with an archway, from which dangled ribbons of red, blue, and purple cloth. “Follow the trail around the mountain back to the village. After which, we’ll have breakfast. Then, we hunt. Go. I’ll be behind you.”

  Nodding, I took off down the path at a run. It wasn’t long at all before the trail split off, with red strips on the left path and blue and purple to the right. I broke left, following the trail through the forest. Soon enough, I came across the first obstacles—ropes tied across the trail in a web-like pattern, but little more than hurdles. Hurdles to normal people, anyway. I hopped on top of the first line, moving with the swaying of the rope as it held my weight and jumping to the next, and the next. Sure, it used the Force a bit, but that was its own form of training.

  The next obstacle was a series of logs that had been planted vertically between ground level and a ledge several yards above, where the trail continued. They were barely wide enough to step on with one foot and looked sturdy enough, but the path up was pretty obvious. A fall wouldn’t be fatal, just painful, and it would require starting over. I leapt onto the first and, keeping my momentum, skipped up the path, grabbing onto the tops of poles and pulling myself up where I couldn’t quite make the jumps.

  The next challenge was a series of balance beams over a shallow mud puddle, clearly one of those ‘fall in and start over’ challenges. I flew by that and moved onto a set of hanging wooden poles—bamboo or something like it—that required me to swing across, catch the next one, and repeat that several times before crossing to the other side. I couldn’t quite make the jump to catch the first, but a kick off of the pole it was suspended from let me catch it and swing myself over.

  “Why don’t you use the Force to move yourself?”

  I nearly landed face first on the dismount as the captain landed beside me and her voice interrupted the focused, almost meditative state I’d fallen into. Sending her a curious look, I answered, “I do for some things.”

  “I’ve noticed. You use it mostly for balance and timing,” she pointed out, and I nodded. “You don’t use it to increase your strength or speed. We could be nearly finished by now if you did. So I ask again, why don’t you?”

  Confused, I slowed to a jog as I answered. “That would defeat the point, wouldn’t it? The Force is a force multiplier when it comes to physical enhancement. Simplifying it a lot, if you can lift one hundred pounds without it then with it you can lift two to three hundred. If you train to lift one-fifty without, you could lift three hundred to four-fifty with. But if you use it full time to lift two hundred pounds, you only maintain, not increase what you can lift.”

  “Ahh,” the older woman murmured, nodding. “Yes, you could look at it like that. However, the alternative to your little example is to just lift more. Run more. Practice more. Do more. That way, not only are you training your body, but also training with the Force. Then, it comes naturally to you. So, instead of using it bringing a sudden surge of strength and leaving you momentarily out of sorts and having to adjust, you’ve adjusted to it over time. You’re comfortable with it and with your body. You use it in everything you do. You don’t crack a cup just by holding it, but at the same time you can punch your fist through a stone wall. Your physical condition is important, but using the Force is more important. It shouldn’t come as second nature, or like using a new limb, it should be as natural and without thought or effort as breathing.”

  I slowed to a stop and turned to look at her. “Is that what you do here?”

  The brunette smiled. “It is.”

  “…The children too?”

  She chuckled. “Things are placed just out of reach, just slightly beyond their ability to jump to, to encourage them to use the Force. This course is meant to lay the foundation for the sort of physical skills and casual Force use we use every day to hunt and protect the village. You are just physically exceptional enough to not need to use it for the majority of things.”

  “And when they can run the course in an acceptable time frame, they move up to the next,” I guessed, and she nodded. “I see.”

  Taking a breath, I channeled the Force within my body, then took off running. At first, I almost face-planted as I found I couldn’t keep up. Then, after a few moments, my mind and perceptions caught up and it felt like I was moving at a normal run. The difference was, I could feel the momentum of my motion, the energy in every step as I didn’t so much run as sprung or leapt between steps, clearing yards between each step. The rest of the course, I spent relearning my limits and adjusting to what would become my new normal.

  When we finally made it back to the village, the captain led me to a communal mess hall, where we loaded up plates and sat down to eat. I felt the stares of everyone in the hall and more than a few less than subtle probes with the Force that I smacked away. As I began eating, the captain asked, “I heard you killed a rancor yesterday.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I nodded in answer. “Yes. I wasn’t expecting to find an animal that’s actually resistant to a lightsaber.”

  “They’re tough,” she agreed, studying me. “You told me that before today, you weren’t increasing your strength or speed with the Force?”

  “Correct,” I confirmed. I had used other techniques a few times, as the situation called for it, but, “Generally, I only use it to enhance perception, for balance, or precognition.”

  “Then you took down the rancor with just the strength of your own body.”

  I nodded. “I used the Force to throw my lightsaber there at the end, but yes. Why?”

  The woman chuckled and shook her head. “No reason.”

  Somehow, I doubted that, but I let it go. Soon enough, we finished breakfast and she led me over to a group of girls a little older than myself—perhaps ten or eleven years old. All of them had a fairly basic looking halberd, though they were all shorter than the ones the adults used to account for their height disparity.

  “Alright girls. We have a guest today, so let’s show her how it’s done.”

  ““Yes, ma’am,”” they answered in sync, and took off as one towards a hut off to one side of the village. I followed along and raised an eyebrow as they began collecting bows, stringing them, and putting on quivers full of arrows. They followed that up with sturdy looking leather backpacks.

  “What kind of game are we hunting?” I asked as I entered the room at the captain’s direction and she walked over to a rack of bows, before finding one appropriate to my size that she then strung for me.

  “What do you want to eat?” she asked with a grin.

  “So you eat what you kill?” I asked, and the captain nodded. “How much should you collect?”

  The captain waved a hand dismissively as she showed me how to attach a quiver, then handed me a sack—or rather a game bag—like the others. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

  I shrugged and followed the others out. They took off down a trail leading down from the mountain, to a series of vines that had been woven together and tied off using boulders as anchors. I watched as they jumped onto the large vine and slid down, a few of them taking shots at large birds as they passed, using the Force to guide arrows to strike, then bringing back the arrow and bird and slipping the prey into their bags.

  “Go on. It’s fun, I promise,” the captain sent me an encouraging smile and I nodded, before jumping onto the vine.

  The Force kept me upright as I began sliding down, the wind whipping at my hair and clothes, and a grin pulled at my lips as I enjoyed the closest thing to flight I’d felt in a while. Spotting one of the birds the others were taking down, I pulled an arrow and drew, reaching out with the Force to predict where it would be and the flight of the arrow, before loosing. A small explosion of feathers announced a hit and I jerked it back in with the Force, catching the arrow and working the now limp bird off into the bag over my shoulder, and nearly losing it in the process since I couldn’t quite tell where the lip of the bag was.

  When we reached the trees, the other children stayed in the treetops, jumping from limb to limb, so I followed their lead. Opening myself up, I felt for animals as we went and took my cues both from the Force and the others on what to shoot and what to let pass as I worked to fill my bag. When we passed over a stream, I took a moment to spear a few fish the same way and add those to the pile.

  By the time noon came around, our bags were nearly full and much heavier. The trek back left my legs burning, but it was the good kind of burn. When we returned, the kids all dropped their bows and arrows off where we’d gotten them before, before dropping the bags off at another hut, where I could smell blood and other not so great smells thick in the air.

  “We process them next?” I asked, and the captain shook her head as I left my bag with the others.

  “No. Women hunt, men clean the meat and prepare the meals,” she shook her head. “Come, let’s get lunch, then… Hm. We should get you a weapon.”

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  Thanks to the army survival training of my second life, I knew how to clean and prepare most animals killed in the field, so I didn’t press the issue. If I didn’t have that knowledge, I would have made a point later on of stopping by and learning. Being able to keep oneself fed in the field was an essential skill, especially if supplies were slim or resupply was just not coming.

  “I have a weapon,” I pointed out, tapping the saber at my side.

  The captain shook her head. “It’s too loud. It’ll scare away the game the moment you turn it on. Besides, we don’t want to burn everything we touch with it. You’ll need some new clothes, too.”

  I frowned, picking at my Jedi robe. “What’s wrong with this?”

  “It offers no protection. Also, it stands out. And you already stand out with that pretty white hair and red skin.”

  If wearing the uniform and dressing like the natives means I’ll stop catching so many sideways looks and will prevent trouble in the future, I probably should. Nodding, I trailed along as we hit the meal hall again.

  That evening, after getting outfitted for a poleaxe and a new set of clothes, I met master Dooku for lightsaber training. The sun had already fallen behind the mountains and it felt like the whole village had gathered to watch as we swept across one of the training fields, his blue lightsaber clashing with my silver-white in a series of rapid clashes that flashed over the surroundings.

  “How was your day?” he asked in between clashes, and I was again reminded that the man was a master when it came to this, given the fact that he wasn’t even winded.

  “Productive,” I got out, having been run ragged most of the day and starting to flag. I swatted aside a probing attack and retaliated with a thrust, only to have to roll out as he easily turned it aside. “I feel like I’m actually making progress again.”

  “That’s good,” he nodded, stepping into a new offensive flurry of strikes. “Don’t work yourself too hard.”

  I forced myself to parry and block the strikes instead of dodging, leaving my arms trembling from the exertion. “I know my limits.”

  Forced to disengage, I backed off and took up a defensive stance, circling master Dooku as he moved towards me one slow step at a time. The old man was toying with me and we both knew it. Sucking down air, I considered my options. Eventually, I decided to gamble on one last exchange.

  Rushing in, I dove forward, rolling over his first lazy swipe. My lightsaber was nearly to his ankles when he jumped, flipping easily over the strike. I dodged, only to feel something thump the side of my head as Dooku landed.

  “That was good,” Dooku commented, shutting off his lightsaber. “But remember, retreat is always an option.”

  “It was a spar,” I pointed out as I shut off my own saber and put it away.

  The old man smiled, and I bore with it as he reached out and patted the top of my head. “Yes, and you could have easily bowed out and conceded it. You chose to continue. Do not push yourself so hard that you burn out.”

  “I won’t,” I agreed. “But better to push through the pain now and suffer a loss, than to not have what I need later and end up dead, in a situation where I can’t retreat.”

  Seeing the fight was over, the crowd began to disperse and we made our way inside Augwynne’s home. I hit the shower and by the time I was done, our meal had been delivered by someone. I found Dooku and Augwynne deep in conversation when I joined them and, judging by the way she was sitting beside him and hanging off of Dooku’s every word, it seemed things were going pretty well for the old man.

  Is this what they mean by being a third wheel? I wondered as I picked up the atmosphere, and the general feelings coming off of both. While it was sexually charged, it was not the sort of thing I was accustomed to on Zeltros. It was much more intimate and far less casual. I felt like I was intruding just entering the room.

  It was a new feeling for me, as I had generally never cared about that sort of thing before. Even back in Japan, I only obeyed the social norms about things like this to blend in. Now, however… Master Dooku had more than earned my respect and Augwynne was our host. I decided to give them some space and not interrupt whatever was happening between them.

  I wished them a good night and grabbed my plate, before heading to my room. After a quick meal, I dug out my tablet and got to work reading. The reception was awful and laggy, so I had to put in requests for things and allow them to download. Thankfully, the previous night I had put in a request for several books.

  Opening the first, I settled into bed and started to read Programming and Penetration Testing for Beginners. Hacking, or ‘slicing’ as it was called locally, seemed like a good skill to have—and as with piloting, I would prefer to have actual skill and then back that skill up with the Force than to rely entirely upon the Force as a crutch.

  Dathomir, 42 BBY.

  Snow poured in near whiteout conditions and lightning popped around me as I followed the purple trail markers, retracing the path mostly by memory but careful of ice buildup on the stone. Danger flared in the Force from above and I moved, at the same time creating a dome of Force above me as I closed my eyes.

  Lightning flashed bright enough to blind and deafen me, momentarily stunning me as my body went a bit tingly from the shock of it hitting my shield and splashing off, before finding ground. Landing on a rock outcropping, I paused for just a moment to breathe and cycle the Force, tapping into my life force and feeling exhaustion hit me as sight, hearing, and sensation was returned.

  As soon as I could, I began moving again, launching myself to the peak of the mountain. Feeling more than seeing the big, slowly rotating floating rocks above me, I timed my leap, judged the windage, then jumped. The Force propelled me upwards and my hand slapped the rock, a bit of telekinesis in the form of a pull briefly sticking it to its surface, before I adjusted, aimed for the next one, and kicked off, repeating the process until I made it to the biggest floating rock.

  Finding what I was looking for, I collected a hunk of silver metal that had been planted there and left to steep in the Force for years—just one of many. Studying them, they looked like they were likely parts of an asteroid that had fallen to the planet at some point. I couldn’t readily identify the metal, but it practically glowed with Force. Slipping it into my pack, I took a running leap and jumped. Full on flight was still beyond me, being that the flight formula was too expensive to use for more than a couple of seconds at a time, but gliding was actually surprisingly easy.

  I turned and dove for the village, skipping the latter half of the trail as the goal of the trial was completed. Touching down lightly just outside Augwynne’s home, I headed inside and pulled out the chunk of metal, passing through the leather curtain separating the library and placing the piece of metal on her desk.

  Augwynne hadn’t changed much over the last several months, but those changes that were there stood out. Not exactly the most obvious was that she looked happy and practically radiated happy, contented emotions nearly constantly. She was much more relaxed these days, too.

  Both of those probably had to do with the fact that she was pregnant and looked ready to pop any day now.

  Apparently, master Dooku had fallen for her charms at some point. By which I mean, Augwynne launched a full on frontal assault and refused to retreat, until the old man was worn down enough to finally capitulate. After that, well… I needed to practice shielding my mind anyway.

  Apparently, they had a deal. If it was a boy, Dooku would take him to raise elsewhere, away from the problems of Dathomir society and their treatment of their own men—as even with his help, they had yet to come up with a workable solution to the issue that didn’t end in civil war or take more than three generations to see through. If it was a girl, Augwynne would keep her, to raise as her successor and one of the Witches of Dathomir.

  Considering master Dooku could have peeked with the Force and determined which sex the child would be from the moment of conception, I could only assume he was sticking around for more sentimental reasons. Knowing what I did of the Jedi order and their thoughts on attachments, this was going to end poorly. Either way, I would be keeping my mouth shut. I knew the value of secrecy and master Dooku had helped me more than once. I felt like I owed him a favor or two.

  “Congratulations. You’ve passed your first trial,” the redhead smiled. “Normally there would be a bit of a ceremony, but I know you’re not the type to enjoy that sort of thing.”

  “And it might upset some people,” I murmured, and Augwynne nodded.

  “That too. Especially given that this wasn’t the usual trial, or reward.”

  “So, what do I do with this?” I asked, nodding towards the silvery lump of metal. “And what is it?”

  Augwynne chuckled. “That is a chunk of a meteor that broke up above the planet some hundred odd years ago. We used some sensors salvaged from the Chu’unthor to analyze it. It’s songsteel. Light, tough, and highly resistant to energy weapons. Technically, I shouldn’t let you have this, as it’s reserved only for clan mothers and their daughters. My crown is made of it,” she reached up and pulled it off, handing it to me. I turned it over in my hands, feeling just how light it was, before handing it back.

  “As for what you do with it… You’ve seen the wreck of the Chu’unthor during your hunts. I’m giving you permission to make the trip out, but you should try to avoid being seen. I’d like to avoid the hassle of having to listen to the old women complain about letting an outsider, let alone a Jedi, into the ship. Songsteel is incredibly difficult to work with. We don’t have the equipment here in the village and can’t transport the forge from the ship as it’s just too large and too delicate. You’ll need to enter the ship and use its facilities. The section you need to enter has power, so you won’t have to worry about that. Feel free to use whatever else you want to while you’re there. To get in, you need to look under the starboard wing, where it’s dipping into the water. There’s a hatch on the underside that our clan has used for years now.”

  Nodding, I grabbed my chunk of metal and put it in my bag, before making my way to my quarters. Digging through my things, I found a fist sized hunk of silver-white kyber crystal waiting for me, which pulsed faintly as I touched it. Tossing that into my bag as well, I pulled my hood up and headed outside, determined to make the trek now, while there were fewer people outside to question where I was going or what I was doing.

  I stepped out into the snowstorm then disappeared as I spun up a very basic illusion formula—not invisibility, but something that would effectively copy a section of the area around me and display it over my body. In this case, I looked like just another patch of falling snow to the casual observer. For the not so casual observer, I closed off my mind, making sure none of my emotions or thoughts would leak while at the same time cranking up my sensitivity so I could make sure nothing was following or observing me. Then, I reached inside myself, to my presence within the Force, and drew it all inward—mimicking the stealth techniques I had learned for hiding mana in my last life. Unless someone touched me or actively swept the area with the Force themselves, I would be less than a whisper in the Force.

  I hurried along the outskirts of the village, my steps silent as I moved to the vine leading down to the forest. Jumping on, I slid down in near silence and hopped into the trees. I kept up the stealth just in case one of the other hunting parties was out and about as I made my way towards the huge, crashed ship visible from the village above.

  Eventually, I found the ship right where I knew it would be. The design was honestly not what I was expecting for a space ship, let alone some kind of flying Jedi academy. For one thing, it was flat. I had no idea why they chose a flat design when a thicker, three dimensional design would have given them much more area to work within—especially if they never intended to land the thing. Space docks were common, so it wasn’t like they ever needed to take it down into a planet’s atmosphere to have it worked on if it needed maintenance or repairs.

  Shaking my head and putting away thoughts of space ship design principles to ponder on later, I made my way around to the starboard side, where the wing was listing into the water. Moving along the bank under it, I quickly found the access hatch I had been told about—hidden behind some bushes that didn’t quite look like they belonged given that they were typically found near the mountain, not near water like this. They also felt to my senses as though they had been encouraged to grow using some Force technique—likely one of the ‘spells’ the tribe used.

  I was no stranger to magic, having been an aerial mage in my second life. I had lived and breathed magic for a while and even now, I was still using the things I had learned to apply them to the Force. But the Force wasn’t magic. It wasn’t mana. And as I had quickly learned, the vast majority of the so-called spells the Dathomiri Witches used were actually just applications of what I classified as Force telekinesis.

  That was an issue I had with the Jedi mindset—why break down pushing, pulling, squeezing, and other things into their own individual named skills when they were all just applications of one skill? It made no sense.

  But I digress. Most of the ‘spells’ used here were just applications of the Force, and once I understood that, learning them was simple. They over-complicated things with prayers to their gods (which I refused to indulge in, given my prior experience with a self-proclaimed god) and mysticism, but nearly everything I had seen to date could be quantified as an application of telekinesis or other psychic feats, such as precognition, influencing the mind, reading the mind, or even my own ability to perceive and broadcast emotions. Even enhancing one’s strength, speed, durability and so on with the Force fell under the umbrella of an application of telekinesis.

  Nearly everything. Case in point: plant growth. I had seen them use it before. I knew they were using the Force for it. I had yet to figure out the how as it seemed to be a branch of Force use divergent from the typical ESPer-like abilities I had seen Jedi use. Likewise, I had seen a few of the older ladies teleport. Not hide themselves under invisibility and move quickly, but legitimately teleport. I wanted that one bad, but I was still working on figuring it out.

  Parting the bushes, I hit the hatch release and slipped into the ship. The entire thing was tilted a few degrees off, so it was like walking uphill as I followed Augwynne’s instructions towards the forge area. Just as she had said, as soon as I entered the proper area, the emergency lights came on and I was able to follow the signage to the forge.

  Inside the forge room, the lights came on fully and I whistled at what I found. The room was meticulously clean, with several different machines all placed around it and storage lockers containing different materials and even some completed parts for lightsabers. Examining the equipment, I found not just a forge, but also an interface for designing custom parts and a fabricator to take whatever materials were put in and use them to make whatever design had been put in.

  Taking off my bag, I removed my chunk of songsteel and kyber crystal. The crystal, I set on the design table for now, while I put the songsteel into the forge and quickly set it to melt it down into bars. I watched for a few moments as force fields engaged and the forge quickly heated up, scanners analyzing the metal, determining its melting point, and bringing it up to temperature before the force fields began working on it.

  Letting that work, I moved over to the design terminal and sat down. Cracking my knuckles, I considered the interface and what I wanted. I had been considering it for a while, but now I believed I finally had the means to produce what I wanted—and out of such a high quality, Force enriched material no less. I couldn’t pass up the chance.

  Reaching out to the Force, I let it guide my hands as I began drawing out clockwork mechanisms—partly from memory, partly by letting the Force fill in the gaps.

  Four clockwork computers working together inside a single housing…