The first thing I noticed when I woke was that my body had already decided the day had begun. Rest had nothing to do with it. I was awake.

  The Temple room was dim, jungle light filtered through the stone archway and painted the floor in soft green. My blanket was kicked aside. My throat felt dry. My mind felt clean in the wrong way, like someone had swept the corners too well and left nothing to hide behind.

  I sat up and waited for the heaviness that usually followed a mission like Durgen’s Star.

  It didn’t arrive.

  There was fatigue, yes, but it sat deeper, in the muscles and the back of my eyes. The rest of me moved like it wanted to prove something. I felt steady. Still, like a weapon at rest.

  I looked at my forearm and found the bruise I’d earned from the harness strap in the transport’s corridor. It had been purple last night. This morning it was only a shadow, as if my skin had already started forgetting it. I pressed it lightly. It didn’t hurt the way it should have.

  A small, unreasonable part of me wanted to smile. The larger part of me felt cold.

  ? ? ?

  When I stepped into the corridor, the Temple wasn’t quiet. It had that soft, busy hum it got after something serious happened. Voices muffled behind doors. Footsteps moving with purpose. The faint whine of hover platforms somewhere below.

  The rescued pods had gone into the med wing. The Temple didn’t have a real hospital, not in the way Coruscant did, but Tionne had made it into one by force of will and borrowed equipment.

  As I walked down toward the medbay, I passed a group of new students standing in a small knot, staring at the sealed doors like they were trying to imagine what was inside. Their faces were tight. Curiosity and fear had the same posture when it didn’t know where to sit.

  I didn’t stop to explain. I didn’t have words that would make it cleaner.

  The med wing smelled of antiseptic and damp stone. It was warmer than the rest of the Temple, air thick with the heat of machines and people. A portable power bank hummed in the corner like an animal. A med droid rolled past with a tray of instruments and chirped at a human tech who looked half asleep.

  Toran was already there, leaning against the wall near the intake desk. His hair was a mess, and he’d washed the soot off his face, but he still looked like he’d crawled through a conduit. His eyes tracked every piece of equipment with the same attention he gave engines.

  “You slept?” I asked.

  “Some,” he said. “You?”

  “Enough.”

  He glanced at my arm, the fading bruise. His gaze lingered for half a second longer than it needed to.

  “That’s healing fast,” he said.

  I shrugged like it was nothing. “Maybe I bruise politely.”

  Toran’s mouth twitched. “You bruised like a normal person yesterday.”

  I didn’t answer.

  Tionne emerged from a side room with two datapads and a stack of flimsi sheets clipped together. Her hair was pulled back, but loose strands clung to her forehead with sweat. She looked tired in the cleanest way, tired from doing something necessary and not having the luxury to resent it.

  She saw us and paused.

  “Kae’rin. Toran.” Her voice was soft but firm. “Post-mission check. We’re treating this as exposure risk until we know more about where those pods came from. Republic provided a team to check on them and move them to where they can be safely extracted.”

  “Any signs?” Toran asked.

  Tionne shook her head. “Nothing acute. No pathogens detected so far. But I’m not trusting ‘so far.’”

  A tech moved past, carrying a sealed case with the New Republic crest. The med beds from the transport had been dismantled and spread out across the wing like pieces of a puzzle Tionne was forcing to become useful.

  Tionne led us into a small exam alcove. The curtain didn’t hide much, but it gave the illusion of privacy, which was sometimes what people needed to stop feeling like equipment. She checked our vitals, methodical and quick. Pulse, temperature, ocular scan. She swabbed my wrist, then Toran’s, and fed the samples into a small analyzer unit that beeped with polite impatience.

  “Standard panel,” she said. “And I’d like a second blood draw from each of you.”

  Toran frowned. “Second?”

  “Baseline,” Tionne replied, as if it was obvious. “We’re building a proper library. The Order can’t keep relying on guesswork and hope. Not after this.”

  Her eyes met mine briefly when she said it, and something in them shifted. Not suspicion. Attention, sharpened.

  I held her gaze. “Fine.”

  The needle prick was small. The vial filled with dark red. Tionne labeled it with a quiet click of her stylus. Then she hesitated.

  “Another,” she said, and reached for a second vial.

  “For what?” Toran asked.

  Tionne’s smile was thin. “Still baseline. I want redundancy.”

  I watched her hands. They didn’t shake.

  She took the second sample from me with the same calm efficiency, but her eyes didn’t leave my face as if she expected my skin to confess. When it was done, she capped the vials and set them into a small insulated case.

  “Go eat,” she said, dismissing us with gentleness that didn’t soften the instruction. “Then train. You need routine.”

  Routine. Yes.

  ? ? ?

  Outside the med wing, the Temple felt cooler, less crowded. The jungle air at the open arches smelled like wet leaves and sun-warmed stone. I breathed it in like I could wash the antiseptic out of my lungs. Toran walked beside me without speaking. When we reached the junction that led toward the refectory, he slowed.

  “You’re… okay?” he asked.

  People asked different questions when they meant, Did you get hurt? This one meant, Did you change?

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  Toran nodded like he didn’t believe me and didn’t want to push.

  We ate. Not much. The refectory was full, louder than usual, as if people needed noise to convince themselves the Temple hadn’t become a ship full of ghosts. The new arrivals kept glancing toward the med wing doors. The older students kept their eyes on their bowls.

  After breakfast, training was inevitable. The yard outside was damp from morning mist. Grass clung to boots. The air was cool enough that breath showed faintly when you exhaled.

  Kyle had scheduled mixed-cadence drills in the Training Hall, something he called “keeping the edges honest.” I arrived early. So did Meral. Toran came in a minute later with his hair still wet from washing and a bruise on his knuckles that looked fresh and stubborn. Two practice hilts hung at his belt, one on each side, the way he carried his real blades.

  Meral nudged me as she passed. “You look too awake.”

  “I woke up already offended,” I said.

  She grinned. It didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Good. Stay that way.”

  The Training Hall smelled of metal and old energy. Scorch marks on the floor had been scrubbed, but the memory of Echo’s bolts lingered in the corners. Students moved through the course in staggered starts, not side by side. The clack of practice sabers echoed against the stone.

  Kirana Ti was watching from the edge of the floor, arms folded, posture relaxed. Tionne stood near her with a datapad, as if she couldn’t stop working even when she tried. Kyle paced like a predator who had discovered administration and hated it.

  “Pairs,” he called. “Medium cadence. Then fast. Then heavy. Stop showing off. Show control.”

  Meral paired with a tall human trainee whose name I didn’t know. Toran paired with a Rodian who looked thrilled to be hit. I paired with Jaden, because of course I did. He walked into the circle with that calm, contained confidence that didn’t ask permission.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Always,” I said.

  We ignited practice blades. The light was thinner than a real saber, but the sound still made the air feel sharper.

  Kyle lifted a hand. “Begin.”

  Jaden moved first. Clean step, no wasted motion. His medium style was textbook. I could see Kyle’s influence in it already, even if Jaden hadn’t been here long.

  I met him with Voras-Nheh by instinct, the circles, the borrowing of momentum. My feet slid on the worn floor in a way that felt natural, almost too natural. Each exchange arrived in my hands before it arrived in my eyes.

  Jaden attacked, I yielded, redirected, and he recovered.

  Again.

  It should have been a workout. A few months ago it would have been one.

  Not today. It came too easily.

  A small part of my mind noted the angles. The rest of me simply moved.

  His blade came in at my shoulder. I pivoted. My wrist turned. His strike passed along a curve that wasn’t mine and then his weapon was out of line and my blade was at his throat.

  I stopped it a breath away.

  Jaden froze, then exhaled slowly. He didn’t flinch. His eyes were sharp and thoughtful.

  “Nice,” he said quietly. No argument, no emotion, just acknowledgment.

  I stepped back and lowered my blade. “Again.”

  We reset.

  He changed cadence, tried fast. He pressed harder, more aggressive, looking for a gap.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  There wasn’t one.

  No perfection. My senses were reading him like a script. The next exchange ended with my blade hovering at his wrist, a disarm angle that would have been decisive with a real saber. My stance was stable. My breathing was steady. My pulse didn’t spike.

  That was wrong.

  Jaden’s gaze flicked past me toward Kyle, as if asking whether this was expected.

  Kyle’s jaw tightened. Kirana Ti’s expression didn’t change. Tionne, however, had gone still, datapad lowered, eyes fixed on me like she was listening to a note no one else could hear.

  I disengaged, stepping out of range. “Switch,” I said. “Different partner.”

  Jaden blinked. “Sure.”

  We rotated. I took a new partner, then another. The result was the same.

  Every time someone moved, my body answered before I chose the answer. The feeling was intoxicating for a blink, like stepping into a river and finding it carrying you exactly where you wanted to go.

  Then it turned cold. Because if the river decided to go somewhere else, I would go too.

  Kyle called a halt. “Enough. Water. Reset. No one is dying today.”

  Students dispersed toward the sidelines. Meral sat on the floor, breathing a little harder than she should have, eyes bright. Toran rubbed his shoulder and muttered at his partner, who laughed like being bruised was a compliment.

  I walked toward the wall and leaned against it, trying to feel my own weight. Tionne approached quietly, stopping just out of my reach.

  “Kae’rin,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  She hesitated, and that alone made my skin tighten. Tionne didn’t hesitate often.

  “When you moved,” she said, “it… resonated.”

  I stared at her. “That’s vague.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “I don’t have a better word. It’s like you were… in tune with something ahead of you. Not simply anticipation. Not instinct.”

  Her eyes flicked down to my hands, then back up. “Does it feel effortless?”

  I didn’t lie. “Yes.”

  Tionne’s throat moved as she swallowed. “And frightening?”

  “Yes,” I said again, and my voice came out too flat.

  She nodded once, as if that answered a question she hadn’t asked aloud. “If you feel it again,” she said softly, “don’t force it. Don’t chase it. Let it flow as long as it stays. Then let it pass.”

  “What if it doesn’t pass,” I asked.

  Tionne looked at me for a long moment. “Then we will have to understand it,” she said.

  I could have asked what she meant.

  The day should have ended there. Training, sweat, routine. It didn’t.

  ? ? ?

  Late afternoon, as the Temple shifted toward evening quiet, a med tech found me in the corridor outside the refectory. He was young, hair still damp, eyes wide with that particular strain people got when they were trying to keep calm and failing.

  “Kae’rin,” he said. “Sorry. Tionne said you were around.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He glanced down the hall like the walls might be listening. “One of the power couplers for the pod banks is missing. We moved equipment from Durgen’s Star into Storage Two, and now we can’t find the coupler that matches the connector. We can rig a workaround, but that means pulling power from the other bank. I don’t want to do that with people in stasis.”

  My stomach tightened. The pods were still here. Still breathing in boxes.

  “Who moved it,” I asked.

  The tech shook his head. “I don’t know. We were rushing. It’s not sabotage. It’s… chaos.”

  He looked like he wanted me to tell him chaos had a fix.

  “Show me,” I said.

  We walked quickly through the Temple corridors toward Storage Two, deeper into a wing that still smelled faintly of old Massassi stone. The storage door was sealed with a simple code lock. The tech keyed it in, palms sweaty.

  Inside, the room was packed with cases and crates. Some were labeled in Tionne’s neat script. Others still had the transport’s shipping marks. The lights flickered, power draw uneven. The tech gestured at a set of portable power units.

  “The coupler is a black ring, about this wide, with a three-prong interface. It should be in the med hardware case, but it isn’t.”

  I stepped forward and stopped. The room was full of objects. Metal and plastic, wires and cases. Normally, it would have been a search. A methodical sweep.

  Instead, my attention snapped toward the left wall without my permission. No voice. No vision. Just a quiet certainty, like a finger tapping the inside of my skull.

  There.

  I walked toward the left wall, past a stack of sealed cases, and crouched beside a low shelf unit. On the floor beneath it was a small gap that looked empty. I reached in and my fingers closed around a black ring.

  I pulled it out. The coupler.

  The tech stared. “How did you…”

  I didn’t know what to say. I could have pretended I’d simply gotten lucky. It would have been believable.

  I didn’t.

  “I felt it,” I said.

  The tech’s eyes widened, then he looked away quickly, like the idea of feeling objects was too close to superstition.

  He took the coupler with shaking hands. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”

  When he left, I remained crouched beside the shelf, coupler gone, hand still inside the gap for a moment longer. The certainty had been right. That was relief.

  It was also an invitation to trust something I couldn’t see. I pulled my hand back and stood, dusting my fingers on my pants. The storage room smelled of sealed foam and cold metal. The lights buzzed overhead.

  I didn’t feel proud. I felt watched, not by anyone in the corridor, but by the shape of the universe itself.

  ? ? ?

  By early evening, Luke sent for me.

  The message came through a student runner, polite and direct. “Master Skywalker asked me to bring you to the archive room.”

  The archive room was modest compared to the myths people told about Jedi libraries. Rows of recovered holocrons, datapads, and paper stacks that Tionne had rescued from wherever she could. It smelled of old pages and clean air.

  Luke stood near the central table, hands resting on the edge. Corran was there too, leaning slightly against the wall with his arms folded. He looked like someone who had already read a report and decided he didn’t like it. Tionne stood near Luke’s left shoulder, posture careful.

  “Sit,” Luke said gently. I did.

  Luke didn’t waste time. He slid a datapad across the table toward me.

  “We got a preliminary screening summary back,” he said.

  My fingers tightened around the edge of the table before I could stop them.

  “The baseline draw,” I said.

  Tionne nodded once. “Yes.”

  “How much do you know,” Luke asked quietly.

  “I know what I remember,” I said without explaining further. My voice didn’t shake. “And I can already tell what this says.”

  “If you knew,” Corran started, but Tionne’s raised hand stopped him.

  “When have we started judging people by what they had suffered in the past?” Her voice carried an edge now.

  “When have we stopped caring about risks and unknown factors?” He shot back.

  “We always cared and we don’t judge,” Luke said firmly. “Still I would like —for once— to understand before we have to make decisions.”

  “Is it our place to make them?” Tionne insisted. “I recognize the need to understand, but — make decisions?”

  Corran shifted his weight. “Not with this report. It’s preliminary,” he said. “It doesn’t tell us what the modifications do, or who did them. It tells us the shape. Repeated therapy. Sophisticated. Hard to read.”

  “I thought I had earned some trust,” I spoke up, trying to not sound like a petulant child.

  “But you went behind my back because you’re afraid,” I accused Corran. Then I looked at Tionne. “And you took my blood.”

  Tionne flinched slightly. “I did,” she replied, and she didn’t excuse it.

  “I asked. You agreed.”

  That was true, technically. But it was a weak argument. I stayed silent.

  Luke’s hands tightened on the table edge. “I didn’t want to do this behind your back,” he said.

  “But you did it anyway,” I replied.

  Luke didn’t argue.

  “We’re responsible for you,” he said. “And we’re responsible for the Order. If something is happening in your body that could harm either, I won’t ignore it.”

  There were a dozen ways I could have answered. I chose the one that kept me upright and didn’t burn bridges. But I didn’t give them absolution either.

  “What now.”

  Luke’s gaze softened a fraction. “We do nothing rash,” he said. “We keep this contained. We decide what, if anything, we investigate further.”

  I picked up the datapad and read. It was short. Clinical. The kind of text that tried very hard to be calm. Non-random alteration. Repeated somatic intervention. Mosaic distribution. Delayed propagation. Obfuscated reads. Engineered phenotype — likely.

  The words felt like stabs of a blade in my chest. I read the summary twice before the letters stopped being letters and started being a memory.

  ? ? ?

  Father’s lab was the only place on Coruscant that never felt cold.

  Even when the Empire rationed heat to the lower levels and the walls sweated with condensation, his lab stayed warm — not the gentle warmth of blankets or sun, but an artificial belly-of-a-machine warmth that smelled faintly of sterilizer and hot metal.

  Once a month, Father would take me by the wrist and lead me inside, past the humming towers of gene sequencers and the softly pulsing vats that held things I wasn’t supposed to see. He never smiled on those nights. His face tightened into a mask of numbers and calculations, like he was trying to solve a problem only he could see.

  To me, it was just “the sleeping time.” A strange ritual adults insisted upon, like brushing your teeth or pretending you weren’t scared of stormtroopers. Back then, I only knew the sound of the glass bed closing, the soft glow of the blue light, and the way my body ached afterward as if I had grown too quickly in my sleep.

  ? ? ?

  The lengths they’d gone to, the things they’d made ordinary, the way they’d taken something brutal and wrapped it in routine so I could survive it without knowing. And the worst part was how easy it would have been to let it rot. To take a cold line of clinical text and smear it over everything I remembered until it all looked like control. Until love became suspicion by default.

  I wouldn’t.

  Father endured it too. Mother too. I had seen them afterward, the way they moved slower for an hour, quieter, as if the house itself had been turned down. Whatever they’d done to me, they did not do it from a distance. They stepped into the same darkness and called it protection.

  I refused to let anyone, myself included, turn that into doubt.

  I lowered the datapad slowly. Luke’s face was steady. Corran’s eyes were sharp. Tionne’s expression was careful, like she was watching glass settle after a crack. Corran’s eyes flicked to Luke, then back to me.

  “If you want deeper analysis, we don’t have the labs, equipment, nor expertise.” He said quietly. ”Others might — biotech corps, governments… Or you can try going to the source, wherever that was.”

  The source. E-97, Coruscant.

  I knew exactly where to look but I wasn’t sure there was anything left after ten years. Father was nothing if not meticulous. But it was the only place I could go. And it was a place Tionne and I wanted to visit anyway.

  Luke stood. “Get some rest. Eat,” he told me, giving Corran a pointed look. “We’ll figure it out. Without corporations and governments.”

  ? ? ?

  They let me pass between them, and when I walked away I could feel the shape of their silence behind me. Not threatening. Just contained. Like something being handled carefully, out of sight.

  “Remember,“ I heard Corran behind me — quietly, but I could still hear him. “This is preliminary only—”

  “And it stays quiet.” Tionne said firmly.

  “It stays quiet,” Luke agreed.

  I walked faster, as if getting out of earshot —mine, not theirs— could make it so that the entire past hour had never happened. But it had. No matter how I would have liked to deny it, it was clear this wasn’t the last time, either.

  ? ? ?

  Night came. The Temple dimmed. The jungle never did. It kept breathing and buzzing and living like it had no interest in my problems. I found myself on the terrace again, hands on the stone railing, stars above, darkness below. The air was damp and cool, and somewhere far off a bird called once, then fell silent.

  I waited for the displacement. It didn’t come. Instead, I felt the pull. No yank. No command. A direction, subtle and persistent, like a current in deep water.

  Coruscant had never been a home for me. It had been a shadow in stories, a city of towers and law and old blood. A place where the Jedi had once been too large to notice the cracks.

  I closed my eyes and for a heartbeat I could almost taste the air there, dry and metallic, layered with engines and millions of lives. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear a voice. I simply knew that if I wanted answers that weren’t guesses, I would have to go where the answers lived.

  My hand tightened on the stone.

  Below, the Temple lights glowed warm through its blocky arches. Somewhere inside, people slept. I opened my eyes and looked at the stars until they stopped looking like exits and started looking like witnesses. When I finally went back inside, my feet moved with that same wrong steadiness.

  Routine. Containment.

  And a direction that refused to leave.