The mess hall was barely more than a converted speederport with durasteel fold-out tables, dim lighting from some lamps, and a few battered food dispensers humming along the far wall. But at the moment, it might as well have been a war hero’s banquet hall.

  Laughter echoed off the steel walls, loud and raw, the kind that came from deep in the chest. The kind to be expected from a bunch of teenagers fresh of the training fields and in high spirits.

  I was sat halfway down one of the long tables, a tray of steaming ration stew in front of me, still half-full because I’d been too busy grinning like an idiot after the exhilarating training drills. It would have been annoying in my old life, but the Force had a habit of feeding an adrenaline rush into a loop of exhilaration.

  We were still caked in mud, smears across armor plates, streaks on cheeks and helmets thrown down by boots. It didn’t matter, we were all breathing, mostly unbruised, and riding the high of a training match that had gotten out of hand in the best way.

  “That was not cover!” Harja laughed, slapping the table. “You crouched behind a log, Zeke, a soggy one—!”

  “Hey, it was mostly upright!”

  “Until it broke and you faceplanted into a puddle!”

  Zeke raised both arms in mock triumph. “I needed camo, so tactical mud camo!”

  Half the table laughed.

  Even I cracked a grin, shaking my head. “That wasn’t camo. That was flailing.”

  “It worked!” Zeke protested through a grin, gesturing with his spoon. “I distracted them long enough for Kane to get the drop on them.”

  That amounted to his faceplanting causing a stutter in enemy fire because a couple evidently lost it laughing at the idiot, but at least it worked.

  I gave him a mock salute. “Can’t argue with results. Although I think your scream was what really did it.”

  Harja snorted. “More Yistvalian banshee than soldier.”

  “Strategic use of psychological warfare,” Zeke said with a straight face, then ruined it by nearly choking on his next bite of stew.

  Laughter again. Loud and full and earned.

  We hadn’t been laughing like this much lately. Not with how brutal the last month had been, more drills, more pressure, more whispers about the slowly escalating conflict on the horizon. But this? Running and gunning in the fields, vaulting over rocky outcrops, ducking under fallen mining rigs while pelting each other with stun rounds and live smoke? This had been fun.

  I leaned back on the bench and rolled my shoulders, still feeling the ache from where one of Vhonte’s stupidly accurate shots had caught me with a stun round to the hip. I’d returned the favor, of course. Twice.

  My stomach finally decided it was time to stop watching the party and get involved, and I dug back into the stew. It was surprisingly good, real broth, a few chunks of something that might have once been meat, and spicy enough to wake the dead.

  Someone at the next table over called out, “Oi! Kane, what was that flip off the crawler hull? You trying to show off or just forgot gravity existed?”

  I wiped stew from my mouth and leaned around Harja. “If I wanted to show off, I’d have stuck the landing.”

  “Didn’t stick it?”

  I held up a hand and made an iffy gesture.

  That earned a laugh, then I went back to eating.

  The air smelled like sweat, mud, and spice, and someone had rigged a small speaker system up near the corner of one of the support beams. It was playing old Mando war chants that ran under the conversation like a second pulse.

  Trygg, Zeke's brother, slid into the spot beside me and plopped his tray down, auburn hair nearly in his face as he practically shoveled food into his mouth. His armor was practically dripping with leftover muck.

  I eyed him. “Did you bathe in it?”

  “Close enough,” he said through a mouthful. “Someone pushed me into the trench.”

  “Wasn’t me,” I said, lifting my hands. “I only push the other team into trenches.”

  “That explains why Harja ended up swimming.”

  “Wait, you pushed Harja?”

  Trygg looked up innocently. “Tactical relocation.” He said in a voice mimicking that of his brother's rather accurately.

  Harja, halfway through her third bowl, narrowed her eyes. “You’re dead next match, di'kut.”

  Trygg grinned. “You’ve been saying that for two weeks.”

  “Yeah, and you’re still breathing. Unacceptable.”

  The table dissolved again into mock threats and banter. Utensils clinked, a few cups knocked together, and the dull hum of the speaker filled the spaces between.

  For a while, I just watched. These were my squadmates now. Not just names or helmet IDs. People. Scuffed, bruised, smarter than they looked and tougher than they had any right to be.

  I was pulled from finishing up my food by Trygg, who bumped my shoulder to get my attention.

  “So,” He started to say, before pausing, then plastered on a faux confidence, “There's a bit of a betting pool on where you're from originally. My bet's Mid Rim, any advice so I can win the pool?”

  I heard some of the conversation around us quiet down and I felt multiple people focus in on me. I just raised a brow at Trygg.

  “You know you have the subtlety of a boot heel to the face, right?” I said rhetorically, shoveling the lady spoonful into my mouth before straightening and deciding to humour him just a bit. “And is the pool about where I was born or where I was adopted, because those have separate answers?”

  That got a groan from Zeke and Ragor.

  “Thought I was a one planet guy?” I laughed, which I got an annoyed yes from Zeke before I looked at everyone else at the table. “Keep on guessing cause I ain't answering unless you're totally right.”

  Perhaps I jinxed myself by saying that, because Averill decided to, well, be himself and spoke up.

  “Vhonte might know, you two talk a lot and maybe she knows something.”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes at the idea that sprouted in the head of Zeke immediately. “Thank you, Averill. Oi, Vhonte!” I got her attention from two tables over, her eyes locked on mine. “These di'kuts here have a betting pool on where I'm from.” That got a few protests from the aforementioned morons. “Any guesses or are you just as stupid as them?!”

  That got a few laughs from the other tables, but Vhonte didn't hesitate with her response. “Current guess is a trash compactor!”

  Her table played up that clap back and started whooping and hitting the table with their hands, while my table also got in on it after I called them idiots.

  I just scowled and gave her a rude gesture, before shouting “Incorrect!” and sitting down.

  Not long after, the music was shut off and we were cycled out of the impromptu coverage and told to head back to our quarters by one of the officers in charge of training us today. We all complied and I slipped my helmet back on, and so did the others.

  It was lucky we were obviously in our armor because then it decided to start pissing down raining, and I almost had the urge to pop my helmet back off so I could feel the sensation. But I decided not to, marching through the mud back to base where I'd be in my quarters and get to clean the mud off my armour for the next hour.

  But oh well, you got to embrace the suck.

  xRSxxRSxxRSx

  As much as being out in the field getting shot at by a peer military force sucked, including getting shot and blown up, let's not forget that little detail, the training I was subjecting myself to ever since coming to this gods-forsaken moon was somehow even more hellish. Because unlike on Earth, these war junkies had borderline supernatural medicine compared to what the best Uncle Sam had access to. We poor grunts could be chewed up, spat out, and be back at it the next day with no lingering issues.

  And I loved every. Single. Bit of it.

  The clang of metal on metal sounded out like steel chimes echoing across the arena floor. Sweat stuck to my skin under the armor, despite the climate-controlled training chamber. The air was sharp with heat and the electric scent of exertion, and I was in the zone.

  This wasn't even supposed to be an intense work day, just sharpshooting and other range day stuff. But then my ‘lovely’ gaggle-fuck of a pet sperg Averill wanted to learn some swordplay from me, and one thing led to another until there was about a dozen of us sparring for fun.

  My sword moved like an extension of my thoughts, pure reflex and honed instinct. Not a lightsaber, not yet at least. My mind and muscles remembered every pass, every feint, every perfect rotation of the wrist needed to redirect a blow or drive one home. Such lessons had been beaten into my mental shielding almost every night by the echo of Malgus, with pain being its preferred method of motivation in ensuring I would not lose against my opponents.

  And I didn’t lose. Not once.

  I cut through Harja and Cynigh easily, breaking their guards with quick, precise strikes that knocked their blades wide, followed up by me tripping up Cynigh and driving a fist into Harja's helmeted face with enough force to knock her to the ground.

  The third came in swinging fast and wide. I let the blade skim past my shoulder and twisted inward, stepping to his exposed side. A hard strike to his thigh sent him stumbling, and I rammed my foot into his chest, knocking him flat.

  "Next." The ones I had knocked to the ground scrambled up and shifted out of the way, and then my gaze fell on who I had been looking forward to fighting again.

  Vhonte was waiting.

  She stepped forward without a word, already keyed up, movements tighter than usual. Her stance was solid and I could feel her eyes behind the T-shaped visor, locked on me like a tracking laser. The others quieted around the circle, sensing the shift. They were looking forward to watching the two best fighters in our group go at it.

  Her blade lifted in a blur, and I moved to meet it.

  Metal rang again as our swords met, and the Force flooded through me. Not enough to be obvious, but it was there, guiding the tilt of my blade, the pivot of my hips, the moment I ducked under her slash and came up with a jab that clipped her shoulder.

  She backed off, adjusted, and came in harder.

  I didn’t give her space.

  We danced like that for what felt like an eternity, without me caring to escalate. Every blow of hers I met, every counter matched, every small tell read and answered. But she couldn’t land anything decisive, because I wouldn’t let her. My swordwork was relentless, precise, and controlled. And I could feel it in her movements, that building edge of frustration in how she pressed harder, swung wider, held her guard just a little too long after a block.

  Another pass, and I slipped past her defenses again, the edge of my blade gliding across her thigh armor with a clang that signaled the point. She cursed under her breath, barely audible, but the helmet’s mic didn’t hide much from me.

  I took a few steps back and reset into a ready position.

  "Again?"

  She nodded.

  We went again. And again. And again.

  And each time, I won.

  The others kept rotating in after every bout, and I kept dropping them. They were good. Some of the best Mandalorian youth I’d seen so far after the last few weeks of training for the conflict ahead. But I was better.

  The rhythm became something close to meditative. Every movement fed the next, my focus absolute, the Force pulsing beneath my skin like a second heartbeat. I heard nothing but the ring of blades and the breathing in my helmet. Saw nothing but the angle of attacks, the tension in shoulders and knees before a swing, the way armor shifted with every weight transfer.

  I wasn't just fighting, I was sinking into a near meditative state only vaguely interrupted by shifting or countering. But nothing could throw me off balance. Not today.

  It was euphoric.

  I lost track of time. Only the number of victories kept stacking in my mind. Six. Ten. Thirteen.

  Each time Vhonte stepped back in, she came at me harder. And each time, I turned her away with the edge of my blade and a little more irritation radiating off her through the Force.

  By the fourteenth round, the air around her was tight with agitation. It rippled off her like heat on sunbaked stone, building toward something unsustainable. I didn’t taunt her, because I didn't need to. The score spoke for itself.

  She lunged, and I pivoted just slightly too early. Her blade skated along my chest plate, not a hit by our rules, but closer than anyone had gotten. Her follow-up was sharper, and I had to catch the blade hard on mine, twisting it up and away with a spark of effort. Our hilts locked for a moment, and I saw her face in my mind as clearly as if her visor had been transparent.

  She wanted to win. Not just for pride, not just to prove herself, though that was part of it, but because she couldn’t stand the idea that I, the outsider, the unexpected one, had pushed past her so completely.

  And I didn’t let her.

  I shifted, ducked low, and swept her legs. Her balance gave and she slammed down hard, sword tumbling from her hand, and I stepped back, blade pointed at her chest.

  Point.

  She growled under her breath and rolled to her feet.

  That made fifteen.

  The rest of the unit watched in silence, not bothering to hide how stunned they were. A few looked between each other. Averill gave a low whistle through the squad comms. Ragor said nothing, but he crossed his arms, sitting by the weapons rack and I could sense his muted interest.

  I stood still, chest rising and falling slowly under my armor. Sweat soaked into the underlayer, but I didn’t feel winded. I felt… energized. Centered in a way few things outside of battle ever made me.

  She looked at me, breathing hard.

  "You done?" I asked, not mocking. Just curious.

  She gave a clipped nod.

  "Then we’re good."

  I didn’t need a round sixteen. I’d made my point. We both knew it.

  I offered my hand to help her up, which she accepted and helped pull her up, her gaze looking down and I scowled underneath my helmet at her being almost a head taller than me. She was like 6 feet tall and I, quite noticeably, wasn't.

  But I walked away after helping her up to get some water. The bench beside the weapons rack had a massive insulated cooler of water and cups next to it, which I promptly filled up, pulled my helmet off, and gulped the whole thing down. I filled it up again, guzzled it down, then repeated it a third time.

  It hit my stomach cold and clean.

  I filled another. Gone in seconds. A third. Finally, I sat down, exhaling through my nose, the edge of battle calm still humming faintly in my limbs like aftershocks.

  The others were still going. A few more stepped in to spar now that I was off rotation. Some, I could tell, were pushing harder than usual, either to prove they could measure up or to blow off steam after getting wrecked by me earlier. A few matched evenly, trading blows with skill that would’ve impressed me more if my brain wasn’t still riding the comedown of sixteen straight wins.

  I watched in silence, elbows resting on my thighs, helmet resting beside me.

  The stomp of armored boots approached from behind, and I didn’t need to turn to know it was her.

  Vhonte came around the bench and stood in front of me for a second, arms crossed. Then, without a word, she popped her helmet off and tucked it under her arm.

  Her hair was damp and dark with sweat, pulled back in a tight braid that had frayed during the matches. Her face was flushed, her jaw set firm, blue eyes fixed on me.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  "What, annoyed that a 12 year old kept beating you?" I asked flatly, tone edged in dry sarcasm.

  Evidently she didn't like that.

  “Your hair,” she said, voice clipped, “makes you look like a girl.”

  I blinked, then scowled.

  Her mouth twitched, just slightly, like she was holding something back.

  My scowl deepened. “Jealous?”

  “I wasn’t complimenting you.”

  “Sounded like it.”

  I shoved a hand through my hair, already clinging to my forehead and temples in damp strands. Longish, by regulation standards. Dark. A little unkempt after sweating through combat. And I was still cursed with features that hadn’t quite sharpened into the lines of someone people took seriously, too much of a baby face.

  The Force had fortified my body well enough to keep pace with warriors and soldiers older than me, but the face I saw in the mirror was still that of someone caught between ages. I hated it.

  “Could shave it,” Vhonte offered with a shrug.

  “Come near my hair with a blade and I'll break your fingers.”

  “I don’t think you’d survive the attempt.”

  “Yeah? I just beat you fifteen times.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Is it?”

  She tilted her head slightly, studying me and I caught a hint of curiosity and internal questioning, so I helped her out.

  “Curious about the unknown sprog Pre adopted?”

  That made her snort once. She turned and looked out at the rest still sparring, Averill going up against Ragor now, and he was honestly a bit shit with a blade.

  “You could say that.” She admitted, filling her cup again and draining it in one gulp. “I knew half the people here before the squad was formed, and you're the only one that doesn't really share anything, and they all talk about you,”

  I gave her a sidelong look. “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “The others. Squad leads. Instructors. Even my brother.”

  I let out a low breath. “Yeah, I figured.”

  It wasn't a surprise that I would be talked about, especially with that betting pool. I was consistently either the best or roughly equal to Vhonte in most respects. Granted, the Force and prior experience bolstered that, but even then I was better than most people on Earth. Had situations been different and I wasn't tagged as potential trouble, I would've been listed as officer material.

  After a moment of silently watching the others, I looked back at Vhonte for a second and then back to Averill as he got sent to the ground, with Ragor and, what was his name, Gar'wig or something? Either way, the two started at it and I asked Vhonte a question.

  “Why the curiosity on your end though?”

  She was quiet, letting that hang.

  She looked at me again, this time more seriously. “I don't like not knowing about those I'm fighting beside and there's certainly going to be war soon, that's why.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  I didn’t answer the unasked repeat of her question. I wasn’t ready to lie, but I wasn’t going to tell the truth either.

  “Long story,” I said, settling on that.

  I can tell she did not like that, but she accepted it with a slow nod. If we became actual friends, then maybe I'd share. But until then, I didn't care to share that I was a slave and had landed myself in that situation by my own… I couldn't call it stupidity, more a habit of mine at that point. If I had a nickel for every time I had my life upended in the defense of a girl, I'd have two nickels. It wasn't much, but it's weird it happened twice.

  After a while, we just watched the others. The clang of steel on steel filled the chamber again, mixed with occasional grunts, the shuffle of boots on training mats, the thump of bodies hitting the floor.

  I stayed there, helmet beside me, sweat still drying on my neck and temples. Vhonte didn’t say anything else for a long time.

  Eventually, I reached down, grabbed my helmet, and stood.

  “You coming?” I asked. “I'm down for another round.”

  She hesitated, then rose to her feet, sliding her helmet back on with a hiss.

  “You’re on.”

  We walked back into the circle together, blades in hand, ready for the next round.

  xRSxxRSxxRSx

  The heat of the afternoon sun pressed down like a weight, thick and smothering, baking the clearing in a sweltering haze as I prepared myself for another training regimen. The sky overhead was a hard, merciless blue, not a cloud in sight, and the sun bore down like it had something personal against me. Sweat had already soaked into the lining of my undersuit, dripping down my spine beneath the armor plates, but I barely noticed. My focus was absolute.

  I stood at the center of the clearing, blade in hand. The drones buzzed overhead, three of them that were silver ovals the size of my head, circling lazily like vultures. The emitters beneath them pulsed blue, charging. Stun bolts were coming.

  Good.

  I settled into my stance, weight on the balls of my feet, knees slightly bent, sword raised in a high guard. The Force thrummed inside me, a pulsing current just beneath my skin. It wasn't cold today. It was molten, coiled heat in my muscles and blazed like a fire in my chest. My body was a spring drawn tight, and the Force flowed like liquid iron through my veins.

  The first drone fired. I snapped my blade up in a tight arc, the stun bolt glancing off the angled flat of the sword with a sharp crack. Sparks flew, the impact traveling down my arms. Another bolt screamed in from my right. I twisted, spun, brought the blade around in a sweeping cut that caught the second bolt and sent it sizzling off into the treeline.

  Then the third fired, no warning. I didn’t look. I felt. The Force screamed at me, a warning surge in my gut, and I dropped to one knee as the bolt flew over my shoulder and seared into the earth behind me.

  I thrust my free hand out and pushed.

  A tree ten meters away groaned and cracked, bark peeling as a telekinetic blast slammed into its trunk and shook the leaves loose like a thunderclap. Birds scattered from the canopy. The drones backed off for a second, recalibrating.

  I stood and rolled my shoulders, blade loose in my grip, chest rising and falling. My shirt clung to me beneath the plates of beskar, sweat soaking through every seam. The heat was relentless, but I welcomed it.

  The drones dove again.

  I deflected the first bolt, sidestepped the second, and ducked under the third. As I twisted away, I swept my arm sideways and ripped a cluster of stones off the ground with the Force. I flung them like bullets. Three rocks screamed through the air and slammed into a nearby tree with enough force to dent the bark. One clipped a drone’s wing. It wobbled in the air, stabilizers whining.

  I didn’t give it time to recover.

  With a flick of my wrist and arm, I sent a wave of pressure slamming upward. The drone shot ten feet into the air, spinning out of control before it righted itself, but that moment of imbalance was all I needed. I lunged forward, leaping up in the air with blade flashing, and smacked it with the flat just as it descended. The blow sent it tumbling end over end into the underbrush while I landed and rolled with the momentum, the Force reinforcing my joints so I didn't break anything.

  Two left.

  The remaining pair circled warily now, weaving side to side, emitters charging. I moved through my blade forms slowly, deliberately, the Shii-Cho movements being far easier now. Each movement precise and controlled. My blade was a natural extension of me, the same way the Force coiled under my skin, waiting.

  Another bolt came screaming in.

  I batted it away and then surged forward. The second drone fired, but I was already airborne, using the Force to enhance the leap. I cleared over six feet and landed behind it, sending a blast of Force power into its casing. The shockwave caved in its rear panel and sent it spiraling into the dirt, smoke trailing from its frame.

  One left.

  I turned slowly, blade at my side, breathing even despite the heat. The last drone hovered just out of reach, its emitter glowing. I held my blade aloft in one, outstretched my offhand, and focused.

  The Force surged in me like a furnace. I pulled a boulder, half-buried in dry soil, twice the size of my head, up out of the ground with a grinding crack. Dust exploded around it as it floated in the air before me.

  The drone fired.

  I launched the boulder.

  They met mid-air. The bolt detonated against the stone with a blue flash, doing absolutely nothing as the rock struck the drone, knocking it spinning out of formation. It crashed down with a high-pitched whine and skidded through the dirt.

  Silence returned, broken only by the buzz of insects and the dry hiss of wind through the trees.

  I stood still for a moment, sweat dripping from my chin, feeling the Force recede to a dull roar inside me. My skin was flushed, muscles humming with tension. My hands were red from the heat and strain. But I was smiling.

  The exercise wasn’t over.

  I took a slow breath, then raised my hands again.

  A cluster of broken branches and debris floated into the air around me, orbiting in a slow circle. I tightened my grip on the Force, brought them together, and flung them outward in a radial blast. They screamed through the air like shrapnel, slamming into trees, punching splinters from bark, embedding into trunks with solid thunks. Birds scattered again. Dust rose. The forest echoed with the violence.

  I turned to another tree and slammed it with a direct telekinetic push. The trunk cracked with a deafening pop, tilted, then slowly crashed down into the clearing, sending leaves and dust skyward in a billowing cloud.

  Those last two movements were enough to make me stumble, my head starting to throb and my vision blurred momentarily.

  Taking a moment to gather myself, I straightened up and reasserted my grasp on the Force. I walked through the wreckage, extending my senses outward. The Force moved with me like a current. I was a furnace now, stoked to its limit. I let that heat drive me into another blade drill.

  This time I moved faster.

  Cuts, counters, reversals, dodges, one sequence flowing into the next, each step guided by the Force, each movement an expression of focused aggression. Sweat ran down my back, pooled at my collar, but I didn’t stop. I spun, parried, leapt, sliced the air again and again, faster than I ever could’ve moved before.

  Every sense was dialed to the maximum. I could hear the wind change direction, feel the heat rising off the sunbaked earth, smell the ozone from the stun bolts and the crushed green of the leaves and debris crunched under my boots. My body was soaked, my lungs dragging in hot air like a furnace bellows.

  Eventually, I slowed.

  The sword dropped to my side, the Force coiling down like a riptide receding back off the beach. I reached for a flask strapped to my belt and drank deeply, the water lukewarm but welcome. My mouth was dry, my tongue rough against my teeth, but the ache in my limbs felt earned as I caught my breath.

  I sat down in the dirt after I stopped almost gasping for air, legs sprawled, sword resting beside me. I leaned back on my palms and looked up at the sky. It was still brutally bright, sun glaring like a blowtorch.

  The clearing around me was wrecked, trees scorched, bark stripped, stones cracked, branches shredded. Three drones lay scattered and somewhat damaged.

  I smiled.

  Another day of work done.

  And tomorrow, I’d push even harder.

  xRSxxRSxxRSx

  I secured the final cable with a snap of the connector, then slid the narrow durasteel panel back into place at the foot of my bunk. The panel locked with a faint hiss, and the little green light on the holo-terminal flickered to life, casting a pale glow across the dim room.

  The droid brain was a secondhand thing I'd bartered from a quartermaster in exchange for tuning up three of his busted repulsors, brands I'd repaired before on Tatooine. The holo-terminal was older, an outdated military comm model I’d salvaged from the training yard’s junk pile with Pre's permission and coaxed back to life with a few new parts and the assistance of Averill. The whole rig was wired directly into the station's passive holonet uplink, running a consistent combing of every public and deepnet-accessible packet stream it could reach. Newsfeeds. Scientific papers. Things of that nature.

  All of it filtered through one directive.

  Dr. Murk Lundi.

  Every time his name popped up, anywhere, the program would ping me.

  He was going to find Adas' holocron eventually, on an ocean world. And when he did, I would be there.

  I leaned back against the wall and exhaled through my nose, helmet still on. The air inside my quarters was warm, recycled, thick with the smell of wiring and oxidized metal. Nothing stirred.

  Good. Let it work.

  I stood, gave the terminal a final look, and keyed the door.

  The hall outside was quiet. It was late afternoon, Mandalore’s sun would be hitting the canyon wall just above the mine, baking the rock and dust in gold light. The whole base felt quieter during this stretch of the day. With a week of leave granted to our squad, most of the others had already scattered, some heading down to the lake, others deeper into the mines to blow off steam or drink themselves senseless.

  I hadn’t decided what to do with my time off. Yet. But food came first.

  My boots rang hollow against the durasteel as I made my way down the corridor, the heat outside pressing faintly through the thick rock walls.

  I took the eastern lift down to the lower levels, where the mining crews used to process ore back in the day before the mine dried up. Now, it was converted space. A training yard here. A target range there, and an old munitions bay turned into an improvised cantina.

  That’s where I went.

  The doors hissed open, releasing a blast of cool, circulated air and the low hum of conversation became audible enough to notice. The cantina was built right into the rock, old stone walls reinforced with durasteel, industrial lighting hanging low from the ceilings. A few long tables ran through the center of the room, half-filled with off-duty recruits and Mandalorian contractors. The smell of fried meat, ale, and burning spice oil drifted through the air, thick enough to taste.

  I ignored the looks from the squadies I got as I walked in, because my armour and height were decently noticable.

  A few armoured Mandoa laughed around a game of cards to the left. To the right, a few off-world mercs nursed drinks and watched a muted holoscreen showing old bounty footage. I spotted a few of my squadmates at a back table, Trygg, his brother Zeke, and Ragor, but I didn’t join them.

  Not in the mood for company.

  I walked straight to the counter.

  A stocky human male with steel gray hair was polishing a mug with a cloth that looked older than I was behind the counter. He gave me a once-over and grunted. “What’ll it be?”

  “Whatever’s hot,” I said. My voice came through the vocoder low and even.

  He nodded and barked an order toward the kitchen. “Nerf roast, fresh off the spit. Not synth.”

  I took a seat at the corner of the bar, back to the wall, and rested my arms on the surface. I angled my head toward the entrance and watched the other patrons out of the corner of my visor. People laughed, ate, and droned on about nothing important.

  I sat still, letting the noise fade into the background hum. My mind turned back to the rig under my bunk. It would take time for the results to start flowing in. Maybe days. Maybe weeks. But eventually, something would hit. Lundi's digs would show up. And once I knew where he’d land… I’d follow. Carefully. Quietly.

  Adas’ holocron wasn’t just another ancient trinket. It was a weapon, priceless enough to kill for and likely contained information and instruction that Malgus’ Holocron couldn't provide. And now it was waiting again after thousands of years.

  Waiting for someone worthy.

  Waiting for me.

  A plate clattered down in front of me, steam rising off the sliced nerf roast and roasted tubers, dusted with red spice and just a hint of char. The bartender slid a mug of chilled caf beside it.

  I nodded my thanks. He moved on.

  I cut into the nerf with my knife and took a bite.

  That… was very good. I cut off another chunk and took another bite, groaning in enjoyment at what tasted like a damned good cut of beef, albeit just a tad different.

  While I ate, I let my mind drift of how I would broach the topic with Pre about likely Jedi intervention. I had a rough outline of how far away I was from the beginning of the Clone Wars if going by my age difference with Anaki-

  My fingers gripped the knife so hard my gloves creaked, teeth grinding for a moment until I forced down the flush of rage and could think. It got suddenly cold, so cold it burned, before I felt the glacial caress and whispers against my mind retreat beneath the heat of my suppressed rage. With the emotional fluctuations in the Force clamped down, I thought more even mindedly.

  Naboo happens in about 3 years or so. The clan war that ended up being the cause of death for Satine and Bo-Katan's father was what was being prepared for, and it would be this conflict where Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon would fight to protect her and presumably try and kill me given that I saw Satine and what she stood for as an existential threat to Mandalore. She would need killed or captured and the Kryze faction defanged, which was complicated as I had basically a year of training from Malgus’ holocron. Kenobi would be around 21 or so, with over half a decade of training under Qui-Gon and was physically a grown man. He would be hellish to fight even without him being even a shadow of what he could be in the future.

  I did not even waste time humoring the idea of clashing with his master though.

  By the time I finished eating, the cantina had grown louder. Another group came in, older Mandos, not recruits, all seasoned by the way they carried themselves. One of them gave me a glance that lingered too long. I met his gaze evenly until he walked over to me.

  “Su cuy'gar.” The man said, wearing dark red armour, before sitting down next to me, back shifting.

  I returned the greeting, then left one of the credit chits I had for the meal, which the bartender took with my plate. “Do you need something?”

  “Seeing how long it takes my nephew to recognize me,” He said, switching to Mando'a and asking the bartender for some ale, “He’s behind us on my right, and his brother doesn't see me either. You just happen to be seated in the best area for them to see me without my face.”

  I glanced over to my right, seeing that the only set of brothers here that looked to be an appropriate age to be the nephews of the man were my squadies…

  And who also had comparatively shit situational awareness when not dialed in.

  “You Zeke and Trygg's uncle?”

  “Heh,” The man grunted, inclining his head in acknowledgement, “You part of their squad?”

  “Regrettably so.” I replied, causing him to let out a quick bark of a laugh.

  At the sound of his laugh, Zeke looked up and I sensed a vague flash of emotion I knew to be surprise, quickly smothered by elation and he slapped his brother on the shoulder to get his attention.

  “Ba'vodu!” Zeke exclaimed, running up to their uncle and Trygg was right behind him.

  “Best of luck to you with these miscreants.” I told him, before shifting and I took a final sip of the caf, slid my helmet back on with a soft hiss, and rose. I paid without a word, then walked out without looking back.

  The corridors were dimmer now. Lights shifting toward the night cycle. My boots echoed as I made my way back to my quarters, each step steady, measured. The heat from earlier had faded into the walls, but it still lingered in the air, caught in the dust and old stone.

  When I keyed my door open, the holo-terminal was still glowing.

  No alerts yet.

  But I could feel it.

  Something would surface soon.

  And when it did… I’d be ready.

  xRSxxRSxxRSx

  I crouched low against the scorched duracrete wall, peeking past a warped support beam jutting out of the ground like the remains of a snapped femur. My HUD flickered slightly as the local interference danced over our comms net, another lovely benefit of fighting in a dead mining town full of ancient wiring, exposed metal, and radiation-leeching rock.

  They’d dropped us here at dawn. Two squads. Twenty warriors on my side, twenty under Vhonte. Objective: eliminate or capture the enemy team. No live rounds, but everything else was fair game. Stun bolts, concussive grenades, training knives, even a few non-lethal mines. Urban warfare, in full armor, with a time limit.

  We had an hour.

  So far, we were losing.

  Hard.

  A burst of blue stun fire crackled down the alley to my left, and I ducked back instinctively. One of my squadmates shouted a warning, then went down with a grunt. I checked the vitals, he was fine but stunned. Not permanent, but that left me with nineteen.

  Nineteen to Vhonte’s still-twenty.

  Maybe eighteen. I had to hope.

  The old mining town was a maze of dead buildings, cracked ferrocrete roads, half-buried cargo haulers, and shattered conveyor systems. Most of it was five decades abandoned, but it felt like the bones of some long-dead beast were jutting out of the dirt. Cover everywhere, but nowhere safe. The place reeked of dust, metal, and stale oil.

  I toggled comms. “Fireteam T'ad, flank wide left. Sweep through that broken transport pad.”

  A double-click confirmed. I tapped my own thigh to signal movement, and three of my nearest followed, keeping low as we advanced down a torn-up maintenance trench. I flung a quick pulse of the Force forward, like testing the air before a jump, and felt nothing immediate. No minds close enough to register.

  Still, I wasn’t relaxed. I could feel them somewhere. Like a pressure building at the edges of my thoughts.

  We reached the end of the trench and peeked out. The square ahead was a graveyard of support columns and overturned mining gear. The buildings around it all had open windows or half-collapsed upper floors. A kill zone. Wide open.

  Too obvious.

  Then came the telltale zip of another stun round, and it clipped one of mine right in the chest before I could bark a warning. He dropped hard, armor sparking.

  Sniper. Had to be.

  "Back!" I snapped, yanking the next man into cover behind a toppled gear hauler. “They’ve got overwatch!”

  I peeked just long enough to see a shimmer on a rooftop three stories up across the square. Definitely Vhonte’s people. One of the newer recruits, by the look of it, too eager, staying exposed a second too long.

  I slung my carbine around and raised my wrist, grenade pulled from the rig on my chest. With a flick, I primed and lobbed a flash charge high and wide.

  The rooftop flared with light. I surged forward the second it went off, trusting the others to follow. The Force surged up through my chest and down into my legs, pushing me faster than a normal sprint. We made the cover of an old freight loading dock before they could reorient.

  “Three down, seventeen up,” I muttered into the comms. “Engage roof team if spotted. Suppress until T'ad can flank.”

  “Copy that,” Averill's voice came back, terse but solid. “T’ad just made contact. Lost two more.”

  Damn it.

  That made it fifteen.

  And Vhonte?

  Still nothing confirmed.

  She was too good. I had taken to command decently enough and knew how to lead teams, but this was ridiculous on her part.

  We moved again, deeper into the complex. The layout here was tighter. Catwalks overhead, scaffolding winding up and around ancient cranes and loading towers. Our boots crunched on shattered glass and crumbled rebar, and we kept low.

  I spotted movement ahead. Three shadows. I raised a hand, halted my squad.

  Stun bolts flew, not at us.

  “Friendly!” a voice called out, it was Zeke. They’d looped around.

  “Six total now with us,” he panted. “Caught two of theirs but they pulled back fast. Might be regrouping.”

  “Where’s Vhonte?”

  “Didn’t see her.”

  Of course not.

  I bit back a curse and keyed the channel again. “All teams: converge on the loading towers. Funnel them here.”

  As we repositioned, I tried to shake off the cold knot forming in my gut. I’d planned this sweep to drive her into the industrial block, but it was starting to feel like she’d been driving us instead.

  We were being corralled. Herded.

  I hated being played.

  The trap sprung five minutes later.

  We’d searched around and just breached the door to the main tower, weapons out, when the upper balcony lit up with five simultaneous stun grenades tossed down into our midst. The flash and concussive force turned the room white and roaring, and I only barely shoved the Force around myself to buffer the worst of it. Most of my team wasn’t so lucky.

  Shots rained down from above, precise and relentless. Stun rounds to knees, joints, exposed plates. I barely dove to the side and avoided Thirteen… eleven…

  I lost count.

  Then I saw her.

  Vhonte dropped from the catwalk like a hawk, knees bending, twin blasters coming up in a short arc. She knocked Zeke out cold with a shot to the visor before twisting around to engage two more, who dropped with a matching efficiency. Even to my somewhat enhanced senses, her movements were a blur.

  And her team flowed behind her like an extension of her will.

  We were getting slaughtered.

  Still, I rose.

  I would not bow out like that.

  Even in defeat, I’d make her work for it.

  “Ambush.” I barked into my HUD, ordering the others to stay back and turtle up behind us, before drawing my blade and slinging my rifle onto my back, my pistol drawn.

  I surged forward with a war cry and the Force slammed out from my chest like a wave, and I closed the distance before they could track me, a shot ringing out from my pistol that dropped one of them and I leapt forward against another, knocking aside his blaster with a swing of my blade I pulled from its sheath and I completed the spin with a kick to his face that sent him to the ground.

  I then darted away, barely evading Vhonte's shots and three shock grenades chucked at me in rapid succession before I vaulted over one of the catwalks and went careening down to the level below, knees bending slightly on impact before I was off to the races, trying to link up with the remaining members of my squad.

  xRSxxRSxxRSx

  Vhonte dropped behind cover as the last stun burst cleared, the acrid tang of discharged charges still clinging to the air. Her visor flickered briefly before stabilizing, HUD relaying clean killzone confirmation. 16 down.

  But not all.

  She frowned behind her helmet.

  Kane had slipped the net.

  Not entirely unscathed, but he’d regrouped faster than she liked. Most trainees would’ve panicked, scattered, or tried to charge their way out in a blaze of bravado. Not Kane though and he’d fallen back, reassessed, tightened his lines, and now she knew what his plan would be; hunker down and make a last stand to bleed as many of hers as possible.

  Better than most.

  She didn’t like it.

  With a flick of her fingers, she gestured her squad into a soft perimeter sweep. They moved immediately, efficient and crisp.

  “Reform into three teams,” she ordered into her secure comm. “Five each. We flush him from three vectors. I want pressure from all angles.”

  A pause.

  She stepped out into the open, scanning the high catwalks overhead, then the smoke-draped corridors ahead, then finally down below. She knew exactly where he’d pull back to, tight quarters, decent fallback lanes, a false sense of cover. Predictable. But the resistance he'd mounted wasn’t.

  “He should’ve folded by now,” she muttered under her breath.

  She had expected better from Kane, a cleaner execution. She’d hoped he’d read her feints faster. The fact that he hadn’t wasn’t disappointing in the usual way…

  And yet, he still impressed her. Just enough to make it personal.

  Honestly a rarity for someone to make her work for it and he was not disappointing on that front.

  She heard Cynigh through her comms, blaster fire coming through in the background. “Found them, racing eastward a hundred meters out from my position.”

  She keyed into the squad line again. “Don’t let up. Drive him until he runs out of room.”

  Then she turned, her silhouette framed in the glow of broken fluorescents overhead, and disappeared back into the shadows.

  xRSxxRSxxRSx

  I ducked behind a ruined loader arm, pulse pounding in my throat. The sting of the stun round in my thigh was spreading, nerves flaring under the armor. My HUD flickered again, status indicators glitching as the residual static from the grenades messed with short-range signals. I risked a glance.

  Four still with me. That was it.

  Fifteen down, maybe more. We’d been slaughtered. And it was my fault.

  The plan was to drive her. Trap her. Overwhelm her with speed and numbers and coordination. But Vhonte had read it like a datapad and flipped the whole thing back on us. She’d waited, watched, and then sprung her net at exactly the right moment, just when I thought we had control.

  I gritted my teeth, pushing down the bitter taste of failure burning in the back of my throat.

  No time for self-recrimination. That could come later.

  “I’ve got four still combat-ready,” I barked into the short-range squad line, keeping my voice clipped. “Link up on me, second level loading dock. Pull back from the tower floor and regroup.”

  “Copy,” a rough voice came through, Cassik. One of the senior trainees. “We're up on the northeast side. We’ll cut around and link.”

  The Force pulsed beneath my skin, warm and surging, coiled like a spring in my chest. I forced myself to focus, breathing slow, deep, anchoring my awareness to the chaos around me. Vhonte’s team was sweeping the floor below, fast and clean, cutting the last stragglers from our original push. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them. A low pressure on the edge of my awareness. Precise. Coordinated. Cold.

  She was leading from the front. I respected that.

  I also hated it right now.

  I moved first. Low, fast, silent. The others followed, fanning out with the kind of discipline that told me at least the survivors had learned something from this slaughter. We scrambled up a half-bent service ladder that led to a maintenance catwalk overlooking the old tower’s lower level. From there, I saw what was left.

  Bodies everywhere, most stunned, armor still sparking faintly from impacts. A few tried to crawl or reposition, to be quickly tagged again by passing shooters.

  “Zone’s compromised,” Cassik murmured as he slid up beside me. “She locked it down clean.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “We handed it to her on a platter.”

  I cursed under my breath again, frustration burning beneath my breastplate. She hadn’t just beaten us, she’d dissected us. Cracked our strategy apart like a crab shell and crushed us methodically, piece by piece.

  But we weren’t out. Not yet.

  “Cassik, you’re point. Take two and loop right through the broken elevator shaft, try to draw her flank team out and scatter them.”

  He nodded, already moving.

  “Crota, Karra, with me. We’re pushing left and regrouping on the comms relay hub. Tight space, more cover.”

  We split. Two teams, two chances. Maybe we could salvage this. Or at least take a few more of hers down before they finished the job.

  I leapt from the catwalk down to a partially collapsed cat track, then to the floor below. The landing rattled my knees, but I kept moving, Karra and Crota behind me. We ducked beneath rusted scaffolding and zigzagged past old mining cranes now nothing more than metal carcasses.

  I heard Cassik’s team engage before we saw anything, the unmistakable hum of return fire. Then a loud crack as something metal collapsed, followed by silence.

  Hopefully that meant they bought us a minute.

  I pressed a hand to the relay door’s keypad. Dead.

  Figures.

  I gestured for the others to cover me and stepped back, drawing on the Force again. Reaching my fingers through the slight gap, I clenched and forced the doors open, growling under my breath as I heard the steel groan under my grasp and the relay door screeched as it tore open on damaged hinges.

  We stormed in and took cover behind a bank of ancient power terminals.

  I checked my HUD again. Four dots.

  I keyed into the channel again. “We regroup here. If they want this room, they’ll have to come through us.”

  “I doubt they’ll wait long,” Karra said, her voice hard.

  “I’m counting on it.”

  I forced my breathing to slow again, anchoring myself in the Force. That warm current surged up through my arms and legs, settling in the base of my spine like a ready coil. My senses stretched outward and I could feel them.

  They were moving in on us. Closing fast. Triangulating.

  She was going to strike from three directions at once.

  This wasn’t salvageable.

  But I could make it hurt.

  I gave the order. “Set traps. Focus fire. When they breach, we collapse hard on the first entry point and make them pay for it.”

  Crota rigged a trip mine on the broken door. Karra checked her mag and set her blade in hand. I stayed crouched behind an old control station and reached out with the Force again, bolstering myself in preparation.

  Then I crouched low and waited.

  The first blast came from the side wall, not the main door.

  Of course.

  A section of metal blew inward, and one of Vhonte’s troopers rolled through the gap, weapon up, but I was already moving. The Force catapulted me sideways, and I slammed him into the wall with an enhanced shove before his feet hit the ground. Karra took out the second with a stun shot to the neck. The third ducked behind cover, but Crota lobbed a shock charge that sent him convulsing on the floor.

  That made three.

  Then the real breach came.

  The main entrance exploded inward and six more of them stormed in, Vhonte at the head. She moved like a shadow, twin blasters flaring. Karra went down in the first volley, her chestplate sparking. Crota fell back but caught one with a stun blast before a return shot nailed him in the gut and sent him sprawling.

  I barely avoided the stun shot aimed at my chest, twisting to get out of the way of it. I returned fire with my pistol, grazing one of hers in the shoulder. She didn’t stop. Her squad closed around me, and I knew I was moments from being overwhelmed.

  Vhonte stepped in, fast and merciless.

  I dove into cover in a near blur, my shoulder slamming against the rusted edge of a power conduit. My pistol barked three times and two of them dropped, their armor locking up with full-body stuns. Another flanked and rounded the left side, but I tracked and fired before he could squeeze off a shot. He hit the floor hard and didn’t rise.

  But I wasn’t fast enough for Vhonte.

  She moved through the smoke in a blur and came up too quickly to track her. I shifted my pistol in a hard arc to try and shoot first, but she slammed the barrel aside at the last second and the bolt sparked harmlessly against a bulkhead.

  I staggered back a step, then aimed again while smacking aside her blaster pistol with my offhand. She ducked the shot, fist coming up and aiming at my chin. I avoided it, missing her again as my shot narrowly missed her head.

  Then she lunged, and I ducked to the side.

  But the floor was slick with coolant, and my boot skidded.

  Her tackle took us both over the edge of the stairway leading to the lower level.

  We fell together.

  The world spun, a blur of steel and light and a rain of sparks from my amour striking durasteel as we tumbled down a flight of grated stairs. My shoulder slammed into a rail. Her helmet clipped mine. I grabbed onto her armor as we rolled, twisting midair to try and brace, but we were both armored head to toe.

  We hit the landing hard.

  She came down hard, all momentum and weight, and I barely braced before we hit the grated floor. My shoulder slammed into the durasteel with a grunt, and I tried to twist out, but she was already moving, legs tangling around my right arm, forcing it up as she started to scissor her weight down, trying to lock it in.

  Too fast.

  Too practiced.

  I could feel it, the way she shifted, ankle hooking behind her own knee, trying to trap my bicep and wrench it into a hold that’d end the match. And she almost had it.

  Almost.

  With a sharp snarl, I shoved my left arm in between, wedging it into the gap between my forearm and her legs before the lock fully set. My gauntlet jammed into the angle, buying me just enough slack. She adjusted, tried to tighten, but I twisted sharply to the side, my legs kicking against the floor, and we came apart in a scramble of limbs and armor.

  I rolled out, breath tight in my chest, and she was already pushing herself up.

  I didn’t wait.

  I surged forward the second her boots found traction, throwing my shoulder into her midsection and driving her back a few steps. She grunted, dug in, and met me blow for blow.

  Her fist slammed into my temple and I felt the shock ripple through my neck even through the armor. I snapped my elbow up to stop a punch at my face again, then ducked a haymaker and slammed a punch into her visor hard enough to stagger her a step.

  It wasn’t elegant.

  It wasn’t clean.

  It was raw and brutal and ugly.

  She struck again, a hook into my chest that rocked me back, but I recovered fast, sent a knee into her thigh and followed with a Beskar wrapped fist striking her visor again. The armor blunted most of it, but we weren’t holding back.

  We were brawling.

  Every hit rang like a drumbeat, metal against metal, force against force.

  I gritted my teeth, drew deep from that well inside me. Not rage. Not pride. Just sheer refusal. I wasn’t going to be beaten. Not like this. Not by anyone.

  Especially not her.

  My fist made contact once again with her face, snapping her head back slightly.

  She reeled slightly from the last hit, and I took the opening.

  I spun.

  The motion was pure instinct, fluid, committed, and my body loose and coiled at once. My left leg swept out wide, catching her lead foot and yanking it out from under her, and my right followed clean through, scissoring high and snapping into her upper chest with brutal momentum.

  The impact cracked hard.

  She went down flat on her back.

  I rolled with the landing and came up fast, ready to press the attack, pulse hammering as I pushed forward to drop on her and end this—

  The Force screamed.

  No words. No thought. Just danger.

  I threw myself to the right without hesitation, barely a blur of movement, and a stun bolt snapped through the air where my head had just been. It struck the wall behind me with a loud crack, sparks fizzing across the durasteel.

  Top of the stairs.

  I didn’t even need to look.

  My eyes flicked up anyway.

  Another of her squad. Covering her from above.

  I had already lost anyway, but I needed to beat Vhonte personally. I couldn't afford to be hunted for another 20 minutes and be told I ran from her.

  So, I dashed forward, zigzagged to avoid another couple of stun shots, then slammed into a still slightly stunned Vhonte as she tried to get up. I tackled her, hooked my elbow underneath her chin, then kicked out her leg from under her, forcing her down as I slowly choked her out.

  They couldn't shoot me, because Vhonte was my shield. I'd lost the actual match, but I was taking the enemy squad leader with me.

  I realized something was wrong when I felt a flare of triumph burn through her senses, and I realized she'd likely issued an order.

  A glowing stun grenade was ejected from a launcher at the top of the stairs, aimed directly at me.

  ‘You bitch,’ was the last thought through my head before there was an explosion and everything faded to black.

  xRSxxRSxxRSx

  It took like 15 minutes for me to fully wake up after I dragged myself out of unconsciousness, and I instantly regretted it.

  My head throbbed like I had bells rattling around the inside of it, my teeth clenching as I let out a suppressed groan and shut my eyes.

  All the other unconscious trainees that had taken longer to wake up or not be borderline catatonic had been picked up and set on cots just outside of the training grounds we'd used, and the sunlight was exacerbating my headache as I looked around. The grassy landscape would have otherwise looked pretty decent, save for the pounding in my head.

  A few others were still sleeping off the reactions to the stun bolts, others were struggling to sit up properly, and a few of them were already up and about, having an impromptu meal and a break while another set of squads were busy shooting each other up.

  My gaze then turned to Vhonte, who was sitting on one of the cots and squinting just as much as me and she set her face in her hands, before peaking through her fingers at me for a second.

  “I hope you're enjoying that headache.” I managed to say, forcing down the pounding behind my eyes. That stun grenade had landed less than a foot in front of us and even my armour couldn't stop it from putting me completely out. Vhonte, spiteful bitch that she is, couldn't even let me win and had ordered one of her squadies to chuck a grenade at both of us.

  Seriously, who the hell lets themselves get blown up by a grena-

  …

  Nevermind.

  Vhonte flipped a foul gesture at me, groaning as she exhaled. “I won still, shabuir. Now go be a good ad'ika and grab my canteen.”

  I almost told her to piss off, calling me a fuckhead and little kid? Fuck that. But I thought otherwise, decided to be a petty bastard because I was both of those things, and after pressing my index and thumb against the bridge of my nose to try and alleviate a bit of the headache, I walked over to the equivalent of a coffee table where several canteens were, saw the one with her name on it, and chucked it at her head, making a very pleasant ding as it hit the crown of her head.

  The profanity ripped from her mouth had me struggling to not burst into laughter, and my headache flared up further as I let out a suppressed gasp of a laugh.

  “Your welcome, cyar'ika.”

  “Di'kut.” She hissed, picking up the canteen and unscrewing the cap, glaring at me as she took a swig of it.

  “You're the one who couldn't catch it.” I fired back, turning my back and grabbing my own canteen and drinking some myself, hoping it would distract me from the pounding of my pulse behind my eyes.

  It didn't.

  “If only you can read an ambush as well as you throw.” Her eyes practically blazed as she said that, and I felt the cold tendril of fury lance across my thoughts. “Maybe you wouldn't have been hauled off the field with your squad like trash.”

  “15 straight losses with a beskad and we're even in marksmanship.” I didn't really have a response other than that, and I wasn't going to admit she was just quite simply a good leader and planner. “What's one training loss when this ad'ika,” I hit my breastplate, hiding the wince at the jarring of my head slightly, “Is throwing you around the training grounds?”

  That seemed to get a rise out of her.

  “You wanna have a go again, vaar'ika?!” She demanded, standing up and towering over me as if that would make me back down. I wasn't intimidated by her, her expensive red armor, the blaze of anger laced with pain that I could sense blaring out from her, or anything. She was a teenage prodigy that I was going to put over my knee again if she wanted another go.

  “You want to taste dirt again?” I asked back, already ready to fight as the trickle of the Force I always kept up became a stream, chasing away the headache like a shot of pain meds and stimulants both.

  She looked like she was about to say yes. That little twitch in her jaw, the way her fingers flexed at her sides, if she’d been holding her helmet, it’d already be on the ground.

  But then she exhaled, sharp through her nose, and straightened up.

  “No,” she said, voice suddenly calm. The kind of calm that meant she was planning something. “Because you’d just pick hand to hand or beskad.”

  I blinked, caught off guard for a half-second. “You saying you can’t handle another beating?”

  Her eyes narrowed, that gleam sparking bright behind her glare. “I’m saying you’d pick something you know you’re ahead in. So I’m picking.”

  “Go ahead.” I shrugged one shoulder, downed the rest of the canteen. “Choose whatever. I’ll still leave you chewing dirt.”

  That gleam turned into something a little sharper. Almost predatory.

  “We’ll do a tracking exercise,” she said, tone final. “Out in the forests. You’re the target. I find you before sunrise and beat you, I win. You make it till morning, you win.”

  My jaw ticked. I hated stealth exercises.

  But I wasn’t about to back down.

  “You’re on,” I said, setting the canteen down with a thunk. “You’ll never get me.”

  “We’ll see.” She sat back down on the cot with the casual smugness of someone who already thought she won. “Better get some sleep, ad’ika.”

  I gave her a mock salute and turned to walk off. “I’m finding a different cot. I don’t want your bad luck rubbing off on me.”

  “Try not to cry in your sleep, princess,” she called after me. “Put your helmet on so it doesn't muss up your hair.”

  I didn’t respond.

  Mostly because I could feel her smiling.

  And that pissed me off more than the grenade.

  xRSxxRSxxRSx

  End chapter:

  shabuir = Asshole/dickhead/fuckhead

  ad'ika = Little kid

  cyar'ika = darling/sweetheart

  vaar'ika = pipsqueak